World living in a strange and dangerous time
By Lethbridge Herald on January 10, 2024.
Editor:
Here are a few thoughts on the shape of the world at the end of 2023 and hoping that 2024 will be better.
Let’s start with the old saying that history repeats itself over and over again, and nothing ever changes.
All through history there have been empires, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the British Empire the list goes on and on. For the most part they all collapsed because of greed, immorality, corruption ect.
Which brings us to the current “empire,” the USA.
I agree that the USA does not fit the definition of the previous empires in that for the last 100 years or so it has been a huge benefit to the rest of the world. It put Europe back together at the end of the Second World War, It bailed out England ( the British Empire) during the Second World War.
However I respectfully submit that the USA is going down the same path as previous empires and is in a steep decline, all because of greed, corruption and immorality.
They elected a man who has no morals, no sense of decency and is an out-and- out liar to be president and unbelievable as it may sound might just get elected again.
I consider myself a Christian, but I’m having some difficulty with the word Christian at the moment as about 40 million evangelical Christians are set to re-elect Donald Trump again.
But it does not come as a surprise. During the last U.S. election campaign, Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, was asked during an interview on national TV why he condoned Trump committing adultery but condemned previous presidents for having done so.
Mr. Graham’s answer was that the previous presidents had done so while in the White House, Trump had done so prior to becoming president, and apparently that made it acceptable.
Well if the head of a large evangelical Christian church expresses that view then I submit that there is no hope for the U.S., and they will go down the same path as all the other empires before them.
Now how about Canada. I grew up in Holland and came to Canada in the summer of 1967. I was 22 years of age at the time, and I can honestly say that that was the best move I have made in my life, and I have often said that my life really started in 1967. I became a Canadian citizen as soon as I was allowed to.
The Canada of today is not the Canada of 1967; however it is still a great place to be, but like the USA it is on the decline and it is partly because of whom we elect to be our leaders. It appears that most politicians are in it for themself, at least the ones at the top of the food chain. We now have a Prime Minister whose only claim to fame is his last name, ultimately you get what you pay for. Let’s have a look at the current Prime Minister-in-waiting, Mr. Pierre Poilievre . It’s my opinion that Mr. Poilievre would be a great addition to the TV show Saturday Night Live. He is great at putting down people with one liners, but I suspect that all this glibness is masking a lack of substance. Here is a man who, during the 2022 occupation of downtown Ottawa, openly encouraged people taking part in that protest by shaking their hands and bringing them refreshments. And let’s not kid one another, all those protesters were breaking the law and here is a man who wants to be the number one lawmaker in the country condoning people to break the law. All this makes for a very difficult decision as to whom to vote for come the next election. We are living in a strange and dangerous world. However I also remember when growing up during the early 1950’s in Holland adults were saying what’s the use of having children, there will be no future for them, Well we are still here,
So we can hope and pray that it will all end well.
Barney Feenstra
Lethbridge
18-17
One error you make Mr Feenstra. The protest in Ottawa was legal. We have that charter right in this country. The useless politicians and pathetic police around Ottawa don’t know how to deal with those situations.
So why did so many of them get charged with criminal crimes, or are you going to ignore that ? Are you going to ignore the fact that only 23% of Canadians supported it and the only politicians who did were these Reformers trying to pretend that they are conservatives ? While 90% of truckers did not support it nor did their bosses. You would have never seen the Peter Lougheed our family knew being this stupid, would you?
What appears to be demonstrated in this comment is outlined in Kruger and Dunning (1999): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/
old school understands that speech and assembly are protected rights under the Charter. For reference, those rights are addressed in Sections 2(b) and 2(c), respectively. However, what he fails to understand, apparently, is that under Section 1 of the Charter, rights “can be limited by law.” In other words, Charter rights are not absolute.
So, the question is: Does the Charter and related case law provide us with any further direction with which to assess the facts of the Ottawa Trucker Protest?
In answer to that question, the Charter does indeed address the right to protest and the right of assembly, but several key Charter cases have determined that those rights are not absolute. Gatherings that (a) seriously disturb the peace, or (b) impede or block lawful activities are not protected.
Applying the facts to the law, it is the opinion of many that the Ottawa Trucker Protest was unlawful.
Well said Ben. That seems to be the consensus of all lawyers we have talked to. They would agree with you. As the former conservative MLAs taught me if these reformers continue to show no concern for massive debt being created by their actions you can bet there is nothing conservative about them and that’s exactly what we have seen in Alberta.
Have you noticed that people don’t agree with your brand of ignorance and that maybe an intelligent decision would be to realize that you may be wrong and keep your idiotic comments to yourself, don’t you think?
Great comments Barney. My conservative friends and I aren’t fans of Trudeau either but certainly trust him over Reform Party ignorant Pierre Poilievre and his blame it all on some one else stupidity. He never has an intelligent solution to any problem, just like these Reformers in Alberta. It’s no surprise that a majority of conservatives tried to vote them out and their ignorant supporters wouldn’t let us just like in the Klein era.
While he praised the criminal Convoy Truckers he ignored the fact that they created a $65 million debt for taxpayers to deal with and that’s not what a true conservative would do. Nor would a true conservative promise to destroy 7,900 jobs for Canadians if elected like he has done by scraping the CBC that was created by conservatives and is still needed to date. The fact is he was part of Stephen Harper Reform Party Government that created a terrible financial mess for Canadians helping the rich become a lot richer, like Ralph Klein and these other phoney conservatives have done to Albertans while creating the highest percentage per capita of people needing help from the Food Banks.
Danielle Smith is once again proving how dangerous these Reformers are and in true Reform Party fashion scraped the increase of more green energy and 24,000 jibes along with a $33 billion windfall for Albertans. My question is where are Albertans going to find the electricity to run their electric vehicles the auto industry is only going to make?
The conservatives in my world are certainly concerned about what these fools are doing to our children and grandchildren’s future with oil becoming a thing of the past down the road whose going to repay the horrific debts they are creating. Like the oilmen state this orphan well cleanup mess is only getting worse as more and more wells are shut down and no one is paying to clean them up, when the oil industry was doing it until Klein changed all that to help make them a lot richer.
your take on the usa is shortsighted. they have rarely, if ever, given anything without their tentacles attached. they have overrun the politics, economics, cultures, environments, and democracies of a vast portion of peoples on our planet. domestically, their history is also sordid. moreover, there is much to suggest a good number of their leaders/cabinet members over the decades should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Yes. Oh, yes.
If you haven’t read it, biff, Chris Hedges’ recent book ‘the greatest evil is war’ reflects the horror show that is the USA. Strange and dangerous times indeed.
thank you for the reading suggestion, Was not familiar with it.
here is a link to writing that appeared in Harper’s mag about 20 years, suggesting henry kissinger is a war criminal. it is a long read, but eye opening; there is also a part 2. i will link them here…part one first 🙂
http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/Harper's%20Magazine%20THE%20CASE%20AGAINST%20HENRY%20KISSINGER_(former%20Secretary%20of%20State).htm
https://thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/CaseAgainst2_Hitchens.html
It must make these foolish seniors proud to know that their Reform Party hero Danielle Smith has added another $75 million to our debt trying to outsmart Trudeau with children’s pain killer from Turkey that’s been proven to be dangerous to children and Smith can’t get rid of it. Of course it’s our children’s lives she is destroying by piling up this massive debt for them to deal with. Many conservatives think that maybe her supporters should be paying for the financial mess she is creating, what do you think?