Hicksey

How do you fight back against trillions of dollars? The short answer is that you don't. Unless we're all ready to fight WWIII, there's nothing we can do. I don't think the ultra-rich care who runs the machine so long as they get theirs. And whomever promises and gives them the most I suspect would get that designation.

IMO, any law that abridges anyone's right to free speech is unconstitutional and wrong. The reality is that we can't stop hate by making it illegal to say it out loud. Unless you change hearts and minds all you're likely to achieve is making those who harbor those beliefs even more angry than they were. Hicksey, I'm sympathetic to your argument. However, your argument refers to all hate crimes legislation, and not just the addition of sexual orientation to pre-existing hate crimes legislation. Harper himself has no problem with hate crimes legislation based on race, religion or ethnic origin. In fact he said so during the C-250 debate. However, he has a problem with the legislation when it's also based on being gay or lesbian. Had Harper simply said I oppose all hate crimes legislation, then it would have been a clear, free speech issue. But by singling out gays and lesbians, he exposes himself to the criticism of being potentially motivated by religious extremism or even hatred of homosexuals. Then he's not taken the time to examine what being conservative and the words limited government really mean. I am guessing that since bill C-250 predates the extortion of a gay marriage amendment by the courts, that Harper must have been thinking it would lead to it. It's the only thing I can think of that might lend to him making such stupid comments. I am not Harper's biggest fan by any means, but I like his party much more than they other 3.

I see two factions fighting for control of the centralized power. US Democrats favor a OWG under the UN, but Republicans favor a OWG under the US. From the few articles I have read the fight is far from over and we'll likely not see who wins the battle. But as long as the Republicans keep wasting their resources on the likes of Iraq they're likely to be on the losing end.

The age is too low as is. Shouldn't be a difference, it just shouldn't be 14. I still say it shouldn't be based on the age, rather we need to make sure 50 year olds aren't screwing their 14 year old neighbour. I think justice is best served when it is based on both age and difference in age. What to propose though? Maybe a min age at 15, but not allowing anyone 25 or over to have sex with anyone more than 10 years their junior where the junior is between 15 and 20 years of age. I know it may seem complicated but maybe someone can think of a better way.

The bit about eating babies being equated to being evil is new to me. Anyway, I'm not a Bush nor am I a Cheney fan, but I'd hardly call them evil. Out of sheer curiosity, on what do you base your intense hate for them? I think Bush will go down as one of the worst POTUS in a long long time, but evil? I think they are seriously misguided, but not evil.

I think that's a little vague. I think that to say that most governments follow the will of the UN would be more accurate.

The whole world agreed on the intelligence before the war in Iraq. The disagreement was about what should have been done about it. It was clear that after 17 resolutions they had no intention of cooperating. But it also became clear that such an operation was going to cost many lives, much money and interrupt the world's oil supply. The primary 3 opponents, France, Russia and China all had stakes in not going to war in that they had huge oil contracts with SH and were also owed billions by Iraq. Either way, we can argue the politics of it but the fact still remains: the WMDs are a no show and the costs of a near unilateral war has hurt the US economy greatly. Had there not been conflicting interests with regard to the oil I believe the whole world would have invaded under the UN banner and been just as wrong about the WMDs. And had Bush been patient enough to wait for that time he wouldn't be biting this bullet alone.

Only because Bush wrapped himself in the American flag and called anyone who opposed his useless war a traitor to America. If Gore was in charge there never would have been any discussion of a war in Iraq since all of the evidence clearly showed that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. In fairness to both parties, they were all fooled by the intelligence just the same. While the democrats voted for it, they can at least say it wasn't their brainchild as well. Bush doesn't have that argument.

Ya good point... I don't know what the hell I was thinking. This country and Ottawa itself have become way to partisan for coalition governments to work. The NDP and Liberals all but came out and announced they were going to try the idea in the last parliament and it took only a few months for Layton to turn his back and help take Martin down. The parties are just too different.

I don't know the answer to your question but Chretien was Prime Minster at the time and I suspect he required that the Liberal Cabinet voted as he wanted them to. Once Martin became Prime Minister, the Liberal Cabinet voted differently. Perhaps Chretien was homophobic. Martin and the entire Liberal Cabinet did vote for C-250, the bill to make gay bashing a hate crime. Harper and most of his party voted against C-250. Even Chretien supported C-250. You'd have to be remarkably intolerant not to. That's not what C-250 was about and you know it. I stated exactly what C-250 was about on this thread at 8:56 on January 24th. C-250 was the bill to make gay bashing a hate crime. And Harper did vote against adding gay bashing to hate crimes legislation. And he did so even AFTER Vic Toews successfully introduced an amendment into C-250 designed to protect the religious freedom of those who use the Bible to justify their negative views on homosexuality. IMO, any law that abridges anyone's right to free speech is unconstitutional and wrong. The reality is that we can't stop hate by making it illegal to say it out loud. Unless you change hearts and minds all you're likely to achieve is making those who harbor those beliefs even more angry than they were. Now, that doesn't excuse one from the reprocussions of spouting such lunacy or from having those beliefs. But why make angry people angrier? It makes no sense.

First, what is wrong with a party that chooses tax cuts that Canadians will notice? I personally like the idea because it promotes integrity in government and its a lot easier to see a promise broken if they never arise. The part of this you're failing to see is that Harper put his party on the line by setting this kind of agenda. If he doesn't deliver on his promises, it will be right out in plain sight for Canadians to see. We won't need the Liberals or NDP to point it out because parents will certainly notice not getting their $100 per month for child-care or for putting their children into sports programs. Harper is in a position of do or die politically because of the route he chose to take. You may think he bought it, and he very well may have. But unless he makes it past the checkout, with everything paid for, his time as PM will be short and he'll do some real damage to his party. So did he buy it? Maybe so. But he certainly cannot be accused of taking the easy way out considering the minority parliament he faces outnumbers him 3-2 against--and on a lot of issues they're united against Harper's policies. The main reason why I don't believe he 'whored' himself though, is because he's still stuck to his party's value system. He didn't sell himself out for a vote. And for the record, Harper wasn't the only one with multi-billion dollar promises. Layton's plan was just as ripe with promises, and Martin went on a $30B spending spree before the election and then went further with election promises. By your definition all three were 'whores'. As for stifling their party members expression, Layton won't allow anyone of social beliefs other than those fostered by his party even into his party and if you don't think that given advance knowledge that Martin wouldn't have stifled all the embarassing comments made by his election team you're pretty naive. I'll admit first and foremost that I shouldn't have made that post about the play on the word poll/pole. It was uncalled for and I do apologize to all who were offended by it. But I stick by my comments about her defection. If she knew what she believed all along as you insist, then why wouldn't she investigate the party she was to run for the leadership of before doing so. If she invested her companies' money like that she'd be laughed off the board in a heartbeat. I'll give you the bit about her riding. Its obvious they didn't care enough about it to send her a message. But it doesn't make her switching teams for a spot in the starting lineup seem any less fishy or any less suspicious to me.

Political Correctness liveth not here. A spade by any other name is not a spade. Political correctness is for people that do not like to hear unfettered truth. I'll even admit that sometimes such truths are not pleasant to one's ear. However, to re-word such a description as to minimalize its effect is a lie too as you're mischaracterizing the severity of the situation ar hand. I respect the person that has the respect to tell me straight out a lot more.

Equality is a "so-called" right? Since when? We're not arguing over whether gays deserve the same rights in a relationship, rather over whether 2000 years need to be disregarded to make that happen.

Beat me to the punch, you did. I'd go even further and add a "they knew what we'd say in response". All part of a carefully orchestrated effort to show Stephen Harper is not a Yanqui running dog. VancouverKing: A few things: considering your moniker, I'm surprised I'd have to explain that Vancouver (one of the three major cities without a Con MP) cannot be part of the "urban East" given its, uh, western location. Second of all, "urban East"?? 80 per cent of Canadians live in urban centres. Urban residents make up the majority of residents in every province from Ontario west (including Saskatchewan and Alberta): really, I don't know what point your trying to make. Third: Dick Cheney doesn't have a ranch: he has an undisclosed location. And while he might have barbeques there, the menu (babies) is nt one that would endear Harper to Canadian moderates. What a guy. Babies on the menu. Trying to decry us as insensitive and social neaderthals, and making comments like that. Looks like hypocracy is on the menu too.

You can receive a comment however you want. But don't expect people not to take exception when you go off calling people names over what ended up being your misunderstanding of the comment at hand.

Clearly, although Gore's phrasing was clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), he was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible, in an economic and legislative sense, for fostering the development the technology that we now know as the Internet. To claim that Gore was seriously trying to take credit for the "invention" of the Internet is, frankly, just silly political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign. That's funny. That's like saying that by paying taxes and voting for the parties that made the decisions the rest of the country did the same. He's claiming credit via the six degrees of separation argument.

We're not talking about "religious expression", we're talking taking religion from the private, personal realm and bringing it into the political. I don't care if Stephen Harper, the man, goes to church. I do care if his religious beliefs colour his policy, policy which affects Candians of all religious beliefs. So I guess PMs lose their right to religious expression when they're elected? Bigotry is the expressed belief in the superiority of one's own beliefs over others (it's a term that has it's origins in religious sectarianism). so, bigotry is not holding different beliefs: it's the idea that your beliefs should trump others'. Anyone who believes (for example) that gay marriage is wrong because homosexuality is wrong can rightfully be labelled a bigot. Aren't people naturally going to hold their own religious beliefs above those of others? So as long as I defer to the beliefs of other people before my own I am not a bigot? Is that what you are getting at?

Clinton never ran the country. It was a power struggle between pollsters and his wife. Clinton was interested in plenty of people -- so long as they had a nice round behind, an ample bosom and were willing to screw an old man.

What are you on about? Again, there's no active movement within the gay rights movement to lower the age of consent (except in cases where the law discriminated between different forms of sexual activity). If there are any such examples of mainstream gay groups advocating for the AoC to be lowered, by all means show some. There's mountains of research showing that no such correlation exisits. For example, one study of 175 male adults who had been convicted in Massachusetts of child sexual assault found that none of them were homosexuals; all of them would fit the description of a fixated child molester ( that is: they were sexually attracted only to children and not to other adults). The problem with attempting to draw a correlation is what I call the "plumber" problem: fixing a sink doesn't make one a plumber; in the same vein, a pedophile who molests kids of the same sex is not necessarily homosexual, something right-wing anti-gay folks can't get their heads around. (To digress a moment: I had to chortle at the WorldNut article's "shocking" finding that gay culture is "youth-oriented", as though mainstream heterosexual culture wasn't rife with imagery equating youth and sexual desierability, from Brazillian waxes to Britney Spears.) It sucks to have to defend BD here, but here goes. IT HAS BEEN SAID OVER AND OVER THAT IT IS NAMBLA THAT IS BRINGING HOMOSEXUALITY INTO THEIR DEBATE TO USE THE PREMISE UNDER WHICH IT WAS ALLOWED TO GET THEIR OWN AGENDA LEGALIZED. GAYS ARE NOT INVOLVED EXCEPT THE SCOC RULING THAT ALLOWED GAY MARRIAGE IS BEING TRUMPETED BY NAMBLA TO GET PEDOPHILIA LEGALIZED. IN NO WAY HAVE HOMOSEXUAL GROUPS ENDORSED THIS.

Do you agree or disagree with these ideas? Disagree with both.

Consenting adults. Then why is the age of consent being lobbied by the Gay Group to be lowered? And wasn't Svend Robinson one of the advocates for lowering the age of consent? Wasn't he the one too who advocated the gag law? Here's couple of other things he advocates ... 1983: He is thrown out of the House of Commons after accusing Speaker Jeanne Sauvé of being "in cahoots" with the government. That year, he is also temporarily stripped of his job as justice critic after he tells a Vancouver TV show that he supported the establishment of red-light districts and houses of prostitution. 1999: Alexa McDonough relegates Robinson to the backbenches after he tables a petition calling for the word "God" to be removed from the preamble of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. No word on the CLBC (Candian Liberal Broadcasting Company) website on the gag law though.

Gore keeps on getting more loco. The guy even gives speeches for the radical Moveon.org (of Bush=Hiltler infamy) group. It is scary to think of the downfall of the US (it surely would have happened), if Gore had been able to win his own state in 2000 and win the Presidency. Gore thinks he invented the Internet. Need I say more? He still *maintains* that position today... Gore was loony from minute one. Now that the far left has taken over the party he no longer needs to look moderate and we're seeing more and more of his lunacy coming out.

A "whore" is someone who sells themselves out for money...it is not exclusively an anti-women term, but I don't see men whoring around Montreal's red-light district That's right. That person doesn't have to sell themselves sexually to be a whore. Selling out one's idealogy or integrity is just as bad. The term as used generally refers to selling a large part of one's being out for personal or monetary gain.

Gore keeps on getting more loco. The guy even gives speeches for the radical Moveon.org (of Bush=Hiltler infamy) group. It is scary to think of the downfall of the US (it surely would have happened), if Gore had been able to win his own state in 2000 and win the Presidency. Gore thinks he invented the Internet. Need I say more?

It might work but our politicians would have to change the way they operate. With our winner take all system and history of majority governments, accommodation and deal making in order to govern have not been major part of our system. As a consequence we are not very good at it. They would have to learn some new skills. I think setting aside a certain number of seats for proportional representation would be a good idea, even if it is just a few. That way a party like the Greens which gets a fair amount of support would at least have some voice in Parliament. I could deal with that except that to have it kick in the party should have to win at least one seat. I can deal with giving them a presence, but at some level they have to earn it. The whole idea of proportional representation is that it is based on the percentage of the popular vote, not outright winning a seat. The Greens have received up to 10% of the vote in some elections and but have never won a seat. That is 10% of the voting population that has had no representation in a legislature. Is the level of the entitlement mentality in Canada so high that Candians think that our political parties shouldn't have to win a riding to get a seat in parliament? I think that if there's so few people that support them then their message is so far from the mainstream that they don't deserve a place in the house. I don't think that winning one riding is too much to ask.