As IF Times

Why are such incompetent people elected to public office?  Given the epidemic of incompetence in political regimes worldwide, but especially in the West where supposedly the most advanced democracies exist, we have to wonder; how can the ‘leaders’ be so inept?

There’s an old saying that you elect who you deserve as your political leaders, but is that really true?  Who really elects them?

Taking the case of Canada for an example, it’s not true that the nation decided that out of 40 million people, they collectively concluded that someone like Justin Trudeau is the best qualified person to run the affairs of the nation.  This is not a political view, it’s simply one of logic.  Someone whom has never run a business, nor had any training in management and whose only asset is that his father was once Prime Minister of the country is placed in the role of national leader.

As is the case in the United States, Canada has only two or three political parties that effectively control who people get to vote for. The system has evolved so that elections are like going to Costco. At Costco they only stock limited brands of any particular product. There is no wide selection of any given product unlike in grocery stores or large supermarkets.  Someone in management makes an economic decision to stock Brand A’s product instead of those of other brands. Thus, if you want to buy beans, it’s Brand A…or nothing.

It’s quite the same in politics.  Since there are really only two (at most 3) parties to choose from, the choices are made for the public by a very small cabal of party insiders.  Thus, if you’re part of that cabal, the leverage you have on the rest of the nation is gargantuan.  Logically, if you have enough money at your disposal, you can exert enormous influence simply by leveraging those in the cabal; forget the public. Of course, this is obvious now as corporate interests drive all elections. This process has been in place for decades, but it has becomes more and more refined with each election cycle. The illusion of choice to the public is thus perpetuated even as people become more disillusioned with the process.

Political strategists know that name recognition means much more than actual policies when it comes to voters.  Most will go into a polling booth and be discouraged by the list of names offered and just tick the box for the names or parties they recognize. It’s like buying Heinz ketchup at Costco.  It may not be the best, but you know the name. If we had an election today, Taylor Swift would win an election over almost any qualified candidate based solely on name recognition.  Yes, people are that level of dumb.  A guy like Joe Biden spends his entire career as a politician, elected only because he’s been elected enough times for name recognition, but makes it all the way to the top job while being on the wrong side of every major policy issue in his career….and often on both sides of the same issue.

An even more absurd example is the current mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow.  The mayor’s claim to fame is that her late husband was a national NDP politician and after his passing, the political halo effect was passed on to his wife.  Of course, now with revelations of her ruminating about taxing the rain on property holders as well as her police department advising citizens to keep car keys near their unlocked doors for easier theft, her unsuitability for political office is revealed.  Too late, she’s in.

We’re kind of seeing some of this nonsense in the US. There has been ongoing speculation that the wife of former President Obama, Michele, can somehow be qualified to step into the Presidency.  This is the same illogical mindset that thought Hilary Clinton would be a good second act for Bill.  Or that the Kennedy family has a permanent place in political office. This is the road favored by Monarchists who are able to pass on their reins of power to ensuing generations.  Queen Elizabeth knew this wasn’t a good idea, so she held off passing her reins as long as she could.

The whole idea of living in a society with representative governments is that people who have power and influence reflect the wishes and values of the citizens.  The US at least, was founded on this principle.  Now it seems as if the political winds have shifted back towards the monarchist model where people are considered to be ‘rightfully’ ensconced in power.

In the case of Costco, they have implemented a program of creating their own house labelled products to compete with the name brand products. What’s notable is that these house labelled products are often better and cheaper than the big label brands.  We need the Costco model for politics.  As at Costco, we should be able to return the politicians if not satisfactory.  There definitely has to be a better refund policy.

From our history lessons in school, we learned (or used to learn) about the various epochs of mankind.  First there was the pre-historic age, wherein no one wrote anything down, so there really was no record, hence, pre-historic. From this period of unknown duration, man figured out how to make tools out of stone and thus animals could be hunted and hostile neighbors put at bay. This was of course, the Stone Age.  Once people starting posting graffiti on cave walls, the era of the caveman was underway.

Then, someone figured out how to harness the power of fire.  This enabled people to not only achieve better tasting food, but also created the ability to make weapons by using fire to melt metal.  Hence the Bronze Age came into being as people created armies with weapons and shields.  Now, societies could go about taking over other civilizations that were less advanced. Thus, civilizations spread through military technology.  As time went on, human ingenuity invented means by which life could be more productive and thus the age of iron and steam emerged which enabled heavy industry.  By now, things started to really take off for mankind.

As industrialization matured, more advances in technology occurred including the discovery and harnessing of electricity, the Electrical Age and all the way up to the very recent Computer Age and the related, Information Age.  All of these advances in human knowledge were created to make lives easier, less costly and more enjoyable for all.

Oddly, at this juncture, civilization seems to have paused, if not actually regressing, into the era that we’re in now; the Karen Age. In a throwback to a time when information and knowledge were the purview of the religious sect to be doled out in a manner beneficial to them, we appear to be regressing to this era once again.  Lives seem to be harder, more costly and less enjoyable.

This time, the self-appointed distributors of knowledge aren’t necessarily even educated….in anything.  The common denominator is that they profess their expertise and righteousness in pushing some narrative dear to their particular sensibilities. They cannot prevent themselves from sharing this worldview with others because of their own inflated sense of self-worth.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  We were supposed to be in the Age of Aquarius: harmony and understanding, enlightenment etc. Instead, we’re in the age of Karen, the time of people telling us what to think and how to behave.

Someone like Al Gore may come to mind, but he’s not quite the profile of a Karen. Gore goes about his climate change nonsense honestly; that is, he’s in it for the money.  He doesn’t personally believe in the hoax that he pushes any more than he believes in walking to all of his conferences.

No, the Karens of this era are those fanatically pushing their worldview and will upon others because of their sense of entitlement and notions of social piety.  They are the exact opposite of the liberal notion of live and let live.  They have appointed themselves guardians of what is (in their minds) acceptable behavior. I read somewhere that these people believe that they’re the gatekeepers of one giant HOA.

Given that the majority of popular media is their soapbox, virtually any issue can be Karen-ed. It would be impossible to list all the ways that this oppressiveness has affected our daily lives since most people aren’t even aware of their effects.

From demonizing plastic straws, gasoline engines and gas stoves to red meats, paper cups, shopping bags and unethical coffee, people’s lifestyles are adversely affected by the zeal of the entitled set. It is the large scale life equivalent of ‘you can’t park here’.

We are convinced to accept that sexuality is a social construct in humans, not a natural one as occurs in 99.99% of nature’s creatures.  We are told that accepting a certain level of crime in our lives is all part of living in a civilized society.  In fact, it’s not even permissible to defend ourselves against crime.  Classic books are banned regardless of their literary merits because some offensive words or situations depicted, by today’s standards, are offensive.

And who exactly defines what’s offensive? Well, the Karens of course, because only they possess the moral compass by which we must all comply.  We could all easily ignore the bleats of the Karens in our daily lives if not for the fact that they’ve come to be fully represented in our governments.  Now it’s not just a matter of choice, it’s a matter of state edict as to your compliance with their worldview.  Cleverly, all edicts are framed as in the “best interests of the public’.

Ironically, when confronted with the nonsense of their edicts, they cling to their insistence that they are doing good for their subjects.  The very recent, and in fact ongoing vaccination and restriction edicts were prime examples of this mindset.  Governments are supposed to manage the moving parts of a nation, not determine what foods to eat or what cars to drive. They would be offended if their actions were compared to those of the totalitarian states they profess to abhor…even as the parallels are unmistakable.

It might do good to remember that the oft despised Nazi regime used this phrase as justification for many of their actions; “Fur Ihre Sicherheit”, which translates into, “It’s for your safety”.  Given that today’s compliant populations have boundless tolerance for inconvenience, I suspect that the Karen Age will last quite a bit longer until the willingness of people to go along to get along runs out.  History shows that when this happens, the culture changes severely.