dialamah

How many Europeans actually want to come to Canada? Probably not enough to meet our needs for even maintaining, never mind growing our economy. It seems people from India have more interest in coming to Canada, but again - are there enough to maintain/grow our economy?

Again, I don't disagree with you. I think it's also important to recognize that immigrants from any country are more likely to be of the 'liberal' sort - those who value change more than sticking with tradition. Perhaps not so much for refugees, but since they are also given a choice of whether to stay or leave, it seems logical to me that it is still going to be those who lean more toward change and less toward traditionalism.

Entirely agree! Which is why I'm quite willing to vote conservative and have done so in the past and may well do so in 2019, since JT failed to deliver on certain promises. Still, I'm not going to vote for random celebrities or those who campaign on half-truths and misrepresentations. Unfortunately for the Conservative party, that's practically all I see from them on their FB feed. But hey, with a different leader, they may refocus on actual and realistic issues instead of bullshit, we can hope.

Depends on how much power the religion has within the society. In closed Christian societies, women wear very modest clothing, are segregated and not allowed to go into public places without men. Sometimes they aren't allowed to speak to men outside their family, same as some Muslim women. The niqab is the only practice that doesn't seem to have appeared in Christian groups, although it does appear in the other Judeo-Christian religion, Judaism. I agree that at least in Western countries, such extreme practices are much less common - but the point isn't who does it more or who does it less, but that the drivers for that kind of extreme oppression exist in both Muslim and Christian religions when their power is left unchallenged and unchecked.

Not surprisingly, that's not actually what he said. His point was that both liberal and conservative are needed for a successful, fair and ordered society.

Exactly what many Muslims say: "They aren't following the Quran, therefore they aren't true Muslims". When my Muslim brother-in-law started telling me what he believed, I was amazed at how very similar to Christianity it was. They consider themselves Christians, and they tell me that you have the wrong interpretation of what it means to be Christian. You all say the same things. I'm aware. Previously, this meant that women could not vote and that their 'Christian' husbands had the right to discipline them, or rape them. Only through secular pressure have those husbandly "rights" been eliminated in Western society. It certainly wasn't because the Christian Church had any interest in allowing women equal rights. Exactly what devout Muslims say! I agree, with the caveat that this is true of Christians in Western countries much more so than Christians in other countries. The more conservative and religious a society is, the more likely that society is going to engage in oppressive behaviors. It doesn't matter if the religion of choice in that country is Islam or Christianity. They all use the same arguments to support their oppressive practices; the only difference in the arguments are these words: Christianity, Islam, Christian, Muslim, God, Allah, Jesus, Mohammed.

1. The Catholics were and are one of the many faces of Christianity. You can certainly identify them as "not being really Christian", but that's exactly the same excuse some Muslims use when presented with evidence of what other Muslims do. 2. I rarely look at Catholics; I'm much more familiar with evangelical Christians. 3. Church of Mormon, especially the sect that follows polygamy. Hutterites, Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, Coptic Christians, Christians in third world countries. Many Christian churches within Canada and the US support the patriarchal idea that women should submit to their husbands and should dress 'modestly'; should a woman fail to follow these guidelines, she may be 'talked to' or shunned by other church members. 4. In Uganda in 2014, the Christian government tried to pass a law making homosexuality a capital offense; they were fully supported by American Christian politicians. After an international outcry, they backed down and decided to only jail them for life. Nonetheless, many Christian Ugandans still think gays ought to be killed and some are doing so. There are Christian groups in the same area of the world who behave much as ISIS does; they just don't get the attention that ISIS does. Yes, you can say all these examples aren't 'really Christians' all you want. I would call them 'conservative' Christians because they cling to old ways, rather than embracing change and progress. I would call progressive the Christians who accept and even ordain gays, who don't even mention women's duty to submit to their husbands, who don't criticize or shun women who dress less modestly. Same for Muslims: there are individuals and groups who are working to bring an end to conservative Muslim beliefs. In my opinion, it's conservatives and conservative religious people who are the bane of a tolerant and free society. It's progressives, those who aren't afraid of change, who challenge the status quo who bring the world forward - whether it's fighting for the right of women to vote in Canada in 1916, or fighting to allow women to drive in Saudi Arabia today. Same with gay rights in the Western world, and in the developing countries. Conservatives fight to keep things the same; they have objected to women's rights, black rights, gay rights, LGBT rights, and immigration - and many have used and still use the Bible to do so.

In Western countries, Christians are held in check by secular governments. History and certain Christian majority countries and regions demonstrate that Jesus' teachings do nothing to prevent Christians from using violence to impose Christianity on non-believers, or from oppressing those they disapprove of - such as gays or women, especially women who don't know their place. Christianity is no better than Islam in its inherent patriarchy and tendency to oppress those who don't follow their religious dogma. Still, many Christians and Muslims reject this part of their religion and practice a much more progressive form of their faith, one I believe is much more in line with what their respective prophets taught. Those folks are ok by me.

Anyone can be a nutcase, not just religious people. And who is more likely to decide it all wasn't quite good enough: someone who is open to diversity and embraces change or some who is closed to diversity and who fights against change?

Nah, just eradicate conservatives. Religious people who are also progressive are fine.

BC'rs should take over Canada - good bud for everyone, get those *SUTB types to relax. Carbon taxes doubled, and SJWs and Climate Change believers should sweep from West to East, greening and equalizing everything in their path. Works for me. *Stick Up The Backside

Feelings are not hurt in the least. I do not believe that the US Government took down the WTC and killed several thousand of their citizens. You can call that dishonest, hiding my head, whatever. The fact is I have not found the evidence presented by those who do believe to be persuasive.

You've already made up your mind that it's because I'm dishonest.

Conversation stopper.

Not because of fear, but because for those people, the evidence is not compelling or believable while the evidence for the other point-of-view is.

Or maybe if there were only the 'black' race or the 'asian' race or the 'muslim religion' or the 'christian religion' ....

Pink fluorescent pansies and unicorns?

I heard all kinds of hyperbolic nonsense from lots of people; most of those people made sweeping generalizations about those 'on the other side', whether that side was Trump or Clinton. When someone makes a generalization, they're being intellectually lazy. Lots of liberals/Democrats didn't vote for Clinton because they couldn't stand her, but still you lump those people in with her in your screed about how stupid liberals are.

I suppose if someone is prone to generalizations rather than practicing any intellectual rigor and assigns individuals labels based on one or two criteria, and then assumes their beliefs, ideology, and behavior based on those labels - it would be pretty easy to mock and disrespect them through hyperbolic statements and misstatement of the issues.

Pre-defining those who fail to respond in the way you wish as 'dishonest' suggests you aren't really interested in discussion, only conversion. Most people are honest in their opinions/beliefs, regardless of how wrong, stupid or gullible you think they are.

History textbooks, 500 years hence: The early 21st Century era is called 'The Death of Rational' in the Western world. Advanced societies had ceased teaching critical thinking skills and created a pervasive media that was not required to present factual news. The result was polarization of views, conspiracy theories run amok, and confused people entrenched their views rather than listening, compromising and cooperating. Internet wars-of-words turned to wars-on-the-street, and spread to regions and countries. Left vs. right, Elitists vs. Deplorables, White Nationalists vs. Social Justice Warriors; each faction grouped together in communities, cities, regions and waged war on other communities, cities and regions. This disintegration of Western society from the period of 2001 to 2058 led to the weakening of political organization and resulted in provinces and states seceding from their countries; this provided an opening for an allied Asian and Moslem initiative to take over the financial system and the social/political system. Financial control from Asia and military intervention from Moslem leaders quickly brought the warring factions to heel.

I expect the whole thing was filmed in the same studio that they filmed the moon landing, remember that scandal? Then they used special laser-lights to project the film around the WTC for the benefit of the people on the street, along with hidden speakers for sound effects, and of course detonated the explosives so the towers would come down. Pretty sure that's what happened.

I tried to find the original video on CityTV, even using the reporter's name. No luck, so i don't know if this video is out-of-context or what. In any case the same claim about 'busloads of illegal immigrants' was made in 2007 when Bush announced a crackdown, so this seems like business as usual.

My sister worked with immigrants before she went to Egypt. Some might be lying, for sure, but many are surprised when they get here that the skills and education they have aren't recognized in Canada. Your assumption that many/most lie is not necessarily reality.

Funny, me too. My partner does not; he sees the cops as being too authoritarian and too willing to abuse their power. So we have these arguments pretty regularly - but at least they're good-natured. Yeah, this is what I point out to the BF too. But he feels that cops have a moral imperative to be better than we are, that they should have the training and wherewithal to avoid, through good management, situations that result in someone being killed, especially someone who isn't even doing anything wrong. I see his point, but still think that they are deserving of the benefit of the doubt, since they are only human. I do agree with him that too often it seems that cops aren't properly prosecuted when they do commit crimes. It really bugs me that we put all these expectations on cops - life on the line, media scrutiny, lots of criticism - but we don't really pay them very much.