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Friday, April 21, 2006
Have people really come around?
Now I don't at all want to get into the debate over whether the Reform Party was worth creating. It might have been; it might not have been. Perhaps the PC Party could have been overtaken from within by more conservative conservatives, perhaps not... but can anyone deny that Brian Mulroney's image, especially amongst movement conservatives, has improved dramatically over the past two years?
Especially among westerners, there are obviously still complaints that he was too focused on Quebec (at the expense of the west), that he didn't cancel the NEP fast enough, that he wasn't swift enough in dealing with the deficit and so on, but on other issues, he seems to have gotten better marks, especially in recent years.
As it relates to the relationship with the United States, Mulroney comes across now as very much a brilliant operator. In a world today where it seems as if many world governments are hesitant to ally themselves closely with a Republican US administration, Mulroney looks all the more impressive. Not only did he ally himself closely with Reagan and Bush, it turns out that he actually wielded a great deal of influence with them, and therefore in effect, he allowed for Canada to wield influence on the global stage as well. Canada's global standing has never been the same since his departure from office (think of Martin and Chretien's incompetence in this regard, even Harper probably doesn't have as strong a personal touch as Mulroney did).
Even if he was misguided and ineffective when it related to constitutional reform, it's tough to argue that he wasn't proceeding with a well-meaning vision to bring Quebec solidly into the federation.
Anyways, I was just wondering whether his image has rebounded on its own due to the passage of time or whether it has very much to do with conservatives (particularly Reform/CA conservatives) being under one tent now and therefore looking upon previous Conservative leaders as once again their own past political leaders?
Posted by Japnaam on April 21, 2006 | Permalink
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Comments
Mulroney inherited a fiscal situation of unsustainable spending. He responded to it by raising taxes -- really raising taxes, in a way that badly hurt Canadians trying to save and get ahead. He cranked income taxes so high that the Chretien government was able to look good by enacting a tax cut after they succeeded Mulroney's pathetic protege Kim Campbell. The GST was introduced as a tax that would partially replace income tax, which was going to be lowered. Of course no such thing happened -- income taxes went up, accompanied by the new Gouge and Screw Tax. They didn't call him Lyin' Brian for nothing.
So, was Brian good on any social fronts? On immigration, the quantity went up and the quality went down. Mulroney did nothing to discourage the so-called family reunification policy that brought in unskilled, elderly, or even handicapped relatives of Liberal-voting immigrants. He also did very little about bogus refugees or criminals illegally in the country.
He also didn't do anything about born-in-Canada criminals. He appointed social liberals (and outright socialists) to the courts, did nothing about the juvenile crime laws that shelter youthful criminals, and made it legal for middle-aged men to have sex with 14-year-old girls. His hand-picked Justice Minister for most of this was, of course, none other than the awesomely talented Kim Campbell.
Was the Reform Party really necessary, you ask? Puhleeze. The Mulroney Conservatives ended up with TWO SEATS. By cranking the taxes in the 80s and setting up the Liberals to rule through the 90s, they caused Canada to miss the American economic superbooms of those two periods. Governing as a Liberal in a blue suit left us with today's crime and welfare-ridden cities and towns. As for the Gramscians boring from within the federal bureaucracy and judiciary, he was either (a) clueless about them or (b) in agreement with them. Having Mulroney as a sop to the PC wing of today's Conservative Party is bad enough. God forbid that he actually have any effect on policy.
Posted by: CJ | 2006-04-21 1:20:58 AM
One more point about the Unctuous One. Actually there are dozens more, but there is one I really shouldn't have left out. The enormous hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars national debt was mostly run up during the Mulroney years. Even though this has been significantly paid down (by the Liberals, gotta give them credit and believe me I am not a #*&^%@# Liberal) it still eats a substantial chunk of every year's federal spending. The Mulroney show was so abysmally bad that the Chretien Liberals were actually an improvement. I state this because part of being conservative is facing reality, and I'm a social, fiscal, and foreign policy conservative.
Posted by: CJ | 2006-04-21 1:34:17 AM
The two seats is a red herring that's more attributable to Kim Campbell's so-called leadership than to Mulroney's legacy. Yes, the country had had enough of him, and we were probably looking at a Liberal government in any event.
However, he was such a good electioneer that had he chosen to stay and fight the election a few things would have happened:
1. The Blues wouldn't have been wiped out in Quebec, and the Bloq would have remained restricted to the Lac St Jean (maybe 5 seats)
2. Reform would have remained an Alberta protest party, gathering maybe 10 seats.
3. Mean Gene Crouton would not have had the huge majority that led him to act as Caesar.
I agree that Mulroney didn't do enough to reverse the statism of the Trudeau years- that was a loss of will. If you remember, he had Wilson put forward some pretty substantial changes to a number of social programs in the first few budgets, only to backtrack when the uproar from the country came back (I seem to remember the line "No Way Charlie Brown"). Put simply, the public wasn't ready for the deficit to be tamed. It was by the time that Chretien tried it 10 years later.
Even great leaders can only carry the country so far.
Posted by: SPare | 2006-04-21 4:29:30 AM
Yeah, the public was ready to tame the deficit because someone changed their opinion about it. Someone taught the people that deficits were a disaster best fixed right away. I'm talking about Preston Manning of course.
The two seat collapse shows the danger that all parties face; at any time they can run a terrible campaign and lose everything. The election of '93 showed us one of the most inept campaigns in Canadian history.
At least it made it possible for Harper to take over.
Posted by: Go Harper! | 2006-04-21 4:48:42 AM
Judging by his remarks on the environment last night, one could conclude that Mulroney, although pro-American, is still a Red Tory to the core. It seems that he has fallen for the global warming fearmongering hook, line and sinker.
As for the Reform Party, it was way ahead of the curve on so many crucial issues: deficit and debt reduction, Plan B, tax relief, criminal justice reforms, etc. Easily the most influential policy voice in Canada during the 1990s was the Reform Party research bureau.
Posted by: Road Hammer | 2006-04-21 7:03:01 AM
Mulroney dithered away his first term allowing Trudeau's Ghost of Christmas Past (the structural deficits) to grow and in his second term, after having failed twice at elevating Quebec above the ROC handed the mess over to Kim Campbell to avoid the recurring humiliation that was his trade mark. This pompous ass has continued taking shots at Preston Manning to this day. He considered Westerners bozos. He had allowed greens to infiltrate various ministries wielding influence and directing tax dollars to this day.
NAFTA and his good relations with the US were his only positive accomplishments
Advice to PMSH, avoid like the plague.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2006-04-21 9:48:46 AM
Mulroney pardoned rather than pursuing and ejecting a massive illegal immigrant population in Canada. I imagine this is one of the reasons we have so much foreign spy and immigrant gangster activity today.
His approach to Quebec was one of appeasement, appealing to separatiste sentiment and attempting to buy them off instead of insisting they develop some patriotism.
His transportation Minister, Lucien Bouchard, cancelled passenger rail to the West, particularly the Calgary station in this city's center, which, historically, was the principal railhead to the West.
Need I say more about Brian's protégé, Lucien, and what he did?
I guess I will. From Wikipedia:
"Bouchard has been a Quebec nationalist during his entire political career; his convictions as a Canadian federalist or a Quebec sovereignist have varied. He worked for the federalist Liberal Party of Quebec's campaign of 1970, but was deeply shaken by the events of Quebec's October Crisis, especially by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's imposition of the War Measures Act. At the same time, he was a great admirer of Premier René Lévesque, and later made a habit of quoting Lévesque in speeches.
Bouchard worked with the "Yes" side during the 1980 Quebec referendum on sovereignty. In 1985, he was appointed ambassador to France by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a then close friend of his whom he had met in Université Laval. He joined Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government in 1988 as Secretary of State and later Minister of the Environment, and served until 1990. While still a strong Quebec nationalist, he believed that Mulroney's Meech Lake Accord was sufficient for Quebec's remaining in confederation.
However, after a commission headed by Jean Charest recommended some changes to the Accord, Bouchard left the Progressive Conservatives. Mulroney felt stabbed in the back by Bouchard, and rejected his reasoning, having heard from a friend that Bouchard planned on leaving days before the Commission's report."
Mulroney's GST is not 'Revenue Neutral', is spitting in the eye of Albertan's whose culture rejects sales taxes. The GST favors Eastern manufacturers at the expense of the West.
Mulroney's other protégé, Kim Campbell, was justice minister when she continually rejected David Milgaard's mother's appeals for a retrial. Can you say Young Offenders Act?
Mulroney was a Progressive but he sure wasn't a Conservative.
Posted by: Speller | 2006-04-21 9:54:48 AM
Imagine Mulroney allowing more immigrants to stay in our big empty country. I guess he should have been making them scapegoats for our every failing.
Posted by: MoreImmigrantsPlease | 2006-04-21 11:20:02 AM
The country isn't as empty as your head,MIP.
What part of illegal don't you understand?
As for failing, you fail to grasp that the frontier days are OVER and that we need to live in a quality society with laws and programs we can afford and that means receiving legal immigrants that can contribute meaningfully while paying taxes.
Posted by: Speller | 2006-04-21 11:42:21 AM
"Imagine Mulroney allowing more immigrants to stay in our BIG EMPTY country." Posted by: MoreImmigrantsPlease
I suppose you think these ILLEGAL immigrants went off into the hinterland and started homesteading. Maybe you fantasize that they began trapping and hunting, clearing the land and farming?
Dumbass.
Posted by: Speller | 2006-04-21 11:56:48 AM
I know one thing, the immigrants were able to contribute more after being legally recognized as citizens.
Population is a power resource, and if Canada is to be strong, free, and secure, we need more immigrants.
Posted by: MoreImmigrantsPlease | 2006-04-21 12:38:45 PM
"I know ONE THING, the immigrants were able to contribute more after being legally recognized as citizens."MoreImmigrantsPlease
One thing, eh? Give an idiot an acorn and they think they've got a pine tree.
It was a BLANKET amnesty. Nobody checked to see if these ILLEGALS were diseased or career criminals.
"Population is a power resource, and if Canada is to be strong, free, and secure, we need more immigrants."
Posted by: MoreImmigrantsPlease
Population is only a power resource in the movie Matrix, MIP.
Maybe you were still pooping in your dydies when the British went half-way round the world to the Falklands and, vastly out numbered, kicked the Argies sorry butts back to their third world toilet on the mainland. Quality is what counts, not numbers.
We don't need any more cab drivers, telephone solicitors, whores, marijuana grow-op babysitters, gangbangers, 40 yr old McDonalds workers who take entry level jobs away from born in Canada high school grads, etc.
Lichtenstein, with 0 (ZERO) immigration, is the wealthiest per capita country in Europe.
Canada was strong, free, and secure, before Mulroney's amnesty of ILLEGAL immigrants and, immigrants or not, it will continue to be.
That blanket amnesty was an open invitation to the SCUM of the world and the Snakeheads have done booming business ever since.
You are a died-in-the-wool nickelplated idiot, MIP.
Posted by: Speller | 2006-04-21 1:12:38 PM
There is no intrinsic value in simply increasing the population.
If people really believe that, why not just open the borders completely?
By the way, why do so called compassionate people think it's a nice idea to skim off the best educated population from other countries? Wouldn't it be better if those people stayed and improved their own country?
This isn't the 1900s, we don't need to populate the country as if it's too empty.
A lot of us kind of enjoy having some wilderness, reasonably clean water and air.
Posted by: nazz rune | 2006-04-21 1:21:07 PM
Right on, nazz rune. We should seal the borders and shut down immigration until NOBODY needs an English as a Second Language course. (and that includes the 52% already enroled in ESL on the Lower Mainland BC who were BORN in Canada)
Posted by: Speller | 2006-04-21 1:28:44 PM
"Now I don't at all want to get into the debate over whether the Reform Party was worth creating. It might have been; it might not have been." Japnaam 19
Who are you to suggest the Reform Party might NOT have been worth creating. You hadn't even been born yet.
I was a member of the Reform Party when the Tories were still in power and I guarantee there wouldn't be a Canada today if Reform hadn't been created.
Hmmm..... come to think of it, as an Alberta Nationalist, maybe the Reform Party WAS a bad idea.
Naw, back then, who'd a thunk Preston Manning would sell us out at the Saskatoon Conference by allowing riding associations to open in Ontario.
Posted by: Speller | 2006-04-21 1:46:22 PM
First of all, I was born.
Reform was created in 1987. I was alive and well at that time.
Second of all, you don't have to be alive at some point in history to make judgments about that point in history. And even having spoken to people who WERE alive at that time and knowing people who were involved in the late 80s/early 90s, there's no clear consensus over whether creating Reform was worth it. Some say it was, some say it might just have been better if the PC Party was overtaken from within. It's impossible to tell. We don't know what course history would have taken if Reform wasn't created and if the PC Party was somehow influenced to pay attention to western and small-c conservative concerns.
Posted by: Japnaam Singh | 2006-04-21 2:34:46 PM
What's a small-c conservative? A Liberal in the offseason? A Liberal with a small stock portfolio and no insider information?
The fact that Reform was created by grass roots small contributers is a CLEAR concensus of approval. Who are the naysayers you know?
People who weren't Albertans and wouldn't have taken the road to separation.
You weren't there. You don't know what you are talking about.
Yes, people can comment on points of history they didn't live. I could comment on what life as a Sikh is like if I wanted to. I'm not a Sikh.
Your point of reference to comment on Reform is what? Who?
Posted by: Speller | 2006-04-21 2:48:42 PM
In the 1980's the Anglosphere saw a wave of conservatism. Britain got Margaret Thatcher. The United States got Ronald Reagan.
We got Brian Mulroney. Albertans saw there wasn't a Conservative party, that means a party run by conservatives with conservative policies, so we created one.
It was either that or goodbye Canada and create an Alberta Nation.
Posted by: Speller | 2006-04-21 2:55:54 PM
If Brian Mulroney, Sinclair Stevens, Joe Clark and a few other easily 'bought' Progressive Conservatives had not stabbed Eric Nielson in the back we would have had a different, MUCH BETTER country today. I never liked 'lyin Brian'(and I never will), I despise his 'backers", the Power Corp thugs, and I believe that Canada would look like Bulgaria today if it had not been for the Reform Party. Presto had the wrong slogan though - it should have been "The West wants OUT!". Today, if Presto had moved forward with separation, The Canadian west would be the top nation in the world, Quebec would be on it's own, the Merrytimes would have a zip code and Ontario - I don't know.
On the other hand if Eric Nielson had won the Conservative leadership race - as he should have - he would have made ourCanada a powerhouse - there would have been a 'brain drain' North from the U.S.A. , we would have never slid into the slimy Dipper/Liberano 'nanny state' world of perpetual adolescence oldsters who can't band-aid a paper cut on their own. Once again, Mr. Singh you are prompting from the wrong songbook for a Western Standard reader. Are you sincere or are you just trying to create controversy?
Posted by: jema54j | 2006-04-21 5:51:04 PM
It is time for Alberta to move on Plan B.
Harper is maintaining his metamorphosis in terms of re-thinking his position on Federalism by playing the same old game - Learn French, Promise More to Quebec, Give Quebec More Power, Force Official Bilingualism on the ROC via Law S-3 (and not only French via the same Bill).
He just appointed a person to over-view all appointments - including those to IRB - so there is no intent for change there either (like dumping it!!)
He may as well get a constituency in Central Canada. He re-invented himself as regards federalism and he is about as likely to re-invent himself as an easterner if it will give him the power he seeks.
If it means success in the polls in Ontario and Quebec, he will ignore the West just as have all former prime ministers - but he will be able to do this only if he delivers the goods and then some to Quebec. (Just as did all former prime ministers).
It is time for the West to stand up for itself - enact similar legislation as Quebec's Law 101; take control of its own citizenship as does Quebec. Set up our own Pension Plan and get out of the Canada Pension Plan. Set up out own policing/border services and dispense with the RCMP. Use the notwithstanding clause for ludicrous decisions eminating from the Supreme Court. Put language education on a choice basis and forget about pandering to French (Official Bilingualism) in Alberta. And these are only for starters.
The question is - do we have a strong enough leader that will emerge in Alberta. So far the candidates for the Conservative Leadership are all pretty mellow.
Posted by: calgary clipper | 2006-04-21 6:15:24 PM
Jema54j,
If ‘ol “Velcro lips” Eric had been a little more charming like his actor brother Leslie Nielsen, maybe you’d have had your wish.
Conversely, I just can’t picture Velcro Lips starring in the Naked Gun. But I have to admit it sounds like an interesting movie.
Posted by: nomdenet | 2006-04-21 6:27:36 PM
The introduction of the GST, the paperwork that small businesses such as my own had to then become responsible for, the ressurection of a constitutional debate that was at that time DEAD...leading to the 1995 referrendum. Nope....Mr. Mulroney does not hold....nor ever will....a warm place in my heart.
Posted by: Victor | 2006-04-21 6:36:25 PM
Mulroney's rep rebounded because compared to the snakes that assumed power after him, he looks pretty darn good. I draw the line, however, on painting Brian as some kind of conservative icon. He was a tax and spend liberal. That's all he was. Sure, we should give him credit for free trade but it was inevitable for whatever party won. In my mind, Brian will forever be the guy that taxed us until we bled, expanded government, oversaw scandal and corruption, and introduced moronic, ultra politically correct proposals in Meech and Son of Meech. A record of shame.
Posted by: Howard Roark | 2006-04-21 9:18:10 PM
Cal Clipp:
With you all the way except for the RCMP.
They are the police force that tamed the west, we learned in school.
Anyway, my Oilers lost and your Flames won, both in OT. It's not over yet.
We'll still meet.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-04-21 11:40:31 PM
hmmm - the RCMP
It is but a shadow of itself now after pretty much becoming politicized top down by the Liberals. Pamela Anderson with a red coat on either arm - really!!!!
It would be nice to see Harper back the RCMP as he does the military - but it is early yet. Like the Military, the RCMP recruiting policies have been very negative - read EE/CCC first & where male anglophones are highly unlikely to get in - even if they should want to apply. Have you checked out their training at Regina? I think it is probably a shadow of itself as well but that is only a guess. There are probably some very good people now in the RCMP that would move into an Alberta Force should it happen.
Posted by: calgary clipper | 2006-04-22 6:42:31 AM
nomdenet; Have you read "This House is not a Home"? Perhaps you should, your hero, 'Lyin Brian' has some sleaze balls to swallow. You are definatly infilterated with the eastern mindset and I fell sorry for you. You eastern snobs are still trying to make silk purses out of sow's ears. My 'very proud to be a western rancher's wife' Grandmother had more 'culture' and claims to blue blood, in written documentation, than Malrony could 'invent' in a hundred years. My grandmother's 'blue -bloods' were all people who earned their own living though, not politicians who stole money from taxpayers. My point: most of the silk purses in Canada, are 'out west'!
Posted by: jema54j | 2006-04-22 3:26:29 PM
ebt; you can defend the 'easterners' till the cows come home if you like - my point was that the 'eastern mindset' is a major problem in Canada. I am speaking of a mindset, not a geographical location. The eastern mindset is that of a blind person - they are too handicapped to see beyond what they can feel. Eric Nielson came from the Yukon so the PC 'establishment' would not recognize his brilliance. He chewed up Turdo and spit out the entrails every day in the HC. Because he was from the NW though, and had a mind of his own, the backroom boys engineered his departure after he had saved their skin. The west has always saved the easterners skin then the east gives them 'the pinko slip' least they lose the firm grip they believe they have, on the bank account of the country. Read the piece above about the Liberal woman who 'has' a nanny to take care of her and her offspring. This is the 'eastern' vs 'western' mindset that the 'eastern' people have adopted. The big surprise is that the 'western' mindset people never perceived themselves as 'helpers' and they never will. Western mindset people believed that we were all working together. Since the NEP we know our enemy and we won't be fooled twice. You folks can kow tow and bow and scape to Brian if you want to - I will never like him because of the game he and his cronies pulled on a good man who was traitorized because he was more intelligent than any of them and because he was of the 'western mindset'; therefore he was in the backroom boy's pockets; the big shots had to get rid of him. Stephen Harper, Pierre Poiliver, Cheryl Gallant....are people of the 'western' mindset who live in eastern Canada. Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark were of the 'eastern (entitled) mindset ilk but Joey is from Alta. It is not geography.
I hope I have clarified my 'attack' on nondenet who could only attach a Liberano/Dipper label to Mr. Eric Nielson who saved them and their ilk from Trudeau/Marice Strong type Communism - much like the governments hoisted on Romania, Estonia, Bulgaria. This type of ingratitude makes me very angry.
Posted by: jema54j | 2006-04-23 1:09:47 PM
ebd; Why? Do you own a house or a car that you don't want to 'give' to the state, do you like having the right to say and write whatever you please without being shot or thrown into the jailhouse? If you do not value Freedom then Castro has a place for you! State slavery is not all it is cracked up to be on paper - even Trudeau left Castro when he feared for his soft white hands and his lily liver ed heart. Experience is the best teacher, you should go down to Cuba and find out for yourself.
Posted by: jema54j | 2006-04-23 2:22:37 PM
jema54j - I hope you will write a lot. I like learning about Canada from someone who does not seem to be full of crap.
I'm plenty stupid and ignorant in many ways, including that I always had just an instinctive notion that Canadians were big strong gutsy folks who could just do anything. Then a quick 30 or 50 years later, I looked up and the Canadians were talking like a bunch of lefty creeps like our stupid local Communists (they prefer to be called "Democrats" for some unknown reason), with all sorts of ill will and "hatred" for Americans?
I don't really even know how I stumbled onto this web site. It was probably a reference in a column by Mark Steyn (I'm SO glad that he stays in America most of the time, I wish he was twins).
Anyway, jema54j, tell us about cattle ranching and stuff like that. Things that perhaps young people could do (really, today opportunities) that would actually take guts, not the kind of courage it takes to walk along a stupid street in some dumb eastern city, but honor and courage and hard work. That kind of thing.
Help us turn these countries around and drive the skinny shouldered metrosexual guys and their whory stupid girls right the hell back to europe or Russia or where ever their dumb ideas came from.
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2006-04-23 2:57:53 PM
Jema54j
Gosh jema54j, I try to make a joke and get called a snob. Did someone kick you out of a restaurant for smoking again?
Sorry, I guess Erik Nielsen was another Robert Stanfield who also would’ve faired better before TV. These days Lincoln couldn’t get elected, because too many voters prefer smooth talking Clinton types to straight talkers.
Meanwhile, I guess being from Ontario makes me a bad person. BTW my ancestors worked the land too and to them luxury was a two holer as opposed to a one holer. But I realize it’s pretty difficult for you and Scott to get your minds around anyone from Ontario thinking that way.
You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve never been to Cuba because my wife is afraid I’d pull a jema54j and shoot my mouth off about commies and never be seen again.
Finally, my original post on Erik was supposed to be cartoon not a nuke.
I feel like Ezra, I didn’t call Erik “Velcro Lips” I just printed the news, about what others said about him. … ;>)
Posted by: nomdenet | 2006-04-23 3:08:32 PM
Well nomdenet, I accept your explanation. You should have stated that the barb was someone Else's opinion. Eric Nielson is a brilliant man and he deserves respect from Conservatives IMO. I have a short fuse for insults hurled at people I respect.
BTW I have NEVER been 'kicked out' of a restaurant for smoking. I was not kicked out of the bar I was in when the silly servants thought they would make an easy 100 dollars for the City by 'catching me' having a cigarette in - gasp!!- a public place. I offered to go to jail but the silly servants just wanted money. The owner of the establishment does not smoke but he has always supported other peoples right to smoke - if they feel like it. End result - the silly servants have given the owner of that bar a 500 dollar fine for 'allowing someone to smoke in a -gasp! - public place (a bar is a health resort, is it not?) but they don't know who that criminal was - that is because I would not tell them my name so they could write me a ticket. Heh. They keep putting off the hearing because they cannot win and their whole law will go up in smoke! Isn't that funny? I find the 'nanny state' loss extremely gratifying. There is plenty of room in this city for smoking and non smoking establishments. Let the person who pays the taxes decide for him/herself whether or not smoking will be allowed in his/her establishment.
Posted by: jema54j | 2006-04-23 4:16:31 PM
Whew, got out of that one thank goodness ..,
“hell hath no fury like the wrath of a woman whose political hero is scorned” … ;>)
Posted by: nomdenet | 2006-04-23 4:58:55 PM
Jema54j - Since the tough guys are pilling on, I may as well put my foot in my mouth (again).
It would probably be nice if you paid the $500 fine that bar owner got hit with as the result of your smoking. Then go and give them your name and fight the stupid law in the court (where you will lose) and then with the publicity run for Mayor or Smoke Detector or whatever the public office is called and get the dumb law changed.
And hopefully after you succeed in all of that you will quit smoking and then start the whole process over again, on the other side of the issue. Perhaps you will confuse them so much the government guys will all just quit going to work at all. ;-)
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2006-04-23 9:13:42 PM
That would be a great idea Conrade! Of course I would pay the owners fine but he will not have to pay it because the law states that he must allow someone to smoke in his establishment to make him eligible for a fine. The silly servants do not have a warm body to hold up for evidence. End of story. That is the reason the City keeps postponing the hearing. But I really like your idea of being on the other side of the fence when they change the rules. It would be very entertaining.
Nomdenet, sorry for the temper tantrum. The Yukon is a small place and those of us who knew Eric are still angry about the way he was treated by the 'establishment'. He made the Yukon a GREAT place to live - it was like Alberta in Eric's day; lots of real jobs, lots of excitement, lots of friendly people who were happy to be here. Since the Dippers and Liberals put their iron feet in the door it has been the most over regulated, parsimonious, boring , cold, grim place in the country. I feel sick every time I think about it.
etb you are talking to the wind again. You can go think whatever you want. I really believe you should go brush up on your manners though, as you have no reason to speak so unkindly about a man you obviously know nothing about.
Posted by: jema54j | 2006-04-23 11:29:16 PM
BTW nomdenet I had to laugh out loud, at myself, when I read your comment. You have a great sense of the ridiculous and I think my better half would agree with your assessment of me. He cringes every time I open my mouth in the presence of Liberal/Dipper people. I don't usually get 'kicked out' of places but I did get kicked out of the territorial legislature with my five year old nephew once. I sent him to the bathroom on his own, as we were the only spectators in the building. The Dippers were discussing some repressive legislation when my nephew yelled over the balcony that the bathroom did not have any toilet paper. We were told to get out by the Dipper King of the day. It was all over town in a heartbeat. My nephew was embellishing the story (adding a fist fight!) and we were heroes to some, I was a villain to others(most). My nephew told the Leader of the Opposition (a very fine man -not a Liberal) that he (my nephew) thought that the fat Dipper King had used all the toilet paper because he probably couldn't reach around himself so he balled the paper up to make it longer. That little guy got a big grin from the opposition and he was invited to the opposition chambers anytime he felt like visiting. They even gave him a VIP pass. My nephew and I are the only two people who have ever been kicked out of the territorial House of Commons.
Posted by: jema54j | 2006-04-24 12:03:23 AM
A great story about the Dippers running out of toilet paper. Given their policies, they need a lot.
Jema54j , you’re way too young to remember the old TV series, but as Sgt. Preston used to say to his dog King…
“King, this case is closed!”
Posted by: nomdenet | 2006-04-24 7:52:23 AM
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