Here's another opinion flying upwind
Mr Harper's vengeful streak struck again last week when he had his "lady on the broomstick" Diane Finlay, announce that a bill was being brought forward to disallow federal Pension payments to prisoners serving more than two years. Now this strikes me as meanspirited as how many prisoners other than Clifford Olsen are not married and may have family relyng on this money?
But that's not my main basis for objection. The equality argument is. Universal programs are just that - Universal. If Mr Harper wants to ride a wave of revenge and attack Clifford Olsen by removing his pension then do it another way. Try charging him a surcharge (for being a heinous criminal that we can't murder (no capital punishment left to apply), just because he did) that would be applied selectively to prisoners based on family need. This punishment just erodes Universality and I'm agin any of that!
But that's not my main basis for objection. The equality argument is. Universal programs are just that - Universal. If Mr Harper wants to ride a wave of revenge and attack Clifford Olsen by removing his pension then do it another way. Try charging him a surcharge (for being a heinous criminal that we can't murder (no capital punishment left to apply), just because he did) that would be applied selectively to prisoners based on family need. This punishment just erodes Universality and I'm agin any of that!
15 comments:
Credit where credit is due, Ben. The whole Pensions-For-Perverts thing was started my Mackenzie Porter -er, sorry, I meant Peter Worthington of course- in The Toronto Sun. Mr. Worthington, 106, has been fearlessly championing the rights of individual exotic animal collectors since his move to Prince Edward County. Indeed, it was he, many say, who put the 'colic' in bucolic with his many repetitive articles on saving everything from man-eating lions to man-eating coyotes in The County. Somewhere along the line, the doddering old fool has another of his 'exclusive' conversations with Cliff -resulting in the startling revelation (some say common knowlege) that federal prisoners received federal old age pensions. Well -stop the bloody presses, eh! Anywhooo, now come the time to do what The Sun does best: Play to The Gallery. Yep, let them two-pack-a-day knuckle-draggers at the washroom table down at Timmies find out and all hell will break loose. Let the Reform Party get it's teeth into this and by jingo! we've got an Issue! And....guess how much the taxpayers of Canada will save? Ready? About $2-million a year.
Take a look at Rick Norlock's remarkably stupid paper-flag mailout. Mr. Norlock is not a remarkably stupid man. Nor is he a remarkably bright one -not by a long shot. But what he knows is this; lowbrow patriotism sells. And it sells best to the same washroom-table knuckle-draggers down at Timmies as the Pensions-For-Perverts kerfuffle. It sells because nobdy can stand up and say "I don't support the troops" anymore than they can stand up and say "I think Clifford Robert Olsen deserves his pension". Debate is precluded by mob-mentality tub thumping -the same mob-mentality tub thumping that got us into Afghanistan and, by the looks of things, will keep us there forever.
Go ahead, Ben. Try writing a dissenting letter-to-the-editor of The Sun regarding dear old Worthy's latest scoop or patriotism being the last refuge of assholes or an asshole like John Baird making an asshole of himself at the committee hearings in Ottawa last week and see how far you get. This is Canada, Ben. Not some progressive democracy where people look after each other. No, this is Canada -a mean-spirited little corner of the world where mean-spirited little Reformers looking for all the world like characters out of Dr. Strangelove, pinch and niggle and play to their pinched and niggling little galleries. Get with the program, Ben. Get yourself down to the dollar store and by as many Made In Taiwan Canadian flags as you can carry and stake out your spot on the nearest bridge and wait for the next boy-in-a-box to come parading down the Highway Of Hapless Victims. Be pious and serious and sad. Be all those things and display them as publicly as you display those flags. But display one thing above all others because one thing above all others makes everything okay: Patriotism.
Patriotism, Ben. Because Patriotism is just about all we've got left to cling to in this country. Everything else we sold to the Swiss or handed to the Brazilians. But by God we've got our pride, don't we? And as long as we've got that then BY Jingo! we're still The Greatest Country In The World! Just ask Rick Norlock. He'll tell ya.....
Good vowel movement Merk. When are you going to heft up your testicles and hold up a sign agin the Sighway of Sorrows. (Highway of Hapless Victims, while accurate in meaning, has zero pizzazzzzzz.
Who cares about the little Afghan girls getting acid thrown in their faces as they go to school? Why should Canada care about anything in Afghanistan? Quite frankly, and I have the balls to say it (even though big bluster Merk can't) "The Afghan people are not worth Canada's treasure."
Get it? Pull out Canada's troops totally, and forget squandering any more aid on "those people."
There is no benefit to Canada whatsoever. Take all the Canadian aid money going to any hospital abroad, and spend it on OURS!
People huddled in their cesspool dictatorshits can take care of themselves, or not.
Especially given that the Arab/Muslim community is a backwards culture, largely due to Islam, with virtually no patents or copyright products coming from the Middle East the area is a desert of creativity and contribution to humanity, whereas by comparison, the Israelis (Jews) are the most creative, inventive, progressive and democratic force in the Middle East (Umma) if not the world.
Islam is as rotten an ideology as its pathetic prophet -- Muhammed.
It's not a religion -- it's a sick pathology.
Suck on that Merk the Mild.
Were you writing about pensions and universality, or about Afghanistan?
Obviously anonymous' astute and highly informative comment reflects their incapacity to connect dots.
connecting blots on Keeler's comment to the points in your original post Ben, is beyond me, but I'm guessing he's itching to draw us a picture - anything to prolong the ruse
It kills me that people can't see how the Harperites manipulate them. No doubt they would be shocked to learn they are held in contempt by those who manufacture these phoney issues while concealing the real ones.
Mr. Muffley, your post is absolutely brilliant. I am once again in thrall to your cutting truth.
Anonymous' highly informative and astute commentary indicates that they assume they are worth connecting the dots on their behalf. As for me, I see no merit in assisting anonymous' inabilities.
I am a patriot to Freedom
I am a patriot to Democracy
I am a patriot to Truth
I am a patriot to Creativity
I am a patriot to the Imagine Nation.
What patriotism are you down on? Patriotism in general? Or patriotism to a specific community?
"Canada -a mean-spirited little corner of the world where mean-spirited little Reformers looking for all the world like characters out of Dr. Strangelove, pinch and niggle and play to their pinched and niggling little galleries."
Canada - selfish, self-centred little corner of the herd where self-righteous pompous socialistas looking like obese Michael Morons out of a Helen Thomas' column, whining and moaning about the poor put-upon Palestinians and their elected Hamas humaniterrorians playing to the leftist galleries overflowing with accumulating anti-semites.
Fuck the left
Fuck the Right
Love the Far Out.
How to identify an anti-Semite:
If they condemn the Israel blockade of Gaza, but fail to mention the Egyptian blockade of Gaza, which has proven just as effective and lethal.
Double standard anyone?
How the fuck did we GET here, Wally?
What rabbit hole did I miss and where exactly is The Red Queen? Will it take all the running I can do just to stay in the same place? GeezuzH, in what sphere of your poetency world does it say A-is-to-B-as-B-is-to-Canadian-Tire's-Do-It-Yourself-Pre-Frontal-Lobotomy-Kit?
I'm totally lost as I wander down the palm-fron'd path of your ('scuse me for saying so...)totally fucked up logic -which is to say, of course, no logic at all.
Poetry-schmoetry, Wally. Make sense will ya fer chrissakes?
Merk, you and your leftist assholes are down on patriotism.
Merk the Jerk spouts a bumper-sticker wisddpm: "lowbrow patriotism sells"
Merk Berserk pontificraps: "But display one thing above all others because one thing above all others makes everything okay: Patriotism."
On case everyone missed it, Merk the piece of work reiterates: "Patriotism, Ben. Because Patriotism is just about all we've got left to cling to in this country."
Read Ben's posting and there is no issue about patriotism in it. Connect what dots?
So I replied to your slam-bam-fuck-you-man down on patriotism. Dot connected.
Don't let Deb's banality boner praise go to your head -- it's already damaged enough.
since we can't change the channel or turn off the sound, it's time to take a chainsaw to Keeler's soapbox. If it helps, give 'im his own little corner and plunk all his efforts there for those readers who jus' wanna hurt theirselves, kinda like machokists, y'know.
Since your original post clearly expressed your belief in "universality", would you care to make a case for it here, Ben? I'm not convinced that it is as significant or as necessary as it may have been in the past. A good argument in support may be appropriate here.
Poor little whiney little anonymous -- go deep throat some compassion.
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