Monday, September 17, 2012

Heading Down That Road ...

 
Not long ago I was talking with a group of mostly Liberals and we were all united in our loathing of stephen harper. At some point in the conversation I mentioned how debased US politics was and how the harpercons were deliberately dragging the filth and cynicism and corruption up north. I mentioned how we're losing our rights and pointed to the example of Barack Obama's insane claim to a legal right to order US citizens to be killed.

Then, one of the Liberals (speaking for at least a few of them, since she finished another's sentence and two more nodded in agreement) said: "That's nothing new. Governments have been doing all sorts nasty things since forever."

I've noticed this on occasion. Partisan dishonesty. All groups are capable of doing this. Notice how I mentioned we were busy criticizing harper. But when I mentioned Barack Obama (who many liberals profess to admire) suddenly even the murdering of his fellow citizens produced only a "Oh well, they ALL do it." (I tried to point out that even if they did, governments never claimed to have a legal right to order your assassination, but that was dismissed with body language that seemed to imply I was being hopelessly naive about the way things worked.)

It was strange. They couldn't come right out and say they supported such insanity. But Barack is their guy so they at least cut him some slack. There's legal grounds for having Obama up on plain old murder charges (none of this "war crimes" stuff that appears to esoteric for many North Americans) but far too many people think that that's something one can choose to look past. Argh.

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