Recently, a friend who has quite the “celebrity crush” on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as both a world leader AND a heartthrob, shared a video by The Other 98% to her Facebook timeline that looked to balance the view of Mr. Trudeau with details about his desire to build three pipelines in his native land. Given the other details in the video, it was actually a bit unbalanced because it began with a list of positive things about Mr. Trudeau. Of course in recent months his profile has risen quite a bit if only because he’s said a lot of good things in the face of very nasty things being slung about in the political sphere these days. Naturally I dig the dude for his various qualities too. So the video prompted this response from yours truly:
We can’t expect world leaders to be perfect. So I would caution against throwing the baby out with the murky bathwater before weighing the negatives against the positives, as I would do most every other human being. I’m a glass half-full, bigger picture kind of guy. If your virtues outweigh your non-virtuous aspects, then we can work together. I can’t sacrifice all the good you’ve done because there are a few bad things you’ve done. That’s operating without a full scope in perspective, y’know?
There’s always something less savory to learn about people, but so long as they have the right balance in light versus dark and most of their intentions or motivations are coming from a place of decency, we’ll take that all day over those blatantly unsavory characters in this crazy series we call life.
So in Justin Trudeau’s case, does his controversial stance on dirty energy negate his commendable stance on feminism, on inclusion, on diversity, on science or on reason? For a convenient and rather stark contrast, we could easily compare Mr. Trudeau with Mr. Trump, the United States’ backward thinking and rather corrupt president.
What’s that, you say? No contest.
My point exactly.
Lost Signal 