Political Discource, what the heck is that??

On October 16, 1854 Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas engaged in a very famous debate. Douglas made his point first which lasted a solid 3 hours. Lincoln said that he needed at least as much time and Douglas would get his chance for a rebuttal. He suggested that everyone go home for dinner and return to finish the debate, which ended up lasting another four hours.

They were able to debate the important political issues at the time in the in depth detail that they needed...and now today, in the age of Web 2.0, an age were we are capable of unparalleled discourse we get this.


What a difference seven score, thirteen years make.

As opposed to actually discussing the issues, politicians today go for simple attack ads such as this one. Of course, I would love to decry the Conservatives for this one, but I know full well that an election or two ago, the Liberals ran those "Stephen Harper Said" ads, which were more or less the same thing.

I do find it funny though, that just yesterday, I was driving into school and I heard on the radio that the Conservatives were not planning for a spring election. I get to school, get on-line, and go to read the news and find out about this. They are clearly saying one thing and doing another. Dear Mr. Harper, this is the pot calling...you're black.

I really hope that people don't buy into these. Of course, followers of this blog will know that I love Stephane Dion and have really high hopes for him. But I also have some hope for a critically evaluated political process...yeah I'm naive.

Can I just point out a few things that I hope people who watched this ad are thinking...

1) The Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997 when Dion was the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and not the Minister of the Environment. He took on the environment portfolio in 2004, when the "Carbon Emissions rose to pre-1990 levels" stat is taken into account.

2) In one article on the subject the Conservatives boasted about receiving 5 times the amount of private donations than the Liberals. Who would have the money to donate? Well big business of course. Who are the biggest businesses in the country? Oil and automotive of course. Who has the most to profit by rejecting Kyoto? Oil and automotive of course. Who is the corrupt party again?

3) This really is a different Liberal party than it was only 4 years ago. Paul Martin did a lot of purging to the party, and the Sponsorship Scandal really got rid of a lot of the key members. Maybe the Liberals should just change their name every couple of years to avoid the baggage, it seems to work for the Conservatives.

Alright, I had best stop now. I hope that all of you out there don't pay any attention to these terrible ads. I hope even more that the Liberals don't respond in kind, the smartest thing that they can do is ignore these things. They need to take the moral high ground here. Liberals taking the high ground? What kind of a world do we live in...

Until next time,

G