The Right Are Wrong!

A strange trend that has been going on with increasing frequency is that of right wing ideologues running for public office on the platform of reducing government. One would think that if someone thought a certain entity were too large, the best way to decrease its size would not be to join it. That’s like hating food and wanting to be a cook in a restaurant and wanting to get rid of the dishwasher and the waiters; or hating music and wanting to be a member of an orchestra to petition for the removal of the horn section and the percussion.

Obviously these ideologues think the best way to change an organization is from within. Once inside, they can sabotage it more effectively and reduce its ability to function, thereby ‘proving’ the incompetence of the government. It is a malicious ideology and one that should alert voters to the possessor’s nefarious intentions.

I speak of people like Rob Ford, Thatcher, Reagan, the Bush dynasty and virtually all candidates of the last thirty years put forth by the Conservative parties in Canada and the U.K. and the Republicans in the U.S.A.

They are under the impression that as population grows and inflation rises, the expense of keeping a society together should fall. Any child who passed third grade math should understand that that makes no sense. Until we outsource our roadwork, schools, armies and everything else that falls under the heading of ‘government’ to India or China (an impossibility), the cost of running a government and keeping people comfortable should only rise. This fact alone would prevent any sensible person for voting for ideologues who say that government needs to be reduced as its workload increases. Unfortunately, ideologues are more common than sensible people. The election of the aforementioned parties proves that.  

People have vast and tolerance for inconvenience when it is labeled as convenience. There are cities in the world where it is normal to sit in traffic for hours each day and people put up with it and say they have no choice. Little support exists for a change to rail systems that would necessitate a bit of walking and the loss of their ‘privacy’ but would ultimately save time and money. People would rather sit in their car with their music and move at two kilometers per hour and thirty cents a kilometer. The price varies, the average speed of traffic jams doesn’t.

Forgive my cynicism but it seems to take major catastrophes for most people to want to fix something whose broken nature is already apparent.  Bah…I am going for a bike ride!