Your political evolution is fairly analogous to mind, with a few cultural differences since I grew up in the US rather than Canada. The kid who smoked the Cuban cigar would have been breaking the law here, as for many years Cuban cigars were illegal in the US. Not sure if they are now but I had a dentist who managed to visit Cuba (also illegal at the time, but I think he did what a lot of Americans who wanted to visit did - he traveled to Canada first and flew out of this country) and he told me about smoking a cigar down there which he said damn near blew the top of his head off it was so good.
So you went to school with Tony Clement, huh? LOL. Not surprised about the arrogance. I don't think anyone I ever went to school with rose to prominence but I remember those same arrogant, full of themselves conservative Young Republicans at one of the US's Ground Zero for liberal colleges - Kent State University. Sometimes I think some of the blowhardiness was a backlash against the famous shootings of protesters back in 1970. I lived with a few 'May Fourthers' (the task force dedicated to keeping the memory of the dead students alive) and that set could be just as arrogant and religiously righteous as the Reaganauts.
Today, I find the left to be almost as dangerous as the right. Granted, I'm looking mostly at my mother country but I find that same arrogance, anti-science, and religious devotion to lefty social justice movements (esp. trans-activism) as I see in MAGAts and Proud Boys. The right destroys with violence, the left destroys with 'cancel culture' and it IS destructive of lives, reputations and careers, for stupid reasons, which I think is as bad as destroying actual lives.
Your political evolution is fairly analogous to mind, with a few cultural differences since I grew up in the US rather than Canada. The kid who smoked the Cuban cigar would have been breaking the law here, as for many years Cuban cigars were illegal in the US. Not sure if they are now but I had a dentist who managed to visit Cuba (also illegal at the time, but I think he did what a lot of Americans who wanted to visit did - he traveled to Canada first and flew out of this country) and he told me about smoking a cigar down there which he said damn near blew the top of his head off it was so good.
So you went to school with Tony Clement, huh? LOL. Not surprised about the arrogance. I don't think anyone I ever went to school with rose to prominence but I remember those same arrogant, full of themselves conservative Young Republicans at one of the US's Ground Zero for liberal colleges - Kent State University. Sometimes I think some of the blowhardiness was a backlash against the famous shootings of protesters back in 1970. I lived with a few 'May Fourthers' (the task force dedicated to keeping the memory of the dead students alive) and that set could be just as arrogant and religiously righteous as the Reaganauts.
Today, I find the left to be almost as dangerous as the right. Granted, I'm looking mostly at my mother country but I find that same arrogance, anti-science, and religious devotion to lefty social justice movements (esp. trans-activism) as I see in MAGAts and Proud Boys. The right destroys with violence, the left destroys with 'cancel culture' and it IS destructive of lives, reputations and careers, for stupid reasons, which I think is as bad as destroying actual lives.
Wow strong and insightful