greyman

The unfettered market hasn't existed. If you're referring to the Great Depression, by most accounts the catalyst was the crash in 1929, and the ensuing Depression was a result of government action - not the opposite.

Your blanket statement about unfettered capitalism fails to take into account two realities. 1. There is no such thing as unfettered capitalism in the world today - in the third world, or otherwise. 2. You're only looking at one side of exchange in the third world, i.e. what the alternative for those 15-hour-a-day workers might be were those jobs not available.

Don't discount the power of even mere talk in political forums. Hearts and minds are won piece-meal through attrition. It's not a switch you can just turn on in the masses. Changed minds begin with discussion...and the more of that the better.

Democratic government is a euphemism for mob control. The "new elite" got there by buying favour from the political class, and they became more elite under the guise of government growth built around the idea of caring for the weak, and the poor. The market is absolutely a wealth generator, and that's all we need it to be. Corruption? Destruction of wealth? These are the unintended consequences of government's interference in the market.

Democracy is mob rule. You cannot legislate fairness, all you do is create new unintended consequences. The rich have always had excessive influence over the political process, and the only way you combat that is to shrink government drastically, and take government out of the economy entirely - then you minimize the advantage of wealth.

War is a last resort, and always should be. The political realities at the time meant we essentially had been attacked by Nazi Germany, so it made sense to war with them. In Afghanistan, we went because of our treaty obligations, an alliance I don't believe Canada should belong to, nor should we have gone to Afghanistan in the first place. The U.S. went into Afghanistan looking for revenge, and that is not justification for war. The whole thing about "training camps" etc, sounded like propaganda to me. It would be different if the Afghan government had waged war on the US, and attacked the US homeland, i.e. hijacked the planes that hit the WTC. But as far as the public was told, that is not what happened. As far as we know, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were predominantly Saudi. And apparently the planners of the attacks were in Afghanistan. The point is, the facts surrounding the entire affair remain unclear to this day, and muddied waters are hardly good justification for engaging in all-out war.

We have enough police officers, we just have them engaged in too many unnecessary places. The War on Drugs is a great example. Time to end that ridiculous fight. You cannot legislate morality, and it's time to treat drug addiction as a health issue. The same can be said of prostitution, we are spending tons of money on drug related crime, and prostitution - a total waste of money. And no, allowing all Canadians the same access to firearms as the criminals currently enjoy would not bring a spike in firearm related crime. A law abiding citizen without a record is not going to turn into a homicidal maniac once he/she is able to have a gun in the house. People won't become bank robbers because there's no gun registry, and likewise we wouldn't need an increase in police presence. To the contrary, the people who would commit those acts with firearms already do commit those acts with firearms they acquired outside of the current registry system. It makes sense to allow the rest of us to protect ourselves in the face of that reality.

The absolute last thing we the taxpayers need is yet another federal agency. The government is too large as it is. It's not dangerous to call for wholesale abolition, it is what needs to happen to fix the problem, heal the people, and make things better. Sure, yes, if you cut off funding cold turkey there would be a lot of pain. I think a short-term phasing out of funding is fine, but you won't be able to do it without those currently dependent suffering in some way or another. The best we can do is get out of the way, and let the market correct the imbalances caused by decades of federal intervention. It would sting for a short while, but people would grow, adapt, and we'd all be much better off in the long run. The alternative is to throw money away year after year...and to what end? The best way to combat corruption is to completely remove the apparatus that allowed that corruption to happen in the first place. The quicker we do this, the better...gotta rip that band-aid off...1-2-3.

First, I'm not a libertarian. Second, the Industrial Revolution occurred during a time of the greatest wealth creation in history. Third, only the market can properly allocate capital, and determine true supply and demand. And last, your idea of the robber-baron tycoon can only exist in an economy rife with government intervention. Even though the Industrial Revolution was a much wealthier time, it was still not an unfettered market. Government intervention was nowhere near what it is today, but the tycoons of yesteryear did not become such by the invisible hand, but rather through the politics of favours and advantage.

My "solution to combating a wealth of weapons in the underworld"? Not one piece of legislation will ever effectively combat that. So, what are we to do? Make it harder for law abiding people to protect themselves from those who will get guns no matter what? Criminals don't register their guns, and thus they get them easily. Allowing all citizens to acquire guns free of registering them evens the playing field, decreases our dependence on government, and thus saves the taxpayers lots of money.

The US making war with Iran would be a huge mistake, and I'm not convinced there is much public support in either country for it. I think a lot of Americans are war-fatigued, and a lot of Iranians are more aligned with the west than the Rick Santorums of the world would be willing to admit. War with Iran's loudest drum-beaters wear suits and work at Lockheed-Martin.

It's thinking like that that begets the slippery slope. "Sure, they hurt me...but only a little bit...so, I'll give in." "Ok, I'm hurting now, but this other party will only hurt me a little bit more, so I'll vote for them." Continue along this path, and pretty soon you wind up hurting a LOT. Also, Canadians need to quantify what they consider to be "help" from their elected leaders. My idea of "help" is to do nothing, and let the market determine outcomes free of intervention by the "I-know-better"s that dominate Ottawa.

If you really believe supply and demand are factors in the current economy I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.

Father knows best is the opposite of what I promote. I'm saying end the reserve system entirely. No more payments. It's 2012, not 1812. Canadians are Canadians. No money should be given to anyone based on their ethnicity. We have given the First Nations tens of billions of dollars, and for what? We don't have to compensate anyone for taking their land. Those who had their land "taken" were alive over a century ago. Those people are long gone. We are now generations past that, time to evolve. Following your logic everyone on the globe should be receiving checks from some ethnicity or another for land confiscation. We're still following treaties from the 18th, and 19th centuries. Heck, why not go back and compensate all who had their land taken by the Romans, or the Ottomans, or the Persians, etc etc etc. Humans have evolved, explored, migrated. Yes, it is unfortunate what happened all those years ago, but don't let emotion cloud the issue. Writing cheques to assuage guilt for past transgressions is a one-way ticket to bankrupting everyone else who lives in the here and now. You can call the First Nations a "forgotten third party" all you like, but they've been "forgotten" to the tune of -X- Billion dollars, and the state of affairs on the reserves is shameful. No, they are not forgotten, they are being pandered to by people who think they know better than those who live in this squalor. The more the central planners continue to throw their guilt money at this issue from afar, the worse this problem will become. It will get to the point where the people on reserves will resort to breeding purely for the increase in federal funds paid per child. Oh wait, we're already there.

The only reason any nation sells anything to the U.S. at a "deep discount" is because they carry a big stick. Fortunately for us, their big stick will require an increasing amount of our oil to operate, and the discounts may become shallower over time.

There isn't one decent political party in this country that I can find. I hope that changes someday. How hard is it to start one, and attract members/candidates? I suspect very...

While I would much rather put the ky-bosh on any and all oil pipelines than any currently proposed, I also recognize we are nowhere near able to get off oil. Understand that, how exactly would you want our oil procured, and likewise, distributed throughout the country? In short, we need the oil, all of us...so again, it has to come from somewhere. Consider the alternative...it ain't pretty.

The government wastes money by doling it out to the bands. The aboriginal people are not "lazy free-loaders", they are human beings whose coping skills have evaporated into a state of complete, and utter dependence because well-intentioned policies meant to "help" have had the inevitable unintended consequences of doing just the opposite. If the government really wanted to help, the people within it would crack a book and understand that economic growth does not come from robbing Peter to pay Paul. The state of the aboriginal people in this country is not a source of pride, and its a shame what we the taxpayers have allowed these people to be reduced to, all in the name of some sick game of "father knows best".

Abolishing the gun registry should've happened yesterday. Police organizations are extensions of government, and the last thing any government wants is an armed citizenry. No surprise they'd support legislation that makes it hard for law abiding citizens to procure weapons, yet does nothing to slow the flow of guns in the criminal underworld.

You cannot legislate morality. You can however, punish those who perpetrate violence or fraud against others or their property. Anything beyond that is an obfuscation. We don't need a Canadian version of the melting pot, people should be left to be who they are, up to or until they prevent any other Canadian from enjoying that same privilege.

cybercoma, we may not agree on all the issues, but you are spot on here.

Good post, Manny. IMO, we already inhabit a savage psyche. If our country were not savage, surely we would have had more of an outcry against a Canadian presence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, or membership in NATO, or our support of extraordinary rendition, and torture in general. The fact that most Canadians allow these things to take place on their alleged watch is evidence to our savagery.

msj, Good post.

Thank you for the welcome. Good to be here. However, to be clear, I am not aboriginal, but I do live on a remote northern reserve working for a private contractor. This is the second reserve I've lived on in western Canada. I've been on this one for two years, and change. Now, forgive me for saying so, but I disagree with your reply. The experiment of allowing aboriginals to "regulate themselves" is the mess we're dealing with now. I understand that to the general public reserve monies supposedly are given to bands with oversight, but that is not my reality. The band receives a LOT of taxpayer money, and I am telling you, it comes by the boatload, and oversight is minimal. If we had true oversight, the proof would be in the pudding, but I can point to hand-over-fist waste in nearly every corner of this place. Whether it be the money supposedly allocated for school lunches that went up in smoke paying public "works" to "clear land", or federal funds meant to purchase fire-fighting equipment and personnel, when meanwhile there's one antiquated pumper truck, and ONE volunteer firefighter who is usually found conspicuously absent when the walking-zombie drunks that come out of the wood work on a nightly basis set fire to cars, houses, or the forest. The band recently just spent over $30 million on a new school. It opened in September, its been closed twice since then for gas leaks due to shoddy workmanship, and the gym roof has already sprung a sizable leak. Not to mention, the $300,000 plus they spent on two glass towers at the front of the building that were put there for "aesthetics". Aesthetics, in a place where just a functioning - and intact - building would do. Aesthetics in a place where every standing structure has been used and abused. Just last week we received word 17 new mobile homes are being brought in to replace the other "new" homes that had been torched, or otherwise destroyed. Where does the bleeding stop? And you mention having comparable health care to the rest of Canada. I don't know where you live, but I came from Toronto where I was one of the lucky few there that had my own doctor and still had to wait 45 minutes at minimum to see him. Here you get seen after maybe a 20 minute wait, and oh yeah, you pay ZERO dollars for prescription medication...even if you have no health card, or coverage to speak of...just go in, get treated, and if they feel meds are required...here ya go. It was great for my wife who had strep last year, but it is an example where people who do not live in these areas really don't know about the amount of waste, and lack of accountability that actually happens here. And give $5000 instead $5? Really? You mean on top of the welfare everyone here receives for doing nothing but getting wasted 24/7? That $5000 will buy a lot of booze, or a new video game system, or flat screen TV that will end up at the dump a month later. That $5000 will go to junk food, i.e. the only kind of food anyone eats here. That $5000 will go to new phone or satellite TV hook-ups that then get cut off after months of bills go unpaid. Or maybe that $5000 can go to post-secondary schooling, except there is that problem of only a handful of people graduating high school each year, and also the fact that anyone here can go to any university in Canada they choose...for free. Oh, and also one vacation a year down south, free. Oh, and can go anywhere in Canada for "medical leave", all expenses paid by "the band"...a.k.a. you and me. All of this, plus the rampant animal cruelty, the child reckless endangerment, the drunk drivers everywhere. Yes, the reserve system only needs "tweaking" right? Give me a break.

Such a need to over-complicate. Your sentiments are where needless bureaucracies are born. This isn't complex. "recognize the problem": murder(ers) "those who are threatened": victim(s) "provide help to those who need it": law enforcement, courts, therapists "will not tolerate the mindset": nearly everyone condemns murder, full stop Again, we already have the apparatus in place to deal with murder, and those who commit it, likewise the means for victims' families to get help. Forcing it into being a political issue plays into the hands of those who do it.