Charles Anthony

Funny, neither have I until YOU joined the forum and YOU pointed it out as your FIRST spam -- I mean, first post. Please send us a daily reminder just in case we forget. No, it does not. It belongs on MySpace. Thanks for reviving this thread! I would rather go feed the pigeons.

Are they likely to stop in our lifetime? The two sides are claiming the same land. Has anybody considered the possibility that non-stop war without diplomacy between these two sides as a solution (albeit a miserable one indeed)? Only a minority on either side discusses living together in peace. We are looking for a cure whent there might not be a cure when maybe we should just accept treatment. Maybe we should resign ourselves to ongoing war until more people discuss living in peace.

It could be that your observation is less dependent of the actual presidents themselves. It could be a reflection of the American system of government having more check and balances than most other governments. As a result, bad governance is rooted out with less delay in America. Maybe our government (and the governments of most other countries) would display the same pattern of leadership turn-over if they faced the same music.

Bush is proposing NATO goes into Lebanon to do exactly what is failing in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Give me a break. The only thing that NATO can do is take one side and be an active participant in the war. Everything else will either be hypocrisy or a failure.

Fine. I will use your "economic" model. Why not raise it to 2% or 3% instead? What exactly is the maximum Laffer percentage for Canada with respect to the GST? I bet you can not answer it yourself. In fact, I bet that none of your genius "economists in the last election" could answer it either. They just critize the GST cut because of a political agenda or a greasy palm.

The gall! Are you deciding how much each person can afford? Why not raise it to 2% or 3% or 4% instead? This money does not belong to the governmnent. It belongs to the tax-payer. If you want to take people's money and with nebulous economics, justify it concretely. Play with your Laffer equations and justify your 1% if you can. There is a challenge for you. Is that your justification??????? With that justification, we can say the province might need all of our money. Therefore, we should run to the province and give the bureaucrats all of our money.

Yes.There is also something called personal economic freedom. If we trust bureaucratic economists why not trust them with everything? I have something better for big red economists: Why not have every single submitizen hand over 100% of their money to all of the bureacrats? The bureacrats could punch in numbers and decide how much of that money is necessary to play with the economy to fullfil their Laffer equations. The bureaucrats could return the difference in the form of a "tax returen" at the end of the year?

The mechanics of your proposal is precisely along the lines of what would be done if the road was privately owned. It takes advantage of a market system to pricing and allocation more so than a taxation/big-government system would. All we need to do is apply the similar mechanism to more sectors of the economy and PRESTO!! I believe we can eliminate income tax entirely!

In this case, precisely who do we include? Do we include every person who is presently in Lebanon? if not, who do we exclude? Do we include every person who resides in Lebanon? if not, who do we exclude? Do we include every person who was born in Lebanon? if not, who do we exclude? If we can not be precise about who is included in our conception of "a society collectively responsible" and if we can not accurately attribute blame that makes us evil.

This is what I think: I do not feel any of them are entitled to being rescued regardless of their allegiance to their "citizenship" or how much time they spend in Canada. I am not ashamed to say it. I have sympathy for their plight but I do not feel anybody has a responsibility to rescue anybody else. There are a lot of people in the rest of the world who are victims of violence and tragedy.

Raising taxes?????? How long will it take Canadians to shake of the Big Red Machine of Trudeaumania???? Here is a suggestion: how about LOWERING taxes? God forbid we should stimulate the economy by................ letting people spend more of their own money.

Why do you look to learn from the Reform party example? In general, the Reform aimed for small government as opposed to big government. Your new Quebec party policies are a mish mash of every size of government possible.

I would rather go feed the pigeons.

Alas, Hamlet spoke to himself and said something even more profound before he discovered the court jester's skull.

This is a very important observation. The science will never be able to compete. The clones will be relegated to rich weirdos. The geneticists and Dr. Frankenstein can make all of the advances and discoveries and the money they want, but the the male sperm donor will always be able to supply children at the cheapest and convenient rate. In fact, maybe they could even re-inject some fun!

Actually, no he is not. He is pointing out a direct implication of what this article suggests and it seems everybody has casually glossed over it. How can you miss it??? Stop. His questioning is logical. You are putting words in his mouth that he did not say. From the very first sentence in this post: it is evident that the implication is that women are being encouraged to take the morning after pill certainly more frequently than previously recommended if not every time they have sex. The words that you put in his mouth: come from your mind and "leads me to believe" that you have an agenda with pre-conceived knowledge of who takes pills and who has sex. He did not say what you said. Only prejudice will fight valid questioning of advocates for new medication regimens. Read the rest of the article: I think one could logically conclude that this exclusively online pharmacy does not give a damn other than selling pills.

Well, if one believes that personal gain is tantamount, all that might slow or stop such gain would be considered an impediment. For example, in the last few years, marketing companies have pushed 'good business ethics' as the new buzzwords...but not because it is the right thing to do, their sales pitch is that "Now good business ethics can be more profitable!" It isn't because of a new found 'morality', it is a sales gimmick.It is finally clear to me now. The Lone Flea at a computer joins an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters to unlock the secret meaning of life. "Alas, poor Fleabag! I knew him Thelonius; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."

Well, if one believes that personal gain is tantamount, all that might slow or stop such gain would be considered an impediment. For example, in the last few years, marketing companies have pushed 'good business ethics' as the new buzzwords...but not because it is the right thing to do, their sales pitch is that "Now good business ethics can be more profitable!" It isn't because of a new found 'morality', it is a sales gimmick.It is finally clear to me now.

With what would the Communist Party of Canada replace monopoly finance capital? I could not find anything on their website at all. Any ideas?

That is fair. So, let us continue some place else, shall we?

Ha ha ha! In fact, you will see that you are very much in the minority now! I suggest that you do some reading on libertarianism to start. In general, libertarians are anarchists who do make room for a very small and limited role of government in society. Anarchists do not. Anarchists categorically identify all forms of government as coercion and a priori they are wrong. When you identify yourself as an anarchist, you set yourself up for being misunderstood. There are a lot of people who say they are anarchists but in fact are socialists or communists in denial. They seem to be the great majority. They will also categorically refuse any connection between capitalism and anarchy.

Can you provide one single explanation as to how the same mechanisms can actually work WITHOUT capital???? Until then, your communism will continue to be a wonder.

Come to the dark side....

Quite the contrary. Even though true anarchy will never be stable, anarchist principle is actually very handy when trying to determine fair policy for the real world. The key about anarchist theory is that it holds individual freedom to be a primary virtue. Many other political theories respect freedom as well thus, sharing charateristics and conclusions with anarchy. However, since anarchy is very extreme about respecting individual freedom it is often impractical because our world constantly has people stepping on eachother's freedoms. We commonly adapt and accept it. One other feature of anarchist principle is that it focusses exclusively on individual responsibility as well. Since only single people can do something, the anarchist does not blame anything on "society" or "Hollywood" or "young people" or any other vague concepts. Whenever somebody blames society, it really never solves anything at all. Thus, the anarchist looks deeper and puts everything on the shoulders of specific individuals. Sometimes it is very difficult but that is the challenge. Usually people blame "society" simply to run away from the problem instead of dealing with it head-on. Anarchist principle is like one end of a scale that measures individual freedom. The opposite end of the scale would be absolute tyranny: a complete lack of freedom. Societies of all sorts generally lie somewhere in between -- we make trade-offs of freedom all of the time. Some of those trade-offs are grave injustices while others are hidden injustices like pollution. Understanding anarchist principle helps to identify ways of dealing with grey areas of public policy. Just to illustrate how extreme and impractical true anarchy happens to be, you must understand that in an anarchist condition there is no crime. The moment somebody steals, the balance of freedom in anarchism is upset and we are no longer in anarchy. The moment somebody murders or assaults somebody else, we are no longer in anarchy. Where we are at that point does not have a name, but it is no longer anarchy. I hope you understand how this is virtually an impossible state -- nevertheless, it acts as a baseline. To give you a very simple example of applying anarchist principle, look at Canadian federalism with respect to the independence of Quebec and Alberta. The anarchist will say: "Yes! They should separate." without even thinking because naturally, it is wrong for a population to be governed by people in Ottawa, a city that is not even in either Quebec nor Alberta. A group of people in Ottawa do not even know what happens to individuals in Alberta nor Quebec. Thus, our federalism moves down the scale towards less freedom and more control. The reason why it is wrong is much more complicated and can be explained with other principles of political theory too. However, anarchism is simple and usually makes it easier to arrive at conclusions. Most people (whether they think about it or not, whether they care about political theory or not) want individual freedom and most people do not control other people. They want to live in peace. This is how anarchist conclusions are usually consistent with conclusions derived by people who have a natural tendency to respect human freedom. On the lighter side of anarchy, there is a very recent article that examines the 1980's television show "The A-team" that was popular at the time. http://blog.mises.org/archives/005325.asp

I drifted off the point??? You brought up the diversion of turban RCMP officers and uniforms as an analogy. I called you on your analogy and you say that I am drifting off the point. What about regardless of uniform? I do not. I do not care about what the best officer wears. I am willing to bet that there are a lot more plain-clothes RCMP officers who do just as much useful work if not more. Where is the tradition there? That argument would work if the government did not monopolize the law and order business. If we were talking about a private security company, fine. Your stance would be fair. However, the RCMP is paid by everybody's taxes. You have to explain more about this new analogy: Are you (or whoever you represent) required to defend themselves at this Queen's Bench court? Is there no other choice? If there is no other choice and you would be refused to present yourself without a particular costume, that is a horrifying miscarriage of justice. Period. That is not "equal under the law" at all. Sorry. Yes. I can dispute it easily. To start, take a look at this forum. Not everybody agrees with the same definition of mariage. How should it do that?