YankAbroad

To an extent. However, if Harper supports gag laws which silence criticism of religions or races, but not sexual orientation, than he's demonstrating breathtaking hypocrisy. Not unusual for a politician, but still. . . the argument does lose a lot of weight if he's not campaigning to overturn the law which C250 amended.

Beat 'em senseless, that's what I say!

We can have the government do a study on it and issue each person with a "Fuckability Card." Of course, we will have to tax sex in order to have this happen, but think of the good this will do! Sex is a luxury anyway, and with our sex tax we can fund all sorts of new cultural programming on the CBC. Sorta taxing sex to fund mental masturbation!

The problem is that you're demanding we replace a system which hasn't failed us utterly with some utopian ideal which we already know doesn't work. I know that profit motive will reward innovation AND drive forward with solutions you and I haven't even thought possible today. I don't know if some magical centralized renewal economy can happen. I do know that no centralized economy has ever even slightly succeeded in its aims. They said the same thing about housing in the early 1900s. They said the same thing about rail fares in the late 1800s. I have no doubt that we will have a stable, growing, affordable, reliable and plentiful source of energy for all of us to use for as long as you and I are alive. In fact, I am willing to bet our great grandchildren even will. Why? Because the market is already accounting for all the externalities you're talking about, and rising energy costs are forcing new innovations to occur in R&D. Eventually those sources of energy will become available, be mass deployed, prices will come down, and voila -- cheap energy. Not to mention the big strides being made in energy efficient vehicles, computers, office equipment, appliances, etc.

Four words: Right to self defence. Most of those protestors cross the line which constitutes assault. I would hope doctors would receive support from the police (and court if necessary) in defending themselves and their property from assault and trespass. I'm more concerned these days with laws which would transform pharmacies from government-regulated monopoly providers of drugs into government-sanctioned monopolies which spread political or religious ideology instead of medication -- doing things like denying people the morning-after contraception pill, or HIV treatment drugs to gay men with HIV, based on "religious freedom" grounds. Pharmacies are so heavily regulated (and rare due to those regulations) that such a situation could become a nightmare for day-to-day meds.

Except that Ted Kennedy is an elected Senator who has a constitutional responsibility to provide or withhold consent based on his best judgment. Not only does he "deserve" a response, but he is entitled to one and damn-sight sure better get one from the nominee. You're not doing any favors to anybody by muddying the waters with boring (not to mention hypocritical) rants about how "degenerate" Kennedy is. He's not in the chair seeking a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court of the USA and you'll have plenty of opportunities to take your grievances to voters in the next MA Senate election -- something that none of us will have after Alito is confirmed and turns out to be a dreadful and unethical jurist (as seems virtually certain). You also are setting precedent for later on, when a Senate Majority leader Ted Kennedy can set ground rules to ensure that President Hillary Clinton's nomination of Janet Reno to Chief Justice can be rushed through with similar rhetoric against Republican Senators who express concerns as part of THEIR job in the Senate.

I have a hard time stomaching any of the judges that any of the parties have nominated the last 20 years or so. The closest I came to liking a judge was with Rogers, and he's just tolerable, not exciting. JRB, Scalia, Thomas, Bork and some of the other nominees from the GOP are just God-awful. Really dreadful.

Ideally, the two countries should be working out a deal over the area. If Ottawa shares some of the wealth, it could get to command the US navy in the area by proxy. That would give it significant leverage over Denmark and Russia that it lacks today in terms of its military power. It could also allow Ottawa greater leverage over the area than it would have if it got everything it wanted today -- not even the Russians will argue with three or four US carriers and a fleet of nukie subs.

I guess it comes down to having what I call "the adult society." Much of the 20th century in the west has been an effort to infantalise us as individuals. We don't take care of ourselves, we have big mommy and daddy government to take care of us. We don't think for ourselves, we are told what to think. We don't spend our own money, it's taxed from us and spent for us because we're not smart enough to spend it ourselves. We cannot say what we think and weather the consequences, we have to have our speech regulated. We cannot debate points or face the fact that some people are just plain mean and nasty, we need to be protected from hearing bad things. And so on. I don't like that. I prefer a simple, direct approach where I am in control of how I react, where I go, what I do, how I spend, etc. But I think that's a radical minority position these days. Most people don't want to be free, they want to be comfortable.

The most annoying people in public are parents who allow their young children to dominate them physically and verbally, and who are reduced to "negotiating" (or even begging) with them over their behaviour. If I told my parents "no" or ignored a command to stop doing something which was disruptive, destructive or rude, I'd be whacked upside the head. And I turned out fine.

I don't even favour banning racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual slurs. If some asswipe wants to call me a faggot, that's a good thing. I'd rather he call me that to my face than act polite due to his fear of being sanctioned by the law and undermining me behind my back. I like to know where I stand up front.

If you want to "protect our young boys," and making the age of consent for same-sex relations the same as opposite sex relations doesn't do so, doesn't that say that the age of consent for heterosexual relations is too low and should be increased? Or are you trying to argue that homosexuals are uniquely inclined to victimise children? Actually, it's a rather well-documented phenomenon. The mailing addresses for NAMBLA for several years were at a mailbox which the FBI also used for informants. And the publicly published "membership list" of the organization was filled with the names of political enemies of J. Edgar Hoover as well as prominent members of the opposition at the time of the publication. Most of the members of the opposition who were named clearly had no involvement whatsoever. The ACLU is not defending rapists or the views of the group in question. They are defending its right to advocate points of view which some find distasteful. I happen to find your rather nasty view of gays as pedophile predators to be disgusting, bigoted, contemptible, harmful to gays (especially young gays) and without moral basis or social value. However, I will also defend to the death your freedom to be disgusting, bigoted, contemptible, harmful in speech, immoral and taking positions lacking in social value -- since those basic freedoms preserve our marketplace of ideas which moves society forward.

Trust me -- taxes here are now so bad that after a stint on the crumbling, overpriced Underground with its militant unions striking for 31 hour weeks at £30,000 a year salaries; a delightful local tax bill of £1,200 going up 40% to pay for an Olympic boondoggle which was never put to a popular vote; gas at £1 a litre (over CDN$2!); and a bevy of new civil-rights-busting legislation including an effort to impose a compulsory ID card, you'll be longing for a bit of Quiet Revolution and saying "come back Monsieur Bouchard, all is forgiven!"

Part of it is just simple self-interest. A similar law in Britain stopped by the House of Lords would have made it illegal to criticise religious groups. So a Muslim cleric could stand up and say "Allah declares that all homosexuals are disgusting, diseased and worthy of death" and he'd be OK -- but if you said "that's superstitious bullshit," you could end up in prison for "religious hatred." Besides, I'm rather sure that I'm right. I don't need the government to force people to agree with me (or at least not disagree) -- I'm willing to accept that some people just never will agree with me, and that reasonable people will give me and my ideas a fair shake. If they don't, that's fine too -- there's someone out there who will want to profit from an affiliation with me and my ideas, I'll find that person sooner or later. I think such a view is highly empowering -- I wish more people in Western society had it. We spend so much of our time convinced that we're "trapped" and giving away our most important civil rights for meaningless "rights" like the "right not to be offended," and "the right to feel secure." The second one, in particular, I view simply as the right to deceive oneself!

Now, if only Labour would reduce it's love of government regulating away every societal ill (including "bad" points of view) and focus on constraining taxes and government spending. . . my wallet hurts every time they send taxes up, and real income after taxes and fees has been declining the last two years for Britons as a result.

I'm a gay man and I don't support that bill, if the Wikipedia article is accurate (something which is often in doubt with me when it comes to Wiki in general). Of course, I also don't support the bill it's amending. I oppose all "hate speech" laws or other laws which abridge the freedom to communicate any point of view, no matter how unpopular it may be.

Also, don't forget that every year that 300,000 people are either born in or emigrate to Canada, 200,000 people go south of the border FROM Canada. That's one of the major trends leading to the expected sharp decline in Canada's population over the next 45 years, unless the government can convince more people to stay AND more people to have kids AND more people to move to Canada from elsewhere. Point 1 is hard to do. . . the government should focus on convincing people to come back to Canada after time abroad as a starter -- give them a reason to return. Point 2 is even harder. . . the government should definitely repeal policies and taxes which punish people who decide to adopt or give birth. Point 3 is super-easy -- Canada should scrap the existing points system and bureaucracy and get with the program. Canada could easily attract a million new citizens from the USA who seek a slower pace of life and more equality under the law (particularly gays) and even more from the EU who seek greater economic and personal liberties and lower taxes. Ottawa just has to get its butt in gear.

You do understand the cognitive dissonance which the Canadian election has thrown into the left fringe and mainstream left alike in America, right? They were convinced that Canada was a permanent enlightened, harmonious left-wing paradise where all the citizens had voted in a permanent benevolent Liberal Party majority, banished homophobia, and made crime obsolete. Not quite the reality, but it was a nice romantic fantasy which helped dispel the idea that they actually had to do some thinking about where they were and where they were going in the domestic political scene. After all, Xanadu waited across the border, and as long as it was there, it meant that the same thing could happen south of the border as well, once the populace gained sufficient enlightenment. That Canadians would choose to dispel this uniquely American myth of Canada comes as a severe shock to their systems. It doesn't help that Paul Martin's effort to run against Bush (rather than for some policy area) failed as miserably in Canada as it did in the USA when Kerry tried the same tactic. This is a nasty repudiation of the failed Democratic Leadership Council strategy which has cost the Dems a lot over the past 10 years or so. Then again, I suspect that some Canadian Conservatives will get a similar nasty shock to their equally idealized view of the United States over the next few years, especially now that they're in government. They'll find a USA which is quite a bit more bureaucratic, stilted, socialist and backwards-thinking than they probably expected. Perhaps we can look forward to a Stockwell Day speech slamming the Bush administration's big-spending, government-swelling, long-term-tax-increasing ways in a few years time!

When I lived there, TO always reminded me more of a smaller, cleaner Chicago than New York. Well, except for it's resolute conviction that it was the only place in the country with any importance whatsoever, a definite similarity with residents of Manhattan (but not the rest of New York City).

They're not just anti-American, tml. They're anti-liberty. The Cuban communists and their "socialist" compadres in Venezuela are making a mess of the civil liberties and quality of life of their countries. They're also, in the case of Chavez, spiriting away hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil wealth to spurious projects and making access to government services dependent upon voting for their party. Both are rather odious trends for socialists who claim to support "democracy" and "equality of wealth distribution" to be getting behind. The free market has a lot of problems. It's the worst system -- except for all the others. Free markets produce reliable outcomes -- a prosperous and growing middle class and increased quality of life for every citizen willing to make an honest go of things. Castro-style communism has done neither and never will. This enrages acolytes of that philosophy, who desperately want to be different from the "gringos" in North America and Europe.

Oh, I cannot forget the English guy who insisted that Canada is "more European" than the United States. He was an expert on both countries -- he had spent a few days in Montreal and a few days in Orlando and thus was highly qualified to expound at great length about both countries. He got a bit stuck when I asked him to choose the "more European" of the two in a few of the following pairs: 1) Boston or Calgary; 2) Vancouver or Hartford; 3) Toronto or New York City; 4) Iqaluit or Millinocket; 5) San Francisco or Scarborough.

TML, you should have seen my Canadian NDPer friend's face fall when her visions of a Europe who would embrace her Canadianness fell to a tough and frozen earth. I took her out pubbing in London and she encountered either apathy towards her Canadianness or worse, a bit of condescension towards the "colonial." She was crestfallen. But it was nothing compared to the time we spent in Milan drinking, when some Italians informed her that "Canada is nothing more than a vassal of the United States." She was very indignant and pushed on World Wars I and II (they insisted Canada's army was insignificant) and they ended by insisting that Canada is "enslaving its French population under a British tyranny." She later said, with some shock in her voice, "I think they hate Canadians as much as Americans here." Not quite, but she learned the first lesson of Europe -- everyone not from your country is evil, everyone not from your part of your country is stupid, and everyone not from your village/town/city is corrupt.

Because you're the one claiming that NAMBLA maintained a central role in the gay rights movement. If you cannot even name one or two primary groups in the gay rights movement, you're in no position to make such a ludicrous and inflammatory contention. Actually, no it's not. There is no "agenda" universally shared by a "Gay Rights Movement." Anyone with any involvement in gay political circles can easily confirm this basic fact. There are certain gay political groups which have significant influence or represent large blocs of a certain point of view within the gay community -- but on virtually every issue you can think of, there's disagreement within the community itself. To argue it's monolithic is naive (and bordering on imbecilic). And we all know how influenced by gay and western political culture the Sri Lankans are. I suggest you reboot and recompute.

Except that the decision to lower the age in Sri Lanka has nothing to go with gay rights organizations, so your argument is, as usual, spurious. According to your right-wing anti-gay web site, yes. Of course, as a highly active former board member of a major US gay rights group with a multi-million-dollar budget, I've never heard of the "Lesbian and Gay Association." Further, the law in Lithuania did not lower the age of consent -- it equalized the same-sex age of consent with the opposite-sex age of consent. It's funny how the only example of an actual age of consent being LOWERED (rather than equalizing gay intercourse at the same age as heterosexual intercourse) is in a country where gay rights have no influence whatsoever. It would suggest that, if anything, societies without strong gay rights movements are more likely to lower the age of consent across the board -- rather opposite from the position of "concern" which you are taking.

That's quite incorrect -- dangerously so. Vaginal intercourse can transmit HIV as effectively as anal intercourse -- in fact, moreso if it's the female partner in a heterosexual relationship who is HIV+ and having unprotected penile-vaginal sex with a male. 1: Anal sex between two men is no more riskier than anal sex between a man and a woman; 2: Penile-vaginal sex between a man and a woman is no less risky as an HIV transmission medium than anal sex between two men and a man or woman. If you have any doubt of this, see the soaring rates of HIV infection in heterosexual communities in the west. Heterosexual men and women are now by far the fastest growing segment of people becoming HIV positive, whereas the infection rate in the gay community has been in decline for the past five years. One major driver for this alarming trend in heterosexual communities is the bizarre notion that one cannot contract HIV from heterosexual intercourse. It's literally killing people -- including teens.