segnosaur

Soooo.... what you're saying is that you want to curtail the concept of 'freedom of speech'. And that's just what you're suggesting... regardless of why you want to limit polling prior to an election, you would be cutting off any media organizations, political parties, and private groups who wanted to release polling results but could not. Frankly, I'd much rather not limit our freedom of speech any more than it has been, even if you might thing there are valid reasons for it.

Why exactly do you think that electiric cars are 'inevitable'? Its not the only potential technology. Right now there's a lot of research into biofuels. Granted, growing corn to produce ethanol is not a terribly productive use of our resources, but there are companies working on ways to produce either oil or ethanol from algae. If they are successful, there would be many benefits when compared to electric cars: - it might be possible to continue using our current infractructure (including our current network of gas stations) without relying on enhancing the electric grid or finding ways to recharge vehicles - No need to overcome problems with speed/performance. Cars can be made with the same standards they are now There is also the possibility that hydrogen technology may become the most successful alternative. There is a problem of fuel storage and efficient generation of hydrogen, but those problems aren't significantly more serious than the problems surrounding electric cars. Its possible that all this effort to push electric cars may lead us in the wrong direction from what the ultimate solution will be.

First of all, why are you characterizing the conserviatives as 'radical right wing nut jobs'? That's a rather over-broad statement. Every political party in Canada consists of individuals who may have differing opinions. Yes, the Conservatives do have some nutcases, but they also have people who are reasonable. (Look at it this way... should Iggnatief and the rest of the Liberals be considered "left wing" because Bob Rae, former NDPer, is a member?) And are their policies REALLY that far to the "political right" as mainstream Canada? For example, Many people think the Conservatives were wrong in opposing gay marriage. But remember, at the time the Liberals passed their bill, most Canadians were not in favour of gay marriage. In many cases, condemming conservative policies as being "radical right wing" is to condem the opinions of many Canadians. Secondly, you may not like the conservatives, but what exactly would be the point in reviving the "Progressive Conservatives"? Frankly, I think the country should have clear alternatives. Having both a Liberal party and a Progressive Conservative party inhabiting much of the same part of the political spectrum doesn't really help us much.

Probably the smartest thing you've said in this entire thread.

Yet Jack Layton bumped off NDP candidates who were open about their use of marijuana: http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/s...27-4dca0569ea4a At the risk of definding Layton, it IS possible for a party to be pro-marijuana, yet not allow candidates or high-ranking party officials to partake. After all, even if the laws regarding pot possession and usage are bad, were a candidate to actually disregard those laws then they may end up giving the appearance of people who believe they can pick and choose whatever laws suit them and disregard the rest. This would be the equivalent of a Libertarian party member pushing to get tax laws changed, and then claiming "I don't have to pay taxes because I'm pushing to get income taxes abolished". If and when drug use laws are changed, THEN the candidates can smoke up all they want.

Two words.... Soylent Green.

Countries have to be veeeery careful when dealing with referendums. Depending on how referendums are proposed/enacted, you can have situations where the government finds itself having to deal with possibly contradictory referrendum results. For example, if one referendum demanded a tax cut, and another referendum demanded increased government services, the government of the day would be stuck trying to enact referendum results that were at cross purposes to each other. This doesn't mean that referendums are bad ideas; just that the way they're used has to be thought out very carefully.

While the idea of keeping a government 'in check' has some advantages, there ARE some disadvantages to minority governments as well... - As others have already pointed out, successive minority governments may have trouble engaging in long term planning. - Small parties may end up with more influence than they would normally get, as a condition of supporting a minority government (i.e. a party with only a few seats may be able to get the government to enact policies even if they were wildly unpopular.) - The government in power may attempt to 'preempt' the other parties by putting forward legislation that its constituents would not favour, but which were supported by other parties in order to gain support with voters (example: its quite possible that many of the spending initiatives enacted by the current conservative government would not have been enacted if the Conservatives were not dealing with other parties that also were proposing spending increases. Thus, any voter who initially supported the conservatives because they thought they would exercise fiscal restraint becomes disenfranchised). In other words, it eliminates, at least in part, the idea of voters having a 'clear choice' Now, whether you think the advantages of minority governments outweight the disadvantages is a personal opinion for which there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer.

Uhhhh.... No. Randi is not a 'con man magician'. He is up front about exactly what he does. He does not claim 'supernatural' ability; instead, he comes out and says "this is a trick I am doing"... pretty much the exact opposite of what a 'con man' is. And his statement about "satisfactory observing conditions"? Bascially, he wants to make sure people can't cheat. That means if someone claims to be able to, for example, guess the results of flipping a coin 10 times in a row, Randi will actually want such a test done with people watching who are familiar with stage tricks. (You see, as a former professional magician, Randi is familiar with how illusions are staged, thus making him and people like him ideal for running these tests... they can identify how frauds like Geller, Browne, and Edward run their scams.) Of course, it is true that neither challenge will ever be paid, but for very different reasons: - Zammit's challenge will never be paid because his 'challenge' is not actually a good-faith attempt at running a challenge. - Randi's challenge will (probably) never be paid because psychics, faith healers, astrologers, dowsers, and others who claim supernatural ability tend to be frauds and con artists who cannot do what they claim to be able to do once proper experimental controls are put in place. You know, I have to say, that's pretty much the dumbest thing you've posted in this thread, and that's saying a lot, given the fact that you think Zammit's "challenge" is the same as Randi's. Really, its a totally moronic statement, and shows a complete ignorance of the rules layed out by both Randi and Zammit. The most moronic part is that you completely ignore the fact that I dealt with all this previously... If you go back and read my posting from Jun 30 2009 at 12:38 PM, you will see that I pointed out that in Randi's challenge there is no judging involved. None. Nada. Zip. Ziltch. Fior example, if someone says they have the supernatural ability to guess the results of flipping a coin 10 times in a row, you count the number of successful flips. No judging at all. Neither Randi nor anyone else ever has to say "I THINK the result of that coin flip was a heads". The answer is obvious, with out any sort of 'judge'. And the same rules (i.e. never requiring a 'judge') applies to ALL tests that Randi runs. Compare that to Zammit and his "challenge". Under HIS rules, the decision about who is right and who is wrong is decided by a committee, and those judges have to be approved by Zammit himself. There is no "empirical evidence", no absolute way to tell if someone is right or wrong (as you could with something like a coin flip); instead, you have to convince people to change their opinion, and Zammit has the ability to select people who are heavily into nonsense. Please, before you go out and start spouting off nonsense about how you think the 'rules' of each of the challenges works, PLEASE go back and do a little actual research. At the very least, GO BACK AND READ THE EXPLAINATIONS I'VE ALREADY WRITTEN.

Actually, no he isn't.... First of all, he doesn't just ask you to disprove the evidence HE has gathered. He also lists several authors who are fellow believers in nonsense that you have to disprove. Not only that, he also asks you to disprove the evidence provided by the "Inner Peace Movement"; without pointing out exactly what evidence the "Inner Peace Movement" is providing. Basically, he's attempting to create such an open-ended set of conditions that any skeptic trying to take his 'challenge' would end up bogged down by endless claims on his part. Secondly, you seem to ignore the part about any skeptic having to prove their case beyond ALL doubt. This is a greater burden of proof than even a prosecutor needs in order to send someone to jail. (And this is done before people approved of by Zammit himself.) Tell me, do you really think its a fair challenge when he can throw moutains and mountains of bunk at any skeptic, AND can pick people like John Edward and Sylvia Brown as the judges as to whether the skeptic is successful?

The difference is, the one James Randi is running is genuine... the one run by Victor Zammit that you referred to is nothing but a farce, an absolute load of bunk. First of all, the tests run by James Randi are actually winnable.... you do not have to explain your powers, you just have to demonstrate that they exist. The Zammit 'challenge' asks the skeptic to disprove, beyond ALL doubt, the existance of an afterlife. From a logical perspective, you can never actually disprove the existance of anything. I can't even disprove that there's an invisible pink unicorn living in my sock drawer. So, under the Zammit challenge, even if he brings in 1000 psychics who claim to talk to the spirits, and you manage to demonstrate each and every one of them is a fraud, that still doesn't PROVE that people can't speak to dead people since Zammit may be holding out hope that psychic 1001 actually does have that ability. Secondly, in the tests offered by James Randi, there is no 'judging' involved... either the claimant gets things right or they don't. (Example: either the psychic guesses 10 coin flips in a row and wins, or they fail to guess the next 10 in a row and they fail). There is no way to 'stack' the results. In the Zammit case, the decsion about who wins or looses is decided upon by a committee, and members of the committee must be approved by Zammit. Zammit can easily guarantee that the only members who are on his committee are people who have the same nonsensical beliefs that he does. Randi does not have any control over the results of any tests he does, and he certainly can't cheat the system like Zammit can. http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Million_Dollar_Prize#Zammit http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/%22You_Ca...ammit_Challenge

Yes indeed, the Million Dollar Challenge is being cancelled. I am wondering though... why EXACTLY are you using such idiotic sources for this information? You could have easily gone to any number of more reputable sites. Heck, you could even go to James Randi's actual site: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-cha...oming-soon.html (Actually, this looks like a spam message, which has been posted on many sites on the internet.) In fact, whomever made the posting on the web site you referred to is a flaming idiot. They're tell Randi to 'start up the challenge' again... yet the challenge doesn't officially end until next year. If there are any claimants who actually have supernatural ability they have plenty of time to get tested before the challenge ends. Not only that, James Randi is not the only one offering a prize for showing supernatural ability; other skeptic groups also offer a prize. For anyone not familiar with the situation, James Randi is a former magician and head of a skeptics group called the James Randi Educational Foundation. Randi got tired of seeing frauds like Uri Geller claiming they has psychic ability, when all they were doing was using simple tricks that ANYONE can do. So, he started issuing a prize (starting with $10,000, but increasing to over $1,000,000) to anyone who can prove the existance of any supernatural abilty. This includes anything like: - Communicate with to the dead - predict the future - Astrology - Dowsing - Telekenisis - Remote Viewing - Homeopaths The idea is that anyone claiming to do any of this stuff has to be able to do so under controlled condtions. After many years, not one person has come anywhere NEAR claiming the prize. The reason? Once proper controls are in place, people's supposed "abilities" disappear. For years, the existance of the challenge has been quite useful to skeptics like me... we can always ask any supposed psychic "Why haven't you applied for the challenge". (The simple answer is that most psychics, astrologers, homeopaths, etc. are frauds and don't want their lack of real ability exposed.) However, there are a couple of problems with the challenge: - None of the "big names", such as Sylvia Browne, John Edward, or Uri Gellar would allow themselves to be tested. (These people are the real big con artists, defrauding people of millions of dollars a year... not suprising that they wouldn't want to be exposed.) - Many of the people who HAVE applied have been, well, shall we say, rather difficult... They are often evasive about what supposed 'powers' they have, they don't like the idea of how they will do proper double blind tests, etc. All this effort trying to get certain people to agree to get tested, only to have them drop out at the end was fairly time consuming Now, the prize money for the challenge has basically been sitting in a bank account for years. For the problems I mentioned above, it was felt that that money could be better used in other ways in order to expose various frauds, rather than just sitting idle collecting interest. Randi is not 'running scared' as the reference you gave indicates. He's just trying to use his resources in an optimum way.

Ummm... first of all, Juries should not be the ones deciding sentences... it is their job to decide if the person is guilty or innocent. That's it, that's all. And just how is actually, you know, punishing people for wrongs they have done "miscarriages of justice"? Ummm... the legislation says "if a person does something wrong, they should be punished". That's not a hard concept to understand. The only reason a person should not be punished, is if they actually didn't commit a crime. What exactly is the point of a criminal justice system that says "we know you committed a crime, you were legally sane at the time, you recognized that this would harm others, you're guilty... but we're not going to punish you."

I've seen you make the same claim before (that somehow only the PM will decide sentences). I've let it slide before, but I think I'll address it here... - Believe it or not, the legislation is not removing all discrection that judges had in deciding sentences. There were always limits on what judges could and could not do... (they could not, for example, sentence an individual to 25 years for a first-shoplifting offence on a $2 item.) Yes, Judges now have a different 'minimum' allowed punishment, but some sentences can and will receive more than the minimum. By ending conditional sentences, the givernment is eliminating the possibility of no punishment. Judges still have a range of penalties they can administer. (And if the person really deserves no punishment, wouldn't it make more sense to have the persion found innocent? That's something else that a judge can do...) - Legislation can be changed. Think the suggested minimums are too harsh? Form a political party, and lobby for reduced sentences for murders. Its your political right to do so. The government is passing legislation because enough voters in the country decided to elect representativies who support this type of legislation. If the people really thought this was to harsh (and it was a significant campaign issue), enough people would vote against the conservatives and bring in a kinder, gentler government. So its not the "PM" who's the final arbiter, but the people of Canada.

You might want to look into something called "broken windows", as applied to New York. Many years ago (with crime being quite prevailent), politicians decided to get a little tougher on crime. Thus, if the police caught someone vandalizing property, or turnstile-jumping on the subway, instead of simply letting them off with a warning they decided to actually prosecute such cases. Now, many of the arguments we here today are the same as critics were using all those years ago... it won't work, it will fill up jails, etc. However, in the decades after NY started its "broken windows" policy, crime started to go down, and rather than having the prisons 'filled', there were fewer inmates, not more. (Part of the reason is that people were getting arrested and punished for minor crimes, so they'd be a bit more hesitant over engaging in more serious crimes in the future. Now, I don't think the broken windows policy was the only reason for the drop in the crime rate (after all, there are so many factors that help dictate the crime rate in various societies), but many believe it was a significant contributer. http://www.pbs.org/fmc/segments/progseg13.htm

Since I created the thread, I suppose I can take it anywhere I want. Faint hope is the one area that the link was concerned about. There was plenty more in the bill than that. While a certain amount of thred drift is expected, I (nor anyone else) is a mindreader. If you want to discuss topic X in a thread, you need to bring it up at the start, not AFTER people have debunked your arguments. And you have not provided evidence that it is an incorrect punishment. This thread is almost 30 pages long. I have skimmed through it, but its easy to miss things. Please point to the page or post number that it appears on. However, I would keep a few things in mind: - Did that 'prison watchdog' give any statistics or figures to back up their opinions? After all, you could simply be relying on someone else who is using faulty information - Whomever this "prision watchdog" is, if they are some sort of prisioner advocy group, did it ever occur to you that they may simply be providing political spin on behalf of prisioners who might not get released if the crime bill passes? There are reasons that judges and parole boards should't be trusted... they do make mistakes. Even if they are 100% competent, outside of having some supernatural ability, they have no way to tell whether an individual convicted of a particular crime truely shows remorse, or is simply a heck-of-an-actor. Frankly, I have no problem with a system that distributes justice on a uniform basis, rather than relying on a system where a criminal's punishment depends on either how good of an actor he his, or on how 'generous' a particular judge is feeling on a particular day. Citation for this? I'm suprised that you've never heard of 'broken windows' before. Back in the 80s/90s, New York decided to crack down on 'minor' crimes. If the police caught someone engaged in something like vandalism, turnstile jumping, etc., while in the past they'd just release them with a warning, they decided to actually prosecute these people. Proper background checks were done, and some people received jail time. At the start, there were plenty of people who made the same claims you are: that prisons would be filled to overflowing. However, that never happened.... instead, the aspect of actually punishing crimes (along with the better view of justice by the public) actually ended up reducing the actual crime rate. Now, I do realize that not all of the success can be attributed to the "broken windows" theory; however, the point is that the doom and gloom of the "overflowing prision system" never materialized. http://www.pbs.org/fmc/segments/progseg13.htm It does increase costs of it means building new prisons. Or are you denying that? I think you meant to say it increases costs if it means building new prisions. However, that's the issue... I've pointed out that eliminating 'faint hope' doesn't really impact the size of the prison population to any significant degree. In terms of costs, I didn't think it needed any evidence. First of all, you still need to demonstrate how there would be a significant increase in costs. And simply quoting a "prison watchdog" who doesn't explain their facts/figures isn't exatly "proof". Secondly, as I've pointed out before, if cost is your only argument, then perhaps you think we should totally eliminate jails... ater all, that would REALLY cut costs... wouldn't it. (I'm being sarcastic here, in case you didn't know....) It is the job of judges and parole boards to interpret laws and administer punishments, but they are not the final arbiters of what an 'acceptable' punishment is. The fact that there continue to be crimes committed by people on parole should indicate the falibility of the court and parole system. From: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...78_6/?hub=WFive according to the Canadian Police Association...66 people that have been killed by convicts out on early release in the last five years. Now, while you are busy trying to justify the cost savings by granting faint hope and avoiding manditory sentences, please remember to add the costs of new trials for prosecuting those people given early release and reoffending.

Faint hope is one aspect of the Tory crime bill. There are significant other areas of mandatory sentencing, fewer paroles for other offenders and criminalizing wider areas of activity that all add to additional costs that the Tories are not taking into account. First of all, while it is true that eliminating 'faint hope' is only one aspect of the Torie's crime bill, I had assumed that the focus in this thread was on that one particular area. (After all, it is in the title of the thread, and the opening post, created by jdobbin doesn't mention anything at all about other aspects of the crime bill. So if you wanted to suggest the crime bill as a whole was a 'bad idea', why did you focus exclusively on the 'faint hope' clause in your opening post? Secondly, did you actually look at any of the actual statistics? I managed to point out how eliminating the faint hope clause would only affect prision costs by less than half a percent. Why should we assume that other provisions of the bill would likewise be prohibitively expensive? (Hey, maybe they would be, but given the fact that you're the one making the claims, perhaps you should invoke some stats to back up your arguments.) How often are things like 'conditional sentences' give? If its a very rare event, it won't really affect the size of the prison population at all. If its a common event, how many of those people given conditional sentences end up committing further crimes (which also leads to additional costs for the justice system)? Thirdly, many of the provisions of the Tory bill involve implementing mandatory minimums for serious crimes. Do you really think its a good thing for people who have committed arson, armed robery, etc. to be released without jail time? All fine and good to complain about how this is going to somehow fill up the jails, but if there are people who actually should be in jail, then thats where they should be. Lastly, is there any guarantee that we would see more people actually in jail as a result of increased penalties? After all, a couple of decades ago people predicted that jails in New York would be overflowing if they decided to crack down on 'minor' crimes (the 'Broken Windows' policy). Yet there was no surge in prision populations; in fact, fewer people were in jail. Ah, back to "faint hope" again? In the beginning you suggested eliminating faint hope would mean they need to increase taxes, etc. After I showed that it would have little or no effect, you started talking about the other provisions in Conservative crime proposals. Now, you're back to talking about faint hope again. What exactly do you mean "overblown"? So, is your argument now "it doesn't affect many people"? Why should that matter? We need provisions to handle certain serious cases, regardless if the provisions affect 1 or 1,000,000 people. If you think that the conservatives are giving the issue too much publicity, fine... but that's a different argument about whether the bill itself is necessary. It would be less expensive just to release everyone from jail. Fortunately, most people would be opposed to such action. People do things that cause harm to others, and sometimes those actions are significant enough that they have to be jailed. As for your argument that it is more 'appropriate' to use the parole system... you certainly haven't provided any evidence to show that that is the case.

Depeding on the poll you look at, the number of Canadians who support the death penalty makes up between 40 and 75% of our population. Do you really think that there are MILLIONS of "old white jerks" working in Toronto and Montreal bank towers? (Never mind the fact that many of those "old white jerks" probably have supported the Liberal party in the past.) Except they wouldn't have the priviledge of makig you dead "at will". There'd be a little thing called "due process". You know, there ARE valid reasons to oppose the death penalty. But trying to oppose it by stereotyping and marginalizing its supporters is NOT a valid way to make a point.

Before talking about costs, consider: - According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know, not the best source, but it seems to jive with other stuff I've read), 145 people applied for the fait hope clause between 1987-2006, around 7-8 per year. At any one time, there are between 13,000-14,000 people in federal custody (not counting provincial custody, since they likely wouldn't be affected by the 'faint hope' clause). So eliminating the 'faint hope' clause affects only around 0.06% of the prison population. Even if every one of those prisoners were released (which doesn't happen), AND they all stayed out of jail it would only affect the prison budget by about 0.5%. (And this is only for the FEDERAL prison budget... if you include provincial jails, you're looking at a number that's around 0.2%) - Even if money IS saved by releasing an inmate, the government is not going to save every penny. In fact, you have to take into account: - The cost of running a parole board hearing for inmates applying under faint hope - Any cost of monitoring a released inmate - If an inmate is released and commits a crime, any money saved from the initial released must be weighed against the cost of tracking down, arresting and trying the criminal for their new crime So, ultimately, its doubtful the faint hope clause would cause any SIGNIFICANT burden to our prison system, and may even save money depending on the costs of handling the parole and dealing with any reoffenders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_hope_clause http://dsp-psd.tpsgc.gc.ca/Collection-R/St...685-601-XIE.pdf

Ummm... Just wondering... where exactly is your proof that people are "satisfied with" the results of the justice system? I've seen stats which indicate just the opposite... From : http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/rs/rep-rap...r01_1/p4_1.html - 69% of respondents believe that sentences handed down by the courts are not severe enough. - 65% would like to see parole made more strict (Forgive me if that's already been discussed... I've been away and haven't had the chance to read every page of this thread yet.)

But the argument (at least by the original poster) was that we needed to increase the income of poor women to prevent them from engaging in theft/fraud. If you're arguing that we don't have to give money to ALL poor women, then you're basically supporting my argument... that theft isn't the result of poverty, but of greed (since some poor people won't engage in theft regardless of their income.) Basic public education is totally free. For those wishing more advanced education, I suspect most provinces have government-sponsored student loan programs. Even in our bad economy, there are still jobs available (they may not be ideal jobs, and/or they may require a person to relocate, but it would still provide the opportunity to work.) By the way, do you really think those poor people that are steeling are really doing so in order to fund their further education? There is no guarantee that any program aimed at helping only some poor people would affect those most likely to engage in crime.

Sadly, I don't think this is the case. If the choice is between young-earth creationism or evolution, most people would pick evolution. However, if you make the question more open, I've seen polls that suggest that the number of people who believe in 'pure' evolution actually drops to around 1/3, with the rest of the people either believing in young-earth creationism or some sort of god-involved process. Of course, this doesn't mean that creationism or ID is correct, it means we have to do a better job at providing basic science and logic in school. http://www.montrealgazette.com/Life/Canadi...5662/story.html http://www.catholicregister.org/content/view/933/857/

Ok, here are the particular problems with that "article".... First of all, why exactly are we labelling theft and fraud as "crimes of poverty"? We have extensive social programs in this country, including health benefits and welfare. And even in this depressed economy, there are still jobs around (even if they are minimum wage). Granted, you wouldn't live well, and a person may have to move to find improved living situations, but there is no reason someone would be forced to rob others to survive. Theft is an exercise in greed, a desire to improve one's wealth, and is wrong, whether it is a multi-millionaire executive defrauding investors, or some unemployed "welfare mom" shoplifting clothes at Wal-mart. Secondly, why exactly are they assuming that its incarceration that would cause the kids to follow in a life of crime? If the crimes were caused by poverty (as was suggested), then unless the mother is a very successful criminal (not likely) she would still be in poverty, and even if the mother spent NO time in jail, the conditions leading to her crime would still have existed for the kids. Lastly, why the focus on women prisoners? What about cases where a woman was found guilty of a crime but the father was not in jail? Why give the women a free pass when a man may not get one? Because of your grammar, I'm not 100% sure what you're suggesting (not trying to be insulting; I just want to make sure I'm not misinterpreting anything). But, it sounds like you're suggesting taking money that would be used to incarcerate women prisioners and basically give it to the women to help them financially. If so, I can see several problems with that: - Not every dollar could be diverted that way. We would still need a prison system to handle women charged with more serious crimes. So while it may cost (lets say) $60,000 to incarcerate a prisoner, some of that is infrastructure. NOT having that person in prision will not save the $60,000... it will save only a fraction of that. - In 2007, there were approximately 6-7000 female prisioners in custody. Lets say that the government saved $50000/prisioner by not building jails. However, not every woman in poverty is actually in jail. I've seen estimates that there are 2 million women below the poverty line in Canada. If we decided not to build jails and simply give the money to women to get them out of poverty, it would only give them between $150-200/year more than they currently have. Think that would be enough to turn someone from a criminal into a model citizen? http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2008...l/tbl10-eng.htm

But in the case of funding a public corporation, right or wrong, it's the majority that decides. As I've said before, the majority is not necessarily right. Any person's opinion regarding funding of the CBC should be decided on the merits of the arguments, not on just what the majority wants. I'm sorry, was there some relevance to this? Yes, both you and smallc made the same mistake.... I very clearly made the statement that the majority is not always right. I used gay marriage as an example. Rather than deal with the issue that I quite clearly layed out, namely the majority is not always right, both you and he decided to jump in and claim that gay marriage is different than public funding. Well duh... I never claimed that they were the same, only that the majority opinions are not always correct, or in the best interests of the country. I figured if someone is a CBC fan, they'd be so much smarter than the masses watching privately produced content and they'd be able to pick up the point of the statement, i.e. the majority is not always right, and recognize the gay marriage thing as just an example. You could argue that, but it's a moronic argument, so about all you'd accomplish is to make yourself look like a moron. The fact that you don't agree doesn't make it 'moronic'. So, where exactly don't you agree? Do you think that we, as Canadians, just shouldn't have the right to property? Or do you think its just a question of degrees, where we should accept some abuses to the right to property, only if its a small amount? Would the government be morally right if they decided to take ALL your money, property, etc. if they wanted to further fund the CBC? After all, you seem to have no problem with the government taking SOME of your money to fund the CBC. Where do you draw the line? You happy loosing $30/year to fund the CBC? What if the government decided $300/year was better? Or $3000/per year? Please tell me at what point you'd say "Ok, now the government is abusing its authority". Please point to where I claimed you should get absolute control over where your tax dollars are spent. I've been quite clear in previous posts... the government should limit its tax collection and spending to areas that either involve natural monopolies, or areas where private sector involvement is just not feasible. That's just like the faulty "its ok because its popular" argument.... The fact that some politician is popular enough to get elected does not make their policies correct or in the best interest of the country. Ah yes, spoken like a true person ignorant of the concept of Libertarianism. You see, Libertarians are not anarchists. They do not want to see all taxes eliminated, and all government funding cut. Libertarians do see the need for taxes to fund certain fundamental infrastructure, such as the court system, police, military, etc. in order to maintain stability. Somalia does not qualify. Frankly, there is no country in the world which would qualify as a 'Libertarian dream'. So suggesting that people move to Country X is an impossible solution. The argument "If you don't like it, Move" is about as impractical as those who might say "If you don't like the drug laws/racism/etc. in the U.S. you should move". People have a right to stand up for what they believe in, and if the best argument you have against them is "If you don't like it, Move", then you should probably reexamine your own opinions.

There are some items (infractructure items, national defence, police force) where such expenditures are necessary for society to exist (e.g. we require a military to prevent invasion and maintain our way of life), or which form a natural monopoly (e.g. it is impractical to have privately owned roads.) The CBC is neither required for society to continue to exist (it is, after all, just a media source, and its elimination will not result in the deaths of any individuals), nor is it a natural monopoly (since other sources can and do exist). And yes, there are other items that we all pay for that not everyone makes use of (e.g. I'm thinking of a case a while ago where the government funded a book about blonde jokes) that are not critical nor do they get universal use. But guess what? Those things can probably be cut as well. The fact that the government is wasting money in ONE area doesn't necessarily mean it is acceptable to waste money in OTHER areas too.