I still don't get why it's going to take the NDP nearly a year after the election to hold a leadership election, just as in the UK, I don't get why it's going to take nearly a year after its formation was announced for the Your Party to have a leadership election. Since that's private parliamentary behavior, surely that's not regulated by law in either nation? Is it? (speaking from the States.)
Canada follows the model set by the US, UK, etc. where the supposed opposition party does everything it can to become the Right in everything but name.
Funny (or not) that the GFANZ guy (I was involved in that farce) suddenly has no idea what should be done once he’s back home.
And all the grandiose rhetoric about housing…?
Maybe we’ll think about it someday.
Until then “Markets Uber Alles”!
It wasn’t just by random chance that George Osborne selected and installed Carney.
Funny that nobody really analyzed the results of his actions in the UK before they decided that the Banker dude was the best option for the barfight.
The Liberals essentially codified capitulation to Trump with the DST.
You know Markets are just People right? (Not sure why Soylent Green is People just popped into my head ...)
I.e. the problem isn't markets, it's people, and not even the people running them, it's the people who set the framework under which they run - that would be politicians setting tax and other consumer/corporate law.
I’m with you. I just don’t see the path, the structural shift of incentives. Though we could, in theory, collectively chart one. But will we? I haven’t been encouraged by anything.
You're going to think I'm a broken record (my friends and family do ...), but 15 years ago when I started pushing sortition on The Globe's comments, I got almost no feedback. Now I'm getting a decent amount of positive feedback on both yours and another Substack channel (The Line). And from what I gather, it's a concept that has been gathering momentum worldwide.
And I have been getting positive feedback for my ideas for tax/welfare reform too. It's about the lowest hanging fruit in the orchard of government programs ripe for reformation and most people know it. Things like OAS and tax reform have been making the op-ed pages on an almost regular basis.
Which is why I still have some hope that a structural shift is possible. Because I have to think that ordinary people (with no agenda for re-election or rewarding support) wouldn't get buffaloed into continuing to support the same backwards incentives and inefficiencies that plague government now. And people on both sides are definitely getting fed up with government.
I did write a Globe Letter to the Editor on sortition a few months ago but there was little feedback and that was negative. But it requires more space than the 150 word limit for Letters to make a good case. And I am really not an author (these few paragraphs are about as much as I can muster with any organization or eloquence). Hint, hint!!!
Is Blanchet saying Carney would have been a “good partner” in the negotiations had he ignored 12 of the BQ demands while agreeing to the six that were “non-negotiable”?
Well, since you qualify "polity" with "modern", I'll grant your point. But it doesn't mean the impossibilities are baked in by definition (am I quibbling here?).
When I let myself dream, and I mean really dream, I imagine a world in which people can properly balance their own rightful self-interest with that of the entire polity, i.e. recognize that to hold one's own narrow self-interest as the only guide for one's actions is actually counterproductive to one's own self-interest, as Dr. Hans Selye put it succinctly when he coined the term "altruistic egotism".
Unfortunately, modern strategic political concerns have become more than just competing interests borne of resource scarcity and reasonably differing opinions on how scarce resources ought to be allocated. They have become chauvinistic competing interests as an expression of tribalism, and chauvinism/tribalism is an anathema to civilized society.
When we begin to recognize that tribalism and narrow self-interest are threats to a well functioning society, then we will have a chance of achieving a great deal more than just winning some political battle.
(On a purely technical note, it sure would be nice if comments would allow for the use of italics, especially since when they're used in the original post!)
I still don't get why it's going to take the NDP nearly a year after the election to hold a leadership election, just as in the UK, I don't get why it's going to take nearly a year after its formation was announced for the Your Party to have a leadership election. Since that's private parliamentary behavior, surely that's not regulated by law in either nation? Is it? (speaking from the States.)
Canada follows the model set by the US, UK, etc. where the supposed opposition party does everything it can to become the Right in everything but name.
Funny (or not) that the GFANZ guy (I was involved in that farce) suddenly has no idea what should be done once he’s back home.
And all the grandiose rhetoric about housing…?
Maybe we’ll think about it someday.
Until then “Markets Uber Alles”!
It wasn’t just by random chance that George Osborne selected and installed Carney.
Funny that nobody really analyzed the results of his actions in the UK before they decided that the Banker dude was the best option for the barfight.
The Liberals essentially codified capitulation to Trump with the DST.
“Elbows Up!” indeed. 😑
You know Markets are just People right? (Not sure why Soylent Green is People just popped into my head ...)
I.e. the problem isn't markets, it's people, and not even the people running them, it's the people who set the framework under which they run - that would be politicians setting tax and other consumer/corporate law.
I’m with you. I just don’t see the path, the structural shift of incentives. Though we could, in theory, collectively chart one. But will we? I haven’t been encouraged by anything.
"... the structural shift of incentives ..."
You're going to think I'm a broken record (my friends and family do ...), but 15 years ago when I started pushing sortition on The Globe's comments, I got almost no feedback. Now I'm getting a decent amount of positive feedback on both yours and another Substack channel (The Line). And from what I gather, it's a concept that has been gathering momentum worldwide.
And I have been getting positive feedback for my ideas for tax/welfare reform too. It's about the lowest hanging fruit in the orchard of government programs ripe for reformation and most people know it. Things like OAS and tax reform have been making the op-ed pages on an almost regular basis.
Which is why I still have some hope that a structural shift is possible. Because I have to think that ordinary people (with no agenda for re-election or rewarding support) wouldn't get buffaloed into continuing to support the same backwards incentives and inefficiencies that plague government now. And people on both sides are definitely getting fed up with government.
I did write a Globe Letter to the Editor on sortition a few months ago but there was little feedback and that was negative. But it requires more space than the 150 word limit for Letters to make a good case. And I am really not an author (these few paragraphs are about as much as I can muster with any organization or eloquence). Hint, hint!!!
Is Blanchet saying Carney would have been a “good partner” in the negotiations had he ignored 12 of the BQ demands while agreeing to the six that were “non-negotiable”?
I loved that quote by Blanchet. He didn't quite nail the English idiom and it's way better for it
Well, since you qualify "polity" with "modern", I'll grant your point. But it doesn't mean the impossibilities are baked in by definition (am I quibbling here?).
When I let myself dream, and I mean really dream, I imagine a world in which people can properly balance their own rightful self-interest with that of the entire polity, i.e. recognize that to hold one's own narrow self-interest as the only guide for one's actions is actually counterproductive to one's own self-interest, as Dr. Hans Selye put it succinctly when he coined the term "altruistic egotism".
Unfortunately, modern strategic political concerns have become more than just competing interests borne of resource scarcity and reasonably differing opinions on how scarce resources ought to be allocated. They have become chauvinistic competing interests as an expression of tribalism, and chauvinism/tribalism is an anathema to civilized society.
When we begin to recognize that tribalism and narrow self-interest are threats to a well functioning society, then we will have a chance of achieving a great deal more than just winning some political battle.
(On a purely technical note, it sure would be nice if comments would allow for the use of italics, especially since when they're used in the original post!)