Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens is a book by Yuval Noah Harari.  It is a short history of the human species from its time as hunter-gatherers on the African savannah into modern times and a little beyond.  I highly recommend it to anybody interested in how got here.

I will not try to summarize what he wrote.  However, one thing that really stood out for me when I read the book is just how murderous our species is to other species.

Scientists agree that we are currently experiencing a mass extinction in the world.  They even call it the 6th mass extinction.  The evidence to support this is very compelling but one of the things that is misleading about it is science gives the impression that it is a recent phenomenon.  That is, it has only been going on for a few decades or a couple of centuries at the most.  Essentially, since humans discovered industrialization and science.

Dr. Harari points out that in actual fact the mass extinction began over 70,000 years ago when Homo sapiens began to move out of their ancestral home in the African savannah to all parts of the globe.  Dr. Harari points out that whenever Sapiens showed up in a certain part of the globe animals, plants, birds and other wildlife began to die off.  

Whole species of animals, large and small, went extinct, usually just centuries after the arrival of Homo sapiens.  This includes other species humans such as Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.  In Africa, Asia, North and South American and Australia, whenever Homo sapiens showed up, native living species died off.  The evidence is compelling that the causes of these extinctions was human activity.  There does not appear to be any malice intended, although that could be debatable with regard to the other extinct human species, it was just ignorance and lack of awareness of our ancesters about their impact on the world around them.

So, the mass extinction that we are witnessing today began 70,000 years ago as our ancestors spread around the world.  It had been slow and steady throughout those 1000s of years but in the last couple of hundred it has accelerated as we harnassed science to do our bidding.  

Our ability to change the environment around us to meet our needs and our encroachment into areas of the planet that were inaccessible just a few centuries ago has been a death sentence for thousands of species in the world and it continues to be so as time goes by.  

This fact was a revelation to me when I read it in Dr. Harari's book.  Up until then I always believed that the mass extinction was a recent phenomenon but now I am aware that it has been going on for 10s of thousands of years.  It puts a different perspective on it.

When I believed that it was a recent phenomenon I believed that we would be able to stop it.  I reasoned that since we only started it a couple of centuries ago we could change our behaviour and stop it.  I no longer believe that.  I no longer believe the current mass extinction can be stopped.  Although I am saddened by it I now believe the continuation of the current mass extinction is inevitable.  It is just not in our power to prevent it.  The simple fact is we as a species are a walking death sentence to our fellow creatures, particularly those in the wild, we always have been and we will continue to be so until we kill off most of the life on this planet or the planet decides that a major correction is necessary and we join those species on the extinction list.  

Some would argue that we have evolved to the point where we should be able to stop the mass extinction.  I do not believe that and you only need to see what is happening in the world to see that I have reasons for my doubts.  We know what we are doing to our planet but not enough of us care enough to gather up the collective will to put a stop to it.  The simple fact is we have not evolved that much in the last 2 million years.  You take someone from downtown Ottawa and plunk them down into a hunter-gatherer society a million years in the past and, except for the lifestyle, our ancestors would be recognizable by our modern city dweller.

So, although I believe we still need to fight the good fight to stop the mass extinction I believe that we should also be resigned to the fact that it is a fight we cannot win.  Maybe by some miracle Sapiens will suddenly change their ways but I do not believe that will happen.  It is sad to see the destruction of species that I grew up learning about in elementary and secondary school but I no longer believe that there is anything we can do to stop it.

Justin Trudeau shows Leadership and Backbone

The last few weeks have shown that Mr.Trudeau does not shy away from the hard decisions and he is alot tougher than many of his critics will admit.

The first example was when he decided to buy the Trans Mountain Pipeline.  That whole situation was a no win one for the government.  No matter which decision the government made they were going to piss off a bunch of people.

The ideal solution of course would have been for all of the stakeholders to compromise on the pipeline. The Trudeau government worked very hard to help the various stakeholders to find common ground and come up with an agreement but in the end one was not forthcoming.  So, with the deadline looming the Trudeau government made their decision.  Whether it is the right decision is up for debate and that debate will not be resolved any time soon.  However, they did make a decision.  They did not waffle, obfuscate or deflect.  They made their decision and they are going to let the chips fall where they may.  

The second example is the reaction of the federal government to the new tariffs that the Trump Administration is levying against steel and aluminum as well as the latest temper tantrum by Mr. Trump after the G7 summit.

The Trudeau government is planning on imposing their own tariffs and they have not wavered from that decision.  The Trudeau government has answered Mr. Trump's insults with quiet resolve.

Make no mistake a trade war with the United States would not be good for either country but any impact would hit the Canadian economy much more than the US economy.  That is just a simple function of the relative sizes of the two economies.  Considering what is at stake it would be easy to capitulate but it should be obvious to everybody that if the Canadian government gives in now Mr. Trump will not stop.  He would just push for more.  He comes from an environment where you win it all or you lose it all.  He does not do win-win.

For the last couple of weeks the Trudeau government has been tested like they have never been tested since they won power in 2015.  As of today I would say they have passed those tests.

The Weakness of the Conservative Movement in Canada

The assertion in the title of this post would seem very odd considering that just three days ago the Conservative Party of Ontario won the 2018 Ontario election very convincingly.  However, a closer look at the results backs up my assertion.

The Ontario Conservatives had the best of conditions going into this election.  The imcumbent party was deeply unpopular, there was a history of the Third Party being a disaster the one time they won power, and they had a centuries old voting pattern going their way.  

So when the votes were counted did the results indicate that the Conservatives won an overwhelming victory?  

No.

When the votes were counted it was revealed that the Ontario Conservatives won 40% of the popular vote, that is a minority of the popular vote and only 6 points ahead of party that came in second.

In fact if you look at the total Conservative vote and compare it to the total vote for the "progressive" parties, the Liberals, NDP and the Greens, you would note that the vote count for the progressive parties exceeded that of the Conservatives by more that 20 percentage points.  The only reason why the Conservatives won is the progressive vote split.

This situation is my no means unique.  It is the norm in Canada.  Nationally and provincially Conservative Parties come under 50% in every election.  Sometimes they enjoy a split in the progressive vote, and the First-Past-the-Post voting system allows them to take government but when the split does not happen they do not take government.  

We only need to look at the recent history at the federal level to see that.  Stephen Harper never won more that 39% of the popular vote in four elections.  In three of those elections the split in the progressive vote gave him government, with the last one being a majority government.  Then in 2015, that split disappeared, the Conservatives only won 30% of the vote compared to the Progressive vote of almost 70% and they lost government.  That is, the progressive vote outnumbered the Conservative vote by a margin of 2-to-1.  But even when he won the progressive vote outnumbered the Conservative vote by a wide margin.

So the Conservative movement in Canada is exceedingly weak and they know it.  When Prime Minister Trudeau made his promise to change the way we vote the Conservatives freaked.  During the debate about it, after the 2015 election, the Conservatives were the most strident and shrill in putting forward their position that any proposed change must be put to Canadians in a referendum.  They know that the current voting system is the only way that they can ever win government.  Any other kind of voting system, whether it be Proportional Representation, as favoured by the NDP and the Greens, or preferential ballot as favoured by the Liberals, would greatly reduce the splits in the progressive vote and put the Conservative Party in a nearly impossible electoral bind. 

Some would argue that my assertion is wrong by pointing at Alberta and the West.  Certainly, that part of the country is more conservative in its thinking but the total population of the West is less that the population of Ontario and even in the west the Conservative vote is not monolithic.  There are pockets of strength for the Conservatives in this country but they are relatively small and concentrated and they do not disprove my assertion.

Others would argue that the Liberals have the same problem.  They have never hit the 50% mark in winning any of their elections.  That is true but the reason is that there are currently two other progressive parties that siphon off progressive votes during every election, the NDP and the Green Party.  If they did not exist and there was only one progressive option available to Canadians it is an interesting thought experiment to think about the implications for elections in this country.

In every election in which Conservatives have won government, in the past 50 years, the same pattern has played out every time (except in Alberta and Quebec, which have different politics).  A progressive party is in power, usually for a long time, and voters have grown tired of it and sought change.  At that point the progressive vote splits between the progressive parties, and the Conservative parties then come up the middle.  After a time, when the electorate gets tired of the Conservative government, the split ends and the Conseratives lose.  In all cases, whether the Conservatives win or lose, the number of voters who vote for progressive parties far exceeds the number of voters who vote for the Conservative Party.

Over a century of elections has proven that Conservatism in Canada works from a position of weakness.  They routinely capture a minority of the vote in every election, being outpolled by the progressive parties by huge margins.  Their saving grace is the First-Past-the-Post electoral system and the split in the progressive vote.  Without them it is an open question of whether the Conservatives would ever form a government again.  

That is profound weakness.

2018 Ontario Election: The Usual call for changing the voting system

After the votes were counted it has been revealed that, once again, the winning party has won a majority government despite only winning a plurality of the votes.

The Ontario Conservative Party won around 75 seats by capturing 40 percent of the votes cast last night.

This has triggered the usual calls for changing the voting system, with the most popular call being for some sort of Proportional Representation (PR).  The proponents of PR like to believe and would like you to believe that it is the "most democratic" method of electing governments.  I disagree as I have written here and here.

In addition to the issues I outline in the two posts I linked to there is another major flaw in PR.

In Canada we do not elect parties or leaders.  Certainly the leader and their political party take a prominent role during election campaigns but when I went to vote last night, in the riding of Ottawa West-Nepean, Doug Ford, Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horvath were not on the ballot paper handed to me.  Instead it was the names of my local candidates.  If the local candidate that won last night turns out to be incompetent, a crook or a pedofile I will have the opportunity to kick his ass to the curb during the next election.  

The same is not true in election done by PR.  In most cases, when the votes are counted, the people chosen to become elected officials are chosen from party lists.  That is, they never actually faced the electorate.  Further depending on their stature in the party they may never have to face any electoral consequences even if they are incompetent, crooks or pedofiles.  If they do not have to face the electorate directly then they can never be voted out.  This is how Silvo Berlusconi managed to stay on as Prime Minister of Italy for so long despite the fact most Italians thought he was a crook.  He never had to directly face voters.  His party won enough of the votes to get the first crack at forming government and he was the leader of that party.  His coalition partners always put the opportunity to have power ahead of any principle.  

Some would argue that his party would face those consequences but that is not backed up by evidence.  In a PR system a party losing an election, even by a large margin, is not always an inhibiting factor in the ability of that party to attain power or for an unpopular politician to stick around and continue to exercise power even if the majority of the electorate want them gone.

Look at the Ontario election.  The Conservatives won 40 percent of the popular vote, the NDP 34 and the Liberals 19.  In a PR system none of the parties would have the ability to form a government without help from one of the other parties.  Unless, the Conservatives and the NDP were to decide on forming a grand coalition the most likely outcome would be either a Conservative or an NDP coalition government with the Liberals as the junior coalition partner.  So in other words, despite the fact that Kathleen Wynne was personally unpopular with the Ontario electorate, her party would still be part of the government and she could conceivably hang onto the party leadership or at least hang on as a Member of the Provincial Parliament.

Incidentally, in the PR system coalitions become the norm.  The partners in the coalition divide up the cabinet posts and political patronage positions between them. The dominent party takes most or all of the really important posts but the junior partner takes some significant post and exercises extensive influence on the decisions of the governing coalition.

Proponents of PR point to Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) as a solution to this problem.  In MMP some political candidates face the voters directly as they do with the current system of voting.  Unfortunately, this method will not elect the number of legislators equal to the popular vote.  All parties would experience a shortfall of the number of elected members.  As a result once all of the votes are counted and the popular vote is known the number of elected members is filled out to match the popular vote using party lists, creating the same problems as I indicated above. 

The-First-Past-the-post voting system is not perfect.  It certainly has some flaws, including some serious one.  However, Proportional Representation voting systems have their own very serious flaws.  Comparing the two it is a wash.  Neither is perfect and neither is the "most democratic" method of choosing a government.  If it were used last night the Conservatives would still be forming the government but the Liberals would probably be joining them despite the fact that 81% of the electorate did not want them to be anywhere near the levers of power in the province.  

The current system has prevented just that.  So although, 60 percent of the electorate did not want a Conservative government, 66% did not want an NDP government and 81% did not want a Liberal government.  It did not do it perfectly but the current voting system did allow the electorate of Ontario to express their desires and achieve the electoral result that they wanted.  

The 2018 Ontario Election: Historical Voting Patterns

The 2018 Ontario election is over and in a surprise to no one the Ontario Conservative Party won a majority government.  There was some kernal of doubt during mid-campaign when the NDP overtook the Liberals and seemed to be poised to keep on going to overtake the Conservatives.

Of course that did not happen and it was always very unlikely to happen.  The reason for that is the voters of Ontario have been alternating between Liberal and Conservative governments for almost a century.  It is true that Bob Rae managed to break that pattern once but that was an exception.  

Incidentally, that dynamic also exists at the Federal level which is why the Trudeau Liberals were able to jump ahead of the NDP in 2015 and take government from the Conservative Party of Canada.

One other aspect of this historical voting pattern is voters do not vote governments out of power after just one term.  Again this dynamic works the same way federally

I am going to make a bold prediction just one day after the election.  In 2022 the Conservative Party of Ontario will win another majority government.  As well, the Liberals will reassert themselves and at least double their seat count during that election, and if things go really well, they will supplant the NDP as the Official Opposition.

As well, I am going to predict that the Federal Liberals are going to win the 2019 election.  They will have to work for it but when the ballots are counted they will have another majority government, probably a reduced majority but a majority government none-the-less.

The historical voting pattern I mentioned is strong and nothing I have seen in the past 40 years would indicate that it is weakening.  Indeed, I would say it is getting stronger.  Ontario voters elected a Conservative government despite the facts that their leader is rather sketchy and the party never actually released a detailed election platform.  Canadians ignored the NDP Official Opposition, the erstwhile government-in-waiting and handed government to the Third Party in the Federal Parliament.

There are no sure things in politics but it is highly unlikely that we will see a change in this pattern in the near future.

Trump's Tariffs

As I have indicated here, here and here I do not believe the benefits of free trade are as great as it proponents indicate.  Although it does have some benefits it also has some very large negative impacts on the lives and livelihoods of many ordinary people.

While I would not lose any sleep over the end of NAFTA it is still a treaty that is in place and all signatories to it are compelled to adhere to it.  The same is true of the treaty that created the World Trade Organization or the WTO.  

A country like the United States is expected to honour its international committments.  If it does not it will have consequences for the US beyond a few jobs in the Rust Belt.

By not adhering to NAFTA and its committments under the WTO the United States has indicated that they cannot be trusted to live up to their international commitments.  As the United States has many, many, many of them that could spell trouble.  

The world is watching the US and there is increasing evidence to indicate that countries are moving to insulate themselves from the negative impacts of the words and actions of the current US administration.  For the most part the other Western countries are stuck with the US.  They can take some limited actions to mitigate risk but they really do not have any alternative but to work with the United States.  

The same cannot be said of the rest of the world.  Many of the US committments are with smaller, poorer countries that trade with the US and that provide US consumers with products that can be produced more cheaply that in the US.  Many of these countries are probably wondering if the US is willing to risk a trade war with its closest allies what are they willing to do to their countries.  Many if not most of these countries have probably been looking at alternatives that do not include sticking with the US and that search might be taking on an increased urgency.

I have stated several times in this space the China is actively working to replace the US as the predominent power in the international community.  Using diplomacy and money it is buying influence in the world.  It will actively exploit any action by the US that will allow it to pursue this objective.  We saw it with the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear deal and I believe the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the US on its closest allies has provided another opportunity for China to expand its global influence.  The pitch is obvious.  "The US cannot be trusted to live up to its committments but China can be trusted.  Let's talk about how we can help you."

The total dollar value of the tariffs that the US administration imposed on Canada is around $16 billion.  The GDP of the Canadian economy is over $1 trillion so in the grand scheme of things the impact on the Canadian economy is manageable.  Conversely, the total benefit of the tariffs on the US economy, which is 10 times bigger than the Canadian economy, will be negligable. 

In short, the total economic impact of the tariffs will not matter but the blow these tariffs will have on the reputation and status of the US will be significant and it will have an impact on any efforts it will take to maintain its influence in the world.

The Trans Mountain Pipeline

I am rather conflicted on how I feel about the announcement by the federal government about their buying of the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder Morgan.  The reason for this is I can see both sides of the argument with regard to the pipeline.

On the pro-side petroleum products are pervasive in our lives.  They not only heat our houses and provide us with a means of getting around they are used for practically everything we use.  Unless you walk around barefoot wearing nothing but cotton, wool and linen you are wearing clothing whose fibres contain petroleum.  The same is true if you use any kind of plastic.  Virtually every plastic we use contains petroleum.  In fact the list of everyday consumer items that use petroleum as part of the manufacturing process, excluding for producing the energy needed for that process, is too large articulate here.

That makes petroleum a valuable commodity and as Canada has a great deal of that commodity it is going to be pulled from the ground.  That is a simple reality and there is no way to change that.  When it gets pulled from the ground it has to go to market and the most efficient and safe way to do so is by pipeline.  Note, pipelines are not perfectly safe but they are safer than the alternatives as the people of Lac Megantic learned a couple of summers ago.

On the con-side the pipeline in question is not going to be used to transport crude oil it is going to be used to transport diluted bitumen, or dilbit.  Dilbit is nasty stuff.  It is tar sands oil diluted with all sorts of chemicals to liquifiy it and then it is heated to high temperatures and shoved down the pipeline at high pressure.  Further dilbit is heavier than water.  So, if it spills into a body of water it does not float on the top waiting to be cleaned up it sinks to the bottom.  For most bodies of water life begins on the bottom and it supports all other life above it.  So, if dilbit were to destroy life on a significant stretch of seafloor all life in the ocean above would be destroyed along with it.

So both sides have strong arguments for and against.  The problem is such arguments are almost always hijacked by the extremists on either side.

On the environmental side the extremists come off as a bunch of loonies.  One of the arguments that I see alot from them is we need to ween ourselves off of petroleum products and shut down the industry.  We can replace it with alternatives like solar and wind energy.  Those two are fine examples of alternate ways to generate electricity but until someone finds a way to convert sunlight into material to manufacture the shirt I am wearing or to convert the wind into a container which I can use to store my left-overs, petroleum is here to stay.  

Further environmentalists need to convince the broader public that being green will not cost them financially.  It is another reality that most people, if they are faced with the choice of helping the environment or meeting their financial needs, will choose meeting their financial needs almost everytime.  This is particularly true if the ecological costs will be felt in the future while the financial costs will be felt almost immediately.  Many ecologists state that there is money to be made being green.  I happen to agree with them but they are still going to have to continually work hard to prove that.

On the business side we see the typical shortsightedness that we have all grown used to seeing from business.  As I stated above there is plenty of money to be made going green, even on endeavours that would seem not to be green at its inception but most businesses almost always take the opportunity to miss the opportunity to exploit that potential.  As well,  there are a large number of people out there who care about the environment.  Many of them are motivated and well organized and they can play merry hell with any plans to develop projects like pipelines so business has an incentive to work with environmentalists to maximise their profits or even just to successfully complete projects. 

Fortunately, there are pragmatists on both sides of this divide and perhaps they should be looking to work together so that they can demonstrate to everybody that the "choice" between the environment and the economy is a false one.  There is no choice. They go hand-in-hand.  Businesses can maximise profits considering the environment in their business processes and environmentalist can preserve the environment by helping business to pursue green practices in their business processes.

One note on the government buying the pipeline.  I would have preferred that they did not do that but this is not the first time it has happened.  For decades governments, of every political stripe, have been providing subsidies and bailouts to private companies in this country.  It is a simple reality and it is not going to stop regardless of what politicians promise during election campaigns.  So, since I cannot really do anything to stop this practice I am not going to really worry about it.  By doing so I will probably live longer.

Oh yes, when is business in this country going to stop shipping raw materials to other countries for processing?  One of my pet peeves is the Canadian practice of selling our raw resources to other countries, which then process it into a finished product and sell it back to us at a markup.  We should be doing that ourselves.  Unfortunately, Canada is a first rate country with a fourth rate business class, who do not have the motivation and the smarts to come up with new and innovative ways to make more money on the development of our resources.

So after all of this how to I feel about the government's decision?  I am still conflicted.

Conceding the world

I have argued a few times in this space that China is poised to become the premier power in the world, replacing the United States at the pinnacle of the international community.

It is in the interests of the United States to delay this transition as much as possible to allow the Western world to adjust to the new reality and just as importantly to allow the American people to adjust to it.  Within a generation the American people will be faced with the reality that they and their country are not "touched by God" and "destined to rule the world".  That fact will cause a great deal of angst amongst the American people once it becomes clear to them.

Which is why the decisions to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement and to put the US embassy to Israel in Jerusalem are so wrong headed.

Make no mistake, the Chinese wants to replace the United States at the top of the international food chain.  They are working very diligently to make it happen.  For the most part they are doing it with money, which they have alot of and which they are spreading around very thickly in many parts of the world.

However, the Chinese are also going to take advanatage of any actions by the US government to allow it to use money and diplomacy to further their interests.  The US gave them two openings this week.

The first is the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.  The Trump administration withdrew from the agreement and told the other signatories that they have to as well.  Both China and Russia told the Trump Administration to piss up a rope.  Therefore, any sanctions imposed by the US will be completely ineffective and all they will do is push Iran further into the Chinese camp.  Iran is an important player in the Middle East so where it goes so goes its vassal states and organizations.

Fortunately for the United States Iran is not very popular with the Arab States.  They could have acted as a counterweight to Iran in the region.  However, it is going to be difficult to convince them to assist the US in pursuing its goals in the region after opening an embassy in Jerusalem.  The US has always supported Israel over the Arabs and many of the Arab states have accepted that as the price of doing business.  Putting an embassy in Jersalem, which is just as important to Muslims as it is to Jews and Christians is a real slap in the face to all Arabs, including those Arab states that have supported US policies in the region.  A relationship that has been fraying for the better part of a decade is going to become even more threadbare and that is without the Chinese using the embassy decision to convince the Arab states that they have a better friend in China than the US, which you know they are going to do.

The Chinese are using money to buy influence in Africa, parts of South American and parts of Asia.  Now the US has given them a diplomatic opening to increase their influence in the Middle East.  Looking at the trend very soon the only influence that the West will be able to wield will be on itself.  Large swaths of the planet that used to look to the West for assistance and guidance are being diligently worked on by China and very soon they will be the ones with the greatest influence in these regions. 

The rise of China could create a new Cold War.  If that is the case then the US is already well on its way to losing that war with the actions and decisions of the current Administration.

The governments we deserve

The Ontario election is underway and when all of the dust settles I imagine that we will have Premier Doug Ford leading a Progressive Conservative government.

Judging by what we have seen and heard from him in the early campaign and throughout his political life we can probably expect government polices along the lines of what we saw with Mike Harris, only being delivered by someone with alot less class.  

In my previous post I mentioned that it is getting harder and harder for ordinary people to stay above water let alone get ahead.  The ability of ordinary people, the so called middle class, to meet their basic needs, plan for their retirement and give their children a leg up for their future is eroding at a predigious rate.  Hell, I read a survey last week that indicated that the majority of Canadians do not believe the next generation of Canadians will be as financially well off as the current generation.  We all know that we are heading in the wrong direction.  The signs are there but we cannot seem to figure out how to change direction.

So as a result many of those very same middle class people will vote for politicians who will pursue policies that will increase and accelerate that erosion, such as Doug Ford and the Conservatives.  They will pursue the usual Conservative policies of cutting services and cutting taxes to the wealthy and corporations.  Three decades of empirical evidence proves that such policies do great harm to the economy and the overall financial health of ordinary people but they do not care because their ideology states the opposite and Conservatives do not let the facts get in the way of their ideology.

So, the cycle will continue.  The erosion of the ability of ordinary people to get ahead will continue, probably accelerating under Conservative policies, and the general malaise of ordinary people, as demonstrated by the poll I mentioned above, will intensify.

You have to wonder if and when there will be a breaking point.

Politics Matter

I have had more than a few conversations with people who do not believe this is the case. Their argument goes something like this. I vote in elections but no matter who is in power nothing really seems to change.
The problem with that argument is that 99% of politics takes place in between elections and behind closed doors.
If you do not believe me I would point to the fact that in every western democracy there is a broad and deep network of associations, thinktanks and organizations whose function is to push the points of view and the interests of businesses and corporations. These organizations along with the paid lobbyists that that businesses retain to represent them on specific issues cost Canadian businesses 10s of millions of dollars PER YEAR. Business, which is single mindedly concerned with profit, would not spend that kind of money on lobbying governments if they believed it would be ineffective, useless and not conducive to increasing their profits. Or to put it another way they would not invest that money into politics if they believed that politics did not matter.
All of this lobbying takes place outside of elections and for the most part it takes place where no camera or journalist is present to record it.
Lobbying is not evil. It is a necessary activity that helps governments to be effective and responsive to those they govern but it is also necessary that governments hear from a diversity of voices to maximise the efficacy of lobbying on policy making. In theory, when a government proposes a new policy all of those different voices weigh in and they rarely budge from their initial positions. It is up to government to find the compromise and remarkably that compromise almost always winds up being for the greater good. That diversity of voices has increasingly disappeared over the last couple decades with the result being that the voice of the business community has become the dominent one. It used to be that they were balanced out by Unions and other non-business interests but one of the objectives of the lobbying of businesses has been to reduce the ability of non-business interests in maintaining an effective voice with which to influence governments. That is one big reason why businesses and their allies on the right have been so relentless in attacking unions. While they are concerned about labour costs eating into their profits their greater motivation is to monopolize the ear of governments so that they will develop laws and policies that benefit them and only them. Unions are not perfect by any means and they are just as prone to stupidity as any other organization but they can provide alternate points of view which is crucial when making policy.
By the way if you believe that your interests align with the business community in any meaningful way you are naive. Any alignment is coincidental and transitory and government policies made exclusively for their benefit will not benefit you in the long run.
What has been the result? Well, do you feel safe in your job? Do you find it becoming more and more difficult to keep your financial head above water? The Canadian economy is booming , in a relative sense, do you feel that you are personally benefiting from that boom? Or is there always a little bit of fear in the back of your mind that your economic wellbeing is beyond your control and that through no fault of your own it could go off the rails at any time?
A more concrete example of how politics matters. In the current Ontario election I am certain electricity prices will be mentioned a few times. It should be noted that the foundation for the current high prices for electricity was laid in the 1990s when the government of Ontario decided to deregulate the electricity industry in the province. The problem was the electricity industry was a monopoly and it still is. So the government essentially gave a monopoly a free hand to set prices without any interference or accountability. If you have ever played the game of Monopoly it should not be too hard for you to figure out that such actions would lead to higher prices and they have been rising ever since. Incidentally, politicians will be talking about how to deal with high electricity prices in Ontario in the coming weeks. If any solution to high electricity prices spouted by a politician does not include the phrase “re-regulation of the Ontario electricity industry” they are talking out of their ass. The government gave up the power to stop the rise in electricity prices and to hold the electricity industry accountable for the high prices over 20 years ago. That is how it will stay unless they are willing to take back that power, which no Ontario political party has indicated they are prepared to do.
The funny thing is governments (of all political stripes) and business know that the imbalance is causing problems for ordinary people. They know it is creating a general malaise with citizens but they are unwilling to change course for a host of reasons. So instead they seek to distract and misdirect. Really, does anybody find it odd that one of the defining issues of the 2015 federal election was a piece of cloth worn by few thousand Muslim women? The economy was in the shitter but the niqab dominated the election campaign for weeks.
Will things change? No. For that to happen ordinary citizens need to be willing to become more involved in politics in between elections. They will need to be willing to make the effort of maintain sustained pressure on those who govern us to look out for out interests. Hell, ordinary citizens will need to figure out what their interests are for themselves instead of listening to what politicians and the media say are their interests. However, that will not happen. A few of us will try to influence politics for the benefit of the greater good but the majority will carry on in quiet desperation and do nothing.

The End of NAFTA?

Donald Trump has stated that he may just invoke the withdrawal clause of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  Something he said he would do during the 2016 US elections.

That has frightened more than a few of the ruling class in this country.  They have not begun to preach doom and gloom about it because doing so will not swing Donald Trump one way or another.  It would be different if someone in Canada was making these statements.

So, would the ending of the NAFTA really be that big of a deal?  Probably not.

Free trade existed between our countries before the NAFTA and it will continue to exist after it is gone.  At the time the NAFTA was ratified in North America over 85% of the trade between Canada and the United States occurred without any government interference.  The NAFTA and the previous Free Trade Agreement were designed to create free trade for the remaining 15%.  Since then the amount of trade that now takes place without any government interference is greater, although not as much as the NAFTA proponents would have us believe.  It is now around 90%.  

In other words the impact of the NAFTA on the Canadian economy has not been that great and its demise would not be such a disaster for the Canadian economy.  Certainly, those sectors of the economy that are most vulnerable to American protectionism would suffer somewhat but over all things would proceed pretty much as business as usual.

In fact, there might even be some hidden benefits to the end of the NAFTA. With the NAFTA, an individual company can sue the Canadian government if it believes that a government is pursuing policies or laws that interfere with the ability of that company to sell its goods or services in Canada.  In effect, that has hamstrung Canadian governments when they might have wanted to pass more strigent environmental, labour, health and safety laws and regulations.  Further, the more conservative elements of our society have been slowly eroding our single payer health care system and the more progressive elements of our society have not been able to reverse them because once a part of the health care system was privatized it became subject to the NAFTA.  So, reversing the privatization was impossible because American or Mexican firms could sue a government, under the NAFTA, to prevent it.

Without the NAFTA progressives in this country would have more freedom to reverse some of economic policies and laws pursued by conservatives without having to worry about running afoul of the treaty.

Which brings me to one of the reasons why the ruling class in this country is so frightend of the end of the NAFTA.  I am certain they realize that the actual negative impacts on the Canadian economy would be manageable.  What really frightens them is some progressive government may just decide to use its new found freedom in ways that they would not like.

The Republican Tax Plan and the Western Position in the World

Just before Christmas the Republicans in the US Congress passed a tax plan that by all accounts was grossly unfair to ordinary Americans by taking money from them and giving it to corporations and the wealthy in the form of huge tax cuts.

They did this despite the fact that all accounts also indicate that the plan was hugely unpopular, not just with Democrats but with Republicans as well.  Some would ask why they did this as it would seem to be political suicide.  However, I would point to the fact that Roy Moore only lost his election bid by 22,000 votes even though the final few weeks of that campaign occurred at the height of the debate about the Republican tax plan.  In other words Republican voters in Alabama knew what was coming but they still voted for the Republican candidate in droves.  If Mr. Moore had not had accusations of being a sexual predator hanging over his head the would have won in a walk despite the fact that his voters would have been voting to screw themselves.

The deeper question I have is why the Republicans decided to head in this direction at all?  It seems very mean spirited and shortsighted.  I think a clue to a reason why can be found in a previous post of mine here.

I have argued in this space before that a change is coming to the economic pecking order in the international community.  China is slowly but steadily gaining on the US economy and it is on track to overtake it within the next decade or so.  It was slowed by a recent recession but that was only a temporary delay in progress and not a permanent slowdown.  Further the actions of the American government and business are only accelerating the change.

I have further argued that once China overtakes the US as the largest economy in the world things are going to change drastically in world politics.  There have been many changes in which country has dominated the world economy over the last five to six centuries but the one thing that they all had in common was the change was always from one Western country to another.  That is, countries with similar outlooks with regard to religion and philosophy took over from each other.  Hell, the last changeover was from Great Britain to the United States, two countries that were similar in many ways including speaking the same language.

The next change is going to be from a Western country to an Eastern country, which has totally different outlooks on the world and world history.  As well, there is a history of the West abusing China in the not too distant past that I am certain is on the minds of a few leaders in China.  

For this reason I believe as China gains power it will change the way the world economy and world politics works and it will change them in ways that will be detrimental to Western countries.  It will not be vindictive it will just be China centric and since it will increasingly be in a position to call the economic and political shots there will be very little that the Western countries will be able to do about the Chinese approach.

The ability of the Western world to generate wealth at its current rate will probably be greatly reduced and many of these Western countries will fall out of the top tier of economies in the world. I believe the US is one of those countries.  Certainly it will remain the largest economy in the Western world but it will not have the heft it has now in the broader world economy.  In other words, the Western countries are poised to become 2nd world countries.

As a reminder of what that means I will explain.  Since the end of the Second World War the big Western economies were the First world countries.  They called the economic shots and established (imposed) the Bretton-Woods system on the world economy.  

The Second world economies were relatively wealthy countries within the world economy but they were completely beholden to the First World for that wealth.  It was only through the liberal trade practices of the First World that the Second World countries could maintain their wealth generating capability for they had no power to affect the world economy in their favour on their own.  That is the direction the West is currently heading.  In the not to distant future they will no longer be in a position to impact the world economy to the same extent they now can.

There were two things that were very common about 2nd world countries in the past.  The first is that, although they were relatively wealthy that wealth was heavily concentrated in the hands of a very small political and economic elite.  The ordinary citizens of these countries tended to be poor, often desperately so.  The second feature of these countries is they tended to have authoritarian political systems were these very same elites used the power of government to continually concentrate what wealth their countries generated into their hands.  

That appears to be the direction the West, in general, and the US, in particular, are headed.  The political and economic elites are taking steps in the US to contentrate power and wealth into their hands at a prodigious rate.  They are not even trying to disguise it anymore.  As well, authoritarianism is becoming more rampant in the US and it is spreading from the top down.  It was not surprising to see a teacher being hauled away in handcuffs for questioning the salary of a school superintentant when it should have been.  It should be noted however that this is not just a US phenomenon.  We are seeing it happening in other Western countries, just not as enthusiastically as in the United States. 

A big change is coming in the economic and political pecking order in the international community.  A change whose magnitude has probably not been seen in centuries.  It is going to have a profound negative impact on the wealth generation abilities of many of the countries that are currently on the top rung of the world economy and it is likely going to knock them off of that top rung.  In other words the economic pie is going to become much smaller in these countries which means there will be much less to go around.  I believe some in the West have already seen this and they are taking steps to be certain that they will have a much bigger portion of that pie once it begins to shrink.  That might explain the actions of the Republican Party in the United States.

Byelections

I have not read any of the commentary on the results of the four by-elections last night but I do know that the Liberals won three of four.

So, if the MSM is true to form many of the political pundits in this country will be claiming that the Liberals had a terrible night last night.

I have stated many times before in this space that by-elections really do not have any predictive power for what will happen during the next general election but it does my heart good to know that that media pundits will always find a way to make any result look bad for the Liberals, regardless of the outcome.  It injects a certain constancy and predictability into an otherwise chaotic life.

Is Freedom of the Press obsolete?

A provocative question to be certain.

However, I believe it needs to be asked.

One of the key requirements for a healthy democracy is a well informed citizenry.  It is quite simple. If they are well informed about what is happening in their country citizens will be better equipped to keep those who would govern them on the the right path and they will be better equipped to make certain that their governors are working for the greater good.

The opposite is true.  If they are not well informed then citizens are very vulnerable to the words and actions of charlatans who are only in politics for their own very narrow self interests.

The key function of the media or the press is to provide citizens with the information to help them discern fact from fiction.  To help them identify the charlatans, avoid electing them and safeguard their rights and freedoms

For more than a couple of decades the main stream media has failed in this very important task.  They long ago gave up any semblence of informing their audiences of what is really happening in the world preferring to "inform" their audiences of faux scandals and fake controversies in the effort to make profits.  Infotainment has replaced real news and we and our democracies are much poorer for it.

That was bad enough but currently many in the main stream media have begun to act more like propaganda vehicles for individual political parties instead of objective observers of events.  This is not a favourable development for democracy.  Propaganda, its latest incarnation being faux news, by its very nature is a direct threat to democracy.  Propaganda is what autocrats use to legitimise their rule.  Propaganda is what those who would curtail our rights and freedoms use to convince us to allow them to do just that.  

Freedom of the press was created as a method of keeping our governors honest and to prevent them from setting themselves up as kings.  It was created to safeguard democracy.  If the press is no longer willing or able to perform that function then the whole concept of a free press is called into question.   If the press is going to become an enabler of those who would take away our democratic rights then the concept of a free press might need to be eliminated all together.  At the very least controls may need to be applied.

Of course, that does create the paradox of attempting to safeguard democracy by eliminating or severely curtailing a key democratic right.  How to square that circle creates a real conundrum.  One that I cannot solve in this space but there must be some big thinkers out there who could explore it.

However, it should be noted that with modern information technology there should be no real need for a media filter being placed over what governments do anymore.  A more robust use of the internet by government departments to inform citizens of what they are doing would go along way towards providing them with the information they need to keep their governors honest.  The same is true of those arms-length governent organizations set up to oversee governments.  They now have the ability to report directly to the citizens of their countries without relying on the media.  They should begin making much greater use of this capability.  There are a great number of details that would need to be ironed out to make certain that government organizations do not use this media in a self-interested fashion but it is doable.

The western democracies are being eroded away.  It is not happening quickly but it is happening.  A ban on what certain women can wear here, the right for labour to organize there, ever so slowly the rights that our forefathers fought for are melting away like the glaciers of the world. The press, the one institution that could help us to prevent and reverse that trend, is failing its duty at best and contributing to the erosion at worst.  

It is time to begin rethinking the sacred nature of the concept of The Freedom of the Press.

China Speaks

I read in the news today that the Chinese government made some public statements that they would remain neutral in any conflict between the United States and North Korea provided the United States did not initiate hostilities.

I was wondering if China would make these kinds of statements or not and now I know the answer.

Of course, China will not get involved in an armed conflict with the US even if the Americans initiate one with North Korea.  There is no way that China will endanger itself by getting into an armed conflict with another, bigger nuclear power to protect North Korea and/or Mr. Kim. It is not going to happen but they had to put that out there to provide the cooler heads, in Washington, with some ammunition to talk Mr. Trump out of attacking North Korea.

In private, I am certain that the Chinese government has told the North Korean government that they will be on their own during any conflict with the US and that they might even be telling Mr. Kim to tone down his rhetoric because the US is currently being lead by an moronic, unstable and unpredictable sociopath who cannot be trusted not to do something very stupid.  All of the Presidents before him were known quantities and predictable so Mr. Kim could twist the nose of the United States with virtual imputiny.  That is no longer true.

There is probably alot of diplomacy taking place behind closed doors at the moment. Although it is not beyond the realm of possibility I would be surprised if all of the heated talk we have been seeing in the past few days amounts to anything besides that.

Donald Trump and North Korea

Donald Trump has made some rather imflammatory remarks in recent days threatening North Korea with "fire and fury" should the North Korean government choose to attack the United States or its interests with nuclear weapons.

Predictably those who oppose him have come out against his statements, accusing him of warmongering, being unhinged and otherwise spouting the standard stuff that Mr. Trump's opponents have been spouting for almost three years.

Mr. Trump is an ass and he really has no business being in the Whitehouse as far as I am concerned but in the case of his statements to North Korea he is correct.

It is not a secret that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons.  The number is unknown but it is not very many.  It would now appear that they have perfected a vehicle that can potentially carry them great distances.  It is still an open question as to whether they have been able to reduce the size of any nuclear warheads so that they can fit on those missile.

Regardless we can probably now consider North Korea to be a nuclear power and it is questionable if it can be trusted not to use them.  In that situation it is appropriate for Mr. Trump to remind Mr. Kim of North Korea that it is not the only nuclear power in its region.  It is appropriate to remind Mr. Kim that any use of nuclear weapons would result in him being the leader of a nuclear wasteland instead of a country, assuming he survives any nuclear counterstrike by the US.  

The only effective method for controlling the use of nuclear weapons is the threat of a swift counterstrike by another nuclear power.  During the Cold War it was called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and it is probably one of the biggest reasons we all came through that period with our lives and our civilization intact.  

Reminding Mr. Kim of the AD part of that acronym is not a bad idea.  It is true that Mr. Trump has done so in his usual ham fisted manner but the fact he has done it might just prevent real disaster, although it will probably lead to some more serious sabre rattling before this all dies down.

Book Review: Wages of Rebellion

I recently completed the book Wages of Rebellion:  The Moral Imperative of Revolt by Chris Hedges.  He is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and this particular book is quite interesting.

The book is provocative and Mr. Hedges is obviously a radical thinker in the sense that he not only believes the status quo is untenable but that we should be actively working to replace it.

The basic premise of the book is "the disasterous economic and political experiment that attempted to organize human behaviour around the dictates of the global marketplace have failed".  Instead of creating wealth for all as promised the global marketplace has created a "tiny global oligarchy which has amassed obscene wealth".  As a result of this situation there is a great deal of anger and unrest percolating below the surface, amongst ordinary citizens, which is one economic, political or natural disaster way from creating a level of unrest and instability sufficient to create the conditions for revolution.

He goes on to argue that the usual tools and mechanisms that can be used by ordinary people to keep the oligarchy in check, such as the courts and the government, have been completely co-opted to serve the new economic and political system of Corporatism and the oligarchy.  As well, he argues that this is not new and that it has been happening for most of the last century.

He spends much of the book pointing out different groups and movements that could have lead an effort to break the power of Corporatism who have been systematically broken by the courts, governments and a compliant mass media.  He points out that every movement from the Black Panthers to the Occupy Movement have been neutered so that they either disappear completely or become nothing more than a nuisance to the Corporatists.

He indicates that the only way to break the power of the Corporatists is revolution.  To replace one ruling class, that is steadily eroding our political and human rights, with another ruling class, which hopefully will restore those rights.  The author does admit that revolutions are a messy business and the replacement of the old order is not always better than the old order.  

Despite this the author does seem to be calling for just such a revolution.  

My thoughts is he is right an he is wrong.

Like alot of "radicals" who have called for revolution and the complete change in how humans organize themselves politically and economically Mr. Hedges has identified the problems with the current system very well.  I cannot argue with his basic premise.  The current system certainly is broken, it has lead to a tremendous amount of inequality and it has demonstratively lead to great unrest in the Western industrialized world.

However, like all "radicals" past and present the solution to the problems they identify are not grounded in fact.  They do not take into account human nature and the reality of the situations that we find ourselves in.

The author points to several historial revolutions as examples of successful revolutions and he is correct.  However, what he seems to overlook in these examples is the revolutionaries had a ready made alternative to the status quo ready and waiting.  The French and American revolutions had Republicanism to replace absolute rule.  Lenin and Trotsky had their brand of Marxism to replace abolute rule and capitalism.  

Is there an alternative to Corporatism?  The simple answer is no.  Corporatism grew out of Capitalism and no historical revolution has ever caused a society to go backwards. Capitalism as envisioned by Adam Smith is as dead as Communism and neither one of them is coming back.  Without an alternative for revolutionaries to rally around successful revolutions are not possible.

A second barrier to revolution is the fact that the Western world is largely democratic with a long and deep democratic tradition.  All of the historial revolutions have seen the replacement of autocratic and despotic regimes with something else.  Most of the time that something else was not much better but at least one lead to democracy, which spread to the rest of the industrialized world.  

I believe that democracy will prevent revolution but it will not prevent unrest and political extremism.  Mr. Hedges rightly points out that the current system has created a great deal of anger and unrest amongst ordinary people.  That is objectively correct and we are beginning to see the results in many places with the rise of right wing extremism.  From Brexit, to the election of Donald Trump to the near election of Marine Le Pen extreme right wing politicians are tapping into the anger and unrest to advance their view and their agenda.

This is troubling but in democracies there is usually a pendulum effect in politics.  Society will move from one end of the political spectrum to the next and back again several times within the lifetime of one individual.  As well, if that pendulum swings a great distance in one direction it will swing a similar distance in the other direction once that swing begins.  So right now the pendulum has swung far to the right, which makes it virtually guaranteed that it will swing a similar distance to the left once society begins to move in that direction.  Right wing extremism will be replaced with left wing extremism.

For those of us in the political centre the coming years will be very uncomfortable.  We will be just as leary of the left wing Donald Trump as the current right wing Donald Trump. We will be just as uncomfortable with the left wing Stephen Harper as we were with the original.

Wages of Rebellion is an interesting and provocative book that is very much worth the effort of reading, regardless of your particular political bent.  It very accurately describes the current situation and the fact that it is untenable in the medium to long-term.  However, I find his call for revolution to be premature.  Without something to replace the current system it will be virtually impossible for revolutionaries to be successful.  As well, although I agree with him that the current system puts a great deal of pressure on democracy we cannot yet right off the ability of democracy to correct the situation.  The next decade or so will probably be messy and chaotic but just like Corporatism evolved from Capitalism the next method in which we organize ourselves economically and politically will evolve from how we currently do that.  Corporatism will die like Capitalism did but what replaces Corporatism will still resemble both to a certain extent.

Explaining my Politics

I had a conversation today with someone and they asked me why I was a Liberal.

My response is I am not a Liberal but I am a liberal.  More specifically, I am a pragmatist. Most of life is about solving problems and when it comes to solving problems you are better served to identify the problem and find a solution that fits it instead of attempting to fit the problem to a preconceived solution.

This is true of governments.  Their job is to come up with solutions to problems that will serve the greatest good.  How they actually do this does not matter.  So, for example, if a issue needs a more conservative approach to be resolved then that should be the approach they take.  The same is true if a problem would be best resolved by an approach that would be considered liberal or socialist.  

Looking at the political landscape in Canada today the only party that comes close to matching that requirement, federally, are the Liberals.  The same holds true for Ontario.  

The most likely alternative to the Liberals, in Canada and in Ontario, do not meet my requirements. They are much too dogmatic.  That is, they care more about adhering to their narrow ideology than solving real world problems that would serve the greatest good. 

I am of course referring to the Conservative Parties of Canada and Ontario.  They are a great representation of the decent into dogmatism that has become a feature of modern conservatism in the English speaking world.  In fact, I would go so far as to state that I believe the conservative movement, in its current form, is as great a threat to our freedom, lives and livelihood as Communism was during the Cold War.  Indeed, conservatism would be the greater threat as it has much more credibility than Communism ever did.

Some would consider that statement inflammatory but you just need to look at the problem solving approaches of the old Soviet Union and modern conservatism to see the parallels.

During Cold War the Soviet Union had a very difficult time producing enough food to feed its entire population.  For decades it had to buy surplus grain from Canada and the West despite the fact the area of land it had to produce grain and other foodstuffs almost equaled that of the Western world combined.  Really, looking at the amount of farmland they had the Soviet Union should have been able to feed itself and have a great deal left over to sell to the rest of the world.

So why could the Soviet Union not feed itself?  Simple, agricultural decisions that would usually be taken at the individual farm level were taken by a bureaucrat at a central location. Farmers in the Soviet Union were not allowed to think for themselves and to take decisions that were in the best interest of their farms.  They had to implement the decisions, about their individual farms, that were taken somewhere else, often in a place very far away from their farms.

The ideology of the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the primacy of central control of all aspects of the economy.  Factories and farms had to be centrally controlled from the centre because that is what Lenin and Trotsky said way back in 1917 and to stray from that ideal, even a little bit, was considered to be heresy.  So, the Soviet Union stuck to Communist dogma for decades and had to buy grain and other foodstuffs from the West, almost every year, in order to stave off famine.  It should be noted that the lack of ability to feed itself took up alot of the time of the Soviet leadership but they could never come up with a solution that would work and adhere to Communist dogma at the same time.  When they had to choose between the two options they chose to stick to dogma everytime, until Mr. Gobachev came along.

The irony is if they would have relaxed that control just a small amount they would have probably solved the problem.  The agriculture industry in the West is not a true free market by any sense of the word.  That sector is the most controlled and subsidized economic sector in the West.  However, individual farmers are allowed to make decisions regarding their own farms and that is the crucial difference.

So how does this relate to modern conservatism?  The parallels are evident.  The Harper government pursued a "tough on crime" agenda throughout its time despite the fact that there was increasing evidence to indicate that crime, violent crime in particular, was falling long before they came to power.

Mike Harris decided to deregulate the electricity industry in Ontario because modern conservatives firmly believe that any form of regulation is bad.  Every industry expert that did not work for the industry or the Harris government stated that deregulation would lead to higher prices but the Harris government believed otherwise and went ahead with it. It should be no surprise that high electricity prices are now a big issue in Ontario. 

I would also point out the deregulation of the Hog industry in Ontario which lead directly to the death of several people in Walkerton, Ontario.

Climate change is real and humans are contributing to it.  The evidence is clear.  Yet conservatives either deny that fact outright or they play down its potential impacts.  There might come a time when global warming and its resultant impacts on our climate will become an existential threat to the human species yet conservatives refuse to even acknowledge that there is a problem.

To place more importance on ideological purity than on evidence and fact will inevitably lead to disaster.  You can only ignore a problem or attempt to apply the wrong solution to it for so long before it becomes unmanageable.  When we do it as individuals it can lead to great personal hardship.  When governments do it they can do unspeakable harm to the people they represent and the society that they are morally and legally bound to protect.

Modern Conservative governments attempt to fit problems to reconceived solutions  They place ideological purity over finding the most effective solution. Liberal governments are generally more pragmatic.  They will usually weigh the evidence and facts before taking a decision on how to solve a problem.  That is why I am a liberal.