Friday, January 13, 2006

Panglossian Lament


I slogged my way through a newspaper today, though not much gets past my filter. I find by ignoring everything that's not actually news (crime, calamity and anything else whose template doesn't change-just names and places) I can read the paper in about two and a half minutes.
I did notice that it seems like we're headed for a conservative majority. While I'm slightly concerned about re-opening many debates that I'd prefer to lay rest, I'm confident that the courts will keep a firm stranglehold of the status quo. If I look ahead with Panglossian glasses to see a bright side of this, I wonder if we won't see a more muted regional 'alienation.' I use quotations because I am of the opinion that regional gripes are really just national gripes that have been harnessed by political opportunists. Its easier to mobilize people by awakening their latent clan based thinking by telling them that Their problems are unique. I think there are certainly urban and rural needs within confederation but these really don't change from one end of the country to the other. I wonder if a conservative majority won't evaporate some of this rural angst by at least creating the illusion of representation in the minds of rural conservative voters.
I know its an infrequent forrray into politics for me these days but I'm going to vote in the advanced poll tomorrow. Let me do this thing while the fit is on me!

ps with apologies to Leibniz but imitation is the highest form of flattery.

1 comment:

starcat said...

A problem with electing the right can be seen in the US: giving the social conservatives power will validate their whining agenda, and they will only push for more; there is no appeasement. They will see what has been strongly branded a politcal change as rather a mandate for their crusade (to be splenectic) against the a/im-moral.
Their are other reasons, but they play out daily in the US blogosphere, and besides I'm tired.

and a weird thing: I actually had to reload the comment page, because the verification word was initially too hard to make out?!