Friends are Electric

An idealist is someone who follows a set of beliefs blindly, with no regard to the real world, and hopes to have the world adopt their ideas.  There is usually negativity in the word, as someone who is an idealist lacks meaningful contact with the real world where they actually dwell.

I think that this is moderately backwards.  Certainly there are some traces of idealism in those who, often correctly, point out how we as humans could be better.  These people, however, are not the truest idealists.  Nor are they the ones deserving of the condescending undertone of the term.

The true idealists in the world today are those who seriously think that we, as individuals, as a city, province, country or world can continue to live the way we live without consequence.  Without change.  Without taking active part in this change.  The idealists are those who preach the preeminence of the market’s god-hand in deciding fate.  They fail to grasp the true interconnectedness of things, the fallacy of universals and the way the world really works.

It is up to those who understand, or at least understand better, to call these people out on their idealism.

Collective punishment is banned by international law in times of conflict.  Rightfully so, one is responsible for their own actions but certainly not for those of another.  War can never be civilized, but it can be made easier for those unfortunate enough to have it find them.

Collective punishment is not legal in Canada.  For the same reasons.  We would all be against the punishment of an entire city block for the actions of one resident, or the punishment of entire towns for the actions of a few.

But yet, it exists.  Not in the violent  sense mentioned above, not here and now at least (whether the war in Afghanistan is an incidence of collective punishment itself is a question worth discussing).

Insurance, automotive insurance, is an incidence of collective punishment on the basis of age and sex.   The onus, instead of being on the companies themselves to prove that the person is unsafe, is on the driver to prove that they are competent.  This would be understandable, with age as an approximation of experience, so long as those older people just beginning to drive are also subject to the same fees.  And if sex did not factor into it.

But it does.  And so the situation is one of collective punishment against young people in general, with young males punished to a greater extent.

Statistics, is claimed, proves that these groups are more likely to be in an accident and are thus more costly to insure.  This may be so, but it is the company which must show that a particular person, not a general person, is a greater risk and thus warrants a greater rate.  Sexism is unacceptable under all circumstances. Age discrimination is equally unacceptable but a lack of experience is, in this case, I believe a defensible cause for an increased rate.

Current norms are unacceptable, whether or not one could truly qualify them as a case of collective punishment.

The bank of Canada is not controled by parliament.  Many see this as a grand thing, as the people can not meddle in the economy.  I would call them fools.

The bank is ostensibly independent, but is largely run to the benefit of business.  Certainly what is good for business sometimes matches what is good for citizens, but not all the time.  This is strange, since rights of a citizen are constitutionally guaranteed,  while businesses are just a construct.  Constructs have protections of their interest which we, citizens, do not.

Parliament represents us, the people of Canada.  If parliament does not control the bank, then we do not control the bank.  The bank operates in the interest of a subset of citizens who have no doubt convinced themselves, and perhaps many others, that what is in their interest is in the interest of Canadians as a whole.

It is a problem.  A problem lacking a clear solution.

One wonders how

What is the purpose of an education?  Forget for a moment post-secondary education specifically.  Much more generally: Why do we go to school?

Well, early on we go to school because its the law.  Why is it the law?  Democracy does not function with an illiterate population.  Truly, one of the major reasons why the residents of what would become Canada pushed for self-government is because individual farmers lacked the resources to educate their children on their own.  They needed the whole of society to support the education of a child.

Did they want an education for their children so that they could work?  In part.  They wanted a better life for their children and wanted a better society to live in.  Work is part of that, but not even the most important part.  Educated masses were the goal, for educated people are more difficult to push around.  It was a way to preserve gains.

Fast forward.  Why do we go to university? To get work? Hardly.  Work is important, and many of us have deluded ourselves into thinking that the goal of our education is a job at the end of it.  Like those who believe they are voting for a party or prime minister, they are not exactly wrong, just confused.  With government, we elect someone to represent us and indirectly select a governing party and prime minister.  With school, the work which comes after is not the goal but a desirable side effect.  The goal is to make citizens of students.  Citizens who can think and question.

Thats how it is.  As for how I think it should be, I believe that the government should only concern themselves with citizenship. Specific technical skills should be left to vocational training, which itself should be handled by the industry or professional organizations.  For example, provincial professional engineering organizations should run engineering schools, which may be associated with universities or collages, but not necessarily.  Vocational training should feature apprenticeships, much like many collage vocational training programs already do.  The focus should be on the utilitarian technical skills rather than abstract knowledge, which belongs in the realm of citizenship focused schools.

The confusion of schooling for knowledge and schooling for technical skills is something I view as negative since it downplays the importance of citizenship in us all.  It is something we should focus on repairing.

A revisit to my dislike of Toronto

To feel belonging to a place is necessary in order to like it.  Perhaps not a personal, direct belonging, but at least some form of it.  Not necessarily the feeling of `home’, but something like it.  A place here can be a physical place, such as a city, town or any other point on a map.  It can be a metaphorical place, such as the concept of home.  It can be part of society as a whole.  In order to belong you must be able to imagine yourself, your place, in it.  Without being able to do so you will not be enjoy a place.

Clearly by the above statement and past writings, I cannot imagine a place for myself within Toronto.  I am not alone.  I have a place elsewhere for myself.  The problem comes when both groups, and both groups are guilty, fail to recognize that not all of us can imagine ourselves in the same way as everyone else, and thus, as we all really know, there is no universal place.  No clear ideal which everyone must achieve, where everyone must be.  The pleasures of life are not the same for everyone, and we all must respect that.

A carelessly quick survey of a random assortment of websites would make it seem that, in order to be happy, we have to try and become something else, to change ourselves in some way.  Most obviously in the form of body enhancement advertisements, but these are some of the less dangerous and least concerning sources.  Certainly they are irritating and stupid, but most of us recognize them as such.

The dangerous types are those which attempt to offer the author’s wisdom.  As though any happiness, material success or whatever other desirable they are selling is not a product of all of their experiences and was instead caused by a few choices, be they insignificant or not.   The author is sincere in his offering and probably believes that the reader can become just like them by following these few steps…

That is not what I shall do.  My experiences (and here I go, ignoring what I said above) tell me that universals are false.   What works for me, what challanges me, what makes me actually happy with myself will not be the same things that work for you.  I spent years studying a topic I did not enjoy, it was hardly challanging.  Nor was it easy, but the mundainity of it all made it impossible to derive joy from.  Thats the case for me, many of my good friends find the topic to be quite the opposite.  Nietzsche was wrong about a whole lot of things, but he spoke true on the need to overcome universals and find what works for you, to see how the other lives.

So here is the challenge.  It is simple to state and impossible to implement.  Life is the struggle to do so, to me at least.

Live as you want, study and do what makes you happy.  Don’t let your pursuit of these things prevent another single person from doing the same.  Compromise, sometimes when you do not need to.  It makes both your lives better.

Do not be smug or judge other people for taking a different path than your own.  Their happiness is not a thing to be ridiculed.

That is it.  That is all.  As a first step I’d recommend reading a book, a real book.  On paper.  The medium is the message and the message of the screen is constant interaction and more information than you can ever hope to digest, the book is more calm and suitable for such baby steps.

I’ve written previously about my distaste for Toronto.  I’ve also claimed that this is not a mentality unique to myself, for truly it is not.  I explained one theory which I think provides the why to the action.

Now I shall refine that thought further.

I find Toronto as a physical place to be greatly unpleasant.  This is, however, just an opinion.  Many of us who grew up outside of the world’s largest cities would share such feelings owing to the total lack of anything natural within the city.  Certianly trees are planted all about, but never do they appear natural.  Even when a forested area is left, it is ruined by the excessive noise pollution of the roads which inevitably follow along near it.

This is not to say that the physical city lacks any attraction, since the ample opportunity for one to exercise boundless consumerism would be a desirable quality to many.  Any with an interest in urban architecture would also find their interests addressed within the city.  My argument is that these aspects of the physical city are insufficient to derive any enjoyment from, at least in my case.

There is the cultural city of Toronto as well.  One would be hard pressed to negatively write about this, and I shall not.  Pure cultural diversity is not the only thing that matters by a long shot, however, it can be a very positive thing.  I would say that Toronto as a cultural entity is somewhat positive in nature, if not wholly positive in nature.

The problem is neither the physical city nor the people who live in it.  The city itself is rather ugly and oppressive to me.  The people are friendly enough so long as you never utter the greatest blasphemy known to them, that Toronto is not the greatest place to live.  No, neither of these are the true nature of my distaste for this city.

The real problem is the idea of Toronto.  That, by virtue of living in Ontario at least, and perhaps Canada as a whole, one should be familiar with the street geography of Toronto enough to recognize a caricature of a map is the centre of the issue.  Toronto expects and demands awareness and seems unable or unwilling to cope with the idea that perhaps it is not the ideal form of life, eve for one person.  That, by living in the same province as the city, we should be informed of who the mayor is and what his daily actions are is an example of this.  (This last point is weakened by the fact that recent mayors of Toronto are eccentric enough to often warrant such coverage regardless of their city’s relative importance.)

I understand that Toronto is an important location and a very populous one.  I just find it impossible to care about where street x crosses street y and what shops can be found in such a local.  So please, a little understanding.

I will not comment on whether or not inflation is beneficial or otherwise.  I know not the answer.  I will not comment on the magnitude of inflation which is healthy.  I do not know the answer.   I will comment on a few causes since I do know the answer.  Not all causes will be addressed since, again, I am not familiar with all causes.

To determine whether or not you are personally an agent of inflation you need only ask yourself one question and one question alone: by doing my job, do I produce wealth.

This is a much more complex question than it first might appear.  Money is not itself wealth.  Money is only wealth if it is backed up by material or intellectual goods.  If you are not producing such goods directly then you are a personification of inflation.  You personify inflation because you make money without producing wealth, which is the working definition of inflation we are using here.

This is necessarily a simplification, but for the sake of argument it is appropriate.

This is not to say that if you personify inflation that something is fundamentally wrong.   Many of the jobs which fall under this catagory are vital to life, such as doctors and nurses, make the rest of our lives easier, such as sanitation workers, or make the actually productive people function better, such as managers.

I feel as though it is unnecessary to discus doctors, nurses and sanitation workers as I feel as though their value is self-evident.   I intend to discus managers in some detail, however.

Some management is important to the functioning of society.  Someone needs to make sure that many functions, such as agreements between the company the government, actually take place.  Other examples of useful management would be people who do not directly add wealth to society but increase the value of final products in other ways, such as people who write manuals and those who test prototypes and those who repair damaged goods.

In modern times, however, management structures have become too large and organizations are routinely supersaturated with managers.   I wonder what a healthy ratio of managers to productive people is.  I wonder how many layers of managers is needed to run an organization.  I wonder why some of our most apparently successful institutions are comprised solely of managers.  I wonder why, when we already have far too many managers already, schools are still eager to produce as many managers as possible.

If their purpose was only to provide a snapshot reference of a language at a given time, one could successfully argue that dictionaries have a purpose which sufficiently justifies their existence.  This is not the current state of affairs, and the usefulness of dictionaries should be questioned.  Perhaps we should even go as far as to question the very existence of them.

Language is an organic thing.  It grows and develops naturally through continued use.  Words and phrases obviously fall into disuse with time, but the structure of language itself is also subject to change. The way we spell and pronounce words today is very different than the way they were done in the past.  Its the natural evolution of language.

Dictionaries function as repositories of `truth’.  They are used as the truth on the subject of language.  If common usage differs from what is contained between their covers, then common usage has deviated from the greater truth and must be corrected. This acts to prevent the natural growth and development of language as a whole.

Language is one of the most important aspects of culture. Dictionaries and their truths act to restrain the natural development of language, and thus of our culture as a whole.

The next time someone quotes a dictionary to prove a point, you would do well to question their motives and arguments. Agents of regressive forces should be resisted.

This morning, in my mailbox, was this delightful message from our local Member of Parliament, Peter Braid.  Before I continue and, so to speak, remove the muzzle on myself, I should point out that in the grand scheme of things, Peter Braid has done a fine job here in Kitchener-Waterloo.  He is, as far as I can tell, not the problem with the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).  However, it is difficult to really determine things for sure since Mr. Harper keeps all of his MPs quite quiet most of the time.  The problem with the CPC is Mr. Harper’s autocratic leadership style.  That, however, is a low hanging fruit for another time.

The main message reads:

In these tough economic times, standing up for families is more important than ever.  The Conservative Government is delivering on its commitments to families.

We understand that everyone is stretching to make ends meet.  Our Government introduced measures that give families a break, long before the global recession hit, and now Canada’s Economic Action Plan is making sure families get the support they need.

We have delivered a new child tax credit, the Universal Child Care Benefit and a break for families that enroll their kids in amateur sports.

The marriage penalty in the tax system has been removed.

Registered Education Savings Plans have been strengthened, so families can plan better for the future.

All of these measures have helped put Canada and Canadian families in a strong position to weather the storm, and set the stage for a promising future.

The Conservative Government is also helping young families get a head start on buying their first homes, by providing up to $750 in tax relief.  We’re also providing first-time home buyers with more flexibility to buy or build a home.  They can now withdraw up to $25,000 from RRSP savings to do so, an increase from the previous limit of $20,000.

These measures don’t just help first-time home buyers; they also stimulate our economy by boosting demand for housing, which is a key driver of economic activity in Canada.

The Home Renovation Tax Credit is an important foundation of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.  We are lending a hand to families who want to improve their homes as their most significant investment, and at the same time, giving a boost to tradespeople and businesses that produce and sell building materials.

This year, as we fight the global recession, families will be able to claim a credit for eligible renovations worth up to $10,000 and receive up to $1350 in tax relief.

Right across the country, Canadian families are benefiting from this tax relief by improving kitchens and bathrooms, building new decks, laying new carpet or even putting on new roofs.

This activity is putting contractors, carpenters, and all kinds other trades people to work.

It’s generating local business at everything from hardware stores to lumber yards.

In turn, the entire Canadian economy reaps the benefits.

The Home Renovation Tax Credit, and the other new investments we’re making to stimulate the economy, are designed to create and protect jobs during this period.

All these measures reflect our belief that by making life a little easier for families, we can build a stronger Canada.

I found this to be a laughable piece, and will now take you through it, paragraph by paragraph.

In these tough economic times, standing up for families is more important than ever.  The Conservative Government is delivering on its commitments to families.

While this is pure false populism and thus disgusting, there is technically nothing wrong with it.  It does, however, set the tone for this entire piece.

We understand that everyone is stretching to make ends meet.  Our Government introduced measures that give families a break, long before the global recession hit, and now Canada’s Economic Action Plan is making sure families get the support they need.

I’d call both of these points entirely false.  The first is certianly, the second might be a matter of opinion.

Firstly, I recall Mr. Harper saying something to the effect that Canadians should be buying stock right now, since it is such a good deal.  He said this during an election campaign after the crisis had really struck.  An election campaign which he ran largely without a platform, and thus, without a plan.  The fact is that the crisis really started to strike noticably a few weeks earlier than this, and to the best of my knowledge nothing was done about it for quite a few months owing to a prorougeing of Parliament.

It has been pointed out to me that technically, from an economist’s standpoint, a recession starts after two quarter years of negative growth.  So the recession would not have started until later than when things went bad.  I call nonsense on this point, if this is the argument the CPC is using then they have failed at communication.  Use regular style english, not professional jargon, when communicating.

We have delivered a new child tax credit, the Universal Child Care Benefit and a break for families that enroll their kids in amateur sports.

Amature sports are definatly a middle-class past time.  This is good for the middle-class, who were hit rather hard in the ongoing depression.  The only negative comment one can say about this is that it will not benefit those hardest hit.  This is a trend in CPC policy, and by extension in this pamphlet.  Moving on to tax credits.  A tax credit will only benifit those who would be paying taxes, if you are unemployed, you probably do not pay taxes.  Again, hardly helping those who need it most.

The marriage penalty in the tax system has been removed.

Now, until I read this pamphlet I did not know what such a thing was.  Apparently, to use their slant on the matter, it is descrimination against single-earner households who pay higher tax rates than an even split between the two with the same overall total wage.  Certianly such descrimination, which is what it is, should not be encouraged.  There may be issues regarding which persons work in a household which this solution glosses over, and I intend to find out more myself, but for now, I’ll give the CPC this one.  Well done.

Registered Education Savings Plans have been strengthened, so families can plan better for the future.

Good policy, but those who need assistance most lack money to save and are statistically less likely to educate their children.  Neither of these issues are addressed, granted, the later is a permanent problem and one can hardly blame the CPC alone for it.

All of these measures have helped put Canada and Canadian families in a strong position to weather the storm, and set the stage for a promising future.

This statement is true if you benefited from any of the above listed items.  If you were a middle-class family with money to invest and spend on leisure and had a single wage earner, you are benefiting greatly from these policies.  This does include a very large number of Canadians, and I will not take away from that.  However, one must remember that this is not everyone and that there are many Canadians who truly need assistance.

The Conservative Government is also helping young families get a head start on buying their first homes, by providing up to $750 in tax relief.  We’re also providing first-time home buyers with more flexibility to buy or build a home.  They can now withdraw up to $25,000 from RRSP savings to do so, an increase from the previous limit of $20,000.

Allowing people to use up any savings they may have to get the economy started up on the exact path that just lead to ruin, bravo.  Add more tax cuts which don’t help people who cannot afford a home or people who don’t pay taxes and you have more standard conservative policy.

These measures don’t just help first-time home buyers; they also stimulate our economy by boosting demand for housing, which is a key driver of economic activity in Canada.

Again: inflated housing prices help no one.

The Home Renovation Tax Credit is an important foundation of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.  We are lending a hand to families who want to improve their homes as their most significant investment, and at the same time, giving a boost to tradespeople and businesses that produce and sell building materials.

I’ve always disagreed that a home is an investment.  A home is the place you live and grow.  Perhaps it is idealistic of me, but I find it impossible to put a price on such a thing.  Much less allow it to cause intense inflation.  However, this does promote spending and does employ some tradespeople, so while I find this ideologically unpleasant, it may actually work.  Again, only if you already have money to spend and have any taxes left to pay after all these tax credits.

This year, as we fight the global recession, families will be able to claim a credit for eligible renovations worth up to $10,000 and receive up to $1350 in tax relief.

Right across the country, Canadian families are benefiting from this tax relief by improving kitchens and bathrooms, building new decks, laying new carpet or even putting on new roofs.

This activity is putting contractors, carpenters, and all kinds other trades people to work.

It’s generating local business at everything from hardware stores to lumber yards.

I won’t bother repeating myself on all this again.  It may work, but it doesn’t assist everyone in the country equally.

In turn, the entire Canadian economy reaps the benefits.

Time will tell, but I expect that it will have some benefits.  Just not equally across the board.

The Home Renovation Tax Credit, and the other new investments we’re making to stimulate the economy, are designed to create and protect jobs during this period.

All these measures reflect our belief that by making life a little easier for families, we can build a stronger Canada.

I won’t fault them on these last statements, this is just politician talk and any party would say the same.

In summation, the Conservative Party of Canada is behaving like a conservative party probably should.  I will not say that they do not have Canada’s best interest in their mind, since everything they have done does address the problems at hand, albeit in a round-a-bout and convoluted way which I find ideologically disagreeable.

I think my days of reading mail propaganda are over for a while.