Political Paul

A happy-go-lucky progressive on the campaign trail in Clayton Park West.

What was I doing while I was "away" from blogging? Well, running for office in the recent Nova Scotia provincial election, for one thing (for my American chums, that's the equivalent of running for your state legislatures).

Did I win? Nope. Did I do better than anyone expected? Yes. I increased my party's share of the vote from 15% in the last election and a third place finish to 26% in this election and the first second place finish in my riding in 15 years. In other words, I left it in better shape for the next person who runs.

Did my interest in the paranormal hurt me? 

Not at all. 

Indeed, while I didn't make a point of mentioning my hobby, when it did come up it was usually because someone had seen one of my films, or my ghost investigating TV shows, and wanted to talk to me about it. Never once did I get a negative comment from a voter (there was a high school student who posted something negative about it on twitter, but that just got him a good dose of opprobrium from constituents who noticed) - in fact, more than a few people told me they thought it was "really cool" (including some fellow candidates). 

In the end, however, it just wasn't a factor. Folks understood that it had no bearing on whether or not I would make a good representative. My views on health care, or the economy, or education, mattered to them  (and given that I was running for a party, my party's views mattered even more) - not my personal interest in the paranormal and its subculture. There is no "laughter curtain" for rational people who have an interest in the subject.  

The results in my riding of Clayton Park West. The last PC candidate finished 3rd with
1,236 votes and 14.68% of the vote in 2013, so I moved my party forward.

I'm back to ghost hunting on TV (and employing some Nova Scotians along the way), but if I ever decide to run again, I have no worries at all that the "paranormal thing" will matter to my fellow Nova Scotians in anything other than a positive way. I even had some fun with it during the recent campaign, in what turned out to be my most popular ad not featuring a talking hamster.

Running was one of the best experiences of my life. I wanted to make a difference, and I think I did. I got to talk about issues - poverty, health care, the film industry, good governance (see the video below) - that matter to me, and more importantly I got to meet my fellow citizens and hear what matters to them. I'm still involved in politics and my community here, and will continue to be involved as long as I have something to contribute.

Intelligent and sensible folks appreciate someone who takes the issues seriously (as I do), but also has the ability to poke some fun at himself - which is exactly how I roll.

Paul Kimball

The Other Side of Paul - 2011 election version

A federal election is imminent here in Canada. Time to fly the colours, and get to work.

Here is one of my favourite quotes from Michael Ignatieff, the leader of Canada's Liberal Party:

"If the fragile internationalism of the myth of human brotherhood has returned as a moral force in the modern world, it is because partial human solidarities - those of religion, ethnicity, and class - have dishonored themselves by the slaughter committed in their names."

He's not an easy person to pigeon-hole, because he speaks in coherent and thoughtful sentences, not soundbites. He's an intellectual, who spent most of his career outside of party politics. In other words, he's everything our current Prime Minister is not.

I look forward to marking my "X" next to the Liberal Party's candidate in my riding. Voting is an almost existential moment that I cherish. It's the ultimate opportunity to be heard, and make a difference.

Paul Kimball

Sovereignty and the UFO

A must-read article:

Sovereignty and the UFO

An excerpt:

Modern rule and its metaphysics are extraordinarily resilient, so the difficulties of such resistance cannot be overstated. Those who attempt it will have difficulty funding and publishing their work, and their reputations will suffer. UFO resistance might not be futile but it is certainly dangerous, because it is resistance to modern sovereignty itself. In this respect militant UFO agnosticism is akin to other forms of resistance to governmentality; however, whereas sovereignty has found ways of dealing with them, the UFO may reveal an Achilles heel. Like Achilles, the modern sovereign is a warrior whose function is to protect—in this case, from threats to the norm. Unlike conventional threats, however, the UFO threatens humans’ capacity to decide those threats, and so cannot be acknowledged without calling modern sovereignty itself into question. To what extent that would be desirable is a large normative question which we have bracketed here. But taking UFOs seriously would certainly embody the spirit of self criticism that infuses liberal governmentality and academia in particular, and it would, thereby, foster critical theory. And indeed, if academics’ first responsibility is to tell the truth, then the truth is that after sixty years of modern UFOs, human beings still have no idea what they are, and are not even trying to find out. That should surprise and disturb us all, and cast doubt on the structure of rule that requires and sustains it.

Alexander Wendt (Ohio State University) and Raymond Duvall (University of Minnesota), in Political Theory, Vol. 38, No. 4, August 2008.

Paul Kimball