Conservative Value(s)
I'm trying to pay more attention to who wants what changes made to our society and why these days because one can waste so much time arguing the wrong angle that it really pays in terms of blood pressure to know where the person seeking change is coming from before you bother arguing about say... healthcare.
I caught a bit of "The Agenda" last night or the night before and the debate was about healthcare and privatization and why oh why can't we have private operators making money off the public system that was put in place by the previous generation for the good of everybody on account of they'd had private healthcare and deemed it unworthy.
That's what it always comes down to for me - who's really behind what agenda and why and how are they getting away with it. Because Conservatives are always claiming they're the ones who honour the self-named "Greatest Generation Ever" while everyone else is out poking veterans with sticks when it's such bullshit because what they really want to do is privatize/dismantle/not pay for all the Post WWII social programs that the "Greatest Generation Ever" set up and paid into for 60 some odd years.
The panel on "The Agenda" was telling - two women d'une certaine age arguing on behalf of keeping all the money in a universal, publicly-funded healthcare system vs two younger men arguing for the right of private operators to compete with it - within it. Making private profit from public money, as it were.
Now, I'm not going to bother making an argument here for a universal, publicly-funded healthcare system. In my opinion, it's the most civilized of civilized principles - "free" healthcare, accessible to everyone, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. That's my stand. And I'm not going to point out that every study ever done pointing out the flaws in the system is self-interested because there is a great deal of money to be made in privatizing healthcare and it is to be made by people who do not particularly care about the public interest.
They care about making money. Period. And they are all Conservatives.
Well, anybody can see that healthcare is quite simply one of those things that tests our convictions. It's expensive, we all pay for it in one way or another, and because it's universal and accessible to all, well, we don't always agree with who gets to use it and why.
Such is life.
What's interesting to me is that Conservatives as a Party get away with this pretend respect for all things done by the previous generation and yet they don't respect them at all. It's always Conservatives who are intent on dismantling the best of our social programs, the sacred-for-a-good-reason cows more thoughtful and considerate Canadians cherish. We see it in their actions. They are the ones wanting an escalation in our mission in Afghanistan (in spite of the motto embraced by the rest of us due to the sacrifice made by Canadian soldiers in the Two Great Wars - "Never Again"), they are the ones wanting private education funding in spite of all the inclusive and progressive changes made by the previous generation to public education, they are the ones wanting to privatize healthcare now - even though the generation that built up the generous and reliable system of public healthcare for which we are famous around the world is at a stage in life when it most needs it.
Really. Conservatives, on the face of it, seem to me to be quite a cheap and ungrateful lot. Having benefitted from the largesse of the previous generation, the "Greatest Generation Ever", these younger buggers just don't want to have to pay to maintain the social infrastructure now. Heck, nevermind "social" infrastructure, these young Turks don't even want to pay to maintain the physical infrastructure of our cities and towns.
So it really is quite ass backwards this perception Conservatives have of themselves as respectful of older people when they aren't, in fact, at all. The NDP is, in fact, the party that has respect for all that has been done by previous generations, including the "Greatest Generation Ever", to make this country into the model of civilization it is and, it would seem, only the NDP believes we should all do our share - financially - in maintaining it as such.
Life is not cheap. Unless you are a Conservative.
