12-20-2023, 07:59 PM
(12-20-2023, 06:24 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: But why won't their constituents like it? In "economic" terms, it usually comes down to "I don't want you spending my tax money on a class of people I'm not part of". I think the price tag in absolute terms rarely matters, only if the money spent directly serves their selfish interests vs some other group's interests.
I think it would be more apt to say "I don't want you spending my tax dollars". I think the near 5 billion dollar price tag for the Cambridge LRT is absolutely absurd and I will not support it, but I'm not doing so out of classism...I take the LRT myself after all. It's that I don't think it's a good use of money. A heck of a lot of other people who are pro-transit feel the same. A lot of people probably do actually think in the way you framed it, that they don't want their tax dollars spent on things they don't actually use, but I don't think that's classism or prejudice and more selfishness. Are they considering that maybe even their own family relies on transit? Or perhaps they're a business owner - are they considering a bus route with better frequency would actually be a good thing for their business if employees have a reliable way to work? Unlikely, they're just seeing the price of things.
But that's what I mean about us needing to put a lot of focus on informing people why things are a good idea. A lot of people don't because that's just human nature and time is also very valuable. I am sure most of us here - at least those who may sit on the left - don't go out of their way to educate themselves on conservative political philosophy, conservative economics, conservative culture and so on. How many of us here could actually go into the nuances of conservative Canadian politics? These days it has basically boiled down to "DoFo Bad". We tend to have our own preconceived notions and as a result will lump all of those who think the way we do as being all the same, which is a terrible thing to do, but it's easy to understand why it happens. I generalize all the time (at least online where I'm shitposting...in my actual academic work in teaching and writing, I definitely don't do this heh). But if we did, then we might understand why conservatives vote for and seek the things they do.
The same goes for things like transit. Most people aren't going to go out of their way to read up on why a transit line they'll never use to somewhere they'll never go is actually a benefit to all of us. But if they had more information that could easily be accessed, then they might take a moment to read a bit and then may actually conclude that oh yeah maybe it's actually a good thing, I'll support this. The politicians are likely going to vote in a way that is safe for them. They know their voter base best, so they're offering platitudes. But if their voter base started saying to them actually, upon further consideration, we do want you to support the vote for investing in this thing then things might change. But that will only happen if the voters are informed. How we inform them in a good way that is neutral and offers more info than a lame infographic on Instagram or a TikTok, but doesn't require reading six 30 page *.pdf files and watching a 3 hour recording of a Zoom meeting on why double tracking a transit line is a great thing to do for all of us.