by Klaus Rohrich
april 19, 2004
In 1951 C.M. Kornbluth, the american science fiction writer published a short story, entitled The Marching Morons. The story was set at some vague time in the 21st Century where the overall IQ of the population had dropped to the level of a kumquat.
It’s odd how art can be reflective of life. We live in an age today where indeed the morons are marching and they’re marching in lock step. Consider how we are governed. Over the past four decades, our federal government has largely been run by Prime Ministers from Quebec. The majority of these were Liberals.
During this time we have also had countless scandals about which the population at large was "outraged". Yet come election time, the voters dutifully marched back to the polls and cast their ballots for the Liberals. What conclusions can be drawn from this fact?
Is it the educational system that is depriving its graduates of the critical faculty of thought? It’s an easy place to lay the blame, looking at today’s teenagers and recent college/university graduates and their attendant lack of curiosity about anything other than things that affect them directly. But then, as a nation we spend more money on education than any other country, save, maybe the U.S. So wouldn’t it stand to reason that with all this money spent educating our kids, we would produce keen, inquisitive minds?
To look at the lack of awareness among average Canadians, one would think that we still received our news via the weekly dogsled run. But we are living in an age of superior technology with the Information Superhighway running smack through the middle of our lives. Satellite and cable television offer us up to 500 channels to watch. One can watch terrorist acts on television, literally as they are happening, as we did on Sept. 11, 2001. You would expect with this kind of communications technology the citizens of our land would be better informed, capable of rational decision making based on empirical observation. Yet the fact remains that most of our citizens seem more interested in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
We elect politicians who make wild promises that we all know they can’t keep and are then angered by the fact that they are broken. Dalton McGuinty’s election pledge that Ontarians would not "…pay one cent more…" in taxes under his governance has just evaporated along with the 230 other promises that he has broken. The imminent introduction of his so called "fat tax", which imposes an 8 percent sales tax on meals under $4.00, which were previously exempt, is ostensibly in the interest of keeping Ontarians healthy by discouraging eating high fat foods at fast food outlets like MacDonald’s. Of course, we all know that McGuinty is peeing down our backs and calling it rain. The NDP’s Howard Hampton had it right calling the new tax the "soup and salad" tax, as these also cost less than $4.00 in most places. Let’s call it what it really is: a tax grab from the poor. and people are angry, so what? McGuinty will likely be re-elected when the morons march to the polls next.
Curiously, our electorate also gets outraged over elected officials keeping election promises, as they did when Mike Harris started keeping his. It seems that voters have been lied to for so long that they were aghast when Harris told the truth and actually did what he promised. What a novelty, what an outrage!
The moronic streak in our society isn’t limited to just plain everyday citizens. Last week, our Prime Minister, Paul Martin was addressing some of our troops when he referred twice to the allied invasion of Norway. I was sure that the only invasion the allies undertook on a large scale was the invasion of France, through Normandy. Maybe the Norway invasion was so secret that no one, except Paul Martin knew about it. Former Defense Minister John McCallum also had a hard time during his tenure, separating Vimy Ridge from Vichy Water. at least McCallum was fortunate enough to have both in the same country, unlike our hapless Prime Minister.
Many voters today decide to cast their ballots for the politicians who promise to give them the most. Of course there appears to be little understanding that everything has a price. If the government is giving stuff away for free, you can bet that it isn’t free, as the government is getting its money from those it taxes. The more money the government uses to pay for legal aid, welfare, maintenance of refugees and bureaucrats, the less money is in circulation in the economy as a whole. The less money available to the private sector, the fewer jobs will be created, the slower our economy gets.
Then there are those who vote ideologically. Their votes, however, seem more ideo and less logical, when examined closely. Somehow the Liberals have convinced us that anyone in favour of responsible fiscal policy in government is a right wing extremist, anyone in favour of rational immigration policies is a racist redneck and anyone concerned about the defense of our country is a bellicose, pro-US warmonger. This pretty well includes everyone with at least half a brain. Political correctness and jingoism have replaced critical thinking.
I’m no psephologist, but I’m willing to go out on a limb with respect to the next election. I think that the Liberals in Ottawa will be re-elected with a majority government. No matter how mad Canadians get at their government, in the end they always seems to knuckle under and go back to the Liberals. It’s like a co-dependent abusive relationship, where the victim returns to the abuser. Except in this case the abuse is not emotional so much as it is moral and intellectual.
When people finally realize that the cheque is not in the mail and that the government is not their friend, they may decide to venture into the unknown and vote for someone other than a Liberal. Until that time, we will continue to have the millstone of a Liberal government hanging around our collective necks.