ScottSA

The rules regarding party discipline are not entrenched in the constitution. I am sure the Republicans would love get rid of Bush but they can't unless they resorted to a divisive battle over impeachment. Virtually nothing is entrenched in the constitution. Why are you arguing against the bleeding obvious? Are you suggesting that in real life, with a strong whip and strong party discipline, that the PMO is not far more powerful than the presidency? Surely not.

Not true. The PMO is accountable to the party. The sitting members in a party can legally replace the PM and PMO anytime they want. That is what happened to Thatcher and, to a lesser extent, Blair. Uhuh, but with a strong whip party discipline, as under Chretien, the PMO rules absolute in fact.

Are you really that clueless? Did we take the wrong side in WWII because some blog told you so? Do you not have the mental capacity to do some more research into the matter? Yes, everyone over there is pretty extreme, but the crimes against humanity done by Milosevic are well documented. The mass graves were real. He needed to be stopped. Are there some crazy Muslims amongst the Kosovars? No doubt. Just like there are crazy Muslims amongst the Brits, doesn't mean we should bomb the hell out of them. There is no evidence, at all, of a policy of ethnic cleansing by the regional government there. There was a ton of evidence against the government of Bosnia systematically attempting to eliminate the Kosovars. I really don't know about people like you, so dangerous when they read some blog that agrees with their irrational hate and trust it as fact. As it turns out, the alleged "mass graves" were for the most part battlefield graves of Kosovar or Albanian fighters. Look it up. The ethnic cleansing happened right after the war there actually, when all the Christians left or were killed. I sincerely doubt there are many non-Muslims living there now, so it's hardly necessary to ethnic cleanse.

Wrong century, wrong continent, wrong enemy, and it's quite likely it was never said. But nice try. The phrase was "Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoset," (kill them all. God will know his own) and it was supposedly, but not very likely, said by the Abbot of Citeaux during the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heresy in Southern France. Oh, and today is 2007, btw.

A couple things out of the way first...I believe I said "most of these morons are born in Britain or whatever state they are raising hell in" or something to that effect. I wasn't actually being specific to this event, although I can see how you might think that. I characterize Islamic savages as savages because they are just that. Allow me to expand on that thought: I have studied WW II at some length way back when and as an ongoing project, and from a fair bit of parsing through the events, memos and documents that survive, it's easy enough to identify what exactly Nazi began as and why it became what it became. It's common currency to either write off Hitler as mad or as evil incarnate, but he was really neither; he was a revolutionary. He found his ability as an orator, tagged it on to a sort of aboveground/underground racialist philosophy of volk, rather than nationalism, per se, and then flogged it through the 20s, into eclipse in the late 20s, and then blew through the doors of the Reichstag in the 30s. Those who have tried to identify Nazism have always been frustrated, because in the end, it appears that in Hitler's mind Nazism was simply a ongoing revolution of the people, more akin to a sort of Maoist continuing revolution than anything Stalin ever came up with. All his actual policies, of liebenstrau, anti-Jewish laws, everything, were directed at continuing revolution and the ascendency of the Aryan volk. This ideology, if it can be called that, directed his every action. Borrowing from marxism, he treated the niceties of alliance politics as mere bourgeois trifles, which is why what he said to foreign leaders never much mattered. He said what people wanted to hear as a matter of course, merely as an aid to a furtherance of his aim. It wasn't that he had no morals, it was simply that he operated on a different moral scale; similar to a communist revolutionary's; with utter contempt for bourgeois morality and utter contempt for the "weakness" of others. But what was striking is that he had fully exposed his plans two full decades beforehand. Anyone who had read Mein Kampf knew pretty much exactly what he claimed he was going to do, with the Jews, with leibenstrau, with the German volk. Hell, they even knew which direction he was going to go for living space. Hitler and Nazism were really quite simple. So simple in fact that no one quite "got it," because it didn't fit with their way of thinking. Buckets of apologist ink have blaming Versailles for the rise of Hitler, and while his minor and temporary rise in the early 20s might have been explained away through this mechanism, it was moot by 1933. People have blamed the world depression, but that too was largely irrelevant to Hitler's rise. Nazism was simply action mated with racial pride, interpreted as a sort of nationalism that has managed to get a bum rap since. Hitler was a revolutionary who did nothing more than what he said he would do, and managed to succeed not because of any particular cleverness, but because he knew the opposition was weak, and most importantly because the opposition persisted in disbelieving him. In many ways we have the same situation with Islam. There's nothing particularly clever about it; we all know precisely what it wants, because it's not only told to our faces on a weekly basis by the videotaped confessions of bombers, would be bombers, and bin laden himself, but it's written right in the Koran. So-called "moderate" Muslims play the same good cop game of part blackmail and part soothing soto voce, blaming "Israel" when it makes sense, declaiming "radicals" when it helps their cause, claiming Islam is a "religion of peace" as a matter of course, taking care to forget that peace means "submission" within the context of Islam. We know they are full of shit, because we see it not only in the blackmail, but we can read right in the Koran that it is quite acceptable to lie to the non-believer if it will further Islam. They tell us what we need to hear, and we file it away as a promise, while they might as well be passing wind in their own minds. Meanwhile Islam moves steadily forward on every front, in our institutions, and in our midst. There won't be any panzer divisions racing across frontiers, because unless we wake up fairly suddenly, there won't be any need of them. Yet, like the western politicians in the thirties, we're running around constructing the most elaborate conceptual choreographies in an effort to make it make sense in a context of western rationalism. We needn't bother. It's not poverty or Israel or dictators. It's really quite simple.

Can you give one example of where a Canadian PM used his power to spring a political cronie from jail? Canadian PMs have a lot of power but they are _always_ accountable to the electorate every 4-5 years. We don't have a situation where a politician has unchecked power _and_ will never need to face the voter and explain their decisions. Nope, but I don't need to...that wasn't the question. I simply agreed with BC that a majority PMO has far more power than a US president. Far more power. I have no idea whether the power to pardon is included in the astounding portfolio of powers available to a majority PMO, but a majority PMO can virtually dictate law at will...something a president can only dream about.

Good post. "Education" long ago began meaning "indoctrination" in the ivory halls of the west. The radicals of the 60s managed to overthrow the accepted Canons of western civilization in the name of free speech, and once having succeeded, merely transplanted their own canons and made damned good and sure that "free speech" only meant agreeing with them. Unfortunately their own canons had no philosophical grounding, and indeed were premised on having no philosophical grounding, so every collection of two or three agitators with a petty grievance hijacks the direction every few years...first it was "Black Studies", and after everyone got tired of reading up on the stoneage and makebelieve post-colonial revisionism, it turned into "Women's Studies", which gave way to "Womyns Studies" and then back again to "Woman's Studies," and now we're into...well, I'm not sure, but Islamic Studies won't be far down the road. And Islamic studies has no such uncertainties; Islam knows exactly what it's all about. By that time academia will be slipping out of the fading grip of the insipid tie-dyed 60s generation and into the hands of the nightmare it unleashed. And what will "education" mean then?

I've actually done extensive reading on Saladin. What in particular would you like to discuss?

Absolutely correct, in the context of a majority government, which is what most Canadian governments are.

Aren't we glad we saved the Kosovars? All those mass graves, so cleverly hidden that we didn't quite...well...find any? Turns out we not only went in foolishly, but we went in on the side of the terrorists, and gave them a great jumping off point right in the middle of Europe. Watch the video in this blog post. In spite of all of Cair-can's whining about "backlash," when is the last time anything remotely similar to this happened to a mosque in the west? http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/07/...urn-church.html

Ok,ok. I promise not to convert...no matter what happens. Now, you're long on condemnations but short on solutions. What should be done? I've answered that in a number of threads.

Seems to me the immigration problems that are about to punch us in the face is retribution enough as a result of relativistic morality. We'll actually begin to see a tide shift toward certain aspects of Islam in the not too distant future precisely because of the sort of social engineering that governments and certain segments of the supermarket churches are allowing. You simply can't go against hegemonic society and expect people to live with it for very long without them becoming attracted to a hard line in opposition to it. People may mewl along in grudging acquiescence of pro-fag policies for a time, but deep down I'd say an overwhelming majority are just waiting for something or someone strong to stand up and say "enough."

Just like the house slaves in the US or the Jews who helped during the holocaust. You need to co-opts a part of the population you are holding down. FGM could not exist without women actively supporting it. I still hold it is in the end due to patriarchy. The question is not that something feminists label as patriarchy exists, but rather whether it is reflective of male domination, as feminists assert, or merely division of labor, as normal people and anthropologists point out. Consider, for instance, the tribes in which men sit about all day long, occasionally bestirring themselves to go out for a few days of hunting, while women rush about doing the mundane chores of daily life. Is that patriarchy? Because really, that's merely a flipside of 1950s western culture in which the men went out and did the work while the women, who were once tied down in the kitchen, suddenly found themselves benefitting from the kitchen revolution, with lots of time and nothing much to do except complain about it. And that was supposed to be reflective of "patriarchy" too. Why would men care if labias and clitori get lopped off? Are you suggesting that these women are in some kind of thrall? Talk of patriarchy is always good for a laugh. I'm surprised to find someone in 2007 who still takes it seriously. It's soooo 90s.

You just had to squeeze in that poverty mantra, huh? It has absolutely nothing to do with "poverty" in their homelands. Most of these morons are born in Britain or in the country they are raising hell in. It has very little to do with support for Israel, except whenever the so-called "moderates" want to blackmail a western government on its foreign policy. "Oppression by western supported dictators?" That doesn't even make sense. Its actually not a "bunch of reasons." It's actually very simple...all we have to do is listen to what they say instead of what we, looking through a rationalist lens think their reasons ought to be. They want the ascendency of Islam and of the the Ummah. Everything else is secondary. They want to bring the west to its knees because the west works better than Islam, and does so in direct opposition to the precepts of Islam. If Islam is right, then it follows that western ethos must be wrong, and the fact that it works better must be the work of the devil. We're dealing with 6th century savages here, following the most reductionist and intrusive excuse of a religion ever invented. It's just not complicated.

Here's a recent example: Startling News Here's another one: I was disgusted... Yes, it should be a banning offense. Maybe even a drawing and quartering offence. After all, if someone still has dialup, it may take a whole 5 seconds to find out what the topic is about. We're all busy people and time is money, and money is the root of...well never mind... Btw, how long did it take to make the complaining post?

The fact that we can go to the states IS a two tier system in canada. Someone who lives in canada and has access to the US has access to a two tier system; they can wait in endless lines here, or go to the states. The availability of the states depends on their pocketbook. We already have a two-tier system. I agree with user fees, although I don't think they will solve the problem. You see, we hear double talk and straw arguments. That is what this poster is assigned to do. Just read him You're making less and less sense every day. Who is "assigning" me instructions? I assume I'm being paid by this nefarious mastermind, who how much am I sposed to be making? How old did you say you were again?

No it is not. Maintaining a neutral stance on all religions is agnosticism - not atheism. Atheism is simply another religion based on the premise that no deity exists. Gee - sounds like a lot of atheists on this board.... If you want to question atheism, prove that a deity exists. Here we go again...how bout you prove that one doesn't exist?

Yes, they do hate us for our "freedom"....in this case, the freedom to depict images of The Great Prophet (I can't say his name for fear of certain death by his followers). The freedom to describe said prophet in unflattering terms. And the freedom to flush his religious user guide down a toilet. Allah Akbar (Oh damn..I have blasphemed...I am doomed!) You're right...freedom is part of it. The freedom to disagree with them is certainly part of what they hate.

I think perhaps the first step is to recognize we've got a problem instead of spending your time looking for ever more ridiculous ways to deny it. Then you may begin to be able to discern the difference between the machinations of the evil Bush and having your head sawn off or your daughter blown up.

I dunno, maybe, but offering is probably not the same as doing, and it's obviously a joke...I hope. Anyway, it would be hilarious if one of these jokers actually writes back.

It doesn't fit the right-wing stereotype that they hate us for our freedom, either. If anything, the perpetrators of these acts (and 9/11) have more access to freedom, wealth and education than the proverbial man on the Arab street. "Hating us for our freedom" is just as ignorant and as foolish a position as blaming it all on poverty. But don't let balance get in the way of a well-formed prejudice. You mean it doesn't fit the leftwing strawman supposed to issue from the mouths of rightwingers. I have never argued that they hate us for our freedoms. They hate us because we're not them. Islam by root nature hates anyone who is not Islamic. They even have a name for us. In fact, Islam is so fixated on the "other," like Eskimos with snow, that it has several different names for the other, depending upon the status of the other in relation to Islamic society. Let me pluck your response from your lips...yes, Christianity is also evangelical, and in fact once upon a time it behaved in roughly the same way. But there are two obvious answers to that critique: 1 This is not the 12th century and weapons are somewhat more dangerous today, and 2 Christianity at it's root treats heretical belief with forgiveness. By the latter, I mean that in spite of what organized religion may have done in the past, Christianity at its root belief demands forgiveness. Islam is radically different, explicitely calling for death and dismemberment right there in the Koran. Nowhere in the NT can this sort of rhetoric be found. Islam is a disgusting regressive ideology that seeks to put mankind under the same kind of totalitarian yoke as fascism and communism once did. We need to stop worrying about offending good totalitarians lest they turn into bad totalitarians; we need to start worrying about totalitarianism itself.

I hide, therefore I am hidden? Don't understand what you're saying here (gone right over my head), but Descartes' actual written words were: Cogito [i think]. Ergo [therefore], sum [i am]. It's true that Descartes set himself the task of proving the existence of a supreme being or 'God'. In that ultimate effort, he failed. Even theologians now admit (thanks to Descartes) that reason cannot be applied to the subject. Descartes saw that an argument to prove his own existence was necessary toward achieving his ultimate goal. That earlier argument, which he summed up as 'Cogito, ergo sum', was thought by many philosophers of his time to have been a slam dunk. It wasn't. What Descartes wound up proving was: Thinking. Therefore, thinking exists. Of course it's tempting from that start to suppose an 'I' that is thinking. But his argument doesn't prove this. In fact, it becomes a leap of faith. As much as it pains me to agree with MM, the "I" is self-evident. Thinking presupposes a reified object of origin. That reified object must be the "I." It cannot be anything else, and yet it has to be.

Errrr...mind pointing me to a post where I said that? If you do, I'll point you to the post where you said you like to mate with turnips and goats.

Once upon a time, Brownshirts were little girls who sold cookies. Then one day an evil wolf by the name of herr schicklegrubber answered the door of a house, invited a little girl in...and so began the Third Reich. All religions don't blow things up. Islam does. Bit of a distinction there. And no, I don't think we should laud those efforts. CNN, in its perpetual search for "balance" managed to dig up this inconsequential effort and laud it as if it actually means something. It doesn't, and its worse than doing nothing because it acts as a placebo, making everyone think there is a solution that's easy and caring and sharing. The solution to Islam is to stomp it out. Outlaw it and all visible symbols of it. Leave it to ferment back in third world shitholes if it wants, as long as it doesn't start causing trouble here, but western governments have to take control of this situation before it takes control of them. Drastic? Probably, but it's going to happen anyway, eventually; so it might as well happen before anyone more gets killed. This is not a fad that will fade away on its own. It's an ideology.