Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Primer for Open Letter

This is a blog dedicated to motivating me and hopefully others to participate in government by sitting in front of their computers and writing down their thoughts. Pretty easy, huh? I access the Government of Canada website at www.canada.gc.ca for email addresses and click away.

I will post responses to the letters on this blog and would be glad to post open letters that you decide to write as well. I welcome any comments and criticism of my letter, logic or grammar even. Let 'er rip! For those of you who do not wish to get a Blogger ID to post comments I found a good anonymous way to gain access without revealing details. I guess that is what anonymous means. Check out this website for details: http://www.sixapart.com/typekey/ .

I have already written a letter this morning. I intend to fax or mail my letters as well so they have greater impact. The postage is free after all.

The only rules, of course, are all communications should be respectful no matter the hotness of your rant or comment. You (and I for that matter) will have to find creative ways to express very emotional subjects without flaming others. And if you have different ideas than the general direction of the blog then I think you have EXTRA impetus to post here; we all need a second look at our precious ideas sometimes. Also, make sure to spell and grammar check before you post or email.

Thanks and I hope you will consider participating in our democracy! I certainly am!

Statistics Vs. Ideology

Mr. Prime Minister,

I was struck this morning with comments from your Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson as reported in the Toronto Star. He stated that you don’t “…govern by statistics...” but by “…what we told and promised Canadians.”

This ideological point of view shows to me the ignorance with which your government makes decisions. That you decide major courses of action based on what you predetermined to be the best answer rather than basing it on sound evidence and rational thought shows to me a reckless modality in your decision making.

To ignore the declining crime rate and play on peoples fear rather than trying to actually fix the problem seems like a lazy way to govern. Selling new directions to the citizenry is difficult; I understand this but this does not preclude choosing the irresponsible course of shoring up poorly reasoned ideas with more poorly reasoned ideas. It may be the easy way but certainly did not vote for politicians because they choose the path of least resistance.

I challenge your government to re-think your position and give some serious thought to ways in which we can reduce the crime rate further by supporting those vulnerable to the allure of crime as a quick fix to their problems.

If not, the criminals will not be the only ones looking for quick fixes.

Yours respectively,

Michael Kruse