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The budget is only balanced with massive taxation that hamstrings economic growth. Revisit the thread on Kyoto. It will do nothing because of the way it is designed. It was illegal for the federal government to sign it because emissions regulation is the responsibility of provincial governments. They are not military transports, though, so this is just using language to find a loophole. The military is sorely lacking in transports, but the military will find these new jets both unavailable and inappropriate for their purposes.

It's a sorry indication of what Trudeau has done to this country, when the NDP is viewed as a moderate centrist party. In any other country, they'd be far-left, and the Alliance would be centrist, or slightly right of center. Here's my proof: Svend Robinson (NDP), and Bill C-250.

What else has Chretien done? Let's see: -Castrated the Canadian military to the point that a police action in Afghanistan has stretched it to the absolute limit -Neglected police funding to such an extreme that crime rates have soared, making Canada one of the most violent and crime-ridden countries in the Western world -Soured relations with Canada's main ally and trading partner -Wasted over a billion dollars on a gun registry that has had absolutely no measurable impact on the crime rate -Illegally signed the Kyoto accord, which will do nothing to reduce pollution and everything to weaken the economy and shed jobs -Committed terrible gaffes of foreign policy, refusing to attend state funerals of world leaders in order to go skiing and so forth -Espoused the wonders of the Canadian healthcare system, wasted more taxpayer money on it without any reforms, while he jets off to private clinics for his personal treatment -Bought some new private jets at taxpayer's expense, while Canada's military aircrews die in obsolete and unreliable aircraft -Refused to join a North American anti-missile defence scheme as China and North Korea step up their nuclear missile programmes -Allowed the courts to over-ride Parliament -Pushed for gay marriage despite the fact that the Supreme Court and Parliament already voted against it just a few years earlier -Reformed election funding rules in favour of his own party -Let an illegally detained Canadian national languish in a foreign jail for years while his "soft diplomacy" did nothing - at which point the Prince of Wales (of all people) stepped in and actually had him released -Pushed for the legalisation of marijuana without even acknowledging that we have no consensus that it is not very harmful, and then made it worse by making irresponsible comments promoting substance abuse -Preserved some parkland. Awww, that's super. That's all I can think of right now, but I wouldn't shed any tears if Chretien was dragged out and shot tomorrow. I think he's one of the most irresponsible and incompetent Prime Ministers ever to be elected to public office.

Where's the other 999 reasons? I don't think Canada's lousy healthcare system is anything to brag about - the US healthcare system is better (that's why anyone who can goes south of the border for treatment) and contrary to popular belief, nobody there is dying for lack of medical access. I wouldn't shout too loudly about crime rates while Canada has more violent crime per capita than the US. Something tells me that's connected with the fact that provincial police and RCMP funding are lower than they've been for 30 years, thanks to the Liberals, but hey, I'm just an ignorant rightwinger, what do I know?

So, you admit that Saddam was a butcher of innocents, a terror to his own people and his neighbours, warmonger, megalomaniac psychotic, sponsor of terrorists... but it was a bad idea to remove him from power? Please, in future, smoke the wacky baccy after you post here, not before.

Socialism has killed far more people than Nazism, Imperialism and Christianity put together. Probably not, however, if someone starts espousing to me a social philosophy that is responsible for more suffering, misery and death than any other, I wouldn't listen. I certainly wouldn't vote for them. I won't give the time of day to a neo-Nazi party nor a Communist party. Which is basically what Adam Smith was espousing. No, I don't think so. What the NDP stands for is ending or at least curtailing freedom of speech, opinion, and belief, which is a right humanity has struggled for millenia to achieve and in most cases, is still struggling towards.

Because they can't. This is in the same category as the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII: regrettable, but necessary. After all, Japanese spies were abroad, and it is known that the Japanese had plans to unleash germ warfare in the continental US (they attempted to do so a few times). This is in the same vein. Israel cannot offer right of return for demographic reasons. Israel also cannot afford to be nicey-nicey with people in the occupied lands because of all the terrorism. Compare to Northern Ireland. In mainland Britain, you are pretty much free to go where you want. Nobody will stop you and ask questions, in fact, they are a lot more libertarian than Canada (you can walk down the street drinking beer, for instance). However, in Northern Ireland it's not the same. When driving you can expect to be stopped by the army or the RUC at various checkpoints and asked to produce your papers, explain your destination, route, and reason for travel, and even to submit to a search of your car and your person. The reason for this is all the terrorist activity in Northern Ireland. I'm sure Britain would love to relax over there - the military occupation is costly - but they can't. Same with Israel. I'm sure they don't relish the costs of the occupation, the dead troops, the international flak they are copping, but in their view they don't have much choice.

Why am I not surprised? It amazes me that, even after socialism and communism have killed almost a hundred million people this century, people are still willing to give socialists the time of day. Anyway, what you also have to remember is that Liberals tend to be younger, and Conservatives tend to be older, and therefore 1) Conservatives will be more interested in politics, not many leftists will put much thought into switching parties, and most NDPs are too hard-core to vote Liberal and 2) voter turn-out for the Conservatives will be better than for the Liberals.

I rest my case, Pellaken. I won't go into any detail here because all your arguments have already been shot down in the relevant threads. Then you aren't socially progressive in the way that Pellaken understands it.

Ask the 1.5m Arab citizens of Israel. Ask the multitude of Arab MPs in Israel. Ask any of them if they'd care to leave Israel and go to Syria. None of them will, and it's because, ironically for you, Israel respects the rights of its Arab citizens far more than its neighbouring Arab nations. This is just idiotic. There are no gas chambers in Israel, and despite what is going on in Palestine, you'll find that within Israel itself there is equality and religious tolerance. In Jerusalem, churches, mosques and synagogues are next to each other. None of those three religions, nor any other, are subjected to any kind of oppression.

For "progressive", read "regressive", since "social progressives" stand for infanticide (abortion), institutionalised racism (affirmative action), disempowerment of women (more affirmative action), and the rescinding of freedom of speech (hate speech laws). But I digress. The red tories have to ask themselves whether they'd rather see a united Conservative government with Harper as PM, or another Liberal government with Martin as PM. That's what it boils down to. Not that Harper is necessarily going to be leader, or even that he necessarily should be leader, but we should pick the best man (which really means "most electable") for the job from whichever party, and then rally behind him, otherwise the Liberals are going to win again. And nobody wants that. Those that think they do, don't know what they want.

Ditto for me. I find also that Harper is very charismatic and an excellent public speaker, and I think that once he seriously hits the campaign trail in the East he'll get a lot more support there.

Again I ask, explain how abortion = collateral damage. If you are just trolling, don't bother, we're not interested. If not, you will have to argue a point rather than just make unjustified comments.

Here's what you said: And I explained to you that this is not the correct usage of the word "imperialism", and that what the US is doing cannot correctly be described as imperialism. No, because ideology is not hegemony. Don't make me break out the dictionary again. That depends on whether or not you're going to stop mangling the English language.

You could level that charge at any government in the world or history, without exception. However, the US is one of the "least worst" in this regard. As I've said before, those who think that America is a corrupt and evil empire merely demonstrate that they have no idea what a corrupt and evil empire is.

No, I don't think so. Imperialism: The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations. Dictionary.com lookup The export of cultural and political values does not equal economic and political hegemony, ergo this is not imperialism. As I've already said, the US does not have hegemony over the "acquisitions" of its "empire", therefore, it isn't an empire.

We've been over this already. Please read the thread before jumping in. Explain how abortion = collateral damage.

What absolute balderdash. Of course, we can see the "truth" of your witless idea in the way that France and Germany so slavishy follow the US in everything they do, both being democracies liberated and created by the US. Oh, wait, they don't. In fact, many countries that the US established don't toe the American line at all.

I think that the Indian claims to land and privilege can be defended. They were here first, after all, and according to English Common Law possession is not absolute but relative. Relatively, they have a much better claim to ownership than we. That being said, that makes us interlopers on their property, for which they are entitled to be compensated, for example by the granting of privilege. We cannot claim to own this property, firstly because as we never gave the Indians freedom to alienate their lands we cannot claim to have purchased them, and secondly, because the original treaties were not in the spirit of a purchase but of a rental agreement, and as egregious as they were it would only compound the crime to claim now that they were agreements to purchase. I would also hesitate to push for anything like cultural assimilation. It is fair enough to ask a new immigrant to try to assimilate (bring only one wife, she's allowed to work, no human sacrifice, etc), after all, that immigrant is asking to be allowed into Canada and to be part of our society. However, the Indians never asked to become part of our neo-European society or culture. We simply arrived on their shores one day, took their lands and established our own society on them. Now, it's hardly fair to expect them to assimilate with us. It may be that it will happen eventually, that Indian culture may "naturally" die out, but that does not make it right to hurry the process. The Jews, statistically, are also a dying race, but nobody with a shred of common decency is calling for a second Holocaust to hurry this natural process along, or even for a restriction of Jewish religion and culture in order to promote assimilation. As to the "forefathers" argument, to whit that we are not responsible for upholding agreements made by our predecessors, and are not bound to them, I don't think it holds water. Our law has established that a person does not have to have committed an act, or even to have allowed or enabled an act to have been committed by another, to be held responsible and culpable for the results of that act. Furthermore, when one inherits benefits, one also inherits debts and obligations payable on those benefits. As we have inherited the benefits our forefathers gained from the Indians, we also inherit the obligations payable on them. I am in favour of reform in the interests of fairness to the Indians themselves, e.g. more democratic distribution of benefits, or giving the Indians true ownership with alienation rights of their lands, however, I'm not in favour of simply cutting back or cutting off Indian benefits and Indian rights to their ancestral lands.

Smoking is not an automatic death sentence. Statistically, though, it shortens your lifespan and makes you more vulnerable to disease. Homosexuality is not an automatic death sentence. Statistically, though, it shortens your lifespan and makes you more vulnerable to disease. Why can we not just tell the truth about this? Why must everything about homosexuality be lies and half-truths? I clarified and confirmed those for you at a later time. Why don't you go back and read that? This proves that you've not been reading anything I've said. Under those circumstances, it's not surprising that you still don't understand.

No, and that's why I gave you another example, which you ignored because it disproves your point. Vietnam was a just war, badly fought. If it had been fought properly, with political will, it would have been won, much sooner, with far less loss of life. The "vague philosophy" was opposing the evils of communism, and if you are still in any doubt, I invite you to read "The Fall of Saigon" by David Butler. It's really quite insightful. The North Vietnamese were receiving backing from the Soviet Union and Maoist China, and if you think that the "slaughted [sic] untold countless innocents" of Vietnam were bad, just wait until you read about theirs. Hey, John Lennon's back! I thought they shot you?

I disagree. Plenty of smokers actually live to a ripe old age without any noticeable side-effects of their addiction, however, that does not mean that tobacco smoking is not harmful. It is. I have repeatedly proven to you that this is not the case.

Of course, during the Cold War, America could have drastically cut its military spending. Then Soviet Communism could have marched over the earth, and we would have far more hunger, due to the incompetent and evil nature of that government. The same thing applies now. America could cut back her defence spending dramatically, and run the risk of Islamo-Fascists or Chinese Communists coming to be a dominant power. Then hunger and poverty would run rampant, far more than they do now.

I can see your point with this. I am not an advocate of the original treaties, due firstly to their unfairness and secondly to the fact that they've already been broken so many times. However, I believe that a man's word should be his bond, and if we have given our word to do a thing we should do that, or propose something to replace it, rather than just break our word. I prefer revision and reform of the treaties, but I would rather that the existing treaties be retained than be scrapped altogether without replacement. At least then, we could argue that we were keeping our part of the bargain. This is true, and it is a problem. I would argue that we could force a democratically approved revision of the treaties, however. Let's look at a historical comparison. Most Indian culture, I believe, holds that land cannot be owned but merely used. However, our culture and law hold that land is property that can be owned. If the Indians were willing to abide by our law and not theirs when drawing up the treaties and leasing their land, could we not insist that they abide by our law when the treaties are being revised? We could also argue that, while the government of the First Nations remains so corrupt and autocratic, that we will not deal with them. Basically, that would be the same idea as refusing to recognise the government of a foreign country as the legitimate government because it does not rule with the mandate of its people.

What I actually said was what Trudeau thought, not what he did. You disputed me, I proved you wrong. I'm sure Trudeau was also pretty upset that he couldn't establish a true Marxist state in Canada, like his friends Castro and Brezhnev. But sometimes events and real life interfere in your plans. This I agree with. If reforms are made they should be done with the democratic approval of the Indians themselves and not their tribal leaders. I think, RT, that we are essentially in agreement. I don't think that the treaties are valid or relevant anymore, especially as they were pretty much all broken within a few years of their ratification anyway. What I do think is that we need a new deal with the Indians, otherwise we become basically thieves. Then to continue my analogy: let's imagine that since the signing of the agreement between the tenant and the landlord, the government decided to give everyone an annual tax rebate. Does this mean that the tenant is now able to stop paying rent while keeping the house? No, they can't. The 11 treaties promise unrestricted fishing and hunting rights, and a few years after they were ratified, the government imposed closed seasons on the natives, because white trappers and hunters were driving some species to extinction. In some cases, the natives appealed and were able to gain their rights back. However, Craig, what you are basically saying is that it's somehow immoral for the Indians to do what they were promised, in writing, that they could do. Correct? So did Hitler and Stalin, as I said. You can re-negotiate a treaty or a deal, but you can't just renege on it, keep the benefits and default on the obligations. Bell can't cut your phone off and demand that you still pay a monthly bill. Neither can you stop paying your bill and demand that Bell continue to provide you with telephone service. The actual spirit of the original treaties is that the Indians are the rightful owners of the land (and as the latest wave of Indian immigrants have been here 27 times as long as white men, they have a lot more claim to it than we do) and that we are tenants on it. If that is no longer to be the case, perhaps we should put in an offer to purchase, and have done with it?