The Coalition Crisis

I will try my hardest not to mention anything concrete about political news in Canada on this blog, so don't be scared of the title. The media went crazy over the coalition and there was a big back and forth of support for the Coalition and the Conservatives in the media. I found CBC started out very much in favour of the conservative position, but then loosened its grip as the days past. The ultimate question to be asked from this crisis, is "what is responsible government?"

(im making these quote up myself, but they are very accurate...no doubt

Harper: "responsible government is getting the most votes in the election... its a parliamentary convention."

Dion: "Responsible governmet is having the support of the house of commons... its actually in the constitution...or maybe its not i forget.

The next big debate will surround responsible government. why on earth is 'responsibility' the word we use? Resp gov has been the most important value of the Canadian parliament since 1867. But what does responsibility mean? The Canadian government thinks responsibility means having the support of other people. From the eyes of the Canadian parliament, responsibility stems from ones ability to hang onto power (or grasp power) with the support of others. Other people need to have confidence in you (thats why they call it a confidence motion). But why does responsibility necessarilly mean that other people believe you? In order to be a responsible parent, must i force my children to believe that i am responsible, that i can be a good parent throughout their childhood. If other people believe that i am an unresponsible parent, they can rat me out to Child services and take my kid away. Does responsibility have to stem from 'the other' having confidence in you. or could responsibility stem from having confidence in yourself. Was Brian Mulroney being irresonsible when he introduced the GST even though all of Canadians hate it. Or were CAnadians being irresponsible for not wanting to help the economy by being taxed more?

If the Canadian government and the institutions of Canada are framed in a way that teaches Canadians values, then i think they are misteaching us the value of responsibility. The current capabilities that the Canadian media has at their disposal, does not allow the news to capture a valuable understanding of 'responsibility'. I think now is the perfect time to rethink what responsibility is, and how our government can offer it to us.

Assumptions involved in the word Death

Obviously our ideas on death are influenced by our western metaphysical gaze. Let us look deeper into the issue, and analyze the assumptions that this group of whities is making when we talk about death

assumptions: time, life, beginnings and ends, somethingness to nothingness.

Lets try and think our way outside of death, by thinking our way outside of time. According to my physicist friend Mann, it is a scientific fact that time does not exist. Rather, it is a construct of the human mind that helps explain the world (why humans need to explain the world is beyond me). The human being has senses, and they use these senses to bring the outside world into their mind. The mind is the only playing field the human can operate with (the computer screen you are looking at exists only in your mind; nobody has access to the computer screen "in itself"). The outside universe is an eternal existing realm that has been around forever (the big bang is just a conspiracy theory). The universe has always been and will always be; the earth is only a hot piece of molten rock that somehow formed in the universe.

Lets take the optimistic young kid that believes that he will never die. Rather, he becomes like the universe (eternal and always having been). He abandons notions of time and decides to sit and play tonka trunks, in that moment, for eternity. That moment never ends. He plays with tonka trunks forever; continously dumping gravel to bring pleasure to imaginary school yard playgrounds. Unfortunately for the kid, the tonka truck becomes boring, and he eventually gets his mom to make him a grilled cheese. He had eternity in his hand, and he abandoned it for mere melted cheese! I curse time and its seductive partner: the grilling of cheese.