The Simplistic World View That Resides In The Conservative Mind
"Indeed in this country, there are two groups of people. In fact, some would call these groups the haves and the have-nots. This is an not inaccurate way of describing it, but those that would might have the two switched. Canadians form two groups: those that receive from the government and those that pay to the government."
Stephen Taylor
National Post
Imagine going through life with a simplistic, binary world view such as the one that Mr. Taylor articulates.
Imagine that amongst ALL the tens of millions of people who live in Canada, there are only two separate divisions - 'the bad people' who receive from government and 'the good people' who pay to the government.
I suppose if you are hold a world view where all things can be reduced to 'The GOOD' and 'The BAD' ... 'Heaven' and 'Hell' ... 'Right' and 'Wrong' - then it is possible to accept what Mr. Taylor is advocating.
Such a world view is childish at best, idiotic at worst.
It's time for Conservative minded people to grow up and stop acting and thinking like bloody 9 year olds.
Stephen Taylor
National Post
Imagine going through life with a simplistic, binary world view such as the one that Mr. Taylor articulates.
Imagine that amongst ALL the tens of millions of people who live in Canada, there are only two separate divisions - 'the bad people' who receive from government and 'the good people' who pay to the government.
I suppose if you are hold a world view where all things can be reduced to 'The GOOD' and 'The BAD' ... 'Heaven' and 'Hell' ... 'Right' and 'Wrong' - then it is possible to accept what Mr. Taylor is advocating.
Such a world view is childish at best, idiotic at worst.
It's time for Conservative minded people to grow up and stop acting and thinking like bloody 9 year olds.
The segmenting of society into the two camps was brought into sharp focus on Sept. 15, 2001 when Geroge Bush said, "either you are with us or you are against us."
Evangelicals tend to put things into absolutes with no room for a progressive grey scale between the two camps.
The conservatives continue in the same way since its organisation is shot through with so many evangelicals.
A trawl through the evangelical vocabulary will validate my point.
Righteous, wicked, evil, saved,
anointed, heathen.
Posted by
Anonymous |
4:56 pm, July 26, 2010
It is startling how long this binary view of the world has existed in Saskatchewan politics. I recommend reading "Devine Rule in Saskatchewan" by Leslie Biggs and Mark Stobbe (yes *that* Mark
Stobbe). Read the Devine Conservatives responses to social justice and particularly anti-poverty issues. See in particular the Murray Chambers discrimination case win, and Grant Schmidt's response to it.
They truly regarded the poor as defective, as "sinners" who ought not to be helped because god is obviously not helping them.
I recall one of them (Eric Berntson perhaps?) standing beside a prominent Saskatoon minister at a photo op one time and quoting Scripture saying "if a man will not work he will not eat." With pronouncements like this they attempted to cast everyone who needed social assistance as lazy manipulators of the system. To Devine & Co. people who needed food banks just refused to work, despite the Cons knowing that food banks and Friendship Inns served mainly poor women and children and not lazy-louted men who would rather collect welfare than get a job. They definitely had a we/they view of the world and it led to some of the most vicious and unjust social policy in Saskatchewan's history.
Those of us who witnessed this had better not forget how easily this happened once in this province. Even now little Brad is undermining social justice with projects that his administration chooses not to support, and with all his changes to provincial labour law. He knows unions are diametrically opposed to his world view so he's trying to cut them off at the knees, and succeeding.
Posted by
Elliott Taylor |
6:49 pm, July 26, 2010