I think Margaret Wente voted for Rob Ford. I dunno… call it a hunch.
29 Replies to “But Glenn Beck Is The Crazy One”
If she voted thats how she voted. But what she reports is typical. Our office, at King and Bay, is split down the middle. They either love Ford or are literally in a combo of fear, denial and disgust. Those in the latter category are going though what Wente describes. They don’t understand what happened, fear what will happen and do not seek to understand.
I can only see this as a moment of psychic break for these people. The world has ceased to work the way they understood it and they arent yet plugged in to a new set of assumptions and rules. Some are at least at the stage of blaming Miller. It isn’t the whole story, but it is the beginning of it.
There’s great shock among the elites of Toronto and beyond. Rob Ford’s win has become a story far beyond the city of Toronto, they turned their backs on Smitherman who embodied all the qualities the social elite assumed would make him a shoo-in.
Ford talked straight talk, he spoke to the people not at them about the same concerns they had. People are tired paying high taxes, wasteful spending is something Ford railed on as a councilor and he carried that same theme through his campaign for Mayor.
Bob Rae showed his true elitist colours with his comment about not knowing Rob Ford because “we live in different worlds”.
Kate the link takes you to the comments for the article instead of directly to the article.
Dante:
Click on Red Lettered HTML: “BACK TO ARTICLE ~ There’s good reason the masses are revolting…” @ approx. 5 Lines above “join the conversation…”
tj
From Wiki:
“A bigot (in ancient usage) is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own or intolerant of people of different ethnicity, race, class, religion, sexual orientation or gender.”
From Wente’s column:
“Very few of these people live or work outside downtown Toronto. Very few ever hang around with someone who voted for Mr. Ford and will own up to it. They remind me of the super-smart editorial writers at The New York Times who are sincerely convinced that Tea Partiers are dangerous crackpots – even though they’ve never met any.”
We may be witnessing the widest and frankest public display of uninhibited, ignorance-based bigotry since Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
What will these bigots do when Ford and the Teaparty candidates succeed?
Gord Tulk @ 8:40: What does Bob Rae’s statement about not knowing Rob Ford because “we live in different worlds” say about him? It’s a very elitist statement that skirts bigotry IMO.
From Wente’s very fine article: “Very few [of the elite fear mongers] ever hang around with someone who voted for Mr. Ford and will own up to it.” And, I’d add, if ever they did discover that someone was voting for Rob Ford, they’d be disdainful and probably make a disparaging comment (never thinking that the voter they’re showing contempt for might feel the same way about their choice for mayor; that would never enter their entitled, enlightened minds).
The “pointless rage” of many of us who voted for Mayor Ford is actually focused rage at out-of-control and frivolous spending on the part of too many members of City Council (e.g., Kyle Rae’s $12,000 going away party he staged for himself at taxpayers’ expense, each councillor’s $400,000 yearly budget and $50,000 expense account), at over-the-top taxes which never result in visible improvements to our infrastructure, more efficient and effective public transit, or cleanly paved streets (most downtown streets are a disgraceful hodge-podge of tar patches), and the list goes on and on. Bloor Street between Yonge Street and Avenue Road has been torn up three times in the last three years and construction is still not finished. Toronto voters have had more than good reason to turf out the present tax-and-spend miscreants at City Hall.
The downtown liberals (including Baby Point socialist, Bob Rae) like to connect Rob Ford and his supporters to Tea Partiers in the U.S., as though both are outrageous. Though I doubt very much if the Ford Campaign actually had any help from the Tea Party, seeing as TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already, you could say that we’re all on the same page – or in the same pot – together. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.
Ah, yes, we plebs, according to Mayor Million$ and his minions (‘more condos going up in Toronto every day, blighting the landscape) are going to wreck our own city. I’m not sure it can be any more wrecked than it already is — during their watch. It’s clear that Toronto politics and streets need a massive cleanup and only Rob Ford was willing to put this proposition on the table.
‘Too bad, so sad, that downtown liberal$ just don’t get it. I suspect that they’re about to be pulled, kicking and screaming, into reality.
Yes, it’s bigotry – class bigotry, where you assign people into a certain class or social level, and then, evaluate them according to the assumed ‘general qualities’ of that class. Class is complex but clear. There are three main classes: lower, middle and upper.
But the real focus of power and fights are within the middle class which is itself divided into: upper, middle, and lower. Not by income. But by profession and assumed role.
The lower and middle-middle class are viewed with disdain by the elite, that upper-middle class (UM). The UMs are, like the 18th c landowners, self-defined as the Guardians, the Wise Men. They work in the professions heavily aligned with government public service and funding: academia, teaching, health services, the civil service.
They live primarily within the urban centre and focus on ‘arts and culture’ – the latte, cafe, wine, cheese, book review and so on. Transportation is by foot, frequent taxis, and very expensive bicycles. Contrary to their own self-declaration, it is not by public transit. Check out Toronto’s public transit- it is heavily ‘visible minorities’ and lower class workers.
The MMs work in the private companies both large and medium size – and focus on family, home, etc. They are car users and public transit users.
The LMs are in the private sector, small corner stores, low end workers in various industries; they focus on family, home – and are public transit users.
These three classes are defined by how they relate to others. The UMs consider themselves the educated elite who ‘ought to rule’. They are enmeshed in words. Words, words, words. Endless debates, commissions, reports. They interact with words..and donations. Not hands-on contact. Donations.. and expectations that government will ‘deal with it’.
The other two middle classes don’t talk much, and when they do, it’s to the point. They are the actual volunteers, the ones who coach football rather than hold interviews, the ones who clean up the trash left after a rally while the UMs leave it to the ‘workers’ to do this. They take it upon themselves to start and work at a volunteer group while the UMs talk, study, report on, or expect the govt to do it.
Bob Rae and Rob Ford are definitely from different worlds. The only time Rae has been to Etobicoke is on his way to the airport.
A fine article except for one thing. When she writes People have a lot more government than they can or will pay for, she misses the biggest problem – we have a lot more government than we need. Fix that problem and the willingness to pay will increase.
Given the nature of municipal politics, made up of councilors with differing agendas, we have to hope Rob Ford can get his ideas agreed upon by the majority of them.
The city of Ottawa last time around elected a Conservative Mayor and a totally Leftist slate of councilors who bucked him at every turn. This time they elected Jim Watson, who resigned as a McGuinty Cabinet Minister to run for mayor again, a job he quit to run provincially. A perfect example of the connection between Liberals and opportunism.
Kind of hard to portray Ford as an uneducated, angry, substance abuser, all the while knowing that Smitherman is a high school dropout, self confessed drug addict and used anger to make a name for himself.
Maybe I am hoping for too much, but I am hoping this is the blowback from decades of liberal lefty crap like the human rights commissions, the attacks on free speech, and gay pride.
Cripes, you have one candidate whose biggest sin is eating too many donuts – and the other one is a socialist butt blaster that has gone to work in diapers on some days. What did those lefty morons think was going to happen?
I hate it when the editor gets the headline wrong.
It is the elites who are revolting. The masses are rebelling against the elites. Who *hate* it when their narcissistic delusional world gets smacked upside the head. (Wow! Really-mixed-up metaphor alert!)
I’m just reading a book by John Ringo “The Last Centurion”. It’s labelled as ‘sci-fi’ since that is what he usually writes, but if this is ‘sci-fi’ then so is ‘The Sum of All Fears’ or ‘Debt of Honor’ by Tom Clancy. Lots of good stuff about how much government you *need* and about the grasshoppers who demand more of it versus the ants who just go ahead and get things done. Scary, totally believable and (wrt the political insights) totally reality based.
Ohh, and the masses *rebel* against the revolting elite.
ET – loved your comments – I left Toronto over 8 years ago, because I could no longer afford to live there. I told many of my friends that Toronto was chasing away the middle classes – 6 families left my street within 6 months – 2 to Calgary, 2 to Barrie, 1 to Uxbridge and 1 to Ajax. Our property taxes were HUGE – only the upper classes could afford the expensive condos/taxes and the poor people – the welfare covered everything for them. Houses on my street normally rented for $1200 to $ 1500/month, but the City leased them to welfare recipients for $ 350 – which was what my property taxes were per month when I left. Sheer craziness!
I originally saw Maggie’s article yesterday from a link at Real Clear Politics. Not as big a deal as SDA, but still impressive, since they don’t often link Canadian sources.
ET @ 9:44, thank you, that was a great concise clear summation of the various levels of middle class.
batb, hopefully the “focused rage” spreads all over Canada.
Bob Rae’s comment tells it all. In the socialist world some are more equal than others. His comment also gives you some idea of the thinking that the eastern European people lived under for various lengths of time.
Hopefully Ford ended up with a council that he can work with and not like what happened in Ottawa.
ET,
How do you place someone who is MM but who likes the symphony orchestra and a quality bottle of wine?
How do you place someone who is UM but who is a Conservative?
Your definitions made for a great read, but they are unfortunately perhaps a bit too simplistic.
TJ- definitions such as I gave are general rather than specific and as general, always focus around a statistical average. As such, a statistical average necessarily includes ‘deviations from that average’ within its Set.
If the Range of the deviations becomes too large, then, it’s time to rework your ‘general definition’. But if the range or SD (standard deviation) is not too broad, then, those different particulars are OK in the Set.
You can’t have a commonality that includes ALL differences; your general definition must focus on what is, statistically, most common among all the members of your Set…and you ‘allow’ the minor differences.
ET your comment is general statement of mathematical fact so one cannot really argue with it.
I would however submit that broad definitions are sometimes counter productive because they inevitably lead to views such as “if you like the symphony orchestra you are therefore part of the elite.” (with all the negative connotations associated with that).
All the same, your definitions might be more complete if you had a third category “None of the above”, and I suspect that the number of people in that category would be large enough to justify the category. I’m willing to bet that most of the readers of SDA are “none of the above.”
Sorry ET, my mind is slow this morning. That should be “a fourth category”.
I read through a number of the comments and was left gobsmacked. It’s incredible the number of people who just don’t have a clue about what normal working Canadians think. One of the posters suggested that the top-line elites would learn a lot from spending some time at a government office that works directly with the masses. The comment had a positive rating. They think that that is where you see ordinary Canadians? How about showing up at a Tim Hortons at 5 AM on a weekday and nursing a breakfast until 8 O’clock. I think you’ll see such a cross-section of working Canadians as would assemble nowhere else.
I should have specified – the comments at the linked article were what I was referring to. The comments here are the usual, enjoyable, hodgepodge of opinions and views.
TJ – hmm, if you are ‘none of the above’ then I wonder if you even exist!
The sets I am referring to are defined by some key and quite basic variables: employment, housing, income, transportation. I could add recreation or non-household activities such as volunteer work, sports. I’d bet that we’d find other variables that differentiate the classes, such as marriage, children, religious activity..
I don’t think I’d add the wine and cheese and music and literature choices as a basic variable, though I mentioned them in my original post. The reason is that these are secondary variables and are not definitive of basic membership in a class.
But, they ARE cultural identifiers of a class and I think if I had my survey in two parts – first, basic variables to identify group membership, and then, moving on to the ‘cultural activities’, I’d find that MORE of the UM are into wine, cheese, latte, cafes and etc than are members of the MM, who may not have either the money or the time to get involved.
For example, if I asked some questions on:
Employment: private sector, public sector (It obviously can’t be ‘none of the above’).
Then:
Self-employed vs not self-employed;
Size of work group;
Position: management vs non-management
etc and so on.
Transportation:
Work: public vs private
Nature of private: walk, bicycle, car, motorcycle etc
Nature of public: bus, subway
And so on. I think I’d come up with a set of variables and values that are common and statistically average to a group of people.
To group a set by ‘none of the above’ ..well, that’s not a set, the people in this ‘none of the above’ probably have, apart from a few of these secondary variables, little in common with each other.
Again, the cultural tastes of the UM are probably fairly well distributed in the group. I don’t think that if you find someone in the MM who also likes ‘wine and cheese and the opera’ but who is a member of the MM by virtue of the basic variables (employment, mode of transportation, income, work role )..that this nullifies the basic three Sets.
Bob Rae would certainly not be from Ford’s world. He’s the guy who was NDP,then crossed the floor to the Liberal camp. Also showed Toronto how he could efficiently tax and spend,ie.skydome.Ford understands the shocking concept a tax payer needs to get a return on their dollar. Interest groups favored by left,or center now have to justify their requests for funding.For all the moaning over bike lanes,didn’t Miller have 2 terms to get those in place,instead he pushed for a renovation of Nathan phillips,tiered ice rink?! Guess there’s a pecking order amongst interest groups? Think Ford’s win superseded class structure,people want to see results that accommodate the many versus a few. Reflected in the election ward map post the 2010 municipal vote.
On a somewhat related note, I watched the first five minutes of Question Period today before turning it off in disgust. Craig Oliver referred to Rob Ford as Toronto’s “outlandish new mayor”. Let’s see now: Ford is overweight, has a high pitched voice, a temper, and likes to drink a bit. Smitherman is overweight, gay, has a temper so bad his campaign chief quit halfway through rather than stand by his candidate and take any more of his diatribes, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars and then cuts and runs to leave Caplan to take the blame, and has a history of using illegal recreational drugs.
But Ford’s “outlandish”.
ET, I would suggest you could have two super-categories, one which holds all those who fit into your LM, MM or UM category, and another that holds those that don’t.
I work for both the private and public sector.
I am both employed and self-employed.
I am an great lover of the symphony but I also run a farm.
Mark Steyn touched on this once, I cannot remember which book or interview, in which he said he wanted to have his cake and eat it – he said for example he loved French cheese but preferred the American idea of liberty. Something like that.
After reading your lively and interesting postings for many years I suspect you yourself are neither exactly LM, MM, or UM.
Kate certainly doesn’t seem to fit a particular category, and that’s what makes her blog so interesting, and I believe that is in large part why so many people come here.
Canadians Like Americans, are sick of seeing huge taxes with no results. Even the roads are bad.
Money ear marked for education goes to Union wage hikes. Police have stopped being Police. Government has a deaf ear. Civil servants now making more than the Public only exacerbates an explosive situation. College degree’s are now becoming liabilities. No one can save from the tax Wolf or start a buisness without a fortune. Every natural civil liberty is now under attack from an Elite we created, with political power.
If not for the Tea Party or real Conservative Canadians . Both our Countries would have more than Politics to worry about. Folks who still have hope are the rods keeping the out of control chain reaction happening.
Much as Wesley’s followers, the Methodists kept England from Revolution.
The people in Power are so out of touch they live in another age.
JMO
If she voted thats how she voted. But what she reports is typical. Our office, at King and Bay, is split down the middle. They either love Ford or are literally in a combo of fear, denial and disgust. Those in the latter category are going though what Wente describes. They don’t understand what happened, fear what will happen and do not seek to understand.
I can only see this as a moment of psychic break for these people. The world has ceased to work the way they understood it and they arent yet plugged in to a new set of assumptions and rules. Some are at least at the stage of blaming Miller. It isn’t the whole story, but it is the beginning of it.
There’s great shock among the elites of Toronto and beyond. Rob Ford’s win has become a story far beyond the city of Toronto, they turned their backs on Smitherman who embodied all the qualities the social elite assumed would make him a shoo-in.
Ford talked straight talk, he spoke to the people not at them about the same concerns they had. People are tired paying high taxes, wasteful spending is something Ford railed on as a councilor and he carried that same theme through his campaign for Mayor.
Bob Rae showed his true elitist colours with his comment about not knowing Rob Ford because “we live in different worlds”.
Kate the link takes you to the comments for the article instead of directly to the article.
Dante:
Click on Red Lettered HTML: “BACK TO ARTICLE ~ There’s good reason the masses are revolting…” @ approx. 5 Lines above “join the conversation…”
tj
From Wiki:
“A bigot (in ancient usage) is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own or intolerant of people of different ethnicity, race, class, religion, sexual orientation or gender.”
From Wente’s column:
“Very few of these people live or work outside downtown Toronto. Very few ever hang around with someone who voted for Mr. Ford and will own up to it. They remind me of the super-smart editorial writers at The New York Times who are sincerely convinced that Tea Partiers are dangerous crackpots – even though they’ve never met any.”
We may be witnessing the widest and frankest public display of uninhibited, ignorance-based bigotry since Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
What will these bigots do when Ford and the Teaparty candidates succeed?
Gord Tulk @ 8:40: What does Bob Rae’s statement about not knowing Rob Ford because “we live in different worlds” say about him? It’s a very elitist statement that skirts bigotry IMO.
From Wente’s very fine article: “Very few [of the elite fear mongers] ever hang around with someone who voted for Mr. Ford and will own up to it.” And, I’d add, if ever they did discover that someone was voting for Rob Ford, they’d be disdainful and probably make a disparaging comment (never thinking that the voter they’re showing contempt for might feel the same way about their choice for mayor; that would never enter their entitled, enlightened minds).
The “pointless rage” of many of us who voted for Mayor Ford is actually focused rage at out-of-control and frivolous spending on the part of too many members of City Council (e.g., Kyle Rae’s $12,000 going away party he staged for himself at taxpayers’ expense, each councillor’s $400,000 yearly budget and $50,000 expense account), at over-the-top taxes which never result in visible improvements to our infrastructure, more efficient and effective public transit, or cleanly paved streets (most downtown streets are a disgraceful hodge-podge of tar patches), and the list goes on and on. Bloor Street between Yonge Street and Avenue Road has been torn up three times in the last three years and construction is still not finished. Toronto voters have had more than good reason to turf out the present tax-and-spend miscreants at City Hall.
The downtown liberals (including Baby Point socialist, Bob Rae) like to connect Rob Ford and his supporters to Tea Partiers in the U.S., as though both are outrageous. Though I doubt very much if the Ford Campaign actually had any help from the Tea Party, seeing as TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already, you could say that we’re all on the same page – or in the same pot – together. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.
Ah, yes, we plebs, according to Mayor Million$ and his minions (‘more condos going up in Toronto every day, blighting the landscape) are going to wreck our own city. I’m not sure it can be any more wrecked than it already is — during their watch. It’s clear that Toronto politics and streets need a massive cleanup and only Rob Ford was willing to put this proposition on the table.
‘Too bad, so sad, that downtown liberal$ just don’t get it. I suspect that they’re about to be pulled, kicking and screaming, into reality.
Yes, it’s bigotry – class bigotry, where you assign people into a certain class or social level, and then, evaluate them according to the assumed ‘general qualities’ of that class. Class is complex but clear. There are three main classes: lower, middle and upper.
But the real focus of power and fights are within the middle class which is itself divided into: upper, middle, and lower. Not by income. But by profession and assumed role.
The lower and middle-middle class are viewed with disdain by the elite, that upper-middle class (UM). The UMs are, like the 18th c landowners, self-defined as the Guardians, the Wise Men. They work in the professions heavily aligned with government public service and funding: academia, teaching, health services, the civil service.
They live primarily within the urban centre and focus on ‘arts and culture’ – the latte, cafe, wine, cheese, book review and so on. Transportation is by foot, frequent taxis, and very expensive bicycles. Contrary to their own self-declaration, it is not by public transit. Check out Toronto’s public transit- it is heavily ‘visible minorities’ and lower class workers.
The MMs work in the private companies both large and medium size – and focus on family, home, etc. They are car users and public transit users.
The LMs are in the private sector, small corner stores, low end workers in various industries; they focus on family, home – and are public transit users.
These three classes are defined by how they relate to others. The UMs consider themselves the educated elite who ‘ought to rule’. They are enmeshed in words. Words, words, words. Endless debates, commissions, reports. They interact with words..and donations. Not hands-on contact. Donations.. and expectations that government will ‘deal with it’.
The other two middle classes don’t talk much, and when they do, it’s to the point. They are the actual volunteers, the ones who coach football rather than hold interviews, the ones who clean up the trash left after a rally while the UMs leave it to the ‘workers’ to do this. They take it upon themselves to start and work at a volunteer group while the UMs talk, study, report on, or expect the govt to do it.
Bob Rae and Rob Ford are definitely from different worlds. The only time Rae has been to Etobicoke is on his way to the airport.
A fine article except for one thing. When she writes People have a lot more government than they can or will pay for, she misses the biggest problem – we have a lot more government than we need. Fix that problem and the willingness to pay will increase.
Given the nature of municipal politics, made up of councilors with differing agendas, we have to hope Rob Ford can get his ideas agreed upon by the majority of them.
The city of Ottawa last time around elected a Conservative Mayor and a totally Leftist slate of councilors who bucked him at every turn. This time they elected Jim Watson, who resigned as a McGuinty Cabinet Minister to run for mayor again, a job he quit to run provincially. A perfect example of the connection between Liberals and opportunism.
Kind of hard to portray Ford as an uneducated, angry, substance abuser, all the while knowing that Smitherman is a high school dropout, self confessed drug addict and used anger to make a name for himself.
Maybe I am hoping for too much, but I am hoping this is the blowback from decades of liberal lefty crap like the human rights commissions, the attacks on free speech, and gay pride.
Cripes, you have one candidate whose biggest sin is eating too many donuts – and the other one is a socialist butt blaster that has gone to work in diapers on some days. What did those lefty morons think was going to happen?
I hate it when the editor gets the headline wrong.
It is the elites who are revolting. The masses are rebelling against the elites. Who *hate* it when their narcissistic delusional world gets smacked upside the head. (Wow! Really-mixed-up metaphor alert!)
I’m just reading a book by John Ringo “The Last Centurion”. It’s labelled as ‘sci-fi’ since that is what he usually writes, but if this is ‘sci-fi’ then so is ‘The Sum of All Fears’ or ‘Debt of Honor’ by Tom Clancy. Lots of good stuff about how much government you *need* and about the grasshoppers who demand more of it versus the ants who just go ahead and get things done. Scary, totally believable and (wrt the political insights) totally reality based.
Ohh, and the masses *rebel* against the revolting elite.
ET – loved your comments – I left Toronto over 8 years ago, because I could no longer afford to live there. I told many of my friends that Toronto was chasing away the middle classes – 6 families left my street within 6 months – 2 to Calgary, 2 to Barrie, 1 to Uxbridge and 1 to Ajax. Our property taxes were HUGE – only the upper classes could afford the expensive condos/taxes and the poor people – the welfare covered everything for them. Houses on my street normally rented for $1200 to $ 1500/month, but the City leased them to welfare recipients for $ 350 – which was what my property taxes were per month when I left. Sheer craziness!
I originally saw Maggie’s article yesterday from a link at Real Clear Politics. Not as big a deal as SDA, but still impressive, since they don’t often link Canadian sources.
ET @ 9:44, thank you, that was a great concise clear summation of the various levels of middle class.
batb, hopefully the “focused rage” spreads all over Canada.
Bob Rae’s comment tells it all. In the socialist world some are more equal than others. His comment also gives you some idea of the thinking that the eastern European people lived under for various lengths of time.
Hopefully Ford ended up with a council that he can work with and not like what happened in Ottawa.
ET,
How do you place someone who is MM but who likes the symphony orchestra and a quality bottle of wine?
How do you place someone who is UM but who is a Conservative?
Your definitions made for a great read, but they are unfortunately perhaps a bit too simplistic.
TJ- definitions such as I gave are general rather than specific and as general, always focus around a statistical average. As such, a statistical average necessarily includes ‘deviations from that average’ within its Set.
If the Range of the deviations becomes too large, then, it’s time to rework your ‘general definition’. But if the range or SD (standard deviation) is not too broad, then, those different particulars are OK in the Set.
You can’t have a commonality that includes ALL differences; your general definition must focus on what is, statistically, most common among all the members of your Set…and you ‘allow’ the minor differences.
ET your comment is general statement of mathematical fact so one cannot really argue with it.
I would however submit that broad definitions are sometimes counter productive because they inevitably lead to views such as “if you like the symphony orchestra you are therefore part of the elite.” (with all the negative connotations associated with that).
All the same, your definitions might be more complete if you had a third category “None of the above”, and I suspect that the number of people in that category would be large enough to justify the category. I’m willing to bet that most of the readers of SDA are “none of the above.”
Sorry ET, my mind is slow this morning. That should be “a fourth category”.
I read through a number of the comments and was left gobsmacked. It’s incredible the number of people who just don’t have a clue about what normal working Canadians think. One of the posters suggested that the top-line elites would learn a lot from spending some time at a government office that works directly with the masses. The comment had a positive rating. They think that that is where you see ordinary Canadians? How about showing up at a Tim Hortons at 5 AM on a weekday and nursing a breakfast until 8 O’clock. I think you’ll see such a cross-section of working Canadians as would assemble nowhere else.
I should have specified – the comments at the linked article were what I was referring to. The comments here are the usual, enjoyable, hodgepodge of opinions and views.
TJ – hmm, if you are ‘none of the above’ then I wonder if you even exist!
The sets I am referring to are defined by some key and quite basic variables: employment, housing, income, transportation. I could add recreation or non-household activities such as volunteer work, sports. I’d bet that we’d find other variables that differentiate the classes, such as marriage, children, religious activity..
I don’t think I’d add the wine and cheese and music and literature choices as a basic variable, though I mentioned them in my original post. The reason is that these are secondary variables and are not definitive of basic membership in a class.
But, they ARE cultural identifiers of a class and I think if I had my survey in two parts – first, basic variables to identify group membership, and then, moving on to the ‘cultural activities’, I’d find that MORE of the UM are into wine, cheese, latte, cafes and etc than are members of the MM, who may not have either the money or the time to get involved.
For example, if I asked some questions on:
Employment: private sector, public sector (It obviously can’t be ‘none of the above’).
Then:
Self-employed vs not self-employed;
Size of work group;
Position: management vs non-management
etc and so on.
Transportation:
Work: public vs private
Nature of private: walk, bicycle, car, motorcycle etc
Nature of public: bus, subway
And so on. I think I’d come up with a set of variables and values that are common and statistically average to a group of people.
To group a set by ‘none of the above’ ..well, that’s not a set, the people in this ‘none of the above’ probably have, apart from a few of these secondary variables, little in common with each other.
Again, the cultural tastes of the UM are probably fairly well distributed in the group. I don’t think that if you find someone in the MM who also likes ‘wine and cheese and the opera’ but who is a member of the MM by virtue of the basic variables (employment, mode of transportation, income, work role )..that this nullifies the basic three Sets.
Wente gets it.
“7 Things you can’t say in Canada.”
http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2005/06/7_things_you_ca.html
Of course Rae lives in a different world than Rob Ford.
Miller, Iggy and Rae…Harvard buddies?
Now there’s a trifecta…
Bob Rae would certainly not be from Ford’s world. He’s the guy who was NDP,then crossed the floor to the Liberal camp. Also showed Toronto how he could efficiently tax and spend,ie.skydome.Ford understands the shocking concept a tax payer needs to get a return on their dollar. Interest groups favored by left,or center now have to justify their requests for funding.For all the moaning over bike lanes,didn’t Miller have 2 terms to get those in place,instead he pushed for a renovation of Nathan phillips,tiered ice rink?! Guess there’s a pecking order amongst interest groups? Think Ford’s win superseded class structure,people want to see results that accommodate the many versus a few. Reflected in the election ward map post the 2010 municipal vote.
On a somewhat related note, I watched the first five minutes of Question Period today before turning it off in disgust. Craig Oliver referred to Rob Ford as Toronto’s “outlandish new mayor”. Let’s see now: Ford is overweight, has a high pitched voice, a temper, and likes to drink a bit. Smitherman is overweight, gay, has a temper so bad his campaign chief quit halfway through rather than stand by his candidate and take any more of his diatribes, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars and then cuts and runs to leave Caplan to take the blame, and has a history of using illegal recreational drugs.
But Ford’s “outlandish”.
ET, I would suggest you could have two super-categories, one which holds all those who fit into your LM, MM or UM category, and another that holds those that don’t.
I work for both the private and public sector.
I am both employed and self-employed.
I am an great lover of the symphony but I also run a farm.
Mark Steyn touched on this once, I cannot remember which book or interview, in which he said he wanted to have his cake and eat it – he said for example he loved French cheese but preferred the American idea of liberty. Something like that.
After reading your lively and interesting postings for many years I suspect you yourself are neither exactly LM, MM, or UM.
Kate certainly doesn’t seem to fit a particular category, and that’s what makes her blog so interesting, and I believe that is in large part why so many people come here.
Canadians Like Americans, are sick of seeing huge taxes with no results. Even the roads are bad.
Money ear marked for education goes to Union wage hikes. Police have stopped being Police. Government has a deaf ear. Civil servants now making more than the Public only exacerbates an explosive situation. College degree’s are now becoming liabilities. No one can save from the tax Wolf or start a buisness without a fortune. Every natural civil liberty is now under attack from an Elite we created, with political power.
If not for the Tea Party or real Conservative Canadians . Both our Countries would have more than Politics to worry about. Folks who still have hope are the rods keeping the out of control chain reaction happening.
Much as Wesley’s followers, the Methodists kept England from Revolution.
The people in Power are so out of touch they live in another age.
JMO