The first inclination was to refer to the pig-headedness of the right wing in our North American society. Since ‘obduracy’ means the same, we can sound a bit more refined. What it does not preclude is the opportunity to rail against the ham-fisted idiocy of those people on the right-wing of politics whose destructive obduracy causes so much trouble in our society.
We can see the obduracy at all levels of government. We can see it in Canada and in the U.S.A. It starts at the municipal level.
The Ford brothers in Toronto are an excellent example of the ignorance on which obduracy can be based. The Toronto Mayor and his lieutenant brother think they can casually close libraries and daycare facilities while laying off police to meet their imagined tax savings. They offered a frustrated electorate a chance to end the gravy train and now they learn that they are the gravy train.
It is a lesson that Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak has yet to learn. It is an ignorant elector that will go along with the bad economics of Hudak’s foolish promises. The problem is there are lots of ignorant people who vote. People believe what they want to believe and logic does not trump emotion. Hudak can only be defeated by a stronger emotional appeal.
And what can you really say about Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The anger, chagrin and frustration with him will build to a crescendo over the next four years. We have barely scratched the surface of his government’s right-wing paranoia.
The American right-wing adherents are also hardly wallflowers. The Tea Party supporters in Congress have tied that government in knots fighting for their economic plans. The fact that most of their plans cannot work does not seem to bother them.
But the truth in all of this right and left fighting is that nobody has all the answers. The voters have the power to end the nonsense by forcing politicians to sit down with each other to discuss the issues. Cooperation makes for poor media headlines but it certainly makes for better government.
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