(Aiton

 

The strange nature of our insatiable political beast

  
   

ay Gs ee anit
Nikalas i was
Kryzanowski J twilight
zone in the
Bermuda
triangle.
That’s right;
nothing could be weirder than the
Recession 2009 budget tabled last week
by the Conservatives and the opposition
parties’ réaction to it.
Meant to be chock full of government
spending goodies to help Joe Canuck
stave off the imminent hard times that
are starting to fall upon this great land.
“Oh ho, this had better be good,” you
could hear them saying, smacking their
lips.

No reaction was more surprising
than the drawn out decision of NDP
leader Jack Layton. For weeks prior
to the budget he had been chattering
his intentions to defeat the four-page
document before actually reading it.
Just imagine yourself in a boardroom at
the fiscal meeting of the year for your
company. The CEO (whom you don’t
get along with because you covet his
job) comes into the room to announce
the projects and initiatives he’s going to
pursue for the next few years and you
refuse to hear him out. You dismiss him
outright and vote against him before
even reading his report. You’d probably
be turfed out onto the sidewalk before

 

 

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty

you can utter the phrase “Dow Jones.”

That’s Jack Layton for you; the
leader of an opposition party that’s so
principled it would cut off its moustache
in spite of its face. The budget with its
$12 billion towards infrastructure, $7.8
billion for social housing, $2 billion in
“green” research and upgrades, $335
million to artists, and an extension of EI
benefits is practically a love letter to the
NDP leader.

But you can’t back down once
you show your hand, right? No cheap
sweater jokes can help Layton out of
this one. There was no way he could
reverse his position no matter what the
budget contained. And Layton thinks
it’s only the Conservatives that are

power hungry... sure, Jack.

Well, just maybe the Conservatives
are power hungry! Layton is right
when he says that Harper probably
doesn’t believe in most of the budget
his party has tabled. Finance Minster
Jim Flaherty wrote that budget with
the seething, brooding and bloodthirsty
coalition in mind. The Conservatives
have also learned that McKenzie King’s
initial “do nothing” approach to the
Great Depression was not the way to
handle a faltering economy and with
provincial and municipal leaders lining
up with wish lists for their make work
projects, that it’s better for government
to work with the provinces than to lord
over them.

The Liberals on the other hand, their
reaction has come to define the party as
of late. Prop up the Conservatives until
their own party—in shambles internally
with its own financial crisis—can muster
up what they need to drag themselves
out of their $6 million debt and the
echoes of moral bankruptcy that seem to
bounce off the walls of Stornoway from
time to time. They’ll support the budget,
but “with reservations,” of course;
it’s laughable, Liberal leader Michael
Ignatieff putting the Conservatives “on
probation” with this budget. In typical
Liberal fashion, they don’t have the
muffins to stand up for what they really
feel is good for Canadians. It’s the same
situation that dragged on for much
of last year with Stéphane Dion. The
Conservatives bait, Liberals back down
because they’re unprepared but all the
while try to engineer themselves a way
to look principled without actually being
so.

It turns out the budget is just that—a
budget; full of tax cuts and social
spending; one that will erase billions
of dollars of black ink and a decade
of progress towards paying down the
national debt. That said, with the extra
money I’ll be saving on taxes next
year, I wonder how’s the weather in
Bermuda?

 

How free Is free will?

By Priscilla Bartleman

ife is full of unique
experiences, and I have had
one of those that enlightened
me to a world that can be dark,
cruel and unusual. It started off with
a philosophical question stemming
from my Psych 3308 class and that
is, “Do we have free will?”
I was thinking about whether
or not a human being was able
to act freely in certain situations
independent of natural and social
compulsions. Are our actions free
of moral, cultural, religious and
social obligations? My answer
came to me Monday and through
this week something happened that
enlightened me. It helped me better
understand people. I have become
aware of my own little bubble I
live in because of the fact that this
action came to me as a surprise and
the bigger surprise was that there
are many other people who feel this
way.
Where does this fit in with free
will? A person I know was able to
rant publicly about her “politically
incorrect” point of view on the

internet and this was free of moral
and social obligation, there is
nothing anyone can do.

that is really Free Will when,

yes, she did speak freely from
moral, cultural, religious and
social obligation but was it really
independent of a natural and social
compulsion? The focus of my
disbelief is because there are other
people who feel this way, and

that natural compulsion is seen to
be at arms length with someone/
something that is unlike what I see
as normal.

a world where people are unique,
different and amazing in their own
way. When you take the time to get
to know someone you can see the
beauty, and (sadly, sometimes like I
have this week) the darkness. I now
understand her actions were not
independent of natural and social
compulsion, that there are many
other people who fear things that
do not reflect their ideas of beauty,
wellness and normal but I think I
like my world better—it hurts less.

The question then is whether

Maybe I am crazy, but I live in