Canuckistani

Yes, people have an innate sense of justice, but that changes with times. We have a different view now than we had in feudal times. Globally you can say there is more social justice as many people are being lifted out of poverty. Some of that is coming at the cost of the lower and middle class in the West. I used to be all for globalization, saw is as a way of having global justice. Now I just think we'll have an entrenched global elite with little social mobility in and out of that elite, and with the means to enforce it's continued existence.

Vs the dinosaurs the CPC has fronted?

Agree. We've come to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

We've seen how wrong polls can be in the Alberta election. MY guess is that an election right now would return a minority CPC govt. Govt's defeat themselves. Depending on how the economy goes, so go the fortunes of Harper. And of course govts just get stale and corrupt, as the drip drip drip of the Harper govts missteps continue so will their fortunes decline. And lastly, maybe what the poll is talking about - as Harper tries to pull the country right, if he pulls too hard he'll lose support. Mulcair has a lot riding on him too - he has to prove himself. We can see he's no smiling Jack. Hard to say if his dutch disease move was clever politicking or will backfire on him. But it's going to be a different NDP under him, one that's willing to kick ass. He has the same problem as Harper tho, trying to keep his fundamentalists quiet, not come out with boneheaded ideas. Canadians aren't pretty centrist economically, they're not going to go for some of the nutty stuff the NDP can come up with.

We've cut way back on rehabilitative efforts. Until we give that a really good go, we can't talk about somebody not being rehabilitatable. Some people can't be rehabilitated and should never be let out - most tho can. Some body with 69 convictions - convictions for what, shoplifting. Would you really lock them up for life?

Mulcair's personal life is fair game, same as Harper's. But what a lame attack this is - so he chooses to maintain high debt on his home. As long as he's making the payments, doesn't default, that's really up to him. If that's the worst the Reformacons have on him, he doesn't have much to worry about.

Every society creates winners and losers. Being a loser in Hopi society would make you a winner in ours. Or a criminal - some of the winners are just criminals who haven't been caught. Was Joe Kennedy a winner or a loser? Argus defined the winner as being handsome, healthy and intelligent. Pretty broad definition, and I'm not sure I want the govt deciding who can breed and who can't based on their arbitrary set of rules. Many highly successful people, even by Argus' defnition, were born to parents who were neither handsome, healthy or intelligent. His idea is insane, we would lost all sorts of genetic positives if we set some arbitrary standard and then stopped people from reproducing based on them. Or killed babies we decided didn't meet our standards as per the Spartans. As for keeping losers alive, let's take one definition of winner, ie wealth. Surely the only winner is the richest person in the world, everybody else is in some sense a loser - should everybody kill themselves who isn't the richest? I know this is absurd, but so is the original premise.

I have to give you examples of all the settlements outside the '67 borders? Come on. I favor a two state solution. As does pretty well every body else. You say the Palestinians are driven by Nazi ideology. What exactly is the greater Israel ideology except Lebensraum restated? Even includes mystical justifications for it(God gave us this land). Unfortunatly this ideology is gaining more and more traction within Israeli government. Both sides need to get serious and make peace with what they've got.

I agree that Israel can use troops to occupy territory from which attacks are launched. That's different than effectively annexing territory by settlers. That's a land grab that invites the attacks. It does not indicate that Israel is actually interested in peace.

I have no idea. I have never heard him mentioned before in the media or discussions of this subject. So if you have some insider knowledge not commonly available you should probably share it with the world. But, he doesn't seem to come up in the negotiations or in usual discussions of this subject. Israel has said it is in favor of a Palestinian state. What should the boundaries of that state be, if they keep taking more an more territory? I don't blame Israel for defending itself against repeated attacks from the Arab states, and being paranoid about it's existence. But, if it keeps swallowing up land, we see that it's agenda is also not peace, but greater Israel.

I guess I don't know enough of your history. I was talking about the pre '67 boundaries, commonly accepted as the basis for the Israeli state. If you're dragging in ancient history, want to go back thousands of years, wow would that upset the applecart in places all over the world. And maybe we could dig up a descendant of the Canaanites who the ancient Jews so proudly holocausted to claim it should all belong to him.

Not sure what your question means?

Sorry about the snide remark. I came to this forum to do better. There was no need for it. Read my post again. She's "handsome" and healthy, so if 2 out of three criteria are used, she would be in. Handsome should already by taken care of by natural selection, no. Depending on how much value it has for survival. I could see us imagining a group of people most of us would consider ugly who see themselves as quite lovely and certainly not impeded in survival in any way. Handsome mostly already means healthy. At one time it included being fat, because that meant better survival during pregnancy/childbirth for women and wealth for men. But what does healthy mean. Should people with a history of heart disease in the family be prevented from breeding? It doesn't usually come into play until they have raised children of their own, and who knows what contribution they or their children will make before they have that myocardial infarction? And, do you really want to live in Sparta? All they produced were warriors. The great art was produced by other cities with a softer approach to life. Same with the great philosophers and mathematicians.

Of course Israel has the right to exist. It would be nice if extended that same right to the Palestinians instead of continually grabbing more land until he Palestinians are pushed into Jordan and beyond by some Israeli leaders. I don't blame the IDF for occupying Palestinian areas while Israel is under attack, but when you sen it settlers, that shows you have no intention of giving that land back. So don't the Palestinians have the right to self defense for their land as well?

What guy? What rehabilitation was offered to him, or was he just put in a hell hole where prisoners teach each other how to be better criminals? We should give fixing the person a really good go. If the best we can do doesn't work, then s/he needs to be locked up for ever - but we're not trying anywhere near our best.

Do they have to be all three, because Stephen Hawkins certainly wouldn't qualify. Two out of three - he'd still be out but Britney Spears would be in. Then, who will judge the handsome part? What does healthy mean? What kind of intelligence qualifies, only IQ or do we use Gardner's 9 types of intelligence? 1.1 Logical-mathematical 1.2 Spatial 1.3 Linguistic 1.4 Bodily-kinesthetic 1.5 Musical 1.6 Interpersonal 1.7 Intrapersonal 1.8 Naturalistic 1.9 Existential My guess is you would fail on 1.6 and 1.7 for instance.

Sure. I thought I would show you what scholars think of the issue. Physical anthropology has also found that paleolithic and neolithic sites had many members with injuries, deformities, etc that were obviously being kept alive by the rest of the group. These groups were very communal with sharing of resources. I'm sure in tough times, if there was famine, there were tough choices made about who got the food, with the old and sick being denied it - like the cliche of the old being sent out on an ice floe. The primary means of coercion was ostracism and expulsion - the latter would be a death sentence in effect. But your suggestion that the hunter-gatherers were all little Rush Limbaughs just doesn't hold.

If you want revenge for the crime, that's one thing. If you actually want to change behavior punishment won't do it.

Irrefutable logic - life in prison means life in prison. But a life sentence doesn't necessarily mean life in prison, tho life in prison if necessary. Even in the US, if they mean life in prison they specify life w/o possibility of parole. That's a different sentence than just life.

They're under supervision the rest of their lives. Recidivism for murder is very low <3%.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1384308/Norways-controversial-cushy-prison-experiment--catch-UK.html#ixzz1w1T641JO

The best and cheapest prevention is rehabilitation. As I said, long periods of closely monitored parole with support. If he fails, he goes back to prison. Prisons should not be punitive but rehabilitative.

Punishment doesn't work - it doesn't prevent crime. Better would be to focus on rehabilitation, giving guys like this support to find a better way to live. But I do agree with long sentences for serious/crimes, repeat offenders, except that they would be given closely monitored parole (much more closely than now) for a long time after leaving prison. If, with support, they can fly the straight and narrow, good. If not, they go back to prison and get another chance after some time. Some people of course should never be let out of prison, but those are pretty rare.

http://libcom.org/files/EGALITARIAN%20SOCIETIES%20-%20James%20Woodburn.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22281599 etc etc

From the link provided in the OP: Maybe all the miserable ones, like Fletch have emigrated, leaving the satisfied ones behind. In fact isn't that how migration works?