Giambrone Mistake: Should Have Said "Publish & Be Damned"

By quitting race, Giambrone has hurt Canadian politics. Given the irrelevant trash dug up by hypocritical Star, and the mob that formed, he should have, for all our sakes', taken inspiration from Wellington and declared that this was trash, damned the Star and mob, and confounded their knavish tricks by advancing and attacking, supremely confident. By yielding, he has set a most unhappy precedent. To hear, watch and read the pathetic fall-back excuses of the mob, the two Star reporters on CTV Power Play (could really have used regular host on this one, instead of MacCharles) yes-menning each other, the Star desperately trying to justify its conduct through James, the guy's detractors leaping on, the titillated twitterers: disgusting. People soon realised the fare-hike thing is ridiculous grounds for claiming public interest, as noted  - politicos can't talk to sexual partners, wives, husbands, about work when not national security? This isn't Couillard & supposedly "top-secret" (sic) docs, eh? So they gave that up and latched onto sex in office for a bit - except would it matter if it was his wife? So they dropped that and went to "dishonesty". Politician Dishonest About Personal Life - SHOCKER! What a complete load of bollocks. And you all know it, douchebags. So now we expect all politicians to tell us the full unvarnished truth about their personal lives, otherwise they are unfit for office? That's considered a matter of public interest, in the public interest? Are you all on Self-Righteous Mississippi Baptist Moonshine? OK then, so people in positions of power and influence in society must clearly all be held to same standard. How often has a paper, an editor, a columnist, a journalist, passed judgment on some issue while their own behaviour completely contradicts it? With power comes responsibility, eh?

So I suggest that political parties & governments deploy all necessary means to uncover the media's dirty personal secrets and hypocrisies, IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, OF COURSE. More specifically, I personally urge Giambrone and his supporters to take names and dig up every piece of "dishonest" dirt about media & mob-leaders, since we are all so concerned about dishonest personal conduct and its influence on public policy. And seeing as how twitter and modern technology were leveraged to destroy Giambrone, fair's fair, all this information can be twittered and blogged online, if media refuse to report on their own affairs and personal dishonesties. Twitpics of reporters leaving lovers' houses etc.. Live by new media sword, die by it, suckers. Start with Diebel and go from there. Go as far back in her life as necessary.

Or of course media could admit they were out of order, apologise, and Diebel-Star could offer to make donation to charity of Giambrone's choice, as could others. We could choose not to take the path that leads to self-imposed information totalitarianism. This is what Coyne et.al. don't get. So obsessed with "transparency", they don't realise they have crossed the line into a logic that leads to totalitarianism. Not everything is political. There must be a private sphere, or else life isn't worth living. Did none of you read 1984? I suppose the immaturity of so many is due to the fact they lack personal experience of totalitarianism. But anyone who knows what it is to be under constant surveillance, to be force-fed information even when one doesn't want it, already looks at Facebook, Twitter, advertising proliferation and all the rest of it with horror. But least we can resist. We don't have to collude in our totalitarian information enslavement. We can choose to be civilised.

I hope y'all do, because the alternative is too hideous to contemplate. I know.