Renegade

Isn't that abortion as well?

The aspect of their belief that all atheists have in common is ther belief that there is no god. So the first definition is very much inline with the commoly held definition of atheisism, even if your own definition is different. I agree with RW, it is just as dangerous to dictate policy based upon atheisism as it would be if it were based upon any organized religion.

Should I assume then that any Catholic politician elected with immediately move to ban birth control?

I guess it depends upon your definition of religion. As I said, my definition includes any belief system including atheism. If yours does not, so be it. Actually I don't recalling saying with solid certainty that there was no God. Can you show me where I did? Personally I woud classify myself as agnostic. What are you saying, that we should ban religions?

Maybe you have a better adjective to describe the molestation of children, the discrimmination against women, the burning of heritics, the forced conversion of natives and countless other acts which have been comitted by or with the support of the church. If you have a more appropriate adjective please pass it along and I'll happily use it. Yes I know, you've said it many times. Maybe you can answer one fundamental question. Do you think there are ANY limits to the rules that a church can set? (For example can a church advocate murder?) If so, who sets those limits?

You're right. I used the term un-Godlike without defining what I mean by it. I mean the Christian perception of a maganmous and loving deity. I disagree with you, at least by my definition of religion. Atheisim, by my definition is also a religion even though there is no god.

Assuming that God even exists, you equate the church to God and the rules of the church to the rules of Gold. If you look back at the actions of the church, its priests and what its members have done in its name, you will find them very un-Godlike. Oh I already have, and I couldn't give a damn what the church tells its own membes to do, but I resent it trying to influence legislation which will go beyond its own membership.

betsy, I'm not really sure what you mean by being "wrong on Christ". If an individual doesn't agree with the church's position on a particular issue, such as birth control, abortion, SSM, etc, does that make them believe the church is "wrong on christ"? Almost no one I know who is a member of a church accepts every single one of the church's teachings. Some disagree with church's positions on birth control, the ordination of women, etc. They still consider themselves part of the church and the church accepts them as such. Are you saying that disagreeing with some part of the church's teaching should make you subject to some sanction even excommunication from that church? If that is true, that church is guilty or intollerance far beyond any other institution. We have certain expectations of institutions including churches. For example if a church encouraged racist behaviour would we be as quick to wash our hands and say that "they make the rules"? The Catholic church is supported by the state to the extent that they are a charitable institution and are partially subsidized by taxpayer dollars. To that extent they wish to continue that benefit they should be accountable to societal norms. If the church expects that the state should not dictate the church's rules, than the church should not dictate the state's rules.

Apparently not. According to doctrine child molesting is not severe enough an offence to kick you out, however, if you let others make their own choices on abortion, then you're booted.

It think in general voters have already decided, that the are more comfortable that politicians should not pass legislation based upon what their church dictates, and they do not consider politicians hypcocrites if the refuse to impose their church's belief system on others. Well I wasn't speaking about only Christian churches I was speaking about churches in general. If it depends upon what he believes about Christ, then it may be that his belief system conflicts with the churchs dictates. It would seem that you would sanction him being kicked out of the church because of it, however no other member of the church is sanctioned. If I made a statement that people have the right to make their own personal choice on abortion, should I be kicked out of the Catholic church? Should the rules be any different if I was a politician?

So should we assume that any politician we elect will either be legislating according to his religious beliefs, or will be a hypocrite? What should a politician to do if his church changes it's stand on an issue? For example, some churches accepted SSM? Is the politician bound to legislate by church law?

Actually they are not breaking the "club's rules". Their rules state goven individual actions. The politicians are not being threatned with excommunication for commiting abortions. They are being theatned with excommunication for giving others the freedom to choose for themselves. If a religious institution can dictate to a politician what laws to pass under threat of explusion, you don't think that is a violation of separation of church and state? If George Bush's church dictate to Bush that he should pull out of Iraq because it was not consistant with Christian values to be killing others, would that be a violation of church and state? If you are correct, then the only politicians we should elect are those with no religious affiliation and the fact that the have one should make the suspect. So you are saying that a politician shoudl be forced to choose between his faith and his constitutents? You are saying that he should pass laws imposing his individual belief system on his constitutents? For example, if a politician personally believes that he must "keep holy the Sabbath", then he shoudl pass laws forcing his constituents to do so as well? Am I interpreting what you say correctly? Personally I didn't see Martin playing up his status as a Catholic for points, so I'm not sure where you've concluded that from.

Sometimes there is furor. If a person showed no brain activity (ie were brain-dead) but you knew there was a posibility that they could recover after 6-months and show normal activity, would you still be as quick to turn off life support.

Well, thats one thing you and I agree on.

Many fiscal conservatives (myself included) support the funding for abortion. The reason why is that it is the lesser of two fiscal evils. The public funding cost of an abortion is less than the public funding cost of supporting an unwanted child. Fiscal conservatives are not given the choice of not supporting the unwanted child. If there was no additional cost implication of supporting an unwanted child, my guess is that fiscal consevatives would not support funding for abortions either. IMV, the article makes a number of incorrect assumptions and logical inconsistancies. The article says that government's authortity shoudl not extend to changing the definition of marriage. Doesn't the logically extention of that mean, that government authority should not extend to even defining marriage to begin with? If people or churches are free to define marriages for themselves, I suspect that would be a position Tristan Emmanuel would find uncomfortable. The article assumes that fiscal conservatives would not support "free market" healthcare. This is not true. It further implies that fiscal conservatives ideology includes "leftwing sympathies for social programs that cost lots of money". This is simply false.

Recently the Pope made a statement which implied support for excommunication of politicians which supported abortion: Pope causes stir on abortion in Brazil IMV this is an abhorent position for a number of reasons: 1. It clearly violates the principle of separation of church and state. It takes us back several centuries to a time when the church was intimately involved in politics, and theology was the basis for law. 2. Just as it is a well-established right that all human-beings are entitled to "freedom of religion" free from state interference, human beings should be entlted to reciprocal "freedom of politics" from their church. It is just as unjustified for a nation to sanction someone for their religious beliefs as it is for a church to sanction someone for their political actions. 3. The church is not just sanction its members based upon actions against its religious beliefs (ie it is not punishing politicians for commiting abortions), but it is sanctioning its members for actions they would permit others. 4. If politicians were to put religious servitude ahead of their consitituents best-interest it would justifiably give cause to those who would not elect a politician simply because of their participation in a certain religion. IOW, part of being a politician means that the constituents best interest shoudl trump pesonal religious beliefs.

Here's a link to the complete report: Report Given that the Save The Children Organization calculates the index based upon the following data: Under-5 mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) - 2005 Gross primary enrollment ratio (% of total) -2004 Gross secondary enrollment ratio (% of total) - 2004 And since NONE of the data is from a date when the Conservatives were in power, I'd like Topaz to explain how he came to the conclusion that Conservative cuts to social programs were the cause of the drop in ranking. And perhaps he can also explain what cuts actually affected the ranking.

It's hard to comment when so few details have been provided. Children are suffering, how? Which social programs have directly impacted children? 5th to 25th on what scale, and how is it measured? Details please.

If am locked into a low-priced long-term utility contract which is below market rates, there is financial incentive for the supplier to abandon the contract. You are only speculating that they wouldn't cut me off. The question at hand is the dispute resolution mechanism, not whether or not they are likely to cut me off. The recourse of finding another supplier is the same as for tenants. They too can find another supplier who is eagar for their business You avoid addressing the issue. Why are tennants different than the rest of society in being awarded an alternative dispute resolution mechanism and one which is biased in their favour? Sure, and debtors are lucky there is no more debor's prisons. The justification that someone else has it worse seems extremely weak. The government is free to pass as many retarded laws as they want to. The landlords may not have the voting clout that tenants do, but they have another power, Economic. They will vote with their dollars on if they are satisified with the restrictions the government places. ----------------------------------------- The problem with being a landlord for investment purposes, is that if you get into the business you generally do if for long term as the switching costs from one investment to another is high. Furthmore, every couple of years the govenment changes the rules. IMO, as a business being a landlord is fraught with risk, regulatory risk being one of them. There are much easier, liquid, and safer investments. Eventually other landlords who are wise enough will see that. Personally this legislation doesn't affect me in the least. I'm not a landlord now, nor do I intend to be again. I'm not a renter, either. I feel sympathy for the landlords who have to put up with this legislation.

For better or worse, suits are the mechanisms for dispute resolution and includes provision for damages. If I am a homeowner and I have a contract with a utility to supply oil for heat, and the utility suddenly cuts me off, I too will freeze my ass off. My recourse is the same,... to sue. If the courts are sufficient resolution mechanism for the rest of society, I fail to see why renters should not be subjected to the same process and delays as everyone else. If the courts are not timely or efficient enough for renters to use, then the same is true for everyone else as well.

There would be no objection from me if act restricted it's coverage to safety issues. The tenant also has the option of suing the landlord for breach of contract. No additional regulation is required to permit this.

Either you are including too much or not enough. If a tenant moves out prior to the end of the lease, they are not just liable for the 1 month rent up front, but the entire rent until the end of the lease. If they are moving in the last month of the rental agreemnt then it is simply the tenants choice of forfieting the last months rent, and I wouldn't include it as moving cost. In virtually all case where health and welfare are involved, the regulation involved is to address safety issue, in this case it goes far beyond that and address financial considerations and moreover sets up a system outside the courts to address disputes. You're correct, that landlords can choose to take their investment elsewhere, and they eventually will. However that is not justification for biasd legislations. If you follow your reasoning, any legislation, no matter how biased,is "fair" because the targets are free to leave if they don't like it. My movers disagree with you. They said I had lots to move and I should have spent more time getting rid of old stuff prior to the move (they are right). However I didn't move very far.

So am I. The cost of moving are analogous to switching costs of a consumer moving from one vendor to another. It doesn't matter if it is the cost to refinance a mortgage, or the set-up charge a utility would charge to set up a new account, or moving cost, it all falls into the bucket of switching costs. Perhaps if you think that moving costs are somehow different you can explain why. First, you overestimate moving costs, unless you mean moving to a different city. I have recently moved and it cost me less than $350 in moving costs and I didn't lift a box and was for a whole housefull of contents. In any case the moving costs are not the landlord's issue, they are the tennants. The landlords issue is the acquisition cost of a new tenant (Advertising, screenign, clean-up etc). If your justification is that somehow we should subsidize the moving costs of people on fixed incomes, then it is not clear why it should be solely landlords doing the subsidization.

As you said previously "Its a contract for heaven's sake. Contract's expire.". How is it your tune is different when it comes to landlords ability to engage in a contract? Can a landlord decide not to renew as a tenant can? As far of the implication of "you would have thousands of tenants forced to move constantly and rents being jacked up out of control", market forces dictate rents, not landlords. Even if he were allowed to do so, a landlord cannot raise rents beyond market rates because if he raises it beyond the barrier to move, the tenant will simply move to lower costs premisis. Is it "fair"? Of course it is. Landlords and home owners face this situation all the time. At the end of their term, mortgage rates are reset to the prevailing market rate. If they don't like it they can find a different mortgage provider or they can move to more affordable accomodation. Why should renters be sheltered from market forces at a cost to the landlord when other segments are not? I admit that I have not been to a board hearing since the new law is in place. As of January, in fact I am no longer even a landlord. I base my opinions based upon the RTA and legal opinions on it. At least we agree on somethings. I'm not saying that the Act is all bad. It has some good provisions, however my take is that it overall is strongly biased toward tenants. This is really the core issue. We can argue point by point on the specifics of the law, but my position at the core is that any such legislation restricts a free market and unfairly shelters tenants at a cost to landlords. Given that the act only took force at the end of Jan, it is too early for anyone to have a change of heart. I certainly have not. I suspect most landlords will only experience the new measures once leases are up or when they have to actually evict tenants. Their first-hand experience won't be known for years. There will be extremism at both sides and pretty much no matter what, someone will call foul. Landlords do in the long run have a choice. They can deploy their investment somewhere else. Witness what happened with rental control legislation when it was implemented in the 70s. Rental stocks dropped and vacancy rates were miniscule. There are probably others like myself who will not likely be a landlord again. I had experience under the previous legislation and given that this Act is even less favourable to landlords, I can't see why I would undertake to be a landlord unless I had no other choice. Ultimately the consequence of biased legislation is to separate renters into two groups. A priviledged group with rent-controlled apartments at sub-market rents, and another group who either cannot find accomodtion or is faced with high prices for dwindliing stock. Look at the history of what happened in NY. Even with proper screening as a landlord you are at a disadvantage if the law is biased against you. I too enjoy debate and discussion so long as condescention, sarcasim, and rudeness are avoided. I thank-you for doing so and apoligize if I've misinterpreted your statements.

Forgive me Rue, but evey single one of your counterpoints to the points I raised is based upon your opinion of what the board would or could do, or your experience that of how "that is how it really works". You have not pointed anywhere in the law to show what I have stated can't happen. Your experience aside, I prefer to rely on the advice of experienced legal council in thes matters. Here's what they have to say: Here We Go....Again!!! Here's a quote from an article written by Joe Hoffer, a lawyer specializing in residential tenancies law, in Canadian Moneysaver magazine (May 2007) However, since I can't find support for this in the Act, I will withdraw this particular point. No I said nothing about the notice period. What I said that they can leave for any REASON at all. I agree that they should have this option. As you said "Its a contract for heaven's sake. Contract's expire." My point is that if tenants have this option, so should landlords, see my response below. Again I never mentioned that the notice period was not symetric. I am referring to the abilty to terminate the relationship at the end of the contract. The specific cause the lanlord can terminate the lease are as follows: Landlord or his immediate family requires the unit The Landlord sells the unit and the seller or his family will occupy the unit The unit will be demolished The unit will be converted to a condo The tenant fails to pay the rent Tenant misrepresents his income Tenant performs illegal acts in the unit Tenant causes damage to the unit Tenants behaviour prevents other tenants from reasonable enjoyment or impairs the saftey Too many people occupy the unit As I said it is a specific list. Any other "good reason" won't do. Note that it is only the landlord who is restricted in the reasons for termination, not the tenant.