Wild Bill

Same old, same old. EVERY such leader uses speech writers for virtually ALL their speeches! Only very rarely do we see a leader craft his own. Why? Because unless they are the Prime Minister for Grand Fenwick they simply don't have the time. Their entire day, evening and sometimes night is scheduled, right down to pee breaks. Once in a while you get a speechwriter who makes a mistake. He either is lazy, rushed or both. That's when he falls into temptation and steals someone else's words, like a schoolkid cutting and pasting up an essay from googling the Internet. It's happened to Harper and it's happened to Dion. It's probably happened to Layton as well but no one noticed 'cuz no one ever listens to his speeches anyway. Opposition partisans will seize on this because they're desperate! They don't seem to have had much success with real issues so they're dragging out this sorry ad hominem attack. On one hand they blame Harper for a speech written by someone else and then to cover all bases they criticize him for not writing his own speech! I'm quite frankly enjoying this campaign. Not necessarily because I want the Tories to win but simply I'm enjoying the delicious irony of watching the Liberals get the same treatment they had dished out to the fractured Right all those years. Do unto SOME others as they have done unto you! It's the only way some folks can ever learn some courtesy.

Well, for a while there I thought you were Ted Byfield but after noticing how you trumpet so many things as if they are new to this board when there are already many threads both new and old that chewed those points to death, I now figure you must be my teenage daughter! She too thinks that no one knew anything and nothing of importance had occurred before she came along...

Really? You equate giving a tax break to parents for tuition fees when they send their kid to music or art classes with paying for an Amsterdam vacation for a shredder band? Complete with visits to an "Amsterdam coffee shop"? The difference is that up till now cheques for the "arts" have often been BLANK cheques! Harper is now starting to target the money. I don't mind paying taxes for arts and culture but frankly the way it has been done has made me feel like a chump! I sincerely hope that Harper's new approach is expanded to cover more arts spending.

Sorry, but you are stretching your conclusions to fit your usual premise. First off, who says that there are a LOT of social conservatives in the party? YOU do! I've been a lot closer to that party than you and I don't see things your way at all. You'll have to do better to get me to swallow that. As for what makes me believe they won't push a "so-con" agenda, that's easy. Harper and all the others in the party who have at least half a sober brain cell will not allow these types to destroy their party. What you and others seem to be describing is a party of religious nuts who will wear sheep's clothing to get into power, so that they can then ram through fundamentalist doctrine, ensuring that the party will never ever get into power again! It's an absurd argument. Pure emotionalism and little or no reason. Who ever heard of a politician who didn't want to stay in power? My friend, if you don't learn some objectivity I predict you will have an impossible task in achieving your goal of more social liberty. Simply demonizing your opponents will only gain you points in your own "church". I SHARE your goal, yet by your arguments I have seen here I could never vote for you.

Good luck! Sales is a "meet as many people as possible" profession. The very LAST thing a smart salesperson wants to do is to get tagged as a specific political supporter! It could be the kiss of death to his sales success! If such a conservative salesperson appeared in your debate, would you not expect that a good number of Liberal and NDP customers would be upset with him? That they would be less inclined to do any business with him? If you do find one, don't be surprised if he's a bit dim. Hopefully, that's not what you were looking for anyway. Stacking a panel to make your own POV look good is a very old tactic indeed.

If you think that the Liberals took ALL the votes in Ontario for decades and that NONE of us voted Tory or Reform then YOU need the tinfoil beanie! That is exactlyl what you said! That is an insult, plain and simple. I did my part. I was even a Riding Director for Reform for a few terms. Views like yours make me wonder if I should have bothered. The plain fact remains that your approach may well lose more conservative voters than it would gain. You seem to come from the school of scolding rather than persuading. Harper himself gave a speech years ago where he told Reformers flat out that if they tried to preach social conservatism with the new Party they would LOSE! Stockwell Day proved that point. That point of view only flies in a very small circle. It would have doomed Reform to being a tiny fringe party, like the Christian Heritage Party here in the east. Thank Heavens for Chuck Strahl and the others who had the courage to walk away from him. Day had hammered a stake through everything for which Manning had worked so hard. Liberals and others are extremely experienced in knocking down conservatives in campaigns. Mistakes in approach can lead to disaster. Look what happened with John Tory's campaign here in Ontario. What inept group of "rocket scientist" advisers did John have running his show? In one fell swoop they not only lost the election, they ran the party's support into the gound. Now you show up claiming to attack the Liberals but doing it in a loud, brash fashion, with sweeping generalizations and insulting groups of voters en masse. This is why I question the true motives behind your efforts. If Ontarioans were truly as dumb as you claim to keep voting Liberal then they must also be dumb enough to believe Liberals as they take easy cheap shots to knock your arguments down. They might be corrupt but they're smart enough to pitch for votes with honey while others spout vinegar. Oh well, as long as YOU are having fun, I suppose. Meanwhile, what's with the bit about using an alias? I've never even mentioned such a thing. You do understand that we are all specific individuals who post on this board, don't you? That we are not one giant Liberal voter posting under different names for you to rail against?

Non-existing KKK burning crosses in British Columbian ridings? Compares very well to me!

Fire away yourself! I'm from Ontario and you already accused me and every one who lives here to be an empty headed Liberal supporter. I'm still waiting for your reply on that one. I guess every Westerner must be exactly like YOU! It would be consistent. If you can call me and a few million others Liberals responsible for the past 10-15 years then my argument must be equally valid. You really couldn't have insulted us more! Makes me wonder why we bothered fighting for the West when it told us "The West wants In!" Enough! I find your arguments to be so unsupported that I just won't play any more. Since the election was called we've seen so many new posters using aliases with frankly strange and confusingly partisan arguments that this board is beginning to sound like "babble".

Ok. So you don't know about Harper but you've heard something from some of the people around him. Proof positive, I guess! Guilty by association. I hang out with a lot of musicians. What does that say about me? I am careful to avoid country singers, however.

I thought that was Stockwell Day. I never knew that Harper was a literal Christian. Do you have a cite that states this, by any chance? I heard the man talk many times and I never heard anything that agrees with what you're saying. Perhaps I just missed it. Please give me a cite.

Easy! Look at the campaign ads! The Tory ads attack Dion for having plans that won't work or are too expensive. These are "head" approaches. The Liberal and NDP ads attack Harper personally, accusing him of being "in bed with his corporate big business friends" and not caring about ordinary people. Pure emotional appeal. There's no evidence of their charges to be refuted or debated, just a straightforward appeal to the "heart". Tory ads - Dion's policies are poorly thought out or flawed. Liberal/NDP ads - Harper is evil and eats kittens. What else do you need? Incidently, I just was picked for a focus group by a opinion research company. They paid a number of teams of us to watch political TV ads for Jack Layton and give our opinions of whether the ads changed our minds or were at least appealing. They paid us for our time and fed us a light supper so I quite enjoyed it! I was struck however by how the ads were pure "heart" in their approach. They all seemed to be quite simplistic. Harper was bad and Jack and the NDP "cared" more about people. Almost nothing about specific goals or how to achieve them. When I made my comments pointing this out it was interesting how the others around the table reacted. Those already inclined to vote for Harper knew exactly what I meant. Those of NDP persuasion looked genuinely puzzled. We did have some former Liberal boosters but they freely admitted that they just couldn't vote for Dion. They were switching to NDP or Green. We each got paid $100 for our time so as you can imagine there was some serious money being spent to research the appeal of these ads. Obviously the NDP considered them important. Me, I wasn't so sure they were truly getting their money's worth. It reminded me of that old saying that a consultant is someone you pay to tell you what you want to hear.

I don't understand your question. What's the name got to do with it?

Well, thanks for the compliment! Still, we differ in that I don't believe that TCCK is really what he appears to be. Or that he is representative of all but an extremely small minority of the conservative demographic. What did it for me was his claim to be a western-based business owner with a branch in Toronto, where he comes out for meetings once in a while and fires folks just for the fun of it! This is not a typical business manager. It's a cartoon of a business manager. Why on earth would anyone stay in a company run by such management? What's more, business owners tend to be a lot more tolerant of other peoples' views. It's just good salesmanship to be respectful and get along. My personal opinion is that some folks like to stir the pot and wear another man's suit to set him up as a patsy. If someone claimed to be a drug dealer and posted bragging msgs about how he wants drugs to stay illegal so he can hook schoolkids just for the fun of it, you'd know he had to be stooging us. I view TCCK's posts as of the same ilk.

Yeah, it sucks but they all do it! All you can do is hope you get a good one. To be fair, the way our Parliament has always ruthlessly enforced party solidarity it doesn't really matter anyway. The MP tells you what his party wants. He doesn't tell the party what his constituents want! He will vote the way his party whip tells him, period. This is why in Canada for the most part it makes no sense to vote for the man and not the Party. We are the only parliamentary democracy that will enforce party solidarity on all and even trivial votes, right down it would seem to ordering the coffee and doughnuts. Look at any other country and we seem to be the exception.

Vote with their head? Well, today it seems the Conservatives do. The Liberals and others all seem to be heart people. Which is the smarter way to deal with reality is cause for a whole new thread in itself.

Oh don't be inconsistently partisan! The Libs kept Hedy Fry! How soon we forget. How conveniently, too.

As if they aren't selling the hard drugs already! What gated community do you live in? I'm finding it hard to understand which side you're on. Your arguments since you showed up slamming Ontario voters as a solid group have been extreme and over the top. Some might say they look like a caricature of "conservative" thought. They do more to make conservative look like a bad voting choice than a good one. If persuading people to "conservative" views is your true goal then you have very strange tactics. Perhaps there's a simpler explanation.

Please, don't confuse the issue with facts! The people that believe that Harper has slashed arts funding tend to be artists! They are among the math-challenged. They simply won't believe you and will keep chugging along believing the same as they always have done. You see, the "artistic" crowd have always been predominately left wing in their politics. They are not going to vote for Harper anyway and will say or do anything negative to attack him. Truth goes out the window. Their guys are saints and all others are demons. The good news is that they don't represent the majority. Most Canadians are too busy working hard to make ends meet to have sympathy for the Barbara Streisands of the world.

Does it matter? It's happening anyway! What's more, we seem to be waging a futile war to stop them. When you talk big money then people find a way. Organized crime only gets involved if there's big money to be made. It is almost impossible to block smuggling. Customs could never have enough resources to check each and every box car, shipping container or car trunk that comes into the country. So the percentage of risk is low enough and the profits high enough that smuggling becomes big business. Law enforcement depends heavily upon a perception that they have unlimited resources to "always get their man". Obviously, that simply isn't true. It works somewhat with casual crime, when the perpetrator is basically a good citizen facing some temptation. A true criminal looks at crime from a more realistic perspective. Some states down south have laxer gun laws than others. They are an easy source for smugglers who often are paying for Canadian pot to be imported into the USA. We send them weed and they send us guns and heroin. How typically Canadian!

Ah, but any federal party will need seats in Ontario. 13 years is hardly a long time when people can expect to live (and vote!) into their 80's and longer. Just eavesdrop in any coffee shop when folks are discussing Rae and you'll soon see that Ontarioans have not forgotten. Well, any coffee shop outside of Toronto, anyway! Toronto is it's own planet, after all! As a casualty of Rae's term as premier, I think I see the difference between Rae's reign and that of Harris. Harris may have hurt those who didn't work but Rae hurt all of those who did! Even his own union buddies refused to support him, at the end.

Well, running as an Independent means you'll achieve your goal as soon as Hell freezes over! Meanwhile, we get to vote only on party platforms in their entirety. We don't get to "cherry pick". If a party doesn't offer it, we don't have the choice. Meanwhile, I totally fail to see the logic in your claim that cocaine will enjoy the same percentage of users as pot. Why? I'd be very surprised if the numbers changed in any way at all! You see, first you have to understand that police enforcement has little or no effect on drug habits. Drugs of all kinds are just too easy to get. Government attempts at education often fail because they tend to lump soft drugs in with the same effects as hard drugs. This ruins credibility. Canadians are naturally disposed to disbelieve their governments anyway, sadly with good reason. Most people know which drugs are truly dangerous and which aren't. They know that the vast majority of cocaine users can take it or leave it. What confuses the issue is that there is always a certain percentage of users that will find SOMETHING to get hooked on! These addictive personalities will become coke heads as long as there's coke available. Take it away and they might choose heroin. Take all illegal drugs away and they will likely turn to booze. This is a sad thing and of course these people are deserving of our help. Still, it's wrong to deny choices to ALL just because SOMEONE ELSE has a problem! This argument seems very prevalent these days. Lobbyists try to block a casino because of gambling addiction. In other words, because a handful of people have a problem NO ONE should have the enjoyment! This belief is also often championed by those who just because they themselves feel no need for such enjoyment they can't believe that anyone else might be offended by taking the choice away from them. Adults should be allowed to make their own choices, even if they are mistaken. To do otherwise is simply promoting a socially conservative nanny state. An entire society run by Ned Flanders! The horror, the horror!

Huh??? What does sexuality or skin colour have to do with politics? Are there no gay Conservatives? No Black Republicans? Should transsexuals be given their own party? Are there enough of them in Canada to run in all 308 ridings? If there are, would there be any left OUTSIDE of Parliament to represent? They'd all be INSIDE the House! I have a friend in Toronto of Asian descent. A few elections ago he heard a knock on his door. It was the local NDP folks canvassing for support. As soon as they saw his face they gushed all over him, taking it for granted that he was "one of them". He slammed the door on them and when he tells the story over some beers he always points out that he will no longer even consider the NDP. "Patronizing bastards" is the phrase he uses. I can see his point.

Legality is only half of it. It leads to much lower pricing! And price is the only reason you have smuggling. Since pot is essentially just a weed that can be grown anywhere if it were legal it would be cheap as borscht! There would be no profit for organized crime so they would have to find something else. It's guaranteed that they would. When Prohibition ended they simply turned to other drugs and prostitution. Cigarette smuggling is only happening because the taxes have put the price up in the stratosphere! A large number of smokers simply view this as a tax grab and feel no guilt in buying contraband product. In the early 90's when governments recognized the obvious and repealed half or so of their taxes the smuggling all but disappeared. Over the last 10-15 years the taxes have gradually increased until once again they hit a "tipping point" and smuggling bloomed again. If governments are not willing to enforce their laws against organized crime and often First Nations people then they will have to live with the contraband. It's as simple as that. So far neither the feds nor the provinces have had the stomach to take them on. Surely one could plot some curves of taxation/price against levels of contraband to determine the optimal amount of legal sales and chargeable taxes with a certain price. It would appear that governments have taxed far above that point at the moment. It's always the money!

Oh, I dunno. I just had a quadruple heart bypass. I'm alive because of modern science! Thanks for nothing, all you Luddites! As for Gosthacked's mention of anti-gravity and space travel, hot damn! Maybe I'll finally get to see that "B" Ark! All you politicians, beauticians and telephone sanitizers get on board! The rest of us will be following you shortly! Honest!

I see no need for politicians to be vetted by outside experts. I would much rather have the PEOPLE pay attention to how well they do their jobs! We all have known doctors with great credentials who in practice were old quacks! Who will be the judges and to whom will they answer? As for 3 million people, so what? As a percentage of the total electorate it's not enough! You have to draw the line somewhere. Obviously with a pool of 5 million voters you would have to consider 3 million enough. With 30 million that 3 million is only a tenth. With a 5 million voter pool that 3 million would be enough anyway. You wouldn't need PRR. Besides, those PRR seats wouldn't be regionally based. I refuse to believe that my community's interests in Ontario would be well served by an appointed MPP from Nunavuk or Canmore. Let me see the man and decide if I want to vote for him! Or her. Or it, for that matter. I really don't care as long as it's the PEOPLE"S direct choice! So yes, I'm saying that BELOW A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE we SHOULD ignore minorities! The more you subdivide a group the more smaller groups you can define. Cut it too fine and we find ourselves running around catering to the "flakes" and leaving the larger groups of people unserviced! You can never be all things to all people. It's foolish to even try. It's the job of a fringe party to garner enough support that they DO begin to win seats! If they can't do that then maybe the problem isn't with the "system" but rather with themselves.