Hawaii 5-0

[mbarrick]

If only I could take credit for this, but alas, someone mailed it to me at work.

Frankly, however, I'm with Ryan on this one. This is just a witch-hunt by the people who are happy to blame the mess left by the last government on the poor sod stuck cleaning it up. This has jack shit to do with his job, other than the fact the guy deserves a good bender. Drunk politicians are a Canadian tradition, for crying out loud. Look at that statue of Vancouver's founder down in Gastown: what's he standing on? A beer keg. Sir John A. MacDonald himself, the "Father of Confederation" was a notorious piss-tank and there isn't a history book on the shelves that will deny the fact that his repeated boozing-up of the various Premiers who signed on to Confederation was instrumental in the creation of Canada as a nation. If hypocritical morons paying lip service to democracy were doing things like fire-bombing your wife's office in anarchistic attempts to influence your policy wouldn't you get hammered on vacation? At least he isn't an appointed Premier spending millions on scrap iron (wanna buy a slightly used fast-ferry anyone?) and making up random budget numbers, eventually leaving an impossible fiscal mess behind. If you really want moral guide-posts for political leaders how about we just do away with that separation of church and state thing and go back to tea-toatalling theoretically-celebate bible-thumpers in charge?

Comments

Nothing new

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

> it's what the public wants, so it's what the public gets...another fact we cannot ignore

Nor should we. This sort of fanning of the flames by media demagogues for the sake of selling yellow newspapers and commercial time during the news hour is indicative of the decline of parliamentary democracy. This is a decline in the very worst elements of Greek democracy. Aristotle's politics covers the slippery slope from democracy to tyranny quite effectively. The law exists to punish him for the crime, not the press. There is no due process in villifying someone like this. Look at Clarke - he was guilty until proven innocent in the courts. There so many things wrong with that it is frightening.

Is he up for charges here in British Columbia? He made a lapse of judgment while abroad on personal business, got caught, and paid the fine per the local laws - those *are* the consequences. Period. The media circus in inappropriate and counter-productive. It has very little to do with the issue at hand and everything to do with the lowest common denominator. The fickle fallability of that lowest common denominator is precisely why we don't elect our higher officials directly.

Re: Nothing new

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

i hope you are giving the public the thumbs down and not me...ha ha...i have no faith in what we purport to be 'democracy'...it is lowest common denominator, and i don't know if electing the leader directly would be any better...it's all a matter of personality...otherwise how would you explain reagan??? and in the states they have degenerated into electing an official directly who proceeds to appoint all kinds of unelected 'advisors' who hold positions of extreme power...what used to be a cabinet of elected officials is now nothing more than a bunch of patronage appointments...therefore it isn't the will of the people that is reflected but rather the will of the individual elected...i'm not saying the media circus we are experiencing is justifiable, but with the decline in our civilization it is not surprising...and yes glen clark was vilified and then found to be innocent in a court of law...but then again many guilty people are found to be 'not guilty' in a court of law...loads of money buys a good defence, even for those who aren't worthy of it...the media and the public judges people outside of the sphere of the court...but what is funny is even the conservative media who supported gordon in the first place are feeding on his carcass...money talks louder than principles, especially when you're selling newspapers...