It’s in your blood
The late, great, comedian George Carlin, famously challenged his audience with the notion that “politicians don’t suck,” as politicians are not born or otherwise resurrected from above or below, they are us – the public. It is “not the politicians who suck,” corrected Carlin, “it is the public”.
When Carlin spoke of the public’s tiresome and tireless rant against politicians he also included the idea of greedy, self-serving, politicians who are “the best we have,” in other words, they exhibit what we do and who we are, for better or worse.
This may seem like a blatant truism, not worthy of commentary, but far from it. Canadians, more than any other Western Liberal Democracy (Liberal in the constitutional sense), are complainers — a nation of whiners; partly due of course to having our land evolve from a former British protectorate to a de facto American Protectorate. Because Canadians have never had to do their own lifting, fighting in concert or by British command, we have never paid the price for nationhood, the way the U.S. has.
When Britain won the Seven Years war and the war of 1812 there was no Canadian self-consciousness, there was no Canada. It was a territory that belonged legally, and culturally, to another land across the pond. None of it was a “Canadian” victory; instead it evolved into a Canadian victory. That verb “evolved” is a key concept. So are the words inherited, developed, grew into, and metastasized. When we earned it, when we fought and died, it was never for our survival, it was for Britain’s, for the United Nations in Korea, for NATO in Afghanistan. Canada has never had the equal of America’s Revolutionary war where America said ‘no,” and America’s Civil War to define itself.
In modern times, Canadians have paid the price only in a multi-national context. By contrast, America’s multi-national experience was as a leader: in WW2 and in Korea, and as a Johnny-come-lately game changer in WW1.
“Going it alone” in terms of Foreign policy has served to negatively contribute to America’s self-definition in Vietnam and Iraq, specifically.
Canada is a Middle Power with an international outlook born from geographical good fortune and nice neighbor-relatives. It is the teenager that has inherited the house and doesn’t like the color.
We complain about politicians the way we used to complain about our domestic overlords – Mummy and Daddy.
Grow up. We have good ones here – especially in the Maritimes.
In no particular order NDP MLA Frank Corbett (who let me stay at his place when I first moved here), former Tory Bill Casey, Super-minister Peter Mackay, NDP leader Darryl Dexter, Conservative MLA Judy Stretch, Liberal Stephen McNeil, the witty and talented Scott Brison (a friend), the hard-working Liberal MP Michael Savage, Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald and New Brunswick Premier Shaun Graham, Saint John MP Paul Zed, (whom I have never met, nor interviewed, but whom I have heard good things about. Dion, Dryden, Ignatief, Bob Rae, all compelling people.
I am not a big fan of the PM for foreign policy reasons. But I respect his intelligence.
The next time you want to cast all politicians with the same brush of castigation, think of it this way: I don’t know if these politicians deserve you.
I know, I know, complaining is in your blood. After all, you’re a Canadian and a whiner. You inherited the house.