Wild Bill

Well Shakey, as I keep saying, I'm not a conservative despite the fact that I vote for them. Nothing has changed as far as I'm concerned. For a start, I read how those 30,000 electoral complaints actually had zilch of substance, consisting of people complaining about everything from rudeness at the polling station to bad weather. I'm saddened but not surprised that nobody seems to care about that. The Tory-haters simply ignore the content of the complaints and keep hollering that "There are 30,000 complaints!". Still, even though it all seems just like partisan screeching to me it wouldn't matter if there was a germ of truth underneath it all, at least as far as my vote. As a classic liberal, I believe in minimum government, the rights of the individual being paramount, no nanny state, personal privacy, absolute right to property and so on. I realize that these values today are considered by many if not most to be dated and passe but none the less, they are still my values and I will never give them up. So that being said Shakey, outside of wasting my vote with the Libertarians what other choice than Tory do I have?

Not exactly, my good Dr.! I also advocate elected judges, which would give more direct popular control over such sentences. This would dilute the power of a faceless government somewhat. Not perfect, I'll admit but still better than what we have.

Okay, YOU make the claim that I'm supporting total anarchy! Can I do the same for YOUR beliefs, Eyeball?

I don't consider the State either capable or morally suitable to make people's choices for them! I have no respect for a nanny state because everyday I see overwhelming evidence that the state is just dumb, if not actually braindead! If it ever totally succeeds we will be totally cocooned and totally incapable of doing anything for ourselves or showing any trace of self-reliance and initiative. We are raising generations of less and less capable human beings.

When you are a teenager, you know the warnings. You just don't take them seriously! Adolescents are inundated with warnings! Virtually all them have to do with keeping you from having fun! So of course you ignore as many as you can get away with! This is just human instinct, going back all the way to Pebbles Flintstone. It is also a truism that most young people like their rock LOUD! If you insist on forcing the band to play at what some adults would consider a safe level, the kids will likely leave! They would rather watch paint dry! That's just the facts of life and no one here is going to change that.

The situation is self-correcting, Boges. The pay is so poor that fewer bands play in bars! If the present trend continues there will be none. That being said, I can understand if it bothered you. The bar owner of course has to make a choice - can he make enough money on patrons like yourself? Do more patrons want a band or are they like you? Myself, except for the odd time to see one of my favourite customers I rarely go to clubs for music anymore. The scene is so cheap and tawdry from that of my youth that I just can't enjoy myself. You get what you pay for and $200 for a gig split between the entire band means no money for stage clothes, proper sound and lighting or even rehearsals! The small size of most of today's clubs means that they couldn't possibly sell enough beer to such a small number of customers to pay for a decent band. I prefer to just stay home with my vinyl!

Absolutely! Then again, I was the kid who actually read books on his own, not just those for school! The fact remains, rock audiences like it loud. If you play it soft, they will leave. Some folks liked Foghat. A few liked Barry Manilow.

Keith Martin was a rightwinger? You have so many unfounded assumptions in that premise! Was Reform truly a rightwing party? Was Martin himself a rightwinger? The man was a doctor! I have never met a rightwing doctor in my life! I never believed Reform to be rightwing. They were populist and practical. In many ways they seemed to me to be a closer match in many ways to classic liberalism, which is why they appealed to me in the first place.

As you yourself said, "allegations". My dispute was with Olpfan1, who apparently considers allegations to be gospel if they are against Tories. Self-righteous? In what way? I would consider even Olpfan1 innocent until proven guilty! Truth to tell, I would find that easier than doing it now with Fantino, who as I said, I despise! As I have said before, "The Holy Words are for not just the Yangs but the Comms as well! They are for EVERY ONE or they mean NOTHING! Do you understand, Cloud William?"

People "from the inside" could be lying or mistaken! Who says they are infallible? Why the hell do you think we hold investigations, anyway? To hear you talk, any accusation is as good as proof of guilt, where the Tories are concerned! I happen to despise Fantino but Man, you are a veritable Hanging Judge! You never seem to have any concept of justice whatsoever to people not of your own political persuasion!

As usual Topaz, your blindness means you see it entirely backwards! All those points in the article were championed by the Reform/Alliance! The fact that they are missing from today's Conservative Party is what makes it a clone of the previous PC party! What's more, those points are NOT with either the Liberals or the NDP! Today, we Canadians of the Reform/Alliance persuasion have NO real choice anymore, except to vote CPC because they are SLIGHTLY more to our values than the others! What's more, at least the CPC might throw us a bone once in a while, even if there's no meat on it. The Liberals and NDP make no secret of the fact that they don't support our values at all.

You really seem to go over the top with the hyperbole of your arguments. I took the liberty of sourcing some like-minded rhetoric you may wish to use as a model: 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? The full script for your reference can be found here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/mphg/mphg.htm

Should we bother to hold an investigation? Or should we just hang them all now, based on YOUR opinions?

God help me if I'm defending Fantino, after what he did in Caledonia! Still, from the very quotes in this thread: "The allegations also suggest that nine Conservative candidates in the last election got money from the Fantino campaign, all perfectly legal if it's filtered through the electoral association or the party, and it's declared. It's not known who those candidates were, or if they received anything." IT COULD ALL BE PERFECTLY LEGAL??!! What kind of crap is this? Someone did something but it could all have been ok. Still, maybe it wasn't! So they're evil! And if it turns out it was all legal there won't even be an "oopsy" mentioned. This is unbelievable! At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, this is worthy of Goebbels.

If the high sound level bothered you why didn't you leave? Also, you realize that if the volume was dropped to please you the other patrons would not have been happy! That was the scene and anyone who didn't realize high sound levels could be damaging was really not thinking very well. The same with cigarettes! I vividly remember when I was a young lad in the 60's that everyone knew it was an unhealthy habit. When you're young you think you're invulnerable! However, education is one thing but making everyone's decisions for them is quite another. IMHO, a cure much worse than the disease.

Well Michael, some of us mourn the loss of so much live music of jazz blues and rock & roll. Meanwhile, as long as Walter Ostanek is still playing those polkas I'm sure you will be content!

Yes and no, Bonam. Evolution is a process of adapting to a specific environment, after all. I agree that higher gravity would make short and squat bodies with possibly more legs more likely to be the best adapted than tall bipeds. If the environment was similar to ours then I'm not that sure that a species would evolve all that differently. Most of the extreme differences would not be good choices to adapt and prosper to such a situation. I think the basic overall body form might be quite similar to our own! The placement of eyes and ears could vary but binocular vision and stereophonic hearing have worked quite well for us in our environment. Why not in the same somewhere else?

If that is not true, then why did the Tory support increase to where they won a majority?

Exactly, Boges. It's just a jihad against smokers and any rationalization will do. No matter how you cut it, it is making another citizen's choices for him. Someone might get the power to do such a thing but if he is surprised that he get resentment instead of a thank you then he's a fool! Reminds me of that old Richard Dreyfuss movie, "Who's life is it anyway?" about the quadraplegic who wanted to die when the "system" refused to let him, "for his own good". If I were ever in that position and someone denied me my own choice, quoting me his platitudes, I swear I'd spit in his face! I can't think of anything more disgustingly immoral than to deny another human being his own choices over his life!

How about if I own a club or restaurant and I post a large sign at the door stating that this is a smoking establishment? People who don't like it would be free to go somewhere else! Nope! A non-smoker trumps EVERYTHING! I saw this in the 90's as the new laws banned smoking in clubs. When the smoke cleared out, you could see all the empty tables! It seemed the non-smokers didn't go to clubs much anyway! However, in case they ever did they wanted them to be smoke-free! They got their way but they didn't pick up the slack. Many clubs went under during that time. Naturally, civic politicians didn't like to talk about it because the official line was that smoking bans would only help and not hurt business. Boarding up the windows tending to refute that. They did toss clubs a bone by allowing them to stay open an extra hour, until 2:00 am. Of course, that only meant the club was still empty for an extra hour, increasing the overhead! After about 10 years or so the situation gradually corrected itself but clubs are not what they were and a lot of owners lost a LOT of money! I know from personal experience there was a time in the early 70's when cover bands would tour all over the province doing 3 and 6 nighters at clubs, getting paid enough to make a living. People could afford to go out drinking and dancing 6 nights a week if they chose. Those days are long gone. A single local Friday or Saturday night gig is the norm, for MUCH less money! Remember that when someone tries to tell you that we are just as rich today, after adjusting for inflation!

Why do we pay for them? I assume you are talking about publicly funded healthcare. I've always found this to be a bit smarmy, considering that we have removed any other choice! Paying for your own care is illegal! So is simply not getting any care at all. So we remove the choice to be responsible for any health care consequences of our own life style and then use it as an excuse to dictate OUR lifestyle choices upon the individual! Sorry Michael but a classic Liberal like me can never support such a scheme! To me, it's just rigging the game to enable that aforementioned nanny state!

You may be right that those who ascribe to "collective responsibility" have become the majority in Canada, Michael. Myself, I certainly hope not but as I said, you might be right that it has gone that far. You see, to those who believe in individual responsibility, a term like "collective responsibility" comes across as simple marxism! The very LAST thing such people want is to have the right to make their own choices taken away from them, even if it is for their own good! A citizen is either an adult or a child. A child cannot make many decisions for himself. Supposedly, that is the major part of being an adult. And adult chooses for himself and more than that, has the right to be wrong! When you have a society where one group has decided that they know better as to what is right or wrong AND believes that they have the right to make those decisions for others then we are headed for a confrontation! I doubt if smokers are going to arm themselves but already I've seen signs where a smoker refuses to support some social initiative in his community, taking the attitude of "no one gives a damn for my choices so why should I care about some else's?" It may be petty but sadly, it is only human nature. You really are talking about the "nanny state". Those who support such often have great difficulty understanding why someone would rebel so vehemently against the very idea but nonetheless, they absolutely, positively DO!

Stop and take a deep breath, CC! Don't you see what your statement really means? You are stating your opinion, not necessarily a fact. In effect, you are saying that those who don't agree with you have no right to live in a democratic country. You sound far more religious than logical, as if you are despising those not of your church! I don't think you truly mean that. I think you just let your passion get away on you. That sort of thinking is all to easy a trap into which to fall. Look at Vic Toews and his line about how you either stand with his crowd or with the pedophiles.

Perhaps BC, but I would be far happier with American values being exported into space colonies than those of China. Also, whichever nation develops space enterprise will become as rich as Croesus! It will be the American frontier Industrial Age all over again! I don't want the West to play the part of old Europe...

It never was about protecting anyone from harm, Boges. It's always been about making people do what OTHERS think is good for them! I'm not a smoker myself but as a classic Liberal type of guy I have been following the issue for years and to me that conclusion seems obvious. Why is it that in most cities when workplace smokers "take it outside" the company is not allowed to give them even a tarp as a roof over their heads to keep off the snow or rain? Initially the talk was about the protection of non-smokers but that has long since evolved into simply trying to making smoking as difficult an act to perform as possible. The strategy has been to keep gradually reducing the places where one can smoke, supposedly to arrive at some mythical "tipping point" where smokers will just decide to give up their habit. The most ridiculous thing about this approach is that it takes for granted smokers will not figure it out! In reality, they figured it out long ago and have been harbouring a festering resentment of those practicing such manipulation. I have firmly believed for years that there is nothing more popular than forcing your neighbour to do do what YOU think is good for him! Except maybe forcing him to pay for YOUR pet idea!