jefferiah

No they didnt know.

Charles you seem to have the idea that kids can have no bad impulses if they have good parents. This is ridiculous. You asked me if I knew other kids who did not use drugs. Of course I did. Why did I do drugs and not other kids? Because I was fascinated by it at the time and that whole ridiculous lie of mind expansion. Some kids do and some kids don't. You make a huge leap and say "some kids have better parents". Why are some parents better than others? I dunno maybe "some parents have better kids". Seriously. My parents were not bad parents who allowed me to smoke pot. This is ridiculous and unfair.

And for the record. No my parents did not let me do drugs. It was not their fault. I did it of my own accord. I cannot even blame the dealer. Yet, these guys should know better. They are making tons of money off dumb punk kids like I was.

When I was younger I smoked pot for a while, which I now regret. I grew up in a very rural area. We all knew where these guys lived. Everybody knows everybody. Even if you never did drugs you know someone who does, you know where they get it. It's not like a rumour about "I think Mr. Williams is gay" or something like that. Its well known. I remember when I was a young punk and I did do drugs. There was one particular dealer my friend would go to. He was always the one to go in. Well....one day we find out this guy got busted. Let's call him Mr. X. Two days later my friend goes to Mr. X's house to buy drugs. No, he was not out this early. But his wife took over sales until he got back. A year later I was no longer doing drugs, but I remember being with this same friend (who I was seeing less and less of) and he went to go get some drugs and Mr. X was dealing again. This happens all the time. This is only one story. But it happens over and over again. These guys get busted multiple times. Its nothing. They make lots of money. A little slap on the wrist now and again. Society is practically saying....here this is better than a legitimate business.

I dont think its fair to say these parents let their kids smoke crack. That is crazy. Parents often dont know what their kids are doing. And I am telling you, whether you believe me or not---I dont care. In a place like Grand Manan if someone is dealing they know it. Dealers have customers. There is no anonymity for this sort of thing in a place like this.

Darwinism is a load of assumptions built upon other assumptions. That's it. It may seem to a be a rational answer to you, but not to me. I don't believe consciousness arises naturally from cold dead matter. If you wish to abolish this belief then in your society I will be a criminal.

Hmmm......Well ok you dont believe in God, Cybercoma. I do. The fact that people have killed in God's name is not God's fault. If you think things should be abolished because people could use them for ill, then we might as well have it all out and ban everything. That is a ridiculous position Cybercoma.

And? Perhaps. But your prior post is a good example of how rumours start and spread. We went from suspected crack house to a repeat offender who got off easy who the local police weren't doing anything about. Which is all speculation. And in a small town, speculation can turn to rumour and rumor to fact in the time it takes to order another round. Believe me Black Dog. This is not the Salem witch trials. In Grand Manan the people know who is dealing. They are not that stupid. They wont go burn down a house if they heard a rumour.

I live in a small community. These people are in and out all the time and back in business. Always the same ones. Everyone knows. A little jail time is a business expense and nothing more.

I never said anything about crack. I said crap. When you live in a small community people know who is dealing. Its not rocket science.

Does anyone remember a case from a few years ago? I believe it was in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia. And elderly man was arrested for threatening teenagers with a baseball bat. The teens had been throwing rocks at his house and shouting at him---on more than one occasion I think. So he comes out with a bat. And he ended up being charged while no action was brought against the teenagers.

I am from NB--not near Grand Manan--but I remember this happening. I don't support vigilante justice, but I think the people in that area were pretty pissed off and the law had failed them. Grand Manan is small and intimate. People know each other. People see their friends and family being messed up and spending their money on this crap.... And this fellow who sells it--well the legal system puts him right back where he needs to be to do more business. If the system cant enforce the law who will?

The equal rights question is a matter of how you look at it. Everyone has always had the right to marry a person of the opposite sex. So when people say when you don't allow gay people to marry you are denying them a right everyone else has. Not true. Straight people would not be able to marry someone of the same sex either.

They handed out buttons. Wooooooooooooo. Handing out buttons----Sponsorship scandal. Handing out buttons--- Sponsorship Scandal. Hmmmm.....someone help me out here. I cant figure out which is worse. As for the memo, I think that's just good strategy. I don't think it worked though. I think everyone knew they weren't afraid of Ignatieff.

I believe in God. I don't think my belief in Him makes him real. I believe He is real--for believers and unbelievers.

Which part of the future? i shall quote this from Friedrich Nietzsche, "zealously and with clamor they drove their herds over the bridge: as if there was only one bridge to the future!" i indeed have seen this bridge, not all wish to cross it, but your 'herd' does, and would do it like sheep saying that they must follow the good shepherd even to the slaughter house. i wish to have true freedom, i wish to cross the bridge over man, and become more then man is today as we did to the men of yesterday. i will go my own way, let that be outcast! but i cast myself out, i could not bear the sting of your minds anymore then you mine. you are too proud to hear him, this man that understood our potential, must i go over man not knowing if anyone followed? i would surly go mad. their is no definite future, even if we do become more then man, but in this wake we will see a shine that for an instant could be more then man, that is where we are. what if god is not god, but home, and the church is the illusion trying to teach you who he is, is the bible then a lie? maybe, but it has been changed by kings, warlords, tyrants and churches, the bible's morals have some bad morals, like how to hate and love, or how to act and play, and the worst sin of all: telling the future to be so dark, do not look at these killer's and say they tell the truth, learn it by your heart, for it is the wiser, but also is the zealot, silence him then use your head, you cannot comprehend the universe, but neither does the church, and the bible may give that shine and glamour, the light and clouds with angels at top, but i have flown and seen no angels, they are not on this earth, and the image is not as great as what man can become. begone with devils, begone with gods! it is time for man. "what is a monkey to man, a laughing stock or painful embarrassment? so shall man be to the superman, a laughing stock and painful embarrassment!" Friedrich Nietzsche, 'thus spoke zarathustra' this is the mental evolution from man to over man, i ask you this, would you like us to evolve? " I used to own the book "Thus Spake Zarathustra". Neitzsche had a very sharp intellect and a very nice poetical way of conveying his philosophy. Around the time that I read it, I found it had a thought-provoking effect on me. I sometimes quote that book myself, since I think he did make some valuable points. However, I don't subscribe to Neitzsche's general idea, as I see it. I think alot of what Neitzsche wrote was nothing new, an already existing philosophy. The characters in Dostoevsky's novels had many of the same intellectual ideas, and I think Neitzsche was a Dostoevsky reader. I think they were also ideas Dostoevsky himself had rejected. It seems to me that you think people choose to believe in God because they are not free thinkers. I think you don't realize that it's untrue. You don't know Betsy's reasons for believing in God. Neitzsche was an individualist, I think, and it seems to me you are somewhat an individualist yourself. And maybe you think religion is controlling a mass herd. In some cases that may be so, but I think many people have come to believe in God from free-thinking. You seem to have a religious zeal for Neitzsche since your language and poetic style seem to mimic "Thus Spake Zarathustra". Do you think that all people who believe in God do so because they are blind followers? Do you believe this because "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (your Bible) tells you so? I think Neitzsche though intelligent was quite self-deluded. I don't believe in the Ubermensch. I don't believe in evolution from apes. Do you think people are forcing me to believe this? That I have chosen to believe it out of fear? I think evolution has very little actual proof and is somewhat of a religion itself. The original reasons for believing in it have all been discounted recently, but the faithful still stand by it looking to science to provide a "desired" result. Evolution is a mass of theories, elaborate stories and explanations, based on a few facts. It seems odd to me that out of the billions of children of the common ancestor only one is now using the internet, talking on the phone, etc. To me it is just plain simple logic that evolution is untrue. Maybe you dont agree, but I am not brainwashed to believe this. I am not a Church goer or anything. Philosophically the problem with Neitzsche and others is this: the need for a Superman to create order. If everyone was an individual and free thinker and extreme non-conformist then society would be nihilist. Every man for himself. People would do as they please. So the need arises for the "greater man" to control the herd. These are the people who seize control of society by tricking people in order to establish order over them for their own good. Yet, what man is qualified for this? And what man is qualified to judge who is qualified to be over others? Perhaps the superman himself would only have the intelligence to understand that he is the leader. Now we have a real problem, because anyone who fancies himself a Superman....well I think you see where this is going. You have mentioned in your posts something I recognize from Neitzsche. The great heights! Like his parable of the tree that grew so tall and all the others were down down below. The problem with this philosophy is: what man can judge what is up what is down. Ideas and thoughts are not as visible as trees. The fact that your idea may be far far from anothers does not mean it is far above. It could be far below. Far to the side. An idea may be very original and far far from the the ideas of the so-called "herd", but that does not make it right or truthful or worth following. Mankind is only a small part of the universe and one man alone is only a small part of mankind. Men are just men. No supermen. Just men. Philosophy is good, and vital. But it always leads to an intellectual impass....one man cannot fathom the whole of something he is only a small part of. Men who fancy themselves able to do so are in great danger. The heights that they find are delusions.

Israel will stand my friend.

Well fine. Has anybody here ever advocated the death of Israel? This reminds me of a girlfriend I once had. If I wasn't there every time she called, she accused me of cheating on her. I think I know that girl .

The only thing Jews "conspire" (which is the wrong word I think since "conspire" usually indicates something criminal) to is to have a little piece of land called home and live there peacefully. Now there is sufficient evidence and even public statements among many muslim clerics about a conspiracy of their own. Europe is mentioned. The world. Taking back Spain.

The US has ties to lots of groups. Arab ones as well. Do muslims have a conspiracy? Do atheists have a conspiracy? You will find that individual members of all these groups often share similar goals and support similar political agendas.

Is everybody here Freudian? Phallic symbols, machine gun fetishes. Maybe not everything is always about sex.

To assume that in a perfect society without discrimination that the numbers of people representing each possible sub-division of humans would be "roughly" equal, is still quite a leap. I was chatting about this online in an American politics chatroom. A fellow chatter brought up the case of his workplace (something computer related) where women are being hired now at a greater rate than men, because of hiring policy. He pointed out that men are applying left and right for this job, but are being turned down because they are men, while, in comparison, very very few women are applying and getting the jobs. This is ridiculous. You are assuming that the reason numbers are not even is due to discrimination and discrimination only. If I were to do a study and found that in a certain field left-handed people do not hold near as many positions as would be equal to their ratio in society as a whole---would you say that this was due to left-handed discrimination? Do all things have to work out even? Is it not possible that things just happen?

Long Live Israel!!

?? What party doesn't give a 'rats ass' about gender parity' and please provide a source. I don't have a problem with equal access, I do have a problem with with a process that would be in conflict with democracy. If the current system was democratic then the people in parliament would look much more like the general population. The fact that white men make up only one third of Canadians and three quarters of MPs definitely shows that things are not exactly democratic. Besides, if 3/4 of MPs were Asian women, you'd be crying murder right about now. I think this is a mistake. How do you know? If society were perfect and without discrimination of any sort who says that jobs would always have a "population-proportionate" representation of every possible category you can divide humanity into. I dont think this reflects a natural outcome in a discrimination free society. Also I certainly believe that to tweak the end result to make the numbers even is a ridiculous way to combat discrimination. It increases discrimination. Because right now you cant say that the reason there are less women or less anything is predominantly because of discrimination. You don't know what other factors could account for this. But under your system there would be hiring to fill quotas, without a doubt. There would be hiring based on sex, race, etc. There would be cases where someone who may do a much better job is discriminated against because of what sex, race, etc they belong to. Perhaps there are things you are not accounting for. How many women run for political office or pursue political careers compared to men?There could be many questions you are not acknowledging. Statistics can be very misleading. People can use statistics to push an idea or to say look there is discrimination here. But statistics are raw data, they dont take individual cases into account.

Someone on this thread said that they dont see homosexual groups interfering with what Christians believe. But this is not true, and in the future given the trends of thought in society I don't think it is paranoid to suggest there is a stronger possibility of Christianity being threatened by movements in opposition to it, than vice versa. For instance I believe it was a court in Saskatchewan that decided that statements in the bible referring to homosexuality as a sin are "hate literature". Society has become increasingly secularized. We have more people nowadays putting conservative religious values then ever before. Being a Christian is almost a black mark on people in many circles. Whether you agree with something like same sex marriage or not, you cannot deny that views have changed greatly since 1950. If you look at society in the 1950s and then the 1960s and then the 1990s...and so on until now. You will see a more secular attitude in each age. At one time being opposed ot gay marriage would not have been right wing or extreme at all. One would not even have had to have been religious because at that time religious values were still supported by the mainstream even though people were not always church-goers. So you have to agree that society has changed constantly since the founding of Canada and America. Things that were moderate in 1950 are now very right. What is funny is that no matter how left the right has become the left is never satisfied? Even though you may not intend it, I dont think you realize the leftism of some of your counterparts that you support. I fear a society where the right to believe something is a sin, the right to criticize someone of another race over an important issue...all these things that have a slight possibility of being offensive could end up being banned. It is not unrealistic if you read some of the ridiculous cases that are out there, where people are fully supporting the ridiculous claims. To give a non-religious example....You may have read about Oprah Winfrey's complaint against a store in Paris for being racist because they turned her away at the door. Sounds bad right. But what happened was Oprah went to the store after hours. There was a sign on the door stating the hours, and it had been closed for 15 minutes I believe. But Oprah saw lights on inside the store and people inside. The employees were having a meeting. The doors were locked. It was private. Oprah banged on the window to get into the store, but a guard came and told her a private meeting is going on, the store is closed, could you please come back tomorrow. But Oprah announced to the world that they turned away because she was black. And if Britney Spears had been there they would not have turned her away. How does Oprah know this? She does not know any of the workers inside there, but she can easily accuse them of racism. Which is a big black mark on someone, whether it is true they are racist or not. And once the accusation is out people think twice about supporting them whether it is true or not. Even though the employees were following normal store rules to not allow people in after hours, the store was forced, by the ridiculous growing public outrage Oprah had initiated against them, to apologize to Oprah for not letting her in after hours, for treating her like everyone else. Apparently if they treated her like everyone else it would be racist.