The Enemy

Some people might take offence at the title of this post. I'm referring to some of the people who have different political viewpoints from my own. These are people who will, through their stupid political choices, contribute to the continued decline in my quality-of-life. So the idiotic thoughts spinning around in their skulls has a direct impact on me (and you) personally. These are people who are shamelessly immune to reason and argument. They don't care that they've been proven wrong or that you know they're lying. Their hackery is a vital part of who they are as individuals and they're not going to let go of it. In other words, they will hold on to their political opinions which negatively impact our quality of life no matter how hard you work to convince them that they're insanely wrong. This makes them my enemies as far as I"m concerned.

First up: Rob Ford's fans. Last week, The Grid T.O. had another feature about the failed mayoralty of Rob Ford and pondering who should run to replace him. This week, they report on their mail-bag. In response to that article, one reader, "James" wrote thusly:

Ford is exactly the type of mayor this city needs. Now we just need a vote to cut the number of council seats in half before the next election, so the citizens can elect a council that actually has an interest in serving all of the citizens of Toronto, rather than just serving special-interest groups and their pet projects.

Another reader, "Scarborough Dave" added:

The people who voted for Rod Ford endorsed his mandate and, as a result, the mayor should be expected to implement it, regardless of how some special-interest groups might feel about it. Livable cities are created by successful businessmen, and Rob Ford is a successful businessman.

After a certain point dishonesty, ignorance or delusion overwhelms a person's character and turns them into a joke. Rob Ford campaigned on the lie that there was almost a billion dollars of waste at Toronto City Hall and that he could cut taxes without cutting needed services because it was all a matter of easily eliminating obvious waste. Almost a billion dollars! It would be easy to find and cut! Then it turned out that there wasn't much waste and Ford was reduced to proposing closing a shelter for abused women in order to save a few hundred thousands bucks.

We've become jaded, in this day and age of right-wing politicians who don't care if they fail because it only validates their philosophy that governments always fail. I just feel it needs to be pointed out that being off in your projections by $750 million is always and everywhere a big deal. Especially when you're only talking in terms of a $10 billion budget. Similarly, threatening to close women's shelters when you started out talking about eliminating wasteful spending is quite a leap. People who are so wrong, so callous and so stupid do not deserve to be taken seriously and neither do witless hacks who support them.

We could go on with Ford's disastrous history of failure. His botched handling of the transit file. His obnoxious homophobia. His shameless attempt (with his brother) to toss out years of planning and consultation to propose a waterfront development deal cooked-up with a small cabal of wealthy insiders, but let's let "James" and "Scarborough Dave's" words speak for them.

Both of these guys use the term "special-interest groups." Idiots. As if the right-wing doesn't have special-interest groups that support them. Unless you name these specific special-interest groups and explain why their desires are illegitimate and cancel-out yours, nobody has to take you seriously.

"James" proposes cutting the number of councillors in half, as if this will somehow return only Ford supporters giving him carte blanche to impose his will. "Scarborough Dave" says that because the office of mayor is voted for citywide, the mayor therefore has the right to overrule council. Local councillors' job is to agree with everything the mayor says. Nonsense. "Livable cities are created by successful businessmen"? Maybe. Maybe not. But Ford is a successful businessman? No he's not. He's the idiot son of a sticker-maker. Doug Ford is the guy who managed the family firm after it was already a success.

These Ford fans are shameless, lying hacks. Ford has been an unmitigated disaster and their refusal to confront this obvious reality disqualifies them from the debate.

Next we have harpercon scum-bags. Yesterday, the Toronto Star, to its great good credit, actually ran an editorial about the enormously important decision to be expected from the Supreme Court of Canada, about harpercon Ted Opitz's self-centered appeal to be able to keep his stolen seat in Etobicoke-Centre. (I was going to blog about that editorial itself, but I decided to write this post in response to the comments of the harpercon trolls that followed it.)

Seems to Me Seems to me that at most polling stations I have been at, there are always reps from every party involved. Now according the Mancash, Gimmeshelter, and the rest of the loony left, if a Liberal loses in an election, then it must be something the Conservative rep did to cause that. Absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the voters didn't want the Lib Candidate elected. Whine and Cry On

Hope I hope the Supreme Court rules against the whining Liberals and overturns the lower court ruling. The Libs got beat up real bad in the last election and have been grasping at straws ever since to try to prove it shouldn't have happened. Can't understand why the Libs on here aren't blaming Mike Harris. GimmeShelter, Cry ON.......

The Star would be singing a different tune regarding this issue..... if it were the Conservative's Ted Opitz trying to have the election results nullified. Since a Liberal lost this supposedly 'safe' riding, there is now a call for another 'fresh election'. What about the THOUSANDS of voters who become disenfranchised if the original election result is overturned? The voters rejected Mr. Ignatieff and his party - the Liberals should try to GET OVER IT !

Its like a bad umpire call in a baseball game. Sometimes it works for your team and sometimes it works against. The system is open to deceit. How many times has this system worked against the Conservatives? I wonder.

Give it a break Liberals who don't win will go to any and all means to gain a seat. You lost - now suck it up butter cup.

so...... Then if the court supports the election results, the court is worng in the eyes of the Star. Not suprising and quite predictable...but please to use Dalecourt as a reference? She is a Liberal, her brother works for the party and wasn't she the reporter CRYING when Iggy stepped down as leader..awwww nothing but being unbiased from the Star in this story.

 Remember what we're talking about here people. Nobody disputes that this was a close election. 26 votes out of over 55,000. It's an absolute fact that Justice Lederer found (after discounting the impact of many other questionable ballots) 79 votes that were completely unaccounted for. Elections Canada (now headed by a harpercon hack) can only account for (maybe) 44 of those 79 votes. That's still more votes unaccounted for from only 10 polling stations than the margin of victory. But what do these stupid fuckwads say? "Suck it up buttercup!" "You wouldn't be complaining if YOU had won because of these irregularities!" Typical childish drivel. And then they expect to be taken seriously. Democracy is not a board game. Democracy is a huge accomplishment. It's as close to sacred as a human value can get. And these people ... 

Words fail me. 
 
Alas! The great tragedy is that when it comes to democracy, human rights, economic and environmental sanity, stupid political hackery infects the brains of just around everyone. Witness poor Glenn Greenwald's devastating criticisms of the dictatorial urges of the bush II regime. All his writings found a great deal of approval from Salon.com's mostly progressive readership. And then, when the Democrat Party's Obama becomes president and maintains all of bush II's policies and even builds on them, it turns out that that vast pool of critics of bush II's illegal wars and frightening power grabs are happy enough when it's their team trampling on the Constitution and murdering foreigners (and now, their fellow citizens)!

We have to rise above this. Some people are incapable, but we must hold them to account nonetheless.