The delta race

[myata]

And the new race is on and only the Almighty Heavens know (they might) if and when we would see the light of the day.

See, we are in the new and uncharted times of post-democratic bureaucracy. A well-meaning (and very well paid, by the public) bureaucrat(s) just get to decide what is good for the public, in its ultimate interests and what the public will do (and not) to get there.

No, they don't need the public to make those decisions and no need to explain anything. No need to prove and justify, to explain and be accountable for "travel from Wuhan" and outworldly projections that made the parallel universes scramble to find a match. No, we are past that. With great salaries (paid by the public) and benefits (you get it) and pension plans (ditto) and so on, there is no more need to take into account its, general public interests. Why? One can still order the favorite sandwich from the favorite place online (did it matter that they had to let go all serving stuff, indefinitely?) go for a nice run near a comfy house all the while thinking and caring about what the public needs and how to keep the Number down. That was the mission, costs and effects on the public don't need to enter the picture.

No checks, no balances. No careful independent evaluation of costs versus benefits. No analyzing alternatives, including more effective ones with lower impacts. All that in the past. And pushing the button every so many years changes nothing in the big picture.

Post accountability, beyond responsibility, welcome the new dawn of the bureaucracy libre of all notions and bounds. When was the last action plan implemented? How many billions did it cost? Not to worry, here's the new one. Will it lead us to somewhere new and shining? Why would it though?

[Dougie93]

11 minutes ago, myata said:

 

See, we are in the new and uncharted times of post-democratic bureaucracy. A well-meaning (and very well paid, by the public) bureaucrat(s) just get to decide what is good for the public, in its ultimate interests and what the public will do (and not) to get there.

No, they don't need the public to make those decisions and no need to explain anything. No need to prove and justify, to explain and be accountable for "travel from Wuhan" and outworldly projections that made the parallel universes scramble to find a match. No, we are past that. With great salaries (paid by the public) and benefits (you get it) and pension plans (ditto) and so on, there is no more need to take into account its, general public interests. Why? One can still order the favorite sandwich from the favorite place online (did it matter that they had to let go all serving stuff, indefinitely?) go for a nice run near a comfy house all the while thinking and caring about what the public needs and how to keep the Number down. That was the mission, costs and effects on the public don't need to enter the picture.

No checks, no balances. No careful independent evaluation of costs versus benefits. No analyzing alternatives, including more effective ones with lower impacts. All that in the past. And pushing the button every so many years changes nothing in the big picture.

Post accountability, beyond responsibility, welcome the new dawn of the bureaucracy libre of all notions and bounds. When was the last action plan implemented? How many billions did it cost? Not to worry, here's the new one. Will it lead us to somewhere new and shining? Why would it though?

this is not uncharted at all

this is how all governance in Canada has been for as long as anyone can remember

the pandemic has just made it slightly more obvious

[Michael Hardner]

As Dougie pointed out, there's nothing new here.  

And it's just a matter of time before the old bureaucratic idea of 'public' comes crashing down

[Dougie93]

it's not inconsistent with Canadian law & culture

Canada is not a republic

Canada is a monarchy

this is how all monarchies are run in the end

[Dougie93]

don't forget, just because you elect a representative to the Westminster Parliament doesn't mean you have any say

that Member of Parliament doesn't even take an oath to serve you

that Member of Parliament takes an oath to serve Her Majesty

what Her Majesty's will might be, is decided entirely by the Prime Minister, from his office, as an effective dictator

theoretically the MP's keep in check, by an honour system, but that system is not functioning here anymore

[Dougie93]

bear in mind that this honour system relied entirely on the belief in God

when it was founded in 1689, the MP's believed in God, and so breaking their oaths could end them up in Hell for that

the checks & balances were not written into the law, because honour was assumed to be in effect

but now, in this Nietzschean Canada where God is dead of all intents & purposes, the system has broken

nobody believes that God will punish them for being a crony to an Oliver Cromwell like dictator

and there is nothing on paper which prevents that, there is no American style congress here to curtail the executive

 

[myata]

It's difficult to see how a bureaucratic system devoid of any external checks, controls and accountability could avoid degradation of function and performance. And the degradation is likely to be accelerating. With a possible milestone or threshold beyond that it would simply stop functioning, in any meaningful sense. It's just too bad that this isn't a matter of serious discussion in the society.

[Dougie93]

4 minutes ago, myata said:

It's difficult to see how a bureaucratic system devoid of any external checks, controls and accountability could avoid degradation of function and performance. And the degradation is likely to be accelerating. With a possible milestone or threshold beyond that it would simply stop functioning, in any meaningful sense. It's just too bad that this isn't a matter of serious discussion in the society.

even when there was good governance in Canada, it was still an effective dictatorship

so for example the Progressive Conservatives ruled Ontario for forty years straight

they were conservative, yet moderate, and they did a decent job, they were benign dictators

soon as the leftist parties took over however, starting with David Peterson, things went off the rails

Bob Rae threw gasoline on the fire

then Mike Harris was the backlash to all that

but these new effectively revanchist Conservatives were not competent as their predecessors were 

[myata]

1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

even when there was good governance in Canada, it was still an effective dictatorship

Well that's nothing new either. I'm sure in the Egyptian empire some many millenia back there were good and benign pharaohs.

[Michael Hardner]

It's not the bureaucracy which is changing, it's the relationship between institutions and people.

The system was set up for there to be a "public" and a great unwashed semi-represented "mass".  These have merged, which is neither a good or bad thing, but provides problems for those in power.

[Dougie93]

Just now, myata said:

Well that's nothing new either. I'm sure in the Egyptian empire some many millenia back there were good and benign pharaohs.

everything is really driven by geopolitics

changes happen at the geopolitical level, which then alter your culture, which then alters your politics downstream

so Canada was a protected cantonment for most of its history

then when Globalization smashed that with the end of the Cold War, Canada was broken

the things that kept Canada functioning were no longer functional in the face of the globalized markets

that then changed the culture in Canada, which then changed the politics

those of us in my generation, saw it all happen in real time, but now the results are coming to roost on Canada

[myata]

More serious problems can emerge for the society at some point though. Imagine a captain who gets to set the course in dangerous waters with reefs currents and shallows without any proof of qualifications, mediocre record of past experience free of any checks and controls and carefree cheerful attitude oops we did it again, not to worry!

[Dougie93]

I served in the government for two decades, at the sharp end, where we had security classification

we were not indoctrinated to think that Canadians were to be consulted as to what we did on their behalf

we were in fact indoctrinated to think that Canadians had no say in the matter at all

the name of the game in the federal bureaucracy was to keep Canadians in the dark as much as possible 

[myata]

OK that makes a lot of sense. Not sure about "the good government" but as the ground principle explains pretty much everything from "travel from Wuhan" and who can tell how far. Here's the problem though, once a bureaucracy gets to this point where it doesn't need the public anymore, changing that frame, mindset and tradition can be very difficult to outright impossible. And we don't have any other options. Not sure where it leaves us going forward in this century. Hope it'll last for a while yet.

[Dougie93]

13 minutes ago, myata said:

OK that makes a lot of sense. Not sure about "the good government"

well, when I moved to Ontario back in the 1970's, the government functioned reasonably well

the political class was not out to divide & conquer, there was a genuine attempt to reach consensus

this is because, again, Canada was a closed off protectionist cantonment, so it functioned by its own rules

with the collapse of the Iron & Bamboo curtains at the end of the Cold War however, things changed

Canada was now exposed to the world markets for the first time, so everything started to break down

it effectively became a regime of managed decline

so in order to maintain the rule of the elites, the establishment, they adopted a divide & conquer strategy

and that's when things started going to haywire to where they are now

[Dougie93]

the disruption you are experiencing now is a dislocation from the modern world

this is an epoch, the onset of the Information Age

the Cold War was in a fact a frozen conflict, the final days of the Second World War frozen in time for forty years

this kept us in the Modern World & Industrial Age

but upon the end of that conflict, we were suddenly cast into this Postmodern World & Information Age

so it is destabilizing Canada, because Canada was not built to take this sort of pounding

[Michael Hardner]

35 minutes ago, myata said:

More serious problems can emerge for the society at some point though. Imagine a captain who gets to set the course in dangerous waters with reefs currents and shallows without any proof of qualifications, mediocre record of past experience free of any checks and controls and carefree cheerful attitude oops we did it again, not to worry!

Or, here's a better metaphor: the deck is full of idiots screaming at the captain that he's a racist or that he's a culture canceller and he can't steer.

[Michael Hardner]

9 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

 

so in order to maintain the rule of the elites, the establishment, they adopted a divide & conquer strategy

and that's when things started going to haywire to where they are now

Why do I hear the sound of tinfoil being unravelled ?

"the elites" "the establishment" "the business community" ... yes, they did this in full view of and with full support of the Canadian people.  The people who were screaming that it shouldn't happen were the NDP and... sometimes the Liberals but they didn't mean it.

[Michael Hardner]

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

 

but upon the end of that conflict, we were suddenly cast into this Postmodern World & Information Age

so it is destabilizing Canada, because Canada was not built to take this sort of pounding

You're starting to make more sense here, when you de-emphasize the conspiracy and new world order side of it.  

You're right that we weren't built to take this sort of pounding, but really nobody was.  Part of the solution that Conservative and Liberal governments seem to be implementing is importing tons of cheap tech workers to live in the suburbs of Toronto.

[Dougie93]

2 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Why do I hear the sound of tinfoil being unravelled ?

"the elites" "the establishment" "the business community" ... yes, they did this in full view of and with full support of the Canadian people.  The people who were screaming that it shouldn't happen were the NDP and... sometimes the Liberals but they didn't mean it.

well I am half American, so from my point of view,  a monarchy is not actually a free country

but rather the rule of a dynastic elite, by definition

none the less, as a resident of the British Empire, I defend and uphold the Queen while on her territory

United States - United Kingdom Security Agreement of 1945

[Michael Hardner]

1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

... well I am half American, so from my point of view,  a monarchy is not actually a free country, but rather the rule of a dynastic elite, by definition.  none the less, as a resident of the British Empire, I defend and uphold the Queen while on her territory

 

Ok, but I don't think the Queen did as well under Canadian government policy than ... say US corporations.

[Dougie93]

2 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

You're right that we weren't built to take this sort of pounding, but really nobody was.

Canadian Confederation is a particularly weak and not actually unitary state

Canada was never designed to be an independent country relying in the Americans to prop it up

Canada was designed to be a bulwark against the Americans, and east west trade & secrutiy alliance

it only made sense as a Dominion of the British Empire, which was propped up by the Americans until 1989

once Canada was cast into this post Cold War paradigm, nothing about Canadian Confederation made any sense

now you have ten provinces who don't even trade with each other, only with the Americans

and the Americans provide all the security as well

so effectively Canadians have been becoming Americans the whole time, and it is an American country now by default

so the only way to keep the Americanized Canadians down on the Confederation farm, is to divide & conquer them

which leads to the hyper partisan American republican style politics in play now

but Canada is not designed to take that sort of pounding, Canada is too weak to be torn apart and rebuilt like America

so there is increasingly desperation amongst the establishment elites, to the point of embracing totalitarianism in fact

[Dougie93]

10 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Ok, but I don't think the Queen did as well under Canadian government policy than ... say US corporations.

the transfer of Canada from British Dominion to American protectorate begins in the First Wold War

the British Empire went broke fighting for the Somme in Flanders

then they had to go to Wall Street for a bailout

at which point Wall Street was running Canada by default

since Canada isn't really a sovereign country and never was, it was always propped up by the British

once the Americans were propping it up, Corporate America moved in and started breaking it up

Edited June 4, 2021 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

in actual fact, Canada has no friends nor allies at all, Canada is alone in the world

but Canada is too dysfunctional to handle its own affairs, Canada needs a foreign empire to run Canada's affairs

problem being, Canada is actually America's sworn enemy

which the Americans used to ignore, but now are starting to see again

the British don't like Canada anymore, nor can they prop it up

now the Americans don't like Canada anymore, and are not willing to prop it anymore neither

so now Canada is seeking new patrons to be Canada's foreign rulers, in Beijing

[myata]

32 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Or, here's a better metaphor: the deck is full of idiots screaming at the captain that he's a racist or that he's a culture canceller and he can't steer.

How would we know whether it's better or worse one? Have we thought of, or created the mechanisms, instruments and tools to determine the effectiveness of government and hold it to be effective and accountable? And if we hadn't bothered to create such a measure, it's all relative. Feel free to pick one.