I’ve been a little frustrated digging into the various comment feed and twitter feeds and facebook comments over the last couple days. From sour grapes to outright name calling to one blowhard flat-out yelling insults at a new MLA directly on that MLA’s twitter feed, it’s small and disgusting.
If you don’t agree with politics, good… participate. But fight on ideas and ideology. I can respect that.
For what it’s worth (which is admittedly not very much) I wrote and posted a short twitter essay to share my thoughts…
I’m reposting below:
1) What gets me is the backlash against the “representational” aspect of democracy in favour of this ineffable elevation of “experience”
2) Experience is important, sure, but new MLAs will have heaps of support in the form of each other and carefully chosen council.
3) Experience can be earned, but the ability to break free of 44 years of accumulated influence-peddling and favour-debt required a sweep.
4) No one knows where such a major political change will take us all, but many weighed the unknown against stagnation and so voted for hope.
5) Is there risk in inexperience? Sure. Was there risk in the status quo? Of course. Will there be mis-steps? We elected 54 human beings…
6) I welcome the uncertain potential of this great political experiment. I may eat those words someday, but at least I’ll know we tried.
7) Everyone has an agenda. Quit pretending that you don’t. But make that agenda you’re own, fight for it, and we’ll respect you for THAT.
8) But echoing the personal slurs against 54 people who have thus far taken a few steps further than any of the rest of us makes you small.
9) Don’t like your new MLA? You’ve got 4 years to get your act together and run against them. What are you waiting for?
10) Or are you just going to keep posting *ad hominem* attacks on social media? I, for one, am done reading it.