Today's News: RIP Expertise

I'm seeing a number of news stories lately about how expertise is being downgraded, and experts dismissed. Tom Nichols talks about all this in his book, The Death of Expertise:

Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) answers that question in his great book: "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters" pic.twitter.com/LkyRZT7rdg

— Tony Fumano (@TonyFumano) August 20, 2024

But I think it is important to remember that "both sides" are not equally to blame for this expertise problem -- for the most part, it is Conservatives who are the most vigorous at disputing expert advice and denigrating expertise.

I guess they simply cannot accept that reality has a liberal bias!  

Recent examples?  First, the Ford government decision to close Safe Injection sites in Ontario -- they just cannot seem to wrap their tiny minds around the harm reduction approach to addiction. It's like they are still thinking Nancy Reagan's "just say no" is the only plan we need. And they are following along with Poilievre's "Liberal drug dens" smears too - another evidence-free component of our Conservative anti-harm reduction / pro-lockup doctrine:

The key phrase here is the sneering "23 letters behind her name." Experts are to be dismissed, in the Poilievre Conservative view of the world, not in spite of their expertise but because of it. https://t.co/5V8qE8XFlq

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@acoyne) August 22, 2024

Sebastian Skamski is a member of Pierre Poilievre’s staff. With remarkable efficiency, he shows Canadians the astonishing level of contempt they can expect from a Poilievre government — contempt for women, for expertise, for journalism, and for evidence-based policy.

Canadians… pic.twitter.com/S1AF2AprcC

— Bruce Fanjoy (@brucefanjoy) August 22, 2024

“Two Ontario government-commissioned reports recommended keeping existing drug consumption sites open, increasing funding to help stabilize staffing and hiring permanent security guards to increase safety.
But Health Minister Sylvia Jones decided against those recommendations…” https://t.co/kriKGG5H5g

— Greg MacEachern (@gmacofglebe) August 21, 2024

.@fordnation decision to close certain life-saving supervised drug consumption facilities will cost lives & hurt communities. It will also lead to increasing the burden on already stretched Emergency Medical Services and on our ERs and hospitals.

More: https://t.co/X5CMG8oQ6s pic.twitter.com/CNtLGdp5AA

— Ontario Nurses' Association (@ontarionurses) August 21, 2024

Jones knows less than nothing about addiction. I say less than nothing because she is not starting at a neutral stance and wiling to learn. She has a preconceived notion and is guided by politics not data or knowledge. https://t.co/odE34pLXP4

— Steve Flindall (@flindall_steve) August 20, 2024

Next, recent crime stats reported here by Stats Can have been misinterpreted and blown up inaccurately by Poilievre, because short-pants boys don't understand statistics and they know that we don't, either.

2. You cannot just add up different kinds of crime from different regions across Canada and present them as "Trudeau's Canada" - unless the goal is to be completely disingenuous.

— Amarnath Amarasingam (@AmarAmarasingam) August 21, 2024

4. They tell you pretty clearly why these numbers went up: pic.twitter.com/h564D0v8ee

— Amarnath Amarasingam (@AmarAmarasingam) August 21, 2024

6. If I'm right that this dude just added up all these numbers to make a dumb political point...lmao.

You can't add up child porn, robbery, fraud, shoplifting and hate crime and be like: pic.twitter.com/gzBT8pTohm

— Amarnath Amarasingam (@AmarAmarasingam) August 21, 2024

8. Canada isn't perfect, but fuck bro...crime stats are supposed to be read very specifically - by kinds of crime, by region, etc. Otherwise, they tell you very little.

They can also make it easy for assholes to use them to make a disingenuous political point.

— Amarnath Amarasingam (@AmarAmarasingam) August 21, 2024

10/10. I know it's hard keeping up with the deluge of trash, but we really can't let shit like this just go unchallenged. One reason for this being that there are already people linking this random chart with "when Trudeau let immigrants in" and being like "told ya".

🖕

— Amarnath Amarasingam (@AmarAmarasingam) August 21, 2024

Next, the CPC has proven again that it also doesn't understand Canadian tax policy and the Liberal capital gains tax proposals:

Those of us old enough to have lived thru Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney understand very well that "trickle down economics" does not work, it never has. It's a big CONSERVATIVES LIE!

— Dianne (@DiToniolo) August 22, 2024

Finally, on a lighter note, this:

Sorry Conservatives, Canada is woke.

Even our main Highway is Trans.

— Matt Grier (@MattGrierMusic) August 23, 2024