kengs333

She just happened to be one of the candidates; I would think that the questions would have been related to the campaign, not her husband.

Their job isn't to keep the media away from him, though. The fact that they do so smacks of authoritarianism. Not to mention the fact that it says much about how he regards his candidates: incapable of holding their own when forced to answer questions that may be difficult, that force them to think for themselves...

Honestly I can't tell the difference...

Those would have been isolated instances. The concept of taking a gun into a school and shooting people is something that individually deranged people are going to hit upon. But Columbine was somehow different in the manner in which the media and American society in general reacted to it. And subsequently, it was seen as model by which later school shootings occurred. Both the shooting in Finland had gunmen that were fascinated by Columbine and not previous school shootings. American culture. No, because of the way that they view their guns. Gun culture means more than simple ownership. Look at how the NRA operates, all the movies with gun violence, the absurd devotion to firearms that many Americans have, the rampant gang violence, etc. These all originate in the USA.

I never claimed that it is the "root of all evil..." rather that it is the dominant "culture" in the west and that in terms of school shooting, shooters seem to be taking their cue from American gun culture and school shootings that have happened in the USA.

Now this is the second time that Harper has used the RCMP to keep the media from asking questions, in particular to Cadman's wife who is now a Conservative candidate. This is very, very troubling.

waaaaaa ........waaaaaa ............waaaaaaa can't you trigger-happy rednecks give it a rest!?!?!?!?!

I don't buy it. Virtually everyone that I can think of that is a child of German immigrants is a university grad. And we're talking children of farmers, labourers, steel workers, too. If anything, Canada needs a lot more immigrants from central Europe. They tend to be better educated and near fluent in English, unlike the immigrants that are now being allowed into this country. They are also more likely to adapt to Canadian culture and adopt it as there own.

To the best of my recollection the KKK wasn't a pre-war street gang. I know you're just trying to be a smart ass, but for the sake of anyone else who happens upon this who actually has the ability to comprehend logical arguments, the post-WWI street fighting in isolated parts of Germany hardly equates to the continual gang warfare that is occurring in every major American city, and has been for decades now. I still don't understand why you are so desperate to defend American culture, why you can't admit that it is a negative and corrupting influence throughout the world.

Actually skinhead culture is derived from Britain and the United States. Neo-Nazis more closely resemble southern white supremacists, KKK types than they do Nationalist Socialists of the 1920s and 30s.

No. That's the first time ever that I've used the phrase "uninsightful gibberish". I'm not sure how it is "half baked stupidity" when it has been clearly determined that the shooter was fascinated by Columbine. That is a direct link between American gun culture and what he did. I'm not sure why you're so desperate to defend American culture, but whatever the case you're typical posting behaviour clearly shows its influence.

Yes. The East German secret police. But we're talking about post-war Germany, not a Soviet satelite state. A wall is violent?!?!? LOL. Are you serious? One small terrorist group is proof that German society was violent? The fact that it is the only such group that you know of suggests just how abnormal they were, and basically substantiates my assertion. No, I'm basing my opinions on the truth. Grotesque generalities? Hardly.

Thanks for yet another uninsightful gibberish post.

Um... but they did know, just not when it would specifically occur.

Thank God never have been, and hopefully never will. Sorry, when a city like Memphis has 9,000 active gang members, that equals war zone in my books.

So why do you expound your nonsense on an "unrelated thread about candidate McHale". I was never "expounding" on white supremacism. So now you deny that you are Iroquois? That's interesting. You're so keen on defending Six Nations, but you refuse to acknowledge your own connection. Are you that ashamed? I suppose you have every right to be.

Hmmm... yet another instance of you referring to me as a white supremacist. Does someone telling you the truth about your Iroquois ancestors necessitate you labelling that person a racist? Is the truth that difficult to accept? You need people to buy into your idealized myth about Indians that badly?

That's the basic intention of the educational system in general, otherwise Canada would be a balkanized disunited nation that would be hopelessly dysfunctional--if it would even exist. Also, as the dominant culture, Canada has the right to remove children from abusive situations where a child's education and development are at risk, and that's what was done. Canada still does this, as is evinced in the case of the Winnipeg "white supremacist" woman who had her children taken away from her. (Does she not have the right to raise her children with pride of her European heritage and a sense of national identity, like so many "red skin" Canadians are allowed to?) Also, there is a reason why not many people speak Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, German, Ukranian who didn't immigrate post-WWII. So what makes you so special? Your skin colour? That would basically include Canada's immigration policy, which was devised back in the 1960s as a means of severing Canada from its British heritage. It would also include the Iroquois who were known to conquer and assimilate weaker "nations"--that is, if they didn't basically exterminate them like they did to the Hurons, Petuns and Neutrals. Which raises an interesting point. Were the British not justified in a way in how they dealt with the Iroquois; they did essentially succeed in pacifying the Iroquois thus preventing them from commiting further atrocities. In other words, is the act of preventing genocidal behaviour an act of genocide in its own right?

Oh, I think what guys like him did really can't be compared to modern science. Now it's become a manic obsession so narrowly focused that consequences no longer really matter. Yet new viruses are always popping up. Whatever the case, both sides of the balance sheet need to be looked at. Science was essentially responsible for allowing the Nazis, for instance, to "effciently" exterminate large numbers of people, or to allow the US to build A-bombs to drop on Japanese cities. Interesting that you should raise this issue. Famine in Africa is in part due to climate change which is brought about by human activity made possible by science. In terms of agriculture, what we need to know about producing crops is no different than what was known in the 1920s. Science is now focused on rather unnecessary things like GM crops and developing franken foods.

Actually, I'm thinking that German society was typically non-violent when it came to crime because of its rather authoritarian culture. You can't really say that what occurred during a war is typical of how people conducted themselves during times of peace. And to the best of my knowledge, German literature and film was never overly obsessed with gun usage and violence. The only real time that public violence was an issue in modern German history was in the immediate post-WWI era when groups like Stahlhelm were engaged in street-fighting against communist agitators, and in the years leading up to WWII (in isolated instances). Post-war Germany has been a very peaceful society. I believe that in 2005 there were about 800 murders in Germany, which has a population of about three times that of Canada. I lived in Germany for a year, and I always felt safe and if gun violence was an issue I would have heard about it because the Germans are very conscious about social order given what happened in the past. Please refrain from ad hom comments.

Like I said, it's clear who you are. Why you're incapable of altering your MO to not make it so obvious is beyond me. You'd think that it would come natural...

Uh, yeah, there were explosives at Columbine--they didn't work properly. They wanted to kill 500 students, remember? (I'm guessing not) So what. Columbine was likely a key motivation. Heavy metal music being popularized where? The USA. In other words they were inspired by American culture. No, because this aspect of German culture is influenced by American culture. He's probably already figured that out. Don't take it so personally; you're as much a victim of American culture as everyone else.

I wouldn't say that shootings are uncommon in the US. Most inner cities are essentially war zones. Apparently the guy was interested in Columbine, as was the other Finnish shooter.

I never said that these were "copycat killing" but whatever the case, such an incident does not have to occur within several days for it to be inspired by or modelled on the Columbine shooting. The shooter apparently was interested in Columbine, hence there is a direct influence to it and American culture in general.

If you are going to equate a few isolated stabbings with a consistant pattern of school-shootings then you're more baked than I previously thought. Whatever the case, Canadian culture has become dominated by American culture as well, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Rambo somehow factors into those incidents.