JB Globe

1 - I too, despise political correctness, but for different reasons than you. 2 - You're either being disingenuous by claiming that the way in which you argue your points has no bearing on why people don't engage you seriously, OR - you're an egomaniac, hence the image you hold of yourself as being some sort of prophet.

As said elsewhere - if this were true, there wouldn't be 2.5 million people living in Toronto, especially when they can get cheaper housing in the 905. SOME people like living in the outskirts would be more accurate. I fail to see how one's standard of living suffers if you move downtown. If anything you just have a standard of living that isn't better or worse in any sort of quantifiable sense - you just live in a different manner. Because they have finally realized that sub-division property taxes can't support sub-division infrastructure. They need to intensify or face a tough choice between going bankrupt or crumbling and inadequate infrastructure. The suburban model of the last half century is just NOT sustainable. We built our way into the problem, now we need to re-think and build our way out. So when you want to keep non-whites and non-Christians out of your neighourhood, what do you call it? Because when brown folks do the same thing, you call it an ethnic ghetto, and you don't like it one bit. People who can afford to buy homes, especially new suburban homes, are generally not poor. So I fail to see where "poor people bring crime" comes into this.

There's quite a lot of money locked up in suburban real estate and infastructure - and none of it will be worth anything in a world of $200 a barrel oil, which is where we're headed pretty soon. That loss could greatly destabilize our economy, and even society - as folks who've worked their way up to being middle or upper class are plunged back down after they thought they "made it" - not a situation I'd like to be in. But please. go on . . .

I should mention I was hoping someone would have focused more on when I mentioned "making Islamists irrelevant" rather than my statement that Islam is as capable, and has as deep a history of violence as Christianity. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but since the "Islam is evil" crowd spends 95% of the time tar and feathering Islam, and a minority of the time talking about solving the problem of Islamic terrorism, it's caused me to believe that this professed concern for "Western security and interests" is really just a guise - and that all this effort is really just about cultivating a global crusade against Islam, which has become in their eyes the pre-eminent bogeyman-other in the world today. After all, that IS the endgame of the "Islam is evil" argument - since there's no way a mass conversion of people from Islam to something else (Christianity) is going to happen, a global military crusade is the only answer, and racist domestic policies against Muslim citizens of Western nations would be needed as well in this clash of civilizations. Of course, there are ways to neuter Islamists without plunging the world into a devastating conflict that would destroy the global economy and may not even come to a conclusion after centuries of war: you fight on your terms, not theirs: don't let them draw you into places you have no business being in (Iraq) and over-extending your resources, don't let them out-aid you (they build 1 school, you build 100), co-opt the rational legitimate concerns they use in an attempt to justify their illegitimate means to common folks (ie - the many nationalist struggles that Islamists try and fit into their agenda), completely ignore their metaphysical concerns - you can't win a cosmic war in this world, force countries to democratize - even if it means less-than-desirable groups come to power - democracy has a moderating influence on radical groups . . . etc. Frankly, I think any of the above is a far more productive, rational, and realistic policy than the whole "let's go to war with 1.5 billion people" argument - or even the forced deportation and disengagement proposal.

If you wanted me to ignore you all you had to do was ask. No need to get frisky.

So you have nothing to do with how your posts are received? All of the reaction your getting is simply a result of a hate campaign against you because . . . Because why exactly? . . . "Because I speak the truth!" . . . Really? Get over yourself. You don't have to debate your points the way you do, you CHOOSE to do so. You want to deal exclusively in hyperbole for example - fine, go ahead, but the consequence of that is most people here (conservative, progressive, etc) won't take you seriously, and thus won't engage with you. You know what the deal is - so why are you whining about it? Do you enjoy the attention on some level? Because most of us are finding it hard to believe you're genuinely surprised and/or upset that your ridiculous posts beget ridiculous responses.

I think it's more interesting to consider what will happen when oil prices go through the roof again once this recession is over. What's the red line for oil prices that makes the suburban lifestyle unaffordable for most of its residents? How long will it take once that line has been crossed for the value of all those homes to start dropping? What will happen to society when a large segment of the country looses all their savings they've built up over their lives because their house is worth half of what it was when they bought it? Or even less? I personally think re-engineering suburbia should be a national project - the future of our country may depend on it.

Because it isn't a religion of peace - it can be as bloody as Christianity or Judaism. Any time spent trying to determine which one is "worse" than the other is time spent splitting hairs. It would be a lot more productive if people focused their efforts on making Islamists irrelevant - that actually is a process which results in clear gains for our country. After all, I don't know what benefit there is in the vilify-Islam-movement, other than a fleeting sense of superiority among certain bigoted individuals.

Co-sign.

Most of us have no problem addressing arguments we find completely disgusting. However, we simply don't want to waste our time addressing arguments that are completely idiotic, much less with posters who employ troll-like techniques. (ie - evasion, not revealing sources, claiming sources say something when they don't, deliberately putting facts out of context, discrediting facts because the authors of said facts are black/jewish/etc. and thus are part of an imagined conspiracy, etc) It's not because of the positions you take, but how you argue those positions: they're so determined by your subjective take on things that they're stupid. (ie - "the sun orbits the earth because that's how it looks like to me") And just how egotistical are you? Do you really think that HOW you choose to argue your points has nothing to do with the fact that almost no one here wants to bother engaging with you at all? And please, save me the self-righteous "It's because I speak the truth!" routine, no one buys it anymore and I hope you don't - you're only hurting yourself when you don't own up to your own shortcomings.

From the Adrienne Arsenault report that broke this story: "Canadians pay more to support the monarchy on a per capita basis than the British do" That and we're footing the bill for Prince Charles to tour the country.

I think the reason Monarchists got so angry about this is because they're pissed off in general that no one under 40 cares about Canada's Monarchist tradition anymore - and (in my opinion) for good reason.

How many Canadians die per year from Islamic terrorism? How many Canadians die per year at the hands of a person who is mentally unbalanced and not receiving treatment? How many Canadians die per year from traffic accidents? If you're scared about terrorism, you should be petrified of driving. Why are you pissing your pants about one and not the other?

Not really - in the early 18th century the Irish immigrants who came to the US saw their faith as one of the defining aspects of their identity, and thus valued it above state allegiance. This is a result of the British dominance of Ireland, which was seen as a Protestant Imperialist venture by the Catholics. Combine that with an American xenophobia towards Catholics and the discriminatory policies that ensued and the result is a lot of early Irish immigrants to America put more stock in their faith than their state, because their state wasn't exactly allowing them to contribute and become a full member of society. That's why if you read historical accounts written by Americans about the Irish at the time they keep making comments like: "The Irish will ultimately only obey their king in Rome" This changed over time as the community settled down in the US, and the xenophobia relaxed (or rather, started to focus on more-foreign seeming or different groups) and the US didn't fall apart as many of its xenophobes had predicted. Frankly I believe this threat is overblown. I am far more scared of driving on the 401 than I am of dying in a terrorist attack. I'm happy to let CSIS & the RCMP do their job and not worry much about it. Especially after reading the case against the Toronto 18 - what a bunch of amateurs. Most of them were kids and their plans read like a 14-year-old's adolescent fantasy. For some perspective, zero people in Canada have been killed by terrorist attacks from Islamic extremists. How many have been killed from the acts of radical Quebec separatists? And what did we do to deal with that problem? We worked WITH the folks in Quebec to root out the radicals in their midst because we convinced them it was not in either of our interests to have them running around. Bringing the hammer down on a marginalized community doesn't actually work as you know, and I defy anyone to cite me an example where it did. True, I've always said that the best counter to Islamists is Islamic Scholarship - the vast majority of scholars are unified in condemning terrorism (See: the Amman Message) Sure, but what steps are we talking about here? Sure, but if we were going to make changes to the immigration system, it should have to go through Parliament, and it would have to be country-specific - after all, it wouldn't be fair or make sense to apply these laws to all Muslims: it's not as if Senegal or Guyana are terrorist hot-spots.

You're aware that Christians hunt down and kill non-Christians or those accused of witchcraft as well in Africa, yes? Seems to me the problem isn't so much inter-religious violence but the lack of a solid judicial system and enforcement so that people feel their conflicts can be resolved peacefully through the courts. It's not a coincidence that in countries where this is a problem there is also a lack of an unbiased or even functioning judicial system.

The projections I've seen have said 25% Muslim by 2100 - Not exactly an enormous leap over a 90 year period. I also take issue with people framing this fact as inherently negative - I think this is just a symptom of Islamophobia because it is absolute in the belief that under no circumstances can Muslim communities be relatively integrated and productive members of a pluralistic society. Which is just blatantly false. The US didn't fall apart when it became more Catholic due to large-scale immigration from Ireland and then Southern Europe, and I doubt Europe will burn in flames when it becomes more Muslim. After all, there were people in the US at the time who cited Catholic-Protestant violence in Ireland and the long history of Catholic and Protestant European nations warring all the time as evidence that letting in Catholics would tear up the country. Sound familiar? Paradoxically, the efforts of white-nationalists in Europe may actually be a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy - if they make it impossible for non-Christians and non-whites to be considered a part of society, it will keep them marginalized, which will promote poverty in these communities, which of course will beget crime and radicalism.

Looking back at the past half century, it actually appears that most of the world's conflicts have little or nothing to do with Islam. Even in cases where conflicts have taken place where some of the participants have been Muslims, Islam was not a factor that drove that conflict most of the time, and when it has been a factor most of the time it has not been the primary factor but functions more as a rallying flag. There are of course cases where Islamism does play a factor, but my point is that this is the exception rather than the rule. Again, Muslims do not have a monopoly on mass slaughter. In fact, the majority of the world's genocides in this past century have been committed by non-Muslims, or have happen to have been committed by Muslims but Islam was not a factor in the genocide (ie - in a move condoned by the US Suharto of Indonesia killed over 600 000 people who were members of a legally elected communist party - the factor there was political, not religious). It appears that the Armenian genocide by the Ottomans is one of the only examples, even Darfur is not a religious genocide - after all, Darfurians are themselves Muslim. I think you must be mistaking me for someone else. The exchange we've had in this thread is the most I've had with you since last winter I believe, and it consisted of perhaps a half dozen posts whereby you posted 1-2 sentence comments on my exchange with Argus. I don't recall it getting heated or personal, I really am dumbfounded where you're getting this idea that I'm some sort of huge antagonist of yours.

As a political commentator Beck is laughable. His trademark seems to be stoking fears and anger with vague references to conspiracy theories, such as "Oligarghs" Like Peter Finch in Network, he's mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore! . . . But mad at who exactly? And what are you going to do with that anger? Yell? That's productive. I think his whole 9/12 movement is about as cohesive and influential in the grand scheme of things as the G20 protesters in Pittsburg. As an entertainer that comments on news events, I'll take Colbert or Stewart any day of the week.

As it stands right now, he's trading heavily in paranoid right-wing conspiracy theories and terminology. Of course, he seems like quite a fraud, so it could all be contrived and he could be a centrist like you say.

Why is it brilliant? The Joker character in Dark Knight is an agent of chaos, meaning that the closest economic system you could use him to symbolize is anarchy - but even that isn't entirely accurate because anarchy is basically swapping centralized organization for local organization - it's still not chaos. Where people got the Joker=Socialism idea is beyond me. I mean, in the movie the guy burned that stack of money - he didn't keep it and spread it amongst the people.

That isn't semantics. Saying everyone who subscribes to Islam as a religion is socially backward is an ignorant and false statement. It implies that there is NOTHING that can be done to advance social justice in Muslim majority countries besides some sort of neo-Crusade to force-convert everyone from Islam. Saying that equality, rule of law, and social justice are lagging behind in the Muslim world implies that they can catch up through reform efforts. This "lag" of course was greatly influenced by the colonial period. Perhaps for your own (low) standards, but you certainly haven't convinced anyone else. The UK's integration policies have resulted in a particularly messed up situation regarding all immigrant groups. Muslims in particular are much more isolated than they are here in Canada, as a result of discrimination, or oppression if you will. When minority groups feel threatened, they tend to pull inward and identify strongly with signifier of their culture/religion. Hence, the strong support for Sharia and the increasing amount of women who wear the hijab. This isn't unlike what Jews did in Eastern Europe in the past, under different circumstances of course. This doesn't make the support of Sharia Law right, but it demonstrates that there is a way out of this mess for the UK. I support reform, what exactly are your solutions? Thankfully in Canada, there has never been much support for Sharia Law outside of religious conservatives. I attribute this to how much better integrated Muslims our in our society. Yes. I'm sure there are subjects where you are more knowledgeable than I am. The difference between you and me is I'm able to recognize when I DON'T know something, and instead of shooting from the gut - I listen and ask questions. I'm not under the illusion that I posses some psychic ability to see the truth in all things regardless of whether I understand the issue at hand or not. Since when are wars of aggression to expand a country's Imperial domain NOT an example of social backwardness? Since when is allying yourself with brutal dictators who commit war crimes not an example of social backwardness? Denying people their self-determination, politically and economically, dominating them, sucking wealth out of their country for your benefit, and committing routine human rights violations as a result - you don't consider any of these signs of social backwardness? Who knows what would have happened? But again - I've never argued that Islam has been any better or worse than any other religion when it comes to wars of conquest or current social justice issues - just that this worldview of yours that Islam=bad and The West/Christianity=Good is just not true. Stop with the crocodile tears. It wasn't intended as a smear, but if you don't want that to happen to you in the future, practice what you preach. It's hard for anyone to have sympathy for a guy who makes wild accusations like that whole "welfare writer" nonsense. I'm sorry but I don't see the connection between this comment and my explanation of the Indonesian riots of the mid 90's. Sure. There is a difference, however, in maintaining diplomatic ties to a country with a country, versus providing military support to a country that has committed war crimes, and will use that military support to commit acts of aggression. We support democracy and justice, as long as they don't get in the way of our economic interests. We have means of heating our homes and getting from A to B that don't require vast amounts of oil, we could drastically reduce the amount of business we're forced to do with dictatorships - but that would require a shift in how we live (not necessarily a reduction in quality of life) and most people would rather keep the over-sized house and two-cars-plus per family, because they're unaware of how much damage they could do to these regimes if their GDP dropped dramatically because no one wanted their dirty oil anymore. That's the only thing keeping them in power, it's not as if they actually know how to run a country. And post-independence, you can chalk a lot of this up to both bad governance in these nations (aka - their fault), political interference (aka - our fault) and bad development projects that lead to debt (aka - their fault and our fault). Meaning, we shouldn't be so smug, we have a hand in their problems. There were 10000 US troops there as recently as 2003, this is where the main base for enforcing the old Iraq no-fly-zone was. Many American corporations have operations there, and the civilian US government has a lot of staff there as well. For perspective - how many post-colonial countries are represented in that list? They absolutely need to invest in education, and the Gulf States are leading the way in that field: Abu Dhabi - NYU Dubai - Michigan State Qatar - Northwestern, Texas A&M, Georgetown, etc. The branch campus thing is a smart idea - because they knew that their economies are advancing so fast, and it takes so long to get a reputable university up and running from scratch that they would loose people to overseas institutions. Add to that fact that protectionist professional associations invalidate any certifications from outside North America or Europe, regardless of how high standard they are. Might as well get around that by partnering with established institutions.

And all of these posters happen to share the opinion that Islam is inherently evil/violent/socially backward. I don't have any problems with anyone else - even if we disagree strongly, it never comes to personal attacks. I think the fact that the Islamophobes on this board seem incapable of discussing things in an informative and civilized manner is actually indicative of the And by Islamophobes I mean people who have not done much substantial objective study into Islam, yet claim it is inherently a bad force in the world in an effort to further the "Clash of Civilizations" paradigm - which justifies aggression towards the world's Muslims. My definition of Islamophobe does not include Muslims and non-Muslims who criticize aspects of Islam in an effort to reform and improve the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims around the world. Maybe those people should not read my posts if they don't like them. Than don't read them. You NEVER respond to any points I raise in any of my posts, you just chime in to let me know you can't stand me. Good for you, do you want a cookie or something? I really can get by in life just fine without validating myself through your opinion of my opinions. Perhaps you can't stand the fact that we live in an open democracy and there are going to be people which hold opinions counter to yours. Perhaps you would like to counter my argument but you simply lack the knowledge and/or ability to do so. Whatever it is, you may want to consider ceasing taking personal shots in lieu of making a case for your position - it just makes you appear to be either a coward, a hack, and/or an idiot.

Not when they're funny. Usually that's the giveaway.

Why do you only respond to my posts with one-liner pot-shots? Why do you persist in being so arrogant as to believe your personal opinions are all objective facts? You could only say someone is "ignoring the obvious" is if they are are going against something which is widely acknowledged as a objective truth. And considering that there is not a large majority of Canadians who believe "Muslims are inherently socially backward" this clearly isn't the case here. Please spare me these arrogant delusions of yours that your opinions are either objective facts or widely-held unless you have some statistical data to back yourself up. No one HAS to do anything, Argus is willingly typing away - I'm not holding a gun to his head. Just like you're willingly taking pot-shots at me and willingly ignoring my argument. People in democracies disagree, the truth isn't always black and white, sorry to break it to you. That may be how the sun looks to you in winter, but a person looking at the same sun standing in Sao Paulo sees things differently. It's funny how PERSPECTIVE CHANGES THINGS, doesn't it? (Thanks for setting that one up for me, couldn't have done it better myself.)

The mere fact that you think you can generalize a billion and a half people so absolutely is demonstrative about your knowledge level of Islam. I despise political correctness, but am a firm believer in mutual respect - something you routinely refuse to extend to the culture and history of folks who aren't white, under the guise of "not wanting to be politically correct" Also, what you call "far left" the rest of us call "centre-left" - Generally people on the far-left don't think that captialism is the best economic system to date like I do. You're beginning here with the premise that it is an actual fact that the controversy over the cartoons is a result of Muslim intolerance. That's a subjective reading of the event on your part, so don't pretend like you can completely invalidate the position of Muslims in Muslim-majority countries. My position on the issue is that there's enough blame to go around for everyone, so the only directions fingers should be pointing as at oneself. This lack of mutual respect is a mutual problem. Which was wrong. Actually it is a stretch - the poll was only referencing the specific Danish cartoons, not cartoons in general or criticism in general. And although I'm sure a lot of people would be against such criticism, I'm sure a lot of people would not care or notice so long as such material wasn't extremely inflammatory or highly distributed. Remember, the cartoons were even out for a while before the blow-up happened: it was only after they had been reprinted across Europe and a group of fundamentalist Imams intent on exploiting the controversy to their benefit organized the protests-come-riots than things went south. Of course, none of this excuses the riots, it just explains them and demonstrates that there wasn't some sudden rush of anger the minute these things hit the press - there's more going on here than what you make it out to be. I don't find them shocking at all, they're a dime a dozen, I just find them inaccurate and sad. That was so cute, you're adorable. I've made the following statement numerous times, and you've read it numerous times, but for everyone else's sake here's my stance on this: I believe that the problems within the Muslim world are significant but not overwhelming. I believe may of the problems which people like Argus believe are a direct result of religion and/or social backwardness actually have more to do with the levels of poverty and injustice commonly found among ALL post-colonial nations which do not have stable, capable governments and/or dictatorships. As such, I believe these problems are SOLVABLE by using soft power and mutual cooperation most of the time, and only resorting to hard power when absolutely necessary (imminent threat scenarios). I believe that the "Clash of Civilizations" worldview is false and actually functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy, since it prevents mutual understanding and cooperation and promotes a aggressive and militant stance towards Muslim nations, which respond in kind. I disagree out of hand that some sort of world military crusade against Muslims and discriminatory policies at home are the right way to handle things. As far as "defending brown people goes" considering I acknowledge all of the problems in the Muslim world that Argus does, but disagree on their scale and/or permanence, and I acknowledge the role "brown people" have played in many disasters that have affected them, I don't think this is accurate. What Argus calls "defending brown people" is simply my refusal to agree with his own personal opinion that "brown people" in general are inherently socially backwards when compared to "white people" Such a claim coming from someone who has not, for at least several months, been able to discuss an issue involving "brown people" without portraying them in almost a completely negative light is actually quite funny.