Friday, March 31, 2006
Why Liberals Should Hate Michael Ignatieff
Wow, do I ever hate Michael Ignatieff. He and Belinda Stronach are the only high-profile front runners for the position. Obviously there's still lots of time for other candidate to come forward, since the Liberal Party convention isn't until December 2nd.
I could care less if Stronach got the nomination. She's clearly a shill for money and power. She was a Conservative MP less than two years ago, and if thats who the Liberal Party of Canada wants to lead them, by all means. The Economist called Paul Martin "Mr. Dithers", I wonder what kinda moniker they could come up with for Stronach. "Ms. Two-timing-back-stabbing Bitch" comes to mind, but I'm not nearly as clever as the folks at The Economist.
I'll even start this rant session about Ignatieff off on a positive note. If he were to be the leader of the Liberal Party, he would probably move The Party policy to the right. Now, back to the hate... and I'll try to argue this from a Liberal's perspective.
People have touted his "credentials" as a politician. I would like somebody to show me those credentials. The guy has spent the last 30 years writing. He'll also pop his head out of the Ivory Tower from time-to-time to lecture the great unwashed on some theoretical jibberish about human rights. Most successful politicians come from a background of actual achievement. Lawyers, businessmen, etc. They might move into the realm of teaching and writing after their political careers. The problem with this, is that the guy hasn't had a job that demands results. At least Stronach ran a couple of successful businesses (albeit Daddy's businesses).
To make matters worse, the guys a flip-flopper. He espouses human rights, and is regarded as an "expert" in the field. I've read two essays of his which basically contradict each other completely. The first was printed in The Financial Times in 2004. The second is in the British magazine The Prospect from 2006. In the 2004 article he, correctly in my view, says that to promote liberal constitutional based democracy we must practice what we preach. The 2006 article then gets all convoluted. He starts talking about "coercive interrogation", and how it's legally defined differently than torture. He claimsm "coercive interrogation" is necessary, and therefore it's all good - while "torture" is still a bad thing. The problem with this argument is that you can draw the line between "torture" and "coercive interrogation" pretty arbitrarily. In Ignatieff's view, if parliament were to pass legislation that defines tearing a suspect's eye out as "coercive interrogation" - then it should be totally acceptable. And this guy wants to tell me about human rights!
Michael Ignatieff also has not lived in Canada for several decades. He's lived primarily in the UK, and the US. Are Liberal's really dumb enough to nominate a guy who is that out of touch with Canadian values? His defense to this argument, from a speach last night in Ottawa:
Theres that Ivory Tower perspective again. What he's basically trying to say, is that he knows whats good for Canada, because he's more 'enlightened' than us lowly Canadians. You see, to be the leader of a country, a "clear" view from far away is useless. You need to have a very clearly Canadian worldview.... it sort of goes hand in hand with being CANADIAN. Now, I'm not going to say that this jerk isn't Canadian, because he probably has the documentation to back it up. But he certainly has no clue what Canadians are about, since he hasn't lived here for so bloody long.
Now, I'm sure at the CBC they tell everybody that is employed there that they are slightly more Canadian than the rest of us. But most people realize that's trash. As far as lectures, books, articles, and teaching stints go.... it hardly makes him grounded in the reality of Canadianism. What he does is promote his own view of Canadianism, which he learned in the UK and the US.
The final reason why Liberals should hate Michael Ignatieff, is because he supported the Iraq War. Every Liberal in Canada screamed that Stephen Harper was the Devil because he had supported the war. Will these same Liberals stand up for what they believe in, or will they stand up for The Party instead?
Now that the personal attack is done, my next hate-on will be Ignatieff's sicko ideological view of the world. But even Liberals should be able to see that this guy has no place in politics. Paul Martin has his company HQ in a foreign country to avoid taxes. Ignatieff is even worse, he just takes Canadians money, and gives it to foreign countries.
I could care less if Stronach got the nomination. She's clearly a shill for money and power. She was a Conservative MP less than two years ago, and if thats who the Liberal Party of Canada wants to lead them, by all means. The Economist called Paul Martin "Mr. Dithers", I wonder what kinda moniker they could come up with for Stronach. "Ms. Two-timing-back-stabbing Bitch" comes to mind, but I'm not nearly as clever as the folks at The Economist.
I'll even start this rant session about Ignatieff off on a positive note. If he were to be the leader of the Liberal Party, he would probably move The Party policy to the right. Now, back to the hate... and I'll try to argue this from a Liberal's perspective.
People have touted his "credentials" as a politician. I would like somebody to show me those credentials. The guy has spent the last 30 years writing. He'll also pop his head out of the Ivory Tower from time-to-time to lecture the great unwashed on some theoretical jibberish about human rights. Most successful politicians come from a background of actual achievement. Lawyers, businessmen, etc. They might move into the realm of teaching and writing after their political careers. The problem with this, is that the guy hasn't had a job that demands results. At least Stronach ran a couple of successful businesses (albeit Daddy's businesses).
To make matters worse, the guys a flip-flopper. He espouses human rights, and is regarded as an "expert" in the field. I've read two essays of his which basically contradict each other completely. The first was printed in The Financial Times in 2004. The second is in the British magazine The Prospect from 2006. In the 2004 article he, correctly in my view, says that to promote liberal constitutional based democracy we must practice what we preach. The 2006 article then gets all convoluted. He starts talking about "coercive interrogation", and how it's legally defined differently than torture. He claimsm "coercive interrogation" is necessary, and therefore it's all good - while "torture" is still a bad thing. The problem with this argument is that you can draw the line between "torture" and "coercive interrogation" pretty arbitrarily. In Ignatieff's view, if parliament were to pass legislation that defines tearing a suspect's eye out as "coercive interrogation" - then it should be totally acceptable. And this guy wants to tell me about human rights!
Michael Ignatieff also has not lived in Canada for several decades. He's lived primarily in the UK, and the US. Are Liberal's really dumb enough to nominate a guy who is that out of touch with Canadian values? His defense to this argument, from a speach last night in Ottawa:
"I don't feel I've been away at all," he argued. "But yes, I've also been a war reporter, human-rights teacher, journalist and I've seen a lot of the world. Sometimes you only see your country clearly from far away."
Theres that Ivory Tower perspective again. What he's basically trying to say, is that he knows whats good for Canada, because he's more 'enlightened' than us lowly Canadians. You see, to be the leader of a country, a "clear" view from far away is useless. You need to have a very clearly Canadian worldview.... it sort of goes hand in hand with being CANADIAN. Now, I'm not going to say that this jerk isn't Canadian, because he probably has the documentation to back it up. But he certainly has no clue what Canadians are about, since he hasn't lived here for so bloody long.
...
Mr. Ignatieff took pains yesterday to stress his continuing Canadian attachment. He cited teaching stints, documentary work for the CBC, lectures, books and articles.
Now, I'm sure at the CBC they tell everybody that is employed there that they are slightly more Canadian than the rest of us. But most people realize that's trash. As far as lectures, books, articles, and teaching stints go.... it hardly makes him grounded in the reality of Canadianism. What he does is promote his own view of Canadianism, which he learned in the UK and the US.
The final reason why Liberals should hate Michael Ignatieff, is because he supported the Iraq War. Every Liberal in Canada screamed that Stephen Harper was the Devil because he had supported the war. Will these same Liberals stand up for what they believe in, or will they stand up for The Party instead?
Now that the personal attack is done, my next hate-on will be Ignatieff's sicko ideological view of the world. But even Liberals should be able to see that this guy has no place in politics. Paul Martin has his company HQ in a foreign country to avoid taxes. Ignatieff is even worse, he just takes Canadians money, and gives it to foreign countries.
Labels: Michael Ignatieff
