The local nightline news headline screams: A Farmer in Ohio Wins the Power Ball Lottery Estimated at $250 Million! The ensuing images whirl about some terrifyingly happy faces and droves of anchors with long-pointed microphones and the most idiotic questions. The rest of us, on the other side of the screen, seethe with envy. And we do not stop at breaking just one of the Ten Commandments – Thou Shall Not Covet – and plunge full throttle into much perilous undertaking of asking the Almighty – “Why they, why they?!”
God usually does not heed such gibberish and does on his merry way. In utter despair some citizens speed up to the next watering hole to drown in self-pity, other rush to the next lottery terminal while the rest seize their questioning with a logical consideration of staggering statistical odds – “well, it could not have been me anyway…”
All this happens, of course, on the very individualistic and hence irrelevant level. On the societal plain thing look a bit different as they are just about thirty million people in North America who seem to share in one, very incidental, jackpot. They live in Canada. Trust me, it is incidental and yet we revel in it. And when your elections and ours happily coincide, many of us are starkly reminded of our blundering, lottery luck – the one that is called normal everyday life. And the most unfair about it all is one tiny little fact – we did not fight for it, it has happened just by accident.
We, a docile stock, did not fight in 1776, happily following the overseas masters. We just kept trading our furs for cotton with those from the South. They needed slaves and we did not. Few years later our British masters told us the slavery was off. We, a demurring flock, just agreed and kept on with the furs. You resisted and a murderous Civil War followed. Finally, we got some sort of independence with not a shot fired. They just sent us some Parliament Act instead.
You wanted to be morally pure and announced prohibition. We simply switched from furs to whisky. You got Al Capone, and we got the money. Few years later you drove into Vietnam. We did not. Au contraire, our passivity got us the Universal Health Care sold by some undoubtedly nutty radicals. You then decided that fossil-powered free markets were the answer but we just simply stumbled upon some oil. Since then you have had to fight wars to live up to your ideals while we just sold much of the dark slimy stuff to you.
Today you struggle with many urgent issues, foreign and domestic. But you have hard time revving up as the issue of experience appears so crucial to the current contenders. And this is even after considering the fact that you current morass has been presided by the most experienced civil servant/private enterprise team ever, on paper at least. By some blissful coincidence, in Canada we do not discuss the experience. This is not by design of course but by sheer luck. You see, in our British parliamentarian system, all of our leaders simply come from the same old and trusted perches in the Commons. In Canada no one bickers on this inconsequential score.
Apart from the “experience” discussion you also have to sling some serious mud around and it takes zillions of dollars and light-years of one’s life. By incident of course, we, north of the 49th, largely avoid this pitfall. This is because our mouthy parliamentarian screaming and debates take place daily as long as the parliament is in session. This is sort of like an illegal cockfight that nobody, except for some C-SPAN junkies, ever gets to see. So by the time we start our election campaign, our politicians are in a tired off-season mood and thus rarely put their gloves on. And even when they do, the electorate, suddenly shocked by uncouthness of it all, usually quickly steers the fighters back into the issues corner.
And here is my final point – we never know exactly when our elections will take place within the maximum mandated span of five years. They are usually snap-called and thus mercifully short. Our latest parallel, to yours, routine just opened last week and will be over by October 14th. Imagine all the time one can spend dilly-dallying about some policy issues that normal folks sort of care about. And not only that, we have a seriously taxing public election finance scheme hence our politicians do not have to sell their souls on the fundraising circuit just as much.
I know, bragging like this is akin to receiving a phone call from that darn lucky Ohioan Farmer just to learn that yes, he is your long-lost uncle and no, you will not be seeing any of that money. But instead of seething and raging, why not just relax and stop trying so hard? Why not quit feeding the extremes and begin dusting up the old pearl of public consensus, the shortest route to meaningful solutions.
Perhaps, one day you too will win the lottery….
God usually does not heed such gibberish and does on his merry way. In utter despair some citizens speed up to the next watering hole to drown in self-pity, other rush to the next lottery terminal while the rest seize their questioning with a logical consideration of staggering statistical odds – “well, it could not have been me anyway…”
All this happens, of course, on the very individualistic and hence irrelevant level. On the societal plain thing look a bit different as they are just about thirty million people in North America who seem to share in one, very incidental, jackpot. They live in Canada. Trust me, it is incidental and yet we revel in it. And when your elections and ours happily coincide, many of us are starkly reminded of our blundering, lottery luck – the one that is called normal everyday life. And the most unfair about it all is one tiny little fact – we did not fight for it, it has happened just by accident.
We, a docile stock, did not fight in 1776, happily following the overseas masters. We just kept trading our furs for cotton with those from the South. They needed slaves and we did not. Few years later our British masters told us the slavery was off. We, a demurring flock, just agreed and kept on with the furs. You resisted and a murderous Civil War followed. Finally, we got some sort of independence with not a shot fired. They just sent us some Parliament Act instead.
You wanted to be morally pure and announced prohibition. We simply switched from furs to whisky. You got Al Capone, and we got the money. Few years later you drove into Vietnam. We did not. Au contraire, our passivity got us the Universal Health Care sold by some undoubtedly nutty radicals. You then decided that fossil-powered free markets were the answer but we just simply stumbled upon some oil. Since then you have had to fight wars to live up to your ideals while we just sold much of the dark slimy stuff to you.
Today you struggle with many urgent issues, foreign and domestic. But you have hard time revving up as the issue of experience appears so crucial to the current contenders. And this is even after considering the fact that you current morass has been presided by the most experienced civil servant/private enterprise team ever, on paper at least. By some blissful coincidence, in Canada we do not discuss the experience. This is not by design of course but by sheer luck. You see, in our British parliamentarian system, all of our leaders simply come from the same old and trusted perches in the Commons. In Canada no one bickers on this inconsequential score.
Apart from the “experience” discussion you also have to sling some serious mud around and it takes zillions of dollars and light-years of one’s life. By incident of course, we, north of the 49th, largely avoid this pitfall. This is because our mouthy parliamentarian screaming and debates take place daily as long as the parliament is in session. This is sort of like an illegal cockfight that nobody, except for some C-SPAN junkies, ever gets to see. So by the time we start our election campaign, our politicians are in a tired off-season mood and thus rarely put their gloves on. And even when they do, the electorate, suddenly shocked by uncouthness of it all, usually quickly steers the fighters back into the issues corner.
And here is my final point – we never know exactly when our elections will take place within the maximum mandated span of five years. They are usually snap-called and thus mercifully short. Our latest parallel, to yours, routine just opened last week and will be over by October 14th. Imagine all the time one can spend dilly-dallying about some policy issues that normal folks sort of care about. And not only that, we have a seriously taxing public election finance scheme hence our politicians do not have to sell their souls on the fundraising circuit just as much.
I know, bragging like this is akin to receiving a phone call from that darn lucky Ohioan Farmer just to learn that yes, he is your long-lost uncle and no, you will not be seeing any of that money. But instead of seething and raging, why not just relax and stop trying so hard? Why not quit feeding the extremes and begin dusting up the old pearl of public consensus, the shortest route to meaningful solutions.
Perhaps, one day you too will win the lottery….
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