Empathy

A Plea for What Youth Should Aspire To
Paul Summerville • January 8, 2012

The wonderful and exuberant Julia of Montreal shared this link with us.

Thanks Julia.

Quote worth living your life by.

“You'll see a stranger ... a complete stranger being bullied and beaten and suddenly, in an agonizing moment, he'll become your brother ...” -- The Counterfeit Traitor

 

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World
The Last Dike, Michael and Iraq, 21st Century Empathy, US Downdraft
Paul Summerville • August 29, 2010

My mother has claustrophobia. Never comfortable in elevators I had to take her home from the Blue Jays' first game in their history at Exhibition Stadium as the crush of people made her ill. You see my mom lived near the Croydon airbase that was constantly pounded by German war planes during the Second World War. Consequently, while bombs fell, my mom, my aunt, and my grandmother spent night after night in a tiny, ill lit home made air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden.

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World
Go Ahead, Start A Conversation With A Stranger
Paul Summerville • January 9, 2010

I find the National Post an interesting newspaper.

Its thinking about the rule of law and individual responsibility is for me largely spot on but I am usually -- ok always -- at odds with its knee-jerk reaction to the role of the state in a modern society, particularly in the economy. They have even managed to blame the excesses in the financial services industry in the United States and the resulting collapse on politicians for using housing policy as a social tool.

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Twin Virtues: Inequality of Outcomes & Equality of Opportunity©

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Ultimately, the most successful societies find the balance between the twin virtues of inequality of outcomes and equality of opportunity.
 
The new politics must marry the twin virtues of unequal outcomes and equality of opportunity.
 
When too few get too much everybody ends up with less.
 
Can it be that striving for equality of opportunity however imperfect the process not only benefits the individual but also creates benefits for the society as a whole that are unintended but wonderful?
 
Economics must be a 'moral enterprise' as much as politics claims to be. Economic outcomes need to be framed in terms of right and wrong not just efficiency if only because these often align in surprising ways.
 
My vision of Canada is that any Canadian child from a family of limited circumstance can expect to have a chance at lifetime of unlimited opportunities.
 
Tax policy should be founded on the principle of generating steady tax revenues sufficient to maximise environmentally sustainable economic growth in order to fund fair government.
 
Public policy should be designed to decrease inequality before the law and increase equality of opportunity.
 
Capitalism is not the problem; the problem is what we do with capitalism.
 
Content is always more difficult to argue than conspiracy.
 
Let the state regulate and the market operate (most things).
 
Welfare strategies are best designed as a hand up not as a hand out.
 
Political debate should not be fact free fighting.
 
Explanation lasts longer than eloquence.
 
Always favour empowerment over dependency.
 
The most enduring public figures are embraced for the causes they fought for and not the concept of themselves they hoped others would remember them by.
 
Find your voice and don't be the echo of somebody else.