Right in the centre - Some uncomfortable truths

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Published on Friday, July 5, 2024

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

Former US President Ronald Reagan said once, “The nine most feared words in the English language are, I’m here from the government and I’m here to help.”

How true that is. Generally speaking, when governments get involved, they screw things up. The modern day economy is littered with examples. While well intentioned, most government initiatives are inefficient, expensive and misguided. But as a wise friend of mine pointed out after reading this column, big businesses screw up badly too. Big tobacco companies as an example.

Now, I don’t blame anybody for installing government funded solar panels but if they are so great, should they not fund themselves. I see them popping up all over and they are indeed tempting but they are expensive to say the least.

Electric cars are, in my opinion, one of the biggest scams ever foisted on our modern society. They are expensive, heavy and in some cases very dangerous. And on the “green” front, what do you do with the old batteries?

In a similar vein, has anybody figured out what to do with spent wind turbine blades? Not that I know of. They are not recyclable, they are buried in a landfill somewhere. And I read somewhere that it takes many weeks on a ship to get the blades to North America, then they are shipped by train and finally by truck to the wind farm site. I think somebody burned a lot of diesel making that all happen.

On the social front, there is a major wave of pushback against many of the social plans of the so-called Woke movement. I am all for human rights, for equal pay for equal work, for non-discrimination in the work place. God help anyone who tries to use or abuse my staff, my friends or my family. That said, rules need to be for everyone, not for special groups. Forced diversity is splitting our country wide open and it will blow up sooner or later.

Recent elections in France and South America are showing a major swing in the pendulum and it is largely because groups and governments have rammed some really goofy ideas down peoples’ throats.

You can blame the universities if you like or Hollywood or the media, blame whoever you want, but goofy changes in our society can only really be blamed on ourselves. Some of our most conservative groups don’t even vote and somehow take foolish pride in that stance.

In addition, 40 per cent of all people don’t vote but 100 per cent whine and complain. That makes sense doesn’t it?

But back to conservative stands. The United States looks like they are about to elect Donald Trump as president. Trump has a list of negative things as long as your arm but he has one thing going for him. Trump “claims” to speak for the common people, the citizens which governments have hammered and hectored and dismissed for decades. My wise friend mentioned earlier also points out that Trump helped a lot of his rich friends too.

People want to be free in action, thought and word, they don’t want to be told what they have to do, what they have to think.

Trump has tapped into that vein of discontent and it appears that in spite of his age, his crazy ideas and his long list of faults that compared to the Democrats, he is the peoples’ choice.

The best thing that a government can do is less, but we are so far down the subsidy rabbit hole now that we may never get out.

And before anybody jumps on our family’s three newspapers and says. “Well, you take subsidies.” Yes, we do, but reluctantly. I have said publicly for many years that instead of subsidies, governments need to buy ads. Ads on TV, radio and newspapers, not subsidies.

But the problem is if the government bought ads, they would have to tell us what they are doing, and truth be told, governments don’t really want to tell the people what they are doing. That would be uncomfortable wouldn’t it?

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.