Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Muta

In your world, knowing any actual intelligent, educated people would be a massive life milestone for you, so keep reaching for that rainbow!

Also, how's Take Back Alberta? You guys still protesting non-existent lockdowns and harassing people wearing masks? Don't forget to check if you still qualify for the Trudeau-funded EI, need that sweet sweet dinero to pay for your Monster energy drinks and Oakleys.

I’d love to compare education and T4s with you sometime.

I’ll see you downtown with your skinny jeans and long board.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Yoho

I’d love to compare education and T4s with you sometime.

I’ll see you downtown with your skinny jeans and long board.

Only one T4? That's rookie numbers son.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Yoho

I’d love to compare education and T4s with you sometime.

I’ll see you downtown with your skinny jeans and long board.

You'll be easy to spot with the megaphone in hand at the Proudboys rally.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Yoho

I’d love to compare education and T4s with you sometime.

I’ll see you downtown with your skinny jeans and long board.

I am genuinely interested in what peoples professions and education is. I know the joke is CP is half lawyers and half white collar O&G workers.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I am genuinely interested in what peoples professions and education is. I know the joke is CP is half lawyers and half white collar O&G workers.

You just need guys to lose it like Gioforpm giving his real name and resume on here... lol

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I am genuinely interested in what peoples professions and education is. I know the joke is CP is half lawyers and half white collar O&G workers.

I think the joke here is that Yoho thinks education is a precision accurate barometer for intelligence. There’s a lot of dumb people out there with all sorts of degrees and there’s a lot of intelligent people with degrees who work in professions that don’t require any formal educational background. Relying on a piece of paper instead of what you think, say or do to prove to people that you’re intelligent comes off as pretty insecure to me. “Look at me! I’ve got a 4 year degree that I completed online over the course of a decade, I must be smart!!!”

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Yoho

I’d love to compare education and T4s with you sometime.

I’ll see you downtown with your skinny jeans and long board.

Whoa, watch out big spender!

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I think the joke here is that Yoho thinks education is a precision accurate barometer for intelligence.

The real joke here is that you guys keep interacting with a user that could accurately be described as "what would happen if you internet-enabled a pile of sentient cow sh-t" as though he's doing anything other than trolling you all.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Slava

Serious question though, does money solve these things? I look at our neighbor to the west who pay higher taxes than we do here, and frankly they're dealing with the exact same issues. It's extremely complicated.

And truthfully, I pay a lot of taxes. I think I'm pretty firmly average, and middle class. It's not some scheme where I have a super high income and at the same time have a 15% marginal tax rate. I wish! So every level of government is "only adding a couple percent" and the next thing you know your taxes are up 10%, and there's only one taxpayer.

Do you honestly think, after decades of PC rule, that they are any good at fiscal management? Do you see the Smith UCP as being really sharp on that? Because I've seen several months of Smith tossing money all over the place in frankly silly ways that doesn't solve problems. She also has the largest cabinet and assistant(minor?) cabinet ever and the biggest premier's staff ever. She also doesn't understand tax brackets and can probably, at this point, be pretty fairly categorized as not understanding how government works and the powers it has. Along with that she's been picking up legal challenges at an epic pace, and has no understanding of healthcare.

She's spoken about replacing the police(no one wants this) an Alberta pension, privatizing as much healthcare as she can get away with, charging us for doctors visits...

So I have to ask, how can you possibly think this version of Conservative rule has any hope at being good fiscal managers, and not costing you more? You can pretend the NDP will be worse, but I'm trying to imagine how. It's pretty much guaranteed when oil prices ease up that we'll be in an even bigger financial mess, and that's when many services will be cut, including social services that keep our province nice and safe. So it'll be a choice between taxes(perhaps a PST?) or cutting everything. And you can guarantee Smith won't be raising taxes. So, uh, enjoy your Libertarian hellhole. As a Canadian, I think that bit scares me the most. Because it is very un-Canadian.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Yoho

I’d love to compare education and T4s with you sometime.

Lol, here we go.

Originally Posted by Yoho

I’ll see you downtown with your skinny jeans and long board.

I hope so; I'll look for the skidmarked Canadian flag wrapped around your shopping cart.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

The real joke here is that you guys keep interacting with a user that could accurately be described as "what would happen if you internet-enabled a pile of sentient cow sh-t" as though he's doing anything other than trolling you all.

What exactly are we enabling him to do? He’s clearly going to post what he posts regardless of what people say so I don’t see how it hurts to debunk it. One of the biggest problems facing democratic societies right now is that too few are willing to call out the absurdity of manipulative BS because they assume no one is going to believe it when that clearly is not the case.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

It's a good question and I dunno, I'm not an expert. I am certain there can and should be cuts to various levels of bureaucracy, and I'm sure there's tons of efficiencies that can be found by cleaning out old middle managers in some of these systems that are operating in protectionist fashion and unwilling to make changes, and then convincing everybody around them that no changes can or should take place. I am sure all of that is all true, and should be looked at. One example I can think of, using Nurse Practitioners instead of letting Doctors pretend they can't provide prescriptions or have no value; even though they obviously do. So yeah, work to be done on various issues with a competent leader that has some courage to make tough decisions and not just protect their group(s).

But you actually don't really pay that much taxes, relative to the demands our society has for the services. So it's just a function of if you're willing to let a pandemic shut down society for months and months (vs. maybe less), wait times of exorbitant length to get any care, potholes in roads, poor education systems and crumbling infrastructure. There's a lot of #### to pay for. I had a friend who's kid got cancer. Prior to the kid getting cancer, kind of sang the same tune, don't want increased taxes, etc. After kid gets cancer, all good! Knows that the insane amount of costs that went into saving his child's life- he will never, ever, pay back those equivalent values in care. Doctors are leaving, teachers probably need a raise at some point, ditto for nurses- gotta compete for wages with other jurisdictions.

There will always be a struggle and a dialogue to be had with what's the perfect taxation amount. Taxes never seem to go down either, which is a problem too. But after coming out the back end of COVID-19; I'm just not sure I can rationalize not increasing taxes or adjusting funding levels to health care and education. So, maybe you should pay more taxes, or consider it.

Not true. The UCP cut taxes when they came in, Martin cut income taxes which Harper raised again when he cut the GST. ere are lots of examples of tax cuts, and we pay much less in taxes than decades ago.

Here's a graph showing corporate taxes dropping.



https://www.canada.ca/en/department-...tax-rates.html

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Muta

Lol, here we go.



I hope so; I'll look for the skidmarked Canadian flag wrapped around your shopping cart.

He probably wants to meet you at the bicycle racks after class.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

What exactly are we enabling him to do? He’s clearly going to post what he posts regardless of what people say so I don’t see how it hurts to debunk it. One of the biggest problems facing democratic societies right now is that too few are willing to call out the absurdity of manipulative BS because they assume no one is going to believe it when that clearly is not the case.

Look within the last 40 posts in this thread. Debunk what?

[#-3]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

I'm 90% sure anyone who is still definitively voting UCP is more Socially Conservative than Fiscally Conservative at this juncture.

I think it depends on what you definition of conservative is. I'd say the North American conservative movement is almost exclusively reactionary at this point. They certainly aren't focused on prudent long term conservation of our economic or social systems.

Reactionary arsonists trying to burn down existing system to create an mythical ideal seems to be the best way to describe most of their politics.

[Dentoman]

Politics aside .... this thread is like the motorcycle crash Instagram reels ... I can't stop coming back.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Dion

He probably wants to meet you at the bicycle racks after class.

Are you sure? I don't think he knows what a bike is, it's too woke / liberal / green-powered. Probably nefariously planted there by the Notley/Trudeau/Singh alliance, too.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by #-3

I think it depends on what you definition of conservative is. I'd say the North American conservative movement is almost exclusively reactionary at this point. They certainly aren't focused on prudent long term conservation of our economic or social systems.

Reactionary arsonists trying to burn down existing system to create an mythical ideal seems to be the best way to describe most of their politics.

This is a great point actually; also don't discount how there's a significant Venn overlap between being a reactionary and wanting to stick it to the libs.

Ultimately in the most uncharitable of comparisons, you'd have to say the NDP was at least on-par with UCP fiscally (and I'm sure most would agree, wins the comparison by not having pissed away capital-B Billions), so all that you're really left with is social policy and spending priorities.

[Major Major]

I love that people are finally getting to Yoho these days.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

This is a great point actually; also don't discount how there's a significant Venn overlap between being a reactionary and wanting to stick it to the libs.

Ultimately in the most uncharitable of comparisons, you'd have to say the NDP was at least on-par with UCP fiscally (and I'm sure most would agree, wins the comparison by not having pissed away capital-B Billions), so all that you're really left with is social policy and spending priorities.

I think that we really underestimate the power and solidarity of the evangelical base of the UCP.