The Path To True Wisdom

This is going to sound incredibly corny but I'm going to quote Weird Al Yankovic for the philosophy that will lead you to wisdom. Maybe you won't become an enlightened spiritual leader of billions but you will become an informed responsible member of society and a example for all humanity.

Everything you know is wrong,
Black is white, up is down and short is long,
And everything you thought was just so important doesn't matter.
Everything you know is wrong,
Just forget the words and sing along,
All you need to understand is everything you know is wrong.

Because of the method of delivery it sounds much sillier than it actually is. In fact, it isn't silly at all, it is the ultimate wisdom! Nothing, not even knowledge is absolute. Much of it is misinformation, or worse, disinformation! Even the most widely accepted facts may be based on pure fiction or downright lies. Even science is subject to new theories that model the truth better than the old, accepted knowledge. So, since any specific piece of knowledge may be completely false, and even the strongest pieces of knowledge may be proven wrong at some point in the future it only makes sense to accept that everything you know is, at least to some degree, wrong.

This is how young children learn. They have an inherent understanding that there is far more that they don't know then there is that they do know. This makes the knowledge that they currently hold highly subject to change or reinterpretation. This is how all furry four-legged animals start off being labeled as "doggy", then later get broken off into "doggy" and "kitty", and eventually come to have separate categories for hundreds of different animals from mice to elephants.

Somewhere along the line, we lose this propensity to reinterpret what we know. We 'grow up' and become preoccupied with 'being right' rather than 'getting it right'. By the time we are teenagers we place the feeling of independence above even safety and thus tend to want to reject anything that disagrees with our current view of the world. The fact that we have been exposed to virtually nothing by this point in our lives and the fact that our brains aren't even capable of handling many more complex ideas don't hinder our blatant manifestations of pride and disrespect.

It is during this brief period of transition where our knowledge is still somewhat mutable, but is becoming more and more resistant that we begin to 'create' terribly ignorant 'knowledge'. This is the process that teaches us to separate "person" into multiple categories like "black" and "white" or "Christian" and "Muslim", when the differences are far less significant than the similarities. It also pushes us to make patently false associations like coupling "poor" (or "fat") with "lazy", "rich" (or "religious") with "righteous", or "pretty" with "good" (and thus "ugly" with "evil").

If you keep in mind the fact that everything you know is wrong every time you are presented with information you will have done what most people never do -- conquer ignorance. A great many advances in science have been delayed by scientists being bogged down by what they were taught instead of exploring interesting independent ideas, philosophies or ways of thinking they had that are not consistent with their teachings. If the people noted for great accomplishments in history acted like the vast majority of humanity, the ones that don't appear in the history books, we would still be in the stone age. We would still think the sun and stars revolve around the Earth. We would think that the world is flat, and that it is possible to sail off the edge of the Earth. We would never has learned Einstein's Theory of Relativity and thus all nuclear power and nuclear medicine wouldn't exist. Virtually all societies would be ruled by autocrats, be they tribal elders, hereditary kings or vicious warlords.

You will avoid the pitfall of ignoring both empirical evidence and the truth sitting right in front of your nose just to protect the false and worthless comfort of 'being right'. Every single piece of human experience is influenced heavily by every experience that happened earlier. You'll have defeated the all-powerful preconceived notion. You will become immune to propaganda, and with a little luck, immune to hate. Continuous learning is one of the greatest virtues known to man. Learning, the ultimate utilization of God's greatest gift to man -- his brain -- is the best way to glorify God. When we allow what we think we know to make us resistant to knowledge we have turned from God and begun to do the Devil's work. If you accept this truth than it becomes fairly obvious that most of the world's religions have fallen from grace and have long since begun to do the Devil's work.

The worst that can happen if you are willing to consider a new truth is that you will discover it too to be wrong, in which case you can just continue on with what you originally believed. "No harm, no foul" meets "nothing ventured, nothing gained". At best, we can cast doubt on what we believed and become more open to greater, more universal truths. Maybe, by the time we pass from this world we might actually know something worthwhile, or better yet, have contributed something while we were still here.

It is most unfortunate that the people who most flatly refuse this philosophy tend to seek and somehow be given leadership positions. This is tantamount to the blind leading the blind. Actually, it is more like the profoundly blind leading the barely-able-to-see 'legally' blind. But, we only have ourselves to blame for their rise to power. By and large, we put them in those positions, which begs the question, "does that make us more blind than they are?" Even when men force their way into leadership so they may foist their personal choice of blindness upon others we can still blame ourselves for having let them. There are always ways to stop this from happening though they do tend to involve great personal risk, so naturally we make every excuse possible to avoid doing it, and then blame others for having let it happen.

This particular kind of blindness is called "ideology" and it is the worst kind of knowledge. It is particularly bound to the belief that what you currently know is the only and absolute truth and what you value is critically important while nothing else is even remotely important. And thus economy rules over ecology (or biology if you prefer). It's best to ignore Climate Change (AKA Global Warming) because it is inconvenient and doing anything at all about it would be disruptive to the economy. To that I say, "That is entirely theoretical -- it might be true that embracing new technology and new lifestyles may end up enhancing the economy. After all, if you haven't noticed, what we're doing right now isn't exactly doing so well!" Also, to that I ask, "how much money do you make after you are dead?"

Ideology is frequently based on no facts whatsoever and is therefore virtually immune to influence from actual truth or even direct evidence to the contrary. Ideology is more about emotion than fact. It is more about personal identity than fact. The world is becoming increasingly ruled by, and even obsessed with, ideology. The only way to combat this is to enter every situation with the basic understanding that everything you know is wrong!

More Bad Government: Afghan Immigration

Canada's Conservative government has found itself caught between three different aspects of its Right Wing ideology.

Ideology #1: Support the War Machine

Right Wing policy dictates that you support the war machine unequivocally.  This means supporting soldiers and their causes, veterans and their causes, military contractors and their causes, and a generally Hawkish stance on just about everything.  In this case, there is an issue of fulfilling a promise that helped support the Canadian military in their mission in Afghanistan.

Ideology #2: Immigrants Need Not Apply

Right Wing policy also dictates that immigration is overwhelmingly bad.  As result, you can expect a tightening of the rules concerning all aspects of immigration, including refugee claimants.  The only possible exception are wealthy immigrants that pay their way into the country and (hopefully) come to spend their wealth locally, stimulating the economy.  This theory tends not to happen in reality, but ideology is ideology and reality seldom matters.  In this case, Afghanis that assisted the Canadian mission as interpreters in Afghanistan are seeking to immigrate to Canada.  This can be viewed as repayment for taking on a job with such a high mortality rate or for assisting Canadian soldiers and helping keep their mortality rate lower by  helping them communicate effectively with the locals.

Ideology #3: Don't Tell the Public Anything

This particular nugget of Right Wing ideology borders on neo-fascism.  Sometime it actually crosses that line. This Government has shown a resolute refusal to let any information about the workings of government, decision making and implementation of policy.  Freedom of Information access requests are illegally ignored or refused on the grounds of national security.  Not even the courts can sway this Government to fulfill its legal obligations to the people of Canada.  Apparently, everything that happens in the governance of Canada is a matter of national security.  Here, this ideology rears its ugly head in the form of punishing someone who dared breach the wall of silence and informed the public of what is actually going on.

If you want to be particularly critical of this Conservative Government you could add another ideological stance:

Ideology #4: Promises Are For Elections, Not Policy

This one is fairly self-explanatory.  The Government will fulfill the promises that Canadians generally don't want because they fit the Government's ideology.  But promises that swayed middle- and lower-class Canadians to cast a ballot for the 'Party For Plutocracy' (governance by the wealthy, for the wealthy) will uniformly go unfulfilled.

To tie these together, what is happening is the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has been dragging its heels in general on a Government promise refused to help Afghanis that assisted the very recent Canadian military peace mission in Afghanistan relocate to Canada.  Further, they have actually refused to admit interpreter Sayed Shah Sharifi.  In the eyes of the CIC Sharifi exercised 'terrible judgement' in speaking to the Press about the frustration he was feeling about the delays in processing his immigration request.  What he should have done is sat silently and suffer the stress over the molasses-like CIC.  And if the slow progress turned to no progress or a denial then he should have quietly accepted the reneging on the Government's promise, as though that is their imperial right.

So what we have is a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.  In the case of this Government it would be more accurate to say that the Right hand doesn't know what the other Right hand is doing.  When Conservative ideology ends up being at odds with itself you can be reasonably certain thet the Government will make the most incorrect choice, and by that I mean the one that is worst for Canadians.  Failing to live up to the promise of granting admittance to interpreters endangers the ability of future missions to obtain local allies for any tasks, including interpreting.  This is a slap in the face to the military, every soldier that served in Afghanistan and every member of their families.  It is bad enough that the Government is doing what it can to shut down the borders, but now they are promising people admission and then quietly refusing them.  And when someone dares break their Vow of Silence meant to keep Canadians unaware of what is happening in their own country you can expect punitive action.

Perhaps, before this matter is resolved, the Government will do the right thing instead of the Right thing.  It is perhaps more likely, however, that the matter will drag on until the Press and public have tired of it and/or forgotten about it entirely and then thy will do the most wrong thing, as they seem to be doing now.

As the instances of misbehaviour and bad governance pile up, I have to wonder how many, if any, of these issues will be recalled by the Canadian electorate when called upon to vote once more.  That is so far in the future that there is ample opportunity to even forget Syrian- or Iranian-style wholesale slaughter of citizens that dare disagree with the Government's ideology.  (Maybe this will be the fate of the Occupy movement?)  Canadians certainly didn't hold the Conservative Government to task for their political and/or ethical indiscretions as a minority government!  Now that they are a majority it only makes logical sense that the indiscretions are going to get larger and harder to ignore or forget.  I have full faith in the bulk of my countrymen to manage to ignore and forget everything no matter how serious, personally relevant, or even criminal, they may be so long as they are presented with the promise of a reduction in taxes by a single penny.  That's what they have always done and I suspect it is what they will always do.  And so long as this Government is allowed to manage the flow of information even tighter than Bush-Cheney-Rove what manages to enter the public consciousness/domain will only be the tip of the iceberg.

Canada is in trouble.  Big trouble.

Worst Legislation Ever!

On Tuesday November 1st, the Canadian Federal Government, or as it likes to be known, the Harper Government, unveiled the worst piece of legislation in my lifetime and possibly in the history of this, or any other, presumably democratic country!

The purpose of this bill is to eliminate the Long Gun Registry.  Libertarians and anarchists, groups that broadly intersect gun owners, don't like the registry.  This is not surprising as they disapprove of all forms of government information gathering.  If they could get away with driving without driver's licenses or even license plates, the certainly would.  Not only are these 'wretched' forms of government 'interference', they cost money!  That's like a tax!  Nothing is more evil than taxation!

I deride this attitude openly.  John Donne, a 17th century Christian scholar, stated that "no man is an island," yet these people continue to strive for exactly that ideal.  Ask nothing of them for they will do nothing for you.  Not surprisingly, they stick to this philosophy right up to the point where they need something from someone else, like the services of a specialist like a doctor or engineer.  Every society on the planet agrees that man is a social animal but libertarians and anarchists disbelieve.  They would live free of the influence of others -- of civilization.  I say let them, and point to Antarctica as a perfect place for them to set up their new world vision free from interference.  The penguins pretty much keep to themselves.

This same population almost universally supports the Conservatives in every election at every level of government.  A few break off and support fringe parties that move even farther to the political right, which in my opinion is 100% based on ignorance, ideology, selfishness and greed, or alternately insanity.  (I wanted to be more provocative but I couldn't figure out how.)  So, it is no wonder that this government is all too eager to kill the Registry.  They promised to do so in order to win those ideological and one-issue votes and now they're following through.  Of course, the reason they gave for doing this was that it was prohibitively expensive!  What price does one put on piece of mind?  What price does one put on the rational effort for promoting safety?  Governments, particularly conservative governments, promise, lie and renege with alarming regularity but for this issue you better believe they're going to follow through.  'We', and I use that term loosely, gave them a majority government so they can do anything they want.  They pretty much did that ignored all the rules and the interests of the Canadian people with a minority government so expect them to be on their worst behaviour!

Never mind the fact that doing this is in the "best" interest of absolutely no Canadians.  In other words, it ill-serves even the ideologues that most fervently support it.  How and why do I say this?  Every police force and agency in the country has come forward in favour of keeping the Registry.  Chiefs of police tend to be fairly politically conservative -- some even run for office as Conservatives -- but they completely sided against their elected government on this issue.  Quite simply, it helps them do their primary job of protecting citizens.  This is not just theory, it is historical fact.  Clearly, protecting the citizens from the potential of violent, gun-related crime is not a priority for this government.  Protecting them from 'big government' is by far a more real and pressing concern!  Don't you agree?  This is ideology at its very worst!  What's worse is that it is cosmically stupid and can't be rationalized at any level, at least not any more than cutting off your nose to spite your face!

Part of the problem is that extremely dangerous, non-hunting related weapons were tracked in the registry and without it there is absolutely no record keeping at all for these semi-automatic weapons and sniper rifles.  Why Canadians are legally even allowed to own these guns is completely unknown to me.  To not register them is just asinine!  No rational person would even suggest it!

Canada, welcome to the United States...only worse.  Why worse?  Since the implementation of the Long Gun Registry, all of the other forms of record keeping regarding such weapons have been eliminated since they were now redundant.  The Conservatives have absolutely no plans to reintroduce any of these safety methods and precautions.  As far as they're concerned it would defeat the whole secret purpose: reducing the size and scope of 'government interference' and to remove 'limitations' on the 'freedoms' of Canadians.

The only problem with that is that there were no limitations on freedoms and some government functions are absolutely essential!  Eliminate something else!  Surely there has to be something less critical!  As far as freedoms go, no one was ever prevented from obtaining, keeping or using long guns in legal fashions.  That's not for what the Registry was used.  All it does is provide law enforcement with a tool to trace guns used in crimes back to their owners.  Gun owners have a reputation for not reporting gun loss and theft which has in some cases limited the usefulness of the Registry, but the fact remains that most gun crimes are committed by the lawful owners of guns.  This is because, as often as not, gun crimes are crimes of passion, not organized or street crimes and for this the Registry is indispensable.  (Why wouldn't they report lost or stolen guns?  For the same reasons that they don't want their guns traceable -- they despise and distrust all forms of government, even the ones they elect!)

For the small price of smaller government, for the first time in more than four decades, there are no measures for recording or tracking long guns in Canada.  Sorry officer, we just don't care to help you protect the citizenry.  You'll have to solve those crimes without trivially easy to maintain clues.  Presumably, gun owners are immune from crime, unless of course they are committing it.  If crime dares to touch their lives I presume they will simply hunt down the perpetrators, or the ones they think are the perpetrators and shoot them with their untraceable guns.  No need to both the police, after all, they are just an extension of despised and distrusted government.  The inmates are officially running the asylum.

Instead of maintaining this essential crime-fighting tool the Conservatives will do more ideological things to, at least in their minds, compensate.  They'll increase the penalties for crimes committed.  It has been shown that prison terms are not an effective deterrent.  On the other hand, belief in getting caught rather than getting away with it has been shown to be an effective deterrent.  Without the Registry, criminals have more reason to believe they won't be caught, and why not?  It makes perfect sense.  Life terms or even death sentences won't compensate for that loss of deterrent.  Since there will be less deterrent, there will be more crime, but don't worry.  The Conservatives plan to build more prisons for all the additional criminals and their longer sentences.  Frankly, the main thing this accomplishes is that it increases the magnitude of the nightmare of the wrongly accused and convicted.  And surely without the essential crime solving tool that the Registry is, there will be more and more wrongly convicted people as well as more unsolved crimes.  Another win for the people of Canada!  Thank you, Conservatives ideologue morons!

But even this is not enough for the Conservatives.  It is not enough that they change the law now.  They want to make it as close to impossible for Canadians, or their future governments, to change their minds.  They plan on destroying all the already collected gun registration data.  In other words,  they aren't willing to pay one red cent to keep track of the most dangerous personal weapons known to man but they are willing to spend money to ensure that rebuilding or replacing the Registry will cost countless megabucks.   Changing one's mind is the only intelligent thing to do when you get new or better information that indicates that you previously made a mistake.  The Conservatives are building their own insurance policy against future information.  They want their policy to exist regardless of whether it is ultimately proven right or wrong.  In their minds, it is their right to force what could always be a mistake on Canadians in perpetuity.  Claiming with absolute confidence that this is not a mistake is purely ignorant and quite insane.  They call it the clarity of the mad!  Destruction by its very nature is the mark of bullies, villains and small minds.  It is infinitely easier to destroy something than it is to build something.  It is never a good idea to destroy something unless there is a strong, concrete plan to rebuild or replace.  This Government not only has no plan to rebuild or replace, they want to make it nigh onto impossible for anyone else to ever rebuild or replace.  What they are doing is the political equivalent of burning the crops and then salting the earth so nothing will grow there forevermore.  They are doing this to Canadian soil!

It is wrong.  It is corrupt.  IMHO, it is evil.  It empowers criminals, what else would you call it?  And it is entirely typical of the bunch of yahoos that are currently running the country.  Ideology rules and logic is the enemy.  Thought is not valued.  If you are bright you are 'the elite' and to be marginalized.  Remember that tripe from down south?  I'd like to say that we can still hope that they won't do anything else so damaging to Canadian culture and the Canadian people, but we all know they will.  They're just getting started!  They were only elected in May!  We can expect four-and-a-half more years of this downright criminally negligent form of 'leadership'.  May God help us all, or better yet, may God stop the Conservatives or at least force them to see the error of their ways.  A few (say ten?) well-targeted and obvious plagues would come in handy right about now...  (It's a biblical reference.  The conservatives will get it.)

Election Day in Ontario

It's election day in Ontario and I haven't blogged nearly enough about the issues and smokescreens that have been bandied about by the politicians vying for your vote.  This post is likely too late for you, but there's always the next election.

I see no rational reasons to vote for the Progressive Conservative Party (or the Conservative Party federally) other than pure unadulterated greed.  Yes, the PCs have successfully branded themselves as champions to various special interest groups and religions but that branding is largely based on fiction.  I'm sorry if you fall under that category and you voted PC -- don't expect any return on your electoral investment because it won't be coming.

Last I checked, greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins of Man.  If you're OK with having a Deadly Sin as your motivation for voting then you probably don't deserve a vote.  Still, you have one, and you've exercised your right to do as you please.  Unfortunately, we all pay for your selfishness and folly.  I hope you don't consider yourself a good person because you just failed that test.

If you're looking for a Centre-Right party to put your vote behind and don't want to buy into the ridiculous agenda of the PCs look no further than the Green Party.  Surprised?  The Green Party actually has a Centre-Right fiscal policy behind their environmentalist central theme.  The Green Party has been looking for a break in Canadian politics but our stupid First-Past-The-Post system makes it next to impossible for them to do so. Instead, this system gives us majority governments that received support from about 20% of eligible Canadian voters.  What's worse is they call this 20% 'landslide' a mandate for their Right Wing agenda.  Of those that actually voted, about 70% said 'Hell no!' to the Conservative Party, yet they have received their fictitious 'mandate' and they are now equipped to muscle through absolutely anything.

If you are more pragmatic and insist that your vote have a chance of affecting the outcome of the election, I have two pieces of advice.

First, leave Ontario.  While you're at it, leave Canada.  The electoral system here does not empower the voter to make a difference in the outcome of the election.  In my 25 years of adult life I have never cast a ballot that mattered in the slightest.  By that I mean that in none of the elections of the past 25 years, at any level of government, have I voted for the winner in an even remotely close election.  Either my candidate wins by a landslide making my vote superfluous, or my candidate lost meaning my vote had no part at all in affecting the ultimate outcome at all.  At least federally each vote translated into funding dollars, until the Conservatives squashed that, which of course was in their best interest to do given the fact that their supporters are mostly rich people and corporations who have the means to donate generously while the other parties have supporters of more moderate means and have to scratch and claw to pull together party money.  Was it in the best interest of Canadians?  Not even close!  So much for fairness, hello to pure ideology, on our way to pseudo-dictatorship?

Even if/when you do get lucky enough to affect the outcome in your riding/ward/district/constituency you still have virtually no say in the outcome as a whole.  Case in point, in past elections more than 50% of Torontonians voted Liberal compared to about 25% (Progressive) Conservative support -- an overwhelming result.  Unfortunately, the rest of Ontario/Canada had results predominantly for (Progressive) Conservatives with most of these results close races.  Taken to the extreme, it is quite possible in our electoral system to handily win the popular vote and lose the election by a landslide.  The fact that the Centre-Left vote is split between two parties and the Centre-Right is wholly represented by one (until the Greens break through, whenever that is) biases the system for (Progressive) Conservative results.  The fact that Liberal and New Democratic governments have been elected at all says much our overall political leanings.  All it takes for the (P)Cs to win are a few people here and there swayed by charismatic figures, lies, borderline slander and promises of tax cuts... tax cuts which along with a flood of service cuts will see them worse off than before they cast a ballot for big Blue.  Unless of course you own a significant chunk of  a major corporation or two, and/or happen to be among the very top earners in the province/country -- then, the tax cuts pay off in spades, as if the loopholes/tax shelters you are afforded weren't already enough for you to (largely) shirk your responsibility to the community as a whole.

Second, vote for a party that actually cares about the country/province as a whole and not just what their country/province can do for them.  By and large, we have two of them to choose from: the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party.  If you live in Quebec and have a separatist preference the Bloc/Parti Quebecois is a better, more responsible choice than the plutocrats and oligarchs that make up the (P)C Party.  These parties have shown the willingness to temporarily carry policies that run counter to their general ideological framework if doing so is in the best interest of the province/country.  It was the Liberals that balanced the budget and orchestrated surpluses.  It was (mainly) the (P)Cs that squandered those surpluses and turned them into record deficits and debts.  Perhaps we can give ALL the political parties a free pass for the events of the past several years.  If you weren't paying attention, the entire global economy has tanked in historic fashion and our provinces & country were not immune to this phenomenon.  Deficits were strategic buffers against bigger, deeper recessions.  (And if ALL western governments of the past 40 years hadn't been in the back pocket of corporations, slowly but surely killing the economy by eroding the wealth and earnings of labour and the Middle Class down, while at the same time creating ever more profitable environments for corporations, this strategy might have worked.)

Not so for the (Progressive) Conservatives.  They are married to their ideology regardless of what might result from sticking to their guns (pun intended).  The abolition of the long gun registry in spite of every police force across the country being in support of maintaining the registry is a prime example.  What do the police know anyway?  So what if the registry has actually helped in solving crimes?  Only the convenience of the gun owners matters.  And, after their gun is stolen/lost/sold it's no loner their concern so they don't care at all.  The police do.  And they would too if they were the victims of the crimes committed with their long guns.  Sadly, the gun owners largely live in the burbs and in 'God's country' whereas the crimes committed using their guns largely happen in the cities.  NIMBY at its best.  Thank you sportsmen/hunters for absolving yourselves of responsibility for gun ownership.  I have no respect at all for people who are all up in arms (pun intended) about their rights but are nowhere to be found when it comes to responsibilities. Here's an idea.  Love you gun so much?  Move South where guns are the state religion.  You'll fit right in and our society will be better off for your absence.

So, now that you've heard my take on Ontario & Canadian politics.  Go vote if you haven't already.  (And if the ballots haven't closed.)  I predict a tiny majority government for the Progressive Conservatives because they market themselves better than Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Microsoft and Nike combined and most voters are sheep, following the most obvious carrot -- even when they know it is poisoned.  Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, this government will last less than a year before a non-confidence situation forces another election.  Just what we needed was to spend more money deciding which incompetent, egotistical and self-interested boob we want to represent us.  Sadly, this is the best system we can can come up with... at least for now.