A8 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2012 CHILLIWACK TIMES
Opinion
◗ Our view
Who we are
Truth not a big thing in U.S. politics
The Chilliwack Times is a division of LMP Publication Limited Partnership.We’re published Tuesdays and Thursdays from 45951 Trethewey Ave., Chilliwack, B.C. ◗ Publisher
T
Nick Bastaja
nbastaja@chilliwacktimes.com ◗ Editor
Ken Goudswaard
kgoudswaard@chilliwacktimes.com
◗ Administration Shannon Armes ◗ Classifieds Arlene Wood ◗ Advertising Jeff Warren Brian Rumsey Marni de Boer Robert Beischer ◗ Editorial Paul J. Henderson Tyler Olsen Cornelia Naylor ◗ Distribution Lisa Ellis Brian Moffat Anja Kim ◗ Contact us Switchboard 604-792-9117 Classified 604-795-4417 Delivery (24hrs) 604-702-5147 Fax 604-792-9300 Visit our website www.chilliwacktimes.com Twitter @ChilliwackTimes Facebook www.facebook.com/pages/ chilliwack-times Email us editorial@chilliwacktimes.com Send us a letter 45951 Trethewey Ave. Chilliwack, B.C. V2P 1K4
Scan this QR code with your smart phone to get to our website even quicker.
◗ Opinion
Enjoy freedom from democracy
T
hings are tough all around for Christy these days. It’s no wonder she doesn’t feel the need for the extra hassle of opening the legislature to democracy this fall. We’ve all gone through periods in our lives when the burden seems too much to bear, when we feel like we’d rather just roll up in a ball in a corner and shut out the world. Most of us just take the easy way out: we give in to outside pressure to hide our weakness, throw back our shoulders, we march forward, disregarding the wise inner voice that tells us we need to hang back and let someone else shoulder the load for a while. Not Christy. As premier of British Columbia, she is showing what it means to be a real leader—she’s clearly not afraid to show the rest of us that, sometimes, it truly is best to curl up into that little ball in the corner. A true leader knows when it is time to set aside the little things— like democracy, for instance—for the sake of a better chance at personal survival. For the greater good of all, of course. Although she knows that it’s generally pretty hard for us ordinary folk to understand most things, Christy knows that her current predicament is something we can empathize with. We’ve all had “friends” who have stuck us in the back at some time or another.
BOB GROENEVELD
Be Our Guest And she’s been finding she has a growing number of those kinds of friends. That’s not to mention the marked decline in the number of friends and acquaintances supporting her in the polls. Instead of throwing their bodies on all the political grenades strewn about, a number of her top cabinet colleagues have been opting instead to step aside, out of the fan’s line of fire. In fact, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that some of those noble stalwarts were the ones feeding the fan in the first place—evidenced, for instance, by the budget bits that former finance minister Kevin Falcon left behind for his successor Mike De Jong to clean up. Luckily for Christy, De Jong is from a farming family and a farming community, and he feels eminently capable of handling what Falcon left behind. And she still does have some friendships worth cultivating, evidenced by her appearance at her freshly minted second-in-command Rich Coleman’s annual BBQ this weekend. Nevertheless, it appears she isn’t entirely confident of all her newbie
cabinet friends’ ability to catch up with the fan’s speed. So, as a leader with only her ardent followers’ best interests in mind, it is incumbent on her to take a page out of Stephen Harper’s book—another benevolent dictator . . . er . . . leader who has shown a proclivity for self-preservation for the good of his constituency. By taking the legislature into extended hiding, she can give her new finance minister—and health, and transportation, and other ministers and sundry backbenchers—a bit of breathing room outside of that pesky democratic process that requires needless justification of decisions to irrelevant people, like opposition MLAs, media, and ordinary Joe and Jill voters who probably wouldn’t understand if it was explained to them, for instance through open debate in the legislature. Christy is just doing what any good leader today knows how to do best: smile pretty for the cameras, send out optimistic press releases, demonstrate the ability to do a little creative bending of the rules (and/or truth) and, most of all, get out of the way when the hard questions start getting fired in your direction. In British Columbia, as in Canada as a whole, we are privileged to be living at a time when freedom from democracy appears to be experiencing its finest hour. ◗ Bob Groeneveld is the editor of the Langley Advance.
he lying, blowhard politician is iconic in our culture. It’s a ready-made, go-to stereotype that rarely holds up when you sit down and talk with any politician you try to apply it to. But that may be changing. Looking to the U.S., the Republicans and Democrats wrapped up their national conventions, and the race for the White House and Senate is in full swing. And never before have we seen a campaign where the truth matters so little, not only to the politicians, but also apparently to their supporters. Several non-partisan organizations have sprung up in the last 10 years dedicated entirely to methodically and impartially checking what comes out of politicians’ mouths. Factcheck.org, Politifact, The Fact Checker, Snopes.com, and various others have been working overtime trying to sift through the political BS. The Democrats have had their knuckles rapped for making unproven claims and taking quotes out of context a few times, but we stand in awe of how divorced from reality the Republican leaders have been in their speeches. The response from a Mitt Romney campaign pollster: “We are not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” Why is this a problem? Because 45 per cent of Americans are ready to vote Romney into office. We used to accuse politicians and their stooges of “spinning the message,” but we are well beyond that now. We are into the realm of outright lies. The scariest part: No one seems to care.
◗ Your view Last week’s question Do you believe we should pay tolls for crossing the new Port Mann Bridge? YES NO
37% 67%
This week’s question Do you think the NHL owners have a legitimate arguement in locking out players? VOTE NOW: www.chilliwacktimes.com