RedDaVinci

Most of my extended relations who were in their teens during World War II incidentally were conscripted to fight for the Italian Fascists. To this day, "Grandpa Vinci" tells us his heroing tale of how he shot one of his officers as he escaped back to his rural village of Ururi, in Campobasso.

I couldn't give a hoot about the violent incidents mentioned in the Qur'an. The Bible is no different. But I live in Montreal. I see people of all creeds and races living their lives together. I see Muslims of every kind going about their business, not harming anybody and I have not to this day heard a single one of them refer to another religion as being blasphemous. Most Muslim people I know contribute greatly to the community and are still very fervent to their religion, wearing the hijab for example, at all times. If there was something inherently evil about the religion that was more so than Christianity or Judaism, I think I would have seen it by now. Don't start telling me that they're not living in the "true spirit" of Islam, I have never seen people so devoted to their religion in my life. These are Muslims of all kinds. I have studied the Islamic people as they are today and how they act in accordance to their religion and the world at large simultaneously. And I keep coming to the same conclusion, that there are "extremists" and there are "moderates". If you feel so strongly about it, why don't you try to prove to me and the rest of the world that there are more extremists than moderates? That's a good start to prove that Islam is a "twisted ideology".

I encourage you to start a thread about this. If you feel so sure about this, then an argument that does more to prove this is a common tactic would be informative for the rest of us. It's a bad analogy in that that it compares Muslims to dogs without owners, but a good analogy in that it makes sense. That being said, it could have been better, but was fine.

I know that's true in a lot of cases, but a responsible voter should not lean left or right, they should concentrate on the issues, the leader, the plausibility of the promises, etc. Loyalty is a good thing, but blindly following a party or ideology gets the nation nowhere. You hit the nail right on the head here in two aspects: 1) If there are only two parties, it is easier to know what they each represent in general, but in limiting your choice to only two, how much democracy is really going on? 2) People who don't vote are usually apathetic to the voting process. If they did vote, they'd probably scribble a something in for a popular or random party.

This really mucks up the perspective of things. From the get-go, I knew the PQ were being fascistic, especially with bill 101. They forget that the French nation living here was originally conquered, then preserved. Then it grew... and grew... and was kicked around a bit more until Canada attempted suicide in the latter half of the 20th century and elected the PQ as a legitimate party. There is no Canada without Quebec. There have been some terrorist actions taken against the federalists... but this is certainly a first for me. Considering it was a student office, it's not too farfetched to assume that the guilty party was an opposing, more clandestine, student group. This is a sign that we're regressing back into that militant sovereignty mentality again. I pray it's just an isolated incident.

History Television is a staple of this family's viewing habits in November. This is a tricky issue. Wars can only occur if one side has an army to begin with, and if we develop a defensive attitude, we feel that we must build up a military. Ideally, a concordance of nations... maybe if nations participated more in the UN... would agree to a gradual disarmament. Maybe one day... but for now we're just going to have to send more of our boys to fight another war over something just as stupid as before. I'm proud of the Canadian army and its reputation of ingenuity and ability to overcome seemingly unbeatable odds. I'm not an advocate of any war, and especially not an advocate of this war. I pray the world will come to its senses and stop fighting another pointless war. World War One... the Great War... was the first war to significantly put to use modern weapons, and the effects were utterly devastating. That's why they called it the War to End All Wars. It started after the assassination of a throne heir after a massive build-up of tensions and rigid alliance division. It was a long, tiring, wasteful and pointless war of attrition that crippled Europe, especially Germany, which arguably begot the Second World War. World War Two was officially ended shortly after the most devastating weapon conceivable was used to level two entire Japanese cities. After a young army runner had lived all of his life in a nation crippled by a pointless war, he became bitter and hateful. He went mad, and took the whole of Germany with him. The frightened west waited until his aggression took a step to far. Genocide and countless deaths ensued. Japan joined in the fight. Then America. It was also a long, tiring and pointless war that crippled the world once more. The Cold War was an unofficial and pointless bout of empty threats and childish behaviour that lasted roughly half a century. Both sides were of opposing ideologies, each disgustingly self-righteous-- their citizens, mostly sheep to the whims of their leaders through lies, propaganda, hate-mongering and especially unwarranted fear of the other side. Bombs many times more powerful than the ones that ended the Second World War were at the ready. The entire planet appeared to be on the brink of becoming an inhabitable wasteland. It was another pointless war that had everybody shitting their pants for good reason, and hating their human brothers and sisters on the other side of the world because of a couple of stupid, paranoid, childish and hateful men who disagreed... and had guns. Very, very big guns.

Commie site? "Shirly"? My news outlets are the Montreal Gazette, the Montreal Suburban, the CTV News station and the CBC News station. I am aware of FOX news and its ironic "fair and balanced" slogan, and I am aware of ABC news which is fine, but they hardly mention Canada. If I'm feeling adventurous, I'll pick up a French newspaper, because the francophone media frequently reports different events. There aren't any communist specific subscriptions that I know of and if there were, it would be pretty pointless reading a lop-sided publication if you want a full story. Pajama news only interviewed these two frightened women and were vague about what these men were doing. All we know is that they were swapping seats and taking out cameras. Were they laughing? Were they shouting praises to Allah? Were they giving threatening glances? If so, what kind? So far, no justification is given for the fear of these two women except their own. I don't care how they felt towards the situation, I'm more interested in knowing exactly what happened; I'd like to hear from the some other passengers, maybe one of the Muslim men for perspective. I have no problem admitting that what they did was incredibly unusual. But unusual to the point of being suspect if you shine the media lens at the right angle and your readership has a particular political leaning. Let's let the courts and the juries decide who's guilty. They have the evidence-- we have Pajama News.

That honestly sounds like an interesting case to follow up on. Do you have any more details? A news link?

I don't think that upsetting people in any way improves my self-image. But when a non-rightist is accused of being far-left because he has some different ideas, I assume you're either incredibly ignorant or indignant. I have faith that you're just indignant.

I think he's referring to one of Marx' theories, that "Religion is the opiate of the masses" or something like that. And in history, Communist Russia (I don't know about China) made atheism mandatory at some point... I don't know when, but I'm guessing it was right after Stalin.

I'm surprised, Moxie, that you don't just move to the states if you're so terrified of subsidized hospitals, colleges and hydroelectric power. Complaining that every party that isn't headed by John Stossel is far-left really limits your options.

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. " -Winston Churchill I'd like to draw a line between Canadian and American democracy. American presidents have four-year terms and a chance to have two terms if the votes are counted in such a way that suggests they can. The majority wins, the minorities lose big time. Canadian prime ministers have a cabinet that is elected such that even a "losing" party gets a certain amount of seats-- a minority. Now the political minorities, if they are sufficiently large, get represented in the parliament along with the majority. Parliamentary democracy allows for people to go to the voting stations and pick any party and know that even if they don't win a majority they can still represent them in government. That's one reason I'm proud to be Canadian-- I don't have to vote for the lesser evil. We saw a huge turnover in the Quebec elections when the ADQ won almost a third of the seats, driving the pro-francophone PQ, and the Liberal party down in favour of something new while keeping something old. Given that, it's easy to see why American voting turnouts are low, but not Canadian ones. I'll have to agree with the threat starter in saying that it's a social change... but other than that, I don't know why Canadians would be so reluctant to pick from the variety of parties. As an aside, our form of democracy also has some pitfalls. First of all, nobody really votes for particular courses of action, just representatives. Second, there can be such a great split in the voters that the cabinet is flooded with minorities that generally disagree with each other, and nothing gets done. I'm thinking of Italy, for example, where their parliament is the laughing stock of the western world. But I don't think that's what we're afraid of... because it doesn't seem that we're getting anywhere close to that reality.

Reasonable force... What exactly is reasonable when we're talking about a reckless person who has several times endangered the lives of others and gotten away with it? You'd change your tune if he got lucky and killed one or two people on his way. I just see life endangerment as being separated into two outcomes-- somebody gets killed, or somebody gets nearly killed. The difference is pure chance.

I'm disgusted by how lop-sided this discussion has become. Some Muslim men start acting erratically and they are suddenly "terrorizing the flying public". All Muslims must be evil because twelve of them in a well-publicized incident that didn't even make it to the major news media were acting like a bunch of children. Put yourself in the shoes of the flight attendant. They see a bunch of Muslim (not specified whether they are Canadian citizens... but they're Muslim, so who cares, right?) men doing silly things and disrupting the flight. Ideally, he or she learned to treat men from all creeds and races as equal. In other words, she sees twelve men acting like children. And so she tells them to stop, and they just resume doing their disruptive activities. Then to create a sensation on this "pajama news" outlet or whatever it's called, they interview a frightened innocent woman to say some very frightened things, with her also frightened mother, in a context that makes it sound like these childish men were making a makeshift bomb out of a watch and a can of shaving cream in some kind of great Jihad against the flying public. On the other hand, for them to have any grounds to go to court over a matter that they created from their own stupidity and childishness and claim bigotry is a joke. If you disrupt a flight full of people from a country where there is still a lot of fear propagated by the American media towards an entire race and religion, you're going to get bigotry. But to claim that they did this just for media attention or for the chance to go to court is nothing more than speculation. I don't have to explain why speculation without an iota of proof or any variety of testimony is just not constructive.

Whatever you say. I see I've struck a nerve in your rightist hearts.... that's usually when you start pointing the finger at me and accusing me of being a leftist. I'm not. I came here and I saw somebody making a vapid generalization about the ideology of communism. I'm not blind to history. It never worked and probably never will. Nothing I said was "starry-eyed". I just wanted to clear up the fact that the theory was not inherently evil and said nothing about killing or starving anyone like has happened to tens of millions in the past. And I cannot just say nothing when somebody outright claims that Islam is a twisted religion. There is something seriously wrong with such a bigoted statement. There's a difference between extremism and fundamentalism in Islam. Right now we have a bunch of Bill O'Rilley wannabes making a lot of noise, not listening to what is being said, and after labeling the so-called "leftist", making self-righteous recommendations about his behaviour.

I'm having trouble telling the difference from democracy and "demagogracy" these days. Have you seen the states? Practically a two-party system. It's really sad.

Fundamentalist does not necessarily mean Christian fundamentalist. And you can express all the right-winged ideas you want until you're blue in the face, it just doesn't make sense to plug them uselessly and claim that people who disagree are strange nazi-hippies or whatever you call leftists.

Well, it sounded like a good idea in theory. Sort of a middle ground between the pro-life and pro-choice movements that a morally decent secular person could probably come to terms with. A government really has its hands tied when it comes to philosophical issues like that. Finding a middle ground, as it seems, is their only realistic solution if they want to remain in power and to keep both sides as happy as possible. You don't have to be associated with some church to have a problem with killing unborn children; we're not just talking about a doctrinal minority who is opposed to the pro-choice movement. In essence, you're likely to have a very rough 50-50 split of pro-choice and pro-life supporters... But if the act is abused, and it is a very clear-cut one that includes the redundancy of having two doctors give a unique but agreed medical opinion... a law is being broken, one that threatens this middle ground. Given some thought, that middle ground is quite an important thing in politics... because we can't have people voting for philosophical issues; if there is no definite answer to a dillema, one can only be irrational in picking either side.

Sarcastic hemming and hawing in a debate forum is not constructive... it's just hostile. Talk about general conclusions! Now Christianity is the cause of all wonders of Western civilization. That is an incredibly loaded statement, and before you say anything else, you might want to back it up with something. From what I know, Western society has its origins in ancient Greece... way before Christians. And wasn't it Christians who rejected the most important fundamentals of science when they were originally brought up in the Renaissance and Medieval Ages? The Earth revolves around the SUN?! BLASPHEMY I say! How did Newton survive after he said that a force was an acceleration applied to a mass in that kind of world? By the way... America, the "crux" of today's Western civilization, as many would call it, was founded upon DEIST principals, not CHRISTIAN ones. That is to say, spiritual, but non-denominational. Look it up.

I don't mean to take sides, here, but I think margrace has a little bit more experience. Not only has she been involved in the nursing process for some time, but she herself has been to more hospitals than I have the stomach to count. So when she says that they frequently serve unpalatable 'dishes', I would not take my relatively short experience with hospitals into account as a valid argument. All I can say is that it sounds god-awful. Being a Canadian like most of you are, I've been through the hospital frequently for six hours at a time just to get an x-ray, a bandage and a French Canadian woman to complain to me that my moaning in pain was too loud and if I didn't stop she would refuse treatment. The thought that they don't provide you with anything given such an unholy amount of time of waiting is disgusting. But personally, my experience with hospital food has been limited. In visiting older relatives at any given Montreal hospital, the food certainly did not look very appetizing in the least, but might have tasted fit for a human being had I not grown too nauseous just lookin' at the damn stuff.

I don't know. I might have said it was a question of biology... you know, giving his physical characteristics so we can see what a taser gun can possibly take down... that explains why they mentioned the age... But his race? In retrospect, people would visualize the event given a set of stereotypes. The cop was white and the perp was black, would be the common stereotype in this case. Then I suppose falsehoods about the story would be propagated from imagination alone. Or it could just be that they're trying to make it seem like a "convention" so that they get to mention when the guy really IS black, making them more morally justified in mentioning this when it comes up.... and we all know how people scramble to read about harm caused towards minorities. Human beings are vultures for a story...

No... no. Stop there. I have never heard something so narrow-minded in my entire life. I don't care about how you feel about this isolated incident. This is not a place for you to plug your right-winged fundamentalist nonsense. In order... Socialism and Communism are based on the extreme of humanitarian behaviour and attitudes toward each other. As ideologies, they are wonderful things. But given how the Autocratic Socialism that was Russia, and China, etc... it's easy to see why a narrow-minded right-winged fundamentalist would believe that the ideology is inherently evil, not the people who have historically abused it. Second, I cannot tolerate this bigoted nonsense about Islam being evil, or a "twisted ideology" as you put it. Fundamentalist Islam is one of the most tolerant, humanitarian religions of all, miles ahead of even Christianity. If you're referring to the sort of Islam that terrorists claim to follow, the word you're looking for is "extremism". And I think that throughout history... Christianity has been no halo-bearing ideology, either, when practiced by extremists with weapons, fighting in the name of "God".

I think Argus here is right on the money. Of all the atrocities committed to all the people of humankind, and those still occurring as I write this, which are not limited to genocide and throwing babies into fires... I think the holocaust figures in significantly, but unlike the genocide that is going on today... there is nothing we can do about it. Except act as though it was a personal attack and demand compensation because you happen to be the same race as the victims of some history. I accuse her of doing exactly that... possibly to destroy somebody's reputation. Seriously, who would most people be inclined to believe at the risk of being called a bigot and an anti-semite... or a nazi...?

To think that this man has anything to complain about is a joke. He has been indiscriminately endangering the lives of innocent people more than once when one time is clearly already too much. If you don't act in a society in a civilized manner, why should anybody bother to be civil to you?

It's a funny thing, population increase. I live in an area with a particularly low birth rate... I think somewhere around 1.3 children per family. What makes it funny is that I also live in an area whose population is aging particularly rapidly and thoroughly, causing an impending dramatic decrease in the active population (i.e. full taxpaying, productive people). Our birth rate could drop even more and the population would still increase in theory, even without immigration (which by the way is the only thing keeping us afloat). Given the average lifespan of a person living in China compared to one living in Canada, birth restrictions are much more likely to work where the population can't so very desperately cling to life despite almost anything. In contrast, Canadian population increases would be much less likely to be controlled with a restriction on child births. Yes, the birth rate would plummet, but the total population would not be affected for some time. Instead, the active population would take a hideous blow with scores of "boomers" demanding social benefits, medicare, etc. without a sufficiently large active population to support them. The only real way to control this increasing population problem is much, much more gruesome and anti-democratic than restrictions on child birth-- it is the removal of desperately-needed support systems and contrivances for an aging population. In theory, a decrease in the average lifespan would also solve the problem-- but that involves some very, very ugly methods, dare I say even putting a restriction on aging. So you see, we would not solve as many problems by restricting child birth as we would be creating them.