Remembrance gone wrong

Lately the white poppy campaign has, again, reared its ugly head. These people claim that the red poppy glorifies war, and that the white poppy is a better symbol, representing peace. They think that they are doing the world a service.

They are vastly misguided. At best.

That they assert red poppies are in celebration of war is indicative of ignorance. It also contains a highly offensive insinuation: that the veterans who hand out red poppies are glorifying and celebrating war. I submit that these very people who experienced the living hell of the battlefield are the ones who most want to put war behind them.

Poppies were never meant to glorify or celebrate war, and neither was Remembrance Day. If these people took a proper look at history, they'd know that Remembrance Day, November 11, is in celebration of the Armistice; that is, the cessation of war, in 1918. That said, maybe it's not their fault entirely. Perhaps some fault lies with our education system. If they didn't feed us the boring tripe that they currently do, maybe students would actually learn Canadian history, and this sort of travesty could be prevented.

The fact that this campaign has taken on a blatantly political overtone, despite Remembrance Day being a day where we are supposed to set aside differences in order to remember those who fought and died for our country, is a further slap in the face to veterans across the country. Are you trying to tell these men and women, who fought and died for our nation, that it is wrong of them to continue handing out the traditional red poppy, in remembrance of, very often, their friends and family?

But at the very heart of this discussion, the entire idea of a peaceful world is steeped in the strongest naivety. These bleeding-heart pacifists are the same voices that join in the call for the felling of dictators across the globe. How, exactly, do they propose to accomplish that feat? With flowers, rainbows, and unicorns? War is a great evil, but it is also a necessary evil, for "peace without justice is tyranny." There can be no true peace without tyranny, but the world is inherently unjust, and there will always be those who aspire to tyranny.

Our very best died so we could live freely. They died so we could speak freely. They did not die so that people with their digestive tracts reversed could speak through their arse and s*** through their mouths.

Lest we forget.

Lest we remember incorrectly.

#RealBulls***

This here, the new Trudeau ad, is absolute shite. It claims that the average income in Canada has only increased 15% over the last 30 years. That is patently untrue. The inflation adjusted figures are 60,200 in 1983 and 76,000 in 2013. That is a 26% growth. However, the chart on the ad uses 1981 and 2011. Why? Because 1981 is close to a local maximum (63,100) and 2011 (75,000) is lower than the most current figures. Even when fiddling with the years like that, the growth is 19%, not 15%.

The ad also compares income to GDP. While accurate in his claim that real GDP has more or less doubled over the past 30 years, this is comparing apples to oranges. Of course GDP has grown at a rate greater than average income, largely because the population of Canada has also grown, from around 25 million then to 35 million now.

The only passable comparison that can be made is with per capita GDP, which has grown at a much more sedate pace over the past 30 years: from about 24,000 to 36,000 (or about 50%). Even then, this figure is going to rise much faster than average income because a lot of economic growth is in increased trade. That will inflate GDP growth above income because that money doesn’t flow through to individuals. You would think the leader of a major federal party would at least attempt to understand basic economics, but apparently not.

If this type of misrepresentation of facts and lack of understanding for economics is propagated by the leader of the party, the Liberals have no business telling us that the Conservatives are doing wrong by Canadians.

Also, there is no point at all for going back 30 years. If the Liberals were trying to convey that the Conservatives are bad for the economy and that the Liberals would do better, that effort fell flat on its face. That is because, for 17 of those 30 years, it was the Liberals who were in power. And also because both numbers are, actually, still going up. There's a "rah rah!" for the Canadian economy, but nothing more.

More to the point is, the Conservatives have been in office since 2006, and income has grown 5.4% since then, despite a global financial crisis. By contrast, the United States median income dropped 5.2% during that period.

Anybody who bothers to stop and think would know what complete bollocks this is. It screams incompetence and irrelevance. But, hey, anything to win a couple votes from the ignoramuses out there, eh? Because that's who you want supporting your party!

Oh, and parting shot: this ad still hasn't told us what your priorities are, Justin. Maybe the party of the mushy middle is just that. Mushy.