Craig Read

Socialism and state control has no place in a free society. Witness the Frog media and some morsels i found: >When an April 8 explosion at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel killed two journalists and injured several others, the French media immediately piled on to blame American troops... An Iraqi missile strike (rather than a US tank) is now considered the more likely culprit. The French public has largely been spared this new information. >[in] "Les Guignols" [The Puppets] ... US soldiers are shown "playing with the decapitated heads of tortured Guantanamo prisoners." In a later scene, an American serviceman strangles his own mother while suffering a combat 'flashback' precipitated by the sight of her gas-guzzling SUV. >During the war, France 2 news repeatedly reported that Coalition bombs were destroying the country and implied that civilians were being deliberately targeted. When these reports turned out to be false, there was no attempt to disabuse their audience of the previous distortions. Welcome to France - i watched in fascination the other night a TV5 vitriolic denunciation of everything US and US foreign policy for one hour. Let me tell you it was quite the litany of bombast and absurdity.

Yep i posted on the 26th that it came from Canada - i had to listen to my socialist family state at Xmas that, ' it looks good on them' - them being the US. Such puerile comments i see and hear all the time - as if health safety is a game - 'they were mean to us, so we must be mean to them.' When i pointed out to the familial boneheads that 20 countries also banned Cdn beef in 2001 and that Canada banned Japanese and Finnish beef on no evidence at all of Mad cow, the place was quiet. Beating chests like monkeys is only emotionally satisfying.....not intellectually.

True enough - the liberal media en masse hate anything to do with freedom, conservatism and moral causes. They are in a dither now that one of their hero's - Hussein - was flushed out of his rat hole. Who now to worship ? Well they always have the corrupt Chirac and the French, and of course Bin Laden [who needs a fair trial they say]. The liberals view conservatism, historical understanding, force and even the cross as signs of the anti-christ. The liberal media perversely has the very system they hate to thank for their capability to publish untruths and half lies and harebrained ideas. Try writing their drivel in Putin's Russia, Ho's China or even in Japan.... Fox News is now growing market share rapidly - one main reason is the type of reporting. It is not anti-american, shrill, moronic or underhanded. Fox News has a growing audience and during the Iraq war had the largest audience share. We need more Fox News channels less chattering Jennings, Korics, and Zahns. The US better watch out - importing social liberalism from Canada will fatally weaken the US not make it more compassionate.

Social Liberalism will destroy Canada's relationship with the US and isolate us internationally - unless you really believe that the puffcakes running France care a whit about Canada. [btw. just so you know, France is bankrupt]. Time Magazine illustrates the point which is why i posted this topic. Time USA decided that the Person of the Year was the American Soldier calling the soldiers "the bright, sharp instrument of a blunt policy" who are executing "American idealism in all its arrogant generosity," . I am not sure what this ambiguous language means but I suppose Time hates the war but agrees that the men and women fighting it are the story of the year. The NY Times and Time Magazine also remarked, on "the unprecedented acceleration of social liberalism in Canada," a change Time attributed to structural changes in Canadian society, now "more urban and more multicultural." I have no idea why being urban means ergo being socially liberal. Historically this has not been the case. Canada has been urbanising since 1900 and only recently in the last 20 years has the rotten idol of social liberalism been deemed worthy of worship. This is a point worth debating and discussing. Myself i view social liberalism as an imposed value system to differentiate us from the Americans. Urban cultures are not predisposed to liberalism and neither is the elevation of values that digress from historical roots and the creation of wealthy, moral civilisations.

Candian beef exports are about $5.7 billion and US beef exports a tiny $2.5 billion. So the harm for the US industry will be minimal the gains by Cdn beef farmers marginal. As well news reports claim the cow was Canadian. So Canada could face repercussions if true. Before Canadians get too caught up in their nationalistic flag waving, they should remember that: -20 nations embargoed Cdn beef not just the US -Canada embargoed Japanese and Finnish beef for 2 years on little evidence that either country had a mad cow problem. What goes around comes around......

And now in France a French reporter who criticised his gov't for its bias, slander and anti-american jihad over the war in Iraq has lost his job. Alain Hertoghe, an editor at La Croix daily in Paris, recently wrote a study of the French coverage of the Iraq war, "La Guerre a Outrances" (All Out War). Without taking a position on the conflict himself, Mr. Hertoghe discovered that the five leading French dailies had clearly let their government's opposition to the war slant their reporting. As if to prove his point, La Croix fired Mr. Hertoghe last week. Anyone who read the French papers closely this spring would already know this. So why all the fuss? Beyond pointing out the lack of professionalism, the book illustrates the intellectual conformity that has gripped the French over Iraq. This group-think and anti-Americanism extended even to an institution -- the press -- that has an obligation in a free society to think for itself. Europeans of a certain persuasion are fond of fretting that the long night of (Texas) fascism is descending on America. Yet somehow it is Europe where intolerance usually seems to break out, as Mr. Hertoghe has discovered.

Well Christianity and religion in general are on the defensive. I blame the following elements for this: 1. the Church itself - supernatural nonsense, apocryphal writings, bad translations and the construction of untruths only detract from its power. The Church should be honest about the real story of Christ, the real values contained in the Bible and dispense with otherwordly, phenomena. It does not wash and turns people off the church. 2. social liberalism. This is the ultimate 'relativity' theory of social construction. Nothing matters, all is equal, all is shared, all is good. This largely immoral construct informs and perverts everything from education to foreign policy. 3. lack of historical understanding. Most people living today have nary a clue about what produced the society they live in, what makes societies rich and prosperous and what values permeate Westernism. As such they are more preoccupied with American Idol, than the pro's and con's of Idol-atry. People should know more about the real nature of the Church, its history and Chrestusianitity - and what it meant between 60 AD and 325 AD [Council of Niceae], and how the Bible, the gospels and the word were really built, by whom and why. Politics, power, social forces and human greed all played the major roles in the Construction of the Bible, the Church and the RC Chuch. A little reality injection would do religion a lot of good.

Like I said, it would have been smarter to fill him full of bullets and parade his body in Baghdad. Now the EU, Canada and other ninny nations are concerned that the poor dear will have a fair trial, enough sleep and be talked to nicely. They never showed this much concern for his victims.

I have been reading some interesting books on the Church - mostly about the fraudalent nature of the Gospels, the writings and even the life of Rabbit Jesus. Christ means annointed one and comes from an Egyptian word - it is close to the Hindi Krishna. Rabbi Jesus was never annointed but his brother Judas Chrestus was. Anyways the theory goes that the bible merge Rabbi Jesus and Judas into one man. [they were twins born to Herod and were highborn ie. sons of God]. Chrestus actually refers to the Essenic tradition of Messiah - embodied by John the Baptist, Judas and Simon who surrendered Jewish forces in 70 Ad to the Romans. Apparently the ancient word Presbyter which is now Priest meant 'old dirty man'. The early Church fathers were vagrants, miscreants, rabble rousers and anything but the good clean wise 'Fathers' portrayed by Church dogma. Their sermons were full of super natural nonsense and they played to the street crowd by making up as many interesting fables as they could. Church history though fraudalent still has helped our society by: 1. Spiritual debate, diviseness, and sectional competition in trying to describe the value of Chrestianity or Christianity. This spills over into secular life as well. This is only true if people don't accept the Bible at face value but read the allegories of the Bible as descriptors not literal rules. 2. Providing an ethical roadmap even though the Church elders were the first ones to break their own rules [the early Christian church was notorious for incest, orgies and cannabalism to say nothing of the crimes of the later Church]. Again caveat from # 1 applies. 3. Social cohesion. A 'state' religion [Constantine the Great] means a common moral framework and societal cohesion and unity. It allows us to get on with other things - commerce, building, creating and so on - instead of 'reinventing' a new cult every generation. 4. Written word and education. 5. Abetting the idea of charity and help. The Bible, Christ, the Church itself are largely fraudalent in some way, irrelevant or super-natural. But the underlying framework of the concepts are interesting, more fluid, more flexible and more informative than say the restrictive nature of Islam and other religions. Christianity can change, Islam cannot. Therein lies the greatest difference.

Even Hussein's capture has done nothing to realign the liberal media's belief that all US action is a 'disaster'. For instance: After watching jubilant Iraqis celebrating Saddam’s apprehension, ABC anchor Peter Jennings saw only sadness and morosely concluded, “There’s not a good deal for Iraqis to be happy about at the moment.” Jennings “informed” the American public that life for Iraqi citizens is “very chaotic … beset by violence … [and] not as stable for them as it was when Saddam Hussein was in power.” The anchors and talking heads pondered Saddam’s trial and concluded that it could be “embarrassing” to the United States. CBS’ Leslie Stahl (search) taunted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about torturing Saddam. “Would we deprive him of sleep? Would we make it very cold where he is, or very hot? Are there any restrictions on the way we treat him to get him to cooperate more than he has been?” NBC’s Katie Couric (search) said Saddam’s capture was only “symbolic.” She’d be proved hopelessly wrong less than 24 hours later, as the 1st Armored Division, acting on intelligence secured from Saddam’s capture, rounded up three former Iraqi generals who are suspected of supporting the terrorist resistance in Iraq. All of this twisted, blame-America-Bush-bashing and mind-numbing negativism.... The world is safer, better and the war on terror - a most necessary war - is going better than the liberal media can possibly stand.

AF, I would agree that Gay sex and marriage is deviancy and informs a broken society. Further to your points I would add that the Gay lobby and its legal trained friends, as well as a compliant and ignorant media usually rave equating black rights and civil rights movements with Gay rights. This is incorrect, misleading and is done on purpose by vested interests and the Gay lobby - in short it is an immoral and misconstrued comparison. My issue against Time and the Cdn media is the one sided - rah rah rah - nature of their coverage and how it 'defines being Canadian' [according to Time Cda's editor]. This is nauseating. This highly organized gay lobby continues to press forward in Canada by attacking any institution, both public and private, that tends to resist their encroachment by adopting discriminatory membership policies. In the recent past, these have included the armed forces, the Boy Scouts and of course various religious denominations. To achieve this goal, and under the banner of civil rights, gay advocates use: litigation leading to judicial fiat, liberal theology, legislative activism, medical revisionism, economic pressure and a mob of literati that tout the gay lifestyle in newspaper columns and movies, on radio talk shows, and with TV sitcoms and august PBS and cable network documentaries. Now in Canada Gay Marriage has come to pass. For thousands of years, and in most cultures, marriage has traditionally been defined as the union of one man and one woman, although some cultures have endorsed multi-partner unions. This tradition is now under assault by gays, primarily on the basis of both anti-discrimination and portability imbued by the CoR. Today, whether the religiously motivated same-sex marriage is desirable or an abomination no longer has a bearing in the debate, since secularists fight tooth and nail to keep private beliefs from informing public policy, unless, of course, the matter is put to a national referendum. That leaves only one arena in which to do battle: Should the government continue to legitimize marriage as a secular institution? If marriage can be redefined to include same-sex or even multi-party unions, are government’s interests still served? I think not. Government policy is always based on the child-rearing model, since stable families promote the continuance of an orderly society. Astute defenders of traditional marriage, like Stanley Kurtz, have noted that it is the unique sexual dynamic between men and women that domesticates men — from their youthful wild ways to supporting their mates as wives and mothers. Robert Bork put his finger on the problem when he noticed that the forces of radical individualism and egalitarianism often cooperate to thumb their noses at authority and traditional morality. Together, they deny the possibility that any one culture or moral view can be superior to another, and the result is what we are facing now — cultural and moral chaos, unfortunately both prominent and destructive features of our time. This is social liberalism - so touted by Time Canada and the Gay Parade crowd - a patchwork quilt of equivocating moral nothingness.

Totally wrong. Martin used the C$500 and the profits created from his work paid it off plus a healthy profit. In this case the subsidy worked. Having said that gov't should never subsidise business and most subsidies fail miserably - it displaces private capital and distorts the system - but in Martin's defence he can state it was a good investment. It is not often i defend Mr. Martin btw. As for taxes the arguments you put forward are rather silly. Yes we all know taxes should be paid - the question is - how is the money used ? Billions are wasted, corruption soft and hard is endemic in gov't and whole regions of Canada contribut nothing to the general coffers. High taxes destroy wealth, initiative, and innovation - and in general productivity - all of which are the key drivers to supporting your vaunted welfare system and standard of living. Since when is competition bad ? Tax competition like any market based competition is healthy. Keep the havens they are a needed antidote to the socialists who feel that living off the alms of others is moral. It is not - it is immature, immoral rot.

The blowhards in the liberal media - most of whom have never bothered to go to the places they report on - have assured us that Afghanistan is a disaster and that the US has disengaged. Piffle. The US has spent hundreds of millions of dollars, eliminated the Taliban, is now cleaning up the fascist remnants and rebuilding a failed and broken society. This effort will take at least 5 years. In 5 years Afghan. will be unrecognisable compared to what it was before 2001. Report from Mr. Natsios -- the administrator of USAID, Dec 24 2003. Yep sounds like a failure to me. But wait ! The entire world is awaiting Canada's Afghan rebuilding plan. Can't you see the world - with hand cupped to ear - straining to listen to what the venerable Canadians are stating is the way forward ? The great Canadian colossus, so moral, strong and upright....oh sorry I thought the year was 1950....

Certainly, the Axis of Evil is crumbling and the Bush doctrine is working regardless of what the CBC and TV5 state. I watched TV 5 last night and was amazed at the French reporting. It was a 30 minute rant against the US, Bush with all sorts of specious claims about WMD, the illegality of the war in Iraq and Bush's policy failure. It was vapid, ridiculous and xenophobic. As I told a US friend - France is not your ally - they actually hate the US - it is embedded in the media, the education and political processes. France makes money from sponsoring terror - this is the reason why they are so vitriolic. The worst thing that can happen is that the US listens to these losers and disengages.

Martin bought CSL with tax money - guaranteeing a C$500 million loan. This is not to belittle his management of the firm - he rebuilt the company and increased its assets, net worth and international reach. But it is quite nice to have a tax subsidized $500 million head start. Tax havens are necessary. I don't know why people are so outraged by tax havens. Without tax competition you would be at the mercy of the national gov't. If you can keep the money you make and earn I see nothing wrong with that. In any event in Canada on a personal and corporate tax submission you must declare all incomes earned. You would only be able to send offshore as a company a certain % of your profits and and as an individual if you live in Canada the same would apply. Tax havens prevent rising taxation and keep gov'ts in line. Very few people use them, and as long as companies pay their fair share of taxes in Canada there is little wrong with allowing them to use havens. In fact part of the savings would be recycled back into profits, investments and job hiring. So havens' negative impacts are mitigated. What is not defensible is to use havens' to launder money and avoid legal processes. The OECD is trying to close tax loopholes in havens' and force the countries that are havens to report all incomes. So far they have failed in this initiative. Let's hope they continue to fail.

As the secular / Christian / rationalist world prepares to celebrate the Mass of Christ - we should be thankful for a number of things: 1. We live in an age of plenty and opportunity full of hope. 2. We have certain freedoms and liberties that most people outside of the West have no experience of. We in the West do not live in a failed, corrupt, crumbling, theologically constrained Islamic world, and for that we should give thanks. We can thank Charles Martel and the Gauls at Tours in 732 for turning back the Mulsim tide and saving Europe. We can thank Jan Sobiewski his Poles and the German knights that saved Vienna and Germanic Europe from the Turks in 1683. We can thank the US today for fighting a war on terror. Think of the millions of people with no hope, no food, no rational thought living under Islamic dictatorship. Think of Christians imprisoned in Islamic society and mediocrity, and pray if you are so inclined for those Christians and other non-Muslims shackled to a life with little hope: WSJ: The War on terror will be won. Freedom to the oppressed will arrive. Islam has failed, it is time to regenerate a wide swathe of the world and bring it into modernity.

Hugo, good points, and what makes me laugh reading Time Canada's explanation is the 'goodness' and 'morality' behind their pathetic choice. Q:Since when has the media become the cheerleader for social liberalism and the destruction of the family ? A:When defining Canadian values includes all things not American; includes post modern rhetoric and feel good emotionalism. I can't imagine the wimps in our society creating a world out of the wilderness circa 1800 or fighting wars of freedom. They would cry that it was against their human rights to work hard or sacrifice their lives, or even gasp to sweat. The social implications of Time's choice is odious and obvious. The social costs are profound. Already Dimwit McGuinty is going to pay out $100 million retroactive on social payments to a deviant minority. As Hugo stated: Exactly - it is another money grab. So when does the madness stop ? When every single 'minority' with an axe to grind gets paid off ? Is then the true sum and calculus of social liberalism ? Equal bribes for all ?

This award just reinforces my view that Canada is an adolescent puerile nation. The reason for these two to win the award is their effect on Canada's 'social liberalism'. The story is presented in good Canadian fashion - positive spin [so caring are we], moral [after all gays are people too], justice [Charter of Rights upheld], anti-American [those bastards award their military the same honour], nurturing [kinder, compassionate society], and progressive [see we are #1 the world's first to recognise such social liberalism]. Ridiculous. Does Canada really believe that a fraudalent, anti-democratic,anti-parliamentary,extra legal process, in which deviancy for no other reason than to engage in enshrining minority rights differences is worthy of being made news of the year ? If so why is the story only ONE SIDED. Where is the negative attributions to such a colossal failure of common sense ?

The US and others have tried for years to reform the UNO of its anti-Jewish sentiment. It has failed. When the UNO is effectively run by a massive bureaucracy, whose ideology stems from France, Statism and whose political pressure points are dictated by 3rd world largely anti-semitic nations, then reform is impossible. The US only needs the UNO to help defray some costs on international assignments. In fact i would say that the UN is not only anti-jewish but anti - american. Witness King Kofi's triumphal return from Bagdhad in 1998 - remember ? Hussein was a man he could do business with - he was far more interested in keeping Iraq happy than in enforcing sanctions. Especially as long as the UNO could keep milking Iraq for money [$21 billion] and blame dead children on US inspired sanctions - an EU invention nonetheless. Iraq was King Kofi's prized cash cow. He could not give that up now could he ? Not for the good of the world government and their pontificating rhetoric now could he ? Mumbo jumbo. When King Kofi steps down he should join the Paul Chretien spin machine.

As a follow on on some discussions in another thread - I would posit that the CoR is a fundamentally anti-democratic, anti-Western [in the Judeao Christian sense] and should be struck down. Legally it would be almost impossible to remove the Charter but it needs to be done: 1. The Charter is a vague document open to discrimination via judicial interpretation. It is used to circumvent Parliament. Guess what the Charter was based on ? the US Bill of Rights. However the BoR is not as loose, poorly worded or vague as the CoR. 2. Canada has the weakest set of Parliamentary Institutions in the Western World. No checks and balances, little real debate and party whips which ensure compliance with the party line. The CoR just aggravates this situation. 3. PMO's [PMs Office] and a handful of Cabinet Ministers effectively run the country as they see fit - this is especially obvious if they have a majority Government. If they or special interest groups want to change society - they just quote their 'Rights' and move through the legal system and not Parliament. Or they stand in front of camera's crying about 'Rights' as to why they can't reform the social system, or sundry programs. 4. The CoR just further reinforces an outdated Constitution which needs to be reworked for the real world of the 21rst century. Ottawa continues to try to dominate the Provinces and cities by encroaching ceaselessly on social and economic issues while ignoring what they are supposed to focus on - defence, security, foreign policy, internal free trade etc. Ottawa always quotes the CoR - 'Rights' is used as their excuse to meddle. 5. Corruption. When Govts control 50 % [direct and indirectly] of the economy - you do not have a 'free market' system as posited by the media nor do you have a democratic system. The CoR just further entrenches the 'tools' that politicans can use to circumvent democracy and manipulate the media - all you have to do is shed tears and moan about 'Rights'. Canada has a politically dominated economy, with a CoR as its guiding light - where economics is subservient to politics and where political opportunism as guaranteed by the CoR ensures political meddling. This is self defeating and ensures that the vaunted Canadian welfare system will sustain itself only through debt and tax accumulation as the economy grows but more slowly than it should or it will collapse under its own fat and corruption. What a country, so highly frustrating .....

Hugo good points and I would agree wholeheartedly - the Charter is not needed: 1. The Charter is a vague document open to discrimination via judicial interpretation. It is used to circumvent Parliament. Guess what the Charter was based on ? the US Bill of Rights. However the BoR is not as loose, poorly worded or vague as the CoR. 2. Canada has the weakest set of Parliamentary Institutions in the Western World. No checks and balances, little real debate and party whips which ensure compliance with the party line. 3. PMO's [PMs Office] and a handful of Cabinet Ministers effectively run the country as they see fit - this is especially obvious if they have a majority Government. 4. Outdated Constitution which needs to be updated for the real world of the 21rst century. Ottawa continues to try to dominate the Provinces and cities by encroaching ceaselessly on social and economic issues while ignoring what they are supposed to focus on - defence, security, foreign policy, internal free trade etc. 5. Corruption. When Govts control 50 % [direct and indirectly] of the economy - you do not have a 'free market' system as posited by the media. You have a politically dominated economy - where economics is subservient to politics. This is self defeating and ensures that the vaunted Canadian welfare system will sustain itself only through debt and tax accumulation as the economy grows but more slowly than it should. and you mentioned This is correct as well. An unelected upper house is redudant, expensive and illiberal and a rat house of patronage. Reform it or scrap. Ditto for the Governor General's office. Colonialism died a long time ago. Time to grow up. What a country, so highly frustrating .....

Sorry Libs, but the mailed fist approach works with fanatics, dictators, fascists, socialists and other unsavoury types - including liberals of course. Libya does a 180 degree turn and capitulates. Gee me wonders why ? The timing and nature indicates the Bush anti-terror Doctrine. According to the WSJ, Gadhafi first approached British officials in March, just as the war in Iraq was getting under way. It's amusing to see the same people who have opposed the Bush Doctrine now claiming that Gadhafi's conversion is the triumph of liberal diplomacy. EU Pres Prodi claimed on the weekend that Libya's reversal "demonstrates the effectiveness of discrete diplomacy and engagement, which has been the European Commission's consistent approach." The French and Senator John Kerry said something similar, as usual. The Lib Dumbocruds always support their French masters. But years of diplomacy by itself didn't seem to move Libya from its terrorist ways. Only when Gadhafi could see that WMD programs were a path to his own self-destruction, as they were in Iraq, did he agree to surrender. Military strength is needed for a robust foreign policy - something the Canadians need to re-learn. Pearson must be tossing in his grave in Wakefield.

Canadians - the world's foremost janus faced interlocutors - would do a quick double take if any of their major centres were subject to terrorist attack and disruption. If thousands of Canadians were murdered every year by fanatical, hate smitten, blinded ideologues who killed indiscriminately, Canadians it is to be hope would react. Walling off the area of incursion is natural and normal. The debate is not over the wall per se, but over Where it should be built. The EU and PLA and world's media cry that the wall cordons off from the PLA the best land. My response is too bloody bad. Israel has been handcuffed by the US and EU for too long. They should annex the PLA territory remove Arafat, exile or kill him, and work with a new PLA gov't to rebuild under Israeli control the Palestinian homeland. Once rebuilding occurs, military occupation can be lessened. Destroy the PLA and Hamas, the time for games is over.

One needs to know only 2 facts about the sad state of Socialist/Internationalist/Appeasement Canada: 1. the effective fighting force of the tax office is 3:1 over the military. 2. Time Canada decides that Gay Marriage and coupling shoved down the public's throat through extra-legal processes and liberal posturing 'defines' what it means to be Canadian. Ergo the first gay married couple is man and man of the year! How sick and sad that the major news event and personalities in 'Liberalism gone amok North' and the elevation of deviancy not only graces Time Canada's cover as newsmaker of the year but is now touted as a national 'value' ? Since when did being gay define Canada and whose values are being defined ? In the US, the grownups decide that the rather foolish title of person of the year [do we really need to have this ?] is the Unknown soldier and the military. Not a deviant couple flouting social conservative opinion and demanding that deviancy be protected by the Charter of Rights. What a country.

Now it is good to finally see Sharon do the obvious once the wall is nearly completed. The PLA must comply with a peace process, dismantle its terror regime, stop its funding of homicide bombers and begin to rebuild its areas of control. Otherwise Israel i believe should invade the PLA territory and wage war until it is won. I believe thisis what Sharon is basically stating in diplomatic double speak. Arafat is not only the world's ugliest man, but one of the most dangerous. Time to wipe out the PLA and rebuild Palestine under Israeli occupation and control with international safeguards and monitoring. Game over.