Left, Right or Centre – Explainer

In today’s age of populism, with ideology apparently dead, how do you now if you are on the left or right or in the centre. There are indeed some basic philosophical positions that determine if you are on the right, left or in the centre.

If you are on the right you believe in individualism and the free market. Individualism rules supreme and there is no such thing as collective rights. You believe in the mantras that “acting in your own self interest is in the best interests of society” and “what is good for General Motors is good for America”.

You believe that almost everything, except perhaps policing and the military, is done best by the private sector and that the profit motive is the best motivator of people. Competition is the best way to provide progress and create wealth.

You believe in inequality because that is the best way to reward intelligence, talent and hard work. The poor are poor because they do not work hard enough.

You believe in small government whose role is essentially to protect private property rights. You think of taxes as something an outside entity (the government) takes from you, you may even refer to it as stealing. You may also believe in unfettered free speech.

If you are on the left you believe in community. You believe that individuals are not completely fulfilled unless they are part of a community. You believe in co-operation and working together for the common good. You care for others and believe everyone deserves respect and human dignity.

You believe everyone deserves a decent life and all work should receive a living wage with employment benefits, especially decent pensions. You believe the level of inequality in our society is immoral and billionaires should not exist.

You believe government exists to serve the common good by providing public services efficiently and reducing economic inequality in society. You believe taxes are how we collectively spend our money for the common good.

You may even believe that we have a responsibility to contribute to society according to our ability and society has a responsibility to provide for our basic needs, including food, clothing, housing, education and health care.

Those of you who claim to be in the centre are probably actually on the right but you believe government has a role in reducing the worst aspects of capitalism and providing a social safety net for the victims of capitalist excesses.

The Benefits of Being a Nobody on Twitter (& free speech)

Following 193 accounts and with 329 followers I am a relative nobody on Twitter. By controlling who I follow and who I block I can protect myself from the worst of Twitter. By choosing to follow legitimate news sources and people with similar interests, like cycling, my Twitter feed is interesting and mostly enjoyable. I even have a few significant followers who I occasionally engage with and who may extend my reach with retweets. I hope my tweets, usually about politics and social issues along with cycling and the outdoors, are interesting and useful to people.

Since I am a relative nobody I do not have to worry about being trolled and if I am “attacked” on Twitter it is for what I have said and not who I am. That cannot be said about what a lot of people on Twitter are facing, particularly in light of the new “freedom of speech” Twitter which has increased trolling and attacks on vulnerable and disadvantaged minorities forcing many to leave Twitter.

Free speech should belong to everyone. If Twitter becomes a haven for privileged white men to spew hatred that will not be a victory for free speech, but a failure of it.

An Open Message to Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe

The election is over and you can now free yourself from your election handlers. It is time to move your focus from getting elected to making Ottawa a better place to live.

So what should your first priority be. During an election campaign it is obviously whatever the largest group of voters will vote for, and you seemed to think that was NOT spending money on cycling infrastructure. But more on that later. The campaign is over.

You now need to think about what is most important to all Ottawans, and in particular vulnerable and disadvantaged ones. I put it to you that the most important thing to most of us, after our families, is our home. So try to imagine not having one. So, even if the homeless tend to not vote, as mayor they should be your most important concern.

Most municipal candidates seem to fear this issue mistakenly thinking it is too big a challenge and too costly an expenditure and they try to pass it on to other jurisdictions where it gets lost in a lack of political will. But Finland has shown that not only can providing homes for everyone be done, it saves money because it costs less than all the measures needed to deal with homelessness. It may take some imagination and dedication and work with other jurisdictions to get this done, but it can be done. There are people in Ottawa with the ability and dedication to make it happen. Work with them.

As to the apparent misplaced obsession of your election campaign, your opponent’s brilliant plan to finish Ottawa’s cycling network in 5 years instead of 25 while spending the same amount of money annually over 25 years, it is time to look at it on it’s merits and not how it can be twisted to your electoral campaign advantage.

How can one argue against a proposal that increases the cost effectiveness of city expenditures many times. You only get the benefits of any type of network when it is fully completed and interconnected. This plan expedites that so the construction costs are incurred when they are lower and the full benefits of taxpayers money is achieved in 5 years, 20 years before all the money is paid out by taxpayers. As well, networks are most effectively built from the inside out so that as much as possible of the network is interconnected. This means that it is the suburbs that benefit most from the expedited construction.

This plan, of course, does not only benefit cyclists. If you want to reduce automobile traffic congestion building more automobile infrastructure will not work because of a pesky thing called induced demand. The only way to reduce traffic congestion to reduce the number of cars on the road and that means improving public transit and cycling infrastructure. Since over 50% of car trips are short enough to be replaced by cycling, building an effective cycling network can be an important part of reducing automobile traffic congestion.

There is no reason to oppose this plan, which better spends taxpayers money, unless you simply do not want to spend any money at all on cycling infrastructure.

A Tale of Two Twitters

It is the best of the Internet, it is the worst of the Internet, it is the purveyor of wisdom, it is the purveyor of disinformation, it is the home of knowledge, it is the home of wilful ignorance.

Beyond the literary allusion (words inspired by Charles Dickens) there do indeed seem to be two Twitters. 

One can be a place of enlightenment where people share information, opinions and even wisdom and rationally debate the issues of the day.

The other can be a place where people spout conspiracy theories, lies, hate, and even threats, without any personal accountability under the cloak of anonymity.

What is the solution. Some would have us eliminate the second Twitter in the name of civility. Others would argue that Twitter should be a place of absolute free speech without any required personal responsibility.

I would suggest a solution that allows the users to choose which Twitter they want to be part of with a few simple changes that otherwise allows Twitter to continue as it is.

The first thing is to open up Verified Accounts to anyone who wishes to be verified rather than allowing verification only for VIPs and so-called influencers. The second would be to then allow Verified Users, if they wish, to restrict who can see their Tweets and whose Tweets they can see to Verified Users only.

Let people choose the Twitter they want to be part of.