BHS

Re minority rights, from the commissioner of human rights, Special rights are not privileges but they are granted to make it possible for minorities to preserve their identity, characteristics and traditions. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/fs18.htm Some other sites: http://www.minorityrights.org/ http://dev.eurac.edu:8085/mugs2/index.jsp?TopBarItem=Home What a bunch of crap. So "special rights" that only apply to some aren't really privileges, because in the post-modern world you get to choose your own definitions for what words mean, and use them to redefine concepts on an ad-hoc basis to suit whatever indefensible crap you happen to be defending. By the way, you've still got a long way to go to explain how preserving the "identity, characteristics and traditions" of minorities means manditory university admissions quotas.

Reminding us all that the Chappaquiddik incident happened a whole 4 decades ago sounded a little defensive. As States reserve, in the Constitution, the right to make laws not prohibited by the Constitution, the Ninth Amendment reminds the three branches that the cititzenry enjoy all conceivable rights that do not conflict with duly passed laws. It's clear from the article you linked to that Madison intended the Ninth Amendment to be succor to Federalists worried that the Bill of Rights would, by defining certain rights of the citizenry, act to limit what rights the citizens enjoyed. Madison's intent, by adding the Night Amendment, was to assure the oppositionists that the Bill of Rights would not be viewed as the be-all and end-all definition of what rights US citizens enjoyed. In so doing, it works to give activist judges the loophole through with to read in rights at their own discretion. The logic of Roe then becomes a slippery slope. If citizens enjoy a right to personal privacy, why not a right to guaranteed income? Why not a right to (fill in the blank)? But I digress, in order to go slightly off topic: our own Supreme Court has taken a similar tact, and struck down all laws banning abortion in Canada. Presumably the reasoning is similar: that personal privacy is guaranteed by the Charter, and that abortion is merely a privacy issue and not a more serious crime of murder, as unborn children are not persons under the law and are therefore not protected by it. My questions: when the Great and Good Liberals saw fit in 2004 to ban for-profit reproductive activity (selling sperm, eggs, and other activities), why was there not a hue and cry from the defenders of personal privacy to make a Supreme Court case out of it? Why is it that personal privacy is only an important issue when a woman wants to kill her offspring, but a shoulder-shrugger when infertile couples want a broader range of options?

Yeah, namely that I want to have minority rights protected. Of course the word "abortion" isn't in the constitution; neither are a lot of things. But the Supreme Court decided that a woman's right to an abortion falls within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Rights that only apply to a minority of the population aren't rights, they're privileges. Rights apply to everyone equally, ergo "minority rights" is an oxymoron. You and BD should get your heads together vis-a-vis which Amendment is relevant in Roe (more on that in my next post). That being said, I don't believe the Equal Protection Clause has anything to say at all about personal privacy. Section 1 deals with all laws applying to citizens equally (hence "equal protection"); Section 2 deals with apportionment of voting districts and voting rights (tellingly, this section specifies that only men have voting rights); Section 3 provides a remedy for removing elected officials who've acted treasonably; Section 4 nullifies the US government's responsibility to cover debts incurred by those mounting rebellion against the US government (duh); and Section 5 gives Congress the authority to pass laws that are in line with the 14 Amendment.

Are you saying you are for racial and ethnic quotas? Even to the point of forcing Universities to reject qualified black applicants because their quota has been over-reached? And, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Constitution doesn't mention either abortion or the "right to privacy" from which Roe v Wade draws it's decision, the latter being a judicial creation of "emanations of penumbras" or whatever the hell Blackmun said in between chillum hits. So, you're uneasy about the appointment of a judge who reads the Constitution accurately and doesn't want to treat minorities like statistical cattle. Says something about you, maybe.

One of the problems with religious thinkers is they assume that religion is necessary to have morals. Our a-religious society must have some moral underpinnings or it cannot function. However, the process for deciding what these morals should be is complicated and requires dialog amoung different groups to come to a widely accepted consensus. I am pretty sure the moral argument against beastiality would be part of that consensus. I'm not a religious thinker, if that's something you meant to imply. Regardless of how a moral code is informed, the hypothesis still stands. If you remove the moral component from laws against bestiality (for instance, saying that it's wrong because a broad public concesus has been reached to the effect that it's indecent) there really isn't much left. There isn't really a convincing legal argument against it.

But none of those solutions would address the main issue, which is the majority of Canadian voters are unrepresented in Parliment simply because their votes don't count. And people wonder why most peple don't vote. I have no idea where you've gotten the idea that some votes don't count under fptp. Apparently you've no concept of how Parliament itself addresses the passage of law. It's a pro/con situation every time. Voting against a piece of legislation that gets passed doesn't make your dissent any less valid or valuable, nor does it detract from the validity of the legislation itself. I fail to see how the participation of the voting public in the politcial process is any different. If more people vote for one party than another, and that party forms the government, is that government then less than fully valid because it didn't receive unanimous support? Again, political decisions always ultimately boil down to yes/no black/white true/false pro/con 0/1 questions. Does adding to the diversity of opinion in Parliament improve the political process? In my opinion, no. A two party fptp system is the most efficient, streamline method of enacting public policy. The argument against is often that two parties often become indistinguishable and choice between them therefore moot. To which I reply, a vigilent and educated voting public is capable of putting effective pressure on the party out of power to seek contrarian positions, in order to curry public favour when the party in power inevitably makes its mistakes and reap the electoral rewards. The suggestion that PR will make the political process fairer is superficially attractive, and appeals to the need for immediate gratification, but will ultimately lead to problems. As has already been stated in this thread, there's the issue of endless minority/coalition governments with all of the backroom horse trading that they entail. Your post earlier illustrated a potential government elected by PR, but it wasn't very realistic in my view, in that you only included the five largest federal parties. There are plenty of other smaller parties around, many of which would be encouraged by PR and many of which could probably drum up the 0.3% of the national vote needed to gain a seat, assuming Parliament kept it's current number of MPs and there was no low limit cut-off. In that scenario it's not unreasonable that the Marijauna Party might take multiple seats. I'm all for legalizing pot, but I'm not sure I want any one-issue party (but especially one dedicated to intoxication) holding crucial swing votes on a budget bill. A second problem, from a republican standpoint anyway, is the creation of a political upper class that PR will almost certainly entail. Under PR voters no longer elect candidates directly, but vote for parties generally based solely on platforms. Seats in Parliament are divvied up by percentage, but who actually sits in those seats is determined by the parties themselves, according to their own rules which may or may not be wholly democratic and nearly impossible for the general public to police. Since the larger parties can almost certainly count on a given number of seats in a given election, it stands to reason that year after year, election after election, the same small coteries of poo-bahs from each of the major parties will find themselves running Parliament with only the nameless bit-players in the back rows coming and going, and no way at all for the bigger fish to be unseated. You might argue that we have such a case now, but that's not true. Despite conventional wisdom, there's no such thing as a truly safe seat under our current system - even a Prime Minister could find himself heaved from Parliament. That is essentially impossible under PR, and especially so under a PR government as PR was meant to be, where there are enough small troublemaking parties in Parliament that the broader voting public comes to associate hardline partisanship with the good of the nation.

There was a similar argument a few months ago being made about bestiality in the comments section of a blog from Florida that I read now and again. The hypothesis being that if you remove the established religious/moral component from the arguments against bestiality everything else falls apart. Arguments were made that animals are incapable of consent and that bestiality is therefore akin to statutory rape. The counter argument was that man enjoys a relationship with lower animals that does not require their consent; killing animals for food is neither murder nor cannibalism, and it follows that using them for sexual gratification falls into the same category of our dominion over them. (Though such arguments feed the paranoia of the people at PETA who thinki I'm Nazi-esque for enjoying a steak.)

I'll play. I can't tell if you're for or against the program. In any case, there's no way they're spending $1000 per month on this stuff. It's probably the Canadian equivalent of Thunderbird.

Just to keep things clear here, it's the NSA that's doing the actual violating. Mkay?

Violence has much more to do with culture than availability of firearms. The shootings in the US are because of their huge slums full of minorities, an underclass with no hope, full of rage and drugs and gangs. In Canada, firearms violence has increased since the long gun registry was introduced, so you can hardly credit it with doing anything useful. Nor was it ever intended to do anything useful except serve as a political placebo to get votes. And most street violence is because of ethnic gangs, whose culture is more akin to that in the slums of New York than to mainstream Canada. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The 1450 figure got me curious. I'm wondering where it comes from. I looked up the NYPD's year-to-date stats that indicate 508 homicides but don't indicate how they were perpetrated. In fact, they don't appear to keep statistics particular to gun crime.

Not me. Don't want ANY majority government. That's too close to "absolute power", and we all know the old saw about what that does. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Absent the counter-balancing effects of a seperately elected head of state, and a seperately elected Senate, our only options in Canada are a majority or minority government. Saying you prefer a minority is saying you prefer gridlock and stagnation. Much as I dislike the Liberals, and have no intention of voting for them, their complete lack of ideals beyond "get elected" holds a certain perverse charm for me. At least we know from experience that no course of action is too far to the right for them, if the popular will seems to be for it. Take for example the hack-and-slash policies of Finance Minister Martin when Conservative governments in Alberta and Ontario created similar policies to popular appeal. My feeling is that if the Conservatives form the next government, it will be as a minority. As such, they will be stymied at every turn by the combined reactionary malevolence of the the Liberals and NDP until a confidence motion fails, and the following government almost assuredly will be a Liberal majority. The silver lining for Conservatives being that their short lived and impotent minority will have broken the ice with the electorate, opening the door for future majorities (circa 2013).

Its pretty telling, though, that anyone who doesn't accept his notion of structure or traditionalism opposes both. It couldn't be that they simply have a different idea of structure, nooo... they're clearly with the terrorists. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Name one pre-Pearson Canadian tradition that the Liberals have shown any respect for.

How can you explain a similar type of problem in the lower mainland of British Columbia (Surrey, Van, etc)? The gangs there are of East Indian and Asian descent. Their parents are anything but poor single mothers. Most of them come from privileged backgrounds – either middle class or wealthy families having both parents and even extended families. This problem arises from popular culture that glorifies gang membership and all the cheap thrills and unearned money that accompany it. I’m sure we’ve all heard the gansta rappers talk about their bling and hos and whatnot. There is an entire subculture that most of us cannot even begin to understand. This gangsta culture arose about twenty years ago in the United States. It is a direct result of Ronald Regan’s so called war on drugs. It was really a war on the American people. More specifically it was a war on Black Americans – which is what it was all about. So many Black Americans were arrested or incarcerated that incarceration itself lost its stigma – in fact it became a rite of passage. The incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders has had a devastating effect on the social fabric of Black America. Prison is the perfect place to make better criminals. This American-inspired culture has been transmitted by popular media to much of the Western world and beyond – Canada is no exception. Add to that a free-flow of guns over the US-Can border and we have arrived at where we are now. This problem was created by conservative policies not by liberal policies. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Street gang culture in the United States dates back as far as the 1920s. The most notorious of the modern gangs, the Crips, was founded in 1969 as a product of youthful admiration for the Black Panthers and other political movements. Since the death of Tookie Williams has been all over the news lately, I took the liberty of looking these things up. Blaming gang violence on Ronald Reagan is like blaming terrorism on Bill Clinton.

I love it how liberal types are so often wrong about everything these days, that they are debased to claiming total victory just because their arguments haven't all fallen apart in the first 48 hours. This "illegality" is of a piece with the "illegality" of a President sending troops into battle without a declaration of war. In both cases there are laws, congressional declarations and certain readings of the Constitution arguing against the actions being taken. In both cases, the actions have been taken in the past without political or legal repercussions, because both sides of the aisle want to preserve the Presidential powers being legally (that's right, legally) assumed. (Keeping in mind that the final arbiter of American law, the Supreme Court, has always sided with the current and Clinton administrations' views for both of these issues.)

Which begs the question, what happens to the Natives when and if Quebec chooses to separate? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The first event to happen, for Quebec seperation to ever become a possibility, is a positive referendum result on seperation. This in an of itself does not guarantee that seperation will actually take place, though. The lead up to negotiations, and the negotiations themselves, might shift public opinion in Quebec enough that there is a popular outcry for another referendum to confirm the first, which might result in a very negative vote against seperation and moot the seperatist cause for good. If not, the negotiations themselves are likely to take years, involving representatives of TROC and Quebec and the First Nations. There will be impasses, and there's no guarantee that a workable seperation solution can be achieved. It's possible that Quebec's negotiators might end up opting to stay in Canada with a new Constitutional status for the province. I doubt there would be any need for military activity during this time. My guess is that the Canadian military will only become involved if Quebec paramilitaries, dissatisfied with the tempo of negotiations, decide to start carrying out guerilla and/or terrorist activities in a bid to speed up the process.

Going for the knees, for example, is legal in football. The refs are all over plays that are against the rules, from holding on up. So the only thing you can be referring to is the stuff that happens in a pile that no one can see. And frankly, I don't consider a little bit of sneaked-in cleat raking to be in the same league as the bench clearing brawls that happen in many hockey games, and the game-delaying shirt-pulling bullshit that happens in every game, because fans like you demand it and defend it. Again I'll say it: because of this crap, hockey is little better roller derby with sticks.

I have no idea what that means. Since when are French Canadians a different race from French from France? The correct word is still bigotry. Unless you're using "race" in the slightly archaic poetic sense used in the theme song for American Dad.

Just a quick revisit. Remember Scott Ritter and Hans Blix. Do you remember what they said about finding all the WMD? Where was the immenent threat? Was it that urgent for Bush to go marching into Iraq when Bin Laden (remember him) was undoubtedly in Afganistan or Pakistan moving from cave to cave. Oh, and just what was the first thing the U.S. protected prior to the invasion. You got it. Oil wells, and not at the big cashe of weapons at Al Qaqaa, a crucial munitions dump, where most of the exposive material found its way into the hands of the insurgents. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If you're using the words "imminent threat" in the context of the much-debated State of the Union Address, I suggest you go back over the text of that message. Bush clearly stated that he wanted to prevent Iraq from becoming an imminent threat, which means that in his opinion it had not yet become an imminent threat. This miscomprehension of Bush's meaning by the Left his been repeated and re-repeated, but no matter how many times it's said it's still not true. Iraq was not, in GWB's words, an imminent threat. Scott Ridder is hardly a sympathetic character outside of hard-core anti-war circles. To say his views have been a source of controversy is an understatement. That being said, there are stories he himself told about Iraqi intransigence during the inspections years, of how Iraqis more or less moved materials out of inspection sites right under the inspectors noses. Hans Blix, on the other hand, is viewed as a self-contradictory, if well intentioned, buffoon by those of us in favour of the war. Unlike Ridder, it didn't appear to bother him that the Iraqis were playing the inspectors for patsies. The intervention in Afghanistan was Phase I of the war on terror, an immediate military response intended to kill or capture those directly responsible for 911 and their Taliban supporters. The intervention in Iraq was the beginning of Phase II of the war, the dismantling of state sponsors of terrorism. Iraq's support for Palestinian terror and approval of the works of Al Qaeda was well known, and his quest for regional domination and WMD (as well as it's central location) made it the primary target in a part of the world viewed as a hotbed of terrorist activity. If it were merely about invading a country with lots of OILLLLLLLLL! that supported islamist extremism they would have gone into Saudi Arabia. Except, of course, that they were already there (but in a more limited capacity than what Phase II required). Make no mistake: Phase II is not yet over, and won't be over until the bulk of the Middle East has been dragged kicking and screaming into the democratic 21st century. American political sea changes are not likely to affect this process, so don't get your hopes up that the Dems will take over in 2006 and the troops will be quickly withdrawn, no matter what they say now. Finally, Osama is contained in his mountainside hidey-hole. Both Coallition and Pakistani forces are in the process of hunting him down, though I suspect that their lack of enthusiasm stems from a belief among those involved that he's been dead for some time now. I'm confident that either he or traces of his DNA will be located eventually, and that in the mean time he's got way too much on his plate to be plotting terrorist attacks.

You've made a leap here that I can't let pass without comment. This thread is about protecting the privacy of American citizens from potentially illegal intrusion. The prisoners at Guantanamo are enemy combatants (illegal or otherwise - let's not get into the legal status issue here) of foreign nationality, captured in foreign countries and kept in a detention facility on foreign soil. The American President is under no obligation to respect their rights or freedoms. I object to the word torture being used to describe interrogation techniques that until the McCain amendment were legal under both American and International law and which do not result in serious injury to the detainee. It's true that many people were "detained", some for extended periods of time, immediately following 911. I'm sure you'll agree this couldn't be helped and that no administration, Republican, Democrat, or otherwise would have acted any differently. Perhaps it's my persistent naivete showing through, but to my knowledge only Jose Padilla is still being held. I don't know of the friends or families of other detainees coming forward to ask why their loved ones are still being held, and I can't believe that if there was a story there the New York Times et al wouldn't be all over it, unless they'd been privately convinced of the merits of keeping certain people locked up. As has been mentioned by others in this forum, Canada is no slouch in monitoring communications, except that up here it's all completely legal and no one has ever really made an issue out of it. My contention since the 2004 election has been that Bush has more or less expended his party's political capital as far as the Presidency is concerned. I firmly believe that if the Dems nominate Hillary or a governor of similar stature and politics they won't have a problem reclaiming the Presidency. I'm interested to see how a Democratic President will act in the job post 911.

You are undoubtedly head of the Bush optimist club if your feeling of being in "good shape" is based upon a one month uptick. His approval rating has gone from 88% after 9/11 to 50% in Nov 2004 to 34% in Nov 2005. Bush's Approval Rating Falls Again, Poll Shows <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Just sharing some ideas that have been bantered about on right wing blogs: The difference between 84% and 50% can be explanined by a comparing a country coming together in the face of the worst attack on American soil in nearly 200 years, versus a more complacent country sharply divided by partisan politics. The difference between 50% and 34% can be explained by non-core Republican righties who're pissed about the Republican spending spree and the nomination of Harriet Myers (keeping in mind that his numbers started to really plummet immediately after that nomination). I think Bush is falling into the same trap as his father: taking his strong support in foreign affairs as license to bungle domestic policy and get away with it.

So basically: it was only a small vilolation of the law and the Constiution so no biggy? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You've written this without the benefit of having read what the Dem's own legal experts had to say: Read the whole column, written by former associate AG John Schmidt published in the Chicago tribune. If you'd like similar sentiments expressed by other Democrats, I can link to them too.

This was an interesting post, PR, and I'd like to add one more point. I think a lot of this thrashing about, looking for topics to report on and discuss, has to do with the advent of 24 hour cable news. Once the domestic topics du jour are all wrung dry it's time to look to what wacky foreigners have to say about America. Gotta fill that empty airtime with something.

My point is (again) that we don't need to embrace symbols to be proud of our country. I am very proud of Canada and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Um, $250 million mis-spent on advertising Canada to Quebec says otherwise.

I think that not only he wasnt good enough to be on the team but its a lack of judgment from team canada. Looks like racism against quebecker is socially accepted and makes you a perfect choice to represent canada... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Since when is "quebecker" a race? The world you're looking for is bigotry.

Your reply says nothing good about the sport of hockey. In my opinion, it's not better than legitimized roller derby with sticks. The league won't take violence seriously because it would lower the appeal rating for bloodsport fans, but it won't really be a worth my time, at least, until they do. I played hockey as a kid, and I know plenty about the sport and it's fans. The most asinine things I've read in this thread are all displays of defensiveness about how hockey violence is all part of the game. It's not. Football is a very tough physical sport, but you don't see nearly the same level of violence in football, because it's not tolerated, and it wouldn ruin the game. Whatever. Explain it away however you want. It's really just bum fighting videos with toothless multimillionares substituted in for toothless winos. Because, you know, the Olympics have nothing to do with sportsmanship, god forbid. I'm guessing you, on the otherhand, are a world class... well, something. Which says nothing good about either the NHL or Canadian justice. Hmm, a classy guy having the class not to publicly disparage a colleague despite their different approach to the game. Besides which, an indictment of Bertuzzi is an indictment of the whole friggin' league, and every player knows it. Such is the sad state of the game. Funny, I don't remember chipped teeth ever ending a lucrative career. Is Moore still playing, or no?