09-10-2018, 11:36 PM
(09-10-2018, 06:22 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: To put it another way, anyone who agrees with what Ford did and how he did it, is inherently unreasonable.
I wouldn’t go that far. It’s possible for a reasonable person to be in favour of fewer councillors, although they need to have an answer to the point that fewer councillors will just need more staff and actual savings are unlikely. So what Ford did is at least debatable. How he did it, however, is unquestionably wrong on multiple levels, and it is not possible for a reasonable person to disagree. It’s simply bad and incompetent to make a large change to an electoral process while it is running, or without consultation, or quickly without warning, etc.
Quote:And yet, there are literally millions of Ontarians who feel this way--even in Toronto. I find that utterly terrifying.
The number of people who believe that Ford, or Trump, or Ford is a good choice for their respective offices is truly shocking. I could even understand being fed up with the alternatives and unaware of just how bad these choices really are. But there are people who after seeing them in action for an extended period of time think they’re just A-OK. This is not a reasonable position.
On a related but not the same note, I remember thinking, during the Bush presidency, that I might be able to understand somebody who agreed with Bush’s policies, even if I strenuously disagreed, but somebody who thought Bush was a good orator is objectively wrong and basically stupid. I think a similar observation applies here. It’s perfectly possible to believe in good faith that Toronto should have fewer councillors, but anybody who has a passing familiarity with how big operations like elections work here in the real world knows it’s insane to change the rules massively near the end of the nomination period.
To anybody who thinks the timing of what Ford did was reasonable, I would want them to answer this: how late could he have reasonably made the change? After the nominations had closed? After the formal candidate lists had been released? After the ballots had been printed? The night before election day? On election day? While the ballots were being counted? At what point do you just have to go ahead with the process as planned?
Actually now I’m thinking about the Scarborough subway debacle. The LRT plan was far enough along in 2012 that it should have been considered a done deal, especially given the provincial financing. But now we have the subway people whining whenever people point out how stupid an idea the Scarborough subway extension is that we have to stop changing plans part way through, even though the subway plan is nowhere near as far along as the LRT one was when it was interrupted. Similar issue here: are we now going to see Ford supporters whining about the disruption caused by switching from a 25-ward election to a 47-ward election?