Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
You summed up the entirety of the Klein tenure as pragmatism that maybe got out of hand, (taken to the extreme, not necessarily extreme by their nature) if you didn't mean that why did you write it?
|
You then took that and imputed meaning to it that wasn't there, making comments about Ralph Bucks.
It's really simple. Take two guys, Bob and Joe, who aren't well off and are struggling to make ends meet. Both have families. One day, Bob and Joe both come into a significant amount of money by windfall.
Bob decides, "I'm going to use this to pay down my debt, and I'm going to invest the rest of it in some non-risky investments that'll give me a good return over time. It's not like this is going to make us rich or dramatically change our lifestyle, but it'll make things a lot easier on us". That's pragmatic. You might look at Bob and say he's sensible, but you're not going to say "that action makes you a virtuous person".
Joe decides, "I'm going to use this money to basically eliminate my family's carbon footprint. The whole nine yards - energy efficient appliances and plumbing, solar panels for electricity, everything I can do to make our lives less impactful on the environment. It'll never come close to paying for itself in terms of energy costs, and our day to day lives won't be any easier, but that's not why I'm doing it - I think it's important to do my part for the environment." That's an attempt to act in a virtuous manner.
Do you see the distinction I'm trying to draw?
Quote:
|
It's you who has decided on this arbitrary, binary construct and when called out for your poorly reasoned analysis on the pragmatism and ideology of provincial government history, attempted to malign my position by associating me with the NDP.
|
You putting words in my mouth does not qualify as "calling me out for poorly reasoned analysis". This has roughly the value, as a contribution to the thread, as if you'd just posted "you're dumb! There, I win the argument! I declare it to be so!" It's obnoxious.
Moreover, I wasn't trying to "align you with the NDP". You suggested that the policies were equally pragmatic and that me observing that one set of policies is is aimed more at pragmatism while the other is aimed at virtue was just a matter of my perspective. I explained what I meant by "pragmatic", and asked you to clarify how the NDP's policies could possibly meet that definition.