Alberta Election Thread - Election Day April 16 2019

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

You're kidding right? There's a real epidemic in the Middle East, in places like Afghanistan where young women are being taken prisoner, raped over and over and forced to bear children by Muslim extremists. Why exactly is stating that fact of issue to some in the first place? It's merely to spread fear and hate and quiet those who you don't agree with.

You really don't see the irony of this statement, do you?

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

You're kidding right? There's a real epidemic in the Middle East, in places like Afghanistan where young women are being taken prisoner, raped over and over and forced to bear children by Muslim extremists. Why exactly is stating that fact of issue to some in the first place? It's merely to spread fear and hate and quiet those who you don't agree with.

It doesn't affect Alberta on a day to day basis. Even bringing it up for cross comparison to happenings here is fear mongering. If Muslims in Alberta were confining and raping women, then we could do something about it.

Using barbaric Afghani practices as our social measuring stick isn't beneficial, it just further divides the people into an us vs them setting, and compartmentalizes Muslims here so they feel they dont belong.

[GordonBlue]

went to the liberal website for the first time since Friday. they had a huge leap in candidate bios from 13 to 14.

they're announcing their Bold Climate Policy today, 2:00, at the Louise Bridge.
other policy announcements.

the other thing on the first page of the website is they will soon unveil a post secondary education platform.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Here are the quotes from Kiryakos, as far as I can tell.

Originally Posted by Kiryakos

Muslim forces continue to use murder, rape, kidnapping, terror and forced breeding in pursuit of Christian Genocide in the Middle East while the world turns a blind eye.

People are acting as if this quote applies to muslims in Canada, or even in Germany, which isn't the case.... I'm kind of okay with this statement. It's actually true of much of the middle east, and her family apparently fled the middle east (Iraq, specifically) to avoid persecution for their Christian faith. Given that, the sentiment is understandable. It isn't particularly nuanced, but that's called "twitter".

Originally Posted by Kiryakos

You’re not interested in protecting children with GSAs, you’re interested in converting them.

Originally Posted by Kiryakos

I should have the right to choose for my children to not be brainwashed into accepting perversions as ‘alternative lifestyles.’

This, however, is borderline lake of fire stuff. This was never going to end well. The UCP needs to vet their candidates better, because this was probably pretty easy to figure out and equally easy to figure out what was going to happen when it broke. There's simply no upside to having this person as a candidate.

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

It doesn't affect Alberta on a day to day basis. Even bringing it up for cross comparison to happenings here is fear mongering. If Muslims in Alberta were confining and raping women, then we could do something about it.

Using barbaric Afghani practices as our social measuring stick isn't beneficial, it just further divides the people into an us vs them setting, and compartmentalizes Muslims here so they feel they dont belong.

It didn't sound like she was bringing it up in context to Alberta, Canada or Germany to me. It appeared to be a statement she made regarding a very real crisis that is happening in the Middle East. Is she not allowed to voice an opinion on anything outside of Alberta?

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Here are the quotes from Kiryakos, as far as I can tell.

She also retweeted an article with the headline... “RAPEFUGEES NOT WELCOME.”

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

went to the liberal website for the first time since Friday. they had a huge leap in candidate bios from 13 to 14.

they're announcing their Bold Climate Policy today, 2:00, at the Louise Bridge.
other policy announcements.

the other thing on the first page of the website is they will soon unveil a post secondary education platform.

Ideally, Khan loses his seat and the Liberals either just go away, or finally merge with the Alberta Party.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I would have thought they'd be more likely to merge with the NDP.

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

She also retweeted an article with the headline... “RAPEFUGEES NOT WELCOME.”

Which demonstrates about the same level of judgment as the last two quotes in my post. Why is the UCP not reading through their candidates' twitter accounts? It would literally take, what, an afternoon's work by some volunteer, to flag things that look like they might be controversial and point them out to someone with decision making power? This is just sloppiness and disorganization from what you'd have to assume is a reasonably well-funded party that's had plenty of time to gear up for this election.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

It didn't sound like she was bringing it up in context to Alberta, Canada or Germany to me. It appeared to be a statement she made regarding a very real crisis that is happening in the Middle East. Is she not allowed to voice an opinion on anything outside of Alberta?

She absolutely brought this up in the Canadian context. She admits so in her video.

And yes, freedom of speech dictates that she's allowed to say anything she wants, which she is more than welcome to do. But the same freedom of speech also allows anyone to call her out for being a bigoted moron. Which is what's happening right now. Also the party she represents has certain values that they want to espouse. Thankfully, racism, bigotry and misogyny isn't one of them. They are fully within their rights to can anyone that doesn't represent their values.

[Manhattanboy]

So do these candidates just lie when asked the question, so is it possible you did or said anything publicly in the last few years, including anything that could be construed as racist, that would embarrass yourself or the party?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

So do these candidates just lie when asked the question, so is it possible you did or said anything publicly in the last few years, including anything that could be construed as racist, that would embarrass yourself or the party?

Well they should be properly vetted by the party before they are listed as a candidate. This is politics so the assumption should always be you can't trust what you are told, but generally (and not just the UCP specifically) the parties don't do a great job vetting candidates. I'm surprised deleting all previous social media isn't now a requirement for a party to approve a candidate given how often we see the ghosts of social media past end (or at least derail) political careers.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

It didn't sound like she was bringing it up in context to Alberta, Canada or Germany to me. It appeared to be a statement she made regarding a very real crisis that is happening in the Middle East. Is she not allowed to voice an opinion on anything outside of Alberta?

Did you watch her video? She herself shows that she shared an article titled, "Germany's (Muslim) Migrant Rape Crisis Spirals Out of Control," with an image that says "RAPEfugees not welcome."

This article was from Creeping Sharia, a blog dedicated to highlighting the "Islamization of the West."

If you have a problem with fear mongering, then you would obviously take issue with someone sharing something from Creeping Sharia, a blog entirely designed to instill fear of Muslims in the West, right?

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

So do these candidates just lie when asked the question, so is it possible you did or said anything publicly in the last few years, including anything that could be construed as racist, that would embarrass yourself or the party?

The other, more attractive option, is to just not run for office if you say and do racist, bigoted, or stupid things.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I would have thought they'd be more likely to merge with the NDP.

Well, whoever they do merge with, the few thousand votes they represent won't mean a lot.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

The other, more attractive option, is to just not run for office if you say and do racist, bigoted, or stupid things.

Except we know this isn't realistic, because as we've seen due to the inevitable "what's Larry Heather up to now" divergence over the past week in these threads, lots of crazy and / or stupid and / or terrible people want to run for office.

It's up to the party to weed them out and not put them on a poster with their logo next to them. Failing to do that sort of due diligence sewered the WRP in elections gone by, and there's really no excuse for not vetting your prospective candidates' social media in 2019. The UCP failing to take such basic steps to avoid shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly is either incompetence, arrogance or, most likely, both.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Except we know this isn't realistic, because as we've seen due to the inevitable "what's Larry Heather up to now" divergence over the past week in these threads, lots of crazy and / or stupid and / or terrible people want to run for office.

It's up to the party to weed them out and not put them on a poster with their logo next to them. Failing to do that sort of due diligence sewered the WRP in elections gone by, and there's really no excuse for not vetting your prospective candidates' social media in 2019. The UCP failing to take such basic steps to avoid shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly is either incompetence, arrogance or, most likely, both.

It's interesting because to this day, this very morning on the radio, Danielle Smith maintains it is not up to the party to muzzle its members. Freedom of speech is more important to her than winning an election. I suppose some people will still go down with the ship.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by _Q_

She absolutely brought this up in the Canadian context. She admits so in her video.

And yes, freedom of speech dictates that she's allowed to say anything she wants, which she is more than welcome to do. But the same freedom of speech also allows anyone to call her out for being a bigoted moron. Which is what's happening right now. Also the party she represents has certain values that they want to espouse. Thankfully, racism, bigotry and misogyny isn't one of them. They are fully within their rights to can anyone that doesn't represent their values.

They are within their rights to do so and IMO in this case should have done so, but they didn’t can her. According to her the reason she’s stepping down is because she doesn’t want to be “smeared” for her comments.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

They are within their rights to do so and IMO in this case should have done so, but they didn’t can her. According to her the reason she’s stepping down is because she doesn’t want to be “smeared” for her comments.

Not sure what conversations she had that she alludes to in her video, but I'm sure it was something like "we need you to step down Eva".

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

It's interesting because to this day, this very morning on the radio, Danielle Smith maintains it is not up to the party to muzzle its members.

I mean, fine, but this is a candidate, not just a member. If there was no history of her ever saying anything like this and all of a sudden during the campaign she made these tweets, I wouldn't fault the UCP allowing her to run under their banner. That does not appear to be the reality. They could have seen this coming and, exercising even the slightest good judgment, prevented it. That makes you wonder whether the party officials lack said judgment, or if they were too incompetent to put themselves in a position to exercise it. Those appear to me to be the only two possibilities.

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I mean, fine, but this is a candidate, not just a member. If there was no history of her ever saying anything like this and all of a sudden during the campaign she made these tweets, I wouldn't fault the UCP allowing her to run under their banner. That does not appear to be the reality. They could have seen this coming and, exercising even the slightest good judgment, prevented it. That makes you wonder whether the party officials lack said judgment, or if they were too incompetent to put themselves in a position to exercise it. Those appear to me to be the only two possibilities.

You're missing two other obvious options:
1. They agree with said idiocy;
2. They fear backlash from other party members who share such idiotic views.