🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <14052@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca>, alain@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca (W.A.Simon) writes:
> In <1992Oct26.093337.24516@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (der Mouse) writes:
>> [I just *know* I'm going to regret sticking my nose into this...]
> The slippery slope of opinion shaping debates...

:-)  I'll risk my good (?) name once more...

>> Which is better for Canada, a Canada with Quebec or a Canada without
>> Quebec?  I don't know.

Of course, there's another question that is perhaps more important to
you and me: which is better for Quebeckers?  I don't know the answer to
that one either.

> There are plenty of economic fall outs to consider, but nothing that
> two adult governments can't bargain out over time.

> Which leads us to the next question: for $64,000,000,000:
> How are we going to find ourselves adult politicians?

Beautifully put.  Your pen has a nice edge to it.

>> Whichever way [the referendum] turns out, one side will point to it
>> as evidence for their program, and the other will get upset and
>> explain why it doesn't mean what the first side says it does...

Tuesday, I was listening to the radio and I heard much silliness from
politicians about how "Canada had said no to recognizing Quebec as a
distinct society, no to recognition of native rights, blah blah".  This
of course is nonsense, typical political rhetoric: Canada said no to
*this particular way* of doing *all of those things at once*.  But does
logical thought matter?  No, of course not.  This is politics.

>} From: BFRS000 <BFRS@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA>
>} This referendum has proved only one thing: politicians and other
>} power elites do not learn lessons.  They took a giant slap in the
>} face, and they carry on as if it were business as usual.

How right you are, BFRS000.  I had no franchise; I am not a Canadian
citizen.  But I could have been; I have been a landed immigrant long
enough to claim citizenship.  And this is one of the reasons I didn't
bother: I knew perfectly well that regardless of the outcome, nothing
fundamental would change because of it, and for all the differences
between this party and that, Liberal, PC, NDP, PQ, Reform, all of them,
they are far more similar than they are different, and are more
interested in getting re-elected than in even figuring out what the
country needs, much less providing it.

Elections sound like a decent way to run a government, but they produce
government not by people who are good at governing, or who care about
the governed, but rather by people who are good at winning popularity
contests.  Bah.

Don't mind me, I'm in a cynical mood today.

					der Mouse

			    mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu