Moonlight Graham

That's why I'm thankful there is (mostly) separation of church and state in Canada. Secularism is the only way to go because not only do people believe in different religions but, well, religions get nutty lol.

I think it's the case for most things, luckily, but sometimes there is great public debate over an issue where religion collides with not only law but in other instances customs/conventions, rules of certain organizations (sometimes public orgs). ie: - People with religious head-coverings taking the oath of citizenship - men with those large head wrappings that interfere with them being able to wear RCMP/police uniforms etc. or people with head-coverings interfering with wearing hockey/baseball helmets - Sikh students carrying religious daggers at school These are contentious issues. In most of of the examples above it is also a case of western customs/laws designed for western people and not being suitable for other cultures/religions. ie: Traditional RCMP hats would be designed the way they are had Muslims colonized Canada instead of Christians And obviously hockey helmets are not designed with some Muslims & other religions, so it's a wonder how head safety would be dealt with in predominantly Muslim countries if hockey somehow became a popular sport. They have cricket after all...

I agree on both points. Your last point, yes that is the trick. A politician of ie: a left-leaning party could have vested interests in making for more social responsibility forced on businesses than is practical because their voting and lobbying base may not be business but middle/lower classes, workers/unions, social activists, young people. Meanwhile a conservative politician may have more lobbying efforts, campaign finance, and overall vested interest in the business sphere so they will support deregulation simply on those lines, not what makes sense.

What really bothers me are people, generally on the right economically, who are ideologically dedicated to deregulation of business/corporations/markets. They say this will improve profits and economic prosperity. Well, yes it can. However, the following is what I have constructed as basically a law of capitalism: Capitalism is amoral, as it is driven by ONE concern: profit. Unregulated, business concerns for maximum profit will often trump any concerns for public safety, the environment, workers safety/well-being, prudent function of the markets etc. That is why government regulations exist. Any regulation should be measured based upon its negative impact on business profit weighed against systemic and social concerns like those outlined above that may result without the regulation in place. Those, like Mitt Romney, Reagan, Thatcher, and Ayn Rand, who are dedicated to an ideology of reducing government regulation are dangerous as they can often not be pragmatic in their approach to regulations, as they are more concerned with profits and economic prosperity (not in themselves a bad thing obviously) while so often ignoring systemic/market and social concerns. This is one reason why Canada's banking system and housing markets fared so well during the recent recession compared to the US and most other OECD countries. Unlike the thoughts of many, markets are not perfect. Laissez-faire capitalism is not perfect, as capitalism by its nature creates a race to the bottom where businesses compete for maximum profits (which can include disregard for public safety, the environment, workers safety/well-being, prudent function of the markets etc.) and those businesses that have any social concerns (which often reduces profit) simply cannot compete against businesses with lesser social concern and are thus more profitable. As Alexander Hamilton said in my sig quote: "Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint".

Exactly. Capitalism is amoral (not immoral, not moral), as it is driven by ONE concern: profit. Unregulated, business concerns for maximum profit will often trump any concerns for public safety, the environment, workers safety/well-being, prudent function of the market etc. That is why government regulations exist. Therefore, businesses generally should not be regulating themselves without some sort of public oversight.

You've said the same thing about social science many times. Science is about systematically acquiring knowledge and truth through empirical evidence. Social science studies human behaviour. No some social science studies using polling and surveys are not going to be 100% accurate (hence margin for error and whatnot), but much of it is still science. Ie: - Social science research question: Do males get into more car accidents than women? - Hypothesis: Women get into less car accidents than men - Test: count licensed drivers per gender, then count reported accidents by each gender - Conclusion: men get into more car accidents than women There are countless statistics in social science similar to this that can be proven with empirical evidence through real-world observation, not just polling. Therefore, the fields are by definition sciences.

I agree with the article. However, whenever I say "let's agree to disagree" on MLW it usually if not always is because both parties have laid out their arguments exhaustively and neither side is willing to budge on their views, therefore it's become clear that further argument is just going to keep going in circles so might as well end the debate to save more tiresome/time-consuming stalemates.

The right to freedom of religion (more explicitly, the values some religions hold) can clash with other rights in Canadian law. In that case, I believe virtually all other secular rights should triumph over religious rights. ie: If my religion says it's okay to beat small children, and Canadian law says it's not okay, then Canadian law should trump over my religious beliefs.

Well it's right that food banks don't end poverty issues. But people who go to food banks (and I've worked at a food bank) can often be on welfare or unemployed. For the unemployed, disabled etc. a liveable wage doesn't exist. For single mothers/fathers with a minimum wage job it can be hard to make ends meet, so they go to food banks. The homeless, who have no address and therefore makes it virtually impossible for them to be sent government cheques etc., go to food banks. Why not increase welfare benefits to those who need it? Some may be paranoid that a lot of "welfare bums" are cheating the system (and some people always do), but most people on welfare and disability benefits etc. do need those funds to just crape by. Why not keep food banks, raise welfare benefits to those that really need it, and promote more social programs to get people on welfare better education/skilla and/or back to work? For low-income single-parents, how about more money for childcare so they can afford more time to work?

Thanks for the effort fellas, looking forward to seeing the changes. Wondering if banned/suspended users will still be able to post on the Status Updates?

Every cent that isn't essential should be cut. Sesame St would survive very well on its own on any other TV channel, and PBS would likely survive without gov subsidies. Yes 200 million isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but the US spends so much on so many things that the unessentials all must be reeled in. The US debt problem is catastrophic. link $16,000,000,000,000 (16 trillion) in national debt (that's $114,000 per working citizen, or $145,000 per income tax payer), compared to just 2.3 trillion in gov tax revenue. US debt surpasses US GDP! Total US debt is $185,000 per citizen! (counting personal debt + federal/state debt). With such an emergency, and with interest going up every second on that debt, it must be confronted ASAP and PBS funding is a very minor (though quality) target of funding on the scale of essentials.

And the US is paying some interest on that. It all adds up. If you don't have the money to pay for it, do not pay for it: budgeting 101.

There's no proof this story really occurred, and we don't know all sides to the story.

When you're in the kind of debt problems the US is in, I would think PBS (though a great channel) is not essential and the funding should be cut. It would probably survive if private donors wanted it to. And ya, defense spending should be cut too, but we all know that wouldn't happen under Romney, at least as long as he's a member of the GOP.

Islamists are social conservatives to the extreme. On the economic side, they reject both free-market capitalism and communism as western inventions that aren't compatible with Islam, so I don't know how one would get a sense of left vs right economically. Not sure how Islamism supports a "massive state", especially a "leftist" egalitarian state. Both leftists and righties can have elements of wanting to dictate how one must run their lives (social conservatives = controlling: contraception/abortion, gay rights/marriage, women's rights, state surveillance/privacy, reducing secularism etc.)

Looks only go so far. Once he opens his mouth it seems to start going all downhill. Trudeau has little knowledge of how the world works, compared to Harper or Obama his intellectual chops are lightweight. He needs far more experience, and needs to read more books in the non-fiction section.

When is majority age attained in Canada, Pakistan, and Afghanistan? Answer: 18 years old.

No he doesn't. Which is a bit ridiculous since the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as: "every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier". http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm

Except for the fact that Khadr was 15 years old when he was involved in the firefight and captured: Khadr was born Sept. 19, 1986, captured July 27, 2002, Speer was pulled from life support Aug. 7 2002. Anyway you do the math, which you clearly didn't (as is typical of all leftists like you) Khadr was 15.

How can a film risk physical harm to someone? It's not the filmmaker risking harm, it's the people who are actually being violent. Does the Koran tell worshipers to be idiots and physically hurt people if they disrespect the Prophet?

Ya I checked too, the OP article seems completely bogus in its claim. Unless Bud can prove otherwise. I thought maybe they were referring to some stat about only double-tap strikes killed that amount, but doesn't seem so.

Well, the only problem with having such people with these beliefs in this country is when you get enough of them in this country that they have the voting power to elect many MP's with their views and are able to actually change the laws. So far luckily this is far from the case, but I respect their right to protest but I'm in agreement that I'm not thrilled with Canada immigrating people who wish to have things like the anti-Muslim film banned or wish the filmmaker "hanged to death". On the other hand, a Muslim in the crowd claims that the film qualifies as a hate-crime, which is a legit argument because maybe it could I'm not sure.

Perceived grievances by Muslims/Arabs often include attacks by Western militaries against innocent civilians. an example going back the OP quote: "Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today. The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’." Why not? Western militaries have killed tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands, of innocent civilians in the middle-east over the decades. But of course, when middle-easterns kill a few thousand innocent civilians in NYC or London or Madrid, that causes us to become angry and launch military campaigns in response. Yet it's somehow incomprehensible when middle-easterns are killed and private orgs or individuals launch strikes vs the West because their states don't have the will or capability to launch conventional military attacks in return. This is a double-standard. What exactly gives states legitimacy to launch wars but not non-state actors? I don't believe in the tactics terrorists use, but I also don't believe in many of the tactics the West uses as well. If "Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists while the rest are innocent civilians" then that is completely unacceptable. It may be that the US military has no desire to kill civilians (so they say) but they certainly don't seem to care if they happen to do so in some circumstances when going after targets, and brush off the dead innocent civilian as "collateral damage". What if al-Qaeda had targeted a few specific defense company CEO's working in the WTC because they blamed them responsible for deaths, but the WTC attacks killed these CEO's but also took out the other 3000 innocent civilians as "collateral damage". Would this be ok? If the Chinese military attacked a few US military targets in US a city and happened to kill 300 innocent US civilians in the process, what would Americans do? Sit on their thumbs and gladly take it?

Uhm, aren't all instinctual desires "natural"? I guess the only desires you think are natural are the ones you agree with.

Well, you said (in the post I quoted) that women choose to be single, and are single because they like it. I'm saying that isn't necessarily the case.