CANDIDATES FOR ELECTIONS
- CRITERIA FOR ELECTING


This page provides criteria to evaluate candidates
on their support for what feeds and fosters humans:
individual freedom supported by defense and justice systems,
and explains the criteria.


Herein I list specific items to support that.

In general are:
- full integrity.
- understanding of values supporting human life, such as defending individuals against initiation of force.
- responsible spending (stewards not profligates).
- ability to lead for good administration.
- ability to spend time needed to read documents and understand questions raised to council
- time in general
- clear communicator (with substance not slick sales approaches).
- ability to carry on despite smear tactics and lies from opponents.
- learning ability.
- thinking skills (including ability to see the essentials in a subject).
- knowledge (one cannot know everything, but broad awareness is good, significant knowledge of operations of the particular government is good provided the person is independent-minded enough to keep perspective).

Examples of failure to meet such criteria:
Those attributes may seem obvious but many politicians are lacking them. For example:
- Prime Ministers who win election by promising something then reneging, or by opposing something then doing it themselves.
- federal bureaucrats who deliberately shorted development of a new pay system for government employees so that they could appear to be meeting schedule, and hid that from their bosses. (The 'Phoenix' pay system fiasco.)
- MP Elizabeth May sent a message of concern about radio signals, from her Blackberry wireless communicator (which obviously uses radio signals).
- MLA Barry Penner thought that a candlelit dinner would be free of energy. (Perhaps voters should ask candidates to pass a refresher in high school physics.)
- a B.C. cabinet minister violated a contract with a teacher's union, the ultimate loss in court led to panicky accommodation of more classrooms (her unethical behaviour hurt the school system badly and gave power to her opponent, that was real clever).
- on becoming Premier she failed to administer for ethics and competence.
- a party leader in B.C. made a false claim about energy use (claiming to have been a scientist but obviously unable to read statements of energy users and think about the obvious economics of the particular use he claimed).
- Saanich councillor Fred Haynes did not understand the meaning of "stealing" in our society and legal system (he accused Uber drivers of stealing from taxi cartel drivers, but theft is using force to take something that is owned, the cartel does not own customers (we don't have slavery here) but are coercive via government force).
- Saanich councillor Colin Plant ranted that the police budget is not sacred, claiming policing in Saanich is adquate despite robberies and rapes and worse. Yet spends on pet projects like forcing taxpayers to pay for what he defines as 'art'. He can see no wrong in the behaviour of Sanich staff. speaking as though the collective can do no wrong. Clearly he does not support human life.
- another Saanich councillor seems to not study ahead of time, and picks at non-essentials.

At the municipality, regional district, and school board level are:
- willing to defend individuals against initiation of force (at the municipal level that is policing, which I consider Job 1).
- property rights (getting out of the way of people building and earning). NIMBYs and environmental scare-mongers are common influences on council members.
- quality administration (effective and efficient).
- focusing on matters in which the municipality has authority, rather than wasting time on do-gooder duplication of higher level government efforts.
- teaching individual rights and responsibility.

At the provincial level are:
- proper support for and management of the court system and jail system, to defend individuals against initiation of force.
- proper funding of policing where the province pays part or all (small municipalities and unincorporated areas).
- a good system of re-educating offenders in provincial jails.
- administration of the Acts governing municipalities, I want strong curbs on powers of councils to interfere in the lives of honest individuals.
- proper administration of government, including higher quality computer operations and getting jobs done (in recent years the BC government has fallen way short on promises such as child welfare and hiring doctors).
- ethics ("triple delete" of documents and breaking contracts aren't ethical behaviour).

At the federal level are:
- proper laws (such as the Criminal Code).
- an effective federal court system (achieved in part by appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of Canada).
- a prison system that tries to re-educate offenders, and protects the innocent by keeping offenders locked up until they demonstrate they've learned how to behave in our society. (Re-education is lacking. Parole boards evaluate risk to society, in some cases like child abuser Clifford Olsen denying parole (he died in prison), but in other cases letting offenders out too early.)
- proper leadership of and funding for national security forces (such as CSIS and the RCMP who have national jurisdiction but also perform policing for some municipalities under contract and for unincorproated areas.
- avoidance of restrictions on freedom of speech.
- proper funding for the military, who defend us against threats from outside Canada. (To me that responsibility includes decisive pre-emptive action as appropriate, instead of invading privacy of Canadians.)

Good luck figuring out what candidate's core values are, many are vague thus I assume shallow or devious.

BACKGROUND
THE PROBLEM WITH CANDIDATE'S BELIEFS
A root problem is lack of understanding of what feeds and fosters humans. Most candidates, whether leaning toward Marxism or Mercantilism, do not trust humans and have a mechanistic mindset. So control is their goal, and they are arrogant enough to think it is their right and that they can predict and determine the future. Their methods are manipulation and exploitation.

Marxism's teaching that humans are uncreative and untrustworthy is the root of environmental activism.
But few people will deliberately spoil their own property in serious ways - indeed you can see gardens and trees around you planted and nurtured by humans, and outside of cities you can see replanted forests growing well (private forest landowners ahead of government). You have clean water and your waste is disposed of in sanitary ways. Problems that do occur are often "tragedy of the commons" - when everyone is responsible no one takes responsibility.
The antidote to that is private property, tort law to address those who err against specific others, and policing of any remaining public property.
Environmental activists use the logical fallacies of "appeal to nature", and the broader "naturalistic fallacy", both vague and loaded with unstated presumptions(which is a con artist's method).

(Persons of neo-Marxist beliefs typically vote against policing, despite their claim to want to help the poor who need defending most as they have fewer resources to recover from crimes against them.)
I say humans are inherently good and productive, that integrity is life-reinforcing, but individuals do err thus defense and justice systems are required to protect against initiation of force.

Property Rights:
Humans must produce to survive. We do so by using our mind.
Earned property is the result of taking action determined by using our mind rationally.
To deny property rights is to deny use of our essential tool for living - our mind, because it stops action.
(Marxism of course teaches fixed-pie economics and drive-to-the-bottom ethics, thus concludes that anyone who has property must have taken it from someone else. And as collectivism it does not recognize any right of individuals to their own lives.)
A problem at the municipal level is NIMBYs, who make falacous claims to control others' property at no cost to themselves. Another is CAVEs, who are against virtually anything people want to do.

Conflict of interest
An element of confusion is morality - politicians will claim honesty in matters such as avoiding conflict of interest, but push their own pet projects at taxpayer's expense, and practice partial confiscation of property to advance their personal ideology. (By restrictions such as retaining decrepid old buildings that burden future generations, payments for "amenities", micro-managing development without good results, pandering to NIMBYs (who just want to control others' property at no cost to themselves), and misguided environmental actions such as Saanich's oppressive EDPA bylaw.) Umm - is promoting own do-gooder projects by force, such as the "art" on the Craigflower bridge a few metres from where Reena Virk was murdered by a vicious bully known to police and school authorities who did not stop her, a conflict of interest?

Spending:
There's a constant clamour to spend other people's money for something.
Officials must have the values and thinking skills to essentialize and priorities, and ability to explain to people that taxpayers cannot and should not fund their pet desires.
Duplication of functions between levels of goverment is a big problem. For example, the Capital Regional District both have environmental and traffic safety bureaucrats.


What we saw in the last Saanich election (2014):
Only a few candidates had half a clue.

Among things many candidates vaguely claimed they were for are the usual "community", low taxes/good finances (but they end up overspending anyway), consultation (but deciding to do what they wanted anyway), "environment" (but do they include humans?), and "vision" (a meaningless buzzword, Kurmudgeon Keith equates that to dreams and fantasies, prefering "principles" and goals) - but at least they omitted the traditional "motherhood and apple pie". A shallow bunch.

"Change" was a notable theme among challengers in the 2014 municipal election - perhaps it always is, but change is not necessarily good. (Saanich and Victoria embraced it for mayor but not for most of council, however the results have been very disappointing, one claimed reformer is anything but.)

In 2017 the popular buzzword seemed to be "accountability", a good principle but too broadly used.
Reducing taxes seemed popular, but I must know what the candidate's spending priorities are and how the candidate plans to actually achieve that under the pressures and confusion of council and lobbying by staff.

Saanich council ignores the obvious bloat in the planning department, exemplified by verbosity and gratuitousness in reports, and by time spent fantasizing about what could be done around the area of Upchuck Mall and Saanich HQ. (In a report that covered concerns about trafic safety on Blanshard street the author suggested automotive showrooms to distract drivers. That shows an out of control mentality with no interest in taxpayers.)
If one points such things out, one gets smeared by managers and councillors, as happened when I exposed sloppiness, omissions, and fundamental errors in the parks department's documents about Cuthbert Holmes Park. (See http://www.moralindividualism.con/cuthbh01.pdf.)


HOW TO START
Begin by identifying individuals with good potential.
Discuss their beliefs with them.
Help qualifying ones organize and publicize.
Vote for the best.

Voters, it's up to you to take positive action for your life, instead of abdicating.


© Keith Sketchley, Page version 2018.06.18

Keith's Philosophy Page