Scott Mayers

As if you don't do this. So, to the point of the thread, you ARE arguing for a Constitutional right for parents to know what associations they join that counter their religious beliefs imposed from home, correct? If so, why do you think the Constitution SHOULD support your beliefs in contrast to kids who want privacy? ..."legally" isn't enough if it is established. Pot is about to be legal. And if you had something against this would it be appropriate for those then to just say shut up, its 'right' because it is 'legal'?

I noted that in that post already. The 'digression' wasn't started by me and you responded to others on that. I know you can erase content that I speak if it is in your own space (as you have) but if you want sincere responses, mine was in appropriate context to your own diversion to abortion. The same goes for other extra points you add in support. But recognize that I'm technically on your side on your posted opening post. I think you are 'wrong' intellectually but to the letter of the law, this may be valid. Don't censor me or you risk proving you're only preaching, not arguing.

On the O.P., Yes, I understand the concern but don't know what can be done to optimize this without harming one set of people over others. The Constitution DOES protect religion with more emphasis than the U.S. version. For those opting to go against the parents, the Constitution needs to be addressed first. My CFI (Center for Inquiry) skeptic group in Canada wanted to fight the right of Catholic schools to be permitted to be set up in place of secular schools given they can and wanted to assert the right to decree limitations of non-Catholics ...and most specifically, non-Christians. I agree this is 'wrong' but knew the effort was moot without challenging the Constitution. This was ignored and the Constitution was later argued (as I predicted it should) to assert their rights within it. If we disagree to some of these factors such as this topic, we need to go back to amend or re-constitute the Constitution.

Wait..."pro-life" means one who is for the life here and now, right? Why are those supporting this all doing it in the name of "pro-after-life" (== "pro-death") concerns regarding religion? I'm for expanding consideration to both partners in the potential decision making that go into having babies....like if a mother opts to keep her baby that she purposely avoided contraception for selfish concerns only to hold the father accountable when they have no EQUAL choice to choose abortion. But this argument against abortion is odd when the same supporters of the Evangelical Christian community most significantly also would not think twice of sacrificing thousands of people in wars to save their beloved religious monuments. Why the big concern to 'save' zygotes rather than the older people who've learned to recognize real pain and suffering? Why have compassion for ONLY the conceived up to the age of adulthood? And, for Betsy, did you not agree that Trump was correct in separating the children at the Mexican border? Isn't this counter to the affection you hold more for the zygote? [I'm guessing this has digressed away from the topic.? I have to go back to read to determine the connection.]

I just saw his speech on this. He was trying to 'apologize' (explain his actions) with clarity. I agreed with that explanation. It was more neutral and points to the fact of his approach: Be tough when there seems to be no other alternative. I'm trying to think of some analogy others can relate to. Here's one: You have an originally large mansion that has plenty of room and amenities out in a world that is relatively unable to afford the same. You invite others initially to come over and are willing to set up everyone with a guest room, host, and feed them regardless of their differences. At first, this was fine. But in time others hear that you are doing this and so it attracts those most desperate to come over and mingle unnoticed among all the other guests. In time though, the household begins to complain that their guests are starting to be a little more brazen and rude, taking what you offer in kindness to the extreme. You have some household members begin to turn some of these obvious desperadoes away because, while you care, you cannot sustain the overwhelming people beginning to exploit the confusion by CRASHING your parties. What is happening recently though is like if the desperate people coming over begin to bring their children over as a form of 'shield' defense mechanism used to pull at the heart strings of those family members who can't resist the cute, innocent children of these parents. Another kind of similar argument can be like those 'cat hoarders' that begin in a similar vein. Their intent may be good to allow these cats. But when you set a precedence that you accept any cat, they begin to take advantage and overrun the household without concern to the economic viability of the host. We cannot continue to accept some of these behaviors. Many who support letting these parents and others to use children as a defence, MAY agree that it is at least abusive of the person hoarding cats, that society should remove the cats and place a fine on the one keeping them. How is this not being noticed? Another point that I do not see that maybe someone else here might raise: WHY is the country of origins not being understood as the initiating ones at fault? Why are we not condemning the parents bringing these children over rather than finding some means to address the nature of the poorer classes from those countries to overpopulate? It is 'evolutionary' by design that where animals are suffering, they have more offspring quicker (like rabbits, say) to compensate for the limited resources by adding numbers as a means to increase the probability of persisting. Yet, we as intelligent beings know this is NOT a compassionate factor. That is, the very parents having more children may not realize this but they TOO are abusing the children in the sense that they are using more offspring they KNOW (as intelligent beings) makes more beings that must suffer at their expense. I'm not a Trump fan. But this emotional play with the children is itself a con. Trump's decision IS sometimes a necessary 'evil'....especially when you already have the same kind of people WITHIN your household who is suffering. Why appeal to the masses of emotively appealing beings when you cannot even feed those emotively appealing beings in isolation at home? The CROWD of people at once falsely makes it seem these people are in MORE desperate need to attend to when the real majority of those in similar situations are already in the country but can't be noticed for being distributed all around and unseen.

Free speech does not mean "free action" granted to the content of what people speak. It DOES get abused by the opportunists all the time. I fear more a government who has BOTH the power of "free action" and "free speech" at the expense of denying it to the people. What one communicates, even if wrong, has to be allowed. This does not mean that the one speaking is not liable for behaviors that are NOT communicating ideas but APPEARING as this. THIS is when those speaking should be charged and have their day in court. However, even that gets abused by the political powers making a charge of someone 'inciting' violence of those speaking when this was not the case. You can't get around it. Notice that YOU have 'free speech' here and at times seem to 'incite' emotionally laden opinions to suggest others act in harmful ways. Even this is permitted and is based on learning about HOW you behave for being listened to in varying contexts. You also LACK the accountability by being 'anonymous' which also may be interpreted in the public sphere as problematic. No one can pinpoint you if you DO speak in ways that is harmful. That is, you aren't able to be taken to court should you speak poorly. Should you also be held accountable to your own 'free speech' here if someone takes insult?

Why are you suddenly throwing Trudeau in my face, are you expecting me to apologize for him or something? That's s hoot, I think he's a complete asshole. You posted a rather odd question about unspecified individuals in general, extended it to governments, again in general, and that's what I responded to, not some other point that you're just now trying to make clear, badly. As for the innuendo you refer to I was actually directing it at Betsy but given you clearly liked what she said...you've pretty much stereotyped yourself. Its no surprise the rest of your post was so far beyond the intent of the thread - I'm pretty sure it would be an even bigger waste of time trying to respond to that too. My apologies. I didn't know it was a crime to misinterpret or be misinterpreted, as I understood you of me and why my response. You were responding to me and if you were insulting Betsy for her own agreement, it WAS 'innuendo' as you clearly worded. That's the problem of innuendo....you CAN'T directly make sense of what nor whom the speaker is taking credit for saying. It depends on 'reading into' it. I didn't presume you a Trudeau fan either. I actually DO like the guy as a person, in fact, and he was the best candidate of all parties to be Prime Minister, I believe, even though I'm preferentially NDP. But I don't believe in presuming clear-cut distinctions between people's ideas. I used his 'apologies' TO the Natives FOR the whole of Non-Natives born here in Canada, as a relevant example as it also relates to individuals extended to leaders of a political body representing the whole. If it is bad to 'apologize' by individuals in interpersonal relations, it is WORSE for a politician to do it because where you can't be certain individuals apologies among individuals battle with distinct thoughts in their heads, it IS distinct when it comes to the varying believes of the whole. One can only volunteer apology BY and FOR their own self-driven emotions AND requires a real follow-up directly as 'proof' one's words coincide with their internal sincerity. So when one who apologizes about whole classes of people, the apology is intentionally insincere and problematic for both of those classes because the 'classes' are NOT EVEN individuals.

1) Yes. It's too bad. They gave it a shot but there were too many trolls to manage, as I understand. 2) Good question, but no. Private domain owners are allowed to restrict behaviour within their domains. The alternative would means the mall owner would need to allow protests inside their mall which seems too restrictive on the mall owner. (1) So you agree but yet MUST be believing something about those censors by faith alone. What makes you think these people are superior to those 'trollers'? I don't notice a problem of others who were 'freely' behaving poorly [by speaking]. But IF there were such a damning majority of 'trolling', this would have to only represent something about the majority in general. You have to respect them rather than snub them which is often their reason tor acting out. (They feel hopeless?)But my concern is that WE have no means to determine the truth one way or another without some BLIND FAITH in the same moderators....we don't know, for instance, if they are merely SOCK-PUPPETS of the very CBC opting to stage some apparent problem to be able censor with absolution. You can't presume the trust of those controllers without insulting those of us....especially when the opposite is disrespected about our own motives. If the MAJORITY are 'complaining' the MINORITY of the CBC staff or its friendly unaccountable private moderators, are themselves acting as the likely 'trolls' accusing those complaining as the 'trolls' if we trust they represent the majority also. (2) It was also 'legitimate' to kill 6 million Jews in Germany under Hitler. The law is only meaningful if they are a product of everyone. Just because it happens to be legal for businesses to act, it doesn't mean they should not be challenged for being wrong....unless you don't think we need a legislative body altogether after the first laws were written down in the past.

My point about this is about when the apology is being ASKED by someone, not about one volunteering it. Trudeau's apologies, for instance comes AFTER the expectation. When one DEMANDS an apology often with the deceptive means of implicit claims that the verbal apology is ALL that is demanded, is itself just a way to officially open the door for later formal proceedings that USE that apology as a justification for imposing perpetual guilt and further demands upon those whom the apology was representing. Trudeau 'apologized' for ALL non-Natives, for instance, who remotely LOOK like all those historically linked to the cause...such as one being European who are born here. This is a false 'apology' because it isn't even his right to grant it (representing ALL European decendents, that is). It also imposes penalty to all those people that have no link to those benefiting families of the establishment, such AS Trudeau's own family. This is a way to distribute the debt to the masses to avoid the SPECIFIC cultures (who believe in those 'cultures' ethnic identity ONLY) responsible. I happen to be linked to European ancestry and so am treated as though I TOO own the problem regardless of my lack of "European" culture. On your apparent innuendo that I am one of those 'staunchest critics', you are way off and actually stereotype me as being someone who also 'owes' some debt in kind precisely to my point above. I've never owned even a car. I've struggled on the streets to survive and had even the most trouble getting 'help' from these supposed compassionate governments who stereotyped me as though I come from conditions I don't deserve help from. My own circumstances were similar to those OF 'cultural' identities among the poor but get treated by even those IN my similar community as though I MUST have some opportunities that literally do not exist. So I'm not against "COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY"; I'm against the fact that this is itself a fraud when people use the apparent identity of people based upon 'culture' as the problem when this is ONLY an expedient to isolate those OF the impoverished communities and justifying saving money by the real compassion to helping ALL suffering people of the same real conditions. By picking a 'cultural identity' and using these phoney apologies, the intent is to apologize for "Europeans" as a whole by arrogantly fortunate "Europeans" who default to EMBRACING their own cults and imposing their assumed beliefs of their ancestors as mine too. I'm going beyond the direct intent of this thread. But these link together. You are right that there will be those who also ride on arguments of this sort to possibly excuse their own justification NOT to pay taxes or the burden of their own 'cultures'. I don't support these either. But if forced to take sides, when you are on the bottom and know that EVERY major political sides treat you as insignificant, we are being forced to take those sides of people who at least support our arguments, just as the ones being apologized to as a single culture are stupid NOT to take advantage of the false but beneficial factors granted to them upon those phoney apologies.

Ha ha!! Then you have nothing of value to say about a guy, like Trump, whom you act in equal disrespect. If you don't like what you hear, how is that superior to the accusations you hold against Trump for his own supposed capacity to ignore what he doesn't like? And...you just gave him more validity for his success!

And off-campus politics is every bit as vitriolic. People are at each others throats and there is pernicious disunity. If you want to make it about campus politics, then fine. If you want to talk about the US I would talk about gerrymandering. If you want to talk about Canada, I would talk about fake populists who hire their own media teams maybe. Anyway... No I didn't read all of MacDonald's article but I skimmed it. M103 is old news which is evidenced by the fact that you can in fact criticize Islam, still. Michael, you DO know that 'our' own CBC has blocked commenting to special issues deemed 'hate' by a hidden protected panel of 'moderation' that the public has no capacity to question, right? The CBC used to have commenting upon many topics of which we were allowed to speak but had a moderation team BY the site owners. If you commented on something with good logic but was counter to the opinions of the protected moderators or CBC intents [we can't tell who or why], you could be censored in many clever ways to CREATE a false public reflection. Example: The EXTREME posts WERE often allowed through this process which raises the question if this was intentional given they seem very able to moderate in-depth commenting by wiser commenting. By clever moderation you can make a case FOR whatever you intend others to interpret about WHO comments more or less often, for instance. As such, if you want to find a means to close off commenting altogether for some hidden political intent, you can put forward those posts which make it look like more extreme people are more prevalent than is in fact. Also, (and I've experienced this), you might get a post through but then be denied to respond to another who responds but makes it appear as though you have been silenced by content respondents when it was actually due to moderators preventing you to re-respond and counter it. For private sites, I've made an excellent argument on another site (Philosophy Now magazine forum) that challenged even the right of private sites to be privileged to censor IF they also have the freedom to USE that content as their own. I used an argument about malls: that the business of the malls, though 'privately owned' are in the business dependent upon those very people privileged access. As such, you can't expect absolute powers to 'censor' the freedoms of people within it without the very privilege of the external environment ALLOWING such entities to exist. If I can USE material 'freely' of others in ways that I can also "delete" it, for instance, this power suggests the entity can be used to violate others rights even externally. A good example of this is if a government has the power to use someone's comments on a forum against them (like terrorism, say). If the site has the capacity to freely delete material or edit it, they may ALSO reasonably have the power to selectively create or edit other people's content to frame a person using the site for some external violation. That is, you'd have to question whether those coming into the site have rights regardless of whether the site is or is not technically 'private'. Can a mall owner, for instance, have the power to abuse civil laws against visitors simply because it is 'privately owned'? Those 'ownerships' also have to be considered factors of privilege granted BY the very public they need for existing as they do. Uh, no. The Rules and Guidelines settle your issue. If you state a purported fact, you can be challenged on it and you shouldn't cry censorship. See last comment for anticipated relevant points about ownership of a public forum, etc. But I add too that when the ubiquity of 'ownership' powers exist online with absolute protections one-way in their guidelines, whether by large entities like Google or Facebook, or not, the right of the individual to 'negotiate' by clicking an agreement is moot for there lacking ANY power of the population to speak 'freely' regardless. Given the CBC and most of our government forums are redirected through private channels now also means we have lost power even in places where it appears as our own rights to be heard openly. The present attack on trust of anything Internet is as much a means to excuse those in power to censor and reduce the successful capacity of those who DO have value in their words to be heard. Being challenged of a view is fine. But I've also seen this tactic get simply used to excuse hiding real value of some. But how can anyone 'prove' this very challenge when the power of censorship is sufficient to hide the evidence of such claims as well?

But it was influenced BY the same KIND of thinking hypocritically within the 'left'. What IS admirable about Trump is to his overt capacity to speak openly even if it threatens his own credibility. I'd rather one be honest to their 'deception' than to those who are clever at disguising it. Also, while it may seem 'flaky' to change one's mind, Trumps ability to alter decisions also proves that he is still more flexible than many who wouldn't even permit us to question this. His own lying, where it exists, including his boasting confidence in obvious error, and his unapologetic decision making even where faulty, all suggest a human that is willing to take the reigns of his country with the sincere INTEREST in the 'capitalistic' ideals their country has demanded and succeeded at. You may not like this positive overview of him or the American system. But their system already defaults to expecting error and why their own constitution at least has a power to EVOLVE and improve this. The very fact that the American population can openly disagree and still not be hidden by the auspices of controls on all media says a lot. Our governments by contrast have successfully managed to control our media through the specific establishments, but differ only on WHICH wealthy cultures have the reigns. Compare the American Constitution to our own Constitution that initiates itself as a system uniquely designed to protect SPECIFIC cultures with priority and THEN only allow us to a freedom of 'conscience' as though we already do not HAVE this freedom to think! The freedom is NOT extended to the ACTIONS of 'expression' without the caution of respect to those authoritarian cultures outlined in our Constitution. Add to this the clauses which enable government to suspend the very Constitution without public approval, and we have a system that is perfectly top-down and undemocratic. (...not to mention that one party specifically designed the whole Constitution within the confines of their own privacy and with no forum of the public to opt in to its design.) I know we have value to our system regardless. But to insult the U.S. for their system lacks justification when we also OWE our own beneficial parts TO their system: Anti-colonialism, anti-Royalty, and a reduction of powers that used to belong solely to England's will. Our historical leaders also were non-loyal to the direct will of the people and LOYAL to the upper-classes presumed to be superior of those authorized through the auspices of Churches of England and to the Catholics of Quebec abandoned by the Republican French who were defeating religious arrogance at the time. WHY we even had problems of things like the Residential schools and the Sixty's Scoop, were not due to the whole of the Canadian population that exists but to those arrogant 'leaders' that are now commanding the non-affiliated population to pay for the debts of the crimes of their own family inheritances. I used to here insult at the American's system of the "Melting Pot" as it constantly got compared to the 'assimilation' of the Germans in the World Wars. Yet this faulty thinking was presented as though the Americans were FORCING people without volution when our own system creates laws that dictate which cults get to exist in perpetuity via the Constitution. Our "Multicultural" system is not 'multicultural' other than in the nature that it accepts more than one 'culture'. This too was a mere accident due to weakness of the Loyalists and the abandoned French in Quebec ('loyalists' to the old Catholic royalty no longer extant in the old country). We CAN repair these problems. But it doesn't come at the insult to the United States but to our support of their own ideologies that gave them the actual 'diversity' they DO have there by people who are not FORCED into their prior country associations. Those who volunteer to still associate there at least doesn't deny the capacity of others to volunteer to mix cultures, even if those self-segregating communities still persist. If anything, our own influence will only affect their system by enhancing/strengthening those who ARE more desiring to be segregated due to their beliefs about associated meanings of culture and genetics == "ethnic purity". We are the ones who are enhancing the divisions by speaking of the very concept of 'diversity' as a virtue as though we are all distinct animal species who should be separated into cages of a big ZOO. It was our 'British' heritage that also gave even the U.S. their concept of 'reserving' people as though they were just such distinct beings. We have a lot to owe to the Americans more than to those British or French peoples of the past. Diversity comes about voluntarily. But the fear is not that people here can choose to opt out of their heredity but to those who WON'T embrace them in stereotypical ways and who are successfully CONSERVING them through laws that enshrine those divisions specifically, but NOT universally.

I distrust polls. I would have voted Hillary but completely understand Trump's success. He has a style related to business and while it is certainly problematic, I blame the rise of cultural segregation as more credit to Canada's influence of the Multicultural meme than anything else. Also because of the Smart Phone and A.I. for online interactions that attempt to grant people the impression their view is the more popular, everyone is using the energy of the appearance of being approved to speak out with more energy FOR their own passions when it is especially about culture. So Trump's rise is MORE due to the anti-white, anti-male tendencies due to this cultural segregation mentality. The majority of people are NOT white but pushing against them as stereotypically more privileged is pushing them towards Trump rather than be excluded for joining up on the side that requires them to submit sacrificially for some 'bigger' picture when you don't get to be a part of that picture. The male/female division is adding significance to this because these are being TREATED as 'cultures' rather than 'sexes' [ie, under the label of 'gender', for instance] and involves literally half of the populations being pitted against each other. I'm glad I had lived in both countries to experience the significant differences involved first hand. Canada is actually more conservative and bigoted than even most Americans understand. I think that Trump is likely seeing through this by Trudeau's naivete. Americans are moving towards Canadian identity standards given that isolation of segregate cultural thinking. Our views are more akin to the Confederate South without anyone noticing!

The 'shortest' post is none at all. Would you respect it if someone simply told you to shut up? Imagine that you are a family pet, like a dog, in a large family where no one is feeding you because each person there is busy doing their own thing happily thinking one of the other family members is feeding you. You try to get attention with one of them by nudging them but get, "not now, puppy, I don't want to play." Then you go to another family member and get treated the same regardless of what you do. Eventually if you keep getting trivialized and more hungry, you whimper a little confused not being understood or heard. But you get rebuked for the whimper being interpreted as a trivial ploy to get attention. Eventually if this continues, do you expect that you would be wise to go lay down somewhere? If you get more frustrated and bark, others might notice but think that you are getting more annoying when they are trying to enjoy their supper in peace and quite. At some point would you bite? If you bite would this make things better? But if you DON'T, they'll approve of your silence but you starve to death. What do you do?

There is always pressure from somewhere to TRY to hold specific power regardless of the people's will. But the people's will is also as much a right to question. At different times and contexts, the popular view is just as problematic. So there will always be a continuing battle to BE the ones in power, whether you belong to a popular crowd or to some specialized interest of some matter or other. Dubai is autocratic but CAN be 'healthy' without essential democratic power. But this is only due to the fortune of wealth within that population. Democratic reforms occur where there is often MORE competition to survival (contrasts). Being from Anatolia, have you read any Socrates? His own voice argued why the extreme of democracy they had then was actually disruptive. That is why he (through Plato) suggested "Republicanism", a representative type of democracy. Had we not had voices that differ even in extremes, we wouldn't have discovered even BETTER means to improve ourselves. Free speech does NOT refer to the 'values' of the particular speech. (addition for clarity on edit): That is, free speech does not require being 'good' or 'bad' to the listeners, but to be heard first and foremost, regardless of skill, quality, or subjective meaning for or against it by all people.

I think you are just missing possible context. If you have a system of laws pre-established before you AND that system bars you from having the power to alter it regardless, 'free speech' itself is all you have to compete against those systems by getting others to hear you.

I prefer this too. I also believe that the average person WOULD too if they weren't being forced to think this is a form of 'cultural genocide'. [Immunizing rhetoric to dissuade rational free speech] We need one official language just as we use math and science terms and language in a more and more universal way.

I was thinking of personal issues that extend to government because within real interpersonal relationships, this is even MORE true. For instance, see this popular song as reference (and for entertainment value if you'd like): We need more than words for apologies in the same respect to show one has compassionate sincerity towards others. When words are used alone, they have zero function other than FOR the one speaking but they don't require backing it up: they can continue to behave the way they were before. Governments being asked to apologize with urgency are doing so by those requesting it precisely because it is intended to act as an initial step to get retribution in some way later with legitimacy only. It throws back the potential kindness one might be willing to offer for reconciliation with insult that doesn't have an end. The guilt is expected to be owned by ALL people and for ALL times when it is offered up by a government.

Interesting. I haven't read this whole thread [going backwards] but though I disagree with you on this Robert, I get that there does seem to be a confusion about whether people are born as some gender or not . I think that this kid in this particular video may be 'fit' for transgender reassignment but that this CAN realistically be a function of HOW people are raised more than any actual genetic condition. It is Darwinian-fit that ONCE one is 'fit' (matched) to their environment, they CAN succeed in it. But there is a realistic concern if one interprets this fitness as 'appropriate' any more than better or less advanced by the confusion of the word 'fit' by Darwin that Herbert Spencer because it is, has, and will be used to also JUSTIFY bullying against those who are not gay but look it. After all, if one is 'born' gay, then there has to be a phenotype associated to the genes that indicate one's preferences of some such behavior so complex. One can say that they were 'born' to love someone and should not be denied them because they in fact do so with clear enough determination that their apparently irrational choice being denied them by the one they obsessively love must be as a form of 'bullying' if they refuse to love them back!! Personally, CHOICE is perfectly fine with me. What irks me but gets overlooked is that many of the ones fighting to demand legal reforms basing it on 'genetic' arguments are actually just legal ways that attempt to alter the religions themselves through forceful laws. I say abandon the religious altogether instead. People have a right to choose their lifestyle. If the religions insist they CAN 'choose' their sexual preference and thus can be altered of their internal evil desires, I say AGREE......then send them to a camp to be converted or de-religionized. Let them then try to prove whether there is a Christian gene that makes them require believing in Jesus to qualify as being legitimately acceptable.

I say no. The nature of one begging one to apologize is itself doomed for the mere asking. If one actually DOES apologize when expectedly asked to, they'd require follow up to compensate for this regardless because the actions themselves are the proof, not the words. In fact, most of the time this is requested, the persons demanding it often act deceptive when they add that this is ALL they expect. An 'apology' is (or rather should be) the explanation using words for ones actions for why they did something they own responsibility for. But 'owning' responsibility has to come with a follow-up PROOF of this and it often backfires because the act of proving oneself at fault was not voluntary. It's like what occurs when some convict admits guilt after they were caught. You can't tell what the admission means afterthefact even if he or she is even potentially very sincere. The reason for this question is intended to extend this rationale to the politics of 'official apologies'. Does my reasoning above extend logically to many of the issues our government and others have experienced in using official apologies?

"I'm not homophobic, I just think its wrong." Compare this to what these people are correctly interpreting by contrasts: "I'm not homophobic, I am just NOT gay and so being gay is 'wrong' for my preference." Being gay is also one who logically may hold (not necessarily though) that: "I'm not heterophobic, I just think it its wrong" and similarly mean, "I'm not heterophobic, but I AM gay and so being straight is 'wrong' for my preference." I agree with the potential persons arguing this as being sincere without hate because while those who hate WILL use this also as a rational counter to the pride parades, the same can be said of subsets of those people within the gay community. That is there ARE gay people who would say, "I'm not heterosexual, I just think its wrong." who are also hateful of the heterosexual in a 'conservative' way. This hate, if it is presumed to be endemic in one saying this by default, then the same MUST hold to those who might say something within the gay community as well UNLESS you intrinsically believe that the gay people themselves are somehow MORE superior or innocent by default! So the logic of the teeshirt holds. You are hypocritical if you think some set of people holding open 'pride' for any X is more valid than another because you'd be implying that X is preferred over not-X. The sincerity of organizations claiming to stop some abuse of others by advocating in numbers to some unique victimhood based upon discrimination has to NOT discriminate. If 'discrimination' were the cause, you don't use discrimination to counter. But when you do, don't complain that the counter to the accused class discriminating originally as at fault for countering in a reflexive way again. You only give them the very reason they may have discriminated against you in their original discriminating way too!! Duh! Examples I see like this: We see a court case where some woman is being charged for abusing her child. The court finds her not guilty because the woman's own abuse was deemed to come from an abusing father. So the father transitively becomes the fault for the abused child implicitly. Hypocritically, this proves bias to the father and father-kind if no one bothered to ask whether the father was abused by his own mother and so on. Instead of resolving the issue, the buck is passed on when advocating special treatment to the identity of the person that has no link to the direct action. The woman abused her child. Logically, this means, "a (person) abused a child" and so the solution is to treat the person as at fault. Instead, the con transfers the issue to be about the identity irrelevant to the problem: 'abuse'! Hitler's anti-Jewish stance was countered successfully by showing the extreme crimes against them. But are the particular abuses the crimes of the Holocaust?... or was it the fact that these were "Jewish" people? The campaign to defeat this coming from Jewish interests tended to lash back in an advocacy similar to the pride parade thinking. They tackled the nature of those who abused them as based distinctly on being Anti-Jewish (Antisemitic) and implicitly non-Jewish, as though Jews could not be possibly at fault for such potential atrocities. Was the hate crime itself the fault or the hate against the Jews as a crime the fault? If hate in all cases is the fault, you don't start a group advocating support FOR that specific group because it only suggests a potential unknown problem about that specific group that DOES exist. Maybe the Nazis DID sincerely feel attacked with hate by the Jews they aimed to destroy? Of course, if you treat the issue as a lesson against the both the crime and the hate that seemed to compel it, you can question whether the criminal was themselves victims of a prior act of hate that goes on ad infinite to the past. Either way, if one's identity is NOT a justification for an act, don't use the identity as a justification to counteract! You risk, with reason, one counter reacting because the action IS a fault but you falsely look at the identity of the actor as intrinsically the fault rather than some underlying logical reason.

I was with the CFI group here in Saskatoon, a science and skeptic group here, and have to still compete against the majority thinking the concept of 'pride' is fine. I'm okay with people voluntarily associating with one's personal 'pride' of themselves but find it odd that even the power of the majority in that group still thinks religiously that 'pride' is a good thing.?? To offset my own disagreement, I designed a T-shirt that has what looks like a large black hole sucking the life out of a small dwarf star above it in a way that suggests the woman's clitoris and vagina. With big letters above it, it says, "Black Holes Matter!" I was planning to wear this in protest during a "March for Science" event last year to get my own point across being against all the stupidity that even our own supposed educated classes represent. Of course I opted out. It would have made the news but not so much in a good way. [I thought it would make a good skit for Saturday Night Live though: Have someone naively intending to promote science go to a struggling poor community in a big inner city of say, Chicago south-side, by selling or giving away these shirts! ]

For Eastern Canadian controls, only Alberta and B.C. have PBS access because they are defaulted to Spokane. Because Spokane is higher quality, the default provided by cable companies collectively force the rest of us to have Detroit's relatively underfunded station. So we are blocked everywhere for even online access if you are not of those two provinces. They want us to pay for the upgraded channels to have access everywhere.

I've often not had trouble with forum abuses unless moderation occurs. In fact, i think the reasons they get reduced depends upon the members themselves. Frustration still will exist but CAN be contained by members capacity to accept HOW others may behave and altering their own in a non-violent reaction against those who 'appear' to behave badly. (They may be real people needing first to express, then be understood through care in argument without prejudice, and then adapt to their own better behavior by example of how they were received.)

For those that argue against 'taxes' as though they are a burden, I thought of this analogy when responding to something Betsy here said in her blog space here. Taxi services are business entities meant to get people from one place to another and its name is derived from the nature of one to be charged for a ride. However, because one cannot know how far a trip is, often many pay AFTER they reach their destination. One against taxes is often one who reverses how they pay for their 'ride': UP FRONT. Because one can afford the expense, they are confident of paying for the trip ahead of time. For the rich, instead of paying for a cab AFTER they reach the destiny, they are better off hiring their own PRIVATE cab exclusively or buy their own car if they like the control of driving. Then they CAN afford to pay for the trip prior to getting to where they want to go, right? So a "taxi" is to 'taxes' in that those using them both HAVE to have money prior to paying but don't pay UNTIL later...your destiny. By contrast, if you can afford to pay up front, this is fine too. But to think that the poor bastards requiring to pay AFTER the trip is having a "FREE RIDE" ignores that they pay IF and WHEN they get to their destination. The ignorance amiss is to those who simply believe that you should pay the cab driver up front as a form of assurance you have the money and then trust the driver to pay the customer back once you get there. Regardless, the anti-tax conservative arguers are actually like those who can afford their own cars or private limos and so demand there is no need for taxi cabs UNLESS the customer is able to default to blindly trusting those taxi cab OWNERS of putting down a deposit up front and then allow the power be transferred to the trust of the cab driver to give you back at the destiny any unused worth. This requires one trust the cab drivers, either as owners or representatives of the owners, to SERVE those taxing with priority. The idiocy of the anti-tax arguers misses this point. There certainly ARE customers who will rip off the cab driver. But those taxis would not exist if this behavior WAS the norm of service behavior by most. In fact, taxi owners also act deceptive in equal measure to the population of those ripping them off. However, the wealthier ones demanding NO taxes are like saying this service altogether should NOT even exist! It tells you more about HOW well off they are by contrast: they have their own cars they drive or they hire private limo services that they have complete power over. If NO one should require taxes nor taxis, these more privileged travellers who by default have their own means to 'freely' drive from one place to the next both have control over who gets the privilege to get to their destiny quickly AND are the ones setting the BURDEN of those disempowered by virtue of their lack of power of owning the 'taxis' (let alone their own car or limo) to requiring the FEE of whatever the demands of the wealthy want to set non-competitively! In essence, the wealthy do not need taxis and yet demand THEY should be empowered to tax (ie, 'burden') the masses by controlling how people travel. They control WHO gets to travel....who gets permit to pass to their own destination 'freely' while they alone have 'free' capacity to create their own destinies AND reach them!