Pre-Election Thoughts： Amarjeet Sohi is Never Happy, Liberals Don't Understand Conservatives, & more
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Summary
Amarjeet Sohi is stepping down as mayor of Edmonton, Alberta, to run in his old riding in the upcoming federal election. What could be more ridiculous than that? And why is this happening in the first place?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
I think this is a particular problem on the left in that they can reiterate the policies of the politicians on the right, but they can't conceptualize of why they would believe this.
00:00:12.560
At least in this election, obviously identifying more with the conservatives, we can articulate to you what the liberal platform is and what they're trying to achieve with those goals.
00:00:21.080
You want a population that's very heavily taxed and regulated so they can maintain a market in the type of economic system that they want to have.
00:00:30.000
You know, that's the system that they want to have and these are the way that they can achieve those aims.
00:00:56.380
And today we're going to dive in and talk about why Edmonton's mayor is going on a leave of absence and why our politicians seem to just step away from their duties randomly.
00:01:13.940
Well, I'm sure glad you passed it off to me because I also don't understand.
00:01:17.780
But what I do know is that our mayor is taking a leave of absence so that he can run in his historical riding that he was.
00:01:28.780
Maybe many of our listeners might know that he was once Justin Trudeau's transport minister.
00:01:33.920
I think he may have had another ministerial role as well, but Amarjeet Sohi, he certainly was an MP for a while.
00:01:44.380
And yeah, so this article is from a few weeks ago, but we wanted to talk about it now.
00:01:49.100
It's kind of middle of the road through the election cycle here.
00:01:54.720
I mean, I'll just read the first few lines like Edmonton City Council granted Mayor Amarjeet Sohi's request Monday afternoon for an unpaid leave of absence while he runs for the Liberals in the federal election.
00:02:05.880
So he announced on Sunday he's running in Edmonton Southeast, a new riding that covers part of the area he used to represent as the MP for Edmonton Mill Woods.
00:02:14.240
Sohi's leave will be in effect until the day the official results of the election are released.
00:02:21.760
And this is just a great little quote here because I think I would probably describe it the opposite way.
00:02:28.140
But quote, I think this is being respectful of the taxpayer dollar and that the leave without pay is part of the motion, said Councillor Joanne Wright during Monday's special council meeting.
00:02:39.860
James, that's really an interesting choice of words because, like, I mean, I would say, like, rather than being respectful of the taxpayer dollar, I think that's just like that's the absolute bare minimum.
00:02:53.260
Like, the notion that it would even be acceptable in any circumstance to pay Amarjeet Sohi simultaneously to be the mayor, that he isn't fulfilling his duties while he's running for a completely different level of government seat.
00:03:08.140
I mean, the notion is ridiculous, but I think that the whole thing is ridiculous because, like, this is a situation where an opportunity has presented itself, obviously, that Sohi views to be more either lucrative or, you know, a higher, you know, maybe he feels like he's, like, not getting his dues, you know, as just a lowly mayor when he was once in the federal government.
00:03:32.000
And I don't know what he's thinking, but, like, nothing about this feels respectful to me.
00:03:38.580
Yeah, it feels like he's running away from the city because, obviously, if his heart was in making Edmonton better and fulfilling his duties as the mayor, he would stick it out the whole way through.
00:03:54.700
Obviously, like, if somebody's truly bashing it and they're like, I'm here for a term, here's what I have, here's what I'm implementing, let it be in his case, it's more bike lanes, it's some of these eco initiatives, like the electric buses that don't work in the winter.
00:04:12.880
If your heart is truly in it, wouldn't you stick through to the end?
00:04:24.900
And that's almost, you wouldn't do this in any other workplace.
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You wouldn't say, like, okay, well, like, I'm doing great here as an employee, but, okay, I'm going to, like, just hold with me for two weeks.
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And then, like, I hope you welcome me back with open arms.
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But don't worry, I'm not expecting to be paid during these two weeks.
00:04:52.080
Like, yeah, no shit, because you're not working.
00:04:59.860
So he has said that he will come back to the mayor's chair and serve the rest of his term if he loses the federal race, but he will not run for re-election municipality in the fall.
00:05:11.640
But anyway, in the meantime, city councilors will take turns filling in as deputy mayor.
00:05:18.020
I'm not going to pronounce it, but Karen Principe has the position until April 21st, and Anne Stevenson takes over after that.
00:05:28.660
He will resign as mayor, and city council will discuss filling his role, potentially with an interim mayor or continuing with the deputy rotation.
00:05:35.240
So not only is this, like, you know, throwing a wrench in for the last two weeks and for the next two weeks, now potentially we could just not have a mayor.
00:05:43.900
We could have a rotating musical chairs of deputies until the municipal elections in the fall.
00:05:53.140
Like, that's, as a resident of the city, like, I just, it's, oh, man, I'm heated.
00:06:01.380
Um, if your job can be so easily covered, how important was that job in the first place?
00:06:11.720
He'll just return if he loses the federal election.
00:06:14.000
Well, I'm sure, like, his headspace will be right, and he'll be like, you know, he'll be reinvigorated and ready to go, and he won't just be there just filling a chair and warming a seat up until, you know, for the next four or five months.
00:06:24.640
Like, yeah, it's, I, I think it speaks to also the fact that he's not planning on running again, um, reflects that, well, he's not leaving Edmonton in a good place.
00:06:40.020
Well, and I guess the examples I can point to is that they spent a huge amount of money on projects that not everybody really agrees with.
00:06:51.120
Let it be, uh, painting our sidewalks, all kinds of colors, these virtue signaling type of issues where we, we still have roads that have, that have potholes, and we have areas that are being converted into more and more bike lanes where it's frozen half the year.
00:07:11.800
We have electric buses, and those don't work, so we have money sinks that maybe someone could argue that we're not getting our money's value out of it, and there's some base level, let it be sewage, um, just infrastructure, just, well, are we providing good services to the property, like the homeowners that pay the property taxes that go into the city coffers?
00:07:38.540
And the fact that they had to ask for more money, and had to raise property taxes, saying that we ran out of money, that, that's not demonstrating good fiscal responsibility.
00:07:53.220
And I, I think we see this more on the left, is they are great at spending other people's money, and they've lost the perspective of, well, it's just a million here, it's just a million there.
00:08:05.120
And, really, the sense of value gets watered down, and then nothing's really accounted for, and I think you could expect that going into the federal, like, the federal election as well.
00:08:20.500
You look at these track records, and so much money is wasted, and it blows my mind that it's not really, like, nobody's being, nobody's being called out for mischief, for misallocating millions and billions of dollars, yet we have prosecution of protesters, so it doesn't make sense to me.
00:08:46.440
Yeah. Yeah, it's just a general level of, like, you know, clown show that we're just expected to accept, and I mean, I don't, I don't think we're being precious about this.
00:08:57.660
Like, I don't, I don't think it's too much to ask that, like, you know, if you're in a position as a mayor of a city, that you're just not allowed to run for another level of government, a completely different level of government concurrently while your term is being served as mayor.
00:09:13.760
Like, there are people who voted for him as mayor that, like, I would assume want to see him fulfill his term as mayor.
00:09:20.920
Like, that's, you know, if you were a SOHI voter, how are you looking at this?
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Like, oh, I guess, like, you know, I got, you know, whatever, 80% of my votes worth, you know what I mean?
00:09:32.580
Like, it's not, I don't know, but anyway, that's the state that we're in.
00:09:37.860
So, it's, it's, it's, it's going to be a gamble regardless, because that's the, I believe his competitor is, well, his name is slipping now from me, but he, he's, he's beaten SOHI the last couple times that they've run together, I think.
00:10:07.860
He's, he's actually, I believe, may even be the deputy, one of the, two, like, deputy PMs or something.
00:10:23.120
I believe he was, and he was, he actually introduced, he introduced some speakers at the, at the rally, yeah.
00:10:32.180
Yeah, he is deputy leader of the opposition, serving with Melissa Lantzman.
00:10:36.060
So, yeah, he's, he's very high up in the, in the, the party.
00:10:40.580
So, yeah, that'll be, it'll be a tough race, but he, he's beaten SOHI before.
00:10:46.660
So, be curious to see how that, how that riding goes.
00:10:49.040
I'm going to be curious to see, maybe this is a good segue into this, the general election talk.
00:11:02.620
I'll watch the highlights or the lowlights as it is.
00:11:04.820
Um, but I have read the general consensus, maybe we're in a bit of a bubble, but the general consensus seems to be that, uh, Polyev did very well.
00:11:14.320
Um, people are commenting that he sounded and he seemed very prime ministerial.
00:11:20.160
Um, uh, Carney is well known to not have strong French.
00:11:24.180
And I believe that, uh, that may have affected him.
00:11:28.280
The, the general comments that I've been reading is that his, his, um, people are having a hard time understanding him.
00:11:34.560
I don't think his, his, um, vocabulary is necessarily that strong.
00:11:41.140
So maybe that would, you know, maybe he's not being very precise in French.
00:11:46.640
Cause I've, I've had this discussion before with people.
00:11:48.780
We may have even talked about it briefly on here, but, um, I don't know that.
00:11:55.100
I mean, everyone knows the polls are fake and gay and they're not real, but, um, the, the idea that the liberals are just going to walk through Quebec like they always do.
00:12:06.880
Like, I don't think that, I don't think that the Quebecois are too thrilled on handing their vote to a guy who very obviously doesn't really have much time or interest in learning how to properly communicate to them.
00:12:21.480
He's had, you know, he's worked in Europe before.
00:12:23.960
I mean, he worked in England and he's lived, you know, all over Europe and he's, I'm sure had lots of business dealings in France.
00:12:29.660
Um, you know, he's a, markets himself as a pretty worldly guy.
00:12:33.300
Um, you know, apparently he doesn't have the interest though to, you know, woo voters in a, in a huge liberal stronghold traditionally.
00:12:43.140
And I have a hard time that they're going to vote for him when you have, I mean, maybe this is selling them short a little bit, but I mean, the guy, Pierre Polyev, that's about as French as it gets.
00:12:56.660
He, uh, you know, has a long track record of being, you know, pretty, pretty well liked in Quebec.
00:13:01.960
So yeah, I just, I just don't think that Quebec is going to be as red as people think it is.
00:13:09.680
I feel like in Quebec they do, they vote for their province more than they vote for Canada.
00:13:17.620
And I, I feel like that's been demonstrated in the past and in this case, Carney doesn't seem to be other than he doesn't seem to be favoring Quebec other than maybe protecting equalization.
00:13:32.240
If, if they were going to vote on something, if they were worried that equalization would be maybe like watered down or shifted under the conservatives.
00:13:46.580
I don't know the rhetoric that's happening in Quebec right now, but I could see that being maybe one of the deciding factors.
00:13:56.360
Um, but the, the other, the other thing about this debate is, uh, if you, I don't know if it matters as much of the French vote, but I feel like the choices of translators is like, is a little sus.
00:14:15.440
Like give the most confident sounding voice to the weakest French speaker.
00:14:25.040
The effeminate, less confident sounding voice to Polly have.
00:14:29.640
I wonder if they though, like just to play devil's advocate here.
00:14:32.620
I wonder if, if Carney needed the strongest translator, like a guy.
00:14:37.820
Like maybe he's the only person who can like fully decode.
00:14:45.060
But which again, though, to, to unplay devil's advocate, that's not really right.
00:14:53.360
Cause if, if he's such a, if he requires this much assistance, then, you know, that's just further proves my original point.
00:14:59.820
Well, what I'm getting to is the bulk of the voters being English speaking.
00:15:10.760
They, they will, they will, they will hear sound bites that sound more confident and sound more articulate than they actually are.
00:15:19.600
Um, so it, it, it, for the majority of the voters, this French debates currently not going to hurt them as much as it, it would, if everybody could fully comprehend how, how, how much nonsense he's speaking in French.
00:15:42.140
It's, um, yeah, there's shenanigans all over the place.
00:15:46.840
Actually, I was reading that, um, it felt like the, the speed with which Carney was answering questions.
00:15:53.320
Um, it felt like he may have been aware of what the questions were.
00:15:57.680
I mean, I know that's a very like spicy allegation, but, um, I mean, wouldn't be the first time that one candidate was given an advantage over another in a bit in a debate.
00:16:10.580
He's the only candidate actively, maybe other than Jagmeet, uh, who is like championing the CBC.
00:16:19.380
So I don't know if you have to, if you have to remember Carney is an outsider, he's an outsider in no way.
00:16:30.380
Um, unless you count him advising the liberals for multiple years.
00:16:36.820
And then for being, but he's an outsider, finance minister in two different governments going back to 2008.
00:16:43.440
I think he, he, uh, managed to get a signature on the money by video.
00:16:56.400
The person who gets to press the print money button and then, then would declare.
00:17:04.320
It's like, I don't know where this inflation's coming from.
00:17:09.900
Like, well, we predicted inflation would be less.
00:17:15.540
You obviously don't understand some basic principles of.
00:17:19.060
I predicted I'd be an all-star NHL player, but you know, here we are.
00:17:24.080
Some things just don't work out the way you, uh, you intend.
00:17:39.040
Uh, yes, it's both hilarious and it's both a mind fuck in a way.
00:17:46.260
Um, but I also, any, any time I seem maybe a little bit frustrated, I take a step back
00:17:53.760
and I realize people are living in different worlds and the world that we're living in,
00:18:02.180
we've, our information landscape, we've put a lot of effort to step outside and to seek
00:18:11.520
And we've changed our, our consensus over time.
00:18:18.280
And I don't think people have gone through the same process.
00:18:24.100
Like a good chunk of people have not stress tested their ideas.
00:18:27.320
They get emotional when somebody disagrees and we've seen this with friends and family
00:18:32.200
and you see this online with people who, um, you just get upset when you say the wrong
00:18:43.200
You're not supposed to believe that you're a bad person.
00:18:46.540
So there, there's a lot of incentive to kind of stick within your own circle.
00:18:52.160
And as soon as we step outside of the circle, I think a lot of conservatives forget how it
00:18:59.260
feels to be inside one bubble because we're outside of that bubble.
00:19:05.260
And if a lot of our interactions are with people who also believe the same things, let
00:19:10.520
it be on mandates or how COVID went or, uh, with kind of the financial side of where Canada
00:19:16.540
is going or kind of where we need to go with governance and immigration and all these other
00:19:29.000
So I'm wondering, well, not wondering, like, um, I know there won't be a bridge to gap that
00:19:40.500
divide in this election, but I'm wondering how strong is that bubble and what is the minimum
00:19:50.900
Is it a, is it, maybe it's a simple misconception.
00:19:55.400
Could it be PR is going to take away abortion rights?
00:20:03.100
And that's enough of a miss, that's enough of a misconception that a uninformed, unengaged
00:20:20.800
Sorry to interrupt your train of thought there.
00:20:22.520
We were talking before we hit record here about how that little clip that came out this
00:20:26.740
week about, um, or maybe late last week, um, of Polyev talking about his, um, nonverbal
00:20:32.860
daughter and how that was kind of a nice little, like humanizing kind of moment, you know,
00:20:37.920
to maybe for somebody who, you know, who views Polyev as a, you know, a Trump light or something
00:20:44.340
like this, like, you know, obviously couldn't be farther from the truth, but, um, you know,
00:20:48.800
a lot of conservatives in Canada wish he was like a Trump light, but you know, these
00:20:52.600
unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on your opinion, not even close.
00:20:57.340
Um, but to see, you know, a little, a little human humanizing type of a segment about this,
00:21:02.140
where he's talking about his little daughter, who's like, you know, obviously I think nonverbal
00:21:06.400
probably means like she's somewhere on the autism spectrum probably.
00:21:09.160
And, you know, they've just, she was just a small comment on like how they communicate,
00:21:13.180
they find different ways to communicate and like how nice it is when she like, cause
00:21:18.200
Cause she can't really, you know, she, you know, she'll, she'll, she experiences the,
00:21:23.580
And so when she shows, you know, caring and love, you know, that's like a, it means a little,
00:21:28.120
it means so much more cause it's so you can tell that she really means it kind of thing.
00:21:32.180
I, I think that was the gist of the little comment, but like, I have a hard time believing
00:21:36.240
that, you know, even the most hardened, like poly of like liberal poly of hater could see
00:21:43.480
that and be like, ah, you know, they, maybe he's not so bad.
00:21:47.640
Like, it's like when you see somebody you hate and you know, or like a politician or
00:21:51.520
an actor or somebody you don't like, and like you see them interacting with their dog or something
00:21:55.820
or their kids and you're like, ah, yeah, maybe he's all right.
00:21:59.600
Like one of those little breaks the fourth wall kind of things.
00:22:03.640
Is that enough to undo months or years of, of demonization?
00:22:12.420
Because here's the thing, you can, you can find clips of Trump being like him interacting
00:22:24.760
And, and you, you can see like, you could see his heart come out and he's so happy to
00:22:30.460
see them and he's interacting and the way he interacts with children.
00:22:34.220
Those are all green flags of like, if it's, if you're comparing between different political
00:22:41.200
figures, there's examples of people who are creepy around children.
00:22:52.860
I was just going to say like, that's a, it's a perfect example because it's like, you look
00:22:57.240
at how, you look at how the media tried to portray Joe Biden and his family for the last
00:23:03.000
four years, man, for the last, like, you know, even going back into the, you know, late two
00:23:07.540
thousands, you know, or rather a, yeah, late two thousands, early 2010s as, as the vice
00:23:19.040
And then you look at Trump and Trump's supposed to be this like irredeemable, like scourge on
00:23:26.520
They're all like high powered, you know, professionals.
00:23:29.320
They all like, they all work with him in some capacity.
00:23:37.060
So it's like, Oh, how do you, how do you square these two things?
00:23:41.000
And if, if the fundamental truth is shown through somebody's character, you shouldn't need media
00:23:52.340
Like it should be, let's say somebody, somebody has a lack of character.
00:23:56.520
Truly like you should just be able to take a clip, let it run its full context.
00:24:05.180
And a five minute clip should show you everything you need to know.
00:24:09.220
And when there's the same thing happens with Polyev, uh, you get these little snippets and
00:24:17.280
I don't think people really engage with more than that.
00:24:19.500
I'm always curious, like what's the, what's the full context around this?
00:24:25.980
I think we all are a little bit guilty of, we'll see a clip.
00:24:29.260
It says something that we resonate with whatever that small little snippet is and we don't see
00:24:38.040
And we have to do this even when it agrees with us, if, if it kind of like, oh yeah, that's
00:24:48.560
Like, okay, well let's always just step out, let's get into the habit of watching the full
00:24:54.220
thing, seeing what the context or not jumping to conclusions, no matter how good or bad they are.
00:25:01.920
Yeah, well, and, and also what guys like us and, you know, the people, the circles that
00:25:06.680
we run in now tend to forget too, is there's not a lot of people out there sitting there
00:25:13.760
spending their evenings watching, you know, hour long or, or even more, you know, documentaries
00:25:20.560
or, or like series of related YouTube videos on political theory and like, you know, and
00:25:27.460
like, you know, the history of, you know, such and such an issue in this country or like,
00:25:31.800
you know, philosophical, you know, discussions about policy.
00:25:37.000
We are twisted and just like messed in the head and we, we love this kind of stuff.
00:25:42.980
And that's why we, you know, we in turn like to talk about it and sort of, you know, bounce
00:25:48.420
And so we can kind of, you know, this isn't to toot our own horns here, but this is just
00:25:53.360
Like we're, both of us have our flaws and our disinterest in tons of things.
00:25:58.940
We just happen to be interested in and good at talking about this kind of stuff, but we
00:26:04.940
Like you look at what, you know, you can, I don't know if you've seen those clips of guys
00:26:09.080
like who go to, um, who go to, um, I can't think of the guy's name, but he's been going
00:26:15.700
to carny rallies and like interviewing, you know, the average carny attendant and like
00:26:19.740
invariably it's like a 60 year old white woman or whatever.
00:26:23.560
And it's like, well, what are your, you know, what are you concerned about in this election?
00:26:26.380
Well, you know, we, we want to stand up to Trump and it's like, for Christ's sake.
00:26:32.360
Is that's the, that's the extent of what you believe this election is about?
00:26:35.820
Like, cause both, both of the guys talk, you know, say the same rhetoric there.
00:26:40.960
Is there anything, does your analysis go any deeper than this?
00:26:45.540
The, the analysis does not go deeper than that.
00:26:56.640
So they're engaged in one way, but are the ideas, have they, they really engaged with the
00:27:03.240
ideas and maybe some of them have in university, but that's also not, is that fully stress testing
00:27:16.220
You look at even, I was going to say as an example of the type of content I will gladly
00:27:26.840
And I have like listening to a, the full breakdown of how we shifted into fiat currency, just as
00:27:43.520
And some people would be like, I will, some people would never dream to just listen to
00:27:48.880
Like it would not, they would not be able to follow.
00:27:51.860
They, they would find it too boring or like, why does this matter?
00:27:56.840
But why it matters is these things underpin pretty much everything in society.
00:28:02.280
And if we're voting on specific people to implement policies, what underlies these policies?
00:28:15.360
And same thing with even voting for, I feel like the conservatives, people voting for conservatives
00:28:23.320
right now, it's the, you still run into that issue where if you're voting out of hate, it's
00:28:30.360
like, well, if your choice is this other side, well, look at what they did to us.
00:28:37.160
So I'm voting for the conservatives to spite them.
00:28:43.060
Um, it is, it's, it's a backwards way of approaching it.
00:28:48.240
You shouldn't be voting against things you should be voting for.
00:28:51.860
But if that's the whole liberal strategy right now is demonize Polyev as Trump.
00:29:02.260
And then prop up Carney as, well, we are fighting against Trump and by Polyev by extension.
00:29:12.380
You know, there's a, there's a, I'm sure many people have said this in many ways, but there's
00:29:18.940
a kind of an old adage where it says like, you know, you, you, you can't really claim
00:29:23.020
to understand your opponent's viewpoint unless you can iterate it back to them in a way that
00:29:29.260
they agree with, you know, in the way that they've agreed that you've given that you've,
00:29:36.980
I would go one step further, especially in respect to politics.
00:29:39.960
And I would say you, I would say that you can't really understand your opponent's political
00:29:47.420
views unless you can iterate it back to them in a way that they understand.
00:29:52.640
And in a way that you understand the goals that they're trying to achieve, because I think
00:29:58.200
that, I think that most conservatives or liberals could, could recite to you, you know, some
00:30:03.740
of the major talking points of the opponent's platform, for example, but I don't think, and
00:30:09.180
I think this is a, of course I'm going to say this, but I'll justify it.
00:30:13.340
I think this is a particular problem on the left in that they can reiterate the policies
00:30:20.100
of the politicians on the right, but they can't conceptualize of why they would believe
00:30:26.460
It doesn't work the other way because, you know, as people who, you know, broadly identify
00:30:30.180
as, you know, more so with conservatives, I think we're both probably more a little bit,
00:30:33.360
you know, call us libertarians or whatever, but at least in this election, obviously identifying
00:30:39.840
more with the conservatives, we can articulate to you what the liberal platform is and what
00:30:45.240
You know, you, and even if you say it's, you know, uncharitable, you, I don't even think
00:30:52.420
You know, you, you want a population that's very heavily taxed and regulated so they can
00:30:57.860
maintain a market in, in, in the type of economic system that they want to have.
00:31:02.160
You know, they, that's the system that they want to have.
00:31:04.320
And this is, these are, these are the, the way that they can achieve those aims.
00:31:07.380
And, you know, maybe for a very tiny subset of the population, that's an appealing, uh,
00:31:14.180
system, but I would say for far more, it's not on the other, on the other hand, I don't
00:31:22.160
know of many like strong liberal voters who could articulate.
00:31:26.180
Let me give you an example, a clearer example, then I'll stop talking for a second.
00:31:30.860
The, do you remember when Trudeau was pushing that, um, school lunch program?
00:31:35.800
Um, we've talked about this before briefly, I think he was pushing the school lunch program
00:31:41.200
and was using the conservatives opposition to it as a, as a point of argument of like,
00:31:47.680
like, oh, the conservatives don't want your children to have food or something.
00:31:53.020
That's obviously no one disagrees with the premise that children should have healthy lunches
00:32:00.260
The argument is that should it be the government that's providing that food or should it be, should
00:32:05.340
a system of government governance be put in place that allows families to have the type
00:32:10.120
of disposable income that allows them to provide their children with the necessary and healthful
00:32:20.440
The argument is not this straw man that they've constructed of like, oh, well, the conservatives
00:32:24.160
just don't, they just, all that money that would have gone to that program, they want to give
00:32:30.180
And it's like, okay, listen, bud, your party leader is a wealthy banker.
00:32:38.320
Well, I'm, I'm going to be the one person to say, uh, with the childhood obesity rates,
00:32:43.200
we need less food for children, less food in schools.
00:32:50.480
But that's the perfect example of some of these, um, it's a legislation.
00:32:58.500
It's not ultimately the implement, like to actually set it in motion.
00:33:05.980
It's not designed to be effective because you can't feed everybody.
00:33:09.640
It's not a top down unless they have the level of control in every school.
00:33:16.460
It's the amount of like improvement that they can get is, is minimal.
00:33:22.720
Same thing happens with the dental program, uh, the, like, or the childcare CCB, childcare
00:33:33.560
These things sound great when you're delivering a speech, then you look into the details and
00:33:41.320
They have very strict income cutoffs and, um, they're actually not helping a lot of people,
00:33:55.080
And then you see cases of people trying to access the childcare benefit and you're like,
00:34:00.580
okay, well, I'm not eligible for it yet, or I have to submit a thing.
00:34:04.200
And then there's some paperwork and then it gets denied.
00:34:06.860
So the opposition, the cases, the cases, sorry, again, please finish your thought, but often
00:34:14.220
the cases with these types of things, exactly like what you're saying, the incentive is to
00:34:18.720
actually make less money so that you can qualify for these programs.
00:34:22.480
The incentive is never in a, in a, on the more, you know, progressive, you know, liberal
00:34:27.560
side, the incentive is to never earn more and achieve more.
00:34:31.060
It's always, if you're earning less and achieving less, we'll give you more.
00:34:34.960
So we're how that's a, it's a perverse, it's an inverted incentive.
00:34:39.600
We, we might have to do an episode where we actually pull up the numbers.
00:34:44.100
Um, there's some good data on this right now, even showing that, um, the money disproportionately
00:34:50.100
goes to new Canadians or new, uh, temporary residents and people who are, well, they're coming
00:35:01.820
So again, you are kind of just buying voters at this point.
00:35:07.520
This is a population that is expanding and these amounts of benefits, I can see where it comes
00:35:13.260
from because you're saying like, well, these people need help.
00:35:18.260
If that makes sense, when you're coming from the left, you have compassion for all, this
00:35:27.160
We've seen these heat, heat maps of where people broadly direct their empathy towards wider and
00:35:35.480
wider circles outside of their kind of family unit.
00:35:38.460
And what happens is that as this empathy gets applied to these groups, well, you can't ever
00:35:46.700
oppose any of these things because you are immoral.
00:35:50.660
If you do only a evil conservative would try to deny benefits to people who need it the most
00:35:57.760
rather than thinking about, well, what's the economic background?
00:36:02.600
Like what's the landscape that is informing these decisions?
00:36:14.720
The liberal, this is the image, the, uh, the, oh man, I can't find this.
00:36:22.680
The, uh, um, conservative versus liberal, uh, heat map of empathy.
00:36:29.060
The, as the circles get larger, the, the, uh, relational distance from you gets farther.
00:36:35.860
Saying that conservatives focus more on family and like close knit circles.
00:36:41.920
And so the argument was that I've heard, I've read two conflicting things.
00:36:46.060
The, there are two conflicting ways it says that the, that the study was worded is that,
00:36:51.360
um, that each ring is, it was not inclusive of the other.
00:36:57.260
So like the attention that you would give to one in the inner circle was, was taken away
00:37:01.920
And then there's another way that, that, that said that the study was worded that outside
00:37:10.600
And that's why the liberals heat mapped out here.
00:37:18.280
That's actually like just as bad because it's not like in what world do you think you can
00:37:24.060
give equal consideration to amoebas as you can your, your literal family members or like
00:37:29.480
non like potential, uh, all living things in the like alien life forms.
00:37:35.060
And then you're like, what do you think you can like, your empathy can extend that far?
00:37:39.800
Like regardless of, of what the, uh, the actual wording of the question is, it's all stupid.
00:37:46.140
It, yeah, the people may disagree about exact, exactly what this study proves or not, but
00:37:54.620
the reason it's turned into a meme and it's been spread around is because it reflects a
00:38:00.940
fundamental known truth that we all, we all agree on this.
00:38:07.080
I think liberals will be the first ones to tell them they have empathy for everybody until
00:38:14.300
Then they, their empathy runs a little dry instantly.
00:38:19.300
They want diversity in all things except for opinion.
00:38:22.200
They will, they will call you a lot of bad words, uh, instantly when you disagree.
00:38:27.920
So in this case, it's, it, in our political sphere or our political climate, these types
00:38:38.900
of things are to, it preys on the emotions, um, and there, I wish I could find, let's see
00:38:52.260
Why don't you tell me, I'll look it up while you're, while you're talking.
00:39:14.580
So we've had, um, we've had masculinity demonized in a way.
00:39:21.160
And I feel like in a sense we, we see a, the people rejecting kind of these, the soft
00:39:28.860
spoken feminization of men are shifting towards the right.
00:39:37.940
It doesn't even need to be, that's kind of an overcorrection.
00:39:40.580
We could unpack that in its own, like that's, it's, it's, maybe that's the manifestation
00:39:47.760
of, to the degree that this, this kind of issue has metastasized into, but, um, I want
00:39:57.960
And this is one of these like unnamed red text saying people who can't defend themselves
00:40:06.200
physically, women and low T men parse information through a consensus filter as a safety mechanism.
00:40:14.080
Um, they literally ask, they literally do not ask, is this true?
00:40:22.220
They ask, will others be okay with me thinking this is true?
00:40:27.260
This makes them very malleable to brute force manufactured consensus.
00:40:32.800
If every screen they look at says the same thing, they will adopt that position because
00:40:37.700
in their brain, it interprets it as everybody in the tribe believing it.
00:40:42.200
Only high T alpha males, which is, we can argue about the term alpha male or not, but, and
00:40:50.340
a neurotypical people like the autistics out there are actually free to parse new information
00:41:01.000
This is why a republic of high status males is best for decision-making democratic, but
00:41:07.140
a democracy for only those who are free to think.
00:41:14.380
Yeah, I've seen that one before and I really liked it.
00:41:16.740
I, I, you know, regardless, yeah, like you say, you can pick apart some of the language
00:41:20.260
there, but yeah, I think it's, I think it's the, the insight there is, is very broadly
00:41:25.500
I mean, there's, there's a, we saw this during COVID.
00:41:28.200
I mean, you know, where people's, um, you know, entire, uh, you know, like people were
00:41:34.320
willing, literally willing to throw their fellow citizens in prison camps for not, you
00:41:39.940
know, taking the thing that they, the TV said that they should do because they were, you
00:41:45.040
know, the, the vaccine is a hundred percent effective, but if they don't have it and if
00:41:49.980
your friend doesn't have it and you do, then you could still get sick.
00:41:52.280
So, you know, like it doesn't have to make sense.
00:41:54.720
It just has to be what they're being told is right.
00:41:58.000
And yeah, it's, it's, you know, it was, we invariably saw, um, this, this very phenomenon
00:42:03.740
where you had certain people of, you know, what they call like the, you know, the, the
00:42:11.440
There was a Canadian guy who he lives overseas.
00:42:14.100
Now he was like a big, like kind of bodybuilder guy who got pretty well known for like making
00:42:25.340
Um, he, he did a bunch of videos where he was going through airports and saying, well,
00:42:34.440
And that is something that like only a, you know, at least somebody who views himself
00:42:38.620
as a high status person would do, but obviously only somebody with the type of, um, you
00:42:43.500
know, self-assurance to, to, to kind of pull that thing off.
00:42:48.900
I mean, it was, I know some people will look at that and say that it's sexist and whatever.
00:42:53.720
And it's like, well, it isn't sexist because it's, you know, there are, there are plenty
00:43:00.020
There are plenty of conservative women out there who are very vocal on, on these issues
00:43:05.200
I think there's a certain, you know, there's kind of a, there's kind of like a meme of the
00:43:12.200
like conservative Christian, like trad wife girl or whatever, like, you know, but I think
00:43:17.340
a lot of that is like a lot of those things are fairly protective against, um, social
00:43:22.140
contagions, you know, cause they, those types of women are, are, are, they've found meaning
00:43:27.900
outside of, um, you know, whatever the most popular thing in social circle is, you know,
00:43:33.080
they, they have their family and their faith and whatever, you know?
00:43:35.920
Um, so yeah, there are certainly, and, but those would be the type of women who would
00:43:41.340
also agree that society needs to be led by, you know, strong, independent, free thinking
00:43:48.540
Like it's a, it's sort of a, a double, uh, it's sort of a, I can't think of the term.
00:43:54.220
It's, it's ironic in a way, but it's like, yeah, I don't, I don't think, I don't think
00:44:00.200
Uh, well then, then that kind of describes how, uh, you point, you kind of pointed to
00:44:06.620
how faith and family are some of these fundamental pillars and with a strong family unit, you
00:44:14.520
are less susceptible for that, to that social contagion.
00:44:19.100
Cause you're like, well, this is, this is what I need for my family.
00:44:23.300
And you put trust in whatever structure you have on that family.
00:44:26.400
And I think you run into issues where, well, where do you defer your trust and where do
00:44:37.300
And there's one example, it was somebody saying like, well, okay, well, feminism has got us
00:44:45.260
to a place where a woman's taught to go to a job and listen to a male boss and take orders
00:45:03.540
Big, big government for telling me how to live my life and then go home and think that
00:45:10.380
following the direction or listening to her husband is oppressive.
00:45:17.660
So why, so the one person who has vowed in his heart to do everything he can to love and cherish
00:45:28.060
and help her grow and raise a family, the person who stood up in front of friends and
00:45:35.440
family, like a hundred people and said their vows somehow should be disregarded.
00:45:46.360
It's, it's, it's such a, it's such a, uh, you know, uh, a dirty trick that was played
00:45:53.060
You know, it's like, um, the, the notion that, well, I mean like, and so the other half
00:45:59.580
of that, the, the faith part is like, you know, there's, it's not a coincidence that every
00:46:04.700
authoritarian government that's ever existed, you know, I mean, we can point to the ones in
00:46:08.640
the, you know, 20th century anyway, that as soon as they arise to power, they do everything
00:46:13.880
they can to eliminate the churches, any, any churches, it doesn't matter which, just anything
00:46:18.940
that, that would pull from a person's willingness to submit to the authority of the state.
00:46:24.720
If, if they have a higher power, it becomes much, uh, much more difficult to get them to commit
00:46:33.880
The religion's always a, it's incompatible with the state because the state is functioning
00:46:48.640
You may have, like, if you do not have science.
00:46:52.500
If you do not have faith in your institutions, what do you have?
00:46:56.940
And I remember even during COVID, when I was pointing some things out on the efficacy of
00:47:06.400
lockdowns and how it's, it's never really been done before.
00:47:09.600
And it's outside of the pandemic plan that we had and all the recommendations that were
00:47:14.580
preexisting before all those recommendations were thrown out the window.
00:47:18.860
So I remember making some posts and a couple of friends said, like, it sounds like you're
00:47:24.580
against the government, like really, like this kind of accusational vibe of, well, it's
00:47:35.340
like, it sounds like, sounds like you're a sinner.
00:47:44.080
It's like you, you are, you are questioning our doctrines.
00:47:52.780
Um, so anytime a government starts filling this role, I get very, very skeptical of.
00:48:06.340
It's, uh, it's, uh, Peter Boghossian's, um, substitution hypothesis, right?
00:48:12.300
You know, in, in the absence of a religion, you know, something else will come in to fill
00:48:16.660
And, you know, if it was, you know, if we were having this podcast in 2011 or 2012, maybe
00:48:23.880
we would be talking about how stupid vegans are.
00:48:27.160
Cause you know, they, that sometimes we still talk about that.
00:48:32.200
It's never a bad time to talk about how stupid vegans are, but you know, there were every
00:48:36.400
other restaurant that was popping up was a vegan restaurant.
00:48:38.740
Cause if you were, you know, you had to identify as that, otherwise you were like, how can you
00:48:44.340
And then if it was, you know, 2015, 2016, you know, when a lot of, um, maybe 20, 2014 to
00:48:50.980
2016, when a lot of debate was raging in the U S about changing, uh, um, is it 2015?
00:49:00.780
You know, when there was the, even Obama was on record as being like, you know, not sure
00:49:05.180
about like what gay marriage was going to look like, you know, like the, the, the transition
00:49:09.500
from civil unions to, uh, to, from a definitional standpoint.
00:49:17.260
And so like, you know, it, it, it sort of, it changes with the eras, you know, with the,
00:49:22.740
with the cultural zeitgeist as it shifts through, through the years.
00:49:27.800
Like the trusting the science was, you know, if you went against, you know, um, father
00:49:33.920
Fauci, you know, you were, you know, you were, you needed to go to confession and you needed
00:49:39.560
to, you know, take your, you needed to take the Eucharist, which was of course your, your
00:49:45.140
And so like, yeah, I mean, this is, it, it's a, it's a one to one, it's not even a stretch.
00:49:51.520
It's if you don't, and you know, it affected obviously even religious people, I'm sure, but
00:49:56.980
the types of, the types of behaviors and the types of actions that, that, uh, um, a government
00:50:04.620
with a tendency towards authoritarianism evokes in people is one of a religious fervor in nature.
00:50:12.020
But right now that's not apparent to the people who are in it.
00:50:19.640
Cause yeah, they don't see it right now because they, they're oftentimes very vocally, you
00:50:25.340
Well, but like, how is it that, so the, the, we're trying to wrap our minds around, like,
00:50:31.020
what is the, what's the doctrines or what's the, what's the messaging?
00:50:38.720
And I keep on hearing the message where right now people believe that the USA is a fascist
00:50:47.460
state that the next Hitler is in power, that there are actual Nazis and Elon's a Nazi, uh,
00:50:56.580
despite them passing laws on antisemitism, uh, expanding hate speech, et cetera, and both
00:51:05.020
going to Israel and supporting, um, Israel's right to exist.
00:51:10.360
And these things that no good Nazi would, uh, would do.
00:51:15.940
So, you see, the, the, the, the term has just been, I was reading something about this
00:51:22.800
It's like a, I think it was like a green text thing too, actually, um, about how like the,
00:51:28.300
the world war two, I mean, this is another discussion, but the, the post world war two,
00:51:32.540
uh, consensus, like that is, that is the West's religion and it has all of the features of
00:51:39.760
Like you, you know, you have your Satan figure in Hitler and you can't, um, you know, there's,
00:51:48.140
You can't like, that's the worst evil there ever was.
00:51:50.320
You have the, you know, the, the, the sin, which is being a Nazi.
00:51:53.620
And then you have, you know, the West, which is your, you know, Churchill and the, and you
00:51:58.700
know, the, the allies, which are your savior figures.
00:52:01.060
And, and, you know, you have these sort of sacred cows and these sort of like untouchable
00:52:04.520
subjects because it's, it, it acts and it behaves and it moves through a society as a
00:52:10.620
And we see this pop up time and time again, and this is dominating their thinking.
00:52:16.900
And as long as you can point to somebody and put enough media force behind it, you can
00:52:25.620
And my, my larger point with this is the contrast between them calling the United States fascist
00:52:35.740
right now doesn't align with what has actually happened through COVID.
00:52:46.180
They do not criticize things that would actually fit the definition of a top-down government
00:52:57.640
They, they don't criticize COVID because, well, it's like, it's for the greater good,
00:53:04.040
which factors into some of these foundation, this foundational myth of there's a clear and
00:53:12.140
This evil is there and we must do everything to get rid of this evil.
00:53:16.120
Even if it comes at the cost of like some, some human rights and that same logic, same
00:53:26.660
logic gets us, well, how many wars has the United States has, well, how many countries has, is the
00:53:40.040
Well, Saddam's the next hit, but like, or he's going to go of genocidal.
00:53:46.260
And every time the threat is, you, all you need to do is you just need to connect it with
00:53:53.000
this foundational, the, this foundational pillar, say this threat is the next threat of this
00:54:04.860
Like we, we got to save the world by doing this.
00:54:08.620
And then as soon as you connect it with those emotions, people will fall through and you
00:54:19.100
You can say, well, we need to do this because, uh, well, if we don't increase screenings,
00:54:24.460
terrorists will come and sure we have increased screening.
00:54:27.740
And then they just let people across the border.
00:54:32.040
Like they're just going to drive, they're going to get a pickup truck.
00:54:36.940
Like airports are not a convenient place to shuttle a bunch of people with weapons over.
00:54:51.020
So these things do not make sense, but they make more sense when you think about like,
00:54:58.100
what is beneficial to governments who want to increase their power?
00:55:05.360
I think that's a perfect little bow to just wrap that up with.
00:55:08.160
Cause that's, Ooh, I couldn't have put it any better.
00:55:16.200
James, we, we start very specific about the mayor of Edmonton running for a federal MP,
00:55:24.180
a federal seat as an MP and we end up in geopolitical immigration theory and, and COVID inevitably.
00:55:39.360
But that's, that shows that we are, we are practicing what we preach and we are applying,
00:55:45.500
we are thinking from a principled standpoint about specific issues rather than trying to be
00:55:52.700
hyper specific in the, in the globe, in the, in the grand scheme of things.
00:55:59.500
It's, if we're able to relate it back to like, well, here's the larger dynamics in play,
00:56:03.580
then, um, then that's more than just like sensational.
00:56:12.900
It's, uh, hopefully you are all finding this very useful.
00:56:15.840
Hope to, uh, see some of you in the comments as well.
00:56:19.380
If that's an interesting discussions, um, for any liberals in the comments, uh, we'll see
00:56:25.360
Even if we didn't want you to, you will be there and we, but we do actually want you
00:56:33.240
Thanks for everybody sticking around with two white supremacists.
00:56:38.780
After immigration, we were talking about immigration.
00:56:49.080
But, uh, anyway, yeah, that's, um, that's about all she wrote.
00:56:55.360
As always, um, for me to, um, make sure to, um, of course we're on, uh, you're probably
00:57:07.300
We'll have the full episode on Spotify and, um, yeah.
00:57:12.940
Appreciate, uh, appreciate you hanging out with us.