parliament would be a better place with a liberally used penalty box
I had Deep Thoughts while pushing the stroller to the park this morning about how politicians/political parties who do Bad Stuff/Hypocritical Stuff (Christy Clark's red light run and the BC Liberals' "ethnic quick win" scandal, the Obama administration's string of scandals such as the IRS corruption, the Harper government's sneaky bail-out of Mike Duffy) are like goons on hockey teams.
Basically, that the goons on That Other Team are demons from hell, comparable to Sirhan Sirhan (this comparison actually happened in the press not too long ago, from an Ottawa Senator talking head WRT the goon from My Team, Matt Cooke). The goons on Your Team (Go Team!) are misunderstood, turning it around and totally better than before, playing the puck, scapegoated, and the other guy was totally asking for it.
Your goon is a goon, my goon is totally not a goon, and even if he is your goons are more goony and you deserve it because I don't like your face. Besides, even if I admit that my goon was a bit too goony that game, what am I going to do, root for YOUR team instead of MY team? Don't be ridiculous. Go Team!
This doesn't bother me in hockey because hockey is about a lot of men skating around chasing a small piece of rubber with a long stick of carbon fiber, and getting so excited that they keep running into each other, sometimes with their fists.
Politics, on the other hand, is about picking people to choose how to spend billions of dollars, and decide the rights, freedoms, and duties of millions of people.
It is not something I can be "go team" about.
But it's gotten to the point that it seems like there is practically no scandal based on personal failure, corruption, or malfeasance that will in itself cause people to vote out the scandalized and vote in the other guys unless they were already pro the other guys. In the latest BC provincial elections, everyone predicted an NDP landslide because of how much everyone hated the Liberals and their cavalcade of lies (they're not even GOOD at lying, which is just sad). But the Liberals actually ended up with MORE seats than before because people didn't want to give the seats to the NDP. The devil you know, I guess. Ditto the way that the Canadian people reacted on the federal level to a party that was literally found in contempt of parliament: give it an even bigger majority!
Short of video evidence of a politician eviscerating a kitten and laughing about it (and even there, I can imagine spindoctoring taking place if cutting the person loose was not possible--"he was young!" "that video is doctored!" "the kitten shot first!"), it's like it doesn't matter what politicians even DO anymore. That's not how people are making their decisions.
If I were a conspiracy theorist I would think that the powers that be purposefully make all choices as foul and similarly foul as possible so as to drive us away from thinking about politics and thinking we can make any difference in them.
At least there is still hockey to cheer about.
---
Speaking of hockey! It's too bad it ended up with the Senators playing the Penguins, because they would otherwise be the team I would root for over any of the others still remaining. I think because I like teams that have dopey mascots. And it doesn't get dopier than a Senator.
The other series that CBC is showing is the Wings/Hawks series. I'm basically neutral to this one. (The Husband is rooting for the Wings.) The issue is that both teams need taking down a peg. But only one peg can be taken. Or something. Let's not push this peg metaphor too far.
Basically, that the goons on That Other Team are demons from hell, comparable to Sirhan Sirhan (this comparison actually happened in the press not too long ago, from an Ottawa Senator talking head WRT the goon from My Team, Matt Cooke). The goons on Your Team (Go Team!) are misunderstood, turning it around and totally better than before, playing the puck, scapegoated, and the other guy was totally asking for it.
Your goon is a goon, my goon is totally not a goon, and even if he is your goons are more goony and you deserve it because I don't like your face. Besides, even if I admit that my goon was a bit too goony that game, what am I going to do, root for YOUR team instead of MY team? Don't be ridiculous. Go Team!
This doesn't bother me in hockey because hockey is about a lot of men skating around chasing a small piece of rubber with a long stick of carbon fiber, and getting so excited that they keep running into each other, sometimes with their fists.
Politics, on the other hand, is about picking people to choose how to spend billions of dollars, and decide the rights, freedoms, and duties of millions of people.
It is not something I can be "go team" about.
But it's gotten to the point that it seems like there is practically no scandal based on personal failure, corruption, or malfeasance that will in itself cause people to vote out the scandalized and vote in the other guys unless they were already pro the other guys. In the latest BC provincial elections, everyone predicted an NDP landslide because of how much everyone hated the Liberals and their cavalcade of lies (they're not even GOOD at lying, which is just sad). But the Liberals actually ended up with MORE seats than before because people didn't want to give the seats to the NDP. The devil you know, I guess. Ditto the way that the Canadian people reacted on the federal level to a party that was literally found in contempt of parliament: give it an even bigger majority!
Short of video evidence of a politician eviscerating a kitten and laughing about it (and even there, I can imagine spindoctoring taking place if cutting the person loose was not possible--"he was young!" "that video is doctored!" "the kitten shot first!"), it's like it doesn't matter what politicians even DO anymore. That's not how people are making their decisions.
If I were a conspiracy theorist I would think that the powers that be purposefully make all choices as foul and similarly foul as possible so as to drive us away from thinking about politics and thinking we can make any difference in them.
At least there is still hockey to cheer about.
---
Speaking of hockey! It's too bad it ended up with the Senators playing the Penguins, because they would otherwise be the team I would root for over any of the others still remaining. I think because I like teams that have dopey mascots. And it doesn't get dopier than a Senator.
The other series that CBC is showing is the Wings/Hawks series. I'm basically neutral to this one. (The Husband is rooting for the Wings.) The issue is that both teams need taking down a peg. But only one peg can be taken. Or something. Let's not push this peg metaphor too far.