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Old Posted Oct 6, 2011, 1:59 AM
Snark Snark is offline
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 417
Quote:
Originally Posted by bolognium View Post
I just find it really frustrating that the people who complain about our downtown being an unwelcoming dump are the same people that immediately shoot down any plans for revitalization.
I deal with such people on a regular basis. They have some fairly common traits:

- Gross ignorance of how things actually work. The level of ignorance can be stupefying. (the Mayor is personally responsible for the day-to-day running of the City)

- An inability to comprehend the complexity and operating difficulty of large systems and organisations. (Put me in charge for a year and I'll fix that place good. How hard can it be?)

- A baseline assumption that everyone "in charge" is at best incompetent and at worst corrupt. (They're all a bunch of lazy, lying, crooks out to screw us)

- Not concerned for the larger good or long-term strategic thinking (I don't care, I'll be dead by then)

- Not concerned for/will not support anything that they do not perceive will bring them direct benefit (I won't use that, why should I be forced to pay for it?)

- Generally, are underachievers - and they blame "the system" for causing it (I could be better off if just those dammed politicians were all rounded up and thrown in jail where they belong!)

- A nostalgic pining for the past - when things "were good" (you know: when people were decent and things were run properly)

This has been labeled "Tim Horten's conservatism", as the caricature of such types is a bunch of recently retired blue collar fellows sitting around at the coffee shop and bitching how everything is terrible, the world is screwing them over, and if only things went back to the happy days of the '70's things would fix themselves. The general cause of their problems are the lax justice system, outlawing corporal punishment on kids, feminists, politicians, and liberals/commies.

A laughable example was a comment in the Freep from some outraged nutcase that described the Ontario Hydro debt retirement charge as a "McGuinty tax grab". In truth, the charge was not initiated by the current Liberal government, does not go to the provincial government's revenue, and lastly, must be paid - as people and organisations actually hold that debt are obliged to be paid back. But, hey, why let reality get in the way of a good finger-pointing rant by a "victim" towards their oppressor.

This is ironic that this error-riddled rant is coming from someone who likely for years past benefited from paying artificially low electric costs.
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