We say the difference between the human species and animals is that we have an intellect.
This is a very flattering theory, but sometimes I’m wondering what the animals would say about us if they had a chance to watch Question Period for a few days.
This thought crossed my mind when reading a story last week about how politicians spend the money they collect.
In the article, some Liberals were accusing the Conservatives of spending too much money on negative ads, even during nonelection periods, because their coffers are very wealthy. Basically, when politicians have too much money in their hands they do bad things.
A few points.
First, it was a Liberal government that changed the rules on how to collect money, despite concerns from other parties and, eventually, all parties were able to work with the legislation that former Liberal Party president, Stephen LeDrew called “dumb as a bag of hammers.” Two years ago, it was the Conservative government that was willing to eliminate some of the public financing of political parties and they were promptly crucified.
Now that the Tories are legally spending money they have legally collected, some want legislation to regulate the previous legislation.
Basically, after approving legislation on how to raise money, it now seems there is another need to regulate how and when to spend it.
Personally, I don’t agree with the way the federal Tories are using their money.
I don’t like it, not only because I’m against all negative politics, on principle, but also because it’s useless.
I don’t know how many times Conservative organizers can tell my neighbour that the Liberal Party leader is not up to the job.
For all the people interested in that message, they’ve got it. If they didn’t, after more than five years, it means that they’re not interested.
It is very simple but, unfortunately, that’s the name of the game for us, the intellectual humans.
Despite our intellect, we do many strange things.
For example, we are those who ask auto makers to build expensive cars capable of speeds up to 200 km/hour (that we eagerly buy), but then hire police to stop us from enjoying said speed because, as we know, it’s unsafe.
We support governments that authorize multinational tobacco to manufacture cigarettes and then the same governments spend millions of dollars to tell people that it’s bad to smoke and that we shouldn’t buy them.
But this is not just about our politicians.
For example, we are all for policies that will create jobs in Canada but we are the first to cross the border for bargain prices.
We are pro-environment, but Stéphane Dion lost the election because he wanted to do something about it with the carbon tax.
We are all against corruption and dislike those who don’t pay taxes, but I’m wondering how many Canadians using cash to pay for merchandise or for services rendered whenever possible.
We all have our hearts in the right place, but I guess, as humans in possession of an intellect, we can rationalize anything.
We have convinced ourselves that we are never wrong; it’s always someone else’s fault. With animals, those creatures lacking an intellect, the law of survival of the strongest applies. But animals take only what they need and leave the rest.
With intellectual humans, those who survive are not the strongest but the sneakiest. And they don’t even leave crumbs on the floor.
The more intellect they have, the more they win at the expense of others.
Last week, I was very sad and I didn’t know if it was because Question Period started again or because my daughter’s 16-year old unintellectual cat suddenly died.
It might be both.
