Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Let’s not abandon logic

So I was watching the evening news last night and they were going through an update of all the Party leaders and their day’s activities. When they got to Paul Martin, I was completely blown away (in a very negative sense) by some things that he said. Here is the situation;

Martin was in BC and was trying to win over some NDP voters in that region by claiming that Layton was abandoning things that the NDP stands for (i.e. social programs, environment). This left attacking left was already odd, but then in struck me. Martin, in a desperate attempt to claw his way back to power, make the claim that the left needs to unite to “…stop Stephen Harper, which is the fundamental issue in this campaign.” Did you all catch that? The fundamental issue is keeping the Conservatives from forming a government? How odd. I would have thought that the issues should be concerns for health care, Canada’s place in the international community, having a little less corruption in politics, helping the economy grow, TAKING CARE OF THE CANADIAN CITIZENS. The next thing Martin said (I didn’t get the exact quote, sorry) was something in the way of “We are running the risk of voting in a gov. that doesn’t represent Canadian values” WHAT??????? I almost fell off my seat! Are we not in a democratic society? Is the idea no longer that; if the most people vote for one party, we can assume that those people at least believed that that party would BEST represent them up on the hill?

This is where logic needs to come rescue us. I needed to calm down, think about what Martin had said, realize in was filled with fallacy, and move on to strengthen my resolve to not vote liberal.

I’ve often been criticized for being too logical (which is sometimes true, I’ll admit), but here I will not back down. I’m sick of politicians playing on emotions, using scare tactics, and basically destroying the rules of argument through political campaigns. I’ve only taken one university course on logic, but on any given day in the news I can pick out several fallacies. So I am appealing to you not to get caught up in emotional appeals, and to logically analyze each statement made by politicians. To get the facts, and then vote (DO IT) for the candidate that will best represent your moral values.

For it is our morals, not our economy, that make us who we are (if we stand by them).

The rest (econ, foreign affaires, health care, etc.) flows out of the values we will choose, as a country, to live by.

2 Comments:

At 3:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, logic is very good!

 
At 6:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

your crazy mr. peterson. logic in politics, I think we outlawed that with the arrival of Pierre Trudeau, who I recently overheard called a civil libertarian, I nearly wept thinking that my ideals were just associated with a man who forced upon Canadians such great ideas as centralizing Canada to a small section of parliament hill.

Le sigh. I think I will comment on your blog often, so be prepared. I am a total blog watcher, a hideous habit I adapted from this whirlwing of an election.

 

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