demodulated

The heyday of cutesy internet personality tests has come and gone, but I still enjoy taking The Political Compass test every few months. Normally I take such a test once and stick a fork in it, but for the most part I’m politically naive, and my wife is a politics junkie with me cursed as her closest pair of ears so my various political opinions and motivations change rapidly as she challenges me.

My scores, determined yesterday, are as follows:

Economic Left/Right: -5.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.46

To my surprise I am just as libertarian as ever before, but have edged significantly closer to centre since my last test (which put me at about -7.50 to the left as I recall). This classifies me as politically compatible with the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela, though I’m even further southwest than those radical luminaries.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Political Compass test. Every time I take the test I become more aware of how ambiguously phrased the questions are, and find a new excuse to answer a question in a completely new way based on an unspecified exception. This is quite brilliant because, I suppose, the means classify your political slant more than the ends do.

For example, one question is phrased “mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers.” I answered this question with “Agree”, and my wife answered it “Strongly Disagree”. We both disagree with the phrasing assuming it is exhaustive – we both disagree that a woman’s place is in the home, barefoot and pregnant. However, I don’t see the phrasing as exhaustive and I believe a husband’s first duty is to his home and family which is why I answered the way I did. We’re both correct, yes?

I urge one and all to take this test to see a summary of your political position based on your opinions of specific scenarios and morals. You might be surprised with the outcome.

I’ve reciprocated in the blog post exchange with Bianca at The Weasel Soap Box. I wrote a story on Ed Stelmach and the mighty Daveberta who threatens his very.. uh.. hay bails.

Apologies in advance for the title of that post. It stinks more than the southbound end of a northbound bronco.

I’m getting awfully tired of seeing Liberal-bashing ads on prime time television. The end of each ad proclaims them to be “brought to you by the Conservative Party of Canada.” But the Conservative Party was brought to Canada by Canada. Elected by Canada. Paid for by Canada.

I accept the fact that Canada desired new government in the House of Commons, and I accept that this government may reallocate my tax dollars to more closely suit their own agenda. That’s why we vote.

But why am I paying for political ads? There’s no election going on now. There’s seemingly no reason for the Conservative party to attempt to curry favour from the populace at the moment. Regardless of which party I voted for I shouldn’t be forced to pay for slanderous, self-serving tripe. It’s inappropriate, irresponsible, and unethical of any government to do so.

I find this practise particularly slimy because, if the ads were showed during election time, they would be out of accordance with CRTC political advertising rules.

For example, “all candidates and parties are entitled to some coverage that will give them the opportunity to expose their ideas to the public.” I’ve thankfully been exempt from paying for Liberal rebuttal ads, though, according to the CRTC, such an opportunity is due:

“…if paid advertising time is sold to any party or candidate, advertising time must be made available on an equitable basis to rival parties and candidates. “

Furthermore, during elections, one-sided inflammatory advertisements have been all but unheard-of as far as I’ve observed. There’s a reason for this – the CRTC holds itself and television and radio stations responsible for the equitable presentation of issues by political parties.

“Section 3 of the Act requires that ‘the programming originated by broadcast undertakings should be of high standard’ and ‘the programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system should provide a reasonable opportunity for the public to be exposed to the expression of differing views on matters of public concern'”

These cheap-shot ads are the least of my worries, disgusting though they may be.

It’s generally agreed that the Conservatives stole the Liberal’s minority government by bombarding the public with ads bringing to light an embarassing and illegal Liberal sponsorship scandal. Fair game. However, it’s perplexingly infuriating that the Conservatives have yet failed to punish their own Minister of Heritage for doing the same thing very shortly after the election, and later took measures to justify its illegal sponsorship funds by means of a loophole in their own Accountability Act.

The Liberals’ term ended with former Right Honourable Prime Minister Paul Martin denying America’s request to set up a defensive missile shield on Canadian soil. The simply Right current Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s term began by sending Canadians to combat in Afghanistan.

The Liberals, interpreting Canada’s Charter of Rights, deemed same-sex marriage legal and in the spirit of the country. The Conservatives, ignoring the Canadian majority’s votes and morals, vowed to re-open the issue. This ended in embarassment for Harper when his discriminatory motion was defeated by a large majority.

Since taking power the Conservatives have inexplicably lowered the GST while ballooning military spending, eliminated government-sponsored child care and ended women’s support services in a double-whammy assault on women’s rights, stepped up efforts to deport even well accepted and loved illegal immigrants, and preceded children’s movies with army recruitment ads.

I urge all Canadians, whether in support or in contempt of our Conservative government, to voice their concerns to the Prime Minister. Do so by way of your local MP, your provincial premier, or email Harper himself at pm@pm.gc.ca.

I’ve never before been so motivated to vote.