Charles Anthony

In general, you touch upon something that is important: there is no advance in preventive measures and there probably never will. We will never be able to tell people: "Go share needles, forget about condoms, forget about screening blood. It is now safe." If Harper showed up he would have been criticized for not donating enough money to the fight against AIDS. Maybe he decided being criticized for not being there was preferable.I think that is precisely the underlying issue of contention. People want money. Yes, a precedent has been set for appearing at the conference. However, I can also say that demanding A.I.D.S. research ten years ago is not the same as demanding research today. Socially, what more do we need?? The invited guests have nothing to say. All that we can offer is money for research -- the politics of AIDS is at a standstill. We are past the "gay disease" stereotype.

Yes! Uh.... a challenging question, indeed! In a practical sense, taxation is an across-the-board restriction on everything a single individual wants to do. The fine details of restricting specific behaviors certainly do not belong in this thread.

I think this is an industry that is looking for money. That is their primary concern. Quoted from that same article: I like the sound of that: activists scientists researchers advocates agencies He forgot to mention the actual people with A.I.D.S.

How many people do you know in Canada? How many divorced couples with kids in 50-50 custody arrangements do you know in Canada? That is not the only possibility. There are others. Here is one possibility: the child is exceedingly unhappy that his parents are split regardless of the living arrangement.

Like who?On a serious note, this thread would probably fit better in the "Support" section.

I look at it quite the opposite way. I think the media exploitation and the result on Gibson's reputation is better justice. Although you may be able to influence both your reputation and what other people think of you, you can not own or control either. Therefore, it makes no sense to lay claim upon them.

I agree with the statement. However, I disagree with the font of choice. Admittedly, it is because the news can sell papers. What "right" would that be? The right to say-whatever-you-want-and-not-allow-others-to-listen-or-repeat-it? Hypothetically, if Mel Gibson could sue the officer for leaking the comment, what would the claim be?

It is frustrating, is it not? They make an indefensible statement. You ask them for proof. They do not have proof and say something else. You ask them again for proof. Again, they avoid the question and say something else. You ask them again to defend THEIR original statement. Eventually, they give up. At this point, they ask why you are asking. You stated: and he asked you specifically what parts changed. Honestly, I don't care.No. It is more like you are backing away from your original statement.

No, you should not be silenced. However, you should expect people to stop listening to you, to stop taking you seriously and to be ostracized. By the way, if an ostracized person falls down and cries out in a forest, does that person make a sound? Now, back to serious matters: Rule #1 in school (or life, for that matter): The student should expect to fail if the paper offends the teacher. What? You think students are there to learn subjects in courses?!?!?

I doubt the thread started on the track at all. Me too.

You are right. Would YOU give him the benefit of the doubt?

With respect to him personally, I would not give him the benefit of the doubt. I firmly believe that inebriation brings out the truth. I believe he hates Jews. With respect to his movies, I would give them the benefit of the doubt. That is just me. This reminds me of a guy who was discrediting Dr. Seuss' kids books because Dr. Seuss also led a professional career writing Nazi propaganda and whatever. I said "Surely, we can not see that in his kids books?" and he insisted that his kids books should boycotted. Whatever. Each to his own. Whether Mel Gibson's movies preach "anti-semitism" or not is up to interpretation. I do not care. There are a lot of revisionist history movies and I believe that the majority of history we teach students in schools are outright lies anyway. Watch Mel Gibson's movies or not. Use your own brain and do your own research or not. Now that Mel Gibson has spoken in the manner in which he did, I believe everybody has the right to speak out against both him and his movies any way they want. He should have known better and if not, his disgusting example will ring out to others.

I am presuming you are talking (pardon the pun!) about verbal assault. Morally, nobody has the right to NOT be offended. That would not make sense. The only instance is where a person is verbally threatened with physical assault on body or property. People want to impose their morals on others. People do not have the "right" to silence other people but rather they have the force and we (the "rest of the people" involved) have the complacency.

Try to use the mark up QUOTE feature when you post. It is easier to understand your writing. Before pressing "Add Reply" you should press "Preview Post" and see the display of your post before it goes online. Also, try to minimize carriage return or typing {ENTER} at the end of your lines. Everybody has different default margins on their own computers. Use the {ENTER} only to separate paragraphs to make it uniform across all computers.

I understand and tend to agree with that view. I will be the devil's advocate in two ways. First, cost may be prohbitive. What would you do if one day we had a ballooning penal system that cost more than we could afford? What if we built and staffed more jails but still had more new criminals? What other social services would you cut to pay for more incarceration? Secondly, why not tag and label criminals. The ancient Romans would occasionally brand criminals on the forehead if the circumstances of the crime was severe. The letters MUR (for murderer) or FUR (for thief) or FUG (for military fugitive) would be forever burned on their forehead. Alternatively, we could do something a little more humane by following their whereabouts. We could make a concerted effort to inform everybody that a criminal is living in their neighborhood. I realize this would lead to vigilantism. The criminal would self-ostracize to the extreme.

Yes, he does. In this case, his "basis" is called the Ancient History Is Irrelevent / Human Freedom Is More Important principle.

Why? Are all organized religions of the required to say something? Is this a World Religious War? Maybe some people think this war is primarily about safety and protecting specific land. The more religious groups who jump in with their opinions, the more they will turn it into a religious war. I would rather hear from environmentalists instead. They have a lot more credibility in the moral-neutrality department.

But it is worse for the employees of the regulated industries. We like to protect jobs at the consumers expense. Our agriculture industry is filled with that. The trouble is that we have social structures that place unfair advantages to make things cheaper relative to others. What if you found out that the coal industry was subsidized? (I do not know if it is or not throughout Canada. I am only talking hypothetically.) Subsidizing industries and cronyism can be concealed in so many different ways.

How do you reconcile mental illness? This is one area that is difficult to handle. For example, if you were suicidally mentally ill and refused to take your medications. Would you attribute a sense of responsibility to anybody else to intervene on your behalf to force you to medicate? I know what I would want for myself but I do not know how to objectively justify a solution. Truly, this is a dilemma. how would you reconcile people who were unreasonably paranoid or schizophrenic? The only reservation I have is that I do not know how to judge whether an other person's feeling is valid. At the same time, what constitues a threat could also be a very arbitrary too. It may be strategic to just get your own -- an arms race. Here is an other challenge: how in the world could you restrict it? It sounds like you are advocating a policy that could never be enforced? Would you pre-emptively attack people that you "suspected" to be developing weapons of mass destruction before they do so? CAVEAT: I approach warfare in a very cynical manner. I firmly believe that most warring sides are only in it for the money and greed. Everybody can be bought inlcuding the non-negotiating suicide bombers could be appeased. Here is a challenge to you: name a weapon that you believe CAN NOT be used primarily for self-defense.I think you misunderstand me. Of course any weapoon can be used for self-defense as it can for offensive purposes. The kinds of things which I refer to which are primarily for self-defense are generally not called "weapons". Militarily, systems as chaff used by aircraft fall into such a category.No. I think you are misunderstanding my challenge. You suggest restricting weapons that are primarily for offensive purposes and permitting weapons that are primarily defensive. I suggest that line can not be drawn. I may get myself a nuclear missile to deter my neighbor from striking me with his missile. My nuclear missile is a defensive weapon.

Why not? In each example, the people asking for something are asking for something to be given to themselves. How would YOU define selfish?? I agree with you that there are injustices in those other fields that are more severe. As an anarchist, I oppose all sorts of coersion and my solution to all of those injustices would be the same: eliminate the coersion. If you understand anarchism or basic libertarianism, you will see that solutions to taxation, justice and national defense end up being the same. It is monopoly of power that is the source of most of our ills. I will start (or possibly resurrect) a thread to discuss those other topics you mentioned. Back to taxation. Forgive me, but this is not the first time where you make me wonder: "Has he even read this thread?" even when I know that you have. Please read my very first post that started this whole thread. I was asked in a previous thread to explain why I think taxation is wrong. I refer you to: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index....st&p=125136 Now I am trying to do that: explain why taxation is wrong. I am not arguing because I "personally don't want to pay" and thus, I will not "frame the argument that way" at all. Why would I? I never even suggested that in this thread nor in the referring thread nor in any other thread at all. I still trust that your question are genuine and that my writing might not be clear. I strategically wrote the title and the subtitle of this thread to be as focussed as possible. We don't know, it's true. But we can never know - and looking at the past does tell us what happens when power accumlates without a counter balance.Give me an example. I would submit that looking at the problems of the present tells us what happens when power accumulates. I say that we can. The large forces that govern society are present at many points in history.You can not compare. You said that above. Those people are dead and we do not know their minds. Concentrations of power have certainly been most common. I still do not think that it is right. That is just a tiny aspect of our lives and only for people in the more affluent parts of the world. People who slave away in third-world sweatshops would probably take less domination over social safety nets any day. They would probably laugh at you if you tried to explain what a "social safety net" was and think you were trying to sell them a phony magic trick. Coersion is a part of even society, including tribes. The law coerces us in many ways. You can't distribute hate literature, you can't choose to take certain drugs, you can't buy a human being, even if they're willing.You can not live your life in peace and mind your own business either. I think that I would agree with you that direct democracy would reduce the concentrations of power without a doubt. We would be better off and we would have more freedom.

I agree but it is our fault. Big government. We created big government and gave people with power who are distanced from the electorate. Thus, they are able to escape accountability to the electorate much better than could officials of small government. The inefficiency of the "steal-from-Peter-to-pay-for-Paul" game is coming out and biting us. Until people stop using this "what can I do for my country?" ideology to justify nickel-and-diming their neighbor, it will only get worse.

How would their downfall disrupt the U.S. Government?

I would like to make a bold suggestion: turn the tables. Listen to all of the candidates who come to your door and after their "yeah, I want to bring back democracy and save the whales and yadda yadda yadda" speech, explicitly tell them what YOU want and expect from them if they get elected.

Yes. Because you could buy it from a private supplier instead. That is correct and I try to cope with government. What would you want me to do? I make suggestions which lean more towards freedom rather than away from freedom. What criteria do you follow?

You can do that right now by hiring security guards. In anarchy, you could do that too. You can do that right now. You might be charged with assault unless you could prove self-defense. What are you thinking? Allowed? Would you be surprised if I did so in self-defense? It is gravely naive to think that you can not pay for protection rackets today. Today state-monopolized police are generally reactive: i.e., they attempt to catch criminals after crime is committed. They work very hard at it only to be disappointed by the courts. We put criminals back on the street. We are generally chaotic in how we practice law and order. Nevertheless, the state does a shabby job at that because it limits personal freedom and is not accountable to the people who pay for the service: the tax-payers. I agree. If Canadians had the courage to re-open the constitution, they would have the opportunity to change the current tax-spending-redistribution scheme.