Charles Anthony

God forbid we should ever do that! As a human being, what do YOU call it?

You could have called him on his argument based on only what he said. Anesthetists are doctors. Two reasons: 1) unlike you, I do not assume that they "make damn good money" at all 2) their working conditions may not be the best I am not saying "everyone's sole thought is the dollar" but rather we remunerate them with nothing else. It may be a deterrent but it is not separate from the issue of how much we pay doctors. If they were paid more, the de If doctors were paid more, the deterrent of massive schooling debt is not a separate problem. Would it make sense to complain about the high prices of houses if every mortgage company was willing to lend you the money at 1% interest with no down payment??? The only thing that matters is your cash flow -- if you can make the regular payments you get the loan. In other words, only your salary matters.

reported [sorry, I am just trying to be funny. I could not resist.] Greg probably receives several PMs reporting the exact same spam message. What part of that do you not understand?????

What is going to happen? The minority of voters are going to revolt against the majority apathetic non-voting class?

Wow. Do my ears deceive me? I can not believe what you just wrote. Excellent! Yes, indeed it does! I forgot about that. Oh, there you go again. I knew I must have been dreaming up above. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board. Hmmm.... now, what shape should a wheel be...?? Tired, tired, tired attack against tiered "public" service. Attack the USA! In Canada, the way somebody "is not refused" is by being sent to the back of the line and told to shut up and wait. To put it mildly, that is a Bovine Submission observation. Both he and you are naive if you can not see money is an issue. Time and money are the same. When you say "50% of new doctors are women, and many are only working part time" or "it is just that many are either retiring or cutting back their hours of work, and fewer are entering the profession" that is the same as saying "doctors are leaving" from a public service perspective. Does either of you expect local doctors to be immortal and work forever??? ThelOne, enough drama. Be honest: if doctors received double or triple or quadruple the salary, are you telling me that we should expect a ZERO change in the number of doctors??? If that does not bring out honesty, answer this: if doctors received a 50% pay cut, are you telling me that we should expect all of them to stay??? What we have done with our "universal waiting-in-line service" is killed the marginal incentive to work as a health-care provider. The way higher income tax-brackets kill the incentive for rich people to earn more, we have done the same but with different "taxes" on the labor. Since one can make more money pretending to be almost anything than actually being it in real life, I don't see the point of your last little quip. Well, without going into a whole 'nother topic.It goes to demonstrate how we value vacuous services (like entertainment) more than life-saving services (like health-care). It is ironic but only in the same way as water (absolutely 100% universally essential for life) is so incredibly cheap -- a good thing. Anyway, the television doctor is a product of our own consumerism and bloody laziness -- with a bit of cronyism tossed in to boot. Notice how those "doctors" on television are all trying to sell us pharmaceuticals? Notice how they encourage us to pester our real doctors to prescribe us astronomically expensive pharmaceuticals? We feed them because we all want a quick fix. Nobody wants to be told to go exercise or lose weight.

The incentive you identify (free rent, utilities, food, etc..) already exists anyway. The extra incentive of minimum wage is not likely going to change a poor person's decision to commit crime. Should they be paid anyway? Sure. Do you think they would work better if they did NOT get paid? If we do not care how well they work, why are they doing it? If they did not get paid and they did not have work, do we think they would not create their own form of currency?? Of course they will -- unless they are each in solitary confinement.

Sounds like a smart strategy to me. Get them from the inside. I do not see that as a problem at all. I understand that "separation door" and I see it as a fast way to reduce big government in Canada. Me too. After Quebec separates I will have to label myself as a "de-amalgamationist" or something like that.

What do you mean by "discredit Canada" exactly? I can be a proud Earthling [yeah, yeah, I can hear you all now: "No, YOU can not! Earthlings have to be born here!" very funny] but I am not a subject of some Federal Government of The Earth, am I?? Who would discredit The Earth to be happy?

I understand. That makes sense. However, I still stand by my belief that it would have been more prudent and wise for Mr. Chong to be more diplomatic and bite his lip. His actions undermine his party and his leader. Do you really think he will go far in politics now after what he did??? Sorry. I am stopping right there and I dismiss everything you just stated because I honestly believe that our federal government is a smoke-screen for cronyism. I do not believe our federal government serves the public much at all. Again, call me cynical, but I believe that the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs could do even less than our Federal Prisoner Ombudsman and we would not know the difference. I honestly believe that we let ourselves be fooled. I agree and the record shows! What I am saying is that if you give almighty power to statesmen, you should expect them to use it. Maybe not but I do not think he has much to do anyway. Have you ever paid attention to what happens in the House of Commons? We see very insolent and childish behavior. Would YOU hire any of those lazy or arrogant baffoons to run YOUR business??? Yes, they did. I am not saying I like his decision. I am saying how I understand it. Do not get me wrong: I am a separatist.

I agree, but then your statement implying that a punishment should be "fair" is meaningless.No. My original statement said that we can not automatically say that a punishment is fair. The concept of "fair" with respect to justice may be analogous to the concept of "temperature" with respect to music. In other words, it might not objectively apply. However, justice might conceivably be "fair" if it was negotiated. So far, we are only considering two forms of justice: 1) eye-for-an-eye 2) centuries-old State-enforced There is a third: private law or market law or polycentric law. I will chicken-out and refer to The Giant again whose presentations of polycentric law are scattered throughout this forum. Some of the most compact ones are: 'Law and Policing Market". How would it work??? and Not enough cops -- Why does crime go unpunished? which explains private policing. Myself, I have very little to add except snarky comments.

I also see respecting eachother's freedom as a virtue. I gather you prefer the comfort of hiding behind "society" when it is convenient.

Oh, please! Who is "society" anyway???Personifying "society" is what we do when we want to avoid responsibility or when we want to hide our actions.

I can still look at it from the perspective of Canada's best interest and arrive at the same conclusion because if I believe in the motion, anything Harper needs to do to get it through is good. From the public's perspective, sure. However, from Chong's selfish perspective, he is biting the hand (his own party) that feeds him. Call me cynical but that is what I expect. Are you expecting Harper to upset decades and decades of federal government political history and start giving a damn about what his ministers have to say??? Are you expecting Mr. Chong to provide any valuable insight on Intergovernmental Affairs or whatever??? Who is he and what credentials does he have??? Like all other MPs, his only purpose in the federal government is to hold a seat. Otherwise, he should run as an independent. I disagree. I liken Mr. Chong more to a door-to-door salesman instead of a head sales manager. He would be insisting that the NewCokeZero secret forumula should taste more like their competitor and getting upset when the entire company does not take his advice. To be frank, if I was the Prime Minister of Canada, I would expect my ministers to not only play the role of my puppets but to be very happy that they are mooching from the tax-payer to do so. All they have to do is show up and smile -- much like the gals on ThePriceIsRight do. As soon as they stop smiling, they are out.

Drug companies may survive, but the patients may not.Yeah, you are probably right. Not only will the drug companies survive but I am sure they will make a killing by selling drugs to dead patients. Simple: because "healthcare" providers need to put food on their table. No. One is more profitable than the other. No. Why would they be "the same" at all??? Be reasonable. If they are the same, which one would YOU rather have as a consumer? If health-care is to be driven by the profit motive, then health-care recipients have a fighting chance at receiving health-care. Leery of what?? That Canadians will be dying in health-care waiting lines??? or dying because there are no health-care providers willing to work???

That apparently is what happened.I do not see it that way in the least. This: should not have been aired out. How does he come across saying he was not consulted?? Someone is lying. Even if Chong was not consulted, he should not have said he was not consulted -- unless of course he wanted his fifteen minute spotlight.

No offense taken and in retrospect, my comment was unnecessary in this thread. Call me "annoying" if you will. I understand this is the basis behind the concept of bail. My belief in freedom is extremely religious and I have difficulty personifying "society as a group" in the least. Thus, my presumption of innocence is equally extreme -- although, I accept that it is unpopular. I find it odd that the logic which permits "society as a group" to have such power over every single individual does not also lead us (members of "society as a group") to look at things differently and say: we are owed protection BEFORE we bcome victims of crime. Why not demand the power of "society as a group" to protect us with as much fervor and righteousness as we expect it to mete out justice?

Look on the bright side: when a new healthcare advance is made, everybody wants it and everybody should get it. The only problem is that we can not afford to keep up. In the past, if you had a diagnosis of arthritis, you would shut up and suffer while taking pain killers. Now, you may be a candidate for surgery. However, if you do not want to die waiting in line for the surgery date while praying that the date does not get cancelled, you are free to shut up and suffer while eating pain killers. You are comparing apples and oranges and assuming we are frozen in time. New cars (or computer chips) are not the same as old cars (or computer chips), therefore, comparing their prices is invalid. Exactly. As soon as "tech advances" are made, we are no longer comparing the same product. Furthermore, prices are not only a function of supply. They are a function of popularity. Have you seen the prices of personal computers lately? Surprise, surprise! For what you get, they cost a hell of a lot cheaper than new 286's ever did! Have you ever seen the prices of beaver skin hats lately? Surprise, surprise! Nobody wants them today like they used to when we started shipping Europeans over to North America! That is fine in The Lonely Flea World, but in reality, the people who provide healthcare are not slaves. Like the rest of us, they want more than a sustenance level of remuneration. Healthcare must embrace the profit motive to survive. I forget. I thought it was HeadAndShoulders but I just looked it up and you are correct. [As an aside and I suppose it would be good to explore the field of marketing and advertizing in a separate thread, the most ingenious money-making ploy was in the shampoo industry. I believe it was JohnsonAndJohnson that introduced the "rinse and repeat" slogan. Why repeat?? We never ask. The reason was simple: they want us to want to consume more. Are we not remarkably gullible?] Correct. It may be risky. However, that risk can be reduced by reducing taxes gradually. No big deal. Nothing to fear. In keeping with the theme of this thread, which choice would be Left and which choice would be Right? If you had to be beaten with a stick, would you want it to be a quarter inch thick at ten lashes or one full swing with a baseball bat??? Choose your poison.

I have none and I do not think an objective guage exists. I am interpreting it literally. Now, to make things more complicated: what if I forgive you but The State still wants to punish you? What would be the reasonable punishment or the restitution? Who has the right to decide? Previously in this thread, Hugo suggested that prison should only be for violent offenses but not non-violent crime. That is too simplistic. Sorry, but that is too simplistic. What if you, the perpetrator, are blind anyway??

It may be a sensible penalty but it does not follow that it is automatically a fair punishment. With respect to restitution, you do not understand. Just giving back the same amount of money is not necessarily enough. The rich-victim could develop agoraphobia. If my rent and grocery bill depend on that $1000 just before the theft, I can be out on the street and starving. I could have lost my job or missed my bus to the next job interview or I could be sick in the hospital and dying with pneumonia and grieving over my child that just died of cold-exposure. Giving me back $1000 is not restitution. That is my point. The concept of eye-for-an-eye is short-sighted. [i just thought of that now! <<--pat pat pat myself on the back-->> I love the sound of that!]

I agree. It would have looked better if Chong was consulted and if Chong simply told the public: "I resign because I disagree with the motion. Period." instead of being ignored. Even if we believe that the Ministers are just puppets, it certainly would have looked better. Nevertheless, the Emmerson-floor-cross and the Fortier-Senate-minister do not look like good PR either..... I think both possible scenarios you raise are optimistic. They are both good strategy.

We voted them in! That is what I thought too. As much as I like saying "a nickel saved is a nickel earned" this $300,000 over 6 years -- is a lot of money for one person -- is very little for the federal government. Maybe there is political interference. This job may be the most accessible right now and thus, a strategic PR point-scorer. My parents and siblings work for the federal government. They admit the same. I encounter younger civil servants who freely and laughingly admit they do nothing. When I hear of one civil servant who admits to doing nothing, I think of one person on welfare. Oh, sure you do! In Canada, it takes decentralization! [Whereas in Hugoland, it takes getting rid of the federal government entirely.] How else can we make public spending more accountable than to keep it closer to its tax-base? That means small government.

bumped from Problems with quotes, I have tried, but... This is a major pet-peeve of mine and I am willing to help anybody through the Personal Messenger as much as physically possible to overcome the mulitple quotes. Just send me a message.

Sounds like you have to stop comparing apples and oranges while sitting in a vegetable soup. What you are saying is that your new insurance is cheaper -- but you are not covered for the same things that you had before!

Take a look at this thread: Using the [ Quote ] Feature:, Avoid using more too many quotes! This is a major pet-peeve of mine and I am willing to help anybody through the Personal Messenger as much as physically possible to overcome the mulitple quotes.

What an original analogy!! I called this whole debacle a chess-match earlier. Maybe it is just a co-incidence.....