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Rant: Escape from New York 2005
Wed, 11 May 2005

I know - I know - who am I as a Canadian to comment on American politics? This is just the usual reading-too-many-news-sites-and-getting-sucked-in silliness, but what the heck..

Well, they're sure fun to watch sometimes (did you notice I put the politics category under Entertainment here?), and the US is our greatest ally and largest trading partner, so we really should be supportive or at least paying attention. Further still, the Americans are really a lot like us .. essentially the same background with shared borders (and vacation spots.. how many of us have driven to the US for shopping or to hit up Vegas?) ... just with a government that has a backbone (and is a trifle over-eagre to get into a fight.) The US is Canada's Big Brother in every sense of the word.

One thing I'm cynically proud of is that our government is more or less paralyzed to inactivity half the time (and very much so right now due to scandal) so sits idly by and ignoring those questionable bills that are brought about in the US -- questionable bills like the introduction of the DMCA or various RIAA/MPAA right-stealing laws as off the top of my head examples -- but by the same token numerous laws do get imported here either because of lobbying, corruption, idea stealing or just plain old implicit relationships (if the RIAA somehow kills the iPod or mp3s we'll certainly feal the sting here!) - so we must maintain some watchfulness.

(I do have a point, but me frothing on at the mouth about politics really must be boring!)

Now, I've never been much of a war monger (though I do believe you must stand up when the wrong time arrives), but I very much firmly believe in supporting those who do for us what we cannot, do not or are afraid to do ourselves .. if our, or some, government decides there must be war for good or evil, then we must at least ensure our soldiers (our families!) have at least a shot to survive and come home or do what needs to be done, and so deserve proper funding for equipment etc. Now, the Americans have never been ones to sit idly by (which is one of their great strengths and also weaknesses.. the tragic hero complex) and thus do tend to get into these sorts of messes more often and so do tend to support their troops afield (thank god!), so it was a no-brainer when this latest bill passed to provide a whole pile of money to the war machine in Iraq.

Well and good. What scares me is the stuff that gets slipped in under the rug. I'm sure this is well covered elsewhere and its not really my point to go on like this, but what worries me is the sheer willingness to just staple a questionable bill that desparately needs debate onto something which is fundamentally needed ... thus passing the sneaky bill without question. When a small group of people can slip a law into play without proper notice or debate, and that law changes the fundamentals of personal security and privacy... its just another step on that slippery slope to a police state.

So we must hope this trend doesn't continue under the banner of 9/11, and we must hope that this sort of behaviour doesn't come up north. We have to protect our citizens, but we don't need a corrupt government giving money away (see the Liberal scandal) nor passing laws without the elected bodies inspecting them or else we've really fallen down a big hole..

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