POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Ford undoubtedly has roughly the same base fraction of
voters that Harper does.
For those people, I'm sure he can do no wrong no matter how
irrational and nasty his acts.
It is one of the not-so-pretty aspects of democracy that
Churchill spoke of quite strikingly.
After all, the Bell curve means nearly half of any
population is sub-normal in intelligence, and if you go down the curve another
standard deviation, you reach Rob Ford's base territory.
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"Statistics say
that 1 out 4 people need psychiatric care so this would explain 25% of the 26%
of these voters. The other 1% must just be totally insane.”
That's darkly funny, but it is not so far from the truth.
The percentage of mentally unbalanced people in any society
does vary, but it is a surprisingly large number for a place like Toronto when
you take account of all the different problems from schizophrenia and
manic-depression to depression and autism.
This represents another way of segmenting the total
population over and apart from the intelligence spectrum.
Whatever way you segment the population, a guy like Ford
attracts the group you wouldn't want to have an extended conversation with.
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"Judging from the
fat, hill-billy jokes, the majority of Ford bashing here centers around
Ford's looks: He's short, fat and doesn't have an $80 haircut. He also doesn't
mince words."
They do that only as a short-hand way of describing his
ugliness.
What makes people dislike him viscerally is his mouth and
his behavior.
The guy was a spoiled brat kid, and he thinks he's entitled
to act the fool and insult people.
How can you defend a man who runs a streetcar door and then
reports the poor driver who chided him, trying to get the driver fired?
How can you defend a man who gives the finger to an old lady
who observes him breaking the law?
How can you defend a man who calls 9-1-1 when he sees a
well-known comedian in his driveway?
How can you defend a man who yells at the poor 9-1-1 operators,
"I'm the f-ckin' mayor"?
How can you defend a man who was arrested years ago for
drunk-driving?
As for not mincing
words, you confuse stupidity with force of mind.
The man is a complete slob, ethically, physically, and
mentally.
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"Tribe Smitherman
will be avenged. They lost their big chance."
You have that just plain wrong.
Smitherman was a terrible candidate, one who failed in his
every big responsibility in the provincial government and lacks an attractive
personality too.
It was only because there was no good alternative choice
that the Big Fat Idiot won.
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Leaving aside his ugly personality and genuinely stupid
stunts, the basic fact is that Ford has achieved very little.
Toronto remains an inefficient city, and Ford has not sorted
much out.
He spent a huge amount of energy and time on his
anti-streetcar theme - it was as stupid an effort almost as Miller's huge flap
over the perfectly good island airport - and he lost.
And you don't balance budgets by cancelling a tax - the
vehicle tax, used in many, many cities, including the Chicago he visited - to
start with.
There are many gigantic problems he doesn't touch,
including, for example, the disgraceful fact that Toronto sends daily fleets of
garbage trucks down the highway or that the high-rise population does not have
a good recycling program.
He has also gone out of his way to alienate groups, as the
clear example of gays, for no good reason but as, one supposes, a quiet
statement of his own limited beliefs. The Mayor of Chicago would never do that.
He's not a man who can finesse anything, and good mayors
must be able to that.
His general mental outlook, judging from his own words and
deeds, is that of a Sarah Palin - that is to say, an unintelligent bubble-head.
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"These 11 reasons
are why many people say Toronto is a failed city, with nothing interesting to
offer , the Detroit of Canada"
The Detroit of Canada?
Have you ever visited Detroit?
Your comparison is ridiculous.
Detroit is a totally decayed hellhole.
Toronto is a prosperous city with some problems which need
sorting out.
A great man once said: Let thy speech be better than
silence, or be silent. You'd be wise to heed him.
