Canapathy

During the 06 election campaign Harper blasted Martin's high level of spending. He then went on to increase spending at over double the rate of inflation. He didn't adjust spending, he added new spending...a lot of it.

Would you stone your disobediant child to death? Since you and the church pick and choose the Biblical teachings you abide by, how valid is the Bible as a moral compass?

What? Cycles? That's crazy man...nobody saw this one coming...not one economist...nobody. Just ask Flaherty.

Its Not the Voting that’s Democracy, Its the Counting.

I think Pat thought about including that in his speech but didn`t want to cross the line.

The massive power wielded by a few Christian leaders in the US is truly frightening. Leaders of enormous Christian groups use their power to inflict their will upon corporations and politicians. The cult like power those like Pat Robertson have over their mindless sheep far surpasses that held by union and world leaders (even Obama) alike. The problem arises when this American Taliban (borrowed from Dawkins) uses its power to assault gender equality (1), sexual orientation, science (2), reason and progress itself. The fact that these groups are highly organized and have such extreme power over their flocks makes them a serious force for good but far to often for evil as well. So what do we do about these evil organizations? The obvious answer is that moderates have to unite and organize...but it is much harder to coalesce those that think for themselves. Check out the link below. The fact that so many people ignore evidence and reason in this day an age simply amazes me. (1) Pat Robertson Quotes: "(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." "I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period." (2) Christianity's assault on science and natural selection - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1662...-selection.html

I had a minute to look up the answer to my own question. I was a Beaver and for a brief period a Cub until it conflicted with some of my other sports and hobbies as a kid. I remember the mottos "Do your best" and "Be prepared"...but in addition to the mottos they also have laws and promises. Maybe I was just unaware of the promises when I was a kid or mayber they are new but they definitely say that Scouts Canada is a Christian org. Beaver Promise: I promise to love God and help take care of the world. Wolfcub Promise: I promise to do my best To love and serve God, to do my duty to the Queen; To keep the law of the Wolf Cub pack, And to do a good turn for somebody every day. "Scouting is based on three broad principles which represent its fundamental beliefs. These include: Duty To God, Duty To Others, Duty To Self" Live an learn...this is probably a well known fact that just eluded me all these years. Anyway, I take bake my annoyance with the Scouts spreading a Christian specific message.

I've never aligned myself with a particular party; in fact, I find it a little amusing and/or disconcerting that so many treat politics as a team sport. Do so many good ideas really have to be discarded, discredited and sneered at simply because they were created by a different party? I know our system and the game we call politics promotes this kind of wasteful, childish, unproductive behaviour so maybe it’s time to change the system…but I digress. I have always been a little socially progressive and fiscally conservative. So, in the past my support has generally been behind the PC party. However, the newest incarnation of the blue team is no longer socially progressive or even socially moderate in my opinion. Currently, the Liberal party is a better fit for PCers than the CPC. Add in the fact that the CPC has sprayed RoundUp all over the grassroots and adopted a top down model, kicked democracy in the nads by preventing MPs from representing their constituents, in some cases even preventing riding associations from selecting their own candidate and has had no problem spending and I have a real hard time supporting them. Things can change though…15 years ago who would have thought the Liberals would be the main, moderate, fiscally conservative political option in Canada.

The majority of the country considers themselves Christian and the majority also overspend on consumer crap. Be careful when you use the word truth. Keep in mind that Christian beliefs are only considered truth to Christians. I took my son to the local Santa Clause parade this year. He might have been too young as he was bored to tears (almost literally) and wanted to leave even before Santa rolled his giant ass down the main street. Although, I can't really blame him I was a little bored myself. The parade generally consisted of rolling advertisements with a couple plastic decorations thrown on. Moving billboard ads for Re/Max, the local towing company, etc. with an inflatable snowman stuck beside the company logo and group of cold, uniterested children waving to the crowd really aren't that interesting. A couple Churches entered floats that were quite nice. One built a decent nativity scene the other had a choir of kids dressed as angels, lip-syncing Christmas carols. Both had banners telling us to keep the Christ in Christmas, which seems like an appropriate message for a Church to spread. Though I'm not religious and I disagree with the actions of some relgious organizations I have no problem with them advertising their beliefs and trying to drum up some new followers. What did bother me a little though was that Scouts Canada advertised the same thing on their float. I wasn't bothered because I'm anti-Christian or am offended when people say Christmas, I just thought it was a stupid move for a youth organization, with members from all walks fo life, with widely varying beliefs, to spread not only a religious message but specifically a Christian one. I guess first I should ask if Scouts Canada is a Christian organization...I didn't think it was but if so I have no real problem with it.

Well said. I love everything except the mass consumption that goes along with this time of year. I love the claymation tv specials, the excitement of children, the getting together with family, building snowmen (sorry snow people), hot chocolate, decorating, etc. I have a couple of kids now, my oldest is 2 and just becoming aware of Santa et al. He is all pumped about building a 'no-man' (he can't make the 's' sound very well yet) which so far he has only read about in books. We got a little snow today so I am looking forward to rolling up all the snow in my back yard into a grass covered, 30cm high 'no-man'.

I’m sick of consumerism and I am really starting to hate stuff in general. At one time I really yearned for things like nice cars, home theater systems, tools and appliances. Then I sort of became indifferent to our glutinous North American way of life. I wasn’t bothered by it but I personally started to make an effort to acquire less, use less, and waste less. Soon I found that I didn’t really want stuff anymore at all. Now despite my best efforts I am starting to really despise those that spend their lives consuming and acquiring. It could be the Christmas season and the accompanying advertising and push towards mass consumption that is bothering me. Maybe my skin will stop crawling in early January when the image of malls packed with fat, middle-aged women looking for deals, arms full of bags full of stuff destined to fill our basements and closets until we feel enough time has passed and we can than drop it off at the local thrift store of send it to the landfill has faded. Anyway, I came across this article about the holiday season and consumerism that sums up my feeling about Christmas time almost perfectly. Not being Christian or religious at all, I really don’t give a crap about celebrating the birth of Jesus, but other than that this story is a perfect fit. Still I find it amusing that an atheist (or maybe agnostic…not really sure what definition I fall under but I really don’t care to debate it anyway) like me would prefer to celebrate this holiday in a way that the man it was named for would approve of more, while my Christian friends and family prefer to trade thousands of dollars worth of crap back and forth…and in their eyes I’m Grinch-like. I also came across this article...now this is a holiday tradition I can really get into....one that literally requires zero effort on my part. Celebrate Buy Nothing Day on Friday; no purchase necessary

Under a MMP system the proportion of the seats allocated to each party actually matches how the entire province or country voted...that's what I mean by more accurate. In my opinion giving 100% power to the plurality candidate in each riding and thus wasting all other votes cast, is inacurate. Like I said in my last post, the electoral system itself does not make democratic government, but it is a critical first step. Can a representative democracy really represent, if we distort the vote results so badly? I say no. I am well aware of the many other problems that hinder representation as well, but with a FPTP system we are off the mark at step 1. Counting? Each vote equally?Who cares if we vote when we distort the results during the counting process and under a FPTP system not all votes are treated equally. I thought that was explained with the 93 federal election example. It took 1 million votes to elect each PC MP and 32 thousand votes to elect each Liberal...not exactly equal. Again with the meaningless 1 vote changes nothing argument... One vote on it's own changes nothing in any system so your argument is a pointless. When voting we care about vote totals. FPTP ignores over 50% the ballots cast on average whereas the MMP system proposed for Ontario will ignore 3% or less. Treating each vote equally and ignoring dramatically fewer votes does make for a more democratic electoral system. What a joke .... We vote to create representation not to make taxpayer funded party donations. Let's actually treat each vote fairly and equally and then let people make party donations on their own if they wish. Is this a joke? Using a federal example the MMP system would have given the Green party the 15 seats they deserved and representation to those Canadians that voted for them.I find it odd that you support giving fair and equal amounts of money to each party based on the popular vote but oppose the same idea for representation.

The total of all votes cast is represented more accurately. Since the proposed system is MMP which combines a simple plurality vote for the local rep and a proportional list system, you would still have the chance of rallying the troops and affecting a tight local race. Although small parties only want it because they have no shot at gaining undeserved representation. If like the Cons or Libs they had a shot at undeserved power I suspect they'd soon forget about PR as well. Perhaps, but I would much rather just debate the electoral system, the other is much to tedious. There is certainly a lot more to democracy than the electoral system...but I'd say it is a very important piece. If the mix of people making decisions on our behalf does not match the way people vote, what's the point? I like the phrase 'democracy is in the counting not the voting'. Until we treat each vote equally and actually elect the government the people vote for I'd say we're failing on the democracy front.I like to use the 93 federal election as an example of how unfair our system is. The PC party received about 2 million votes and won only 2 seats. So it took 1 million votes to elect each PC MP, yet the Liberals received 1 seat for every 32,000 votes cast.

It is often said that Canadians do not elect governments, they defeat them. Your comments echo that sentiment. It's a sad situation, mainly caused by the first past the post system, when people are often forced to vote against a candidate rather than for their own representation. PR has nothing to do with protecting the party elites. In fact, a nice side effect of PR systems is that the make up of the government more closely emulates that of the population. Party lists tend to include more women and more minorites than our current old white male dominated system. In reality, PR loosens the grip the old boys club has on politics just a little bit.

Ban public sector unions, put greater emphasis on preventative medicine, increase private delivery of health services, large scale, long term promotion of active healthy living, stop building car based suburbs.... we could also magically balance the demographic groups in Canada, tax illness or cure the common cold too.