A dead Syrian toddler broke our hearts in 2015. He sparked a wave of compassionate activism.

A crying toddler at the US-Mexico border crushed us in 2018 and sparked a new wave.

Crying children make us cry; they move us to help. And so they should.

But most crying children go unnoticed and never warrant a peep from media.   

We learned later that the border-child had not lost its mother. Mom was there. But this was a special crying child. She was a signal, a beacon.

This child must be listened to. She represented a more important fact, even though the picture did not show the trauma we assumed it did. Continue reading “Sad Stories Make Bad Policy – Activism”

Voters decimated the Liberal party leaving them with only 7 seats last night.

Voters exercised democracy and kicked the bums out.

Except they weren’t all bums. Many were smart people doing stupid things.

Maybe the bums were evil? This is wrong also.

We miss the point by blaming Liberal defeat on ignorance or malevolence. Accusations blind us.

The point of history is not to see how crazy and evil people were before us. That just makes us knowledgeable and arrogant.

History only teaches us if we can imagine making the same mistakes ourselves. Continue reading “What Can We Learn from the Liberal Circus?”

Andrea Horwath and her fellow New Democrats march as champions of compassion.

As Ontario’s far-left party, the NDP try to own social justice.

Horwath and company separate the needy from those of us who caused the need. They use a simple strategy:

I. Make a clear call for more compassion.

II. Self identify as champions of compassion.

III. Define compassion as they see it and according to their own vision.

IV. Label anyone who disagrees as compassionless.

The NDP starts with a statement we all support then claims this moral high ground as their very own. All their ideas are compassionate, because they themselves are compassionate. Those who disagree are compassionless.

Horwath uses a narrow slice of morality to trump everything else. She redefines fairness/cheating and holds a peculiar sense of liberty/oppression. Then she ignores loyalty, authority or any other social principle.

Divisive

Horwath presents well but only means well for certain people. She divides us into sheep and goats, victims and oppressors. Continue reading “Andrea Horwath – Radicalism Disguised as Compassion”