Somebody really ought to ask Councillor Doug Ford, and his brother the mayor, and their official court stenographer, Sue-Ann Levy, to define the term ‘socialism’. I’m beginning to think none of them actually know what it means.
The latest instance occurred at yesterday’s Government Management Committee meeting where councillors debated and then voted down a city staff recommendation to have exclusively healthy options — 2% milk, soy milk, fruit juices, no bottled water – in all city operated vending machines by 2014. “Down here we have a mentality that the government knows best,” Councillor Doug Ford said, arguing against dictating to people what they should be drinking. “We’re big brother, we tell you what to do.”
“This is socialism at its best, it really is,” Councillor Ford continued. Best. Worst. Whatever. Let’s just assume the councillor was speaking derogatorily.
Government certainly doesn’t know best but, according to the Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy, the beverage industry certainly does. Why listen to a staff report (which was just “a pile of crap” according to Committee Chair Paul Ainslie)
Mr. Challinor went on to tell Ms. Levy that they ‘…do regular opinion surveys and have found the majority of Torontonians do not want bottled water removed from their civic facilities.’ If the people selling bottled water tell us a majority of Torontonians demand bottled water in their civic facilities, who are we to question them? Piles of crap are what governments produce not the private, for-profit sector.
I imagine if the tobacco industry conducted a survey among teenagers asking if they wanted cigarettes back being in sold vending machines, you’d find a majority somewhere saying, hells yeah! How about booze too?
“If they want to have cigarettes in the machines, so be it,” [Councillor] Ford said. “They might even put a shot of rye in there too. Unbelievable.”
Hoo-ray! Let’s hear it for the good guys fighting for the right of Joe Average to consume whatever product they desire wherever they want. Down with social engineering and all those do-goodie, ‘calorie-counting’, ‘eco-obsessed wingnuts’. Attempted behavioral modification by the government is nothing more than socialism and is doomed to failure.
Just take that pesky 5¢ fee the city forces merchants to charge customers for plastic shopping bags for instance. A government money grab, nothing more. Oh, and a business killer. Except the money doesn’t go to the government but to the retailers. So.. just over-reaching, nanny state government with their fingers in consumers pockets for no reason whatsoever.
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That’s 80% fewer petroleum based products in circulation. 80% fewer bags going into landfills. Environmentally friendly and economically sensible. Like Jim Harris argued in the pages of the National Post a little while back.
Just a little nudge is all people need sometimes. I’m not paying 5¢ for a plastic bag. I’ll bring my own bag. So it begins. No Coke in the vending machine?! Maybe I’ll try a cranberry juice instead. How can that be bad for anyone, for society?
If that’s what Councillor Ford wants to call ‘socialism’, let’s give it to him. Because his world view, his non-socialism is one filled with obese underage smokers and drinkers, and floating islands of unnecessary plastic garbage, where the customer is always right. It’s a cheap imitation laissez-faire attitude that hurls meaningless political labels as insults and that would shock and appall even the staunchest of traditional conservatives whose tattered banner radical right wingers like the Ford Bros. et al have hijacked for their own anti-social purposes.
— socialistically submitted by Cityslikr