What Could Go Wrong?

O Dio:

 

Acting chief electoral officer Stéphane​ Perrault tells CBC News it’s a move that would get young Canadians more engaged in the political process, possibly stoking a interest that will exist throughout their lives.

We know that Canadians who vote early in their lifetime will continue to vote, and those who don’t vote in the first few elections will tend not to vote later on,” Perrault says.

But others are less convinced that it’s such a good idea. Some critics say 16-year-old Canadians aren’t mature enough to take part in the process, and 18 is already young enough.

 
How could expanding the Liberal voter base to include squinty teens as well as those not eligible to vote be a bad idea?


Hhmmm ...

Millennials: They will overtake the baby boomers as Canada’s largest voting cohort in 2019. In the last election, a higher turnout of younger voters was instrumental in the crafting of a Liberal majority. The next federal vote could see a replay of that scenario.

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Here’s another clip from the Twitter livestream we told you about last night where Stoneman Douglas student activist David Hogg talks about the TV show “House of Cards” and how the show depicts the “real life” of politics in America ...

(Sidebar: "House of Cards" was originally a British show, but whatever.)

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For more than 30 years beginning in 1970, English professor Kay Haugaard used the story to spur corresponding discussions in her literature class at Pasadena City College. Ms. Haugaard says she could always count on some common reactions:

“Everyone thought it was scary because, as someone inevitably said, ‘The characters seem just like regular people — you know, like us!’”

“The story always impressed the class with the insight that I felt the author had intended: the danger of just ‘going along’ with something habitually, without examining its rationale and value. In spite of the changes that I had witnessed over the years in anthologies and in students’ writing, Jackson’s message about blind conformity always spoke to my students’ sense of right and wrong.”

Then in the 1990s, something started to change dramatically in how her students responded to the sobering tale. Rather than being horrified by it, some claimed they were bored by it, while others thought the ending was “neat.”

When Ms. Haugaard pressed them for more of their thoughts, she was appalled to discover that not one student in the class was willing to say the practice of human sacrifice was morally wrong! She describes one interaction with a student, whom she calls Beth:

“‘Are you asking me if I believe in human sacrifice?’ Beth responded thoughtfully, as though seriously considering all aspects of the question. ‘Well, yes,’ I managed to say. ‘Do you think that the author approved or disapproved of this ritual?’

“I was stunned: This was the [young] woman who wrote so passionately of saving the whales, of concern for the rain forests, of her rescue and tender care of a stray dog. ‘I really don’t know,’ said Beth; ‘If it was a religion of long standing, [who are we to judge]?’”

“For a moment, I couldn’t even respond,” reports Ms. Haugaard. “This woman actually couldn’t seem to bring herself to say plainly that she was against human sacrifice. My classes of a few years before would have burst into nervous giggles at the suggestion. This class was calmly considering it.”

At one point, a student explained she had been taught not to judge, and if this practice worked for them, who was she to argue differently.

Appalled by the student’s moral indifference, Ms. Haugaard concludes, “Today, for the first time in my thirty years of teaching, I looked my students in the eye and not one of them in my class could tell me that this society, this cultural behavior was a bad thing.”

Indeed, how could letting such people decide the fate of an entire nation be a bad thing?



(Gracias)