fortiguy's Journal: Laziness and greed are the enemies

Why are we acting like sheep? In general we let companies and other people do what they want with our family members, our money, our rights, and our property. Even when it amounts to legalized theft.

My mother had been in and out of the hospital many times last year before she died of heart complications (among other things). If my dad had not fought for her every day, doctors would have had her on untested medication (must have liver tested daily), on dialysis (once you're on it you can never get off it and in this case it wasn't needed), or had the plugged pulled simply because they needed the bed. Without a strong willed person with common sense, my mother would have died (been killed?) a year before she did pass away, possibly more than that. That would have been before she got to see her only granddaughter.

Our Canadian banks keep raising our service fees, and we just sit there and take it. The few people who care, move to PC Financial or ING Direct. But not enough to put a dent in bank profits. Last year Canadian banks made $19 Billion off the backs of little people. If you ask me, move your money out of banks liked CIBC and TD (major mainstream banks), but invest in their shares! With profits like that why not join in?

The government seems to think it owns my land. I'm starting to wonder myself these days. It seems the government can declare my land a wildlife sanctuary (no endangered species needed) and while I can still own the land I can't do a thing with it (not farm it, build on it, or sell it). Even worse, if I am a farmer and that happens to a neighbor, my land value goes down so much that the bank will foreclose on my mortgage because the land isn't worth enough to be collateral anymore! Does the government have the right to put hard working honest farmers out of business for no reason? Its one thing if the market doesn't want to buy my crops, but this is entirely different!

And lastly rights. I agree native Canadian Indians have had things very bad for a long time. I agree that the Canadian government is doing the right thing in providing the band councils with money to help them live in their traditional ways. However, I do not think they (or anyone for that matter) have the right to take guns and weapons and set up a roadblock in the middle of a town and harass the average person. This is the Caledonia situation that came up this past spring/summer. In doing that they are essentially terrorists, but we can't call them that or treat them like terrorists. When a judge issued a warrant to arrest a protester for attempted murder, the police wouldn't carry it out, and the army was never called in. There is no law and average people suffer, all because nobody wants to 'offend'. The government should make a very goodwill first move, and say unless they take down the barricade and act peacefully that is all thats going to happen. But no, that would be to heavy handed and unfair. At this point any sympathy I have for the native land claim issue here is far overshadowed by the approach. [ed: since this was written another band has blocked a major train route between Toronto and Montreal for similar reasons. and 16 months after Caledonia started its not resolved yet.]

Everyone has rights. Rights to safety, rights to basic food and shelter, and rights to expect that something you buy or earn today can't be stolen from you tomorrow without penalties. All of my above examples infringe on one or more of these areas, and if you ask me they do it for no good reason other than greed and/or laziness. I expect I will get flamed for this, and possibly get some unkind labels thrown my way. Please try to put thought into any comments on this journal post - don't be lazy!