Posted on 10/26/2004 8:24:46 AM PDT by quidnunc
Aside from the small matter of the war for civilization, I don't have much time for Tony Blair. But, among many marvellous passages in his speech to the Labour Party Conference the other day, he had one especially striking moment: "When I hear people say: 'I want the old Tony Blair back, the one who cares,' I tell you something. I don't think as a human being, as a family man, I've changed at all. But I have changed as a leader. I have come to realize that caring in politics isn't really about 'caring.' It's about doing what you think is right and sticking to it."
Anyone can "care," for what it's worth. Anyone can say, as Tony Blair's fellow Third Wayer did, "I feel your pain." But he doesn't really feel it, does he? He doesn't have to live with it, day in, day out. Under the debased rules of politics, self-proclaimed empathy is all that's required. The question is, when you stop talking, what do you do?
A decade ago, Canadians and their government were "shocked" by TV images of the Innu community of Davis Inlet in Labrador, a shantytown whose inhabitants were snorting drugs, glue, gas and pretty much anything else that came their way. Having claimed to be "shocked," our rulers then claimed to "care."
So they decided to build the Innu a new town a few miles inland, with new homes with new heating systems and a new schoolhouse with all the newest accessories. The new town-Natuashish-cost taxpayers $152 million.
Two years after the resettlement of the Mushuau, let us turn to our good friends at the CBC for a progress report:
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at westernstandard.ca ...
That's the crux of the problem. We do this in the name of compassion but we end up with corrupting their work habits and produce generations of welfare dependent underclass.
Sounds familiar for every New Zealander with half a brain. Ping to you, shaggy!
Umm... last time I checked, Yellowknife was in the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan was spelled...well, Saskatchewan.
Full post at 11.
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