Canada Day, and Politics, and the disconnection between government and people...

[pyat]

A radio address by Stuart McLean (a Canadian broadcaster) is rather worth listening to, I think.

"In politics as in everything, the process is as important as the product. You cannot kill your way to peace or lie your way to justice. The way you walk it is the way it is."

Thanks to ladyperegrine for the link.

Comments

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

I love Stuart McLean

[pyat.livejournal.com]

He was my radio prof in university!

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

That's a magnificent quote -- in fact for my money it beats Barrows Dunham's line about tyranny always being something of a waste: "In order to be a tyrant, you have to *be* one; you have to be the sort of person who puts children into gas chambers. The gains hardly seem worth the degeneracy."

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Also a good quote!

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

All these quotes underlie the essential evil behind Machiavelli's monstrous hypothesis that the end justifies the means.

It's easy to be against putting children into gas chambers. It's an awful lot harder to answer the nasty scenario: "But you have a gun! And the rapist is assaulting your wife! And your children!"...

One of the great unresolvable tensions I suspect: the conflict between principle and pragmatism.

[dronon.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a couple of things... part of Justin Trudeau's eulogy to his father:

"As I guess it is for most kids, in Grade 3, it was always a real treat to visit my dad at work. As on previous visits this particular occasion included a lunch at the parliamentary restaurant which always seemed to be terribly important and full of serious people that I didn't recognize. But at eight, I was becoming politically aware. And I recognized one whom I knew to be one of my father's chief rivals.

Thinking of pleasing my father, I told a joke about him -- a generic, silly little grade school thing. My father looked at me sternly with that look I would learn to know so well, and said: 'Justin, Never attack the individual. We can be in total disagreement with someone without denigrating them as a consequence.'

Saying that, he stood up and took me by the hand and brought me over to introduce me to this man. He was a nice man who was eating there with his daughter, a nice-looking blond girl a little younger than I was. He spoke to me in a friendly manner for a bit and it was at that point that I understood that having opinions that are different from those of another does not preclude one being deserving of respect as an individual.

This simple tolerance and (recognition of) the real and profound dimensions of each human being, regardless of beliefs, origins, or values — that's what he expected of his children and that's what he expected of our country."

The quote you used also brought to mind some of John Lennon's talk about peace, war and revolution in a short animated piece based on a 1969 interview conducted by a 14-year-old who snuck into Lennon's hotel when he was visiting Toronto: (link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA2luBCxZIw)) - mainly just the first half of it.

And of course let's not forget the Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_reptilian_kitten-eater_from_another_planet) thing!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I wish we had politicians who could speak as eloquently.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Never attack the individual. We can be in total disagreement with someone without denigrating them as a consequence.

Huh, that's thought-provoking and poignant. Years ago I went to this free lecture about conflict resolution - between couples actually, where the speaker was on about how you always make the conflict about the situation, never the person. Situations can be resolved, but once people feel attacked or insulted, you start losing ground.

And I guess that's American politics on a personal level. Right-wing politics threaten the safety and comfort of American citizens, which is a situation - surely we can compromise and come up with something that works, eh? But this country's right-wingers made it personal immediately, branding any of us to the left of them as unthinking ivory-tower sheeple at best, and viciously dangerous traitors at worst. What else can you expect liberals to do other than vehemently hate and start calling names in return? It's natural and understandible, and maybe we didn't "throw the first punch," but at some point, making this country a better place has to be bigger than how much any of us hate each other.

And unfortunately it isn't.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

What is, sadly, so tempting about attacking the individual is that I know a few too many people of great intelligence, prodigious eloquence and grand insight who nevertheless attack the individual anyway. They seem to do so as a way of saying, "Stay away from this person; they won't do you any good. I know better now than to try and engage them in any kind of discourse, so I'm saving you a lot of trouble."

The more I think about that stance, though, the more it reminds me of the "kinder, gentler" argument for burning books -- the unspoken assumption is that you're going to be victimized by such a person no matter what, and that you're not capable of protecting yourself from them.

Put it this way: If the sum of your arguments against someone else's arguments is "he's a scumbag", then maybe you need to work on your vocabulary.

[paka.livejournal.com]

It's 'cause people are still people regardless of intelligence or education. I know I might be able to make some seriously coherent, valid, and fairly objective points, but put me in a situation where I feel insulted and threatened, and boom, I'm back in 3rd grade pretty much.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

And it's because attacking the individual is always so monstrously easy. For lack of a better phrase, we are all sinners, and can therefore easily have our sins put on display.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

I think the biggest example in American politics at the moment is the nearly wholesale denigration of George W. Bush.

I think he's made some seriously piss-poor decisions and has been a rather terrible leader.

I've seen nothing, (I tried to use the IMC shortcut for italics here!) nothing that tells me he's a terrible man.