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Utterly, laughably incorrect. Please, read some history before you spout this complete and total horsecrap. It would be funny if you weren't metaphorically dancing on the graves of so many millions. Lenin instituted a brutal, repressive regime from the word 'go.' He created the Cheka, or Soviet political police, to repress people with opposing viewpoints immediately he got into power. When he came to power, the majority of Russians did not support the Bolsheviks so he immediately clamped down on political opposition. Prof. R. J. Rummel, author of many books on state-sanctioned killing, believes Lenin was responsible for over 4 million murders. In 1901, Lenin wrote, "We have never rejected terror in principle, nor can we do so." He certainly didn't. Lenin also created 315 slave labour camps, where political undesirables and those of certain class origins, such as the bourgeoisie, were sent to work in unspeakable conditions until they died an unnaturally early death. Lenin directly ordered the Cheka to institute the Bread War, a war waged against the peasantry as a class. Entire villages were massacred. Because the Cheka had become so universally hated after these widespread atrocities, Lenin was forced to abolish it in 1922. It was immediately replaced by the same organisation with a different name: the GRU. The statement you made above can be taken as true if you measure that "deterioration" in minutes. You will never get all the people in a country to agree on one ideal. You can't even get all the people in a town to agree on one ideal. The sheer number of people who fled the Soviet Union should have clued you in to that. No, it is not. If that is your definition of freedom, it falls apart, because each person's liberty would quickly strip another of his liberty. If you tell your boss to shove it and are not held responsible, i.e. you want to be paid anyway, somebody will have to pay you. Whomever is forced to pay you loses their freedom, because then they are being denied the freedom to dispose of their own property as they see fit. Do you see? If I decide to shoot my veins full of heroin, will society prevent extreme consequences? A slow and painful death is an extreme consequence. How about if I rape and murder twenty women? Jail for life is a pretty extreme consequence. How about if I jump off a bridge? Stick needles in my eyes? What's society going to do for me? That's yet another non sequitur, right there. You have assumed that undiverse ownership of the press must mean that the press is highly controlled. You cannot assume that, you must prove that.

Absolutely. Whomever is the primary caregiver. That would be he or she who has the charge of caring for a child, be it a biological parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, adoptive parent, foster parent or any other alternative. The idea should be that the child is receiving the benefit, not the adult, but that the caregiver will take the benefit in trust because the child is of diminished responsibility. Therefore, the child carries the benefit. Adopt the child, receive the benefit. It seems only fair.

A deficit is not an accumulated national debt. A national debt is a national debt. Oh, for Pete's sake. A trade deficit IS an inflow of capital. Yes, you did. You claimed I said something I never did and then attacked it. That's a fallacy. Then you made another fallacy when you claimed that since recessions follow Republicans that means Republicans cause recessions. I'll illustrate in case you still don't get it. John drank a cup of coffee. Later that day he had a heart attack. Therefore, coffee drinking causes heart attacks. That's another example of the fallacy you committed. Is that clearer now?

Because the right of a human to live supercedes the rights of another human, except the right of that other human to live. Strawman argument. If you can tell me a situation where that would be the case I'll debate it. Otherwise you might as well ask me, "what if the sun didn't rise tomorrow?" The allegation you made was that the unborn are not human. I don't find the opinions on the question of whether or not the unborn are human from experts who have made their careers studying the unborn "irrelevant" to the question of whether or not the unborn are human. That's not even true. You made a statement and invited me to attack it. Now you are refusing to clarify that statement when it is attacked. Not in the slightest. You asked me in (2) to follow through my statement from (1), which I did. I established in (1) that, according to all scientific evidence and consensus, the unborn are human. Then I stated in (2) that all humans should be granted the right to live, and as the unborn are human, as I established in (1), that would necessarily include them.

I am attempting to prove that that decision is based upon erroneous assumptions, as the political/legal decisions to regard blacks, women and Jews as unequal and subhuman were also based upon erroneous assumptions. If the unborn are human, it follows that half of abortions were human females. Therefore, around 55,000 Canadian women are being put to death each year without consent. How does this square with a notion that women shall be free and equal? The right to life supersedes all other rights, because without it, all other rights are meaningless, and because without life there is no individual who may have other rights. If the unborn is alive and human, it follows that its right to live supersedes anybody else's rights saving that the right of the fetus to live should impinge upon the right of the mother to live, to whit, when a pregnancy poses a danger to the life of the mother. In that case, abortion is the only logical choice. Were the mother to die, the fetus would die anyway, and taking one life is always preferable to taking two. 1) Because that is the universally acknowledged scientific consensus. Biology and species are not defined politically, but scientifically. 2) That the unborn are human beings and as such, should be granted human rights. I want you to tell me how you define "human", or failing that, what is wrong with my definition of "human." You say that I am on the spot, however, you are arguing with me, which means you must have an alternative viewpoint. State it. I also believe that shifting the focus to my arguments is an attempt to conjure up a smokescreen that will hide the questions that pro-choice people cannot rationally answer in a way that supports their beliefs, for instance, when does life begin? What you are saying amounts to, "I don't care what science says, I want to talk about political decisions." I have shown to you that political decisions in this field have been grossly and malevolently wrong. Science, on the other hand, has very rarely been wrong in classifying species, certainly not in the last 30 years. I also want to ask you, if the unborn is not human, what is it?

I would go even further and say that even giving benefits to married or "civilly united" people is discriminatory. Single people are still citizens, so if you are giving benefits or tax cuts, give them to everyone. The only exception I can see is children, but marriage does not equal children. It is right that benefits be given to children because, unlike adults, they cannot provide for themselves in our society. With that being said, I would give benefits to children in trust to the primary caregiver, whomever that may be. These benefits can supplement the incomes of caregivers who have forsaken careers to raise children, to provide for education, or whatever. To those who'd see this as a kind of welfare, it isn't. It is an investment in our future, to create well-educated, well-adjusted future citizens. Other than tax breaks or supplements for children I cannot see how extra perks for married people is fair.

It strikes me as odd that, when debating the existence of God, you are happy to pull out the testimony of science, but when talking of the humanity of the unborn, scientific testimony is suddenly irrelevant. Can you explain this contradiction? Expert testimony is admissible in court, but you prefer an ad populum argument. Why? Non sequitur. At one time, constitutions denied rights to blacks, women, Jews etc. Therefore, what is law does not necessarily reflect what is truth, so you are arguing with insufficient evidence. I have defined "human being" as a unique individual that belongs to the species homo sapiens. If you do not want to accept that, please tell me why.

If people are participating under duress, it is not democracy, any more than a rape victim is willing because she submits whilst being held at gunpoint. A one-party "democracy" is not a democracy, because it is not giving citizens a free choice or a chance to participate in the government. This is a non sequitur. You state that the "major elements" of the media being controlled by 6 corporations means there is no freedom of the press, but without demonstrating how limited diversification of ownership automatically reduces press freedom, your argument falls apart. I'm also amused that you think a very diverse press is essential to democracy, but having more than one candidate to choose from is not. You have your terms mixed up. "Freedom" or "liberty" is the freedom to do what you will and face the consequences, for example, going hungry because you told your boss to shove it. What you are arguing for is called "license", and that basically means being able to do what you want and not be culpable. I don't think anyone wants to live in a society like that.

That's a logical fallacy called a "strawman argument", because I never argued that Reagan lowered the debt. Anyway, it's an economic fact that debt and trade deficit are not really relevant to economic performance. American national debt now is no larger, adjusting for inflation, than British debt was after the Napoleonic wars, and after the Napoleonic wars Britain entered a period of unprecedented growth, becoming an economic and industrial power the likes of which had never been seen before. It's like business. Profit is not an indicator of the health of a company. Regarding trade deficit, it's counter-intuitive but a trade deficit is a sign of a healthy economy. It means that capital is flowing into the country. The USA runs a deficit and has a healthy economy. China, Japan and Russia all run large surpluses and all have serious economic problems. And do you know what else followed Republican administrations? Democrats! I'm not stating that Democrats cause recessions, merely illustrating that you are committing a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical error.

No, that's the average. Do you know what an average is? You said: but in actual fact, the average doctor in BC earns less than a third of that. You were wrong. Sorry.

Fraser institute. Then you don't know much. The average general physician in BC makes $85,700. Even specialist physicians such as surgeons only make $116,600, so I don't know where you pulled that $300k figure from. (Work futures BC page) So what?

Personally, it's my view that the government has no role in the cultural, social or religious life of its people. If a relationship is abusive or exploitative, then government must step in to protect, but other than that, why is it any of the government's business? If everyone is happy with their situation and nobody is being abused or exploited, let them get along with it. It makes no difference to me and I can't see it making society fall apart. This idea of government giving blessing to some unions and not to others smacks of statism and too much governmental influence in areas of our culture that government should reflect rather than dictate.

That's cultural. In China, you are considered one year old when born, not zero. What you have argued is an opinion and the Chinese make up a large enough chunk of humanity that you can say it's not even an overwhelmingly popular one. Correction: after we have heard their facts, the political/ethical issue of whether or not it is right to kill human beings still remains to be considered. If we accept what they are saying there is no other possible interpretation of abortion. It's not vile rhetoric. It happens to be a fact that "political choices", as you put it, have historically denied personhood to various subgroups of human beings. Abortion is one more such instance. Define "quality". Are the mentally handicapped not of the same "quality"? How about the congenitally deformed? Criminals? Gays? Ugly people? Where are you drawing your line that divides humanity? There are actually several cases in Canada where an unborn child has been awarded damages and has been granted a right to inherit an estate. I'll dig them up for you if you like. It establishes an odd situation: the unborn has the right to be a plaintiff or property-owner but not the right to live.

Yeah, who needs a society based on individual rights. Only by fools. A vote or party membership obtained under severe duress counts for nothing. No, there isn't. Democracy means the people get to choose the government. With one party, there's no choice, so there's no democracy. Like Turkey? Capitalism and democracy go together. They are just terms for "economic freedom" and "political freedom" respectively. What freedoms are they lacking?

Absolute, complete and utter rubbish. Reagan inherited an economy in trouble, with double-digit inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment. Despite a recession in 1982, Reagan succeeded in putting an end to runaway inflation and interest rates and reduced unemployment to one of the lowest rates in US history. He was smart enough to reject the popular Keynesian economics. Median family, household and average household income all rose, year on year, from 1982 to 1989. He created 20 million jobs, wages kept up with inflation, and most of the jobs created paid at least $10 per hour. The economy grew at an annual rate of 3.5%. That rate was not reached again until the Republicans came to dominate government in 1994. Debateable. Gorbachev's main achievement was being wise enough to come to the bargaining table when it became blindingly obvious he was going to lose the Cold War.

Until you come up with something, eureka, I'm not going to debate this with you. What you're basically saying is that I have to research your points for you, that what you say is "common knowledge" and you allege in thinly veiled terms that people who disagree with you must be uninformed and ignorant. If you want to back up your assertations with substance, go ahead. Until then, you're wasting my time.

I like it. I think it'll make things a lot more logical and easy to find around here. Nice work.

That's a cop-out if ever I saw one. No, they are the opinions of four internationally recognised experts in the field of embryology. And I have many more including the Senate testimonies I mentioned earlier. If you don't believe me, I'll post them, but you should know by now that if I tell you I can provide proof, I can. Absolutely correct. Science held and holds that Jews, women and blacks were equal human beings. "Political choices", for a long time in a number of states, denied that fact. If your argument is that fetuses are not fully formed and so cannot be citizens with the accorded rights, then you have just stripped those born missing limbs or organs of their citizenship and their right to live. Congratulations.

Bradley M. Patten, Human Embryology. Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology. E.L. Potter, J. M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant I have many, many more citations for you, including the expert testimony of American medical leaders in the field of pediatrics and embryology before a US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee in 1981 held to answer the question of when life begins. Suffice it to say that the scientific community is unanimous that the product of conception, the zygote, is alive and a unique individual. Now, is it human? What is required to be "human" is genetic membership in the species homo sapiens, and all unborn, from conception onwards, have that membership. To say that the unborn is not human means it is something else, because living organisms have to be members of some species. So if the unborn is not human, you are arguing it is something else: a fish, a chimpanzee perhaps, which it plainly is not. So, scientifically, it is an established fact that the unborn are living, individual human beings.

Can I see a link or a citation, then? Just so I can make sure it isn't making grevious errors, for instance, failing to take into account that prescription drugs in the UK are covered by the government whereas it is left up to private health insurance in Canada, which alone skews the figures without reflecting the situation in hospitals and primary healthcare providers at all. Then it wouldn't be too much effort for you to cite some, would it? Stalin used to argue the same way you are. He'd write things like, "as is well known, Jews are invariably capitalists" without a shred of evidence, trying to get people to believe that such a fact was as intuitive as night following day. Stalin, by the way, is acknowledged as one of the worst socialist writers. Oh, I have. I just want to make sure that you have too.

Doctors get paid less than auto workers on an hourly basis. Do auto workers go to medical school (or the equivalent) for 7 years? A payroll clerk in a hospital makes 39% more than his equivalent in the private sector, a painter, 31% more, a booking clerk, 32% more. Your evidence of medical incompetence is anecdotal and does not reflect a larger trend. The reason for the failure of the Canadian medical system is not doctors, but the effects of the public-sector monopoly, which ensures chronic waste, misallocation of resources, long waiting lists, poor delivery of services, etc.

You two are ridiculous. You're saying people occasionally need a good massacring so they calm down? What next, rape victims are asking for it? This is a really stupid and immoral argument. Then I'm sure you won't mind naming a few dictators who weren't "crazy."

The reason they were able to spend more is because a capitalist economy generates far more wealth than a socialist one, particularly during Reagan's period of tax cuts, downsized government and increased personal freedoms. "Spending more" isn't a root cause, it's another effect of the root cause, and that is the inherent inferiority of socialist economics.

Where did you hear that? What evidence? Which studies?

Of the arguments you have listed, the only ones I recognise as valid are that where a pregnancy genuinely threatens the life of the mother, or where it is medically incontrovertible that the fetus has no chance of survival anyway, abortion should be an option if the mother chooses, after being informed of the full facts of the procedure. I don't think that any pro-lifers have ever argued any differently. While my religious beliefs forbid the taking of any life (murder, abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, war) I never have and never will argue against abortion from a religious perspective. It's my belief that the pro-choice standpoint is so fallacious it can be defeated with logic, science and reason.