Thursday, May 24, 2012

Protesting Is Not The Way

I don't understand the idea of mass protests. I do understand disagreeing with something or wanting to change government policies but I don't understand how protesting would do that. It seems if you don't like the colour of your neighbour's house, protest! I don't understand riots either. From what I've been seeing in the news, riots break out when the protester’s idea of democracy doesn't work. The image I currently have of protesters is “Hey wait, the government didn't bend to my will, break stuff!”

Here are the protests that currently stick out in my mind. The Occupy Movement and the Quebec student protests. What do these people expect from their actions? Why is their idea of democracy more important or more valid than anyone else’s? I vote, I participate in government decisions as often as I can. I speak to my representatives as I need to. I don't go out onto the street, march in large groups and light vehicles on fire when things don't go my way.

When Occupy Calgary was active, they showed liberal hypocrisy at it’s finest.  Occupy Calgary decided their movement would camp in a downtown park, which is not legal in this city.  When they were told they could not do this, and were even fined for it, they whipped out the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  The occupiers stated it was their Charter right to camp in the downtown park for as long as they wished.  They had “Freedom of Peaceful Assembly” since they were a protest movement (just with no tangible message).  What this section doesn’t mention however, is camping.  It does talk about people coming together collectively to defend a common interest, so why couldn’t the occupiers do this during legitimate park hours?  Next, in the name of democracy, the occupiers said they would stay in the park until the government met their ridiculous list of demands.  I’m sorry what?  What government, democratic or otherwise, bows to force like that?  I also have to question why they think their democratic right is more important than mine?  Ah yes...  They have an entitlement complex so big it doesn’t fit into most stadiums.

What started the Quebec student protests was a tuition increase to post secondary education. Their tuition is to increase by $325/year for 5 years. It was then changed to an increase of $1800 over 7 years which works out to about $260/year. The Quebec student protesters believe the tuition either remain the same or be struck all together.  I question while they rage against the tuition increase, how many of them have smart phones?  How many of them pay the bill, and what would they do if their monthly rate increased?

It has become well known that tuition in Quebec is lower than anywhere else in Canada.  The rest of the tuition cost is paid for by Canadian taxpayers.  If tuition is to stay where it is now, it means the equalization payments they currently receive (which is also the highest in Canada by more than twice as much as the next province) would have to be budgeted to subsidize the schools, yet be taken away from something more important like health care.  Taxes would also have to increase in Quebec by a substantial amount for the working class to subsidize the entitled class.  If these protesting students were ever to become working class, they may no longer feel increasing taxes is an acceptable solution.

Some of the protesting rioting students want free post secondary education.  They truly believe it should be fully subsidized by the government.  I have an even bigger issue with this.  Where do these small minded, highly entitled rioters think the government’s money comes from?  I personally don’t want my taxes to increase to allow them free access to university.  If, by some weird chance they did get their way, I would want course availability be ones that create productive working class citizens to be paid for by the government.  I don’t only mean trades, other examples would be business applications, nursing, and so forth.  “Psychology of the Exceptional Human Experience” or “Learning from Youtube” should not be tax payer subsidized as they would be useless in the real world.  If someone wants to learn “Philosophy of Star Trek” (honest to God) they can do that on their own dime.

As it stands, I truly believe Quebec’s equalization payments should decrease by a substantial amount.  They need to get their house in order, so to speak.  As long as Quebecers are willing to destroy their own cities, they should not be deserving of the rest of Canada’s money except for food, clothing, health care and police.  Why should they get more, they’ll only burn it.  The protesters and rioters are of the age of majority, and as it stands, we in this country believe that those over 18 years old should be responsible members of society.  That also means they need to learn to live with the consequences of their actions and right now, what they are doing is affecting their entire province.  The protesters are getting out-of-province union money, they don’t need anyone else’s.  Perhaps they can use that money to fix the damage that’s been done.

These protesters, all of them, not just the Quebec students or the occupiers, have not considered what they’re asking for when they demand a fully socialist government.  These people say hate the rich, take from the rich, tax the rich.  What happens if the socialist protesters win?  There will be no more rich in their perfect world as capitalism will no longer exist and everyone will be on equal footing.  The currently rich will only exist for so long then the money is all gone.  The evil capitalist corporations they hate so much, that support the system they decry but pay the taxes they love will be nationalized in said perfect world and their money is gone.  People who were rich or working to become rich no longer have anything to work towards.  There would be no point.  They would only lose it all to entitled socialist brats who have never had to work for anything more than a passing grade.  And even that is slowly disappearing from our educational system in the name of “self-esteem.”

Even through all of this, what troubles me most about these protesters/rioters is their hypocrisy and the fact that they can’t see it.  In a lot of cases, when their own hypocrisy is pointed out to them, they simply ignore it.  If you even try to tell one of these protesters that what they are doing is not democratic, they tell you that you are wrong.  They don’t debate, they dictate.  Giving a government an ultimatum in any other country is called a coup or terrorist act.  Here, they call it freedom of speech, only with burning cars and injured officers.  

I hope one of these days these useless and damaging protests and riots end.  Maybe these people who are so eager to yell at the world will realize that protesting every little inequity doesn’t change anything.  I also hope that the entitled class realizes that just because they don’t get their way, they can’t throw a temper tantrum and break their neighbour’s toys in retaliation.  The rest of us stop listening to them and will never take them seriously.  Attacking or injuring a police officer may seem cool today but tomorrow we’ll all see it on TV and guess what, we’re the ones that might see your resume on our desks.

We could go out and protest about the evils of the world...  Wait, no we can’t.  We’re too busy working for a living.

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