bk59

This is a favourite claim from certain people / parties. It is a claim that does not excuse politicians from being open with the public in a democracy. Do you really want politicians threatening media sources because they don't like a particular story? Do Canadians really want their politicians trying to control the media by determining who gets access and who doesn't? By only going to those reporters who will soft-ball questions, or just parrot the official line / news release? That's not the media's job. That's why politicians have public relations people, press secretaries, etc. I haven't seen any objective evidence that proves that there is an overall media bias. The fact that people from all political parties and viewpoints can point to sources in the media and scream bias shows me that overall the system is balanced. Not only that, but I think that it's quite rare to find a story that has had facts changed or made up on purpose. As for a story's slant... every media source will intentionally or unintentionally have a slant. It might be small, it might be big. But it generally evens out by comparing the same story in multiple sources. This makes it even more important that we don't let our politicians pick and choose who reports the stories. More sources make it easier for people to get a balanced, and perhaps more accurate, picture. Any claim by a politician that "the media is out to get me" should be viewed with extreme suspicion.

http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitize...-hypocrisy.aspx That editorial, and in particular the part you quoted, is as close to a lie as a newspaper is going to get these days. Those first few paragraphs are extremely misleading. The editorial admits further down the column: So I guess I would explain this by saying that apparently the Ottawa Citizen has some issues with McGuinty Jr. and has decided that they will attempt to attack him because of his father's views. And they will do this in a way that purposely confuses the fact that they are talking about two different people. McGuinty Sr.'s views do not matter - he is not running in this election. Purposely misleading people at the start of the column as to who holds what views is bordering on dishonest. They have some valid criticisms of McGuinty's stand. It's too bad that, as far as I'm concerned, they lost all credibility by trying a stunt like this.

Not just from a campaign though. It's really not that different from Harper telling the national media that he will no longer talk to them and that he will only go through local stations. As far as I'm concerned our politicians, of every party at every level, have a responsibility to deal with the media. Although I will make an exception for media stations that tell lies, etc. But that wasn't the case with McGuinty or with Harper and is very unlikely to ever happen in Canada (at least with mainstream media).

It looks like all political parties are starting to script more and treat the media with less respect. It worked fairly well for Harper so why wouldn't others do the same?

I don't really see any political party attempting to pass legislation like that. Or maybe I just hope that. It seems like it would be an excellent way to convince voters that you really are a big, scary party with an evil agenda. Even if legislation like that was passed, I'd give it about five minutes after it came into effect before someone challenged it in court.

More BS. If you have even one fact to back up your opinion then post it. Given that you haven't supported any of your other positions with facts (e.g. immigration has caused housing prices to rise, immigration is keeping Canadians out of schools, etc.) I doubt that you'll be producing any facts for this either. Hilarious. 1.6666666... is flawed? Self defeating? It is a number. Is this your idea of using numbers to back up your opinions? Blaming immigration for all the ills in Canada is not the same as understanding the larger issues.

Interesting that you called it "the threat that a prison inmate will be released." No, inmates are not treated like animals. But sentiments like "you should not benefit from society's freedoms" can lead to that result. Society owes it to itself to try to rehabilitate inmates so that they can rejoin society as productive members. Law abiding citizens do not cost the state money to prosecute them and house them in prisons. Not to mention the costs of the crimes themselves. Agreed, those who re-offend should (obviously) be prosecuted & imprisoned. But I hesitate to say that we owe prisoners only the bare minimum. If an inmate can finish his high school diploma and therefore make it easier for him to find a job when he is released, isn't that in society's best interest?

What moronic logic. By that logic every time you praise Canada's past culture you are telling everyone that you are a racist. Wake up. It is quite possible to celebrate your ethnic culture without being racist. By assuming that most immigrants wish to "ghettoise" themselves and saying that they are mostly racist shows only one thing - that you are racist. As compared to a homegrown racist like yourself who declares that all immigrants are backwards and racist? People do not pretend they live in other countries. Many are celebrating things like their religion or heritage. They do that while living here in Canada as Canadians. So Canada used to have culture, but doesn't any more? What about celebrations like Scottish Highland Games that take place all over Ontario (and elsewhere I am sure)? These have gone on for years. Is this cultural celebration racist? How come those types of celebrations did not destroy Canada's culture during the time of Terry Fox, and yet celebrations of other ethnicities / religions are, according to you, destroying Canada's culture today? Please do not confuse extremism with cultural celebration. This report is about Sikh separatists not Sikh culture. In fact, it is even pointed out in those clips that these extremists do not speak for the community as a whole. There is nothing wrong with having a parade that celebrates the Sikh culture. The problem, as shown in the report, was when that celebration got hijacked to glorify violence and mass murderers.

What?!? The weather is the source of all evil in this country? I say we close the borders fast & don't let any more weather in! Oh... wait... maybe you meant... never mind.

It's interesting that you bring up natural rights to defend the position that no one has the right to own land. Mostly because there is a theory of property rights based on natural rights, advanced by John Locke, whereby when one mixes their labour with nature they acquire ownership over that part of nature that has been mixed with their labour. In other words, if I build a house on a parcel of land, then I acquire ownership of that house. Perhaps I am not the one who is confused about the idea of natural rights. Even without discussing natural rights, your position has numerous problems. If you only have a right to defend land, then how can you purchase land? How can you sell land? Which land is yours to defend? If you can only defend land that you currently occupy, then anyone can come along and take it while you are away and you have no recourse; they now have the right to defend the land and you have no rights at all (according to your position). Don't confuse having a right with being able to exercise that right. Someone can come along and take something of yours by force. That does not mean that you do not have an ownership right to that thing.

Perhaps you should read my post again. In terms of who gets what, in my post I'm not taking one side or the other. Maybe you should also try answering some of my questions. If you think we have the right to fight to avoid being dislocated then why is it you seem to dismiss the rights of others to do the same? If you were forced out of your land would you not fight to get it back?

As "persuasive" as your argument is, I know from personal experience that celebrating different cultures does not automatically mean being prejudiced against others. Does nothing for us? Who says it has to "do something" for us? It doesn't hurt anyone when someone talks about how they are going to celebrate a particular holiday over the weekend, or how they are going to spend time with their family making tomato sauce for the entire winter just like they used to back home in Italy. For example. While there are some people who will only talk about these things, there are many others that do not. It's just another conversation topic amongst many. Not everyone needs to talk about just the things you are interested in. Perhaps some people get bored of hearing others constantly talk about how immigration is the source of all evil in this country. That's just it - you don't have to divide everyone up in order to appreciate multiple cultures. It is possible to be Canadian and still appreciate the differences we have. And to be honest... I don't care if you see no value in having multicultural cities like Toronto. No more than you seem to care that there are people out there who can appreciate being Canadian and celebrate different backgrounds without being racist or resorting to talking about authentic restaurants. Besides, as far as benefits go, I think that maybe (for example) businesses in Toronto see quite a lot of benefit in having something like the Carabana festival that brings in a lot of money. We're not pretending to be in another country. We're not segregating people. Segregation and racism only happen when you start looking down on other cultures or try to insulate your culture (be that Anglo or otherwise). And yes, some people do try to do that. This should be discouraged. But not at the expense of getting rid of all traces of the cultures we came from. Your push to whitewash everyone into the same culture is the type of sentiment that encourages people to insulate themselves & try to protect their culture rather than integrate into a multicultural society.

So people have the right to fight to avoid being displaced... doesn't that mean that the Palestinians & First Nations have the right to fight to avoid being displaced? Would you argue that if Canadians were forcibly displaced from Canada they would have the right to try to regain that land? Or would you just say, "I guess we're out of luck; time to move on and hope we can settle elsewhere"? But that's the problem isn't it? When a First Nations band steps up and says "we have a treaty that says this land is ours and you have taken it without permission", aren't they defending their land? The problem is that the current owner(s) of the land think they are also defending their land. This is the heart of land claims issues. Incidentally, people certainly do have a right to land. A right to use it as they wish, to exclude others, and to defend it, among other things. If people only had the right to defend land then you run into huge problems. Such as the next time you go out to get groceries I could enter your house. Now I have the right to defend it, but you don't have the right to anything. I'm not sure that's a situation you really want to encourage.

This is a nice attempt at creating a contradiction where there is none. The article in the OP is a criticism of another (the link is in the article). Except that the criticism doesn't quite get what the original article was saying. It misrepresents the original and then uses that as a springboard to say that supporters of the "economics of the left" are no different than the supporters of intelligent design. So why no contradiction? First, ID claims to be a science. It then claims the existence of an omnipotent designer responsible for creating / guiding life into its present form. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of an omnipotent designer, therefore ID cannot be science. The problem with ID is that it claims to be something that it is not. Teach ID in religion class if you want, but not science class. The "economics of the left" claim that the economy needs intervention in order to ensure that the playing field remains level for everyone (e.g. trying to prevent insider trading). The "left" claims that the state, the government, is the institution that should do the interfering / regulating. Not only is it extremely easy to prove the existence of the state, but it is also easy to prove that the state can influence the economy. (If it did not influence the economy then why is it that people advocating completely free markets keep complaining about how the state is interfering?) There may be debate over how the state should interfere, but there is no contradiction in saying that the actions of the state can help to regulate the economy (because they actually do affect the economy).

Those found guilty should & do lose a lot of their personal rights. This does not mean that they have no rights. Most of the people in prison have to reintegrate into society. It does no one any good to treat these people like animals and then expect them to magically accept society's rules when they are released. As for the privacy issue... I find the article in the opening post a bit suspicious. It is dated Saturday, September 8, 2007. And yet here is a CBC article dated Friday, September 7, 2007 that quite clearly has a picture of the escaped convict: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/sto...ey-running.html To me it seems like jennie might be right. Someone asked Corrections Canada for a photo when they had already given one to the proper authorities (I'm assuming the RCMP). For all we know it may have already been released to the media when this person asked Corrections Canada for the photo. Either way, it is the responsibility of the RCMP to release the photo, not Corrections Canada. I have to wonder why this problem hasn't been brought to light before. It seems more like an inexperienced reporter than anything else, especially since I haven't seen that aspect of the story anywhere else. I really don't think Corrections Canada should just be giving out photos of inmates simply because the media asked for them. Perhaps a beneficial change would be to allow Corrections Canada and the RCMP to coordinate their news releases and give them to the media at the same time whenever a prisoner escaped.

mikedavid00 first let me say that this is a much better post than I would have expected from you given some of the other posts you have made on here. Also, I haven't looked at the CBC links. But I'd hesitate to call this dinner of yours really multicultural. It seems like, despite the various backgrounds, you essentially share the same culture. One where no one apparently talks about (ethnic?) culture or religion. It is perhaps a nice example of the melting pot version of multiculturalism, but quite frankly I find that a bit too boring. It is possible to reach a balance between a melting pot and a mosaic. It is possible to share Canadian values and also share different cultures. I know groups of people, from different backgrounds and religions, who are comfortable talking with each other about their different beliefs and the practices that go with them (e.g. conversations between Christians and Muslims explaining Ramadan). Sometimes it's interesting to hear from friends who describe what it was like growing up in (for example) Korea versus Canada. A mosaic doesn't necessarily mean segregation. It doesn't necessarily mean holding onto "old world idealisms" or being prejudiced against other cultures. I think it is possible to be colour blind when it counts and yet still recognize that there are different cultures, ethnicities, religions, etc. in the world. Think "melted mosaic" rather than melting pot or mosaic. Something where you can still see all of the different tiles, but rather than sharp divisions every tile shares a blurred division - common ground - with every other tile. And please don't get me wrong. I don't support splitting the public school system up into a billion different pieces so that everyone can get their own school & never see anyone else. You can't get the necessary common ground that way. But that doesn't mean we all need to turn into bland clones of one another or ignore the fact that people really are in fact different from one another (even within the same cultural background). Noticing the different cultures we have here in Canada is one of the things that makes Canada a great place to live.

The debate was not started by the museum. It has been ongoing in one form or another since the bombing of Dresden. And yes, it is the museum's place to comment to some degree on history. As for historians and their job and place, museums are generally run by historians. If you expect one war to all of a sudden make everyone on the planet, including future generations, stop fighting then you have very unrealistic views of the human race. Humans still fight one another, but hopefully with what we learned from WWII we have avoided some wars through diplomacy and international cooperation. Hopefully we have learned to recognize certain war crimes and crimes against humanity and punish them through a justice system rather than victor's justice. I think we have, at least to some degree. But if your criteria for learning from history is that all of a sudden we live in utopia, then I think you may have missed the point. All we can do is do better, not be perfect. You're right about taking things in context. And the context is that after Dresden all of a sudden people saw what the bombing campaign was doing to people and they began to have doubts about it. Hence the claims about its dubious morality. Churchill's draft memo shows a greater link between Dresden and his reasons against terror bombing for the sake of terror bombing. It is understandable that he would phrase his final memo, after advice and objections from others, in terms of Britain's military needs. It was a smarter political move than his first memo. But make no mistake, he is questioning the value of continuing the bombing campaign in the same manner as was done previously. Again, part of the impetus for that was the moral questions surrounding the fire bombing of Dresden. You can try to call it libel all you want. But those statements on the panel are true. The fact is, the morality & value of the campaign was and is debated. The last part where it talks about small reductions in war production might be questionable and should be backed up with more facts or removed, but that's it. We can disagree on the value & morality of the fire bombing. That's fine. But let's not pretend that the debate has only recently emerged because of "liberal historians". It's been around for a while.

I'm going to have to agree with guyser on this one. mikedavid00, your answer is the classic answer that someone would get when someone else doesn't have anything to back up what they are saying, but doesn't want to admit it. Would you accept a statement like this: "I have proof that seven different species of aliens have all visited Canada over the last month. I have proof of this, but providing these cites would be too time consuming." How time consuming would it be to link to data showing unemployment and data showing immigration and then making the appropriate comparison? What are you talking about here? It doesn't make sense. You are saying that 1/3 of people who work are funding the work force? And this means less take home? Please explain. Again, I'm not willing to accept that the demand for housing is driven solely, or even mostly, by immigration. Please show some justification for this statement. That's OK. I can wait for the cite. Feel free to link to it whenever you get the chance.

Like the fact that there is a debate on this subject? (Whether or not you want to recognize the debate, it has been going on for some time amongst more than just a few overzealous historians.) Has this lobby group gone through every panel in the museum and demanded that anything that might be an opinion instead of a fact be removed? History gets rewritten when groups change how history is presented for political reasons. Are you telling me that a veterans group is doing this because they think a museum panel was incorrect, or because they do not want the implication that they participated in something that some people (not all people) object to? What was the opinion they were objecting to? Did the panel say that the campaign was ineffective? Did it say that it was a war crime? Or did it say that there was a debate? These are very different questions. Yes, wars continue. Does that mean we didn't learn anything? No. I would think that the Geneva Conventions of 1949 count as something that came about because of what happened in WWII. Not everyone may follow them, but these are exceptions, not the rule. The cost of rebuilding clearly became a factor near the end of the war, and was definitely one of the reasons to rethink how the bombing should be carried out. But I never said Churchill thought the entire campaign was a waste of effort. I said that "The fire bombing of Dresden led to a questioning of how the entire policy was being carried out." And that Churchill also questioned the policy after Dresden. Look at the line in the draft memo: "The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing." He says that "the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed." He talks of "mere acts of terror and wanton destruction." This language gets changed in the final version, and for understandable reasons. But clearly he had doubts about how the bombing was being carried out, and I don't think it's any coincidence that this issue of excessive damage just happened to come up after Dresden. Especially given that he cites Dresden. People have questioned the value & morality of this type of bombing since the bombing of Dresden happened. And that was really my only point since some people seem to think that only recently a few extremely liberal historians have taken issue with this type of bombing.

I don't suppose that in all of your reading and research you have found anything to back up these claims, have you? Perhaps some statistics that would show that as immigration increased, unemployment also increased by a similar amount? Or perhaps showing that when unemployment was low, immigration numbers were similarly low?

My opinion is that reading is good, but you have to know what you're looking at. Particularly with stats. For July 2007 the breakdown by class of worker is: Employees 14,200.6 Self-employed 2,647.9 TOTAL 16,848.6 Employees are then broken down further into public & private. So the numbers look like this: Public 3,229.2 Private 10,971.5 Self-employed 2,647.9 TOTAL 16,848.6 Which translates into: Public 19% Private 65% Self-employed 16% So it's hardly 1/3 civil servants. I'll ignore the 1/3 communism line since it makes no sense. As for the salary info, I'm not sure where it comes from, but msj is right. You have to compare apples to apples. Without a comparison of equivalent jobs, how do you know who is being paid more? This may be true in some cases, but I know for a fact that in other cases bottom level civil servant jobs actually pay much less than their private sector counterparts. While I like to complain about the government as much as the next person, I'm not sure that I'm willing to generalize about the competency of the civil service like that.

If the event being discussed in the panel directly led to the debate then the museum has every right to include that information on the panel. Especially in a case like this where arguments have been made on both sides for decades between numerous people such as military personnel, academics, government officials/politicians, etc. When a lobby group of any sort pushes to cleanse material in a museum then it does not bode well for an open and honest examination of history. I do enjoy it when people on this forum begin to start with these types of statements. If by personalize things you mean saying that your logic leads you to a certain position then sure, consider it personal. I make no claims about being superior. You however seem to think that no one should question the past. The problem is your moral relativism. If there existed a society today that, "based on knowledge, upbringing, culture and values" enslaved certain ethnicities, treated women like property, outlawed free speech with respect to religion, etc., would you defend that society? Would you argue that they are right? If the so-called "requirements of their society" meant that adults were training child soldiers to kill their families & villages, would that be acceptable to you? A balance must be struck between absolutism and relativism. On this topic my point has never been to judge people from the past, certainly not on a personal level. My point is that we need to examine how we acted in the past so that we do not repeat our mistakes. And yes, this means judging morality by our standards today. Because that is part of the point - to ensure that given a similar situation we do not betray what we believe in. Allow me to be very explicit since I can see where the misinterpretation came from. At the time of the bombing the policy of area bombardment was being questioned. The fire bombing of Dresden led to a questioning of how the entire policy was being carried out. So yes, I am quite aware of what the panel was saying. And my point goes directly to your statement that only comfortable, liberal historians have recently found a problem with the campaign. Even Churchill had his concerns after Dresden in a draft memo from March 28, 1945. After responses from people like the Chiefs of Staff and RAF Bomber Command the language was changed, but there still seems to be a questioning of the policy in his final memo of April 1, 1945.

There is no equivalence between the debate over the fire bombing of Dresden and your so-called "debate" over pedophilia. Read the link I gave in my first post on this topic. Good luck finding that sort of "debate" over pedophilia. You can choose to ignore the debate if you want, but that doesn't mean it isn't there and that it isn't valid. Yes, certain acts may have been considered moral at the time. That does not mean that they were right. If you want to defend slavery today because in the past some people were considered property then go ahead. The way you are arguing I would fully expect you to agree that if a community today decided that they would bring back slavery then that would be alright with you, as long as the entire community considered it an acceptable practice. As long as "they were acting within normal parameters" of their society then I guess anything would be acceptable to you. Even so, you seem to have missed something that is quite obvious. The Dresden bombing is not being questioned by "a very few liberal historians." These are not "comfortable liberals pondering history from the safety of their leather office chairs." At the time of the bombing these acts were being questioned. By your logic if I had an opinion on a news article from a few days ago then that would make me a historian.

First, the panel said that the value & morality was being debated. This is clearly true - people are debating this. In my opinion the statement itself did not pass judgement. Even so, your logic is flawed. While it is true we must judge historical situations within their historical context, that does not mean that we need to accept the same conclusion that something was morally right or wrong. Look at the history of slavery or the history of denying a woman's right to vote in elections. In that context a number of people truly believed that non-whites were inferior and were in fact property to be bought and sold. People believed that women should not vote for a variety of reasons. These were acceptable opinions at the time. That does not mean that today we have to accept the same conclusion that these acts were morally acceptable. In fact, it would do us all good to take a hard look at these situations to make sure that we do not repeat our mistakes. As another quick example, take the internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII. I think most people today would agree that imprisoning people based simply on their ethnicity is unacceptable, no matter if the country is at war and people are scared. It is particularly during the times when we are under pressure and scared that we must remember what is right and wrong. And history can remind us of this.

It doesn't seem to me that the CBC is hiding anything. I took a quick look at their site and found three other articles about people being charged with crimes or going to court for criminal charges. In none of them do they list the ethnicity or citizenship of the accused. Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 Maybe the CBC just doesn't report these things when they are irrelevant to the story? As for this being an act of terrorism... that seems unlikely. The whole point of terrorism is to make it public, so why wasn't there a public claim of responsibility after the first bomb went off? It seems likely that the police know what they are talking about when they say there is a connection since I doubt they would jeopardize their case by randomly speculating in public. That being said, it wouldn't hurt to wait to see what comes out of this before jumping to conclusions. And well played gc1765! mikedavid00 if you distrust the police so much, how do you know that this even happened? Maybe the police just got bored and shut down those highways to go joy riding. Just because they said there was a bomb doesn't mean there was one! You can't just pick and choose what to believe based on what you want to prove. You have to take all of the facts as they are. Sorry.