One of our most loyal commenters comments:
While this continues, the world seems to pass thepolitic by: Afganistan and military spending on used German tanks for spareparts that don’t really fit the tanks currently in use, candidate nominations in the US, upcoming federal Budget speculations, provincial budgets being passed, introduction of a carbon tax in BC, the impact of the high dollar on Canadian exports - and China now surpassing Canada as the leading exporter to the US, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Those are definitely contemporary Why haven”t we addressed them? I’ll take a guess.
I don’t know a lot about tanks, and neither does anyone here, unless I miss my guess. It isn’t surprising that people are reticent to talk about what they don’t know a lot about.
Candidate nominations in the USA frankly, bore me. At work I have a cubicle-mate who loves talking about them, but really, there is so little separating the candidates that I can’t find it in me to be that interested. Forgive me for not holding my breath from the beginning of primaries to November.
Speculating on the federal budget? Speculations tend to be boring too, especially when everyone and their dog is in on it.
The BC provincial budget was moderately interesting, and the carbon tax issue begs to be discussed, but geez man. It only happened yesterday! Is there a rule amongst blog commenters that they expect all bloggers to comment within 12 hours on any given issue or they are publicly flogged?
The high dollar and Canadian exports - more of an economics question. I can’t claim to be an armchair economist any more than an armchair quarterback for the NFL, so I wouldn’t tackle that one but lightly.
China surpassing Canada as the leading exporter to the USA - I am surprised this is news. I had thought that was the case for decades by now. Heck. I look around my world and I don’t see much of anything not made in China. That does seem to be cause for concern.
So, thanks. I like to think that blogs are a better place because of commenters, and this comment was actually thought-provoking. I can’t speak for everyone here, but as I have time, I will definitely address at least one of these suggestions. As for the rest, I have read elsewhere that we should be providing more insightful political commentary. That challenge is appreciated, but asking us to write about subjects that we don’t have any knowledge of seems like a good recipe for bad commentary. I’d rather stick with subjects I know enough about to defend my positions on. You may not agree with me, but at least I can take a bash without a second thought.
Harebell wrote:
The trouble with most of the topics most people feel that they can talk about is that they are mostly even less qualified to talk about those as well. But they spout forth because it has been popular to do so with out being held accountable. As a result your authors and some of those replying do not think outside these pre-defined rules and rattle off the same old talking points about incomers, assimilation, intolerance etc.
A great example of this is religion where the religious decry other faiths and a lack of faith but expect respect for their position. When asked for reasons they are very flimsy and could apply to any exclamation of faith.
The prayers before a town council meeting is a problem for me, not because I think that it might offend other faiths, but because it has no place in a meeting to discuss the building and maintenance of civic amenities. I believe the science, engineering and accountancy expertise required are fairly well grounded so as not to need bronze age incantations to assist them.
How was this article written and what where the responses to it like. It was written to inflame an argument and the responses gave it one. Unfortunately it was all about the usual talking points and the rhetoric of reply matched that of the author.
Please I think I could take a thoughtful one-liner about tanks rather than an echo of the US talk show hosts
Posted on 20-Feb-08 at 12:10 pm | Permalink
ThePolitic.com » On the BC Budget: the Carbon Tax wrote:
[…] was promised, it is delivered. (Gads. I sound like a Stephen Harper […]
Posted on 20-Feb-08 at 12:25 pm | Permalink
Shane Edwards wrote:
You may be right about perceived qualifications versus real qualifications, but you know what? Darned few bloggers know anything at all about what they write. The critics of this blog, if they know anything more than the posters here, may have a tiny increment more about a given subject than the poster, and certainly still fall far short of the class of “expert” that everyone seems to expect. But even then, the more likely scenario is that the critic “thinks” they know more than the poster, leading to an equally ignorant criticism, because neither is willing to admit their own ignorance.
Now, just because this is the case doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for something greater. That is perhaps the main reason I wrote this - for the first time in a long time, a critic has had a point that is not based on equal or greater ignorance than the poster. Hence, I hope it does spur an elevation of dialogue.
Posted on 20-Feb-08 at 12:30 pm | Permalink
Smarter than Ezra wrote:
No one is asking you to address any of these suggestions, Shane, or to step into an area you may not be familiar if you don’t want to - there are endless topics that fall within “Canadian and American politics”. My beef is that the contributors are not following the letter or spirit of the framework that has been set up by Greg. Too much energy is wasted blogging about matters that fall outside the scope of what has the potential of being a really good forum. My challenge, therefore, is to find topics that can actually be discussed, and frame them in a way that invites discussion, rather than automatic confrontation. For example, the “sodomite” topic has been DONE to death - the impact of last budget’s tax reductions - not one peep. We all pay taxes, so this is a topic that is relevant and fits within the scope. So while I appreciate that it has given you something to think about, I am still not sure it is blog worthy at thepolitic.com
“I’d rather stick with subjects I know enough about to defend my positions on. You may not agree with me, but at least I can take a bash without a second thought.”
I guess you need to ask yourself if this is an appropriate forum for the things you like to write about, then. I am sure you can find something that fits within the broad scope, though… anyway, those are my two cents. Sadly, this is another blog post about a blogger, blogging about a blogger who commented on a blog about blogging. Ugh… when will it end?
Posted on 20-Feb-08 at 12:38 pm | Permalink
Kursk wrote:
Well, i can take a crack at the tanks..the modern leopards we are ‘leasing’ from Germany, are not for spare parts (that would be OUR tanks, older cold war relics..!)they are up to date and modern and there is a good chance we will be using some in Afghanistan.
Combined with the tanks obtained fron the Dutch, we have a credible armoured force, something we never had under Liberal govts.
As someone who once was a CAF armoured soldier, and had to pretend to be a tank whilst driving in a jeep (in 1983!)i say it is about time…
Posted on 20-Feb-08 at 12:40 pm | Permalink
Shane Edwards wrote:
“Sadly, this is another blog post about a blogger, blogging about a blogger who commented on a blog about blogging. Ugh… when will it end?”
Meh. You’re right, but it had to be written.
Posted on 20-Feb-08 at 1:20 pm | Permalink