Dear editor,
Having spent three years in Libya under Col. Gaddhafi, a year in Indonesia under Suharto, and two years in various South American semi-dictatorships, I have to marvel at the naivety of some of the letter writers to this newspaper who refer to Harper as a "dictator" or Canada as a "dictatorship" under the Conservatives.
In Gaddhafi's "socialist paradise" there was no opportunity for citizens to write into the newspapers, as they were all state-owned and full of nothing but government propaganda and obsequious drivel praising Gaddhafi or members of his family.
The nightly TV news (also state-owned) consisted of an announcer reading from one of the daily newspapers to the sound of paper rustling as he turned the pages.
Anyone caught publicly expressing dissatisfaction with the government or with Gaddhafi wound up exiled, tortured in prison, or handed a cigarette and a blindfold.
I like to think that most Canadians, that is those who are not receiving Radio Venus on their bridgework, recognize and appreciate the fact that citizens of this country have rights, freedoms, and privileges that are the envy of people in most other countries in the world, including the right to publicly complain about our government and vote against them in the next election.
Anyone who compares this country to a "dictatorship" needs to spend some time elsewhere and get some non-pharmacologically induced perspective.
Dave Mcleod,
Comox