mini-Dems

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

3 men down!


Shite - what's with the 3 recent federal NDP candidate resignations? 2 for for public pot use and 1 for public nudity - who thought socialist politics could be so fun? Next time I want to liven up my CandleLite party I'll call the NDP riding office and invite the boys over...There's a few problems here. By all accounts the party decision makers knew about these events ( and presumably understood that if made known to the public that they would be fair game to critics and voters) and decided to roll the dice with them anyway. Now they're down 3 candidates, and their credibility takes a bashing. Does this speak to a level of desperation around securing NDP candidates in some ridings? Did the campaign managers actually think the average voter would look past the blatant and idiotic drug use, and naked frolicking with teens in their potential elected representatives? I hope not, in both cases - or else the Left is in bigger trouble than we thought. On a more larger level, this creates some ideological problems. The NDP advocates for the de-criminalization of marijuana and supports the increase of harm-reduction drug programs (eg. Insite) to address drug addiction, so to then distance themselves from self-professed (albeit excessive) marijuana users turned politicians is a tad hypocritical. I think it's important to run a platform with the above-mentioned ideas, but the presentation of the candidates voicing this message would be key - ie. that pot-smoking candidates are a reflection of social drug use in the general population (hot-boxing the ice-fishing shack, passing a spliff around the gang at a house party, etc.) as opposed to driving around the West Coast stoned and recording it or being a judge at pot seed contest with a known DEA target. Just a thought...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think this reflects more upon the pathetic manipulability of the electorate rather than at any problem within the left-leaning parties. Drug use, particularly recreational drug use, is a fact of life in all of society. Whether it is illicit (marijuana, hash, licking cane toads) or otherwise (caffeine, prescription meds, alcohol), people from every walk of life dabble in self-medication throughout their lives. The fact that Canadian voters are compelled to feign outrage when policitcos (via a vis the media) skewers somebody that actually has enough control over their drug use to admit using is the real tragedy.

Likewise the seeming willingness of people to castigate others for a singular lapses of judgement, when we have all been responsible for much worse, often as a result of the use of socially acceptable drugs. The 'shock' of minors being exposed to such 'outrageous' conduct by an adult is naive, as it is often during adolescent years that we conduct the deeds that will later see us run out of politics.

If we can't look past the humanity of the candidates, we're just going to keep getting the same types of shitty, political drones that get elected. Ultimately it's the machine that's broken, but nothings ever going to change if we keep insisting on putting the same clogs in every 3-5 years.

Unknown said...

Oh, and for the record, I've hung out with Mark Emery during an interview at CFRO, so there goes my political career :)