Hicksey

22% of Canadians believe that the American government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks so that they could launch a war, this means that they are dumb. Here is where the mind-reading begins again: Layton realizes that most of the people who vote NDP are dumb, and he needs more voters. The media reported that his last speech was mostly anti-Bush, and only dumb people believe that George Bush could be wrong. Layton is so dumb that he has no idea how we can meet the targets of the Kyoto Accord, even though he is going to base his platform on it. He is so dumb that he is against the war in Afghanistan because he thinks it is an American war, and he refuses to support the softwood lumber agreement because he thinks the Americans "on the other side of the table" are evil. Now why didn't you just save all of us some reading time and say "Stupid NDP"? Like any sane person, it he assumed it was a given.

Make no mistake, Harper is solidly conservative. But he is also smart enough to know that applying his brand of conservatism in a country that stands center-left would get his ass booted from Sussex Dr in a heartbeat. The trick for Harper is to balance what he thinks is right with what he can achieve in parliament without alienating the centrists of the country.

There have been dozens of examples of Gerry's ignorance on this board. Why wouldn't you just admit that Gerry's behaviour is indefensible? Frankly, your blithering complaints are more annoying than just about anything I've seen on this board, time to let it go RB. You must agree with him more often than not because I cannot imagine another reason to support him. I can acknowledge when a poster consistently makes good points and coherent arguments. I disagree with them but I can respect their opinion and see how they can believe what they do. I do not see anything but spam and hate from GH. IMO its good to flush out trolls like GH (I don't like the extreme right either) because he adds nothing but hate and innuendo to the debate. Even though I disagree with posters like Black Dog I have respect for him because though he can be arrogant at times, he is intelligent and can argue a point well. He may use sarcasm, but he never resorts to making something out of nothing and never spews the hateful vitriole GH does. If GH doesn't like being called a troll it would be prudent to stop acting like one.

Wow, what a great way to start a conversation. Brand everyone who disagrees with you a dumbass... I'm sure this will be a great discussion. The perfect definition of a troll? Even the Liberals, while I disagree with them on 95% of issues have some methodology to their madness and you can at least understand why they have the policies they do. Jack Layton wants to plunge this country in the depths of true socialism from the place we occupy on the border between capitalism and socialism now. And the funniest thing in the world is that most of the elitists that support him have no clue that they to would lose all the splendor they now enjoy. You think our policies keep the rich rich and the poor poor now? What the hell do you think socialism is going to do to help that? Absolutely nothing, that's what. And the worse part is that the only people sufficiently powerless that the state can take from them to supply the masses will be the middle class. You think we live in a welfare society now? Just wait.

Good guesses, but no. It comes from the Laugh at Liberals Web Blog.

Here is the relevant part. It goes on to warn conservatives to be vigilant and name ways to notice it .... yada ... yada ... yada.

Well I certainly didn't mean to single you out specifically, I was just pulling quotes from this thread. There are a lot of other posters on this forum who love to bash gerryhatrick. Why is it OK to bash him/her but not OK to bash Harper? I never said that. When there is a basis to bash Harper under which there is some kind of reasoning that makes sense to do so, then do it. I dumped on him pretty hard over Fortier and Emerson and it was well deserved. What GH often does is create a tempest over nothing. Posters like Black Dog, while they may bash Harper usually have a coherent argument and one can understand why they feel as they do. I cannot say the same about GH. Almost everything he whines about he has no reason for whining about other then his obsessive hate of Harper.

Apparently there are people on this board who can't live a minute without bashing gerryhatrick either: I have to applaud your mastery of sarcasm. Hypocrisy? Give me a break. Unlike others I do not make a habit of this. If you had researched that before you posted it, you would know that. Some days GH's obsession with making something out of nothing and then on that basis proceed to call Harper things much worse than we have GH here, gets to a person. If GH doesn't like it, then maybe he ought to think twice before he does it. While in this country one is afforded free speech rights, one is not guaranteed not to have to deal with the consequences of what comes out when he exercises that right.

Indeed, polling them on your election issues shortly after you won the election does seem quite stupid. And partisan. Good call. Ok, back to the Liberal days.... It's interesting. When faced with any subject about CPC wrongdoing all their supporters can do is harken back to the Liberals. Quite funny, actually. Gerry, I was all over it when the CPC appointed Fortier and when Emerson crossed the aisle and was named to Harper's cabinet because they HAD done something wrong. Here, they have not. You might have a point here if Harper had come anywhere close to a majority, but he did not. And considering the simmering fire still in peoples' minds about Adscam (one I'll readily admit that the CPC, NDP and BQ fanned fervently during the entire election cycle) Harper had to know moving forward if his policies really had support. For all we knew he got elected mostly because of the anger over Adscam. To effectively govern moving forward and have any chance of being re-elected he needed to know exactly how popular -- or unpopular -- his five priorities were. You're creating a scandal where there isn't one.

This is true as well. Often you should vote for 'none of the above' for none of them are worthy of the position. If less than half the voting population votes (due to lets say no one is good choice) then we should tell those guys to get lost and start over. Get better people in power. But that can get dragged on and our government can come to a screaching halt. Encourage people to vote, and encourage people to get educated. It starts with you. I did not vote in the last election for I was working and simply forgot. I feel like a heel for that. I would have voted NDP, but in retrospect now, I might have voted Green. Libs/Cons are just not an option for me I wish we could choose who leads our party as they do in the states. That would be a good start.

GH is an excellent poster, and a real treasure of this board. I have to applaud your mastery of sarcasm.

The first post listed is not gerryhatrick's. The way I compiled this was, in my Yahoo inbox (from which I eliminate duplicates from a thread systematically), taking the thread opener of any thread substantially about Harper. There was no effort to single GH out, nor did I desire that result. My mistake. But looking at the name its not hard to see how one would make that assumption. GH = no one important ...

Because of what they stand for, I can't cast a vote for the Liberals or NDP. And if the CPC doesn't impress me I obstain rather than cast a vote for people that don't deserve it.

This is a listing of GH's posts. There are more than just him around here that cannot live a minute without spewing garbage about Harper.

What about those who obstain because they see nobody worthy of their vote? Freedom of choice includes the right not to choose. Often we say as much by saying nothing as other do when they open their mouths.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics...2da&k=41892 Focus groups (see "Harper hires polling firm to guide his path on environment" topic) revealed, and now expensive polling PAID FOR BY CANADIANS performed shortly after the election to find out if his five priorities are popular or not? Harper didn't take long to lose his way on the whole accountability and corruption thing. WHY ARE WE PAYING FOR WHAT IS CLEARLY PARTISAN POLLING??? This is just funny ... politicians are partisans by trade. Everything they do is clearly affected by their partisanship. Without fail, their first priority is re-election. It stands to reason that finding out how high support for their campaign principles really was would help guide them. Considering that support was at 70% it did tell them that support for their main promises ran almost DOUBLE what the election results showed. You people hate Harper so bad you will make something out of nothing just to get out the Harper=Scary message. If I didn't think better of it, I'd think you were a grass-roots Liberal.

I've been consistent and reasonable the whole way. Both the Liberals and the CPC have much to disclose. In fact I think it could be politically expedient for Harper to disclose first and then further chastise the Liberals for not releasing the names of the MPs who took the pilfered Adscam money as donations. But the major difference between the two is that you have no clue about whether -- or even if -- the Harper did anything wrong. Yours is a fishing expedition whereas we have a good reason to lambaste the Liberals.

Exactly.If there is to be a debate, then let's debate what we could do more or better. Anybody with a passing understanding of what's involved does not question the existence of this mission. I'm surprised at the niggling defeatism. This is not an impossible task. It might take time but that's fine. The message to our soldiers should be this: you know Canada. Some Canadians carp, moan and groan. Ignore them. The problem is that the public has been reprogrammed to view soldiers as people from their local social services office armed, dressed up in fatigues and sent to counsel people around the world and sign a welfare check for every one.

I haven't deflected anything. All I noted was that those demanding the disclosure have a horrible record of disclosure themselves. I also noted that I want both to fully disclose. Though the CPC should be forced to disclose, the last people in the world that should be giving that lecture is the Liberals. The Liberals should be forced to disclose too. There shouldn't be a choice in the matter. Get a court order and jail them all for contempt until they comply. It's not like they do anything other than adolescent bickering while in session anyway.

Amazing. From reasonable to jackass in two posts. Well done. The NDP referring to our soldiers as terrorists is reasonable? Sometimes one has to fight fire with fire. And in this fight, you're either with us or against us. If you call our soldiers terrorists, then you are against us. They might as well be out there with the Taliban shooting at our troops for all the good they have done. The NDP says they support our troops. I say that's BS because their actions (trying to undermine their mission at every turn) have spoken louder than those words. With friends like that who needs enemies? It's about time the NDP got the ridiculous notion that soldiers are social workers with guns out of their heads.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...PStory/National Don't hold yer breath. Naming their donors would be death for Harper no doubt. Can you say USA? Let's make a trade. Harper will release his donors at the same time the Liberals release the names of the people who accepted the pilfered public funds into their election campaigns. If the Liberals refuse to release, IMO they have no standing to request any more of the CPC. That doesn't mean that I don't think that they both should disclose, just that those request the disclosure have some disclosing of their own to do.

Making drugs legal will do nothing to stop the crimes committed by addicts to get money for their addiction. That's what I think. I am sure any benefits from not having to prosecute offenders would be far outwieghed by the cost of prosecuting the crimes the addicts commit to feed their habit.

Can you even begin to understand the consequences of doing that? You think we have problems rehabilitating people now -- just wait. There are reasons we disallow things. If the costs to society outweigh the benefits, then it should disallowed. The costs of allowing drug use far outweigh the benefits.

No, of course not ... yet, being born to better off parent gives you substantial advantages. Funny, that. In any event, I wasn't thinking of financially at that point, I was thinking in terms of quality of upbringing, attention, love, etc. Some people are good parents, some people are not and what sort you get is completely out of your hands. Why is it that people are always looking for others to bear the blame for what they haven't made of their lives? Why not just buck up and do something about it? There does come a time where you are your own man and that no longer becomes a valid excuse. Sometimes fate or luck is to blame for a circumstance. In those cases there is no sense pretending otherwise. Like I said earlier, if you plan and make smart decisions you can all but take luck out of the equation. I can list a plethora of examples in life that an analogy can be made to, but that has already been done. The problem here is that people do not want to take responsibility for their actions. Every time I make a what I see as a mistake in life I look back to see how it happened. When I do, I always find a place where I could have done something different or got lazy. It is truly amazing you can learn by taking an honest look within. I find it much more rewarding to admit when I have made a mistake in judgement because there is so much to learn from it. IMO, I have made strides in the last 10 years. I do not always make the right judgement call even today, but I am getting much better than I was even 5 years ago. People seem to look everywhere but within to assign responsbility for their lives. The more I learn, the more I make of my life. I am not where I want to be, but it is manageable now. There are a lot of things in life I could use as excuses to mitigate where I am not today. And I have learned that every time I used those as excuses and did what I wanted instead of what was the right thing to do it got me in trouble. In my experience it is best to forgive and forget what has sidetracked you and do whatever it takes to stay on track. I am not saying in the least that it is an easy thing to do. There are days I wonder why I get up in the morning because the journey to dig myself out from underneath the problems I have created for myself has taken so long to traverse and has been even harder than I imagined it to be. But, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. If I can do it -- anyone can. I am not highly educated -- I have an OSSD and a year of college. I have been on EI twice, welfare three times and been sent to retraining in the last 10 years. The culture of entitlement cultivated in society today takes away the resolve it takes to perservere. We need to recreate that perserverence in people.

I don't think they are that principled What I meant is that they are so fixated on being anti-war that it would blind them and make it impossible to realize whether or not they are in danger. They cannot see the forest through the trees.