Perhaps the lesson is that about a quarter of the people anywhere are stark raving mad: 23% of participating voters in Alberta wanted to go ahead with a referendum on whether the province should leave Canada. For the good of just about everybody, that means a true super-majority voted to shoot down the question altogether.
■ There are lots of places from which a wealthy, highly-developed jurisdiction might want to leave. Hong Kong, for instance, is plainly not better-off under the thumb of mainland China than it would have been had it remained with the United Kingdom, pursued true independence, or perhaps even applied for admission into the United States. But Canada is not a confederation from which it makes sense to leave. It’s big, well-developed, stable, and prosperous. It could be better-developed and more prosperous, of course, but it’s not teetering on the brink of destitution.
■ Maybe a pipe-dream scenario can be imagined where Alberta seamlessly slips from Canadian province to 51st State. But that outcome would depend upon a chain of conditions and dependencies so long as to send the mind into a spiral.
■ Even a basic pass at the question reveals that maybe the problem isn’t so much that a quarter of the voters are inclined to lunacy, but rather that a quarter of them have reckless disregard for consequences. Somehow, almost one in ten drivers still refuses to wear a seat belt. A similar fraction still smokes. These are behaviors with clear, unambiguous dangers attached to them.
■ Leaving Canada isn’t exactly that unambiguously stupid (though it’s not far), so maybe it makes sense that even more people are willing to take big chances for largely imaginary gains. But that’s the problem, really: People cannot be forced to perform second- or third-order thinking, and many refuse to even try.
■ It’s childish behavior, especially when it assumes that someone else will be available to bail the reckless out of whatever trouble they find. There are a lot of fingers searching for light sockets, and it’s up to the remainder of us to shame and shun those who can’t or won’t bring themselves to ask the simple question, “And then what? What happens next?”