They say sports or radio is all local. The same can be said of politics. However, while keeping in mind local considerations and concerns impact policy in certain places, I tend to look outside set borders. That way, we see a general pattern as a whole when it comes to policy. For example, while Quebec is unique in terms of its onslaught on civil liberties, I compare it not as a province within Canada but a region and jurisdiction in the larger context of North America and in some case the West as a whole.
When you view things from above and remain informed of what other places are doing you get a sort of barometer of how we're doing. It is my contention, in terms of civil liberties, Quebec is a derelict region; especially when under a Parti Quebecois government. They can squawk all they want in defending their tenuous positions, but the facts when measured against 'their peers' don't lie.
For example, Massachusetts and Ontario doesn't have a human rights record at the UN. Quebec does. No jurisdiction on the continent prevents people from choosing where they can send their kids to school or have state-sanctioned discrimination through the threat of fines for expressing oneself in another language other than French. No jurisdiction employs punitive measures in order to protect the 'collective will' of the Francophone majority. The threat of being overwhelmed by a sea of English-speaking peoples, while not without some merit, has turned Quebec into a paranoid paradox. It claims to be tolerant, but its laws saw otherwise.
Matters are so bizarre you have ministers like Lisee and Drainville, in their mighty tribal yelp deep within their loins, assert, rather frivolously, their Charter 'values' are in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson. The Charter is a document not of inclusiveness, but in the nationalist mind, but of exclusivity. It has already divided 'les autres' from the 'pure laine' and that's how they like it.
Jefferson my ass.
New England is another geographical region I tend to look as a group rather than by the six individual states that make that region up.
Whenever I read articles like this one where people are loaded with as many as 13 EBT cards (food stamps) but are taking vacations to Hawaii in the Bangor News from Maine (Democrats have been forced to consider looking at the EBT situation given the mounting evidence of rampant fraud), it pays to think about the ramifications of our decisions when it comes to the welfare state. There's a fine line between compassion and enabling; incentives and addiction to 'free money.'
A professor at a College argued that it was a person's Constitutional right to travel. No kidding. But where does it say it should be on taxpayer dime? If a person is on welfare and in need of help to pay for groceries, how does it reason they can afford to go to Hawaii? Can it be fraud is involved?
Just like I don't believe all "47 million" Americans on food stamps (an outrageous figure) are not all honest, hard-working people (even our concept of hard work has diminished somewhat - subjective as it is. I know a few lazy people who claim to work 'hard') as progressive project, I don't believe they're are all lazy and unproductive as conservatives are apt to think.
Either way, it's crucial any welfare, no matter the amount (and one can argue welfare fraud is tiny compared to other types of fraud that cost society contending the corporate variety is far worse) comes with strict conditions.
Or else you get expanded visions of what constitutes 'compassion' like in Vermont where Montpelier can help those who can't pay their own property taxes. Not only do Vermonters have to cover their own property taxes (which in some places are low to begin with especially compared to mine here in Quebec), they have to subsidize other people's taxes? It's a kind of double tax.
One of the main criteria in choosing to live in a particular area is whether you can afford the property taxes. If you willingly neglect this crucial consideration, then it's on you to pay for those consequences. After all, as the good aforementioned professor mentioned, it's your Constitutional right to freely move about. I would love to buy my parent's home but (aside from the list price), I can't afford the obscene property taxes (which in their case, is basically theft).
New England is one place, it's even weirder in California and New York (where, in addition, Governor Cuomo went into a kind of intolerant, nativist rant against pro-gun and life Americans who weren't welcomed in 'his' State - he would make any Pequiste proud with that nonsense) where the state seems to have become completely unhinged in its 'nanny-state' endeavors.
The good news is people are beginning to question the whole darn system. A very basic 'how much government is enough' in collaboration with 'why should I fork the bill since I do enough' line of thinking is settling in.
Indeed, at some point, how much is enough?
When you view things from above and remain informed of what other places are doing you get a sort of barometer of how we're doing. It is my contention, in terms of civil liberties, Quebec is a derelict region; especially when under a Parti Quebecois government. They can squawk all they want in defending their tenuous positions, but the facts when measured against 'their peers' don't lie.
For example, Massachusetts and Ontario doesn't have a human rights record at the UN. Quebec does. No jurisdiction on the continent prevents people from choosing where they can send their kids to school or have state-sanctioned discrimination through the threat of fines for expressing oneself in another language other than French. No jurisdiction employs punitive measures in order to protect the 'collective will' of the Francophone majority. The threat of being overwhelmed by a sea of English-speaking peoples, while not without some merit, has turned Quebec into a paranoid paradox. It claims to be tolerant, but its laws saw otherwise.
Matters are so bizarre you have ministers like Lisee and Drainville, in their mighty tribal yelp deep within their loins, assert, rather frivolously, their Charter 'values' are in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson. The Charter is a document not of inclusiveness, but in the nationalist mind, but of exclusivity. It has already divided 'les autres' from the 'pure laine' and that's how they like it.
Jefferson my ass.
New England is another geographical region I tend to look as a group rather than by the six individual states that make that region up.
Whenever I read articles like this one where people are loaded with as many as 13 EBT cards (food stamps) but are taking vacations to Hawaii in the Bangor News from Maine (Democrats have been forced to consider looking at the EBT situation given the mounting evidence of rampant fraud), it pays to think about the ramifications of our decisions when it comes to the welfare state. There's a fine line between compassion and enabling; incentives and addiction to 'free money.'
A professor at a College argued that it was a person's Constitutional right to travel. No kidding. But where does it say it should be on taxpayer dime? If a person is on welfare and in need of help to pay for groceries, how does it reason they can afford to go to Hawaii? Can it be fraud is involved?
Just like I don't believe all "47 million" Americans on food stamps (an outrageous figure) are not all honest, hard-working people (even our concept of hard work has diminished somewhat - subjective as it is. I know a few lazy people who claim to work 'hard') as progressive project, I don't believe they're are all lazy and unproductive as conservatives are apt to think.
Either way, it's crucial any welfare, no matter the amount (and one can argue welfare fraud is tiny compared to other types of fraud that cost society contending the corporate variety is far worse) comes with strict conditions.
Or else you get expanded visions of what constitutes 'compassion' like in Vermont where Montpelier can help those who can't pay their own property taxes. Not only do Vermonters have to cover their own property taxes (which in some places are low to begin with especially compared to mine here in Quebec), they have to subsidize other people's taxes? It's a kind of double tax.
One of the main criteria in choosing to live in a particular area is whether you can afford the property taxes. If you willingly neglect this crucial consideration, then it's on you to pay for those consequences. After all, as the good aforementioned professor mentioned, it's your Constitutional right to freely move about. I would love to buy my parent's home but (aside from the list price), I can't afford the obscene property taxes (which in their case, is basically theft).
New England is one place, it's even weirder in California and New York (where, in addition, Governor Cuomo went into a kind of intolerant, nativist rant against pro-gun and life Americans who weren't welcomed in 'his' State - he would make any Pequiste proud with that nonsense) where the state seems to have become completely unhinged in its 'nanny-state' endeavors.
The good news is people are beginning to question the whole darn system. A very basic 'how much government is enough' in collaboration with 'why should I fork the bill since I do enough' line of thinking is settling in.
Indeed, at some point, how much is enough?
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