Another Example of Leftist Ugliness and Hypocrisy

Strangely, prior to yesterday, I had not heard of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests.  For the benefit of others who apparently live under metaphorical rocks, "Occupy Wall Street" is a leftist grassroots movement opposing "corporate greed" and "economic inequality."  With the rightist Tea Party movement in the spotlight for the past couple years or so, many people are comparing the two grassroots movements.  While OWS is protesting "corporate greed" and "economic inequality," the Tea Party is protesting government greed and economic inequality.  The reason I put the object of OWS in quotation marks and not the object of the Tea Party is that I believe in the Tea Party's cause, unlike that of OWS.  Corporations have every right to be greedy, so long as they are in compliance with the law.  I do not believe the government has this right, as its purpose is nothing more than to serve its constituents.  And, economic inequality, as I see it, is caused by the redistribution of wealth.

While the fundamental difference between the two movements is the political ideology that motivates them, another key difference is the method of protest.  Tea Party protests, in general, are peaceful and law-abiding (or so I hear).  OWS protests, on the other hand, are not.  Twenty-three OWS protesters were arrested yesterday in New York City for disorderly conduct, only a few days after a much larger arrest (see quotation below).  I can't remember ever hearing of anyone arrested at Tea Party protests, nor can I find any evidence in a quick Google search (I do, however, find links about anti-Tea Party protesters being arrested).  Keep in mind that the Tea Party movement is several years old, compared to the fledgeling OWS movement.  My Google search did result in me finding this fantastic article, however.  Here is an excerpt (emphasis added):  

One aspect of the Occupy Wall Street and other leftist activism that is a definitive divergence with the tea party movement is disruptive behavior.

On October 1, over 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested — mostly for disorderly conduct — during a march across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Despite two other peaceful marches across the bridge by other groups earlier that day, the Occupy Wall Street crowd couldn’t resist blocking traffic and scuffling with police. 

When not under arrest (approximately 100 other arrests occurred over the weeks of the protest), the Occupy Wall Street crowd is actually occupying the privately-owned Zuccotti Park, whose owners are working with city officials on plans to return it “to its intended purpose.” 

This rowdy attitude of the radical left is something that, by mistake or design, is grossly unreported in the media.  As the Tea Party must fend off allegations of being violent and racist, leftist protests that are unruly don’t get similar coverage. 

I’ve been active in the Tea Party movement since 2009.  As a black woman, I define the movement’s political diversity and have always been quick to defend its inclusiveness against those who would try to slur it with racist accusations.
I have had the amazing opportunity to meet thousands of freedom-loving Americans who are involved in the movement on their own time and these individuals are sincere in their efforts to reign in our government gone wild by holding our elected representatives accountable. 

As a frequent speaker at Tea Party events nationwide, I’ve never seen the same behavior as described during Occupy Wall Street’s Brooklyn Bridge demonstration.  Tea Party activists, in my experience, police themselves.  Additionally, I’ve never been to a rally in which the grounds weren’t as clean or cleaner than when the first activist arrived. 

Doing a Google search of “tea party activist” and “arrest” brings up nothing of merit.  On the first page, I found three articles about people described as tea party activists, but the arrests were unrelated to rallies. 

Another article, about the demonstrations outside the U.S. Capitol Building on the weekend of the Obamacare vote in the House, reports one man — one single person — was detained after being accused of spitting on a congressman.  But that person was immediately released, and no one has come forward to legitimize the claim and collect conservative Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 reward for providing proof. 

Furthermore, Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa told people waiting to see President Obama speak at a Labor Day rally that they need to “take these [Tea Party] son of a bitches out.”  And there was a January 30 rally in Rancho Mirage, California in which progressive protesters, many of whom were attending a nearby conference sponsored by Common Cause, were caught on video saying they wanted to “torture” and “hang” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Salacious allegations against the tea party will get more coverage than actual law-breaking by the left.

It is evident that leftist protests embody the negative attributes that conservative protests are wrongly accused of embodying.  Not that you would ever be able to tell by watching the news, though.  Do we have enough proof now that many leftists are hypocrites?

And, a final note: this is not meant to apply to all leftists.  Only the crazy ones.  

Alberta's New Premier

Alison Redford is the new premier of Alberta, after winning an upset election to determine the new leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, over Gary Mar.  I am disappointed in the result, as Redford promises to put "progressive" back in Progressive Conservative Party.  In other words, she will likely move the party leftward.  She also promises "change."

I haven't been paying very much attention to Alberta politics, but I didn't really think change was necessary in Alberta.  Given Alberta's relative success (relative to the other provinces) and conservative politics, the concept of "change" makes me uneasy.  Will a less conservative premier more heavily regulate the oil industry, thus weakening Alberta's economy?

Here's a chilling passage from the Edmonton Journal:

Jacquie Eales voted for Alison Redford on her way home from her 13-year-old daughter’s basketball game.
The 47-year-old Edmontonian, a liberal at heart, didn’t vote on the first ballot. In truth, she says, the Progressive Conservative leadership race wasn’t on her radar. 

Then, on the way into work one morning, she heard Redford on the radio.
“She talked about the importance of education and health care, and those are two things that are important to me,” Eales said Monday. 

“It’s unlikely that there will ever be a Liberal leader in Alberta, so I thought, if I want to make a difference in terms of education and health care, perhaps I need to buy a PC membership and vote for a candidate who might have a chance.” 

But she didn’t immediately buy a membership. That point came when a friend involved with the advocacy group Friends of Medicare sent her an email highlighting Redford’s support for public health care. “I thought, if I want to make a difference, I have to vote.”

Redford might as well be a Liberal.  The thought of a Liberal leading Alberta is frightening.  One of my favorite things about Alberta is its relatively conservative politics.  Here's an even more chilling passage (from the same article):

“I don’t think Mar did himself any favours musing about having a debate about privatizing health care,” Duffy said. “I don’t know which is worse, talking about it or trying to run away from it, but that’s the worst of both worlds.” 

He said Redford’s campaign ran on a classic public-services platform. 

“So here you’ve got Redford talking about education, reaching out to soccer moms, and then Mar starts talking about privatizing medicare,” he said.
“At that point, you’ve got a classic set up between an in touch, family-responsive candidate who wants to deliver public services, and an out-of-touch business guy. ... It’s a perfect contrast.

So, not only does Alberta now have a CINO (Conservative in Name Only) premier, but the favourite would have considered privatizing health care.  Think about what Alberta could have had!

Hopefully, Redford's premiership ends after the next election, which will apparently be soon.  While the Progressive Conservative Party has governed Alberta for about 40 years, that is because Alberta is a conservative place.  Fortunately, conservatives in Alberta have another option, the Wildrose Party, a formerly minor party, that has been making significant gains in polls, even winning one by a wide margin (in 2009).  To me, this party resembles the Tea Party movement.  It is a fiscally conservative, right-libertarian party with a social conservative branch.  With the Progressive Conservative Party moving leftward, the Wildrose Party's niche is expanding, and the Progressive Conservative dynasty in Alberta may hopefully end soon.  It is worth mentioning that the election Redford won had two parts.  Voters wrote two names on their ballots.  In the first part, only the first name on each ballot was counted.  If there was not a majority, the third place candidate's votes were given to the candidate whose name appeared on the ballots that originally went to the third place candidate.  After the first round, Gary Mar had a plurality of the votes, while Alison Redford gained a narrow majority after the second round.  What this means is that Redford did not win the election convincingly, which is good for the Wildrose Party, which will likely attract disgruntled Conservatives next election.  It is also worth mentioning that many people apparently joined the Progressive Conservative Party just to vote for Redford.  

Here are some Wildrose Party ideas/observations that I particularly like:

• Restore the role of elected MLAs by mandating that all votes in the Legislature and caucus be free and reported to the public
• Non-confidence votes would be held as separate and stand-alone votes, allowing MLAs to vote on proposed legislation based on the interests of their constituents
• Implement legislation allowing for citizen-initiated referenda and voter recall (support thresholds to instigate both processes must be sufficiently high to eliminate frivolous initiatives)
• Institute fixed dates for general elections, senate elections, budgets, legislative sessions, and Speeches from the Throne
• Establish an independent Cabinet and MLA pay and benefits review process that prevents the Premier, Cabinet, and MLAs from setting their own salaries
• Create transparency in finances and budgets by ensuring government debts and cash deficits are reported accurately and in a timely manner
• Post MLA expenses online
• Take an aggressive stance with the federal government in regards to the equalization program in order to ensure that billions more of Albertans’ hard-earned tax dollars remain in the province, working for the benefit of Albertans
• Exercise our provincial constitutional rights by demanding that the federal government not regulate our industry or property in the name of “environmental protection”
• We will dismantle Alberta Health Services and gradually decentralize the delivery of health care to locally managed and integrated hospitals, Primary Care Networks, family physicians, specialty centres, long-term care facilities and other health services
• We will reduce wait times for specialists and procedures by opening delivery of publicly paid services to any accredited private and non-profit provider
• In terms of policing, our province is facing significant challenges as it tries to deal with organized crime, gangs, child exploitation, identity theft, and white collar crime. Too often, the rights of the accused and convicted criminals seem to supersede the rights of victims.
• Protect the rights of victims by advocating for federal legislation that would see convicted criminals financially compensate the victims of their crimes without the need for costly civil trials
• Over the last 20 years, the Human Rights Commissions in Alberta have probably been the single worst offender of Rights: i.e. freedom of speech; politically correct activists have used them to punish religious and right-wing social commentators. Even when found not guilty, its expensive and time-consuming
• Restrain per capita infrastructure spending to a level consistent with the national average.
• Streamline and decentralize procedures to ensure more funding flows directly to individuals and families in need, and would phase out regional PDD boards in favour of a more localized approach to funding decision-making
• Encourage small and medium business investment and growth by ensuring Alberta is the lowest-taxed jurisdiction in North America
• End the current government’s failed strategy of picking winners and losers by handing out corporate welfare grants to hand-picked corporations
• CFIB say over-regulation costs Alberta $4B per year. Their 2010 report says Alberta and Manitoba are ranked the lowest among the provinces when it comes to reducing this burden
• According to a Fraser Institute report, a sweet gas well that should take 10 days and $1,000 to get regulatory approval takes almost three years and cost $100,000
• Actively review and reduce the unnecessary regulatory burdens that compromise the competitiveness of our key industries

There were some ideas I didn't like, and many more that I did, but I like the party's overall message.  

Perhaps the election of Alison Redford is a blessing in disguise, as one-party dynasties tend to engender corruption.  Hopefully, the Wildrose Party will continue to gain momentum and make Alberta politics more competitive.

Is Canada Becoming a Police State?

To answer the question that constitutes the title of this post, no.  Of course not.  What an absurd thought.  To those that believe it is, may I suggest moving to Myanmar?  Perhaps that will allow you to see what an actual police state is.  I am a strong believer in “infringing” on people’s rights.  Not their fundamental, inalienable human rights, but the rights that allow them to get away with crime (such as the “right” to privacy).  A reason for jeopardizing that right should be necessary, but it is simply too easy to commit crime because it is too difficult for police to do their jobs. 

It is said that it is preferable for one thousand guilty men to be free than for one innocent man to be incarcerated.  To that, I say, “Huh?”.  If one thousand guilty men were free, as well as one innocent man, then there is the potential for at least one innocent person to become something worse than incarcerated.  The point of a criminal justice system is to lock criminals away from society (to keep society safe), not to keep innocent people from being locked away from society.  At least one possible solution to this is to rid of all these technicalities that free obviously guilty people.  And if someone is probably guilty (beyond reasonable doubt), then it makes sense not to free them.  I reckon the phrase “beyond reasonable doubt” has become meaningless (or its meaning has transformed into “beyond the slightest possibility of doubt”). 

Some actual possible solutions: install conspicuous cameras everywhere (in public, of course), allow for random locker searches (lockers are the property of the school, after all), allow for random drug tests, and give police more power in general, while also limiting it.  Personally, I see no harm in any of this.  I welcome any arguments as to why it may be harmful. 

When I hear of accusations of police brutality, or other such accusations against the police, I am usually skeptical.  That someone would make such an accusation for political gain is quite easy to believe.  I do think that there should be an independent agency that performs investigations into police conduct, because sometimes these accusations are genuine, but I would conjecture that some people just have an unreasonable sense of what “rights” they are entitled to, and how the police should treat suspects (as if they were their grandmothers, or something).  And, given what the police do, I believe they deserve the benefit of the doubt.