Who gets it?

So Campaign 2000 just recently released their 2007 Report Card showing that there has been no improvement to Child poverty over 18 years. That's one generation's transformation into adulthood and nothing's changed.

How does our esteemed finance minister react? Well, I suppose with the proposal that will end the long era of bickering by child poverty activists. Surely not. Proposing to lower taxes for high income earners even though the proportion they contribute (as a bracket) to tax revenue has been going down steadily is what Flaherty sees as an appropriate way to tackle what's becoming Canada's latest black mark.

He just doesn't get it.

How about this one?

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny is calling for a moratorium on Taser use after the Vancouver and Nova Scotia Taser deaths. Well I don't have enough facts to know whether a complete moratorium is needed, but something definitely needs to be done about these trigger happy cops. I think he kinda gets it.

Let's get it straight, not all officers of the law should be painted with the same tainted brush, but when I played team sports as a teenager many a coach told me a team was only as good as their worst player. If we apply that principle to these recent taser incidents, the RCMP is in need of some desperate roster shuffling.

Sure there is the other side that says we civilians don't know the urgency in which these officers have to make these decisions and we should recognize this when we criticize. Some on other discussion boards have even said we shouldn't criticize unless we're a fellow member of one of the various forces because only then will we know what's it's like.

Well, that's just nonsense. Yes we might not know the urgency in which these decisions have to be made, but we're also not trained like these officers on how to make good, safe decisions in these urgent situations. These officers are so trained, and it doesn't take an ape to recognize that these situations were not the result of these good, safe decisions.

On the issue of criticism is only valid from peers, well that's even more ridiculous. Politicians, doctors, bureaucrats, teachers, and many other people whose job it is to serve the public are under frequent scrutiny and the police are no exception. If taxpayers don't think their dollars allocated to public safety are being properly served, then I say voice your opinion.

If a doctor botched a surgery, quite likely there would be a lawsuit. In the same token, if a police officer engages in reckless behaviour, then they too should be subject to the consequences. Their office doesn't protect them from the law, nor does it make them above it. These bad members of our police forces surely do not recognize this.