Today, readers are responding to the Globe editorial True patriot reason, in all of us command
A Canadian flag flies in front of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.Chris Wattie/Reuters
The reasonable person will hear both sides and seek compromises. My wish for 2019 and beyond is that our political parties seek and find a middle path and no longer treat those who disagree as morally or ethically challenged. - res ipsa loquitor
In response to res ipsa loquitor:
The reasonable person will recognize when compromise cannot be made and have the courage to reject it. - MarkTilley
As a resolution for 2019 how about we resolve to decrease our navel gazing fixation on the United States and look at reason in policy and action being employed around the world by countries just as wealthy or even more wealthy and successful than the United States. From Switzerland to Norway, Denmark, Australia etc. you will find people employing reason to city building, public policy, management of resource revenue, taxation, and voting to receive less at all sociopaths-economic levels so everyone can enjoy more. - Tricky.
What else readers are discussing today:
On foreign policy, Canada is back – up against a wall, that is by Lawrence Herman
The pillar Mr. Herman has neglected to mention is the postwar fiction of Canadian exceptionalism that has been peddled in one form or another by the Liberals. Sometimes it's referred to being the 'honest broker' and other times the 'middle power' but regardless of it's label-of-the-moment it assumes a demand for a Canadian way in the wider world.
Of course, it never really existed outside of sound bites, campaign literature and the Ottawa bubble but none of that mattered until it was conclusively disproved by the events of the past year when it turned out that, surprise surprise, countries with real issues and real responsibilities were no interested in our gendered moralizing and green hectoring. Now we stand alone it seems and we see what exceptionalism truly is. - Rovenbird
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Really well written article. It is not, however, only Canada that faces these problems.
Japan, Australia & New Zealand, the Benelux, the Scandinavians, Argentina, Chile. In essence, almost all of the middle powers who depend on strong alliances of like-minded nations must now face the consequences of a world with paralyses western leadership previously unknown in our lifetimes.
The world has not faced challenges like these since the 1930's. The polarization, and paralysis, of America is uncomfortably reminiscent of France in the 1930's. France had been victorious in the previous war. It was a rich, technologically advanced leader of liberal western democracy, whose internal political polarization led to paralysis in forming and executing effective policy. That paralysis made France incapable of addressing existential threats, whether internal or on its borders.
Nor is it comfortable to see the policy of “America First”. “America First” echoes the “America Firsters” of Charles Lindbergh, who openly admired the 1930′s leader of Germany who the Globe’s moderators will not allow to be named. Western democracy is under attack. Right now, it’s losing. - OldBanister
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