Category: Governance | Page 19

463 – Fear and Loathing in America / Trump acceptance / Feedback – some polite some not so polite

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Jul 282016

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TRUMP ACCEPTANCE: As with the five stages experienced by many facing grief and loss, Republicans opposed to Trump have now similarly passed through the familiar stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, with Trump’s victory at the GOP: Acceptance.

For the first time, we take a look a Donald Trump, not as a phenomenon of populism and anti-establishment sentiment, but as the next president of the United States. Is Trump’s promise to “make America great again” merely empty rhetoric, or will he be able to deliver on that promise? What, in critical and concrete terms, will “making America great again” mean in practice?

As Trump now turns his attention to win the hearts and minds of the American voters rather than to defeat his Republican opponents, we can finally see the real choices faced going into this November’s U.S. elections.

On today’s Just Right, join us as we review, not the phenomenon that is Trump, but the promises and policies that he has put forth as the key themes of the Republican campaign. For the first time since he stepped into the political arena, Donald Trump has now set the standards and objectives against which he must be objectively judged. Continue reading »

462 – Guest: Salim Mansur: Trump – Zeus among mortals? / Establishing the new Establishment

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Jul 212016

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ZEUS AMONG MORTALS – AN ‘UNINTENDED’ CONVERSATION

Some have called Donald Trump a Trojan Horse in the Republican camp. However, that legendary analogy may only be a small part of a much bigger picture: How does Trump’s success at this week’s GOP convention relate to the Homeric tales of Troy and Sparta? What is the lesson we should learn? You’ll be amazed by this unparalleled conversation about history’s eternal parallels.

“The gods of history are trying to tell us that we are conceited to think we are fully rational actors, fully forearmed and foresighted, that we know everything, at a given point in time.” All the world’s a stage in the story told by our guest, Salim Mansur, as he connects the dots between significant historical events and ideas that have led to the Trump phenomenon, the Brexit vote, the rise of Islamist terrorism, the resurgence of racism and the various crisis‘ that face the world today.

Given the theme of today’s conversation, it should not be surprising that our discussion about history’s ‘unintended consequences‘ should similarly have led to unintended and unexpected directions in that conversation:

“History is paradoxical because none of us knows what the unintended consequences of our decision are. We always understand history in retrospect. But we live history in prospect.“ Continue reading »

460 – Exit-stential threats / A new soviet? / The 7.9% solution / Anti-ideal, logically speaking

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Jul 072016

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APPLYING THE 7.9% SOLUTION TO BRITAIN’S EXIT-STENTIAL THREATS

On today’s Just right, more on the ‘exit-stential’ threats created by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union: Is it fair to contrast the values of those on either side of the vote by comparing the juvenile behaviour and irrational fears of the one side with the mature, confident, and rationally persuasive arguments of the other? Or is it even fair to ask that question?

Post-Brexit vote reactions on either side of the original debate are still running at an emotional high.

And while most attention is currently on Britain, what of Europe’s future in a smaller EU? Is it possible that Europe could evolve into a new ‘soviet’? Continue reading »

459 – Brexited / Democracy, democracy, democracy / Cannabis culture clash / ill Legalization of cannabis sales

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Jun 302016

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Have the British people, by rejecting membership in the European Union, created a darker or brighter future for Britain? Our first impressions of the post-‘Brexit‘ European Union will no doubt not be our last.

As the British exit from the political EU, there’s no reason why an economic union cannot continue to be part of Britain’s future relationship with Europe – a union under free trade. If there is opposition to that kind of relationship, it will likely come from Brussels, as Nigel Farage stated so boldly before the EU this past Tuesday. All expectations about the EU’s future have yet to be confirmed or proven incorrect, as the story continues to unfold.

Meanwhile, back in Canada, the Liberal plan for Cannabis Legalization is well under way, as police conduct raids on Toronto cannabis dispensaries, charging operators and employees with ‘trafficking’ offences. Many of these dispensaries had freely been operating for years as cannabis vapor lounges, tolerated under the previous Conservative government, which had no plans to ‘legalize’ cannabis. Continue reading »

454 – Guest: Paul McKeever / Ontario’s power politics

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May 262016

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Topics:
00:03 Is it government? Ontario’s state of anarchy, political parties as organized criminal gangs, Toronto pot crackdown, defining what government is, Al Capone’s political popularity, alcohol monopolies and cartels
14:15 Ontario’s power politics: cap and trade, killing production with green policies, ending competition in the energy market, phasing out natural gas, monopoly on energy, rationing electricity, single payer energy system, forced electric car sales, prohibiting fossil fuels for home heating, a long history of Ontario’s power politics, Liberals and Conservatives as gangs, quotas on electricity, smart meters as instruments of rationing
32:15 Criminal conduct is not ‘government’: Liberals-Progressive Conservatives-New Democrats are all climate communists, Progressive Conservatives as no option for change, Ontario as a Green Acres comedy, Conservative destructive policy of ‘Power at Cost’ (1902), Conservatives explicitly against capitalism since 1905, abuse of government power on power, the natural gas problem (1950s), climate change as pretext, legalizing criminality, Ontario’s political cartel, appealing to the ‘something-for-nothing’ voters
47:45 Freedom to party: truth vs lies – and bullsh*t, elected criminal organizations – Liberals, PCs, and New Democrats, electing a government instead of criminals, political party restrictions through finance reforms, plans to silence political opposition, escaping Ontario’s oppression, Ontario’s pension plan as control of individual movement, for government – vote Freedom Party, Kathleen Wynne’s obsession with sex, freedom isn’t free, Freedom Party 59:42 END

452 – Guest: Salim Mansur – The Trump Rearrangement Conundrum

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May 122016

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Topics:
00:03 Pericles’ parallel: Conrad Black’s Civitas keynotes on Trump, prediction of a Trump presidency, four failed US administrations, doubling America’s fiscal debt, conservative reactions against Trump, Pericles’ parallel, the universality of human nature, the individual as unique, media disconnect from public pulse, media malpractice
17:20 Observer effect: economics as behavioural psychology, network of conservative opinion makers against Trump, markets and interests at play, ideology and consequences, doctrine vs pragmatism, we the people are sovereign, Declaration of Independence, skill sets for the political game
33:40 Education by election: Trump on women, women on Trump, trumping the sex and race cards, Hillary Clinton as a catastrophe, upcoming electoral conflict as instruction for young voters, immigration issues, unfunded wars with no results, globalization, free trade vs mercantilism, carbon taxes exporting jobs, America first vs protectionism, politics as the Queen of all disciplines
48:25 The Trump Rearrangement Conundrum: changing the Trump conversation, predicting Trump’s nomination and presidency, process of deal making, the Democratic question, emergence of independents, crossing tradition political lines 59:42 END

445 – Guest: Salim Mansur “The Trump Derangement Syndrome”

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Mar 242016

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Topics:
00:03 Trump Derangement Syndrome: the phenomenon of Donald Trump’s popularity, politics is about the people, republic or democracy, the meaning of sovereignty, constraining the sovereign through republican structure, Magna Carta, characteristics of democracy, Constitutional issues as ideological doctrine, no place for academic debate in political arena, constitutional ideologues
15:50 The people’s Trump card: dangers of being doctrinaire on the constitution, government in one’s life, checks and balances, Obamacare, the competent man, America’s three brances of government, single payer health care, immigration not a new issue, problem of incumbency
35:50 Checks and balances – the constrained monarch: Trump’s lack of philosophical focus, dangers of the democratic franchise, racist and bigot charges against the people, making America great again, Eisenhower’s legacy, Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson, the president as the constrained monarch, the people speak – through Trump, coalition of interests
48:35 Persona and character: Trump as a crude character, messaging through persona, Trump Derangement Syndrome on the Left, Trump as a threat to the left, the Islam factor, conservatism, the problem with ideologues, final predictions
59:42 END