4 ms·

Maybe what you've seen is due to where you are, as it certainly doesn't match what I've seen. Where I live in Alberta, people have been swinging hard to the rig

by CamJN 7y ago

Maybe what you've seen is due to where you are, as it certainly doesn't match what I've seen. Where I live in Alberta, people have been swinging hard to the right. They've already shown they'd rather elect a highschool flunky and send their carbon taxes to Ottawa than treat people with dignity or consider alternate career paths. Even people who were fairly reasonable before the last provincial election just lost their minds and starting parroting incoherent bullshit they heard from the radio. And it has only gotten worse with the federal election looming.

Mikeb85 7y ago
Did you only just move to Alberta? It's literally always voted right-wing except our very brief NDP government. The PCs (Progressive Conservatives, remember them?) literally ruled our province for 44 years. The OG populist right-wing party originated here (Reform Party). Remember Ralph Klein? The original high school flunkie Premier. Alberta's always been like this.
- CamJN 7y ago
  I've lived in Alberta for a few days less than 29 years, and I'm aware that people have elected conservatives for the majority of that time. Perhaps it was due to the respite offered by the NDP gov, but I honestly feel that the stupid has gotten way worse than it was before we had the brief NDP intermission.
core-questions 7y ago
> Where I live in Alberta, people have been swinging hard to the right. They've already shown they'd rather elect a highschool flunky and send their carbon taxes to Ottawa than treat people with dignity or consider alternate career paths. Like many, you're confusing the map for the territory. What they've shown is that they want to vote for someone who has a realistic plan that will actually improve their day to day lives, by doing what they collectively believe is necessary to bring economic success back to the province. Maybe you think they're wrong about the economic success; that's something that can and will be tested. Maybe you think there's a better way to get there; if so, that's a message that needs to be packaged and disseminated in a way that doesn't villainize the normal families in Alberta who simply want to be able to have good employment and purchasing power for the hard work they're willing to put in. Maybe you think they're wrong because of the long-term environmental impact. You may be right, but it's very difficult to get people to act against their short-term interests in favour of their supposed long-term interests, especially when they disagree with you about the latter. The only path forward on this front if you strongly believe in the environmental aspects is to actually strategize a way forward economically that provides the same level of economic prosperity to people as oil did. I get that this is an extremely tall order, but when you're telling people that the only way forward is for them to get used to the idea that they're all going to be living in government housing and eating maggotburgers, don't be surprised when they reject your vision of the future in favour of someone else who promises something more appealing. What if - gasp - someone started a right-wing green party? What if we capitalized on the sentiment of the right (rejecting communism, state-enforced equity / egalitarianism, being self-made and self-sufficient, etc) but channeled some of that into new, green projects that people can actually make money off of, like nuclear power? Environmentalism has basically made itself into a left-only political idea, and this is a critical weakness which might doom us all.
- CamJN 7y ago
  Leave it to the right wing to require that doing the right thing be as profitable as externalizing the costs of doing the wrong thing. The externalized costs of doing what we've been doing need to be forcibly returned to the people doing them, just like any time society has improved itself. From slavery to the environment and everything in between, externalizing costs will always be cheaper and therefore will always be the business friendly, right wing approved course of action.

by CamJN 7y ago

Mikeb85 7y ago

Did you only just move to Alberta? It's literally always voted right-wing except our very brief NDP government. The PCs (Progressive Conservatives, remember them?) literally ruled our province for 44 years. The OG populist right-wing party originated here (Reform Party). Remember Ralph Klein? The original high school flunkie Premier. Alberta's always been like this.

CamJN 7y ago
I've lived in Alberta for a few days less than 29 years, and I'm aware that people have elected conservatives for the majority of that time. Perhaps it was due to the respite offered by the NDP gov, but I honestly feel that the stupid has gotten way worse than it was before we had the brief NDP intermission.

core-questions 7y ago

> Where I live in Alberta, people have been swinging hard to the right. They've already shown they'd rather elect a highschool flunky and send their carbon taxes to Ottawa than treat people with dignity or consider alternate career paths. Like many, you're confusing the map for the territory. What they've shown is that they want to vote for someone who has a realistic plan that will actually improve their day to day lives, by doing what they collectively believe is necessary to bring economic success back to the province. Maybe you think they're wrong about the economic success; that's something that can and will be tested. Maybe you think there's a better way to get there; if so, that's a message that needs to be packaged and disseminated in a way that doesn't villainize the normal families in Alberta who simply want to be able to have good employment and purchasing power for the hard work they're willing to put in. Maybe you think they're wrong because of the long-term environmental impact. You may be right, but it's very difficult to get people to act against their short-term interests in favour of their supposed long-term interests, especially when they disagree with you about the latter. The only path forward on this front if you strongly believe in the environmental aspects is to actually strategize a way forward economically that provides the same level of economic prosperity to people as oil did. I get that this is an extremely tall order, but when you're telling people that the only way forward is for them to get used to the idea that they're all going to be living in government housing and eating maggotburgers, don't be surprised when they reject your vision of the future in favour of someone else who promises something more appealing. What if - gasp - someone started a right-wing green party? What if we capitalized on the sentiment of the right (rejecting communism, state-enforced equity / egalitarianism, being self-made and self-sufficient, etc) but channeled some of that into new, green projects that people can actually make money off of, like nuclear power? Environmentalism has basically made itself into a left-only political idea, and this is a critical weakness which might doom us all.

CamJN 7y ago
Leave it to the right wing to require that doing the right thing be as profitable as externalizing the costs of doing the wrong thing. The externalized costs of doing what we've been doing need to be forcibly returned to the people doing them, just like any time society has improved itself. From slavery to the environment and everything in between, externalizing costs will always be cheaper and therefore will always be the business friendly, right wing approved course of action.