gc1765

How will this benefit Canadians?

You have some reason to believe he's not loyal to Canada (except for a piece of paper of course)?

He governed from the right by invading Iraq. True that he spent a lot of money, but a lot of that money was on the Iraq war. Nonetheless, he still gave tax cuts to the rich. Socially, he did his best to amend the constitution to get rid of SSM. If it were up to Bush, SSM would be banned. I'm not sure how much power Bush has in reference to Roe vs Wade, but if it were up to Bush, I'm sure we'd see abortion banned too. And of course stem cell research.

Incidentally, I will put forth that there are two or three arguments (that I can think of) against abortion (or murder). One is that it takes away the potential for life (or life, in the case of murder). Using this argument, I would say it's wrong for someone to kill someone else's fetus, as it takes away a potential life (even if that fetus is not conscious). But killing your own fetus would not be wrong because that potential for life wouldn't have been there in the first place. Secondly is that it does harm to the person. Although, it seems to me harm could only be done if the person is conscious, in order to experience the harm. Then again, once they are dead they are no longer conscious, so is it still "harm"? (IOW, if you're dead, why would you care that you're dead?) Finally, I suppose you could say that killing someone does harm to others. In reference to the second point, if harm can not be done to someone who is dead, it could still be "harmful" to friends and family of that person. Any other arguments as to why it's wrong? Whew, that's too much philosophy for me in one night...time to get some sleep

I sort of anticipated that question...To be honest, I'm not certain myself how to rectify such an argument. The only argument I can think of is the one that I heard from Riverwind, that once a baby is born it is easy to transfer the baby to adopted parents without any harm to the mother. I'm not sure if that's a good argument or not, but it's the best I've heard. I have a philosophical question though, for anyone, why is it wrong to kill something (ie a baby) that is not conscious (assuming of course that a one year old is not conscious)? Anyways, the whole abortion argument is all about where to draw the line, unless of course you believe that life begins at conception and therefore abortion is always wrong, or you believe it's ok to kill your children at any point in their life. Most people would fall somewhere inbetween those two. Your post brings up a good question though...as far as I understand (and I'm not sure I'm correct on this) it's legal to have an abortion right up until the baby is born. Is there much of a difference between an eight month old and a two year old? If so, what is the main difference?

How much money did you make by going short on income trusts? Seriously. I said I could predict that companies would convert to trusts IF trusts weren't being taxed (I don't think that's hard to predict). I didn't predict Harper going back on his word. ...besides, I don't invest much (don't have much to begin with )

Fair enough. Although, if I remember correctly, one of his criticism of Kyoto was that it didn't go far enough. And his criticism was that it reduces greenhouse gases in other countries, not ours, which is a reasonable criticism. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe I do agree with Iggy on the environment.

Not really, I saw it before it happened, and I'm no expert. Companies were already converting to trusts, and if companies knew they weren't going to be taxed (if they trusted Harper) of course more would convert. No. I'm not critical of their decision. I think they shouldn't have made the promise in the first place.

Is it not foreseeable that if you promise not to tax income trusts, companies are going to want to convert in order to avoid taxes? It was a stupid promise to make, and I'm sure most people could see what was going to happen.

But the "other" in this case wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the person considering an abortion. And there's no reason to belive that the fetus is conscious (do you remember being a fetus?), so an abortion is only doing harm in the sense that it prevents the formation of a human being. That being said, if you burn down someone else's house, that is wrong. If you burn down a house which you built with your own hands, I have no problem with that. Of course, I would never burn down my own house, nor would I ever want my wife to have an abortion, but if someone else wants to burn down their own house or have an abortion, it's none of my business.

There are a few comparisons that can be drawn, such as support for the Iraq war, or opposition to SSM...but governing from the centre is not a comparison that can be made, IMO.

They both did what the could to get rid of gay marrige...they just didn't have the support they needed to do so. This part is probably true: ...although Bush cut taxes (at the expense of the debt). Do fiscal conservatives in the U.S. care about deficits? Or do they just want tax cuts? I don't know. I wouldn't say Bush governed from the centre...

Looks like Duceppe is out of the race: Link

Of course I never suggested that. We are talking about a single issue here: the environment. You are applauding Iggy for disagreeing with the "environmental lobbyists" (I assume, since that is the topic of this thread), when Iggy was quite gung-ho about the environment himself (which is why I brought up the carbon tax example).

Isn't this this same person you criticized for wanting to implement a carbon tax?

As someone who is somewhat fiscally conservative, but socially very liberal, I disagree that social conservatives are simply fiscal conservatives or small government conservatives. For the example of abortions, I don't think that the government should be paying for them (or any non-essential medical treatment), but I believe strongly that women should have the right to an abortion if they pay for it. The problem with certain social conservatives is that they do not stop at not wanting to pay for abortions, they want to forbid abortions altogether. That to me is the greatest example of "big" government. Take another example, the legalization of marijuana. Certain social conservatives want to make it illegal. As a fiscal conservative/social liberal, I say legalize marijuana and have the government sell it like they do with alcohol, which would make a profit and save money on law enforcement. Two birds with one stone. As for marriage, I'd like to see the government out of the marriage business altogether. Of course, most social conservatives wouldn't go for this (they'd probably say how it was a threat to marriage or something). The government could have a civil union or "marriage" that is equal for everyone. Then let the church/religious institutions decide who they want to marry. By forbidding SSM altogether, the government is telling the religious institutions who they can and can't marry. Again, big government.

You are probably right, but if I can play devil's advocate...what should the Liberals have done to cut greenhouse gas emissions? Shut down the oil industry? Implement a carbon tax?

Things aren't going as planned?

There are plenty of tim hortons in Vancouver! What are you talking about?

What difference does that make? How many societies viewed slavery as an acceptable practice vs. societies who viewed it as wrong?

You didn't count them manually did you? Of course not...only an obsessed person would do that. There is an easier way...

Still waiting to hear all the complaints about this thread wasting bandwith...

Maybe not, but from the looks of it, you two are pretty close

Just out of curiosity, how many posts do you have in this thread?

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