I didn’t.

Instead of spending an hour to stuff a flimsy paper ballot into a flimsy paper box that’s manned by a well-meaning geriatric every four years and then using the remaining time exercising my “right” to wallow and complain when things inevitably go wrong, I choose to spend 99.998% of my time (yeah…do the math) making an actual difference. Trying to, anyways.

To put it bluntly, if you voted for any politician then it’s you who have no “right to complain” (as statists are fond of blathering), when the government that you implicitly “granted” the ability to fuck you over, fucks you over. I mean, you actually went out of your way to do that!

Slavery: involuntary subjection to another or others. Slavery emphasizes the idea of complete ownership and control by a master…

“The federal government and the provincial and territorial governments all have laws that provide rights and freedoms: laws against discrimination in employment and accommodation, consumer protection laws, environmental laws and, in the area of criminal law, laws that give rights to witnesses, victims and persons accused of crimes, to name only a few.

…

Section 1 of the Charter says that governments may limit Charter rights so long as those limits are ones that a free and democratic society would accept as reasonable*. It is also possible for governments to pass laws that take away some rights under the Charter. Under section 33 of the Charter (sometimes called the “notwithstanding clause”), Parliament or a legislature can make a particular law exempt from certain sections of the Charter – the fundamental freedoms (in section 2), the legal rights (in sections 7 to 14) and the equality rights (in section 15).”

http://www.pch.gc.ca/eng/1355760105725/1355760725223

* – Do you remember the “democratic” vote that took place for this? And exactly how “free” are Canadians when they need to be “granted” rights and freedoms, need to ask government for permission to marry someone, may not ingest anything that government doesn’t allow, do anything to their bodies that’s not government approved, are indebted to the government for their entire lives (and beyond) based on some non-existent “social contract” that they implicitly agreed to the moment that they popped out of the womb, and so on?

Although it’s lacking teeth,  an op-ed piece in the National Post fairly succinctly summarizes what I’ve been blathering on about for God-only-knows how long now. You don’t need to have a PoliSci degree to see what’s happening but although I doubt I’ll ever be able to shake my ageing parents’ (and many of their generation’s) scorn at my “naiveté”, “ignorance”, and “radical” views on government, at least I know I’m in fine scholarly company.

…the prime minister seems to have the unchecked power to decide when the House should be in session, when elections should occur, and even, in some circumstances, when their governments do or do not have the confidence of the House.

In the past I’ve referred to this as fascism, sometimes as a dictatorship, and often as a tyranny, but as I’ve tried to point out labels ultimately matter far less than deeds.

In the House, the prime minister and government have considerable control over day-to-day operations. This allows governments not only to set the agenda, but to carry it out with ease. The prime minister commands the steadfast loyalty of his MPs, largely through a carrot-and-stick approach; co-operative MPs might be rewarded with cabinet posts or coveted committee positions, while rogues can be — and at times are — punished with removal from caucus or even barred from running as a candidate for the party in future elections. All of these are vestiges of prime ministerial power. The party caucus has little leverage with which to counterbalance the prime minister’s power because party leaders are chosen (and replaced) by the party at large, rather than by the caucus. Thus, the government’s MPs have no effective mechanism through which to stand their ground against a very powerful leader or effectively represent his or her constituents.

Critics regularly cite our seemingly dizzying array of market choices as proof that government has little control in our day-to-day lives. Although they can hardly provide a straight and articulate answer without sneering derision, state supporters are often stumped by simple facts. For example, all of the so-called “choices” that the so-called “free market” offers are all directly controlled by government.

No?

Okay, name any product or service in Canada that doesn’t require government legal authorization, licensing, approval, etc. In other words, you have only the choices that government allows and you’re coerced, backed by threats of violence and imprisonment, into paying for this through taxes. Yes, you can buy things on the black market but you face the wrath of government if you decide thusly to exercise your “free choice” and of course you’re guilty until you can prove otherwise (which they can still arbitrarily reject).

Because they’re now stumped, government lackeys immediately pivot their argument to deflect by claiming that this is necessary to “keep us safe”. To this I would simply suggest cracking open a newspaper – the evidence of how government doesn’t keep us safe is in the news pretty much on a daily basis. Whether this involves food, health, personal safety, privacy, and a litany of other claims about protections, there are regular and glaring examples of how this simply isn’t true.

The statist argument typically changes course once again at this point to demand that nothing – our hospitals, roads, water and electrical systems, etc. – would exist without government. I’ve addressed these obviously specious arguments a number of times in the past but I will concede that government vehicles with government employees do sometimes drive up to a pothole, and one labourer and three supervisors spend three to four weeks filling it with a cop or two gladly accepting extorted taxpayer money to text or browse the web on their cell phones or chat with the crew, while out of sight pedestrians and cars are left to their own devices to share the dangerous inches left for them. Sounds an awful lot like the lazy welfare whores that government is keen to trot out to justify how we should receive even less state “benefits”, doesn’t it?

In other words, government supplies a few services through a wasteful, overpriced, badly (if at all) regulated process, something that is typically done far more efficiently by the private sector. This makes sense – the private business has to look out for their bottom line, government can just raise taxes and you’ll be brutalized or extorted by “authorities” and go to jail if you don’t like it. There’s no incentive for government to be efficient or benefit citizens in any way, and every single government institution behaves according to this.

Don’t believe? Just try and apply for any government “benefits” to see how hard your loving, benign government works for you. Call up a government “service” phone line and see for yourself how much service you receive. While you’re at it, try calling the cops when you actually need them – I have and that’s why I know better.

Rather than becoming more like a system of presidential executive authority, this situation has left Canadian prime ministers in a position more akin to historical monarchs. The evolution of Westminster democracy in Canada is very much a story about the struggle to wrestle power away from the Crown and shift it to Parliament, and specifically the House of Commons, our primary democratic body and check on unfettered prime ministerial power. The ability of prime ministers to retain and use these Crown powers, alongside other powers over MPs and the House of Commons, is resulting in a situation where prime ministers have the power to make decisions, partisan and otherwise, that limit or negate Parliament’s role as a guardian for accountability in our democratic system.

This is not simply about politics or even personalities. Almost all recent prime ministers have used these powers to try to advance their partisan interests. What it is about is the erosion of our democratic institutions and the effect on democratic governance.

The next rhetorical recourse of any good government lapdog is to state that, yeah, okay, maybe government isn’t perfect but we have “checks and balances” to ensure that things more or less work out for most people. And if we don’t like it we can vote in someone else!

These are other points I’ve addressed at length and are yet more claims that can be factually rebutted with a mountain of evidence to the contrary (this blog is filled with it). And while it’s claimed that the media would surely alert us to these issues it’s easy to demonstrate that this is highly unlikely to be the case. Unless you seek out increasingly derided alternative sources you will only know what government and friends want you to know.

If your final argument is that people are too stupid to know what’s good for them, hence the need for unquestionable government, then kindly shut your ignorance hole – you’ve just brilliantly insisted that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

Put this all together and the will of the people is entirely irrelevant and, in fact, something to be suppressed.

It’s at this point when state defenders throw up their hands and exasperatedly exclaim, “Oh well! Then I guess we must be living under a King or Queen then, huh?!”

Yeah, smart guy. Flip over your Canadian money or do a Wikipedia search – Canada is a monarchy and whether the titular head is the queen or Harper the effect is the same.

Compare:

Crack-smoking scumbag Rob Ford’s privacy is breached when staff access his private hospital records. Although there’s no indication that the information ever left the hospital or was used in any way, the Ontario Privacy Commissioner immediately demands prosecutions. Send a message, she says; this is totally unacceptable!

Around 15,000 people have their privacy breached on numerous occasions by hospital staff with the information being given or sold to third parties, some of whom use the information to solicit patients while others use it for more troubling ideological purposes, with who knows how many other breaches being swept under the rug. The Privacy Commissioner shrugs her shoulders and says, well, guess we gotta change the laws, while downplaying things as best she can: “We have found no evidence to suggest that this information ever left hospital property or was used by the photographer for any other purpose,” said Trell Huether, a spokesperson for the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, in an email.

The result here is that Rob Ford is just another exemplar of how government genuinely isn’t interested in the well-being and protection of its citizens, and certainly not in encouraging ethical behaviour or enforcing the law with any semblance of fairness or justice. It’s main purpose is to prop itself up, protect itself, exclude itself from any accountability, and to utterly destroy you if you don’t go along with their criminal racket. If you’re part of the gang you get a sweet ride otherwise you’re free to go fuck yourself.

If you haven’t broken the law, you have nothing to worry about, right? No one in this “democratic” country would be arrested without charges, correct? You have due process and checks and balances, no?

Not in the fascist tyranny of Canada you don’t…

A summons was issued in February for Merouane Ghalmi to appear before a Quebec Court judge in Montreal to sign a peace bond after the RCMP said it feared he would commit a terrorism offence.

No document was signed in the case on Feb. 26 and the case was postponed to give Ghalmi’s lawyers time to review the evidence.

Ghalmi has not been charged with any offence.

From: http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/25/rcmp-terrorism-arrest-amir-raisolsadat/

And C-51 isn’t even law yet.

The Toronto Star article opens with this:

The cash-strapped provincial government is banking on a bidding war between Canada’s largest telecommunications companies for its lucrative lottery business.

The lucrative business (why the OLG is selling access to it, obviously), is in the exclusive right to sell the OLG’s products and services through a network of the telecom’s own “specialists”; in other words, to run lottery and gaming operations in Ontario. The two companies currently involved in a bidding war for this are Rogers and Bell. Does this maybe have something to do with the OLG’s unquestioned power to violate privacy laws? Of course the process is fair and open to everyone (with lots and lots of money), so no problems there.

Even better, the government will enforce this private, for-profit monopoly for, obviously, everyone’s benefit.

“The service provider will be responsible for recommending strategies to maximize the growth and success of the lottery business, developing products and marketing plans, operations, and process and cost optimization,” the Crown agency announced in December.

“”It will also serve as a single point of contact for OLG by being responsible for everything subcontractors do and ensuring they deliver on OLG’s modernization requirements,” the corporation said.

“In the future, OLG will continue its role in the conduct, management and oversight of lottery. This includes setting the overall strategy for lottery, managing the market by approving channel strategies and approving products.”

Isn’t that wonderful?

And, because Bell and Rogers are such poor, poor corporations (and because the OLG is itself “cash-strapped”), the Commission will be handing out roughly $750,000 to the winning bidder for the harsh inconvenience of plunking a golden monopoly into their private, for-profit laps (paid for by taxpayers, of course).

Potential new operators will now see up to $650,000 of their costs in making a bid covered by the provincial agency.

OLG will also pay $100,000 of fees that bidders must pay to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to investigate them and ensure they are above board.

You ever get those existential pangs in your stomach? You know, the kind that make you question why you do things?

I look over at the side bar here on TCL and notice that I’ve been doing this, on and off, for almost six years now. At the beginning we were getting hits from all over the world, but now we’re seeing predominantly Canadian traffic. Just in time too.

As I’ve noted many times (and I’m not alone in this), most big-name media have little interest in really getting their hands dirty with really exposing what’s going on. When’s the last time you saw the front-page headline, “Government of Canada repeatedly violates the law and all of our Charter Rights“? — because it’s quite true. Or is the problem that this might cause people to start to ask too many uncomfortable questions? I can’t imagine that the government would allow such incendiary commentary about itself, no matter how true and urgent it is, so I suspect it’s a convoluted mix of pressures keeping media giants stupid and silent.

As with any large organization, of course it’s not true to say that everyone is in on keeping stark reality relegated to the OpEds, but by virtue of “I need that paycheque”, really, they kind of are.

Sometimes the media dissent is very public, as was the case at RT. While it’s absolutely true that RT — Russia Today– is deeply funded by, and works for Russia, it’s important to consider that this thinly-veiled propaganda network (as are all major news outlets, let’s be clear), is more free here than pretty much any western media outlet.

While RT is, understandably, free and open to criticize the west, we find that domestic big media openly rejects balanced discussion and trumpets western government propaganda while at the same time deriding critics and spreading even more misinformation and often just flat-out lies about their own country and rest of the world. Domestically, RT’s cousin is probably a lot like this too, so it’s not as if I’m saying that this sort of thing doesn’t happen elsewhere.

While it’s certainly reasonable if not accurate to say that a Russian-funded network is biased, it’s also true that it probably reports on way more, and in a far more balanced way than our so-called “balanced” domestic media. Even the word and subject of “propaganda”, most people are surprised to learn, was created by an American for the stated purpose of “conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses” — for corporate/government benefit.

Most people are equally surprised to learn that many ghastly Nazi war criminals were repatriated and handsomely rewarded by the American government after the Second World War. America’s late entry into the conflict was hardly about liberating the world from the “Nazi menace”, protecting America, or even helping to protect people against the barbarity of things like the Concentration camps. In fact, American Capitalism directly contributed in many ways to the Jewish Holocaust and to Nazi Germany itself.

That war, like any other, was about one side’s dominance over another — one government cabal demanding that its subjects die en masse against another for their personal ideologies, which are typically not mass opinions, and which are often strikingly similar. The fact that no American president has answered for any of their obvious international war crimes at the ICC, the modern Nuremberg (or any court, for that matter), proves it was and is merely a mock court where the United States owns and operates a public podium to vilify the opposition.

The problem isn’t that the Nazis didn’t necessarily deserve it, it’s that similar and numerous international crimes have been perpetrated by world leaders since then, and to date only America’s enemies (and anyone standing in the way of their plans), have ever been brought before this ridiculous, contemptuous court of The Hague. The fact that America defends its crimes at the highest levels further demonstrates that these were never “crimes” in their eyes.

So to expect honesty, fairness, justice, balance, or even correct information from either government, mega-corporations, or behemoth media is an exercise in abject futility. That’s not what they’re about.

Consider, for example, how loudly new Bitcoin-related legislation is being trumpeted, one that affects all Canadians directly and is in everyone’s best interest to at least be aware of. Oh, you haven’t heard?

The news itself is misrepresented (“Bitcoin is now money in Canada!”), and I have yet to see even a passing mention of it in any of Canada’s main dailies. There is plenty of news on something that all Canadians are engaged in though: legalized prostitution.

Apparently, between your ability to legally fuck hookers and your ability to get timely, accurate government information, the hookers win pretty much exclusively.

Okay, so you don’t own any Bitcoin and couldn’t give a toss. Fair? So is it fair to say you frequent prostitutes way more, thereby making this news of greater importance? The media seems to think so.

More often than not, I find that I have to rely on non-Canadian news sources to discover what my own government is up to, and even then it takes a while to sort the wheat from the chaff. This assumes I can find any information at all — the government regularly violates its own citizens’ Charter rights to just be aware of what’s being done directly to them.

To make matters worse, information from agencies like the Canada Revenue Agency is unclear and unhelpful, ensuring that no matter how good and honest (and legal), your intentions may be, they (the government) will find some way to find you in violation of some law or another, and summarily destroy you five ways from Sunday before you’ve had a chance to blink.

For example, the CRA treats Bitcoin transactions as barter, and they completely fail to define this according to their official web page: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/it490/it490-e.html

Notice that this page is “archived” (is it even valid?), is over 30 years old (has it been updated since?), makes no mention of any related documents or information, and lists no useful information for any taxpayer. Stuff like this:

 In arm’s length transactions, where an amount must be brought into income or treated as proceeds of disposition of capital property, that amount is the price which the taxpayer would normally have charged a stranger for his services or would normally have sold his goods or property to a stranger.

So if I say I would’ve charged someone $0 for my services, is that acceptable? Apparently I’m left to my own devices when determining any such amount, the CRA doesn’t think it’s important to include any detail, but this is legally binding and will be used against me at their earliest opportunity.

Besides this, depending on who you speak to in the (at best) dysfunctional government, you will be provided with something resembling either the truth or truthy misinformation. What, you think it’s up to the government to provide you with accurate, honest, timely information?

In effect, the Canada Revenue Agency (and, really, all of government), often resort to citing documents like their “policies” to justify whatever overt crap they’re engaged in now. Policy is not law, has never been through what are claimed to be the rigours of the legislative process, and so on.

Some document that some agency drafted up as a public document is no more a valid law than anything I write on this blog. Of course, they won’t tell you this, and they will use whatever law-violating policies, sideways nods of approval, and sticky note directives to justify their actions. Regardless, the ultimate result is always that you obey now and you can take up your complaint with some dispassionate dick that works for them at some later time. Your objection will be noted and filed in a special bin along with discarded pizza boxes, rotting vegetables, and yesterday’s cigarette butts.

These are the same for government and the mega-corps who regularly make absurd, ridiculously illegal demands which are often simply accepted as the status quo. Unless some concerned citizen complains (and even then it may be swept aside), few in the government-corporate cabal even thinks to bat an eyelash. After all, when it comes to mass fraud or mass murder, they are entirely exempt from even a stern glance while it’s you and me who are forced at government gunpoint to pay for their crimes. Our tax money is even used to provide proxy support for human slavery. If it’s depraved, you can be sure that government and its corporate buddies are engaged in it.

Okay, I know, this is all disjointed — I can link to examples here or there, and I have plenty to back up my own situation — but does this theory accurately model what corpo-government is?

I say yes. In fact, this model accurately explains most if not all of government’s decisions, corporate maneuverings, and so on. Others have made similar observations.

That’s why your cell phone costs so much. That’s why your cable service costs so much. That’s why the state demands that you must go through a bank (at your loss / their profit), to deal with government and why they refuse to accept their own legal tender. In other words, they have no interest in putting their obvious activities to scrutiny, they want to maintain them; they have no accountability to you or me, they work for the rich and powerful.

Why does the government claim “banks are too big to fail”? See above.

Why does the government claim that some drug use is so illegal that you should be locked up for engaging in it, that seat belts are legally mandatory “for your own good” while at the same time happily continuing to allow the sale of cigarettes, a product that exists for no other purpose than to bring about your untimely death along with a slew of awful health problems, massive costs to the healthcare system, etc.? See above.

Whatever argument they make about “protecting public health”, or trying to keep down “systemic healthcare costs”, etc. are all horrendously ridiculous — they’re there to protect the big-money people: tobacco, drug cartels, police enforcement, etc. Through the wonders of taxes, we pay for this obvious hypocrisy while they work to maintain it. You and I will barely benefit from what they take from us.

This seems nonsensical, the result of a broken and dysfunctional system or ineptitude, but the fact that example after example shows benefits and rights predominantly skewed toward them proves that this is not the case. This is purposeful, planned, and prepared, often over the course of many years or even decades. As murder, it would be in the first degree.

It explains why Harper is able to be so openly hypocritical about things like China’s human rights record while importing those very same abuses directly into Canada under the tired old lie of “economic prosperity”. If he’s a bit of a sociopath who genuinely doesn’t give a toss about his fellow human beings, it explains why he’s able to lie so easily, be publicly hypocritical by claiming he’s doing it for your benefit (when in reality, it’s really not), and so on. As messed up as that may seem, it not only makes complete sense but fits as a model for much of what comes out of the corpo-government establishment. Seriously, take any emotion out of it and weigh all of the available facts dispassionately — I believe you’ll come to the same conclusions I have. Then you can get upset again.

This model also explains pretty much any other form of government, including why they all seem to resemble each other so much. Whether state power is some form of National Socialism, Communism, or Capitalism, the end result is always the same: human misery, suffering, death, slavery, destruction, and everything else dark and evil. Some hang in there in an idealized form longer than others, but eventually the badness creeps in. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it mostly government that wages war? Isn’t it government that incarcerates people? Isn’t it government that claims the exclusive right to violence? That government may not always be legitimate, but it’s in power so…

Along the way they always have little golden moments, examples of how it all might’ve worked if yet again we didn’t have a system that could be usurped by corruption and evil. The utopian ideals weren’t bad, it’s practical government that’s the main problem. If it weren’t susceptible to corruption, it would probably work okay (still probably way too inefficient though).

Government is also natural and, in my opinion, unavoidable. Some sort of government will just happen, because I really believe that this is our natural idealized state. If it only worked as well as we imagine.

People will naturally organize and, yes, it makes sense to cede some responsibility over some things to others. Those others should ideally be good at those things for which they’re responsible, and equally ideally be civic-minded — working for the people under their care, not their jurisdiction. A view of dominance or superiority over those people is the wrong attitude; seeking to extend centralized power rather than distribute individual power is the wrong approach.

Of course, there will always be people who assume the wrong attitude and take the wrong approach.

The idea that corruption will ever truly be distinguished is childish. The belief that power such as that wielded by governments, mega-corps, or any large institution won’t be attractive to said corruption is equally childish. The answer must therefore be to put a democratic and unassailable clampdown on any such organizations, providing near-instant checks and balances by and for the people, not more corruptible agencies and organizations. The moment that power or influence start to amass, they should receive extra scrutiny. If such collectivized power is truly good for its democracy, it will be directly supported by that very democracy. If not, it will be ejected.

The voting systems involved are something I discussed earlier, but the part about people being in the dark is something I haven’t touched on yet, at least not directly.

That introduction at the beginning of this post where I mention how long TCL’s been online, that isn’t to boast, it’s intended to demonstrate that focus and perseverance can make a difference. That Canadian traffic I mentioned is regularly in the four-digit, sometimes five-digit casual-visits-per-day range (not taking into account any external feeds), and I have to believe that among those visitors has to be one or two who are now aware of something they weren’t before.

What I’m trying to get at is that independent media — the blogs, the community newsletters, the guys on the street corners handing out pamphlets — these are the new gatekeepers of information. Much as my own experiences with the Canada Revenue Agency mean that I’m probably more knowledgeable in the ways of the agency than many tax lawyers, I’m finding more and more that true subject matter experts are those who took it upon themselves to educate themselves. Sure as shit isn’t some of the morons the media parades around whenever they need a talking head to fill up some space.

I share my insights and advice for free right here and elsewhere on the web; lawyers charge you an arm and a leg for access to laws and regulations that you are legally required to understand yourself. It’s perverse.

Yeah, I sometimes change my opinions; and what’s wrong with that? That means that I continue to weigh the available evidence and I’m not closed to new information. Sometimes that information tips my opinion in a different direction, which is exactly what one wants from reasoned discussions. But when those discussions are entirely absent, as they are in government, big media, and mega-corps, we are left with – at best – one very biased side of the story.

You’ve probably already guessed at where I’m heading with this — I really believe we all need to be our own producers and distributors, specialists in one field or two, focused, determined, passionate, willing to listen to detractors (sometimes they make some really good points!), and dedicated to sharing with each other. The freedoms of information that are under siege by corpo-government, freedoms that are often a matter of life and death, must be something that we have to undertake for ourselves. There are, of course, some things that really should be kept secret; but for the rest, what corpo-government won’t share, professionals and knowledgeable individuals can (and should).

Edward Snowden went somewhat above and beyond, but considering that to date no harm has been proven (glassy-eyed government supporters simply gobbing off via propagandized media is not proof), except to the trust and reputation of a government agency, it seems that we can entrust such decisions to individuals.

If they transgress, they should have the opportunity to be judged fairly by as wide a base of people as possible. I’m not expecting any waving of magic wands, but this is the direction we should be heading, not away from it.

That government often publicly proclaims the triumph of profits over human life is, to me, reason enough to stand in public opposition. I may be misguided, I may have it all wrong, someone might school me something fierce tomorrow, but I know that no matter what I was standing up for the right things for the right reasons. I’m willing to make such mistakes again because I know that they’re the signs of strength not weakness, adaptivity not rigidity, increased clarity not opacity, and a willingness to get at the truth — not reject it.

Some people say the truth is malleable, that it’s a matter of perspective, that it’s all about context.

This is not correct.

Truth is obscured by these things. It is very real and very much in existence beneath all the bullshit and lies and garbage. Government & friends seek to bury inconvenient truths beneath their “context” and it’s up to us to unearth it again for everyone. But even if political discourse isn’t for you, and even if you find that all you have to share is a really effective method of getting red wine out of white clothing, that’s the kind of thing that empowers individuals — so it’s a good thing!

Now, I have to stress, this is totally just a theory. I have no evidence of any of this — it is a pure flight of fancy.

But let’s consider this: how come Rob Ford is still roaming the halls of City Hall, locking reporters out, and basically being good old RoFo again? And anyone have a pool going on when he officially (documented) hits the pipe again? How far off can it be?

But he does look slimmer, I’ll give him that. His stay in unbelievably picturesque Bracebridge must’ve been good. And not too cheap neither. Bracebridge is one of the jewels in what is basically the Canadian Hamptons.

In any event, and for whatever reason, the Fords are either intimidating to Chief Blair and many others, or they’re (Fords + Blair + others) working together. Whatever the case, the top cop refuses to touch Ford with so much as a fifty-foot pole wielded by a lackey who is on concurrent traffic duty. I’ve already established this point a couple of times.

So instead, Blair decides to shuffle the investigation over to various parties, thereby washing his hands of the situation. Enforcement won’t be involved.

The courts decide that, for perhaps the same whatever reason, they don’t want to deal with this either, so they hang it out to dry like the crusty laundry it is.

The complicit media behemoths provide watered-down analysis to ensure the public that everything and anything in God’s creation that could have been done was done. We’ll simply have to accept that our Mayor is a hard-drug-smoking, prostitute-cavorting, extortion-associating, gun-and-drug-running-related, murder-linked guy; he’s just a regular multi-millionaire like the rest of us except that he’s got a disease! So obviously it would be discriminatory to even suggest that he leave City Hall at this point.

And, of course, it’s completely coincidental that the Ontario Human Rights Commission declared that addiction is a disease just before RoFo made his ignominious return. Right?

Not to put too fine a point on it, imagine going to your office after hours wasted (on multiple occasions), harassing the security, and inviting “unknown persons” in for late night parties. Not only does this not get you fired, but you threaten to sue your boss for discriminating against you because of your “disease” – the criminal excuse du jour that ends up making legitimate addicts (who purposefully hurt no one but themselves), seem like degenerates. Rob Ford is using a real medical condition to legitimize his open criminality, lies, and ongoing scumbaggery. Pretty slimy thing to do, huh? Well, that’s Rob Ford for you!

The cops might be chicken shit for whatever reason, or they may be deferential for whatever reason. The courts may have equal whatever reasons. The end result in either case is that the law was not applied equally and neither was the investigation.

So could they be working together?

Wait, no, that’s no possible. Remember when Rob and Doug chewed the chief out?

Let me offer another theory.

What if there were some secret meetings that took place in which exactly this scenario would be hatched? Rob and Doug would publicly vilify the chief (easy) who would put on a stoic face (easy) and hand the matter off to a less improprietous body, which itself would turn around and just make the whole thing public (easy). Rob and Doug gain fans because they’re under such furious attack, Bill looks like the proper police chief, and the wise court gives the people what they really want — titillating, salacious details.

The whole matter: under the rug, RoFo & Co. are pleased (as are their masters), and everyone looks like they’re just doing they’re job. Except they’re really not.

The reactions to today’s news that GO Transit is instituting “quiet zones” on their trains received the typical didn’t-think-too-hard-about-it applause and accolades, no doubt from the same suburban readers responsible for the Ford plague loosed on the city:

“Thank you, Jesus! (and GO Transit). Now.. if only they can install headrests designed for people taller than 4’5″…”

“About time! Nobody wants to hear phone conversations about “Dude Iwas so wasted last night” or “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?!” or “Tell Mom to take the steaks out of the freezer”. Thumbs up GO!”

“Thank Goodness!  I can’t wait to see this on the Georgetown (Kitchener) line.  There are some seriously unmannered women on my ride home who think the train car is their personal Starbucks – passing around drinks and food and yelling amongst themselves.  Everyone hates them…we can’t wait for the Quiet Zone!!”

Yes, thumbs up, GO! Now passengers can be assured that no one will be bothered by loud conversations or screaming children. The teeth that come with the new guidelines practically guarantee this:

What if there are no seats available on the lower level, but I don’t want to be quiet?

With the Rob Ford crack “tape” seemingly lost forever, people are starting to get antsy. “Where is it?”, they’re rightfully asking. “Without it, who knows if it’s even real!”

Not precisely correct, but still, it’d be good to have a gander at that video, wouldn’t it?

And about that not being correct part, consider this for a moment; many crimes didn’t have video cameras, or good enough video evidence, to prove that they ever took place. So does that mean that all you need to do is to take someone out into a back alley and it’s your word against theirs?

In a court, that wouldn’t be the end of it. There’s this stuff called corroborating evidence — not proof, but strong hints — and in the absence of any recorded evidence we have … eye witnesses.

People tend to forget about this type of sworn evidence: people who actually saw the event in question.

Now I already know what the Ford supporters are saying: “But these are unnamed sources claiming this! Plus they’re drug dealers! Plus they’re lefties!”

Unnamed?

Poppycock!

There are at least five publicly named sources at this point — the reporters themselves — who have claimed (on record, no less), that they saw the video with their own eyes. In court, they’d be witnesses.

Drug dealers?

I doubt it. But the people who claim to own the video, probably yes. Does that mean that those people (the witnesses and the drug dealers are not to be conflated), were able to use their ill-gotten drug money to make up a sensational video? If you believe that Santa comes down your chimney every year, you might buy this one too. Does that therefore make the video fake? Highly unlikely.

Finally, is there any other corroborating evidence to link Ford to drugs? You bet there is. And there’s motive in what the mayor is currently doing too.

Seems to me that with five public and named sources, the likelihood of the video existing being high, the likelihood of the video being fake being low, the fact that not only is the whole thing believable but also likely, and finally, that everything that the Fords have subsequently done points to a clear motive — it all sounds like a pretty solid case to me.

Ford’s defense: his flaccid word.