In honor of the Saviours birth, I present to you Christmas for Progressives, a new annual tradition where I charitably advise progressives how to grow up, better face the world, and, even help their parties and policies go from laughable to respectable.
Step one, never mention guns again unless youre talking about how awesome they are. Nobody worth respecting thinks that guns are the reason shootings occur. Disturbed, angry, and evil people kill others, and they avoid the checks we use to keep the public safe. Instead, try liberating law-abiding gun owners from the laws that currently prevent them from protecting themselves and others; what greater civil liberty is there then the right to self defence? The net benefit for progressives is that lots of gun owners are outdoors enthusiasts who have a vested interest in keeping the wilderness pollution free. Politics is all about finding enemies of your enemies and widening your camp; it's a wonder progressives havent moved on this already.
Step two, address the issue of a living wage while simultaneously moving forward on reducing social assistance rolls. Welfare was only ever supposed to be a temporary fix to the systemic causes of poverty; link reception of social assistance to class attendance or work training, as both these models have proven effective. If I was king of Progressville, where unicorns and rainbows abound, Id go a step further and get social workers to book sit downs with any family that is known to have been on assistance for more than one generation. Ultimately, social assistance isnt a waste of money - it's a waste of people. People deserve the dignity that employment and self-reliance brings, and progressing away from welfare is part of it.
Step three, get serious about education. If you can list off all the sins of Clarks government but wont acknowledge that the BCTF and an absence of standardized testing is part of the problem, you might as well do the rest of us a favor and stop talking. The key to making education better grounded and more relevant is to decentralize delivery while universalizing goals and testing, facts that have been blatantly obvious for years. That means teachers will need to accept differences in wages between here and downtown Vancouver, as decided by their local school boards, while simultaneously holding their kids to universally higher standards. Undoubtedly the union will attempt to block these measures, as each undermines the power structure they currently dominate. But just like the draft dodgers of yesteryear, I'm certain that you shall overcome this juggernaut of injustice, giving kids the education they deserve.
Well, thats year one of Christmas for Progressives! I wish all of you "forward thinking Canadians" Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope that doesn't offend anyone, and for those it does offend I expect to see you at work tomorrow.
Cheers!
