Michael Hardner

It's very sad how much traction this conspiracy garbage gets. It's a warning sign to all of us that our institutions are under deep suspicion. Thanks, BD, for doing a good job of addressing the points raised.

Wong has a maid so we should ignore her ? Strange.

Renegade - I agree. But there's some kind of contradiction there. If the government is concerned with higher wages, aren't they also concerned with productivity - ie. production per hours of labour ? Certainly, there's a balance at play. Wouldn't it be nice if we understood what that balance was, and how our government tries to achieve it ?

I checked out a few articles in the Globe and Mail. There was an article about the theories of Mark Ames, who submits that the world is simply a crueller place, and seems to place blame on globalization et al. Jan Wong imlpies that Quebec language laws are a factor. Jeffrey Simpson's piece calls for calm, and quotes statistics (Ames' ideas would benefit from more evidence) to show that things aren't as bad as they seem. The editorial states that the current legislation wouldn't have prevented the disaster, and asks for dialogue to come up with better gun control policies. As I suspected, the paper tends to take a top-down view - ie. how policy changes can prevent these incidents - rather than dobbin and Argus' more ground-level view.

From jdobbin and Argus' posts above, they pointed out social factors such as isolation and values as having an impact. The unsettling thing about those ideas is perhaps that we can't blame the government for that, or start a new program to deal with it - the responsibility is on us. I'm going to pay closer attention to the MSM and see whether they're more likely to suggest programs and top-down policy initiatives, just as an experiment.

Rénégade: Not at all. Maybe a deep discussion of what education is supposed to achieve would be a good idea, though. For example, your post seems to say the desired outcome is higher wages - is that indeed true ?

I have been posting for over six years (3 years here, I think) and have seen some remarkable changes in people. The medium can't be ignored - it will eventually find its place.

Money buys TV time, ie. time on a crusty old medium whose influence decreases every year. We're coming.

The question, to me, is when people look for 'root causes' and why. Yes, you're correct - an organized terrorist act by a group is a different sort of crime and might warrant attention based on that alone. If it's a singular act, though, then does it matter ? I'm asking these questions as much of myself as of you. I think that there may be tiny amount of empathy that we feel within a large amount of contempt for these people. If it's a school shooter, for example, I think we naturally empathize a tiny bit more - subconsciously - than with a foreigner who is acting out of rage over a far-away-conflict.

Nothing beats interactivity for learning - Socrates did it well in his day. I now find that reading the newspaper is a frustrating exercise, as the typical article leaves so many questions unanswered. Another side-effect of heavy MLW involvement is frustration with politically-like-minded people whose opinions are rote or uninformed. Such a place will be important to the political process in the future - I have no doubt.

I'd like to add that the education = high wages idea is severely outdated.

Yes, you need mention what policy you refer to in the thread title. If this is just a general dirge and lament about the status of men in society, you should express your feelings through poetry.

Your example - man is now being discouraged from traditional relationships. What do you mean and how does that represent a loss of rights. As for divorce legislation, it doesn't mention gender but instead provides a formula for dividing assets.

I agree... I like all of these and probably a few that I haven't thought of...

August1991 comes to mind. Argus is a solid logical thinker but we don't share the same values at all. Black Dog, theloniusfleabag...

Well, it's still not provable but it seems more reasonable now somehow...

Says Black Dog... Decline of war and violence, decline of religion... You can dispute the former trend if you like. I won't. It doesn't matter either way - you could associate the decline of religion to the decline of the hula hoop without evidence.

To take two social trends and imply they are linked is pure supposition.

That must have been it. But - if he's just a regular run-of-the-mill white guy, then ... oh well.. he was just crazy and let's not think about it any more.

jbg, Don't you think it's wrong to write off an entire group of people based on the actions of a few ? We haven't applied that to other religions or nations either.

There wasn't much posting on this topic because the shooter, apparently, wasn't Muslim. There are many things that pique peoples' interest, and these days that one tops the list.

Googling on the issue turns up blogs and opinions that agree on the source of the problem, and studies that look at it more objectively. We have already seen an example where facts are altered in order to convince people of a problem. I suggest we should look to academic studies of crime as they have to meet standard for proving their theses. The aforementioned problem, though, is that some governments won't collect data based on race or other factors.

The information should be made public. Otherwise, articles such as this will reach conclusions based on nothing but 'stories'. If there's a problem then let's talk about it. As it is, the article contradicts itself. As the article states - there is no information. Yet they have no qualms about reaching conclusions based on anecdotal evidence.

You can't say that 95% of third generation Turks import a wife. That hasn't been established and it's an entirely different meaning and implication... If 1 in 1000 of the third generation goes to Turkey for a wife, then the first statement holds, but the second does not. The shock value of the mangled statement was that the third generation isn't at all assimilated...

FYI, I already discredited that number in another thread. The original quote was something like '90% of Turkish immigrants went home to find a wife, including some third generation immigrants'. Then a columnist mangled it to say that 90% of THIRD generation immigrants went home. That's another example of internet non-intelligence, and the telephone game on www.