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This is a good read
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| Jayx1 |
Very clever article that i found today in the Toronto Star. Its quite long but it's written with good humour and basically makes fun of how the government has been acting as our babysitter more and more this year.
I wont put it in quote so that it's easier on the eyes.
PS: i know the promoter who started this whole dwarf controversy. He had a good laugh about it and even appeared on CNN and various US talkshows over it.
Killjoy was everywhere
GARNET FRASER
I reckon it all started with the dwarf. By day, Bradley was a 20-year-old guy in Windsor who worked in the grocery store; by night, he was a star called Tripod. One night in the summer of 2003, at the local multicultural arts centre — oh, okay, it was a strip club called the Leopards Lounge — the 4-foot-8 entertainer was happily being heaved across the stage in a dwarf-tossing contest.
"I feel great ... lovin' it," he was quoted as saying after he had been thrown by about seven people. But his moment of aerial glory didn't come without a fight. The local MPP, deputy Liberal leader Sandra Pupatello, had led a last-minute bid to write a law banning Bradley's particular vision of a good time.
"This, in my opinion, sets us back generations," she told the Legislature, without saying what previous generation, exactly, enjoyed dwarf-hurling. (There was a bit of it in the Lord Of The Rings movies. How long ago did those battles happen?) She could not persuade her fellow MPPs to interfere in a purely consensual, private matter. But times have changed a bit.
Since their election last year, the ruling Liberals have installed Pupatello in cabinet and installed her mindset ("we'll decide what's fun") in one bill after another. 2004 was The Year Ontario Minded Your Business. The list of items the Queen's Park buzzkills have tried to ban, or succeeded in banning, thus far:
Smoking in all public places.
Pit bulls.
Biking without a helmet.
Sushi.
Junk food in schools.
And every one of these efforts, except perhaps the last, has been assailed by people who work more directly with the alleged problem. The ultra-broad smoking ban, pub bosses and workers fear, will close some businesses whose owners and employees had hoped to scrape by with the help of patio puffers. (And being without an income has its own health effects.) Just what constitutes a "pit bull" is not quite clear in the law or in life, and dog breeders and other authorities suggest that the volatility is trained into them by rogue breeders, who'll now just go underground or pick another breed. (If they can make a golden retriever go bad, there'll be no limit to the damage it could do to trusting passers-by.) And bike-helmet laws, many riders say, discourage ridership — itself a significant boon to public health — if they're enforced at all, which this one probably won't be.
Such rules may not much help the public stay healthy, but they're a lot cheaper than actually funding the health system. And as Health Minister George Smitherman is finding out, it's a lot easier to bully cyclists than nurses.
Of course, it's not just an Ontario thing. Federal MPs are pushing for a ban on trans fats; in Quebec they're considering barring children from eating poutine. In Scotland, home of the claymore, they're moving to ban the sale of swords — how long has that problem been festering, exactly? — and limit the sale of knives. (Scotland already doesn't have a great reputation as a place to eat. Now try attacking that steak with a fork and a spoon.).
If I were a more ambitious man, I know what business I'd get into in 2005: Smuggling. Even young people who respect the law could make a bit of change as a school's "Snickers pusher" and sleep easy at night. And there's no limit to the amount of contraband poutine you could move in Quebec, although you'd need a lot of luck getting a truckload of that stuff past a sniffer dog.
Life would be busy, if not more meaningful, for police and other law-enforcement types if we ever put all these bans into effect. Sure, as a rookie you'd like to be out on the streets chasing down rapists and killers, but instead you'll have to put in your time chasing down black-market sashimi dealers, or hiding in a school vending machine, setting up a Cheetos sting.
Minding what people eat will be a miserable business, because Canadians have an appetite for crappy food and always have. (McCain's and Vachon haven't prospered here because of kind words in the Michelin Guide.) These sorts of hassles from the state must being going too far if even the New Democrats are objecting. "You hear it everywhere. `Get out of my face, stop telling me how to live, stop telling me what to think.' People do not want Dalton McGuinty or George Smitherman telling them ... what values they should believe in," said New Democratic Party leader Howard Hampton — whose party took the first run at requiring bike helmets in 1991.
The provincial Liberals are not completely hopeless; they've also passed that new law allowing people to bring their own wine to restaurants. (Which only goes to show that MPPs, like most people, are strictly libertarian about freedoms they enjoy.) And if they're really trying to improve public health and not just pose, they've got lots of reasons for doing so, not least of which is budgetary. The health budget in Ontario grew by eight per cent a year even under the Tories. At that rate it'll double every nine years. But that's an argument for setting priorities and concentrating on the important stuff, not getting ambitious with micromanaging people's lives.
Maybe what we need is two levels of citizenship, like the various classes of privileges in your auto club or Aeroplan. These should probably be called Limited and Normal, but in the spirit of those groups we'll call them Silver and Super Elite citizenship respectively.
If you opt for the latter, what you do with your life will be treated as — get this — your goddamn business. You can smoke what you want, eat what you like, and throw anyone you can lift (if he's game). Never mind a helmet; you can pedal around wearing a headband stuffed with broken glass if that's your fancy. If you enter a restaurant and feel like ordering a not-quite-dead fish fillet, sparking up three clove cigarettes and betting your house on a high-school volleyball game, and you can find a restaurateur willing to accommodate you, have fun (you weirdo). You can have a dozen alligators on piano-wire leashes in your backyard unless and until they hurt someone else. Hell, you can marry the alligators, if you can find a church that'll perform the ceremony. The health care system won't be expected to clean up any of your mess for free — but your taxes will come down accordingly, which ought to help keep the party going.
As for all of you who choose Silver citizenship, the good news is that you'll be safe. Your health care will be first rate, tending to any tiny owie with alacrity.
That said, you won't be allowed to smoke or gamble anywhere. Bicycle helmets will be mandatory, as will helmets for automobile drivers — which group, after all, suffers more casualties every year? Lifting and tossing anyone, even consensually, is risky and bad for the back, whose problems are ill understood and expensive to treat; you'll have to keep your babies in a stroller and all dwarves stored someplace safe and dry.
You won't be allowed to own potentially dangerous pets, which is to say, all of them. Every corner or sharp edge in your home will be rounded down and tipped with rubber. Your meals will be selected from a carefully limited list from the Ministry of Health. All selections will be free of trans fats, "bad" cholesterol, MSG, unfrozen fish, lactose, excess sodium and excess sugar; they'll never be hot enough to risk burning you or cold enough to risk a dread ice cream headache; all pork will be carefully cooked to a cinder; Canadian beef is banned until such time, etc., etc.; and anything which might potentially cut the inside of your mouth — say, crisp bacon or toast — is verboten. Relax and bon appetit! You're living life well below the speed limit, with seat belts fastened and safety goggles on.
But keep in mind that such rules always have unintended consequences. The ban on public smoking, more than one nicotine addict has reminded me, will certainly lead to more private smoking, so the shameful cigarette fiends will be sharing their secondhand smoke not with a pub-ful of adults but with their own children. Preventing an obscure disease that's never been a problem in Ontario would have closed down every decent sushi joint around, and sushi's actually damned healthy. And here's the most delicious irony: This year, Bradley, alias Tripod, made a brief (and reportedly lucrative) stop in London to get hurled around a local bar. The owners of Club VIP said they have to try such stunts. Why? London's ban on smoking in bars.
"Having the smoking bylaw, we've had to ... keep fresh faces coming into the club. We're trying to do everything we can to keep our place busy," said proprietor Karrie Ann Baines.
The Tripod, as you might expect, has an even more solid stance. "I'm doing this because I want to," he said. "I'm an adult and can make my own decisions. I don't need anyone telling me what I can or can't do.".
Spoken like a Super Elite citizen. That dwarf seems a whole lot more grown up than Sandra Pupatello. But now she's the minister for community and social development, helping to make rules for us all. In 2005, the footloose among us should fight back and use our freedoms while we can. I'm no dwarf, but I'm small enough myself that lots of readers could probably heave me a fair distance. If you meet me and can get me aloft, go nuts. Who gives a toss?. |
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| Jem_hadar |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
GARNET FRASER
I reckon it all started with the dwarf. By day, Bradley was a 20-year-old guy in Windsor who worked in the grocery store; by night, he was a star called Tripod. One night in the summer of 2003, at the local multicultural arts centre — oh, okay, it was a strip club called the Leopards Lounge — the 4-foot-8 entertainer was happily being heaved across the stage in a dwarf-tossing contest.
"I feel great ... lovin' it," he was quoted as saying after he had been thrown by about seven people. But his moment of aerial glory didn't come without a fight. The local MPP, deputy Liberal leader Sandra Pupatello, had led a last-minute bid to write a law banning Bradley's particular vision of a good time.
"This, in my opinion, sets us back generations," she told the Legislature, without saying what previous generation, exactly, enjoyed dwarf-hurling. (There was a bit of it in the Lord Of The Rings movies. How long ago did those battles happen?) She could not persuade her fellow MPPs to interfere in a purely consensual, private matter. But times have changed a bit.
Since their election last year, the ruling Liberals have installed Pupatello in cabinet and installed her mindset ("we'll decide what's fun") in one bill after another. 2004 was The Year Ontario Minded Your Business. The list of items the Queen's Park buzzkills have tried to ban, or succeeded in banning, thus far:
Smoking in all public places.
Pit bulls.
Biking without a helmet.
Sushi.
Junk food in schools.
And every one of these efforts, except perhaps the last, has been assailed by people who work more directly with the alleged problem. The ultra-broad smoking ban, pub bosses and workers fear, will close some businesses whose owners and employees had hoped to scrape by with the help of patio puffers. (And being without an income has its own health effects.) Just what constitutes a "pit bull" is not quite clear in the law or in life, and dog breeders and other authorities suggest that the volatility is trained into them by rogue breeders, who'll now just go underground or pick another breed. (If they can make a golden retriever go bad, there'll be no limit to the damage it could do to trusting passers-by.) And bike-helmet laws, many riders say, discourage ridership — itself a significant boon to public health — if they're enforced at all, which this one probably won't be.
Such rules may not much help the public stay healthy, but they're a lot cheaper than actually funding the health system. And as Health Minister George Smitherman is finding out, it's a lot easier to bully cyclists than nurses.
Of course, it's not just an Ontario thing. Federal MPs are pushing for a ban on trans fats; in Quebec they're considering barring children from eating poutine. In Scotland, home of the claymore, they're moving to ban the sale of swords — how long has that problem been festering, exactly? — and limit the sale of knives. (Scotland already doesn't have a great reputation as a place to eat. Now try attacking that steak with a fork and a spoon.).
If I were a more ambitious man, I know what business I'd get into in 2005: Smuggling. Even young people who respect the law could make a bit of change as a school's "Snickers pusher" and sleep easy at night. And there's no limit to the amount of contraband poutine you could move in Quebec, although you'd need a lot of luck getting a truckload of that stuff past a sniffer dog.
Life would be busy, if not more meaningful, for police and other law-enforcement types if we ever put all these bans into effect. Sure, as a rookie you'd like to be out on the streets chasing down rapists and killers, but instead you'll have to put in your time chasing down black-market sashimi dealers, or hiding in a school vending machine, setting up a Cheetos sting.
Minding what people eat will be a miserable business, because Canadians have an appetite for crappy food and always have. (McCain's and Vachon haven't prospered here because of kind words in the Michelin Guide.) These sorts of hassles from the state must being going too far if even the New Democrats are objecting. "You hear it everywhere. `Get out of my face, stop telling me how to live, stop telling me what to think.' People do not want Dalton McGuinty or George Smitherman telling them ... what values they should believe in," said New Democratic Party leader Howard Hampton — whose party took the first run at requiring bike helmets in 1991.
The provincial Liberals are not completely hopeless; they've also passed that new law allowing people to bring their own wine to restaurants. (Which only goes to show that MPPs, like most people, are strictly libertarian about freedoms they enjoy.) And if they're really trying to improve public health and not just pose, they've got lots of reasons for doing so, not least of which is budgetary. The health budget in Ontario grew by eight per cent a year even under the Tories. At that rate it'll double every nine years. But that's an argument for setting priorities and concentrating on the important stuff, not getting ambitious with micromanaging people's lives.
Maybe what we need is two levels of citizenship, like the various classes of privileges in your auto club or Aeroplan. These should probably be called Limited and Normal, but in the spirit of those groups we'll call them Silver and Super Elite citizenship respectively.
If you opt for the latter, what you do with your life will be treated as — get this — your goddamn business. You can smoke what you want, eat what you like, and throw anyone you can lift (if he's game). Never mind a helmet; you can pedal around wearing a headband stuffed with broken glass if that's your fancy. If you enter a restaurant and feel like ordering a not-quite-dead fish fillet, sparking up three clove cigarettes and betting your house on a high-school volleyball game, and you can find a restaurateur willing to accommodate you, have fun (you weirdo). You can have a dozen alligators on piano-wire leashes in your backyard unless and until they hurt someone else. Hell, you can marry the alligators, if you can find a church that'll perform the ceremony. The health care system won't be expected to clean up any of your mess for free — but your taxes will come down accordingly, which ought to help keep the party going.
As for all of you who choose Silver citizenship, the good news is that you'll be safe. Your health care will be first rate, tending to any tiny owie with alacrity.
That said, you won't be allowed to smoke or gamble anywhere. Bicycle helmets will be mandatory, as will helmets for automobile drivers — which group, after all, suffers more casualties every year? Lifting and tossing anyone, even consensually, is risky and bad for the back, whose problems are ill understood and expensive to treat; you'll have to keep your babies in a stroller and all dwarves stored someplace safe and dry.
You won't be allowed to own potentially dangerous pets, which is to say, all of them. Every corner or sharp edge in your home will be rounded down and tipped with rubber. Your meals will be selected from a carefully limited list from the Ministry of Health. All selections will be free of trans fats, "bad" cholesterol, MSG, unfrozen fish, lactose, excess sodium and excess sugar; they'll never be hot enough to risk burning you or cold enough to risk a dread ice cream headache; all pork will be carefully cooked to a cinder; Canadian beef is banned until such time, etc., etc.; and anything which might potentially cut the inside of your mouth — say, crisp bacon or toast — is verboten. Relax and bon appetit! You're living life well below the speed limit, with seat belts fastened and safety goggles on.
But keep in mind that such rules always have unintended consequences. The ban on public smoking, more than one nicotine addict has reminded me, will certainly lead to more private smoking, so the shameful cigarette fiends will be sharing their secondhand smoke not with a pub-ful of adults but with their own children. Preventing an obscure disease that's never been a problem in Ontario would have closed down every decent sushi joint around, and sushi's actually damned healthy. And here's the most delicious irony: This year, Bradley, alias Tripod, made a brief (and reportedly lucrative) stop in London to get hurled around a local bar. The owners of Club VIP said they have to try such stunts. Why? London's ban on smoking in bars.
"Having the smoking bylaw, we've had to ... keep fresh faces coming into the club. We're trying to do everything we can to keep our place busy," said proprietor Karrie Ann Baines.
The Tripod, as you might expect, has an even more solid stance. "I'm doing this because I want to," he said. "I'm an adult and can make my own decisions. I don't need anyone telling me what I can or can't do.".
Spoken like a Super Elite citizen. That dwarf seems a whole lot more grown up than Sandra Pupatello. But now she's the minister for community and social development, helping to make rules for us all. In 2005, the footloose among us should fight back and use our freedoms while we can. I'm no dwarf, but I'm small enough myself that lots of readers could probably heave me a fair distance. If you meet me and can get me aloft, go nuts. Who gives a toss?. |
A fun/entertaining read, if a tad long... but i think im gonna send that one out as an email to teh peps at work... heheh, see whut kind of opinions i get back! :cool: |
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| Jayx1 |
| Its interesting how only 1 person has responded to an article that backs up pretty much everything ive ever said on here. |
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| MarkT |
I read it when you posted it...it's clever and funny...but not really worthy of any substantial reply from a Liberal like me :D
;)
I'm about to post an even longer one...I bet it will get ZERO replies, LOL. I'll post a link here as well. Great read, although obviously focused on a gay and HIV/AIDS topic, it's relevant for anyone interested in how the Conservative (extreme right, not just conservative) movement has taken over in the U.S. |
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| RobbyG. |
| Don't worry Jay I read it too & thought is was humorous & very true...I was tryin to figute out if I'm silver OR super elite:conf: |
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| Jayx1 |
ill read it... as anti-liberal as i am here i think american conservatives are out to lunch on most issues.
And when i say anti-liberal i mean the party and the twisted liberal way of thinking that excludes the majority. If Liberalism were practiced in its true form without all the PC crap Id be a Liberal. |
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| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by RobbyG.
Don't worry Jay I read it too & thought is was humorous & very true...I was tryin to figute out if I'm silver OR super elite:conf: |
Im definately super elite. Ill pay my own health care thanks! i think ill go have some french fries with extra gravy and use a knife to open the package... |
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| Fir3start3r |
Psssst.....hey buddy....black market kitkats....
helter skelter..... :clown: |
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| MarkT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
ill read it... as anti-liberal as i am here i think american conservatives are out to lunch on most issues.
And when i say anti-liberal i mean the party and the twisted liberal way of thinking that excludes the majority. If Liberalism were practiced in its true form without all the PC crap Id be a Liberal. |
fair enough...here ya go! like I said, I bet the replies will be next to nothing. Granted, it's not a "relevant" issue for many people here (at least it won't be perceived as relevant):
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...2869&forumid=12
btw...I'd be super elite too...I think we'd share a LOT more in common with our political opinions, IF (big if) I was confident that our society could handle it (which I'm not). |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
btw...I'd be super elite too...I think we'd share a LOT more in common with our political opinions, IF (big if) I was confident that our society could handle it (which I'm not). |
But out society used to be able to handle it, before Trudeau. Canada used to be even more free-market than the USA.
What happened? Shouldn't we be trying to think of ways to teach society how to handle it again, instead of wrapping it up in a thicker and thicker blanket? |
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| MarkT |
I don't think Trudeau himself created this "me me me" environment...proof of that is looking south of the border where the same mentality exists.
I think it's been an unfortunate "evolution" of our society that our society and communities are eroding...they seem to matter FAR less than the individual. I don't mean this from a "rights" standpoint, I mean from an individual consciousness one. I think more and more people are ceasing to identify as part of a community, society, etc. and think as purely an individual...an individual who wants and enjoys all the benefits of the communities and societies in which they live, but want none of the perceived contstaints either. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
Witness the banter between smokers and non-smokers. Many pro-smokers speak about their "right" to light up wherever without caring for a moment about anyone around them. The answer is "don't go to clubs if you don't like the smoke". Some anti-smokers turn around and say "tough smokers". Neither side is particularly sympathetic in that type of argument.
I struggle with my own philosophies because I generally am a vigorous defender of individual rights...but in the context of a SOCIETY that does have norms, expectations, compassion, etc. We ARE a part of Canada and I think it's beneficial to all of us that being CANADIAN actually means something. This free-for-all with individual rights is really disturbing to me...because it's NOT in the context of a society...it's in the context of "I don't care about anyone other than myself". |
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| Fir3start3r |
We're molding a generation of wimps with no personal responsibility.
They have absolutely no clue how to take care of themselves now AND in the future...:mad:
Pretty soon they'll start government funded programs and studies to check the validity of their own laws...
Sounds like some big government make-work project to me...
Totally useless... :rolleyes:
[EDIT]
MarkT: good points and I totally agree... :) |
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