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As boring as this post sounds, I promise you that I won't be delving into the deep beliefs and values of Albertan Political parties, why one is better then the other, or anything too complicated and, frankly, boring. This won't be a political rant, as I honestly don't have the political knowledge to form solid opinions of different parties. All this is is a brief overview of the recently concluded Albertan election from a teen's perspective, and some brief head-banging about people who think that their opinion is clearly better then anyone else's.
For those of you living in Alberta, you'll know that today the New Democratic Party was voted into power. This is rather unprecedented, as the Conservatives have been in power for about forty years straight, and only this year did Albertans finally decide that they had been getting a little to comfortable. In fact, the Conservatives couldn't even claw their way to be the official opposition, that position instead being occupied by the Wild Rose party. Obviously a large blow to the Conservatives.
Now, I'll fully admit that I know very little about politics and political parties. From what I understand, Wild rose is far right-wing, with the conservative party not far behind. That leaves the NDP to occupy the more left-wing area, and the Liberals to strike a roughly middle ground.
The pathetic thin is that I hardly even know what the terms "left-wing" and "right-wing" mean. I'm quite sure that right-wing indicates less government influence on the economy, but right-wing people also tend to adopt a "tough on crime" mentality and are more prone to discriminate against certain groups.
Personally, I like the NDP not only because I prefer a left-wing mentality but because, lets face it, my family and friends seem to support them. That's the sad truth: people my age seem to listen to those around them for their beliefs and values rather then form their own.
Case in point: I'm friends with someone at my school who strongly supports the NDP. I asked him why he supported the NDP as opposed to, say, the Conservatives. His answer was "because the Conservatives are stupid." And this is coming from a generally smart guy.
Another kid at my school says that he hates the conservatives with a passion. I asked him a similar question, and he gave a similar answer. Something alone the lines of "the Conservatives are just terrible, Mark." No one that I talked to could give me a legitimate reason for liking one party over another.
You remember the friend in the first example who hates the Conservatives because they're stupid, but likes the NDP? One issue he did talk about was the NDP planning to tax big businesses significantly more then smaller businesses. I heard as much as a 20% increase in taxes for the big players, although who can say whether or not this is accurate. Now, I'm all for taxing bigger businesses slightly more then smaller businesses, as I believe that we should support local companies. My friend however was saying that we should go ahead and increase taxes on big companies such as oil companies by 20%, because those companies "make billions."
This conversation was being held in social class. After the guy said this, my Social teacher asked the question "but are the oil companies still making huge profits when the price of oil is down, like it is now?" His answer was a simple, confident yes.
Again, I know very little about these issues. Thinking about it independently though, all of the profit of big companies can't be going to one person, can it? This money has to be spread out among employees of said company. Shares of the company have probably been bought. This tax raise would affect all of them, not just the dude at the top (if there even is one). These companies are viewed as one or two people when really they're made up of potentially thousands. Even if I'm just guessing at what I'm saying here, what my friend is said really bothers me. Why? Because I'd bet any sum of money that this billion dollar profit thing is just a shot in the dark, whether or not it is true. I simply feel that people should do their research before passionately spouting out their opinions.
My point is: do your research, people. I've tried to convey to you through this post that everything I say is simply guesswork, so perhaps I'm a bit of a hypocrite. After all, I just was upset at a friends poorly-researched opinion, and to counter it I gave my own poorly-researched ideas. hardly a compelling argument, I'd suppose. Still, I'm asking all of you reading this to please not spout out ideas that you probably just heard someone else say. "Because their stupid" is not a legitimate reason to hate someone. Passing off random guesses as fact is not okay. Just... know that what your saying is true before you say it. Alright?
Thanks for reading,
-Mark
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