Comment 123041

By mikeonthemountain (registered) | Posted June 09, 2018 at 10:57:40 in reply to Comment 123040

Dylan's comment should be taken seriously. Even though I don't participate in frequent conversation on this site anymore, I did visit for election coverage because the posts and essays are useful. Doubling down on the very language that made even left leaning people like myself decide that their own team has gone insane, is not going to be productive, and will increase polarization further. Given how much this hysteria is fueled by education and media makes me wonder how much is deliberately fomented. But it is true, the "deplorables" are ordinary hard working people, who are not as stupid as you think, who are creeped out by government overreach and inappropriate attempts at social engineering, while more relevant issues go unsolved. That's why leading up to the election, I was having drinks and conversations with NDP card carrying neighbours, who voted for Doug because they perceived a rather unusual situation this time around. I will add that based on my own experience and observation, progressivism appears to be turning into a religion with some characteristics of a cult, where everyone not sufficiently zealous is some kind of "ist" or "phobic" and subject to derision and even inquisition, like Lindsay Sheppard for example. And a reactionary populism risks becoming a reciprocal of the same religious cult like myopia. This is no good for anyone.

And I say this tempered with general agreement on most progressive causes - everyone should be able to access opportunity and fully participate in the society and economy regardless of background or other factors. I still cycle to work, support green belt protection, want a hydrogen powered GO corridor, want any remaining gaps in the human rights code resolved, support UBI, and would certainly address someone however they wished to be addressed (within polite reason). Please win back the members of your own team who felt an urgency to act as ballast and voted contrary to how we normally would, by toning down the rhetoric about how evil populism is. This comment is my heartfelt appeal for people to cool down and actually start listening to each other again.

Comment edited by mikeonthemountain on 2018-06-09 10:59:25

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