Tolerating the Intolerable

Phil Burpee

Phil Burpee, Columnist, Pincher Creek Voice

You’ve seen this situation – you meet somebody walking their mutt on a leash – some manic, over-bred pitbull or rottie or some such. The owner’s leaning backwards against the pull and has the chain wrapped around their wrist two or three times and it’s completely taut as the robotic beast slavers and snarls and sizes you up with its lizard eyes, a mere snapped collar-buckle away from launching itself at your throat or genitals or some such soft and vital aspect of your being – and then comes the remark – “Oh, don’t worry. He’s a love-bug really. He just gets a little anxious with strangers. Go ahead – give ‘im a pat.” Uh, I don’t think so. I think I’d just as soon try and do a rectal exam on a crocodile – or maybe step in front of a bus. Because one man’s ‘love-bug’ is another man’s mindless, vicious, flesh-shredding monster. And so this naturally brings me around to the upcoming provincial election. For what is politics if not the loosing of the Dogs of War?

This is a funny election – and by ‘funny’ here I mean along the lines of famine or pestilence or unaccountable gibbering madness amongst wide swathes of the population. Yet it is enthralling in a special way because we are witnessing the long-overdue drainage of that festering karbunkle on the backside of the body politic commonly referred to as the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta. Yes, as with the Liberals, and the UFA, and the Socreds before them, the mighty hog-trough machinery of the PCs has reached the end of its generation and a half of bloated, morally bankrupt self-pandering, and now approaches the gallows of public opprobrium with a certain giddy dopeyness. These sordid reprobates are blinking dumbly into the bright lights of their exposure, and gazing out in utter incomprehension, even as the ravening dogs tear loose their slippery Tory entrails onto the greening fields of this Spring of 2012. What a happy slaughter it would be, if only it were not for the nature of the dog-pack in question. For here we must realize that the bringers of vengeance in this case are creatures far more dastardly, far more loathsome, far more regressive, and yay verily, far more deserving of the dog-catcher’s tranquilizer dart than the nastiest junk-yard dog you might ever summon up in your worst, sweat-drenched nightmare - bbrrrrr - shivers up your spine! - cometh the Wildrosers!

Jeepers – would that it were merely a nightmare. But it’s not. Here we have a political organization that is predicated on the perception that the various tenets of extreme conservatism as most ably manifested by former Premier Ralph Klein, for whom abrogation of responsibility to civil society became not only a hallmark and point of slovenly pride, but indeed an actual method for the instatement of corporate control over provincial governance, are requiring vigorous reinstatement under a renewed banner of selfishness, moral laxity, and a teasing brand of xenophobia and inflammatory finger-pointing. And all the goofy glad-handing amongst the old boys who anticipate a return to 50s style normalcy, when ‘right, white and twenty-one’ actually meant something in this world, should tell us that it is not at all the dawning of a new day in Alberta, but rather a gathering dusk as we re-enter the medieval gloom of the dark night of recessiveness.

It is informative to consider the things not said, or not quite said, in an electoral battle. Competent leaders of political parties, of which we have several currently in Alberta, make it their practice to offer just the right amount of duly apportioned information concerning their political philosophy and their underlying leanings towards policy. This typically comprises a series of ‘winks and nods’ following from various comments and reactions concerning the happenings of the day. Danielle Smith of the Wildrose is especially adept at this form of quasi-passive confirmation of perceived trends. So when an Old Testament-inspired troglodyte candidate of her party avers that homosexuals will ‘burn in a sea of fire – hell’, she demurely points out that everyone is entitled to their opinions and far be it from her to tell anyone what they should or should not believe. It might be, of course, regrettable that such a person’s comments may not entirely gibe with moderns sensibilities, but the libertarian ethic dictates that all opinions are equally valid, and that expressing a subtextual hatred for an entire segment of humanity based on nothing more than a venal tradition of scriptural vilification is a valid stance, and well within the acceptable norms of Wildrose generalism. It’s easy to see why she avoided the obvious choice of colour for the Wildrose – pink.

Suffice to say that any tacit or implied acceptance of any form of hatred predisposes the targets of that hatred to being visited with unwanted attention, often in the form of violence. How many instances of ‘gay-bashing’ have been facilitated by the reluctance of those in positions of moral and cultural power to roundly, firmly, and unequivocally condemn to the maximum possible extent any utterance which might in any way cause unwarranted suffering for one’s fellows. It is reprehensible in the extreme. It is to excuse the dog straining at the leash – the ‘love-bug’ becomes a plague-infested flea, ready to afflict entire populations.

Or consider her milquetoast response to the hapless gentleman who observed that being a Caucasian gave him a certain enhanced credibility. This dippy old fellow is of such an advanced state of self-delusion that he seems to think it is actually OK to suggest that a white man has a better grasp of societal perceptions, and it is therefore appropriate to give him the nod as a representative so that he might better muster the hapless minorities to the betterment of all right-thinking folk. She slaps his wrist with a velvet noodle, observing that he has a variety of other very fine traits other than being a member of the white race. Once again, a tacit approval through insipid reaction – a wink and a nod, to tell the old boys that spades will, when necessary, be called spades – or at the very least, that silly old goats with a tendency towards ethical incontinence will be summarily hustled into the back room for a change and a scrub.

How do we tolerate the intolerable? – in this exact fashion. By giving them enough wiggle room to alter the tone of the conversation in society. Mayor Naheed Nenshi of Calgary has expressed dismay and astonishment that Ms. Smith has chosen to not rise up in condemnation of such stupidity and egregiousness, but rather to merely cluck mother hen-fashion at the sometimes naughty exuberance of her little roosters. But her little roosters are poised to assume government, and such is the likely din of all the crowing that we may well lose the ability to properly discern the difference between the utterances of such otherwise laughable dolts and idiots, and the actual chilling pronouncements of true functionary zealots, now secure within the Halls of Power.

Have a good look at this woman. Have a good look at the philosophical fleece from which she is spun. Have a good look at the people that have come to surround and support her, and recognize in them a particular type of sordid revisionism. They do not have a place in our modern world. They seek to return us to days of scrabbling and scratching after the favours of the consumer society. As Raj Sherman of the Liberal Party has observed, their socio-economic policy can be pretty much summed up as ‘get rich or die trying’. What a sham. They appropriate the policies of the centre and centre-left in order to attempt to swing dithering voters over their way – uphold public health care, expand public education, bolster the wellbeing of seniors, improve environmental oversight – even as they propose to reduce the size of government, reduce corporate tax rates, enhance the ability of the corporate sector to sequester public funds, and generally make of society a clamoring circus of confrontational vested interests.

Add to all this the proposing of ‘conscience rights’ (wherein the mob will be given credence in human rights issues), targeting of the judiciary (as being unnecessary in the determination of rights and wrongs - “just ask Albertans”), government by referendum (no more public funding for family planning, sex-ed, etc.), $300.00 surplus rebates (straight to gas stations, beer stores and Walmart), and a huge level of organizational debt to the oil and gas sector, and you have a recipe for at least four or five years of useless, wasted time when we could otherwise be advancing our society into an already difficult future, rather than tethering it to delusions and visions of a yesterday that never was.

Wildrose.....ggrrrrr…… do not - repeat - do not attempt to pat this dog. Pepper spray the miserable cur. Do not tolerate the intolerable. Vote for Santa Claus. Vote for Barry Manilow. But do not vote for these cave people and their snarling, snapping mongrels.

Phil Burpee

April 21, 2012