{"id":3879,"date":"2012-07-30T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=3879"},"modified":"2012-07-28T20:06:44","modified_gmt":"2012-07-29T00:06:44","slug":"godwins-law-of-alberta-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=3879","title":{"rendered":"Godwin’s Law of Alberta Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Peter Lougheed angrily shakes his glass of champagne towards Pierre Trudeau after being forced under torture to sign the NEP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’re reading this post, you likely spend a good amount of time online, so I’m assuming you’re familiar with Godwin’s Law<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is true enough. However, I’d like to propose an Alberta political variant, as follows:<\/p>\n

“As an Alberta political discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the NEP approaches 1.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For those not familiar with the NEP, it was a dastardly scheme dreamed up by Pierre Trudeau, designed to steal Alberta’s wealth, and was single-handedly responsible for the collapse of the world price of oil and rising interest rates in the 80s. (At least that’s how it’s described in Alberta’s Grade 3 education curriculum.)<\/p>\n

Without fail, when Alberta politicians grow desperate, they lob the NEP grenade, comparing whatever it is their opponents are proposing to a new National Energy Program (“Full day kindergarten? That would be just like the NEP.”<\/em>). It’s impossible to talk to an Albertan for more than an hour without the NEP coming up – hell, it even has a starring role in a new Edmonton Eskimos documentary<\/a>. <\/p>\n

So it should not be at all surprising that Alison Redford’s musings of a “National Energy Strategy” have degenerated into a round of NEP name calling. This week, Redford brought up the NEP<\/a> during her feud with Christy Clark, while Danielle Smith likened Redford’s NES to the NEP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both comparisons were farcical, which is why I feel it’s time we also adopted the corollary to Godwin’s law – namely, the first person to bring up Hitler <\/del>the NEP automatically loses the debate<\/strong>. So Redford can still criticize Clark, and Smith can still criticize Redford, but they’ll have to base their arguments on something other than a 30-year old program that has been mythologized beyond recognition.<\/p>\n

While I think these two laws would promote a far more reasoned and rational debate about the future of Canada’s energy grid, I know what you’re all probably thinking right about now – “A Toronto Liberal imposing new laws on Albertans? You know what that reminds me of…<\/em>“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re reading this post, you likely spend a good amount of time online, so I’m assuming you’re familiar with Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” This is true enough. However, I’d like to propose an Alberta political variant, as follows: “As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[49],"tags":[981,980,1055,1225],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3879"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3886,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions\/3886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}