hitops

Here are some stats in general: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2012001/article/11637-eng.pdf Check chart 2. It is ranked in order of giving. It also happens to be, roughly, in order of tax burden. I contend this is not a coincidence. Those awful, selfish, oil-soaked, money-grubbing uneducated hicks in AB and SK are the most generous. The progressive, enlightened, nearly-free university Quebecois? By far the least. I think you missed my point. I am not challenging the idea the less poverty is good. I am challenging the idea that government intervention to reduce poverty necessarily does so. You just made my point - you know those people. You and I would both like to help people like that. But that is not the solution you are defending. You are defending a solution to take more money from everyone based on income, to give to everyone, based on income. That has nothing necessarily in common with wanting to help the types of people you are describing above. I would also contest the specific example of hubby leaving with the money. There are ample court remedies for that. Very few people can get away without support and child payments. And please realize that under the blunt instrument of tax increased on the wealthy, the type of person who would do that is just as likely to get extra cash as the women he left behind. Is that the person you want to reward? I would hope not. That's exactly why if you feel for the types of people you describe above, then it is more sensible to leave taxes low, and then you and I can give of our own free will to those types of people we rightly see deserve the help. So here is a better solution: We already have a mechanism of charitable deductions to encourage donation. Instead of blindly trying to soak the rich (who can normally figure out how to avoid it anyway, and for whom the money does not necessarily even solve the the problem), just double or triple the tax rebate for donations. That allows people like you are me to make a difference FAR more efficiently that just taking a few extra dollars from us forcibly to be used for God knows what, would ever do.

Without a doubt he is doing better at making people feel included. The fact is that the life of the prophet Mohammed looks more like the life of an ISIS leader than any typical Muslim in Canada. It is good that most Muslims just want to live peaceful lives. They don't want to face that they are living a watered-down westernized pseudo-version of Islam that has never existed in history until the last 30-40 years or so. But many Muslims are going to want to follow the real-deal, prophet-emulating authentic version, like ISIS does. We should to make sure we do not get these ones.

I also see this as a plus. The more non-Trudeau people making decisions, the better. They do have a deep bench of experienced people. Maybe he is showing wisdom and insight into his lack of knowledge, and willing to let the grown-ups do the work.

What will happen is whoever is in power will be against it, so it will probably not happen. However I do agree that some kind of committee to at least get discussion on the topic is at least in the realm of possibility.

Ok but he doesn't want to do that either, since he is pulling the jets out. Trudeau promises sunshine, baby puppies and happiness. But reality is different. Taking in people from warzone means you get the good with the bad. We are no longer living in the world of firmly defined cold war boundaries where you can be confident of who you are getting. Hardened ISIS fighters will get in. No screening process will ever be able to keep them out. A nice Canadian smile and a handshake and Trudeau gazing into their eyes will not transform somebody who's life philosophy is that you should be killed, into a life-affirming tolerant Canadian. The only way to reasonably generalize about who is being persecuted and who is doing the persecuting, is to focus on minority groups. Even then, it would be hard to figure out if an ISIS fighter is simply posing as a persecuted Kurd, for example.

Your style of posting is toxic and abusive. The above is a sample. You spend half your posts just insulting people. I would suggest you take a walk outside, some deep breaths, and think about how to communicate with others like an adult. It is quite easy to make your points without the bile. Thanks in advance.

Opposing increased taxation does not = unwilling to help others. Every well-off person I know contributes more in charity every year than these increased taxes will render. There is no link between opposing increased taxation for programs which may or may not do anything, and wanting to help the less fortunate. Most data shows that increased taxes just means reduced charitable donations. Charities use money far more efficient than gov does, if for no other reason than drastically lower (often volunteer) labor costs. Certainly false. There are as many examples of attempts to do this which destroy societies, as improve them. The entire cold war period is filled with examples of ideals to equalize people being implemented, whose results were widespread human suffering and social collapse. The instinct to want to give to those who don't have is well-intended, but the execution doesn't always work out well. Or maybe they are just smart enough to know that more government money, more government control does not necessarily 'help' at all, and often is counter-productive. I know that NGO X will use money in a certain way that I can see is helpful to people. Conversely, I have no clue whether gov will use my money in any way better than just flushing it down the toilet. This type of thinking is exactly the problem. I make expensive choices, therefore somebody else should pay for me. Nobody put a gun to anyone's head and said they had to go to university. They could get a less expensive degree. They could go to trade school. They could start a business. They could just work. They could simply work for a few years and save up before going, etc, etc.

It is not about trying to understand it. It is simply about being upset that others have something they do not, and wanting to exact some kind of pound of flesh for it. BTW I went to Tim Hortons today and got 10 timbits. But.....but......some people can only afford 1 timbit! Why oh why do we allow the injustice of Timbit sales to continue?!?!?!?!?!?

In large part they would include arab, north african, other african, Pakistani/Afghani (not sure if this counts as a race), or Indonesian. The vast majority of violent groups would be contained within those. Because if you don't ask, you won't find out. No books are just paper. The message is the problem. If you hold certain worldview, that can affect how you conduct yourself and how you view others. I cannot believe that you would not accept that. It is a simple to understand as the idea that a boy who grows up witnessing violence against his mother and hearing it reinforced as legitimate, would be more likely than average to propagate it against his own partner. As a reasonable person, are you actually going to say to me "well we can't know FOR SURE that the family violence lead him to become violent himself, because there are many factors". Really? We are going to dismiss the messaging of violence in his as a major factor because we do not have a 100% video record of his life to examine?

When you go ad hominem, you are losing. You simply refuse to understand that you don't need $10,000 in after tax income to use a TFSA. You can put ANY amount up to $10,000. Your misunderstanding is illustrated by your example of a good which is indivisible, like a car. But this is not indivisible, it is divisible in any amount you want. Maybe we should just outlaw banks? Because after all, rich people can put more money in them, and therefore earn more interest. From your statement. It is not mine to defend, you said it. More emotion-driven ad hominem. Point? Some story about a Lucky Sperm? This is part where I exchange awkward glances with the other guests nearby.

Because those areas involve different races. Causing then. Was trying to be polite. It is hard to establish cause in some conflict, but nearly all involved Islam. It is like that one person at work who seems to have a problem with everyone....just like they did at their last workplace too. Ok yes, you cannot for sure say they cause situation A (they were rude to me), and then situation B (they stole my stapler because they hate me) and then person C, D, etc. But at some point you have to ask what is the common denominator in all these cases? Equating religion and race is a false equivalency. A given race does not necessarily confer a belief system. Religion nearly always does.......that is sort of the definition of what a religion is. Genetic vs how you believe, there is no comparison. Islam's founder explicitly promoted ideas of Muslim superiority, and Muslim rights over others, including rights to suppression and subjugation. He believed women were inferior and said they were deficient of mind, and that most of hell's occupants were women because they did not listen to their husbands. His dying words were to push Jews into the sea. He was at war throughout his life. When a huge group of people specifically admit to wanting to emulate this 'best of all people', I do not know why it is a leap to find that the results of that, are not overly productive for a civilized tolerant society. Kids brought up that learn to see others as less than human. That affects your you related to other people.

I have to give him credit for inviting everyone. For sure the whole meeting is pointless, but it was a nice gesture.

That's exactly what it is like. It is not enough until the person demanding it, feels it is. Which of course means, it will never be enough.

Well according to you, since it is not a big deal for some people to pay more, it is fine that they should. Of course....this would never apply to you, would it?

You misunderstand. I know exactly what you are saying, I look at cofactors and all that stuff routinely as part of my job. It is not just a religion for poor parts of the world. Much of the poor world is Christian, or animist, or local tribal religion of some kind. Much of the Asian world is Buddhist or some kind of Confucius-dirived system including many poor areas. The Philippines is poor, so is Vietnam, so are a ton of places in that vicinity. But yet you don't find those non-Muslim population forming militant operations or conducting terror. You basically only find Muslim groups doing that, or at least the vast majority of them. The wiki list of conflicts be deaths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts You have to go pretty far down the list to a find a conflict not involving Islam. In the top 18 (everything involving 1000 or more deaths in the last year), I see 3 which are not related to Islamic groups. This is not a 'well they all do it' situation. That misrepresents the scope of the problem. That is like saying 'both our cities have crime' if my city had 10 murders and yours had 3 car thefts.

Bad analogy. You can't buy half a Porsche. You can use half the TFSA limit, or a quarter of it, or whatever amount you want. Hence why few can buy a Porsche, but anyone can use a TFSA. But your logic and that analogy is even more flawed; Following it, we would conclude that we should also ban the sale of Porsches, since some people can only afford a Kia. Keep on backpeddling. You said it, not me. No we can't, because we do not know what 'fair share' means. I could say that you have earned your fair share, and should pay at least 20% more in taxes, since somebody somewhere is struggling more than you. Wealthiest 20%? Wealthiest 10%, 1%, 0.01? There is nothing in common between those groups. Even just the 1%....Lives are the bottom of the 1% would be unrecognizable to those at the top of the 1%. They have nothing in common. Grouping them together as a target is senseless. This is not an argument. It is just your emotions. 2 siblings. Reasonable neighborhood-ish. Not all night shifts, about 50/50. Otherwise yep. Well I didn't grow up that way so what is your point exactly?

Gee. What does that have to do with your point?

Scandinavian countries largely have monoculturual, white, educated populations. If you find a group of scandinavian descent in Canada or the US, they are doing great too. Those countries are also strongly anti-immigration.

It's not that difficult for you to give somebody your phone. So the government should take it and give to somebody else right? You can't define 'deserve'. Societies that try chase after what everyone 'deserve' end up making everyone poorer, including the poor. See everyone thinks they deserve more of what the person up the food chain has. This applies to homeless people and millionaires.

I'm not talking about what is 'supposed' to be anything. I'm talking about what is on record, today, in western and middle societies.

It doesn't matter if it 'means more' to them. I'm sure your car means a lot to somebody somewhere than it does to you, that doesn't mean you should have to hand it over.

Equally, 'there are a lot of factors' could be said about anything. At some point, you need to make conclusions based on the information you have, not stand in mental limbo about everything in existence in protest of the fact that you do not have perfect information. Since the dawn of its existence, Islam has been at war with its neighbors, excluding the earliest period when it was far too small a group to pose a threat to anyone. Most importantly, its founder both promoted and practiced it. He also explicitly suppressed the value of women and non-Muslims. Today, despite modernization and vast improvements and dissemination of knowledge including in the Islamic world, virtually every notable conflict involves Islam in some way. The same cannot be said of any other religion. Saying 'all religions do it' is like saying that driving a car and riding a motorbike while standing on one leg and doing a wheelie are 'both dangerous'. Technically true, but absurd to group together. Yes, at some point I'm sure that a Buddhist monk somewhere has harmed somebody.

Except that it's not. It is getting pretty hard to find a conflict with a religious basis or connection that does not involve Muslims. It is pretty close to a monopoly. A distant second would be conflicts with no specifically religious overtones or basis. The same could be said about any proposed cause of conflict.

It doesn't matter if it is religious belief, or some other belief. A large group of people who, statistically as a group, holds to a doctrine that promotes the idea they are superior you are inferior (classic arab style Islam), is going to, statistically, cause a lot more problems than one that does not (boat people). If is the belief system, not the fact that it happens to a religious system, that is the problem. I have no problem with religious people in general. And when I say is going to, I mean to say 'has', when looking at the European example. This is isn't a pet theory, it is what has happened. I can't think of anywhere where Vietnamese emigres have caused any notable problems.

We don't have nearly as many as they do in Europe. We can learn from them.