Monday, 20 February 2017
No Future For You.
Back in late October of 2016 Finance Minister Bill “there’s no future for you” Morneau made comments at a meeting of the Liberal Party’s Ontario wing basically telling Canadians there’s no future you. When asked to clarify these comments a few days later at a youth labour forum Prime Minister Trust Fund Man-Child reinforced what his finance Minister said unwittingly giving a verbal middle-finger to the economic futures of the youth across the country. Their comments reveal that they’re aware of the weak labour market today and into the years to come yet the governing Liberal Party has set immigration targets at a base of 300,000 while indicating intentions of increasing it into the foreseeable future. This is worrying as there are indicators that would compel a more prudent government to exercise a conservative approach to immigration.
For starters, around 66% of tax filings reported incomes of $45,000 or less.
Canadians are at record levels of debt, pushing past the $2 trillion mark in December of 2016, masking our debt driven economy with the illusion of prosperity.
Need I say anything about the housing market? If interest rates were to rise, as they inevitably will since there’s almost nowhere else to go but up, how will that affect it? How can Canadians carry these mortgages if they need to amass a burdensome debt-load just to get by? How will this affect the service sector, some 70% Canada's GDP of which retail employs 12% of Canadians, if Canadians are forced to cut back on consumption so that they can keep their house?
The poor performance of men in the job market should sound alarm bells. Men are typically attracted to higher paying jobs whereas women tend to concentrate in lower paying occupations (which is why there is a wage gap). If men are performing poorly it means well paying occupations are disappearing.
Automation and advances in A.I. may eliminate 40% of jobs within the next few years with even more job losses to come as the technology becomes more advanced. Now, I’m enough of a skeptic to take these dire predictions with a grain of salt since we’re not clairvoyants and we can’t predict the future. And they’ve been saying this for decades. Remember the predictions of the paperless office? For years immigration proponents have been making apocalyptic predictions about job shortages in the labour market , and still do, yet here we are in 2017 and it’s just as tough to find decent employment as it’s ever been. The great flood of retiring boomers is set to happen ten years ago, five years ago, two years ago, this year, last month, any day now. But the predictions about A.I. may be truer than most predictions about the future. An insurance company in Japan replaced 34 of its employees with A.I. technology and self-driving vehicles may very well put truck-drivers out of work.
What's more is that Bill Morneau is aware of a possible low-growth future of continued deficits until mid century and where the national debt reaches one trillion in the next fifteen years. It's not exactly "sunny ways" which is why he quietly published the report hoping it wouldn't draw much attention.
Mass immigration may have worked at particular times in the nation’s history but as PM Potato Head likes to remind us “it’s current year.” Times are different. We're living in a period of low growth, low income, record debt, high unemployment, and high deficits. Mass immigration is a twentieth century program that hasn’t been updated to reflect the realities of the twenty-first. After all, if the Prime Minister and his finance Minister know the labour market is weak and precarious employment is the new norm then what future do they think these immigrants will have in Canada if they essentially told Canadians they don’t have economic futures themselves?
Tuesday, 7 February 2017
Looks Like Canada Has Become a Dangerous Place for Muslims.
So they'll be leaving I guess?
Probably not. Life's too good here compared to countries created by Muslims. They'll want us to double-down on the Muslim immigration while attacking our cherished Canadian value of free speech with anti-blasphemy laws so Canada becomes more hospitable for Muslims while becoming more inhospitable for the rest of us.
However, I propose a better solution.
Ban all Muslim immigration to Canada.
And help the Muslims here resettle in Muslim majority countries where they can openly practice their religion free of discrimination and fear of violent intent; and where, sadly, non-Muslims can't. But we have to make sure we help them resettle in the right Muslim majority country because if we end up sending, say, Sunni's to Shiite lands, or Ahmadis to anywhere, we'd probably see a body-count worse than a Nigerian village massacre that will push Christians from the number one spot as the world's most persecuted religious group. And boy, won't our faces be red!
It's for their own well being you understand. Canada has apparently become as insensitive to it's Muslim religious minority as Muslims are to religious minorities in their midst. Or as insensitive as Muslims are to Canadian norms and traditions.
And their exodus from Canada is the apt punishment this "Islmaphobic" country deserves. When Muslims leave Canada and take all their, uh, stuff, I guess (I was going to say contributions but we all know there aren't any) then we'll be sorry.
They can think of it as a learning experience. The intolerance they encountered here will grant them the perspective they'll need to champion for the basic human rights denied non-Muslims in Muslim majority countries. It's where their pleas for pluralism, tolerance, and acceptance are needed the most because it's obvious Muslims are so concerned about the basic human rights of religious minorities everywhere in the world expect, of course, in Muslim countries.
So, Muslims, sorry things couldn't work out. We tried our best but it turns out our relationship was doomed from the start. Don't feel bad. It's not you. It's us, I swear.
Probably not. Life's too good here compared to countries created by Muslims. They'll want us to double-down on the Muslim immigration while attacking our cherished Canadian value of free speech with anti-blasphemy laws so Canada becomes more hospitable for Muslims while becoming more inhospitable for the rest of us.
However, I propose a better solution.
Ban all Muslim immigration to Canada.
And help the Muslims here resettle in Muslim majority countries where they can openly practice their religion free of discrimination and fear of violent intent; and where, sadly, non-Muslims can't. But we have to make sure we help them resettle in the right Muslim majority country because if we end up sending, say, Sunni's to Shiite lands, or Ahmadis to anywhere, we'd probably see a body-count worse than a Nigerian village massacre that will push Christians from the number one spot as the world's most persecuted religious group. And boy, won't our faces be red!
It's for their own well being you understand. Canada has apparently become as insensitive to it's Muslim religious minority as Muslims are to religious minorities in their midst. Or as insensitive as Muslims are to Canadian norms and traditions.
And their exodus from Canada is the apt punishment this "Islmaphobic" country deserves. When Muslims leave Canada and take all their, uh, stuff, I guess (I was going to say contributions but we all know there aren't any) then we'll be sorry.
They can think of it as a learning experience. The intolerance they encountered here will grant them the perspective they'll need to champion for the basic human rights denied non-Muslims in Muslim majority countries. It's where their pleas for pluralism, tolerance, and acceptance are needed the most because it's obvious Muslims are so concerned about the basic human rights of religious minorities everywhere in the world expect, of course, in Muslim countries.
So, Muslims, sorry things couldn't work out. We tried our best but it turns out our relationship was doomed from the start. Don't feel bad. It's not you. It's us, I swear.
Monday, 23 January 2017
Logical Fallacies of Mass Immigration Supporters: Cherry Picking.
Cherry Picking.
The CBC published a story about a Syrian refugee family in Nova Scotia who found success and self sufficiency one year on after arriving in the province. They did so by starting a small family run chocolatier business in the community of Antigonish that now employs ten people. It’s a Syrian refugee “success story” that attracted the attention of Justin Trudeau who referenced their entrepreneurship at the UN as an example of Canada’s welcoming spirit and the rewards refugees and immigrants bring to the country. It’s an awesome feel good story. So what about the other 39,499 Syrian refugees?
This is an example of cherry picking. It’s a logical fallacy where favourable examples are given particular attention to support one’s argument but those that invalidate it are conveniently ignored and swept under the rug.
It’s one of the more common logical fallacies one encounters in debates and comment sections of internet articles. When one employs this fallacy they typically do so by stating “My neighbour from India…” or “I work with someone from China…” or “My doctor is a Muslim…” or statements of that nature. Not only are their debate points anecdotal but are also isolated cherry picked examples that can’t be used to argue the successes or failings of the immigration and refugee systems. If all it takes is one positive story to show “the system works” then I guess the Toronto Police Services most wanted page irrefutably shows that it doesn’t.
One Syrian refugee family finding success in Canada is not a validation that the government’s approach to the Syrian refugee crisis was the correct one (or proof that our refugee system in general is not a lax mess of a system that doesn’t help legitimate refugees for the most part and is of little benefit to the country). It’s just a story of a Syrian family who came to Canada as refugees and started a small business in Nova Scotia. And that’s it!
Cherry picking is a cheap and easy debate tactic. It’s meant to lead one to agree to a preconceived conclusion based on a select sample size. In this case the CBC and Justin Trudeau want us to believe that because this Syrian refugee family found success all immigrants and refugees will do so as well by implication. It’s just a matter of time. But though this one Syrian refugee family found success in the country it’s realistic to assume others probably won’t. Indeed, perhaps hundreds if not thousands of Syrian refugees will not find an adequate foothold in the country at all, lingering in economic limbo contributing to Canada’s ever growing immigrant underclass like the tens of thousands of immigrants and refugees who came before them.
By the way, rumour has it the Liberal Party of Canada is the chocolate factory's biggest customer. If that's true then this "success story" was paid for by the LPC.
Tuesday, 10 January 2017
Somali Refugee Now Canada's Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship.
He's also an immigation lawyer.
And a Muslim.
And a political activist.
And current National President of the Canadian Somali Congress.
And a former assistant to Dalton McGuinty.
What could possibly go wrong?
And I didn't think it was possible for things to get worse but then again the talent pool in Ottawa at the moment, especially within the LPC, may very well be the worst it's ever been. Politics tends to attract the most mediocre society has to offer.
In related news Mexican refugee claims jump after visa requirement dropped. I think we can file this one under "Who the f**k didn't see that coming!?" The Conservatives didn't slap a visa requirement on Mexico because they felt their media fueled image as racist meanies needed confirmation. They had adult reasons for doing so. This Liberal government, on the other hand, functions more like a Toronto high-school student council than as the national assembly of a G7 country. It's like the parents are away and they're throwing a house party. And with the appoint of Ahmed Hussen to the immigration file we can expect the whole of the third world to crash it.
F**k this government!
And a Muslim.
And a political activist.
And current National President of the Canadian Somali Congress.
And a former assistant to Dalton McGuinty.
What could possibly go wrong?
And I didn't think it was possible for things to get worse but then again the talent pool in Ottawa at the moment, especially within the LPC, may very well be the worst it's ever been. Politics tends to attract the most mediocre society has to offer.
In related news Mexican refugee claims jump after visa requirement dropped. I think we can file this one under "Who the f**k didn't see that coming!?" The Conservatives didn't slap a visa requirement on Mexico because they felt their media fueled image as racist meanies needed confirmation. They had adult reasons for doing so. This Liberal government, on the other hand, functions more like a Toronto high-school student council than as the national assembly of a G7 country. It's like the parents are away and they're throwing a house party. And with the appoint of Ahmed Hussen to the immigration file we can expect the whole of the third world to crash it.
F**k this government!
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
The Justin Trudeau Drinking Game.
The PMO released a pre-recorded, canned New Year’s address from Justin Sandiego as if anyone in the nation gave a shit. I didn’t listen to it and I doubt very few people did either however I’m sure it was chock-full of Justin’s characteristic jargon that can turn any Trudeau speech into a drinking game. Which reminds me, are you a consummate alcoholic? Do you consider yourself a political junky as well? Or do you just like to get drunk and find drinking games the most fun way to do it? Well, if you can stand the sight and sound of Canada’s dorky Prime Minister for more than five seconds then I have a drinking game for you.
It’s apparent our idiot of a PM can’t give a speech or interview without dropping one of the many progressive buzzwords that has come to define his fabricated political brand of the nu-male image. I doubt he can order a Big Mac at McDonald’s without mentioning how the depletion of the Amazon rain forest contributes to climate change. Only to then down that high caloric, high fat sandwich like the hypocrite all narcissists are. Maybe he eats two because he cashed in one of those “buy one, get one” coupons from those McDonald’s booklets we find littering our mailboxes every month or so. Or maybe he doesn’t because he doesn’t want to hurt that middle-aged dad-bod physique of his that makes him “sexy” for some reason. Eh, whatever.
So stream a Justin Trudeau talk or interview wherever you can find one and if he mentions “climate change” you take a drink. If he mentions “global warming” you take a drink. If he says “equality” you take a drink but if he mentions it along with “gender” or “racial” or “religious” you take two drinks. If he mentions “feminism” or “feminist” or anything eliciting gyno-centric favouritism you take a drink. If he mentions “diversity”, “tolerance”, “acceptance”, “multiculturalism”, “inclusion” or “inclusiveness” you take a drink. If he says “diversity is our strength” or variations of that sentence you take two drinks. If he mentions “middle class” you take a drink. And every time he says “Canada” you take a drink because when he’s talking about Canada he’s really taking about himself.
Nightmare mode: If you find yourself still sober or not drunk enough and you’re determined to go full-tilt inebriated then take a drink every time he punctuates his speech with his characteristic “uhs” and “ahs.” You know what I’m talking about don't you? Those faggy inhales he does when he finishes a sentence or starts a sentence or does in the middle of sentence that, if you’re like me, drives you up the f**king wall? Yeah, that thing! Go on and take a drink every time he does that but I must caution you you’re courting alcohol poising if you do. Have some charcoal on hand just in case.
Monday, 19 December 2016
From the Best and Brightest Files: Immigrants are Making Us Dumber.
According to this analysis based on PISA scores immigrants are decreasing the national IQs of the West. To put it crassly they're making us dumb.
There's probably a flaw in the methodology but living in Toronto for as long as I have I'm inclined to think it's correct for the most part. If our immigration system is designed to filter for the "best and brightest" it's apparent it's not doing it's job. Or the more reasonable explanation is that Canada doesn't attract the world's "best and brightest" at all and has to settle for what washes up on our shores which tend to be the third-world's C and D students. When you're the safety school country to America's Harvard or the U.K.'s Oxford you're forced to settle for what comes your way.
And if the mostly third-world immigrants Canada attracts are indeed the developing world's "best and brightest" then it explains why the the third-world is in such a sorry state.
Come to think of it allowing immigrants from the third-world to settle in the West is a lose/lose situation. For one, these mostly unremarkable people add no value to the Western countries they settle in since the West already has high standards of achievement to which their contributions would be negligible at best. And secondly, by being the "best and brightest" of their country and removing themselves from it makes their native countries dumber and worse off. Everyone loses in this scenario except the immigrant.
It's clear to me Canada and the developing world are better off if Canada doesn't accept immigrants from the third-world at all.
There's probably a flaw in the methodology but living in Toronto for as long as I have I'm inclined to think it's correct for the most part. If our immigration system is designed to filter for the "best and brightest" it's apparent it's not doing it's job. Or the more reasonable explanation is that Canada doesn't attract the world's "best and brightest" at all and has to settle for what washes up on our shores which tend to be the third-world's C and D students. When you're the safety school country to America's Harvard or the U.K.'s Oxford you're forced to settle for what comes your way.
And if the mostly third-world immigrants Canada attracts are indeed the developing world's "best and brightest" then it explains why the the third-world is in such a sorry state.
Come to think of it allowing immigrants from the third-world to settle in the West is a lose/lose situation. For one, these mostly unremarkable people add no value to the Western countries they settle in since the West already has high standards of achievement to which their contributions would be negligible at best. And secondly, by being the "best and brightest" of their country and removing themselves from it makes their native countries dumber and worse off. Everyone loses in this scenario except the immigrant.
It's clear to me Canada and the developing world are better off if Canada doesn't accept immigrants from the third-world at all.
Tuesday, 13 December 2016
Racial Diversity is Bullshit!
I did a Google search for “racial diversity is bullshit” and I didn’t find anything. I found “diversity sucks”but I didn’t find “racial diversity is bullshit” so I’m writing this blog post to fill that void. Why? Because of “hate” G-d-dammit and there’s not enough of it on the internet! And because I’m an ass like that, that’s why! And because racial diversity really is bullshit!
So where do I get off saying that?
Well, I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It’s Canada’s largest city and presently the fourth largest city in North America. It’s a clean, relatively crime free city given its size but aside from that it doesn’t have much else going for it. This is why it has to brag about being the most diverse, cosmopolitan city in the world as if that’s an accomplishment worth bragging about. When you’re the largest city in what is essentially a safety school country for immigrants wanting to settle in the West attracting a numerous and diverse group of people from mostly underdeveloped, shit-tier countries is about as easy as getting Justin Trudeau to stop and pose for the camera. That’s like the brightest patio light bragging about how bright it is because it attracts the most numerous and most diverse group of insects. (Sure you’re the brightest patio light but you got all these damn bugs around you diminishing your brilliance.) So it should come as no surprise to learn that Toronto, with over 200 years of white settlement behind it, has become a white minority city within a single generation. With having over 50% of its population being non-white and I myself having lived in Toronto for as long as I have I think that makes me well qualified to say racial diversity is bullshit.
Think about it. What’s so great about racial diversity besides satisfying some sort of xenophilic fetish or to virtue signal to the world how your country is not racist and by implication neither are you? It’s not as if the amount of melanin or lack thereof in one’s skin endows an individual with some set of special skills, talents, or knowledge unavailable to anyone else even through education, experimentation, and hard work.
So how bullshit is racial diversity? Well, when Canada was a lot less racially diverse than it is today the country was at the forefront of modern aerospace technology. When the U.S. was a lot less racially diverse than it is today it was laying the foundations of the internet while putting a man on the moon using technology that was developed by a country that was trying to be as racially pure as possible. When Britain was a lot less racially diverse than it is today it colonized half the globe, mothered four prosperous industrialized nations, created and gifted the world half of its most popular sports, produced an impressive number of Nobel laureates and created the man credited for seeding computer science. From the looks of things it appears the white western world was getting along fine in the absence of racial diversity leading the world into an exciting technological future. But if you succumb to the “diversity is our strength” mindset you’d probably be inclined to believe that if the white West was as racially diverse then as it is today we’d probably have developed a hyper-drive by now and be colonizing other planets in the galaxy. Because of non-white skin colour magic you see, which somehow makes the white West grow and prosper while doing “dick all” for non-white countries.
Not good enough? How about the observation that non-whites in white majority countries think racial diversity is bullshit too? Since actions speak louder than words settlement patterns in our major citiesinfer this. Non-whites will vocally express the wonderful benefits racial diversity brings to white majority societies (benefits only white majority countries are in need of apparently and not non-white ones) and then retreat to one of their ethnic enclaves revealing a preference to live among their own. It appears they have little interest in racial diversity in their ethnic ghettos but think it’s a great thing for the wider white society. Why this is so, I think, is because most non-whites immigrate to the West for economic reasons and not to participate in some grand multicultural program to “enrich” western nations. Therefore an expression by whites to maintain the white majority composition of their respective countries would frustrate those ambitions. So it’s best to tell them that non-whites in their midst is a good thing and they should accept it even to the point where they become an insignificant demographic minority in their own countries. It’s the racial colonization of white societies and they’re completely fine with that because colonization is wonderful as long as you’re the one doing it.
Even the progressive left thinks racial diversity is bullshit. Given the left’s propensity for cognitive dissonance they preach the joys of racial diversity out of one side of their mouth while celebrating miscegenation out of the other where in the case of the latter were it allowed to run its full course it would extinguish racial diversity altogether. Since race-mixing it the ultimate expression for the left that we live in a post-racial world the elimination of racial diversity through miscegenation is the logical endgame. This is because they know, if not consciously then subconsciously, that racial diversity is bullshit since all it does is create problems, problems they acknowledge but won’t admit to. And if they do admit to racial diversity’s problems it’s always whitey’s fault who, for some, needs to be bred out of existence. I guess getting rid of whitey, in fact any kind of racial diversity, is the only way a leftist's imaginings of a post-racial Utopia can be realized.
So what has racial diversity wrought? No benefits outside the superficial while creating problems where none existed before through the creation of social tensions and unnecessary, wasteful distractions in the economic and political realms. This can be seen in the now very commonplace complaint that there’s too many of X in position Y suggesting that it’s a problem where the placement of Z in position Y is the solution. However, the problem isn’t that there’s too many of X in position Y it’s that there’s too many of Z making it into a problem. Remove Z from the equation and there’s no problem. Or just don’t introduce Z into the equation at all.
But that’s what we’ve done. We’ve introduced Z and created a problem where none existed before (and as if we don’t have enough problems already). Government being “too white” wasn’t a problem until we allowed too many non-whites to settle in the country and make into a problem. The lack of racial diversity in the workforce wasn’t a problem until we allowed non-whites to settle in our society in large numbers and make it into a problem. Now we waste valuable resources on enforcing racial diversity policies condemning us to settle for second place at best since racial diversity doesn’t guarantee quality and competency. If racial diversity created the best outcome it can be best explained as a happy accident.
Racial diversity distracts us from addressing the real roots of social inequality which is found in our class based society. It’s not white privilege you morons, it’s class privilege and many benefit from our class based society and have no wish to change it. This is especially true for the 1%. Parachuting some POC into some position of influence and promoting them beyond their competency gives the illusion of social progress while maintaining the class power structure. Meanwhile the lower classes fight among themselves over the scraps of food the upper class lets fall to the floor from their dinner table where non-whites promote preferences for their particular skin type to give them an advantage. It’s the old “divide and conquer” strategy to keep the unruly rabble from realizing they have the power and rebelling. Without the distractions and diluting effects of racial diversity solidarity of the lower classes would be easier to obtain.
What’s most bothersome about racial diversity is that it implies that a racially homogeneous host society is inherently deficient due to its racially homogeneous character and only the introduction of those racially unlike those of the host majority can make that society whole and function at its greatest potential. It’s suggesting that white majority societies are lacking some kind of vital nutrient needed for growth and survival that only non-whites can deliver. This is insulting! It’s saying that a child who grew up in a small white majority community in the boonies had a lesser childhood than one who grew up in a racially diverse “vibrant” community of the big city. Bullshit!
What’s patronizing is how the “enrichment” non-whites bring to white majority societies is understood to be not reciprocal. Like the “magic negro” of film non-whites exist in white societies to help whites grow into a more enlightened, civilized people while non-whites are not expected to change at all. Non-whites are perfect in their natural state and in no need of the “enrichment” they bring to whites or to each other. Since whites are lacking how are they to benefit from non-whites if non-whites are lacking as well? It is therefore understood that whites are enriched by non-whites but non-whites are not enriched by whites because they don’t need to be and how can they be if whites are deficient and they’re not? It’s patronizing for whites, in a state of smug self-awareness, to humbly admit they’re flawed and need to be perfected through the magical qualities they ascribe to non-white skin. It’s racist and it’s all bullshit!
It’s now 2016, soon to be 2017 (and always “current year”) and the white West is as racially diverse as it’s ever been and what does it have to show for it? When it was mostly racially homogeneous it was exploring the solar system, breaking the sound barrier, developing the internet, creating modern telecommunications; challenging itself through philosophy, art, and sport; setting global standards in pop culture and fashion. Today we have safe spaces, trigger warnings, cultural appropriation, anti-white racism masked as social justice, economies more dependent on financial trickery than on the production of real wealth, and where the greatest technological advances we made of late can be summed up in an inane, overvalued, internet data-mining, productivity killing company called Facebook. It appears the more racially diverse the West has become the more mediocre it’s become but mediocrity is a predictable outcome when diversity is an aspirant quality, especially racial diversity which, in my lived experience, is bullshit.
Monday, 7 November 2016
Logical Fallacies of Mass Immigration Supporters: The False Equivalence.
The False Equivalence.
The false equivalence fallacy takes two opposing arguments and presents them to be the same.
In immigration debates the false equivalence presumes that because an earlier immigrant cohort successfully integrated into Canadian society future ones will as well. It’s assuming that because Irish Catholics who came to Canada in the early twentieth century and integrated reasonably well then so will Middle Eastern Muslims who come to Canada in the early twenty first.
But past success of one group of immigrants is no indication of repeated success for future ones especially for ones that are a completely different group of people altogether. Despite the negative reception Irish Catholic immigrants may have experienced when settling in early twentieth century North America they still held much in common with the receiving culture providing a pathway for acceptance by the host society and greater ease of integration whereas Arab Muslim have even less in common with the host society if any at all.
And given the current state of technology one could effectively live in another country while maintaining strong ties with the native one. The Chinese have been in North America for well over a century yet the Chinatowns across the continent haven’t disappeared. They’ve grown in number. Toronto alone has at least three now, four, maybe more if you include the GTA yet you’d be hard pressed to find an Irishtown anywhere in the city.
And given how we’ve abandoned any sense of a common identity in favour of a vague, multicultural one integration is now subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
And given how we’ve abandoned any sense of a common identity in favour of a vague, multicultural one integration is now subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
Monday, 24 October 2016
The Liberals Won Because Canadians Grew Bored With The Conservatives.
Winston Churchill famously said the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter and his observation is no less true of Canadian voters today than it was of British voters back then. How else can you explain the enduring popularity of Justin Trudeau without concluding the average Canadian voter is too politically ignorant to vote and should be forced to pass a test before they are allowed to exercise their franchise. But listening to the pundits you’d be led to believe Canadian voters are a well informed and politically engaged electorate but they’re giving them too much credit. They need to hype up Canadians’ political intellect because they need to be convinced Canadians believe the same things they do to justify their mistaken perception of themselves as the voice of the people. They want to believe Canadians turned on the Conservatives because they opposed the Niqab ban (they didn’t) and they rallied around the Liberals Syrian refugee resettlement scheme because it was the Canadian thing to do (not true either). The real reason why Canadians turned on the Conservatives is because they grew bored of them and wanted something new.
A review of the history of the popular vote in past elections reveals how unremarkable the Liberal victory was. With just 39.5% of the popular vote it seems pathetic compared to the Progressive Conservatives 50.03% of the popular vote back in 1984 and 43.02% of the popular vote in 1988. And this was when the deservedly hated Brian Mulroney was party leader. Indeed, the Liberal’s 39.5% support is slightly poorer compared to the 39.6% Stephen Harper’s Conservatives got in the previous election when the party secured a majority. And despite the constant muck thrown at Stephen Harper and his Conservatives by our allegedly objective press in the run up to the election they still walked away with 31.9% of the popular vote. They were defeated but hardly crushed.
Reading the press you’d think the Liberals destroyed their opposition but they didn’t. Such is the nature of our first-past-the-post system. You can win a riding and form the government with the majority of voters voting against you. It’s not a perfect system but a truly perfect democratic system doesn’t exist. That didn’t stop the Liberals from trying to give us one even though their effort was a masked attempt to gerrymander the next election and all elections after that.
So why did the Liberals win? Part of it has to do with the stupefying popularity of their vacuous party leader most of it fabricated by a media shamelessly acting as Trudeau’s press agents and not the adversarial fourth estate they pretend to be. That an obvious nitwit like Justin Trudeau can ascend to the highest office of an advanced industrialized nation speaks not only of the power of pedigree but says a lot about the influence of media bias on the people of the nation that put him there. These are the same people who detest Stephen Harper but can’t exactly tell you why.
Equally so they can’t tell you why they voted for the Liberals, or NDP for that matter, without condemning the Conservatives because they didn’t know where the Liberals stood on anything because the Liberals didn’t tell you where they stood on anything beyond climate change, diversity, and gender equality, the holy trinity of fashionable social justice causes guaranteed to get you good press. Oh and legalized pot. And middle class tax cuts that really aren’t. It was just a carryover from Trudeau’s bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada where he was just as vague and noncommittal about everything outside of climate change, diversity, and gender equality. Oh, and pot. You can’t forget about the pot.
Ennui and not anger is why the Conservatives lost. The Conservatives had become familiar and boring breeding irrational contempt in a populace whose personal lives had become equally familiar and boring compounded by increasing insecurity and a sense of powerlessness to do anything about it. Elections are great in that they not only fool people into thinking that they can change their lives, that they can overcome that sense of powerlessness, through the mere act of voting but a change of government provides the fleeting novelty their indebted, precarious, stagnant lives are looking for.
The “hopey, changey” fluff of the Obama campaign is exemplary in this regard. Not only did Obama provide the illusion of giving power to the powerless he provided the novelty of voting for America’s first black President. But “hope” and “change” was just “marketing pabulum” to avoid discussing important issues. And given Justin Trudeau’s knack for sounding stupid when he thinks he’s talking smart the borrowing of pages from the Democrats’ campaign playbook was a sensible move, choosing to concentrate on image more so than merit for in Justin’s case, as so for Obama, there is plenty of the former, not much of the latter.
The Liberals will win the next election. I don’t see how they can lose but a third term is pushing it. I’m hoping by then Canadian’s would have grown tired of Justin Trudeau’s “Look at me!” antics and yearn for a real statesman, not some jet-setting wannabe world celebrity with a messiah complex who cashed in on his politically famous last name and sought the highest office in this country because he lacked both the talent and the intellect to achieve international fame any other way. I doubt very much the Liberals will do anything in power to effect positive change in the lives of Canadians (governments rarely do) but as long as they can be duped by the “hope” and “change” superficiality that is Trudeau the Lesser the longer he will remain “popular” and the Liberals in power.
Sunday, 9 October 2016
Logical Fallacies of Mass Immigration Supporters: The Appeal to Antiquity/Tradition.
Appeal to Antiquity/Tradition.
Appeal to antiquity/tradition is the position that because something worked for us in the past we should continue to do it seemingly in perpetuity. This is problematic because it ignores the modern context. Just because something worked in the past doesn’t mean it’s still beneficial today.
Appeal to antiquity/tradition is the position that because something worked for us in the past we should continue to do it seemingly in perpetuity. This is problematic because it ignores the modern context. Just because something worked in the past doesn’t mean it’s still beneficial today.
In immigration discussions this fallacy manifests itself as the “Canada was built by immigration” meme. While it may be historically factual that Canada was built by immigration it’s not an argument for continued and ever increasing immigration in the present. This is because “current year” Canada is a different place than the Canada of one hundred years ago. We have to take into consideration the health of the economy, immigration’s impact on the environment, its effects on social cohesion, technology and its potential impact on the labour market, among other things.
To illustrate the absurdity of this argument we can perform a thought experiment where we imagine a Canada were every space of land is occupied by an individual so that you couldn’t take a single step in either direction without stepping on someone’s toes. It would be insane to continue to allow immigration in this scenario just because tradition demands it. If the country hadn’t become an undesirable place to live long before it got to that point it definitely will become an undesirable place to live when it does. The country’s economy, society, and institutions would have collapsed under such weight. I acknowledge this is an absurd example because it’s highly unlikely the country will ever reach that point but it does bring to light that population sizes do have their limits and immigration cannot be spoken of independent of a myriad of other considerations solely because it worked so well for us in the past. Canadians cities consistently rank in the top tier of best places to live in the world mostly because they are medium sized cities however unrestrained immigration will undo that. These once livable cities will become unlivable, a process already in the making for Toronto.
If we were to remain true to the "Canada was built by immigration" meme then we would be favouring European immigration almost exclusively because it wasn’t just immigrants who built Canada. It was European Christian immigrants who did.
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