(WARNING: Some of the content in this post may be inappropriate for some of our younger TDD readers. Please use appropriate discretion.)
It is always fascinating to me, when traveling in other countries, to get a different, broader perspective about life on this planet. On the Friday of my return from my recent foray into the wilds of Canada, a pair of corresponding front-page articles in the Canadian newspaper, The National Post, were lamenting the descent into lawlessness in Vancouver, as well as, in Calgary. The following excerpt from the Vancouver article paints the picture:
Whatever its charms, this city has an overwhelming problem. It is street crime and disorder, the in-your-face variety that no one, however careful, can avoid. Open drug use, prostitution, street fighting and aggressive panhandling...
The Mayor, Sam Sullivan, says he's sick of it. He knows that unchecked lawlessness could threaten Vancouver's attributes, such as its mild climate, its beauty, its laid-back reputation for permissiveness...
The days of political "intertia" and nervous hand-wringing are over, he declared in an interview with the National Post this week. Vancouver's long, slow descent into lawlessness must stop
Mayor Sullivan notes that the problems are city wide, and not limited to the Downtown Eastside. But he denies a sweeping "crack down" is on the agenda...
The last thing he wants is to be considered a law-and-order mayor, the Rudy Guiliani of the North. "I am caricatured as a guy who just wants to clean up the place," he complains. "That, I reject."
After all, Vancouver prides itself on "sensitivity and progressiveness," no matter how misplaced or myopic. "We need to do things in a compassionate and inclusive way," says the Mayor.
Likewise, in Calgary there exists a similar dilemma. In a recent visit by New York Guardian Angels founder, Curtis Sliwa, his straight-forward approach got mixed reactions.
...Mr. Sliwa says what he witnessed was "alarming to say the least." At downtown's LRT stations were "all kinds of cretins with chromosome damage hanging around, verbally harassing people." Along the river, "people were shooting up and smoking crack openly, beaming themselves up to Scotty," he says. In working-class Forest Lawn, dealers and prostitutes loitered in broad daylight...
He snatched a crack pipe out of one woman's hands and stomped on it before confiscating her box cutter. "People were like, 'Oh yeah! That's what we need!,'" he recalls. Local poverty activists, however, were outraged. "They said 'This is barbarian! You can't do this. This is Canada!'"
This very candid revelation about life in some of Canada's larger cities reveals the inherent dilemma of human society that loses sight of Truth. How does a "progressive" society, built around tolerance and individual rights, maintain necessary law and order? Where do a person's rights end and societal order begin? The answer to such a dilemma remains elusive in a culture that embraces tolerance and moral relativity. In the absence of law-and-order the seeds of anarchic chaos are sown, and the vacuum inherent to such a world invites occupation by only the most powerful. As the Canadians are discovering, that is not what anyone wants, no matter how progressive we might hope to be. And we would do well to pay attention to this struggle facing our friends to the North. What they are facing now mirrors where our own culture is heading, if left unchecked. I wonder, if this is the expected result of such "progress", is this kind of progressiveness in our best interest as a society?
i took the time to post a comment at
http://flickerbulb.com/Blog/2007/06/daily-detour-progressiveness-run.lasso
N. Joy!
Posted by: chris from flickerbulb | June 20, 2007 at 10:35 PM