Choices

This does not seem so hard to understand:

In 1969, a Soviet dissident named Andrei Amalrik wrote Will The Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?, in which he predicted the collapse of the USSR. Amalrik, to whom I would later have the privilege to teach English, explained that any state forced to devote so much of its energies to physically and psychologically controlling millions of its own subjects could not survive indefinitely. The unforgettable image he left the reader with was that of a soldier who must always point a gun at his enemy. His arms begin to tire until their weight becomes unbearable. Exhausted, he lowers his weapon and his prisoner escapes.

You would have a hard convincing me that a majority of Canadians get that, or that a majority of people around the world get that. Everybody, it seems, is ready say "there ought to be a law" with nary a thought to what enforcement will cost, or how effective it could possibly be. In Canada we have laws demanding that everyone wear a bike helmet, for heaven's sake! We have laws dictating how much parties can spend on elections, we spend billions registering weapons (with nothing to show for it I have to add), and want to spend billions more on the Kyoto accord despite legitimate complaints about how anyone could know enough about that subject to warrant throwing the world economy a very hefty sandbag. Sure it's been warm over the last decade, but the planet has warmed and cooled many times in the past. How can anybody say they know - for certain - that the greenhouse theory is correct? Why is it almost taboo to question it? And now it seems that the Fiberal party is going to bring us taxpayer subsidized child care, with no provision to compensate stay at home parents. That means you must pay into it, but the only way to get anything out of it is to use it, despite whatever objections you may have to it in principle, and whatever you think about what they are teaching the children. It means, basically, pay up and shut up. What makes anyone think that the same people who brought us the Firearms fiasco, Kyoto, untold other spending overruns will be able to manage a program as large as this one will be? And Ken Dryden, who's leading the charge, says he's just getting started. I'll bet. What happens when all of those child care workers become unionized and get the salary and staffing levels that come with that? In all seriousness, give Canada twenty years on that path and there will be full blown riots as this country goes into meltdown mode. You want to pay for all of that on a Kyoto economy? People: You have to make choices about these things.