My political action, or my theory (insomuch as I can be said to have one) can be expressed very simply: create counterweights.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Tens of thousands of airplanes successfully land and take off without incident at major Canadian airports every year. There were significantly fewer traffic accidents in North America during the past five years. The Prime Minister shoved a protester today. A celebrity actor was arrested at the airport for illicit drug possession.

Which news story is likely to be reported heavily in the newspapers and blogs? Which ones will attract the most attention from readers? It is a good time to be alive, but one unfortunate aspect of today’s times is that we live in an age of instant entertainment and political correctness, in which bad news is reported more frequently than good news and in which people are quick to judge and criticize others. We give our political leaders a hard time, demanding instant solutions to difficult and complex problems, criticizing them often and rarely praising them. If you were to examine snapshots taken of a senior career politician from his/her first election to the present, you would probably see an individual who has aged significantly more than most people in their demographic cohort, not unlike the photo timelines of petty criminals that the police sometimes show at anti-drug workshops.
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