bleeding heart

double

That's not some plot to undemine PM Harper; it's to provide context about somebody by referring to their most prominent position. If it were Buzz Hargrove, you don't think they'd mention a little thing like the Auto Union? Of course they would. I think some of y'all have got a victim complex about the Prime Minister, or maybe about conservatives generally.

Sly, very sly....

Too late. "The sun has set," as they say.

!!! Well said, MB.

I think you've misread eyeball's remarks.

I daresay no one has any warning points for such a reason. I understand there have been several objections--especially to suspensions (understandably)...but I don't imagine warning points are given out that promiscuously.

Well, this is American Woman's fervent hope--that Obama will somehow limit free speech, and will allow radical Islamists to "win." That's why she's voting for him. What other reason could there be?

I traditionally get drunk with my wife every Canadian and American Federal election. Sort of to genuflect to old-school democratic practices. So I'll have to take a pass on the chat. But who wants a druken bleeding heart stumbling around an otherwise intelligent discussion, anyway?

Sure...I was responding more generally to the thread topic (which is broadly about freedom of speech). It might have been more clear if I hadn't quoted you directly.

Yeah...maybe more to the point (or maybe just more interesting to me) was the HRC matter. Quite a number of cases rightly deemed controversial, notably the most famous involving Levant and Steyn. I just think that the fact that Steyn is a monumental creep (and its almost objectively demonstrable, unlike most pejoratives) doesn't mean we shouldn't defend his right to expression. (Indeed, it's entirely irrelevant.)

That's your answer to my (implied, but obvious) query about evidence? But ok, I'll bite: perhaps I'm not as naive and innocent as you, to take the news media's self-described, masturbatory, but largely false self-assessment as "combative to Power" seriously. Mostly, they're court stenographers.

OK...so your stance is this: You know I'm unreasonably partisan because of "every post" I have ever written. Simultaneously, you are not partisan, because of your criticisms of Harper. .....And you find it odd that I don't instantly agree with this assessment? Anyway, you can find a ton of examples about my obvious partisanship--to whom, I don't know, as you have so far restrained from clarifying--but it'll be simple..because it's present in every last one of my posts! So show me the partisanship in, oh, say, this one, right here...and then pick a bunch of others at random, and expose my partisanship there, too. A very fair request for a very easy project.

I'm not sure how Canadian/ American, British/French catastrophic treatment of Aboriginals can somehow be seen as a defense of Israel, anyway...unless we are defending our own founding on such terms. Which not too many people are doing, nowadays.

On the contrary: you made a stated assumption that my criticism of Harper is exclusively based on my own partisanship...and I responded precisely in kind. ??? It's your suggestion in the first instance, Wild Bill. Telling indeed.

That's fine...but your non...directional.... name aside, your somewhat conservative sympathies are pretty well-established...so that line of though leads nowhere. Besides, seven years ago, I was a lot less....lefty...than I am now. My views? That the idea of the public education system being "over" and becoming nothing more than a politically "progressive," pc nightmare...is a premature ejaculation, to put it generously.

Yes, but that's beside my point...the point being grotesqueries posing as "moral dilemmas." This is all quite distinct from your assumption that there was a "right" answer.

But since I have three grown children, who attended school until 2006-07, and I was an involved parent...you are summarily dismissing my own views as anecdotal. I don't see a difference.

Of course. "Ill-conceived," as I said, bearing no relation to reality, like the Time journalist defending "killing four-year-olds" over "there," so that four-year-olds aren't killed "here."

I know this is what you think; I'm wondering where you get the idea from..it surely isn't (and logically cannot be) from a single article in MacLeans. I agree it's an inane question; but until you show some evidence that there was a "right answer," it doesn't give us a clear picture of anything besides an ill-conceived "moral dilemma" or thought experiment.

double

But isn't this possibly a wild overstatement? I agree with the author that the examples cited are foolish at best, bad education at worst. But how prevalent is this sort of thing, exactly? Heck, since we're basing the arguments on specific examples...my favourite teacher in elementary school routinely informed us that he "hated the Russians," and drew comparisons between Us and Them in matters of "freedom" in his Social Studies lessons...which certainly bespeaks of personal political agenda. Further, even as an apolitical eleven-year-old, I knew the teacher was performing somewhat out of bounds on the subject...kids are not so easily "brainwashed," I don't think (not even by Evil Progressives). further, even as an apolitical eleven-year-old, I knew he was performing somewhat out of bounds...kids are not so easily "brainwashed" by such things, in my opinion. It's not the right way to approach things in a formal educaitonal setting...and yet it's not a massive problem ("Brainwashing"? ) unless it becomes thoroughly standardized curricula across the board. That has not been shown to be the case, at all. That is, how many professional educators--from teachers to School Boards to University Education Faculty--don't agree with the methodologies under discussion in the article? Seems kind of a gaping hole in the thesis.

And you have evidence of this, no doubt. If "they'll jump at any opportunity" the number of unfair media attacks must be legion. Truly, he's too good for this fallen world.

First of all, your defense of Harper--which is ongoing--is explicitly partisan; so I"m not sure why it's now a pejorative. Second, any Prime Minister who is secretive is insisting that he not be trusted.