Reply #7: Hehe look at this....

[V. Kid]

...From the Liberal...er Toronto Star no less:

If I were running, I'd make all crime illegal

To my mind, the law doesn't go far enough. What he should do is bring in a law that — and this is the language I would use if I were drafting the legislation — "really, really, really" bans handguns.

But now that I think about it, even that's not enough. If you're going to announce plans to do things that are more or less already done, won't you look more ambitious if you announce plans to do even more things that are more or less already done? I mean, it's not like it's going to involve any more heavy lifting.

Think about it. Who would you rather vote for? A guy with one great idea that's already been implemented or a guy with a hundred ideas that have already been implemented?



So we listen when a politician says: "I'm going to make it illegal for kids to run around with handguns!" Especially if he or she says it with lots of bluster and outrage. We think, whoa, that's a good idea. Why hasn't someone thought of that before?

Now, let's suppose this politician's opponent says: "Uh, excuse me, but we already have laws on the books to deal with kids running around with handguns. What if we just enforced them for a change?" Sounds pretty namby-pamby, doesn't it? Who wants to vote for someone who's reasonable? Would you rather have one law making murder illegal, or half a dozen of them?

(If you and your opponent both support the death penalty, the only way to win is to come out in favour of hanging offenders twice.)

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1134038830093&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907619599