Quote:
Originally Posted by phrenic
Were you beat up by an NDP member when you were a child or something? You seem to have an awful hate on for anything and anybody that is left of the political center.
"They're nothing but socialists and communists who will steal your money! Run for the hills! ahhhhhhhhh!"
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First things first, I knew somebody would respond like this. Its just typical to think that people that believe in development and that criticize the NDP are categorized like this. I think alot of the follow up responses were half jokes.
The majority of NDPers view on development isn't "socialist" or even "socialist-democratic". I've read the communist manifesto and it doesn't say anything about quality urban development. I have lived in and visited countries that have real socialist-democratic governments and they have plenty of nice new towers beside beautiful perserved heritage. They understand basic concepts of economic growth. Economic growth isn't a right wing concept, only its allocation.
Hell, most people I know that own heritage properties are in fact NDPers. Therefore they are furthering their own agenda by being anti-development in their policy decisions. Many of them are professionals have incomes far above the average person in Halifax. They live in a different world than working poor or the homeless. Being anti-development also allows these people to maintain their value as professionals in the community (no threat of potential entrants because there is no office growth, no competing law firms or whatever they do)
Guess what? I believe in some socialist and some capitalist economic and social concepts. However, the left in Canada has been completely hijacked, particularly by special interest groups to further an agenda which in some cases could be viewed as radical (not in a good way).
The fact is, I agree with alot of the basic viewpoints from the left in theory. The people are the margins of society are important and should be taken into consideration appropriately.
Ok JET... I'm not talking about tenement-style, urban renewal, towers here... (See Chicago 1960's-1990's) I'm talking about a 12 story building on land that doesn't offer it a very big footprint to begin with. I don't know how I feel about subsidized housing, but if we are going to do it, at least make it efficient. High density doesn't mean scary, most of Halifax is very low density.
Someone123, I agree about the locational issue, but the suggestion we are confronted with is from the NDP MP.