General Comments
- I've been listening to some Youtube bands recently, like Boyce Avenue, Kurt Schneider or Kina Grannis...and appreciate the lack of auto-tune in their songs. If you think a given group sucks, I don't know why you would go to their page to obnoxiously point that out. No one is making you listen to it... trolling doesn't really get anyone anywhere.
Canadian Politics
- General disdain - People on opposing sides really don't like each other. I've read countless comments about how dumb Liberals are or how stupid Conservatives are. Canada has 33 million people. It's not easy to manage that much people. Give them a break sometimes. Also, don't expect to have more public services when you're clamoring for for tax breaks. At least they're trying to do something about it. Someone on the forums noted that the boards are becoming increasingly mean spirited over the years. I can't help but agree.
- Party leaders - Harper isn't the most likeable person, but honestly, no one else could've done better during the Recession. Ignatieff isn't the most likeable person either, but he happens to have more education than more of us. I'm not a Liberal, but I'm glad he's staying in Canada to teach.
- Voter apathy - 61.4% voter turnout. As I was leaving high school, one of the biggest things drilled into me by my World History teacher is that I need to work towards being a good citizen. That means I should read the news and vote, as a duty of democratic citizen. If you're not voting, you really shouldn't be complaining. I was happy to note that more university students came out to vote this year. Not so impressed about lack of attention that party platforms gave towards students and research, but that's another rant altogether.
- Long-form census being long - Is it really hard to believe that tax dollars are distributed according to census results? How about public services and policy making? Sigh...
British Monarchy
- Queen Elizabeth II - The amount of bashing Canadians have of the Monarchy is shocking. No Canadian taxpaying money goes to England, so why are people so upset that that the Queen is our head of state? She's cooler than our recent arrays of Prime Ministries anyway, as a representative. Being a Commonwealth country is part of Canadian culture. How could people so quick to reject immigrant cultures and promote "Canadian culture" and be so quick to bash one of our biggest culture symbols?
- Governor General - I didn't really follow much of Michaelle Jean, but when David Johnston was appointed GG, I looked up his background...to find that he was actually pretty ownage (Order of Canada, was dean of law at UWO, principal of McGill and president of UW, among other things). When Harper nominated Johnston, he noted that Johnston was among "the best of Canada." It's hard not to agree. I think it's pretty awesome to have someone of his caliber representing our country.
Religion
It seems like people just enjoys going to these pages and rant against religious intolerance, without realizing that they're behaving intolerantly themselves, against religion. Isn't no faith a religion itself?
- Muslim extremists - I am friends with some Muslims. They're pretty nice people. Extremists happens everywhere. Atheists (ie Stalin), Christians (ie Ireland)...apparently, there's even Buddhist extremists.
- Anti-Christian sentiments - Unsurprisingly, I spend a large amount of time browsing Christian articles and pay more attention to moral/theological impactful news articles. Like the Rapture claims, or the Bountiful polygamy case. I found it surprising that people would log onto a newspaper like Christian Post and bash general Christianity. Makes me wonder how much they actual know about Christians and what causes these sentiments.
Perhaps too much of an opinion piece today.
3 comments:
Actually, I read somewhere Harper is paying some $3 million CAD for Prince William's honeymoon in Canada. I think we are also the only Commonwealth country to do so.
@Maximilian
That does sound familiar. I know Harper gave them some wedding gift of some sort and it came out of government budget. Though, I would point to that as a sign of international goodwill and paying respect as oppose to Canada being forced to pay the UK a tribute.
Most people don't understand how tightly ingrained the Monarchy is to our system of governance. The legal and constitutional role that the Crown plays is really interesting and actually defines Canadian political culture a lot more than we might realize. Most people simply see the Crown as the ceremonial, apolitical head of state, which is why most people wonder why we still have a monarch, but the Crown has some very real power, should it be forced to exercise it.
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