Wilber

I find the inability of some to relate themselves or their country in any other terms than the US kind of sad. Whatever would they do if the US wasn't there? Who else could they blame our foreign policy (or lack of) on? "No you much prefer the mushy-headed idealism of the right, which aspires to build a nation where none has stood before, to bring democracy to a country where people can't even read, to promote western liberal ideals in a country that has rejected every attempt to liberalize and modernize it in the past century and change. But it's not really about that: right wingers are always willing to abandon pragmatism if it serves the greater good, which is basically about the fact that men in tanks killing brown people gives right wingers a collective boner." What do you stand for other than not being involved in anything that involves Americans? I guess we could pull out of Afghanistan, let the Taliban take over and make it a place for Al Qaeda to regroup and plan another 9/11. When that happens the west would have to bomb the crap out of them and invade again. Much better than trying to help them build a country. We don't have to make them adopt western ideals. That is not realistic but trying to help them at least part of the way into the 20th century can't be a bad thing. We do need a government in place that doesn't actively support international terrorism. Afghanistan was invaded because a group in airplanes ran them into buildings containing people of many different nationalities, colours and religions.

A little aside here. A couple of days ago a Canadian and an American soldier were killed in the same action in Afghanistan. Yesterday I am watching the news and there is a story on an American deserter's refugee hearing going on in Canada. Is this one stupid country or what?

Guest worker programs have gone a long way to help make western Europe what it is today. Take that any way you want. A complication in Canada is that the boneheads who gave us our Charter of Rights and immigration law also gave any person who sets foot on Canadian soil and claims refugee status, the same rights as a Canadian citizen, meaning we can only get rid of them at great cost over a long period of time. That issue would have to be dealt with conclusively before we embark on any guest program.

Try again Not having great luck with links these days.

"And Rushdie and Van Gogh have what to do with the cartoons?" You mean the cartoons weren't critical of Islam? OK. Please give us the link to the Danish cartoons which show Mohamed with a pigs snout and with him screwing a pig, or are you referring to the ones that were added by extremists to further stir the pot. Like these Looks to me like it is a dog trying to screw something. My dog used to try and screw everything and I am pretty sure he wouldn't know Mohamed from GW Bush. Had you actually seen these cartoons? Your "Example" is of someone trying to place a paid advertisement, not part of a news story that is causing riots and peoples lives to be threatened. Like any other business, news media is free to do business with whomever they chose.

A few years ago a nice upstanding young fellow who worked with my wife decided to take his wife and two kids to Disneyland. They pre-cleared US customs at Vancouver airport and away they went. While they were on their way I guess they ran checks on some of the passengers and found he had conviction for possession that was over ten years old. When they arrived in LAX he was cuffed in front of his family, put in a cell over night and shipped back on the first flight. Overkill? I sure think so but you have to bear these things in mind if you plan on traveling outside Canada some day. They could have sniffer dogs and turn you away but what they will do is throw you in jail and charge you with a crime.

Decriminalization means it is still illegal, it is just not a crime. Like a speeding ticket, you will get a fine but not a criminal record. It is not a matter of caving in to the US. They have a perfect right to determine who enters their country and under what conditions. Just like we do. Our border officials often turn back Americans who have impaired driving convictions even though they have no criminal record in the US because it is a misdemeaner in many states. It is a crime in Canada and that is all they consider. You can bet US officials will apply the same criteria to Canadians trying to cross the border whetther we decriminalize it or not.

It's true that legalizing small amounts wouldn't eliminate smuggling into the U.S., but it's also a stretch to say that it would make that situation worse. Tell that to anyone who depends on easy access to the US for their living or recreation. You keep switching from legalizing to decriminalizing and back. Which is it?

Try this

And how many media people have been "shot down in the street" here in the west as a result? Zero. Face it: the chance of Ezra being any any physical danger here is astonishingly low. So, I'm not really sure how performing an action that presents no risk to you in any way can possibly be construed as brave. Shit: my daily Starbucks trek is more hazard filled: I guess that makes me a big hero too. Ezra is, overall, a worthless little snotball, but I gotta hand it to him: he knows how to play the rubes. It's funny 'cause it's true. Here is one How many others such as Salman Rushdie have fatwa's hanging over their head making them fair game for any screwball who wants to make a name for himself for Islam? Yes, anyone could go on to the internet to see the cartoons as long as it wasn't a Canadian site. Our betters (I guess you must be one of them) consider it too dangerous for Canadians to decide for themselves. If someone goes out of their way to keep me informed, I appreciate it even if his motives are somewhat self serving. If he has to go against the grain to do it, I appreciate it even more. You seem to come from the "shoot the messenger" school.

His magazine was the only media outlet in North America with the balls to run them. The only other place a North American could see them and judge for themselves was in some foreign media outlets where they are still willing to practice what they preach even if it means risking some religious nut case shooting them down in the street. The gutless wonders in our part of the world have to put Ezra down because he has shown them up for what they are. Spineless.

If would be difficult to see the Pope as an unbiased observer in all this. I was taught the conventional message about the Crusades in school. Fighting to reclaim the land Jesus was born in from the infidels. So a few people got killed. They were only heathens. :angry: Only half were heathens, the other half were infidels.

I have little control over what Canada does, this is a political board, this is in a sub section titled the rest of the world, My arguement is not that Canada should legalise Pot, my arguement is that Pot should be legailised, that would include the United States of America. Fair enough but when you used BC as an example, I thought it appropriate to point out that the domestic market is a minor part of the BC pot industry and legalization in Canada would have little effect on it.

As far as I am concerned the Standard was the only responsible media outlet in the country when it comes to this issue. Instead of telling us that we should take their word as to what we should be allowed to see like the rest of the country's media, they let us judge for ourselves. The rest of the the media in this country is big on talking about their freedoms but as soon as they think they may have to bear some kind of cost in order to stick up for those freedoms, they turn yellow and their principles vanish. This is typical of what radical Islam is doing throughout the world. If something is said that reflects on them in any sort of negative manner, have a few riots, kill, or threaten to kill anyone who says anything negative about you and people start running scared, including our so called guardians of free speech. All except one anyway.

I don't see the correlation. I think once you introduce legal production for money, it opens a whole other can of worms that complicate the issue. A few plants in the home that stay in the home and must be consumed in the home, however, is a simple issue of human autonomy and property rights. I think the correlation is quite simple and there are many others. There has been another debate going on here concerning child porn and where you draw the line. Should it be a crime to buy it or only to make it etc. Not trying to put pot smokers in the same moral catagories as johns or people who get off on kiddy porn but the principal is the same. Other than that I don't disagree.

The plant is what is produced: that's what you smoke. That's not what we do with booze. In fact, it's still illegal to have a still. And I'm not talking legalization; I'm talking decriminalization of a few plants for personal use. Trafficking still illegal; large quantities still illegal; providing it to minors still illegal; cross-border transport naturally still illegal. I think the main effect on society of such a measure would be to cut revenue to large grow-ops and organized crime. That's why I think it will never happen. I don't know about a still but you can legally make beer and wine in your own home as long as you don't sell it. I don't have much problem with pot being treated the same way if you consume it in your own home but if the police find someone in possession outside of their residence they have no way of knowing whether it was grown for personal use or purchased. Decriminalization the use of something while making it's production for money a crime is the same kind of mentality as throwing the hooker in jail but only fining her customer. The original quote of mine you used was a response to another post about legalization, not decriminalization.

Oops, double post

The safest place to live is right beside a Hell's Angels clubhouse. So what if they're the baddest asses on the planet? Hey, they're our friends 'cause if we didn't call them our friends they would commit all their bad-ass crimes on us! I guess it is better than living beside a Vietnamese gang house or a Indo-Canadian gang house so hey, we should be happy that we live next to the "nicest" criminal on the planet. Lets see. South Korea maintains a military of around 600,000 compared to Canada's 60,000. I don't think countries who really have something to fear from their neighbors put much faith in your theory. Perhaps it's because they really do have something to fear and you don't. It's not a "theory" but an "analogy" I never said they were "equal" criminals. I said they are the nicest criminals on the planet, certainly not the worst. None-the-less, they are still criminals IMO. All right, they don't seem to have any faith in your analogy. Seems to me that Iraq under Saddam invaded Iran a few years ago resulting in an eight year war with over a million dead and during which the Iraqis used chemical weapons. I don't think Iran would have any faith in your analogy either. I know I don't think much of it. Whenever something goes wrong in the world half of it dumps on the Americans if they don't act, because they are the top dog. If they do act, they get dumped on by the other half. Quite often it's the same half because for them the Americans can do no right. It's a no win situation so they might just as well act in what they see to be their and the worlds interest.

And how would decriminalizing five or six plants in one's basement (but still keeping it illegal to sell them) affect the U.S. at all? Sell the plants or what they produce? I'll assume you mean both. It wouldn't, thats what we do with booze after all, but what does that have to do with legalization?

well this is not just about Canada, I have mentioned U.S stats and agencies in my posts... On the contrary, this is just about Canada. We have little or no control over what the US does but have to live with the consequences whether we like it or not.

The safest place to live is right beside a Hell's Angels clubhouse. So what if they're the baddest asses on the planet? Hey, they're our friends 'cause if we didn't call them our friends they would commit all their bad-ass crimes on us! I guess it is better than living beside a Vietnamese gang house or a Indo-Canadian gang house so hey, we should be happy that we live next to the "nicest" criminal on the planet. Lets see. South Korea maintains a military of around 600,000 compared to Canada's 60,000. I don't think countries who really have something to fear from their neighbors put much faith in your theory. Perhaps it's because they really do have something to fear and you don't.

"No the lesson we learned from prohibition was that it created gangs, or thats the lessonw e shoudl ahve learned gangsters move on but when they loose major sources of funding they are hurt. A 4 billion dollar industry in a province of 4 million people cannot be so easily replaced. Yes it would hurt gangs imensley to take away 4 billion dollars yearly." It won't hurt gangs much at all because most of their production heads south. Prohibition taught us that making a thing illegal on one side of the border made criminals on both sides of the border very rich. Some of the richest families in Canada got their start running illegal booze across the border. Argue legalization from a philosophical point of view all you want but don't argue that legalizing it in Canada alone will take organized crime out of the pot business. Prohibition of booze in the US proved otherwise.

What if those three humans were skiers who choose to ski in out of bounds areas? Should the gov't be expected to shell out an unlimited amount of money to rescue them? The point is valid - these people are at least partially responsible for their own fate because they choose to enter a region where foreigners are regularly kidnapped and murdered. These guys can't even argue that their status a humanitarian workers should have shielded them from such acts since that woman from the red cross was murdered last year. The comparison with out of bounds skiers is a valid one, though I have never heard a rescued skier dump on the people who rescued him.

I don't have a big problem in principle with legalizing it, provided the same sort of testing and laws regarding impairment with alcohol could be developed for marijuana. However. The idea that legalizing it would result in a big drop in crime is not realistic, at least in BC. 80% of the pot grown in BC is exported to the US. The US would never stand for legally grown pot being exported into their country. As long as it is illegal in the US, the majority of pot grown in BC will involve real criminals. Regardless of what one may think of the US policy toward marijuana, there is no doubt the legalization of pot in Canada would make cross border commerce and travel more difficult. As one who lives close to the border, has recreational property and friends on the other side of it, I have reason to cross it often. Being a pragmatic sort, I have no wish to have that made more difficult just because some people like to get stoned.

' Possible but that would go against the policy of not dealing with kidnappers and make every expat in Iraq even more of a target. Could be that they just wanted to get rid of them and let the word get out where they could be found. They have been getting a lot of flack from other Arabs about these kidnappings and perhaps they came to realize it was a no win situation. They are free and unharmed, that's what really counts. Too bad Fox wasn't with them. I don't think the Americans would have let his killers get away if they could help it.