Remiel

How you imagine this would all go down is a little too fanciful, Machjo. There are good and valid reasons for teaching martial arts in school. There may even be good and valid reasons to deputize citizens to watch out for troublemakers. But the ability to create roving bands of Tai Chi masters to deal with anarchists (who under this scenario would also know Tai Chi), is not a reason to teach Tai Chi in school. I would not even call it an expected benefit.

You can get alcohol on VIA...

I seriously doubt that it would be of any use at all in the respects you think. Among the host of other problems, all the Canadian anarchists would have been trained exactly the same way.

I am against spousal abuse. ...Aren't you?

http://www.thestar.com/article/830516--kelly-i-love-this-wretched-place I thought this was an interesting piece from the Canada Day comments by various Star reporters. I am curious as to what others take on it will be.

For a technical comparison, if someone says that six million Jews were killed in World War II, but denies that it was genocide, would that contravene the sort of Holocaust denial laws that some countries have? You do not quite portray it accurately here, Argus. However, the law is about as heavy handed as it gets. Specifically, it is not really about insulting your spouse, it is more about insulting your spouse repeatedely and visciously; the intent of the law is to curb psychological spousal abuse, not mere arguments. We could go into a whole debate about how these people should be getting a divorce, but that would beside the point. Judges have said that the law is too vague to be actionable, but I am not sure they disagree with the reasoning behind making such a law, just the particular law itself.

This is one of those rare times where we agree.

I think it is somewhat ironic, if also somewhat understandable, that conservatives who when it comes to law enforcement always claim they have " nothing to hide " suddenly get antsy when asked to fill out a simple census form. Data mining firms probably already get a whiff of the same answers Canadians are asked to give on the census, so privacy concerns over sensitive topics are not as persuasive as they may have been in the pre-Information Age, when the census was the only way to get that sort of data. Anyone who complains that the government is always wasting money should at least think twice about not having a mandatory form. At the end of the day, it is a policy informing instrument.

When anyone with at least half a brain advocates breaking up the reserve system, they at least include that the reserve land should be broken up and distributed among its inhabitants.

Well, part of the reason I consider myself outside the mainstream is because I think candidates need to be able to advocate a platform that works for their constituency, not just parrot the national plan.

My soul is my own. I am a federal Liberal, but I am hardly in the mainstream of the party. I love (when I do not hate) politics, and would like to pursue it. I was very non-committal in terms of parties only a couple of years ago, but a friend of mine suggested that our age it was time to get serious about it, and to be part of federal politics you have to join a federal party. I joined the Liberal's for a couple of reasons, one being that as they are the middle party, there is less ideological restraint than my other options. I am on the Left of the party, but that does not mean I wish to be shackled to the types of solutions the Left usually favours if I thought something else could work better. Another reason is that I am from a rural riding, which means that if I ever wanted to actually represent my riding my only chance would be as a Liberal, since I am against the Conservatives and the Liberals are the only real contender. I certainly have no love for Ignatieff, though I do not detest him either. He is not the Liberal party, however; neither is Stephen Harper the Conservative Party, nor Jack Layton the NDP. But, before you start feeling self-righteous and start calling me names, like " collaborator " , I could just as easily consider you a " collaborator " of apathy and defeatism, which would be at least as much of a sell-out as joining a party would be, if that is indeed what it is.

Do not be dense. You do not let people take away your rights because you are not currently in need of them. The right to protest does not exist for the sake of the G20, though it may allow them to make fools of themselves during it.

There is no single political act or power that is enough to preserve democracy in the face of adversity.

I guess your imagination just is not working hard enough then.

What exactly do you expect to gain by jumping on the Bad Grammar Bandwagon?

Your hyperbole reeks. Maybe there are some in parties that think that way, but I imagine there are also many who work for their party despite who leads it, not because of them.

Exactly how many people did protesters kill this weekend?

Though it is in a rather rough form as you have stated it, I think something along those lines would be infinitely better than your earlier proposition to shoot them full of holes. I would not, however, use it as a way to workaround the law so that the " police " could be brutal. The primary point of such a law would be do allow the public to show their displeasure and to malcontents, as a way to ostracize them, not to beat up said malcontents (though I am sure some people would get the point more " forcefully " than others). Such a scheme I think, to be most effective, should include strict rules prohibiting police from trying to influence the public to use their lawful powers, because if it were to just turn into a cover for police, then the malcontents would just start thinking of all other protesters as colluders and dupes, instead of a group with genuine ire, and the social effect of it would be lost.

Not really. But to pay the cost of getting rid of them in the liberties we enjoy is too high a price.

Well, at this point, I am certainly leaning in the direction of " too much crap " because otherwise I would not be thinking that we ought to have an election regardless of X, Y, and Z seemingly pragmatic reasons that have already been stated, and even if it could actually turn out worse for the party I am a member of. I do not know if an election would change anything. But, as I have already said, what we think would happen should not be the sole determining factor of if their is an election, as it is now. I think it is foolish, however, to assume we know how things would go. And too, we should not be surprised that it looks like nothing would change if we called an election because nothing has changed: the parties are still using the same playbooks they have been using for years: go to the polls when you think you are going to win. What I am saying is, the party that actually shows some principle in determining when they want to go may be enough of a game changer as to render all the pre-election polls so much wasted effort.

Or packing their own heat. Escalation is a dangerous game.

What exactly do you count as the " status quo " ? If the " status quo " involves a proroguation every year, more attempts to bury the rights of Canadians to see information that may be important to holding their government accoutable, punishing regions that do not vote for you, making commitees into circuses, and a number of other such travesties of Canadian parliament, then I do not think " more " of the " status quo " is pretty good at all. Edit: And just to note, I did not necessarily mean that we needed regular term-limit elections. More like, " Enough crap has gone down that maybe we should see if Canadians actually want more of the same crap, or different crap. "

In terms of language and cultural practices, generally. You know, the sort of thing like, " They lost on the Plains of Abraham, so should we even be teaching French to anyone? " and that sort of crap. That particular example may be a bit of hyperbole on my part, but it the gist of it would be agreed to by some.

Do you know the actual circumstances of the crash? The laws? Perhaps Cuba has automatic fault laws similar to Canada. Not that I agree with such laws, but they exist.

[sorry - double post...]