To fix our voting system, we need to mimic the US one more. The people need to have the power to choose who leads the parties, not the other way around. This places more emphasis on the candidate being able to sell not only himself (and yeah, herself too), but also the politics which he or she stands behind. This makes charisma a very important trait to have--and this gets people into it. People love charismatic people.
I mean, right now we have Harper. This guy is intelligent; he's an economist by trade and has some understanding of how to move money around. There was also Dion, who I heard tore up the French debate, but is largely inhibited by his language capabilities. Others too; except May and Duceppe, but that's a different issue. I think they're qualified to run the country; but fuck, are they ever dull. I fell asleep during the English debate. Way to get people motivated.
On the whole, I think part of the problem is that Canada isn't assertive enough on the world stage. We need to take on a stronger leadership role. We come off as being so polite and passive; or at least, that's the impression I get. This doesn't really help to foster patriotism. What good is it saying that our country kicks ass, when the US can just raise its hand and say "No, you can't do that," to which we simply concede. Bleh. We don't have to be militaristic assholes, but I'd like to see some more backbone. Gives us something more to be proud of, and a reason to want to see this country move forward strongly. Too many people are content with doing the very minimum and saying "But hey, at least we're not American!".
But of course there are downsides to the US system, like you said. I mean, if you glamorize everything and make it a celebrity popularity contest, then I'm sure that you're going to have some (no, many) people glossing over the politics and hopping on the bandwagon. I'm sure many people just voted for Obama because it was the popular thing to do. Palin is a prime example of this. She was all the rage at first; hell even I grew to like her eventually (hated her at first). But did she ever blow it. (Really, you don't know which countries constitute North America?) I wonder what would happen if Obama made that mistake.
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Date: 2008-11-07 08:34 am (UTC)I mean, right now we have Harper. This guy is intelligent; he's an economist by trade and has some understanding of how to move money around. There was also Dion, who I heard tore up the French debate, but is largely inhibited by his language capabilities. Others too; except May and Duceppe, but that's a different issue. I think they're qualified to run the country; but fuck, are they ever dull. I fell asleep during the English debate. Way to get people motivated.
On the whole, I think part of the problem is that Canada isn't assertive enough on the world stage. We need to take on a stronger leadership role. We come off as being so polite and passive; or at least, that's the impression I get. This doesn't really help to foster patriotism. What good is it saying that our country kicks ass, when the US can just raise its hand and say "No, you can't do that," to which we simply concede. Bleh. We don't have to be militaristic assholes, but I'd like to see some more backbone. Gives us something more to be proud of, and a reason to want to see this country move forward strongly. Too many people are content with doing the very minimum and saying "But hey, at least we're not American!".
But of course there are downsides to the US system, like you said. I mean, if you glamorize everything and make it a celebrity popularity contest, then I'm sure that you're going to have some (no, many) people glossing over the politics and hopping on the bandwagon. I'm sure many people just voted for Obama because it was the popular thing to do. Palin is a prime example of this. She was all the rage at first; hell even I grew to like her eventually (hated her at first). But did she ever blow it. (Really, you don't know which countries constitute North America?) I wonder what would happen if Obama made that mistake.
What's TDS/TCR?