Re: Letter: Perhaps an APP would not be too irrational after all
I’m glad that writer of that letter thinks my views concerning the premier’s Alberta Pension Plan are irrational. I am honoured to be considered “irrational” because I am in the company of people who were once considered “irrational”.
Way back in the “bad old days” (1880s-the early 1900s), women were considered “irrational” because they wanted the right to vote, to hold public office, to attend colleges and universities and to work outside the home.
Besides being considered irrational, women were considered mentally, emotionally and physically weak compared to men.
I learned a long time ago not to believe in everything that politicians tell us. After all, “perception” is everything in politics. And as Will Rogers (famous American cowboy philosopher) said, “It’s the short memories of voters that keep politicians in office.'
If the premier is so confident in her ideas about implementing APP, introducing a provincial police force to replace the RCMP, politicizing municipal governments and allowing coal mining operations on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies, she should allow for referendums.
These are issues too important to be left up to politicians to decide. I’m still waiting for Alberta’s finance minister to reply to my June 2024 letter requesting details to the provincial budget.
I see where another minister (minister of Technology and Innovation) is on a “fact finding trip to Silicon Valley, California. Ever try getting information about the “actual” costs for these “junkets”?
We seem to have money to “burn” on such trips, on grants to various venues (like to Sports Central and to Calgary Flames Sports Bank), to private businesses and to studies and on a “high speed” rail line, but it doesn’t seem to have money to “adequately” maintain our public systems (public schools, health care, doctors, dental health care, police services and municipal infrastructure (roads, sewage, water, etc).
Too many politicians have made terrible decisions that affect us today. For examples, scraping the Avro Arrow CF-105 in favour of buying high-priced U.S. warplanes. The Phoenix accounting system scandal. The SNC Lavalin scandal. Bombardier Scandal of 2017. Canadian Senate Expense Scandal of 2012. Canadian Senate Expense Scandal of 2012-16. Buying the F-35 fighter, and now our politicians are considering buying 10-20 submarines.
As former U.S. President Ronald Reagan said, “The problem is not that people are taxed too much. The problem is that politicians spend too much." Remember what Will Rogers said about voters?
In 1965, the U.S. government told the American people that North Vietnam had attacked U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin. That event did not happen. As soon as I graduated from college, I enlisted in the U.S. army because I wanted to defend the South Vietnamese people.
Most Americans did not know then that the U.S. had been involved in Indochina conflicts from 1946-1954 (aiding the French). The U.S. decided to back the French against the wishes of the people of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, who wanted independence from France’s colonial rule, and the U.S. was too happy to supply military assistance to the French while carrying out secret missions in Laos and Cambodia.
Despite massive U.S. military aid, the French lost to the Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh and General Giap in 1954.
The Vietnam War (1955-1975) cost the lives of over 55,000 U.S. military personnel, the death of two million Vietnamese (north and south), forced President Lyndon Johnson to resign, and placed a huge financial burden on the American people trying to keep corrupt and incompetent South Vietnamese governments in power.
In conclusion, call me “Mr. Irrational”.
“I’m irrational from Olds, AB”. Hmm. Sounds like a catchy title for a song, eh?
George Thatcher,
Olds
