Renegade

Peter, you keep insisting that it is "illegal". Can you please cite what specifc law has been broken that forces an employer to stay in business if his employees unionize? IMV, an employer can decide to go out of buisness for whatever reason he chooses, just like an employee can choose not to work if he so chooses.

New developments on this story: Jobless Wal-Mart employees get day in Supreme Court It will be interesting to see how the SCC rules in this case. Personally, I can't see any justification for the SCC to rule against Walmart in this case.

Sean, my apologies for the late response. I'm travelling and on vacation and so I have very intermittent internet acces. IMV, we are not talking about the same principle at all. A principle which previously meant a set of priviledges to white protestant males is distinctly different and opposite to a principle which states white protestant are no different and are equal to all other individuals. If society evolved to thinking from only white males had a set of privlidges and rights to thinking that no one had preferential rights, then society's principles have changed, not simply their "interpretation". If society cannot draw consenses to agree on the specifics of the principle then that would indicate that they don't support that principle and it shouldn't be embedded in a constitution. So what if principles change and and constitutions need to be updated to reflect those changes. I see no indication that the time between revisions is so rapid that it could not be accomodated. Society's principles change slowly if at all. Yes, law-makers pass laws which "interpret" the consitituion. Frequently they are found by courts to be "wrong" and forced to rewrite laws. IMV the courts for the most part interpret the constitution based upon what is written and the original framers intent, not based upon evolving societal standards. You are reinforcing what I have stated, that you view communism and capitalism are "interpretations" of the same principle. IMV the system are based upon completely different sets of principles. Yes I do. Capitalism is not based upon equality, it is based upon freedom. Communism is not based upon freedom it is based upon forced equality.

No, instead you have agreed with me. If the interpretation can vary so radically it would indicate that we are not talking about the same princples at all. If you are ambigous about the wording of the principle, you can never really know what is meant by the principle. As a result if the principles vary, you simply call it an "interpretation". Maybe you can give an example of where the "interpretation of those principles has changed dramatically". Use the US constitution as the starting point as it is more clearly defined on when it is implemented. If you agree with me that the principles don't really change so often, then why is it you are so afraid to be clear and unambigouous in the wording? Maybe you can tell me how often "interpretations" change and who is responsible for changing these "intrepretations" According to you both "communism" and "capitalism" are "interpretations" of the same principle, according to me they are completely different principles. The fact that you can interpret two completely different schools of thought as the same principle, makes your concept of principle worthless IMO.

I'm not sure if you can use Canada as an example as its constitutional documents are relatively recent. If we use the US as an example, I don't think any of its principles have changed since inception. Perhaps you can be more specific on what you mean by a "regular basis". Is change every200 years or so frequent or infrequent by your standards?

I don't have a problem if the constitution must be updated because principles change. I happen to believe that the principles even when specfic, do not really change.

By "easier on the taxpayer" do you mean more cost effective? Do you have any evidence to back this up? If what you say is true, no additional funding for daycare is required. It is simply a transfer of funding from welfare to daycare.

Please explain what you mean by this.

I presume you mean those who are still 25 and live in the country. Since those who are still 25 already will be accorded the reward when they retire, why then extend the reward to recent immigrants? When we mean their families we mean their spouses and children as they are considered the family unit. For the most part we consider adult parents to be independant of their adult kids. For example, we do not allow the tax deductions for adult parents the same way as we would for a dependant kid. When an immigrant moves part of the process is breaking bonds, including that of their homeland but also that of parental contact. I know of no other country that puts family reuniicaiton as such a priority for immigration as does Canada. It would indeed be a pity if we couldn't have that kind of debate. Besides those motivated by personal self-interest, I'd like to understand if anyone's position is that Canada should not put its own interest first when considering immgration. Ageed. But Monty was questioning who that money was transfered to. That is entirely consistent with the nature of government and I'm clear why you would then question his understanding of government.

August, do you have such a problem with my grammar that is precludes you from understanding the meaning and context of what I have written? If you don't, then why make an issue of something irrelevant to the ideas discussed? If you do, I'll be happy to rephrase the offending sentence for you. I don't really follow your analogy as it relates to the topic. The fact is that some sports like basketball provide too much incentive at the highest levels. This causes too many young men to waste effort trying to reach a level where they have slim to no chance of achieving the reward.

No they aren't. Yes kids will grow to be taxpayers, but kids will also consume services and resources, contribute to destruction of the planet, and overcrowding. People aren't having kids to do Canadian society a favour. They are doing so to satisify their own urges and needs. They should pay the full cost of their choice. If people were made to face the full cost of their choice to have kids, perhaps less of them would have kids, and the world would be a cleaner, healther place. How about this: Since you believe that paying taxes is a "favour" done to society, we can simply lower taxes to the point that no "favour" is being done?

Completely agree RB. Some people seem to believe that they are doing society a favour by having kids and society ought to pay for that priviledge.

No it is not quite like GM giving away cars, because there is an incremental cost for each car GM gives away unlike digital content. Is the purpose to provide JT with revenues? I thought the purpose was to incent invention. So what if we deny JT revenues? Also so what if there was less music in general. I seriously doubt that if we paid JT more for each song he could somehow make it "better" (with more session musicians and such), just as I seriously doubt that if we paid JT less, he would somehow make it "worse". JT would make the best song he can because the overall revenue would greatly exceed production cost. Where the line gets drawn is for less popular acts who draw less revenue. Of course for them less revenue greatly impacts the songs they can produce. But this even happens today. There are marginal bands who generate very little content but enough to still incent them to produce content. What I'm saying is that all drasticly reducing the revenue generated by invention simply moves the bar up. The best content (ie the most popular) will still be produced. "Bad" (ie less popular content) will not be produced. So what?

I completely disagree. Frequently courts try and interpret what the constitution framers meant by a certain clause. That job is not aided by ambiguity. If clarity means that the principles must change when society's principles change, then so be it. It is far more important to understanding what we are agreeing to, than to be hesitant to add clarity because of some worry that in the future society's principles might change. I agree, but they are not the masses, they are the minority. Has this not been beaten to death? You want ambigous principles so society can intrepret it as it sees fit. I want specific principles so that it is clear what is being agreed to. Personally I think that ambigouty you seen undermines the purpose of having documents like the Charter of Rights which seeks to entrench rights without discretion of the society to take away those rights. Any ambigouty is only when rights clash and one has to take precednce. IMV the role of a document such as a Charter of rights is to define those individual rights and to determine how situations such as confilicts between sets of rights are resolved.

August, you have said of government in your response to Monty "It takes from A and gives to B." If you don't presume that the purpose of government is to "transfer wealth" then you shouldn't presume that the government SHOULD take "from A and gives to B.".

You have then directly contradicted your argument to extend the benefit without imposing a residency requirement. If the purpose is a "reward" then those who "work hard, pay your taxes for thirty years or so" are rewarded with OAS. Why would the state then reward recent immigrants who havent been working and paying taxes for 30 years or so?? Also if the purpose of OAS is as a "reward" for past behaviour, why must I be a resident to collect it? Should it not be like CPP where I can collect it anywhere? I would dispute that it is a "right" for parents to join them. If family reunification is the halmark of Canada's immigration system, then I would suggest that the system is misguided. Canada's best interest should be the only hallmark for its immigration system. Where the interest of Canada coincide with those of the would-be immigrant, that person should immigrate. Perhaps the state should pay them without the 10 year wait, but collect reimbursement from those who sponsor the recepient.

You presume August, that weath transfer is the purpose of government. Many would disagee.

You presume August, that weath transfer is the purpose of government. Many would disagee.

Why? Is it hte state's role to reward honest people? If so, why just reward old honest people, and not just all honest people? Further, the state is notorious for changing the rules. There is no guaranteee that in 40 years, a young person will get the same reward. If I was a young person, I'd prefer if the state neither rewarded me when I'm old nor penalized me when I'm young. You must then believe the same of any Defined Benefit pension plan, because I don't see much difference between CPP and a DBPP. 1. Perhaps we should start with first not letting these people into Canada. It seems that there is no obvious benefit to Canada to doing so. The elderly cost a disproportionate amount in medical and social services, why should Canada even let them in. 2. OAS is not unique in having a residency requirement. Citizenship for example has a residency requirement. Are you in favour of removing all residency requirements for all programs? If not what criteria determines why one would be entitled to one but not the other.

Perhaps you can then explain what these "known" and "few" implications are. For example, does the "right" to bear arms, hinder or help to achieve the purpose of "insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence..."? It is relevant what an informed public thinks. It is irrelevant what an uninformed public thinks. It is my opinion that he majority of the public are ill informed or simply don't care about constitutional matters. As I've said before the content is simply further detail which should be consistent with the principle. And the prinicple should be clear enough so that the content should be derived unambigously. You don't address the fact that because of ambigous wording, we simply don't agree on a principle (eg equality) regardless of the passage of time. If you accept the presumption as I've outlined above want to discuss the specifics of how natural rights are derived from that presumption, I am happy to do so in a separate thread. If you could kill, steal, and eslave without also violating another individual's natural rights than you would have the "right" to do so. The nature of those acts makes it clear that those are not natural rights. The presumption I have outlined above also implies a presumption that others have the same rights as you.

No, I don't think I am. I certainly agree with you that creator of content need incentive to produce content. My point is that there is more than one model to incent creators of content. It doesn't necessarily depend upon preventing consumers of content from duplicating content. What if for example, Justin Timberlake let all his songs be downloaded and distributed for free, and it drove up exposure, awareness and popularity of JT? He potentially could be renumerated from revenues through brand endorsements, live concerts, and merchandise. The only question is what is appropriate mechanism to incent creators of content. You should not limit yourself to business models which restrict the duplication of content for that incentive.

Did they not create songs and movies before there was an Internet or a way to mass duplicate and distribute songs and movies?

Old Age Security is basicly a form of welfare. It is funded through general revenues.

OR We can give her diddly squat.

The preamble states: What specificly does "promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" mean? What are the implications? Many of the implications can be read many ways and are thus the nature of court battles. Hence I say the implications are unknown. It is irrelevant if many Americans think that it is "sadly lacking". I doubt that many Americans have given much thought to the issue. I would venture that most Canadians do not think that the preamble for the Charter is "sadly lacking" though both you and I agree that it is. No what I'm pointing out is that they are not similar concepts at all. What they are is completely different concepts which go under the same name: "equality". If there is insufficient detail to explain the concept, then there is no way to tell if we are talking about the same principle or not. Simplying evoking the word "equality" invokes very different concepts among differnent people. Look, your argument for vaugueness has been so that society can evolved its interpretation OVER TIME. What I am pointing out is that we don't agree on the meaning of the principle while looking at it AT THE SAME TIME. We both originate in the same society and are looking at the statement within roughly the same context. If we can't read the same statement and both agree on the meaning of the statement then there is in sufficient detail in the statement. I guess it starts with a presumption. The presumption is that each individual controls himself and the products of his body. Rights can logically can be deduced from that presumption. If you dont' agree with that basic presumption, there is no authoritative way to derive those rights