Wild Bill

You're right! Perhaps I should have said it appears to be the poli-sci majors from Queens who join the NDP to pour concrete when it's freezing out! You know, the ones who think that because they're articulate that's the same as knowing what they're doing. The ones who dropped maths and sciences as soon as those beans in the jar for their science project sprouted a few inches and died...

Actually, it is the Israelis who are running out of time. They are being put in the position of having no choice but to launch a first strike on Iran. After all, Iran has repeatedly said they are in favour of Israel being wiped from the earth. Iran has steadily been building the capability. Even if they simply intend to hold as big a stick as "the other guys" there is no way they would refrain from using it to force their will upon Israel. It's like facing a high school bully who has promised to 'bash your head in'. Every day in wood shop you see him making progress on turning a big club on a lathe. The teachers all tell you that you shouldn't be afraid and that the bully simply 'needs to be understood'. Do you wait until he's finished his club? To add to the pressure, if you listen to the teachers and they get proven wrong, no one they care about suffers from their mistake. However, if you made the mistake of listening to those teachers then EVERYONE who matters to you suffers! Sadly, there is only one logical choice. Anything else would be counter-survival.

We always seem to limit our vision only to our own back yard. Nobody looks up! Surely there must be rare earths in asteroids! Or perhaps a bit more expensive to mine, on the moon! Anyone who has googled more than casually through the idea of space mining knows that it is already practical and within our grasp. The fact that these rare earths are so expensive makes them even better candidates for space mining. Why not just cut China out of the equation?

Well, that's your right! Go ahead and add another straw.

Racist by YOUR definition! YOU define other protests as equally guilty and then YOU cite the fact that a newspaper did not criticize them to the same degree as evidence of the paper being racist in its policy! These are not facts. They are only your opinions. Others might well disagree. Still, that's why we have courts, to make judgements as to whose opinions are indeed factual in these cases. It might indeed be interesting to have a judge hear the case. I do hope it doesn't become another travesty like the Ezra Lavant-Human Rights Star Chamber trip! Regular court might be a more fair venue. It would bother me if you got a free pass on all lawyers fees. I understand that it might not be a level playing field to go up against the resources of a large business like a newspaper but at the same time the Levant case showed how easy it is for a defendant to be impoverished paying for his legal defence, to the point where his innocence or guilt becomes irrelevant as he runs out of funds to mount an effective defence. This sort of thing is really just abuse of the process, a guerrilla tactic that spits in the very face of the spirit of justice! That issue is just a sidebar, however. You could well win your 'racism' battle and the natives would only lose the war of public opinion. A verdict in your favour would do nothing to counteract feelings of resentment among non-natives. In fact, it probably would only make things worse. The 'average joe' is feeling that to the natives he's just cannon fodder and what's worse, his governments will not protect him either! This is what breeds disrespect for the law and in extreme cases, vigilantism. NOT a good thing! This sort of thing just keeps growing and growing under the McGuinty "Neville Chamberlain" methods of handling such problems. Thank heavens I don't live in Caledonia! I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the town when things eventually come to a head!

You still don't see it. Perhaps you are too bound up in thinking of people in terms of tribes, or races. Many people WERE ticked off at the tobacco farmers! Nobody is more righteous than an anti-smoker! What's more, there are FAR more smokers in mainstream Canadian society than there are supporters for native claims! They would naturally tend to support any group that is targeting the government. Natives are a largely unknown minority that tries to "raise awareness" by making ordinary Canadians aggravated INSTEAD of governments! However, there were still very important differences. For a start, the tobacco farmers were loud and clear before they ever hit the road that their target was the government! They were 'loud and proud' about it. Since virtually all Canadians tend to blame their governments for everything, they tended to sympathize with the tobacco farmers. In contrast, the natives seemed to say nothing other than they "were trying to raise awareness". What the hell does that mean to the average joe? The natives seem to think of non-natives as just one amorphous, 'white' tribe. They certainly act as if the government and the ordinary non-native are the same thing. Who's the racist here, I wonder? Anyway, the result is that ordinary Canadians feel like they are being lumped under the same target for the native protesters and therefore feel no positive connection with those protesters. How can they, when all they get is the aggravation and inconvenience? If the natives ever got smart and made even a token effort to spare the ordinary joe and focus more on the governments as something separate from the people they might garner more support. It's pretty obvious that the protesters have little or no experience with salesmanship. They would launch a protest against Ford motors by letting the air out of every Ford owner's tires for him to discover when he goes to leave for work in the morning!

My wife and I watched this latest protest tactic, just shaking our heads. Once again, the Six Nations protesters just don't seem to have a clue as to the consequences of their protest methods. They persist in targeting the ordinary citizen! It wasn't McGuinty who was inconvenienced. It wasn't Chuck Strahl. It was the ordinary citizen just trying to get to work who faced the extra time and aggravation of road closures. He or she may well have been worried that being late might have cost him his job, in these recessionary times. Raising awareness? They did that all right! They turned more ordinary folks into enemies! Anyone who thinks that all those drivers forced to wait and detour were saying "Gee, I never knew about these native issues! I'm glad they raised my awareness!" is naive in the extreme. The police follow their policy of appeasement not out of some sense of fairness. Rather, it is solely and only out of an inability to cope with the level of force involved. The tobacco farmer and trucker convoys were allowed to happen because there were so many people and vehicles involved that the police did not have enough men and cruisers to stop them all. They also did not want the bad publicity of having to respond at that high a level. The OPP practice two-tier racist enforcement at Caledonia and now the "granny walk" of a few days ago for the same reason. They are afraid of how violently the native protesters are prepared to respond if a situation escalates. Nobody forgets 'Lasagna' at Oka. However, there is a difference between tobacco and trucker protests and those of natives. Tobacco is a single issue affair. Native protests just go on and on. When a tactic works it tends to get repeated, sometimes on a greater scale. I say again, if you take the time to get the opinion of the ordinary man in Timmy's, the bars or the local supermarkets, the natives seem to be continually making that ordinary guy feel like he's the target and not the politicians. This is NOT going to mean that non-natives will begin to vote for those politicians who favour native claims! Every party offers a large and mixed bad of offerings. One issue would not be enough to get a voter to change his party preference. If Harper offered something pleasing to natives would that be enough to get an NDP voter to change his vote to the local Tory candidate? Not bloody likely! Its beginning to look almost suspicious as to how the natives at Six Nations NEVER target their protests at politicians! Has there been even ONE placard waving native protester on the sidewalk in front of McGuinty's house? How many have staged their protest in front of Queens Park? Virtually ALL their protests have targeted ordinary citizens! Perhaps not in intent but absolutely in terms of effects! I suppose for even thinking these points to some must make me a racist. Well, even if I was willing to shut up over being called nasty names that's not going to change what's happening. It's just straw after straw on the camel's back, as far as changing public opinion in a negative fashion. Sooner or later something might provoke a bad confrontation between protesters and large groups of ordinary citizens, beyond the limits of what the police can handle. Remember, our forces at all levels tend to be relatively small, even on up to our national military. Maybe I'm worrying needlessly. Perhaps these Six Nation protests will eventually result in native and non-native living together, singing "Kum bye Ya" around camp fires. Nobody will care about being late for work 'cuz they don't have a job anyway!

Talk about revising history! I lived through those times. What planet were you on? You're right that at that time there was a global problem. What matters is what specific things did Rae's government do to try to deal with it. For one, they deliberately pumped over $10 billion dollars into government 'make work' projects, believing that they could 'spend their way out of a recession'. I personally witnessed some of those projects, like pouring concrete for highways in the coldest part of winter. Any idiot knows that you can't do that. The concrete froze, cracked and was a complete waste of money. Personal friends of mine worked for the Highways and protested. They were over-ruled by Rae's NDP Ministry. They didn't care! All that was important was hiring temporary workers to use on such projects, to give them enough paid weeks to qualify for EI. Even supposedly mandatory safety training was waived for these workers! I swear, Rae's people all found a stop sign to be a week's good reading! They seemed to have absolutely no common sense or practicality in their approaches at all. 'Artsies' and 'flakes', the lot of them! And holding the purse of the province while they were at it! At the end, we were left with a deficit INCREASED by that $10 billion! And a lot of infrastructure projects that were unsafe, falling down and had to be done over. THAT's why so many Ontarioans have no respect for Rae's government! The whole world was in a global recession but that can't excuse the 'wing nut' way Rae's people tried to deal with it! You tell a good poker player not by the cards he's dealt but rather by how he plays them!

Interesting. Is that the way it seems to you? I bailed on the PCP to join Reform after Mulroney's terms. Now, after the parties have merged, it looks to me like the PCP has successfully seized control! Those 'centrists', as YOU define them are now running the show. All the Reform party planks are 'Down the memory hole, Winston!" This is why I and many other former Reformers support the new party only by default. The best that can be said of them is that they are NOT Liberals! It's quite true that Canada has no right wing parties. Our choices are now the same as they've always been. Red, pink and rose(eh)! As for wanting to be American-style conservatives, I would be interested in hearing how you would prove that point. They look entirely different to me. Your premise sounds like simple partisan jingoism. Anyhow, as I keep saying, today I truly wonder why Manning ever bothered...

You can't plot a curve from only one data point but I would suggest a comparison between 'rubble.com' and this board would tend to support your point. 'Rubble' is a leftist board, where almost all posts are lewd and crude. Ad hominem attacks rule, profanity is deplorable and rarely are arguments settled by debate. Shock and intimidation are the order of the day. Whereas MLW is relatively civilized! We have a few exceptions but for the most part posters are polite and respectful. Some of us would not label MLW as a truly 'right wing' board but certainly it would be if compared to 'Rubble'. Childish is as childish does, I say.

As usual, it's what you didn't quote that gives the true story. Shades of jdobbin! Here's what you omitted: Baird told his aides that Toronto's application for federal infrastructure funds was the only one out of 2,700 applicants that didn't meet the eligibility criteria. A reporter overheard him saying Toronto shouldn't complain about not getting the funds fast enough. "Twenty-seven hundred people got it right. They didn't. That is not a partnership and they're bitching at us," Baird was heard saying. "They should f--- off." So 2700 other municipalities could fill out the paperwork correctly except for Toronto? What else is new? Toronto probably felt they were too important to have to bother. It's been suggested that due to its size and it's own peculiar culture not shared by any other part of Ontario Toronto should be its own province. I would suggest that Toronto be made it's own planet! The rest of us in Ontario have nothing in common with that city. It might be different if they had a hockey team that could win a Cup once in a while!

A number of posters have made claims in this thread about how Canadians feel about the death penalty. Here's a link that might be interesting: http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/rs/rep-rap.../rr01_1/p7.html Scroll halfway down the page and you'll see Gallup stats on how Canadians feel about the death penalty. Of course, those against the death penalty don't really care what the majority wants when it disagrees with their won views but still, the stats might give some good input for discussion.

Been reading the quotes Oleg, since I've had CR on 'ignore' for months now. He's giving you some good advice amongst all his condescension. We often have little or no control over the hands that life gives you but we do have control as to how we play them. If you're waiting for someone to make things fair that will likely never happen. You might as well just keep doing whatever you can to make yourself happier. However, it's so ironic for CR to lecture you about self-responsibility, when in any debate about aboriginal peoples his stand is always the same - aboriginals always right, white man always wrong! Talk about your situational ethics! That's why I ignore him. His predictability detracts from any novelty to his thoughts. I wouldn't have bothered to jump in except I thought you should know that some folks like myself have a little sympathy for you. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, just that you're a fellow Canadian and if I had an opportunity I'd stand you to a beer!

Oh no, we should never have a clear picture of the fact that Quebec as a province doesn't care to celebrate Canada Day! Perish the thought! Actually, I would suggest that 'faking it' makes things even worse. We should distribute the funding equally. If Quebec chooses not to do anything then that should be public knowledge. We can then decide how to deal with that fact. Pretending by bribing them to have celebrations just makes things worse.

Well, that's where many of us disagree, I guess. The state is supposed to administer justice in order to avoid the mistakes, feuds and inequities of force from the 'old days' of justice being an individual matter. Citizens give up the right to solve things on their own because they have faith in the State to do a better job at it then they could themselves. This is all predicated on the people having faith in the State to administer proper justice. Today, we seem to have a growing disconnect between the State's vision of justice and that of many citizens. This seems to be especially true among victims and their loved ones. One stat we never seem to see is one showing the percentage of victims that are happy with the sentences of those that have wronged them. Perhaps that's "the elephant in the room" that no one wants to admit is there. Not everyone feels that a murderer has a right to a chance to rehabilitate. Many feel that after committing such a horrible deed as to take the life of a fellow human being in an unlawful manner a murder has forfeited such 'rights'. In effect he or she has placed themselves outside the law we all share, which is the traditional definition of an 'outlaw'. There is also the factor of personal responsibility. Some believe that individuals are responsible for their own actions and their consequences. Others don't seem to share this belief. However, those that don't share this belief seem to feel they have the right to determine how the justice system operates with respect to sentencing, particularly with violent crimes! Here in this very thread we have those, including yourself, who believe that the state is doing the right things and that the feelings of the victims and their families are of little or no import. Not only do I believe that this is unhealthy for a society, I also believe that the disconnect and resentment can only grow in the face of such attitudes. Victims are being made victims twice, once by the perpetrator and once by the state in its sentencing. As a culture we seem to have lost any sense of empathy with our fellow citizens. At one time we reacted with caring towards others who experienced loss or tragedy. Now we tell them that they are irrelevant. This is socially divisive. It is very unlikely that the resentment will simply go away. It is far more likely that it will continue to grow! It breeds disrespect for authority. Once you begin to lose respect you're only other tool with which to govern becomes force! What's more, respect cannot be demanded. It always must be earned. Once lost, it is FAR more difficult to regain! The very fact that this thread has a need to exist is a sign of a large and growing problem.

Revenge? Perhaps. As opposed to indifference and expediency? Part of justice is having a perpetrator pay for his crime. This is what helps bring closure to the victim or victim's family. Every time I hear someone blow off the views of the victim's family and their feelings as simple revenge I get a bad feeling. When you can lose a loved one, sometimes due to a horrific murder and 15 years later you're forced to attend a faint hope clause meeting and have your feelings dismissed as being too "emotional"...there's a lack of compassion and perspective here.

Oath? That means we must accept it as true? The protesters at Ipperwash had an agenda. I happen to agree with that agenda but that has nothing to do with true or fiction. Dudley's uncle had strong reasons to paint the OPP in as bad a light as possible. All the protesters had strong reasons not to trust the governments involved. Was that uncle in a position to know if every other protester was unarmed? He could have made a sincere statement without it being a truthful one. We have all heard government spokespeople lie under oath. Cops too. I don't know the uncle involved so I cannot give an opinion of his character but that doesn't mean I would accept anything he says as gospel, oath or no oath. No, all that counts is hard evidence and we appear to have little or none. That being said, the point is moot anyway. We have no evidence that the natives were armed, only OPP fears and after Oka, such fears were absolutely justified! In the face of no supporting evidence, it is much more likely that the claim of arms is simply an OPP excuse; an attempt to confuse the issue. Even if there WERE arms the OPP had no justification for shooting a protester unless there WAS clear and hard evidence that an officer was about to be shot himself by such a protester! A police officer does not have the right to shoot an unarmed criminal, even if he was afraid there MIGHT be a gun! What was different about Ipperwash except an officer's fear? After we sift through the little we know FOR CERTAIN, we cannot say if the natives were or were not armed. We DO know that no one has proven that Dudley George was armed! All we know is that at least one officer was very afraid. This is much more likely than him being some racist idiot out to kill natives. I'm not saying there are no racists on the OPP but surely few or none would be so stupid as to shoot a protester just for the fun of it, with such obvious repercussions. For that reason I still have to attach some blame to the native protesters, in that there's no way they could have been unaware of the ambient fear of armed native protests after incidents like Oka. If they didn't count on such a fear as a tool in their protest they would have been fools, which obviously they were not. That being said, it still doesn't justify the shooting of Dudley George. It just makes it more understandable. The situation escalated too quickly, with each side being unaware of how its actions were truly affecting the other. I see a lot of parallels with what happened to the students at Kent State, Ohio back in the 60's. That shooting should never have happened either but sadly, the factors involved made it almost inevitable.

I think you should read August1991' s post again. You seem to have missed his point. He didn't say that Catholics overtly discussed and took political stands in their churches. Rather, he stated that they tended to have more of a "follower" personality as opposed to protestants, who he posits are more individualistic. Such common approaches to life can explain a great deal with Canadian politics. I married into an immigrant Italian family and I am convinced that they came from a culture of having a "patron", the big man in town who everyone looked up to and followed his wishes. A 'godfather'. if you like. This made them natural Liberal voters! When doorknocking for Reform candidates I actually had Italian Canadians tell me that they intended to vote Reform but they did not dare put a Reform sign on their lawn, as their Italian neighbours would 'crucify' them for not supporting the Liberal candidate! This is totally true! I would be willing to swear to it under oath! I think the point made was simply that certain cultures lend themselves to certain political parties. Like all generalizations, you can't take them as absolutes but they can be strong indicators.

That's ironic! Joe was never a conservative but rather a liberal, except for his team jersey.

What's 'so fricking hard' is the AMOUNT to pay up! Some aboriginal bands have made demands that are up in the stratosphere and would bankrupt Canada for generations. A few years ago I saw a study that totalled all the land claims in British Columbia. It exceeded the actual area of all the land in British Columbia! Then we have problems like in Caledonia, where the natives argued amongst themselves as to who actually represented them and had the right to conduct the negotiations. I'm not at all saying that the federal government has not been terribly remiss. I'm just saying its not as easy in all cases as you implied. There's a politically correct but totally illogical premise going around that natives are always right and non-natives are always wrong.

Just thought I'd give you some reference material consistent with the intellectual depth of your premise: DENNIS: Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. ARTHUR: Be quiet! DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! ARTHUR: Shut up! DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an empereror just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away! ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up! DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system. ARTHUR: Shut up! DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed! ARTHUR: Bloody peasant! DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that, eh? That's what I'm on about -- did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn't you?

I think much of the confusion is self-created. It's one thing to take the dictionary definitions of political philosophies. It's quite another to take the media labels. Some folks muddy the waters even more by using American definitions and trying to apply them to Canadians! No wonder it doesn't make sense! For the record, the Canadian brand of conservative has always been much closer to the dictionary definition of a Tory. It has only been in the last 20 years or so that they have been confused with the American bible-thumping brand of Conservatives. Before that they were considered similar to the British Tories. The bible-thumping really got stuck on them by the Liberals, who were trying to demonize the Reform Party as a bunch of crazed American gun-toting, Jesus-fearing survivalists. Reform did themselves a disservice when they allowed Stockwell Day, an evangelical christian, to mix his religion with his politics. In effect, they painted themselves with their opponents' brush. Still, those evangelicals were and are only a small minority in the party, despite the claims of their opponents, who are not going to let actual numbers stop their criticisms. You're getting confused because you're using conflicting definitions. You're expecting political Conservatives to hold common goals with bible-thumpers and American constitutional nit-pickers. A few Libertarians who hang around the Conservatives for lack of any other home express some hopes and wishes and you take it as the Gospel of the entire Conservative movement! Guess what? It's not true. It's just a few guys who happen to be at the same general end of the room daydreaming. Many Libertarians support the Conservatives because they see some common elements. Strangely, they find few or no common elements with the modern Liberal Party, yet Libertarianism is really just classic laissez-faire liberalism! The modern Liberal party has nothing of this in its makeup. I'm not sure if it ever did. For the last 50 years or so it really hasn't had a true philosophical base, being willing to morph into almost anything in order to achieve and maintain power. Anyway, that's why I prefer to use consistent, clear, dictionary definitions of political philosophies. Otherwise you are at the mercy of whatever is trendy or mere partisan slang. The best definitions I ever read for both the classic political philosophies and their modern, mixed up cousins are in William Gairdner's book "The Trouble with Canada". You might find it helpful to check them out.

I'm certainly not trying to defend Harper, but a man in a minority government can't possibly be expected to be as effective as those who enjoyed over a decade of majority rule. You are so fixated on blaming Tories that you seem incapable of considering Hamilton's own faults. How about Bob Morrow? What the hell did he do to diversify Hamilton's economy? He was in for a LONG time! Look at the typical Hamilton councilor and you can see who REALLY is to blame for Hamilton's plight! Watch a council meeting on the local cable channel. It doesn't sound like a effective municipal government in session. It sounds like a friggin' steel company union/management negotiation meeting! Hamilton has gotten what it deserved. The best thing for the suburbs would be to be allowed to de-amalgamate. If there is a single success story for the suburbs where they got better services and/or lower taxes I've yet to hear it. Let Hamilton go on it's own. They can look to the likes of Sam Merulla for their salvation!

Suburbanites working in Hamilton? Yeah, maybe one or two! Go down to the QEW every morning and see the traffic jamups of people driving to Toronto for their jobs and coming back at quitting time. Hamilton is a bedroom community for Toronto. The proof is there right before your eyes. The suburbs have not been getting their jobs from Hamilton since the 1950's! Commercial taxes were raised because Council was afraid to raise residential taxes! A lot more votes at risk from homeowners! This accelerated the businesses closing down on Burlington Street. Now we have very little commercial tax base to tax! Hamilton has perhaps the highest commercial taxes of any similar city in Canada. A business would need its head read to locate in Hamilton. Why should we be losing our manufacturing base? No one says we should! I'm just saying it would have been smart of Hamilton to pay attention 20 years ago and diversify its economy, instead of playing ostrich with its head in the sand, sitting around wondering when Inglis was going to come back! I guess that's what we call a Liberal approach!

I live in Stoney Creek, one of those 'conquered' suburbs forced to amalgamate with Hamilton 'cuz it never could handle its own finances. That's the real reason Harris forced us together, despite the fact that it was the suburbs that voted for him and Hamilton would never give him any voter support. The province just didn't want to have to bail Hamilton out! I've been here since 1960 and all these years I've watched as Hamilton blithely assumed that heavy manufacturing would be here forever and did DIDDLYSQUAT to diversify its economy! I was a salesman for most of those years with the electronics high tech industry, riding the wave from when the microcomputer chip was first introduced in the late 70's. There were ZERO customers worth paying an outside sales call! I had more accounts in Stratford or Peterborough! Not just the big cities like Toronto, Mississauga or Kitchener/Waterloo had manufacturers buying parts in volume. Even the small towns and boroughs had some respectable industry. Hamilton had a few guys who fixed cell phones or whatever and needed $5-$10 of parts once in a while! The world changed and Hamilton ignored it. Finally the bottom fell out and Hamilton is left with little or nothing. You blame it all on the Conservatives? Unbelievable!