Buckdog was recently threatened with a libel/slander lawsuit for linking to a YouTube video. In it, Elizabeth May appears to say she thinks Canadians are stupid for not confronting the issue of taxation for the purpose of internalizing environmental costs. Yes. Appears to say. Buckdog didn’t even produce the video - Steven Taylor has taken the credit for it. True, the audio file is cut off early, thereby disallowing the listener to follow the train of thought in context.
Here’s more context for you:
Is it I or they? Everything hangs on that pronoun.
Regardless, Elizabeth May is paying the price for flapping her gums too fast. I agree with some of the posters at Rabble.ca: she’d make a better television pundit (where fast, loud and cacaphonous talking is a virtue) than she would a politician. As a politician, this type of mis-communication simply loses votes.
At worst, Elizabeth May ought to be faulted for scattered sentence construction, where thought-trains are interrupred with too many asides. I think she meant the following:
1. All the other politicians are scared to death of a carbon tax.
2. They think Canadians are stupid and cannot . . . (understand carbon taxes?)
a. I agree with that assessment (reference to the questioner’s assessment that everyone is in agreement on the internalization of environmental costs).
b. Most politicians think that if you put on a carbon tax and reduce your income tax, they don’t think they can sell it.
3. They don’t think they can’t sell it because they believe Canadians are stupid (in that they can’t see the connection or tradeoff between lower income taxes and higher consumption taxes.
4. Politicians would rather avoid the subject
That thought train has so many loose connections, it was a wreck waiting to happen.
Elizabeth May’s fiasco only serves to illustrate Frank Luntz’s point in his latest book: it’s not what you say that matters, it’s what people hear. I’d go a step further and say that it’s not what you mean that matters, it’s how people interpret it.
Is it ‘I’ or is it ‘they’? Either way, the outcome depends on what people hear. May spoke too fast for her own good, but what’s even more damaging is her party’s legal threats against a blogger who merely linked to a video.
It’s time to get the Led out.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Scott Ross 09.12.08 at 7:48 pm
You missed the point entirely. From my blog:
The exact quote of Elizabeth May is:
“All the other Politicians are scared to death to mention the word tax. And they think Canadians are stupid. And cannot…. And I fundamentally agree with that assessment. But most politicians think that if you say we’re gonna put on a carbon tax and reduce your income tax, they don’t think they can sell it. It’s all about votes.”
Now everyone agrees Elizabeth May gave her own opinion, that she thinks politicians think Canadians are stupid. The divergence of views occurs when some suggest her following comment of “And I fundamentally agree with that assessment,” refers to her agreeing to that is what other politicians think. My problem here is, her statement about politicians is already her own opinion of a fact, so why would she immediately follow that up with an admission of agreement? Why would she announce that she agrees with herself? Who says something as their opinion, and follows that up with, “And I fundamentally agree with myself”? Unless of course that isn’t what she meant.
If I was to say, “Elizabeth May thinks Conservatives are stupid and I agree with that assessment,” it is obvious I don’t agree that Elizabeth May thinks Conservatives are stupid, because I am saying that as fact, I don’t need to agree to it, that would be ridiculously redundant. I clearly mean I agree with the assessment that I think Conservatives are stupid.
It is my belief Elizabeth May was airing frustration at Canadians for not being as enlightened as they could be and support Green initiatives. I believe she was, as she always is, a very passionate person who speaks sometimes without thinking. After all this would not be the first time Elizabeth May has made a mistake while speaking in the heat of the moment.
To be completely fair to Elizabeth May she could may have misspoke however she has not so much as attempted to offer an apology or clarification.