Scott Mayers

The problem with this is that it still perceives prostitution as something actually 'abnormal' and wrong. Some argue for legalization while others for 'decriminalizing' which has similar arguments with drugs. I know as a smoker, I felt betrayed by our government's tactics that penalizes the smoker by how it has done just what some concerned with legalizing prostitution fear: that the government than simply replaces the original abuses that came from the source of abusive 'suppliers' (the tobacco companies) by the way they can use taxes in an extortion-like way. For prostitution, the fear is that the government, if against prostitution, like smoking, may optimize their power to act as the very pimps they're replacing. Yet the 'decriminalization' of prostitutes ("normalizing" as you termed it) only decriminalizes the sex worker but still disrespects the clients by still penalizing them as 'criminals'. Such risks to clients will still encourage risk. It may discourage some otherwise 'good' clientele but attract the more deviant ones who could resort to harming the sex workers instead. I would thus still prefer full legalization as our government would still be held accountable even where they may act with remaining prejudice. In time, we could at least evolve the laws where we find anyone, including government, from the abuses that occur all from any part. I also believe that legitimate prostitution can function as an extension to psychology in some future time as both sex counselors and services. Society really could use a social function like this not simply for mere entertainment but as an aid to help minimize ALL the problems associated with sex and foster better human relations between people.

I'm also against proposing measures that penalize consumer-end people as the OP in this thread is suggesting. What should be recognized is that everyone at some time or place is 'guilty' of thought crimes. As such, only the actual availability by those exploiting it think in kind to such haters. For instance, if you smelled a chocolate factories odors, if you should naturally be favorable in thought to like it, is this a 'sin' owned by the nose smelling it? If chocolate was a tease for such people, AND we deem it 'bad', shouldn't we attend to trying to shut the factory down rather than penalize those who were enticed by its scent? The only reason such people reverse this is because they believe that creating fear into people to feel 'guilt' as deviants as a preventative does not solve the problem but only acts to foster the violent reactions that actually favor the very people willing to create the objects of desire. This is similar to how con artists interpret their targets. They too actually think that the consumer is the criminal, not themselves, and so justify their own acts as merely taking a worthy advantage of the ones who feed them. This encourages pimp mentality with regards to the sex trade who actually have zero compassion for both their prostitutes AND the johns. This is identical to those who actually believe in punishing the john and dismisses how even the prostitutes actually value their profession. Only the pimps gain more power here as the con does for their disrespect of those they con.

Machjo is probably one of them too! .... I'm guessing that most people who most aggressively seem to act with almost near hatred as a type of self-reflected guilt. In contrast, I argue FOR things like legalizing drugs and the sex industry while I have no particular interest in them personally. I'm not a teetotaller of them but would prefer that my personal choices should not be shaped or restricted in acts that don't directly affect others uninvolved. While we should still maintain measures in policies that prevent abuses, I'm tired of hearing advocates feign to be concerned for others when they'd actually cause more harm if they had their way. It is the very restrictions or moral tabooing of some of these things which entice others as it represents a novel risk especially by those who normally lack sufficient variety in their own lives. I agree to vocalizing concerns but have known people in this industry (sex trade) of which all of them I've been aware of has personally opted into this business by choice. I've still never actually seen or heard of actual slave trading of people into this industry although it seems rationally likely to occur to some degree in some places. But I doubt it is so prevalent that it demands removing the whole trade. If this was the case, we'd be better off abandoning the more overt abuses of those in a self-absorbed preference to profit through things like private corporations. At least there, we actually CAN see such abuses with more obvious destructive intents.

Why are you so against sex and drugs here? Are you some religious fundamentalist who has some preference to dictate your moral imperatives?

Exactly my point. Well said!

I agree but had a funny incident. I called up SaskTel at one point who had a service personel who informed me that this "Crown" was merely a residual name. I believe that this person was American (by accent) and lacked an understanding of what we are assume is a "Crown Corporation". Regardless, SaskTel is actually Telus underneath and is privately controlled but appears only a public corporation. We really do need to have a media infrastructure that is not owned by private concerns to even any partial degree AND have some means to prevent it from being affected in any way by our government parties in power. I see how our CBC, though supposedly independent, actually also have the capacity to be controlled by governments merely by clever hiring and financial controls. I'm guessing that the way PBS operates in the U.S. might be better as it isolates them even from government.

Interesting too is how the Americans were so concerned about their own government spying on them. Although they willingly abandon this directly, the advantage of having a distinct separate 'friendly' country like Canada is that they can just simply trade off their spying business. For instance, though domestically the U.S. cannot spy on their own citizens now, they simply will opt to do it indirectly through a country like ours who 'conveniently' has imposingly created laws that enhance our spy agencies powers in contrast. Note how it favors the States but not us....our OWN laws!?

No, they benefit better without being responsible to the people itself. As an example, not long ago, Target's American company was hacked and they likely only used the introduction of Canada's Target company for the sake of transferring losses to our economy in order to make up for it in theirs. This is due to how our countries have redefined "national" ownership to become "domestic". That is, before, a nation like Canada and the States could 'own' directly properties from each other and only require taxation based on their origin of nationality. Now, an American or Canadian company must be a function of the country they reside in. This means that even if an American company technically 'owns' some subsidiary here, they require founding a Canadian 'owned' version which must pay taxes to Canada. But it also means, they can create a company, like Target, here to purposely fall in a kind of "laundering" of losses. So when such a company goes bankrupt, it is the country it resides in that takes on the debt for this fall, not the actual controlling company of ownership in the States. This is just one example and don't hold me accountable to my suspicions on this but the timing seemed only too coincidental. The point is, the Americans can gain better by having technical indirect ownership while not having to take on the losses even in investment capital they place here. So us as Canadians get to take on such debt. So why would America want us territorially? This would defeat this ability to do so as they can be held accountable if our people are also their political responsibility.

I'm not against this but even the Americans learned that it is best not to advance their original Manifest Destination idea because it is better to own another's economy without having to include their social/political infrastructure. That way they can take the benefits of those economies without having to worry about its people!

I'm wondering if anyone else here experiences any difficulty with our present Internet capacity, laws regarding how CRTC behaves, and how some of us at least are experiencing a form of forced monopolies based on whether we rent or own. I live in Saskatoon, SK, in an apartment complex and have had certain things I've noticed that others don't seem to be sufficiently aware of. I've tried to communicate this to others but it seems to fall on deaf ears. Let me explain: A few years ago I was forced to switch my phone service to Shaw as the only one of two phone service providers when my SaskTel service was cut from within my building. I didn't know this at the time and had to contact SaskTel for help to get this fixed. It was the beginning of the weekend and I contacted them from a pay phone to ask them to fix this. They told me that I could have an appointment the following week on Thursday at the earliest. I thought this was not sensible since I couldn't even have access to anywhere like 911 even for emergencies. They told me that since I live in an apartment dwelling, this limits their concern to rush anything as it was likely something from inside my building and so was the responsibility of my landlord/owner. I contacted my caretaker but was sloughed off as he asserted me this was SaskTel's problem, not mine. I agreed since it was them I was paying service in which I was liable to pay the bills to. I switched to Shaw at least to get a phone right away and have been with them ever since. But I notified the president of SaskTel at the time to which I was told that since the lines inside the building are a part of the single domain of the owner of the building, they, and not SaskTel was liable for immediate concern. Then he insulted me by apologizing that no one bothered to offer me an emergency service worker to come out AT MY EXPENSE!! (It was something like $50 or more dollars). Now the rationale to me is that even if my building has telephone lines redirected to my suite, since I am the one responsible to the bill legally, why should I even require the trouble in the first place to have to go through my landlord regardless. If my landlord is responsible, should all of us renters not simply be able to transfer our liability to the owner of the building too? This is absurd. I had noticed that the company my building was managed by (McC...) had a personal manager on my building that also had an administration association with a group called, SHRIA [saskatchewan Housing and Rental Industry Association]. So I looked this up only to discover some other related problems. First, this association was set up by conservative interests who originated this organization for the sake of completely deregulating rentals here in Saskatchewan. I also noticed that they had two corporate sponsors, one was the City police and the other was Shaw!! Next I happened to learn of our conservative Brad Wall premier on the news discussing how the laws have changed to encourage rental place owners to sign up with this SHRIA. It was done by a law in parliament to favor those who signed up to be privileged to require only a 6 month notice to vacate as opposed to those who don't and require a full year. Obviously, such 'incentives' would actually demand compliance as it would be too penalizing not to. Can you see what this implies here? Now add to that that in the same period, all apartments in Saskatoon had abandoned allowances to use any service requiring satellites, like Bell. I can't be certain but it appears that incentives were granted to owners to do roof-top repairs and upgrades. This was occurring all over the place simultaneously. Then, all of a sudden we were not permitted to have satellite services in apartments. Again, I can't be certain, but by looking around town, the only buildings you see with such satellite services now are condo dwellings and not rental places. Just before this time, another issue was occurring. Namely, all the television stations across Canada acted as a union collectively and demanded that they want income revenue by cable companies and demanded something be done to allow this or they threatened real closure of many necessary stations. At the time, cable stations did not own the particular channels and appeared resistant. But the CRTC enabled the right of stations to take a fee for each channel on cable to which the cable companies conveniently were then permitted to buy up the networks here to "save" them!! Our Conservative government also reduced funding to the CRTC and even while they are supposed to act independent, the leading officials of this department (I believe it is some cultural department not a communications one directly) will be able to act in ways that favor hiring of those they want in this body as well as to control funding which can act to prevent better oversight. So, I wonder if others here has noticed these things too and are asking what we can do about the way it appears that our media outlets (Internet/phone/cable) have a true monopoly, not simply a virtual one? With the addition of our Conservatives to contrast with the American's problems with things like spying on their own people, by creating laws that allow them hidden allowance to all our computers, I feel that we have lost any democratic protections for communications AND what ones that do exist naturally favor very conservative interests by default. [note the small 'c' there] As to my own services, I am only able to go through Shaw but wonder why those like SaskTel nor Bell (or any other?) services have complained or attempted to compete for services. The way our set up here is, all renters in apartments are subject to the interests of this SHRIA, and their sponsors, Shaw and city police forces with an unusual capacity that seems oddly suspicious. Like why, for instance would any police force be interested as corporate sponsors? This targets a subset of those of us in society who MUST rent to be subject to open violations of privacy over those who own. Can anyone add to this, help critique my issue, or add suggestions? Note that I've already tried with CRTC but get referred to go to the industry standards groups created by these very media owners. They claim these problems are 'service quality' issues of which the CRTC is not mandated to concern themselves with. Thank you. Reference to SHRIA: https://www.srhia.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=102 This page originally displayed the goal to deregulate of which I do not see now but still can be gleaned from it. Note that the list of members has grown but you can still see our police and Shaw at the bottom.

TimG, Thanks for the link on private companies. However, I had to go to our public court to appeal a charge of something of which I did not actually do. I was charged only approaching the crossing and was still on the grass. I asked the charging officer how he defined the supposed limits without property markers and/or signs. He pointed to one on the bridge ahead of which I could not even read yet. He should have given me a mere warning as his charge was based on a thought-crime that hadn't actually been committed. The judge almost gave me the case except he mentioned something to which I responded out of court-expected etiquette. So he opted to stay the charge but then was stuck trying to argue why. He already pre-established my concern fairly but then after pissing him off, he gave the following reason: since the track is raised, this should stand clearly to indicate the nature of its private property to which my approach is sufficient to determine ANY reasonable person that it was private. What he didn't seem to be aware of was that the gradual incline was only designed to enable it to bridge over a highway and then declined back to the regular ground-level. This is where I have to agree with The_Squid. The judge further stated that he had no power to alter the way the CN had been privileged but that I'd have to challenge this within the political system through my MP. I told him that he DID have the power. This is why such cases are even allowed to be tried. Judges have a right to interpret cases individually and so he could have fairly given me fairness here by throwing it out under the circumstances. He also added that all CN and CP rail police are equally empowered to enforce ALL laws on par with our public police officers. So, unless he didn't realize it, he was setting a precedent to conserve this view. It is like the CN and CP got a field promotion (where merely an accident of being presumed a higher rank in the field gives you the promotion). I'm hoping you're right on the traffic private company thing. I already announced clearly that I would still NOT pay any fine. I was given three weeks to pay and this has passed. I would have re-challenged this but the appeal would at least cost as much as the ticket. [This is supposedly the cost for the court transcription I must pay for as a pre-requisite to use for another trial.] So this basically assures complete and unfair power by such private companies to freely charge without accountability. With respect to other comments on 'ownership', we need to recognize degrees of rights. As for a private company to a right to protect out of fear of others transferring liability, this isn't absolutely true either. They could opt to build a tunnel or walkway over these areas; they could build a fence to clearly indicate their 'ownership'. Also, if someone were to break into your home, you cannot use any more force than that which the offender is using or you too can be liable. This isn't the case with powerful corporations that get such privileges. The CN police are licenced to carry fire arms and can use this where thought needed. A private home owner cannot use a gun against an intruder not at least carrying the same!!

Did you guys see the new KFC commercials. I like this one in particular. He looks and sounds like George Bush as a perverted old Colonel! "If your buckle is a-clickin', it's time for m' chicken!" I'm certain this wasn't intended but the actor is Former Saturday Night Live comedian Darrell Hammond. He was famous for playing George!

I find this amusing. Yet if one is, say, 73% conservative, which 73% counts too. Also if these percentages at least represent merely the quantity rather than quality of belief, I'm guessing everyone here would agree that the way our politicians here in Canada follow party lines over all other factors, we're screwed regardless! For cybercoma, New Democrat 89% Liberal 86% Green 85% Communist 79% Bloc Québécois 69% Libertarian 36% Christian Heritage 9% Conservative 1% (89 + 86 + 85 + 79 + 69 + 36+ 9 + 1)%/8 = 56.75 % average satisfaction for picking any one party!

I just watched a good doc on the 1913 origins of the conflict when a Zionist movement was set up in Palestine. What is interesting to note is how these communities (1) purchased supposed lands from absentee landlords, and (2) how they functioned in absolute discrimination which denied any non-Jews to work on their establishing farms and communities. (1) I have trouble with the concept of how ownerships are derived in the first place anywhere. In particular, I don't believe that absolute powers of property (land, real estate) should exist as people are born into this world without inherent rights to such property are considered alien and when the property they were born and live upon are owned up, they are subject automatically to being surfs or slaves who must be forced to accept their reality....or require fighting to survive. The lands sold were unfairly negotiated. Also, today we have an understanding that should people declare ownership of land/real-extate, it also requires them to be subject to be responsible to that land including the people there. Thus, such sales of lands to which these people were native to were disrespected as they were not compensated in kind AND had no negotiating rights. So these sales are illegitimate, ...on a moral basis at the minimal. (2) The addition of denying the local non-Jewish community demonstrated their clear Nationalism and the absence of not taking responsibility to the community/country as a whole, their Jew-only socialist concerns means they were the original National Socialists. It is this reason which causes any reasonable distaste for the Jewish community and they 'own' any outsiders disgust. It's hypocritical to expect the deals made within the laws of the land to which they depended on to purchase (that is, even the simple 'right' to purchase) and then act to segregate themselves from that country's loyalty as a community as a whole through their discrimination against all non-Jews. It is no wonder that a Hitler would come along later to attempt to adapt the same formula he perceived granted such upon such Jewish-segregated societies! And no, I don't borrow anything philosophically from any other groups or organizations. (...Protocols of Zion) I am anti-nationalist period, and especially when such groups hold a 'patriotism' for an "us" which necessitates a complementary "them" to which when strengthened assures they have a hatred of what is NOT themselves. The act of special favoritism always implies at least a NEGLECT of others. And such neglects where some subset of others are dependent upon the same limited resource (as in lands, here) this neglect is an act of abuse against that part of "them". So even if one may not officially appear to be directly harming some group, the shared dependencies to survival makes the neglectors acting with a hidden but real form of terrorism. The neglected end up starving for lack of necessities of survival and thus are cornered like a wild starving animal. So it is no wonder that you also get acts by these neglected people to which both enhances their own nationalism as well as to do unusually desperate reflective acts of violence! I don't 'favor' the Muslim community over the Jewish (Zionists) and favor much of the culture of the Jews as my own personal preference. But these are irrelevant. I favor myself but non-hypocritically also would NOT believe in creating my own group that takes away other's own group or individual rights or presence, especially if we both rely on the IDENTICAL resources. Like I pointed out, Islamic Nationalism is a direct result of Jewish Nationalism. Only if they shared their resources would they even have a chance to diminish such extreme behaviors that both groups disagree of the other. And now it might be too late. It would require abolishing the extremes within BOTH groups. NOTE TO SITE: I tried using the letter 'b' using a '(' before and a ')' after that causes that smiley face above. Is there a way to fix that? EDIT: changed the (a) to (1) and ( to (2)

I do 'mind' being more liberal myself and very atheist. I just think that some (many) perceive this more secular. Is there actually any politician out there who doesn't deliberately embrace at least an appearance of religion? It is weird, however, that though I'm against our Multicultural system, most countries that have culture/religion allowed to be legitimized in law tend to have a society which is ironically more compassionate than those that deny official religion as a part of their constitutions, like the States.

This is funny considering you embrace Eminem's image. (I'm certain that a guy from the 8-mile district of Detroit wouldn't share your views.)

And, by the way, to me, the beliefs of that kid who killed those people in the church are not much different to our Canadian preference to support segregated political rights (Multiculturalism ). This is an example of how I get 'tired' of such news as many people here (in Canada) ignorantly presume we are somehow more superior in our processes without recognizing that our system supports a south Confederate style belief in accordance to those like that kid. Edit: misspelled "our" as "are"

What's that got to do with anything? I was stating that I'm presently exhausted by the news. I agree with fighting issues more than most. But many issues don't get resolved and get worse because of a lack of intellectual aptitude and/or willingness of politicians to take real actions. At least I did catch a 'good' news mention: the Supreme Court of the States accepting the legitimacy of gay marriage. I was only reflecting a temporary 'numbness' and am not implying that I give up on these concerns. I actually respect the Americans better for actually discussing these with a better approach and interest than us Canadians though.

I'm not religious but love that tune. I was only partially paying attention to the news as Obama began singing and stole me momentarily away from my computer. But I still haven't caught up as the news is beginning to be too annoyingly repetitive on the issues of these extreme cases of mass murder....I'm becoming numb on this lately.

To both Bonam and Freddy, While I agree that population reduction occurs naturally by many here, overpopulation still occurs here for the same reasons. You can't presume everyone is well off as you may perceive yourself in this environment. Rural populations still operate on the belief of the-more-children-the-better. Like I said, children are NOT commodities or pets meant to entertain parents or serve to take care of them in some future. They are real living entities that eventually gain their own capacity to join civilization with their own minds and powers and thus where some opt NOT to have children, those who DO end up having an unrestricted capacity to impose potential restrictions upon the rest of the society. It may or may not be possible to enact ideal laws to control population births. But if we don't, as our world population gets bigger, there WILL come a point to which even any voluntary birth controls will dissolve unless that luxurious population maintains even stricter controls on the masses by preventing them from the same luxuries. Population is exponential and grows upwards while the supply of our present luxuries keep diminishing. Thus less 'luxurious' people who volunteer to give up having children and more impoverished ones who will have more.

The key word is "majority". But this requires a means to do this democratically. And a representative democracy of our Canadian form is NOT sufficient for this purpose.

The 100% right is a problem if and where this is actually true. I do believe that most people automatically presume this. I agree to the limited privilege (as Big Guy above presumes) but NOT to absolute ones that arbitrarily act against such purposes. With regards to corporations, the original intent of this invention served good purposes. But with today's evolution of it, I disagree with private absolution of ownership in a corporate body without accountability. The incentive of limited liability, and the lack of realistic limits of how long or how much such entities can be privileged in law make them inevitable to lead to eventual forms of government that are non-democratic as they both hide the 'owners' and restrict them from being liable to the communities in which they serve. The "profit" incentive is troublesome too. While the profit to a public corporation serves the public, this type of privilege serves a fair purpose to everyone. But a government that opts to privilege private incorporation, this 'person' is privileged to gain by investment with the benefit to pass on losses to the whole of society when things fail (in their capacity to go bankrupt without any investors' risk of loss outside of initial investments, for instance.) With regards to the CN, they are privileged with their own police force that has the equal force in law as our regular police departments on OUR tax dollars which unfairly privileges them a protected status fully paid for by us even greater than other private owners. (This is something I believe if most taxpayers knew would go against too since it unfairly privileges some private 'persons' over all others.) This barrier (the two-mile track) acts as a troll charge. They claim that this is done for 'my' protection. I try to compare this to me having a concealed weapon and being granted special privilege to charge someone for walking past me on a public sidewalk as it could place them at risk of me potentially shooting them! I was crossing this as a pedestrian in an area that I could see for two miles in both directions and in which is a well-worn path to which many people require crossing regardless. As such, it is no different than building a bridge, presenting it as a public and free service until a time when it defeats all other options (such as earlier fairy crossings that no longer exist or are allowed in law) At such a later time, the owner(s) then opt to extort the less privileged to cross. (This is why the Romans eventually became despised in ancient times and the initial causes of what became "Christianity".) Ownership needs to be limited. Also, we should not be able to arbitrarily be able to pass on inheritance to others, another topic in its own right.

I wasn't making a statement to agree or disagree to the moral questions involved. That is, I am not presuming anyone as "racist" nor am placing judgment on you for this (your opinions, that is). My point is about how we convene or agree among ourselves for the sake of something we refer to as "civilization". I'm nihilistic intellectually. But while nature is cruelly non-moralistic, if our 'goal' as a civilization is to appeal fair to each others concern in a most effective way that appeals to those of us convening, we require certain agreements of behavior that enhance our collective comforts by creating laws for this sake. So I'm not in complete disagreement with you here if we are simply in a self-serving society. But as a civilization, should we not attempt to try laws that include population controls since this factor highly affects ALL people?

Does that not include things like genocide too though?

False. The opposite it true in a civilization. That is, if we are to be expected to respect ANY socially constructed rules based on convention of becoming responsible to one another (that is, civilization), we require just as much limitations on whether we should or should NOT allow people to have children. This is already partially being done in that we have age-limiting laws to prevent those under 18 from having such choices. It is arbitrary to nature, however. If you think it "natural" for individuals to have children, then does this not also stand fair for anything we "give off"? Do I have a 'right' to shit in the street, for instance?