Rasputin

Forget international taxes. This money like foreign aid would be wasted. Foreign aid, is an unmitigated failure. Witness the billions poured into Africa in the past decade - we would be better off to engage in free agro trade and help them understand and enforce property rights. I was just reading where in Angola to give only one example - billions of dollars totalling 10 % of GDP given in aid over the recent past have 'disappeared'. Apparently the gov't ministers have loads of money and so do their friends, while the rest of the pop. in a country with oil and diamonds are starving. So it is not hard to figure out where the money went 1. into the pockets of officials and 2. to buy weapons. From the Cato Institute: If you want the poor to become less poor; 1. Open up trade, shut down your agro tariffs and textile quota's 2. help them reform their domestic institutions and build proper governance structures. Don't hand out money - it gets wasted. Don't let the fools at the UNO start an international tax regime - we are overtaxed as it is and the UNO is the last agency in the world we should entrust more money to.

Hi Ron, welcome. I read the articles. A couple of points. 1. Collenette is a dinosaur and one reason why i believe Martin = Chretien is his fondness [even in lieu of Coll. announcing he will retire], of keeping incompetents like Collenette in places of power who do not understand market dynamics. National champions are boondoggles - Air Canada is a monopoly that incredibly can't make money and has used billions in the past years in subsidies both direct and indirect to stave off reforms. It is poorly ran, predatory and reliant on gov't to inure itself against reality. I simply don't buy the argument that we need national champions - what we need are consumer oriented markets, level playing fields and the end of corporate subsidies. The EU is the king of the national champion school and such profound market dislocations existent in such a policy lead to higher taxes, lowered consumer choice and inefficiencies. Martin do us a favor, fire this guy. 2. The concept that the US will 'eat' up all Cdn firms in any sector is simply not borne out by the facts. In the oil patch US % ownership has declined for example. In Cross border investments the US invests about 15 % more in aggregate than Cdns invest in the US. Many posts in other threads give sources, i will provide them later if you like when i have some time to look them up. This ratio hardly calls out for death knells and panic. NAFTA and free trade has benefitted Canada. It has doubled our economic size and allowed us to maintain our standard of living [though it is falling vs. the US]. Cdn firms can compete as NAFTA as shown and we need larger markets. Airlines are no exception. It is a nonsense that i can fly from Buffalo at half the price to US cities than from Toronto. All the while Pearson pays Ottawa $200mn plus per year in 'fees' - what exactly these fees are I don't know, but they increase costs all around from parking to tickets. And let us not forget the almighty 'temp' security tax on tickets. Thank 'Taxcutter' Paul for that little gem. The liberal / leftist babbling that preceded NAFTA has no basis in fact. Mel Hurtig and his crew predicted catastrophe before NAFTA and they would predict disaster under 'open skies' - so where are the facts to support that trade and open exchange is inimical to Canada's best interests ? Where are the facts that Open skies will presage the collapse of the Cdn airline industry - you can look at Europe or even the US to get a clue. Shouldn't Southwest, JetBlue or other smaller, regional, or focused airlines all be dead or eaten by the unstoppable gargantua that lumber in the air? He is right. His firm is focused. It makes money. It has a plan. Markets work such. Schumpeterian destruction. If open skies in the US was such a mess only the big airlines would survive. As it is the biggest are having the most trouble. Sorry mate, the idea that open anything means destruction of the Cdn identity just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Compete and be happy. Without trade Canada would not exist except as a poorer, even more mediocre nation, committed to outdated policies. Even [surprisingly] the Globe agrees ending one of the articles you posted with :

9-11 was an attack on Western civilisation not just America. If the Twin Towers had been in London and the world financial system still centred upon sterling and the world's political alliance system still premised on British naval and military balancing power, the fundamentalists would have struck at London, not NYC and Washington. 9-11 is an expression of fundamentalist rage, anger, incoherent maniacal evil and presaged a long, arduous war. It is not just America's war but as Bush and Blair have made clear with eloquent and factual statements, it is a war about freedom. Many non - Americans were killed on 9-11 and the world awoke from its somanbulism that morning to face a new menace. It is a world struggle, and isolationism is not the answer - in fact isolationism helped to abet and sponsor the problem.

Probably? of course he was. There are 2 ways to Bribe Chirac. One is directly. The second is indirectly by promising French firms and top ministers contracts, dollars and access. Chirac is guilty of both. You really believe that France was concerned about peace and human rights and UNO law ? Excuse me i am laughing hysterically. Ah my side now hurts. The first post was just to get started. I am hoping others join in with more In Fact good old Jacques - he the moral, honest, courageous democrat - was sued by a Judicial activist group for fraud, bribery and corruption. March 2003: In Fact Jacques will be in trouble once he leaves office - from the same brief as above: Le monde maintains some of the bribes came from Hussein. Here is another story from UPI - Jan 28 2004: The list is available at: "The Beneficiaries of Saddam's Oil Vouchers: The List of 270" Middle East Media Research Institute January 29, 2004. One Canadian is listed. There are many sources on this topic, i am just hoping more people add posts and sources. I wonder if the ICJ will try Mr. Chirac ?

Boyd, some good points. Economic freedom is as u suggest the ability to structure relations [contractual] in a setting in which gov't is not the prime arbiter, but the prime guarantor of laws, equal rights, security and contract/propery right enforcements. Canada has simply too much gov't. Gov't tax revenues are 42 % of our GDP and a further 12 % according to the Fraser Inst. is sent to gov'ts for regulatory costs. Many studies [some cited on earlier posts on this forum] stipulate that above 30 % of GDP gov't size actually decreases your economic dynamism and hinders by some factor economic growth. We are way beyond that point here. I like the idea of a flat tax or your inverted Asian style tax. You mention BC is less socialist than the rest of Canada. Well my image of BC are tree huggers and Suziki lovers not to mention Natives demanding more and more regulation, protection or money. The NDP before Campbell basically killed your economy. Tax revenues are pretty high there.

Following on from a post from Rightturnonred - more and more information is coming to light on the bribery used by Hussein to buy Chirac and other politicians. Maybe the useless ICJ in the Hague can try Chirac and others on bribery, complicity in the murder of 300-500.000 Iraqi's and fraud in circumventing UNO sanctions and the oil for food program. From an Iranian author and writer - dated May 12 2003: Amen brother. Try Chirac and Hussein together !!! Now that is a trial made for TV.

Elder, well if it does not come from within it will come from without. Iraq / Afgh. are only the first steps. The Islamic world can continue to make excuses; colonialism, artificial borders, secularism and immorality that must be defeated etc., but the reality is that freedom, laws and rights are not ethicity bound. Once people have the darkness lifted from their minds watch the Islamic world grow and prosper. Being held captive to fascist theocratic thugs is a historical anomaly that has to be eradicated.

So King Paul Jr or the II was initially set up with $500 million in tax payer backed loans so Paul could buy the firm CSL and now in the NP and elsewhere we learn that in the past 10 years KPII received $160 million in subsidies. Cool. How is that for Business 101. Business school Profs can teach earnest young minds that gov't handouts to buy firms, and then a guaranteed $20 million per year in gov't contracts is the way to not only becoming rich, but being declared a genius and of course eventually King. Who the hell needs all the work and pain of building something without massive subsidies ? Gee we were told that King Paul's CSL only received $140 thousand in subsidies. Wow I guess some zeros fell off the original estimate. Don Martin of the NP believes that the Arar inquiry was purposefully announced yesterday to deflect the above information. Interesting theory.

Boyd, you are right about the ethnicity and size of Estonia. Even so the survey was on economic freedom and don't u find it disquieting that on Economic freedom [which ignores many socio-political factors] that Canada is dropping ? Many analysts state that Canada is too de-centralised - in powers of law and taxation. Federally the way the system works the power is in the PM's Office and that is about it. If you look at tax revenues Ottawa collects only about 20 % of the total for the country [$170 billion +/-]. We should add to this indirect taxes through regulation [another 15 % or so]. Canada suffers from vagueness in powers. For instance Ottawa can use judicial activism to push through its agenda or declare that oil discovered in Nova Scotia now needs to be 'shared'. So we have creeping centralisation and a lack of democracy in Ottawa. The Constitution is out of date, no internal free trade, punishing taxes, corruption running amok and Quebec and the East with their hands out. Only Calgary - Edmonton and Toronto make profit here - not good enough.

I find it distasteful that Libs feel that Hussein, the Franco-Germanic-Russo-Sino axis making money, the torture of people and the direct funding and training of terror groups by Hussein is better than the current situation. Bush's mistake was making WMD a centrepiece of the war. To me WMD is not the central issue. The central issue is funding, abetting and encouraging terrorism as well as destabilising the Middle East - all of which Hussein was engaged in. He railed weekly against Israel, tried to revivify Pan Arabism a la Nasser this time under Iraqi leadership and funded terror groups throughout the middle east including AQ affiliates. He broke enough UN resolutions to justify his regime's removal, and he broke the cease fire agreement of 1991 - which also should have meant his speedy removal. A cease fire is in place when the victor tells the vanquished that he will act in accordance with various rules. Once the vanquished breaks those rules, the war is back on. I don't quite grasp the Lib argument. Let's see: -The world was better with Saddam -International law should not be applied to 17 broken UN resolutions but only to the US -Human Rights violations [a core of the UN world] should never be taken seriously -The Middle East is NOT exporting terror and does not need reforms -9-11 never happened and anyways we are to blame for it. Such logic is worthy of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. Must be depressing these days to be a liberal. But then again you can always go and watch Tim Robbin's new Play ! And to follow on from Right TR's post on Chirac being bribed here is another story from UPI: Time to hang Chirac.

Well on Jan 28 2004 the Hutton inquiry cleared Blair of wrong doing in the death of Dr. Kelly and stated that the BCC LIED and reported 'unfounded' allegations against British politicians [NP Jan 29 A12 2 paragraph]. Davies head of the BBC resigned. This is not enough. Davies must be prosecuted, his assets stripped, jail time served and his pension cancelled. Only by doing the above will you stop state owned mouth pieces from lying. Martha Stewart who is accused of insider trading of .01 % of her Imclone stock and making a profit of then .005 % of her net wealth, has seen her empire slowly fall in disrepair over an insignificant trade. Her crime; she lied to the DA's office. I want the same process applied to Davies and like minded mouthpieces that spew nonsense in place of facts. I would expect that due process, the laws and financial punishment to be applied to these snivelling servants that lie and manipulate the media and attack leaders and politicians personally. Time to hang Mr. Davies.

True, the current Bush policy is correct there are many reasons for it. The issue is complicated. There is another post on the issue http://www.mapleleafweb.com/community/foru...=15entry15480 Most people don't recognise that border security's budget has grown hugely in the last 20 years. The perception is that the US is doing nothing, this is not true. The reality is that jail time for business owners that hire illegals might be the best way to slow down the traffic.

Commie boy made the interesting comment Well he is right but in the wrong way. Without a military, without an adult and realistic assessment of geopolitics, without supporting allies, without recognising that alliance patterns influence trade patterns, without have a moral and philosophical vision of what your country is and how it can best help itself and the world, without understanding what made u wealthy and respected in the world in the first place, you are nothing more than a light gadfly, full of rhetoric and pomposity but adding no value. In other words you will be a lapdog - of whatever flight of fancy enters the head of the PM in residence. Martin the day before he became PM told the US media he will invest in the military and change our foreign policy..........STILL WAITING Paul...........

Well Hohen, the current strategy is the right one, and unfortunately the US' 'Allies' are just free loaders who use the UN system to get as much as possible without paying for it. Security is after 9-11, the prominent issue in the US and rightly so. You can't wait - and pull a Clinton and run and hide. Unfortunately cave by cave, house by house, country by country, these medieval actors will have to been 'taken care of' to quote Bush. Allies you ask ? Only the Aussies, Brits, Poles, Spanish and a few others give a damn. Tony Blair is being demonised in Britain for doing what is right. No wonder politicians run to the left and cower - any time you stake out a firm rational position your life becomes a misery. I suppose Libs would prefer Saddam in power and his programs and torture chambers still in place. They have to make a strong case as to why that is better than what we have now. The main issue that people don't understand is that Iraq financed terror, provided camps, trained, provided passports and documents and via Al Ansar [an AQ affiliate] was directly implicated in AQ plans. There is a long thread [2 in fact] on this site posting many sources for what i just said. Have a look at them. Terror groups as Bush has said rightly many times, need nation states to help them - Bin Laden used Sudan until the US forced the Sudanese to kick him out. Then he ran to Afghanistan. [Now most likely he is chewing dirt 6 feet under somewhere.] Terror must be dealt with and having a police station in a bad neighbourhood ie. Iraq, is a great first step.

Weasel is actually neutral, neither perjorative nor positive. Weasel is a both a noun and can be construed as a verb synonym which is closely connected with Evade. The noun weasel is nothing more than a description - albeit one centred upon a small carnivorous mammal with short legs and elongated body and neck [Roget's definition]. Some make excellent pets and are known to be friendly. It is up to one's imagination if the noun is bad or good. Weasel's for instance are great for killing pests. A Weasel can be considered sacred in some cultures and are known to be strong, valorous and loyal - if not really pesky. So the noun is ambiguous. Turn to the verb function of Weasel. I can say someone is 'weaseling' around for example. What might it mean ? Well for example it might be more polite to say that Clark, who voted Rep until 2 months ago is hiding his true political leanings in order to appoint himself President ? If so isn't that a long winded way of saying 'concealing' or 'evading' or 'weaseling'. For instance to evade which is closely connect to weasel has the following entry in Roget's: The verb weasel is a legitimate word to describe someone who is evasive. If I called Clark his supreme majestic genius that would be better of course though it would be entirely false. Evasiveness is more accurate. I suppose if one appelled to Clark's name 'Evasive' Clark in place of 'Weasel' that might be fine. However that strikes me as rather dogmatic. They both mean the same. I suppose the posts listing Bush or the US as a rogue and crazy are okay, since apparently being nuts is not connected with being a carnivore with a short neck. Rogue in this case is actually rouge, maybe informing us that George W is a cross dresser. Not sure. So instead of using Weasel to describe Clark we can use tergiversate. It is a word no one knows. We should address his supremeness as; Retired General Former Nato Commander soon to be obliterated Democrat Presidential aspirant and all around Tergiversater Wesley Clark......Well just kidding around. No need to get upset.

Right, great post. This ties in nicely with other posts on here about the perfidy of the French-German-Russian and Sino positions. They were making billions not only from direct bribes, but from contracts, oil concessions, military hardware exports and service contracts of all varieties. And they talked of peace ! Kay has come out and also stated that the French believed that WMD existed in Iraq. Between Chirac being bribed [Le Monde is convinced as well that he took money for his Paris Mayorial compaign from Hussein and don't forget it was Chirac who sold Hussein 4 Nuclear reactors - no doubt for kickbacks], Primakov being bribed [there are wire transfers substantiating this], and $21 billion of UNO money sitting in French banks, the world community should be outraged. But will you read of all this in any Cdn media ? Outside of NP, probably not. MSNBC Jan 28 2004

Hardner why do you post if you don't understand the topic ? You just repost what i say and then state something silly like Since 'Blacks' exist in business as well as in gov't what is your problem with laws ? The prime contract between people and their 'King' is ' If you want my money, make me secure.' Without laws and security how do u accomplish this - by dreaming about it ?? I said clearly that the morality of Capitalism is premised on free exchange and contractual relationships, unlike Socialism or Cdn Federalism with its coercion and demands. Are you suggesting the Fabian-Rousseau-Saint Simon myth that humans are incorruptibly pure in nature and that civilisation bastardises them and therefore no laws are needed, and that by extension socialism is moral because it has no laws ??? Please list all your sources to back up the idea that 1 )laws, regulations and governing structures are not necessary for markets and societies to function properly or 2) socialism does not need laws and regulations to function. You can also list the moral advantages of socialism. You can keep in mind important point Socialism does not serve, it just eats. You said "US's largely market-based system provides roughly half the coverage at roughly twice the per-capita costs." Sorry but the US system has more private care than Canada but it is Managed Care. Do you know what managed care means ? It means that quasi-Gov't groups control health care services. The US' problem in health care is largely 4 fold: 1. The US system is insurance based - ie. not customer centric. Customer centricity is vital in any domain. 2. Managed Care and Price fixing - Tommy Thompson's office fixes prices for health care - hardly a market based system. 3. Technology investments and capital investments. Some are good, some are bad [a bad one is building new wings on your hospital because the guy across town just did and you wish to retain your doctors in your Managed Health Portfolio]. 4. Inane lawsuits driving up costs - thanks to Demo Tort lawyers and high insurance premiums driving out clinics and doctors from the market. In Philly 50 % of doctors have stated they will quit the profession [WSJ Jan 28 04]. The US spends 7 % of GDP on private health care. It spends 6.5 % on public. The so called 7 % of Private Care is largely under Gov't control via HMOs. It is NOT a free market health care system though the media mischaracterises it as such. Herzlinger of Harvard has written a few books and many articles on Health Care Reform - she is advocating Market based Health Care - if it already existed i don't think she would be spilling all this ink. List your sources that the US Health Market is a free market system. That should make comical reading. I need a good laugh. You said: Where are the sources for this ? From Jack Layton ? First there are 2 problems with such broad statements. In Canada rich is defined at $70.000 US per annum salary. In the US it is $300.000 US per annum. So is someone in Canada at $70 K rich ? I would submit no. Not with taxes, user fees, cost of living, not to mention rearing a family and saving for education and retirement factored in. How can Canadians declare that a man earning $70 k is rich ? Second, there is no agreement on what constitutes poverty. According to Stats Can 15 % of CDNS are poor, according to the Fraser Inst. and others only 8 % are. I just read a report from the US that states that 2/3 of 'poor' own their own home. Maybe in Canada this is also true. Is that poor ? I would say no. So we don't even agree on what is rich and poor. In any event wage, labor, tax and regulation rigidity in Canada would have more to do with lower wages for some segments of society than the rich supposedly and immorally making money. In Canada incomes are pretty steady - The Globe says: If you want to liberate the poor, get rid of over-taxation and taxing savings, dividends, and open up the job market through economic reforms. We need more capital, more competition and more investment. Soaking the 'rich' who at $70K per annum can barely send their kids to University is not an intelligent response. You said Increased ahead of inflation ? So what. They are still below costs. According to Roger Martin Dean of the Rotman school of management Ontario is subsidising Univ. and receiving mediocrity in return. Dean chaired a study of US vs. Cdn school competitiveness and found that outside of Business Schools - which LIBERATED their tuition programs - Cdn schools are failing. This was reported Dec 4 2003 in the Globe. Martin is right, anytime you pay less then the costs of the system you will have mediocrity. As for Professors in general how many teach 'useful' subjects - how many teach soft, esoteric, and meaningless courses ? How many programs, topics and subjects are a waste of time ? When you subsidise education you subsidise a lot of waste - both in supply and demand. This is the same in any domain. Look at Blair in Britain - a little tiny increase in tuition almost brings down his gov't. It boggles the rational mind why people think education should be free. You also said that capitalism failed in the past. No doubt you quote the depression. List sources identifying that assertion. Even lame brain economists admit that tariffs, lowered money supply, tight credit, and high interests rates caused the depression which occured 2 years AFTER the stock market bubble [not immediately]. The press and education system espouse ignorance by blaming the depression on business, they better look to gov't for its cause. You can read Greenspan's writings from 1961 on the topic. Why do you think he has low interest rates and high money supply right now ? But then again, reading history and facts is just such a damn bother. Better to forward crap then to think.

Hard to believe that the US sponsoring of bringing down the Soviet invasion of Afgh. is now fast forwarded to 2003 to include the current buying of opium !! So let me understand this. The US invades Afgh. in 2001 and contrary to media nonsense conquers the place in 3 weeks and sets the cave dwellers running for their lives. There is a good chance contrary to CNN hysteria that Tiny Laden is as dead as the Islamic intention to conquer the world. [The CBC and CNN are upset about this, hoping that the US loses it war and we are all forced go to Mosques]. Those stupid Americans do this, not out of 9-11 or security concerns but so they can pay more money to heroin chiefs, buy them off and control the lucrative Afghan opium trade !! Let me finish the loop, the largest opium firm in the world is controlled by Cheney's former company Halliburton and is based in the Cayman Islands. Its operating chief is the cousin of Bush's wife and was last seen in Texas financing Enron ! Now i get it, thanks guys for informing me of the real reasons why the US is engaged in a war - it is not about oil, but opium and Bush's business connections !!! And you wonder why I and others think that your ideas are idiotic ??? Me thinks that the conspiracy theorists have bought and imbibed the said heroin and are rather delirious. Maybe you should post your ideas on fantasy.com

Socialism breeds immoral rot and by extension social liberalism and rights entitlements and dumb documents like the CoR which no one in Canada has read but which apparently 80 % of the mumbling bumbling population supports. Hate the wealthy, soak the rich, make sure that the media states endlessly that all businessmen are crooks, cranks and charlatans. This is why capitalism has a moral foundation - it can't operate without laws, rules and procedures. If you break laws like the Cdn Bernie Ebbers at World Com, or Conrad Black who illegally 'borrowed' 200 mn US from Hollinger, you should have your assets taken, your ass thrown in jail and your career ripped up. However Socialism can operate nicely with command and control and selective engineering. As you said KK, on Orwell's farm some pigs are more equal than others under socialism. There is no contract or freedom of choice basis to Socialism. It is Canada's health care system writ large. Only a few people pay for universality, and since no freedom of choice exists the status quo, whether it is good, bad or simply awful is what you are stuck with. The system is not innovative, does not generate jobs nor is it conducive to build up a society that needs to pay for certain welfare programs. More iniquitously it leads to mental rot where well pensioned CBC and Univ. professors demagogue endlessly about morality, love and human rights - these same people have never worked a day in the real world and have no concept of freedom, choice nor of contractual obligations, nor of producing anything of value. Do we really need more assinine professors teaching Art History collecting fat pensions ? If you made people pay for education at the real rates they should pay, and make them view it as one of the most important investments [like a house] they will ever make, suddenly the market for sub par idiot based courses would disappear. So would the costs involved. The same mental fallacy that pervades education can be applied to all gov't coddled sectors. The tearful leftists just simply cry 'what about the poor', 'what about the old ?' What about them ? Liberate the markets, have different price points, watch private institutions target different groups, watch access levels increase. Don't believe me? Then you better run off and natioanlise; food distribution, food retail, eye care, eye retail, computer retail; clothing; electronics distribution; furniture production; light buld production; bedding; bathroom fixtures; corn meal; pencil production; phones [remember the old phones you could have black or black !]; the internet; wireless communications; cell phones;......well you get the idea. Yes let's all cry for the poor. Here is something from Ludwig Von Mises, i doubt any liberals know of this man, i would suggest you grab some books by LVM and read them avidly:

Hohen, i would agree that Islam is trying to atone for its failure - its 700 year failure in fact to add anything positive, innovative or worthwhile to global society. Islam produced algebra, advanced medicine, incredible arts, fiction and non fiction works that are sublime, Averroes, Avicenna and Khuldun - great minds that match the best that the West can offer. The problem is all this occurred between 900-1400 AD. Since then, since the battle of Lepanto in 1572, since the defeat at Vienna by Sobieski his Poles and the German knights, the Islamic framework of modelling the world has been rendered an anachronism. So called experts point out that Islam per se is not the problem. They will state that Muslims ie. individual implementation of the faith is the problem, or Islamism - the political expression of Islam is the problem. This is semantical hair splitting and PC nonsense. sce. Robert Spencer, NP, Jan 28th. Amen. I would say it is not about human rights but about freedom. Twas not always so with Islam. Mohammed's older wife played an important role in shaping his finances as well as his ideas. Muslim women until about 1400 were allowed to own property and take political posts. Islam atrophied, choked itself and like the Medieval Catholic Church, gave in to ritual, superstition and paranoia. Unlike the Christian church there has been no Martin Luther, John Huys or Wycliffe to sound the trumpet for reform. Pity.

Yes and if the Dems go soft on foreign policy and threaten as Dean has done - to pull out of Iraq - or claim as Dean has done - that the war on terror has NOT made the US safer - they will be decisively annihlated and with good reason in november. It appears that the Dem voters are not as stupid as I had at first thought as well. Kerry is electable. Dean is not. Kerry is smart. Dean is not. Kerry supports pre-emption [though on Meet the Press it was revealed that he supported in the mid 90s cuts to defense spending and cuts to intelligence spending, good one John !], Dean supports isolation. The American people have been thrown into pre-emption and will never support again, until the war on terror is won, isolation. If the Dems fight that the war on terror is wrong or going badly, they will be destroyed in Nov. Electing Kerry gives them a fighting shot, he is too smart to espouse something as stupid as isolationism. I am VERY glad to see that Weasel Clark is finished.

Hohen welcome to the forum. Always good having a Yank on board. Funny enough you mentioned: I had the good fortune to date a turkish girl when i was in Stuttgart. Yes she was definitely looked down upon, except for her hot looks that is. Outside of that she had a rough time. Her German was excellent but not quite den zeer gute deutsche that the good burghers were used to. She had a hell of a time finding good employment. The Turks are no longer welcome in the land of Goethe was my conclusion back then. When one considers that 2nd/3rd generation turks speak german and don't feel turkish and are more german than say other recent immigrants, one only has to look at the arcane citizen laws to understand the apartheid system that can develop. Turks can't apply for citizenship unless they marry native born Germans. This is nonsense. Assimilation is the key. In the US and Canada we don't do a good enough job of it. If Canada wants trouble like France and Germany creating a multi-cultural, minority rights based world is the way to go. In France the problems stem from Algerian / Islamic fundamentalism - the French have allowed too many rotten eggs into the country. The French oddly enough for a country of mealy mouthed socialists believe in assimilation [witness the recent head scarf regulations] but have imported through a poor system [which Canada's ressembles] un-needed Islamics who will not integrate into mainstream France. According to the Economist many soccer games witnessing booing by Muslims of the Marsaillaise. I have no idea why the French put up with that. Jail them, then deport them. Right on, you mentioned I agree and social liberalism can and will unravel society unless it is arrested. The complexity of social liberalism is that it crosses all gov't lines ie. levels. But Ottawa/Wash have to take the lead and ensure assimilation not bifurcation. There are so many votes to buy, the liberal media to appease and our gay loving feminine culture to impress [see how compassionate i am !] and so on. Immigrants even illegals come here to win, work and succeed - at least the 20-40 % that are here on economic reasons. We need an immigration program based on economics and assimilation - not family or more like village reunification and welfare.

Capitalism is a moral system - and an organised philosophy. One does not have to read Ayn Rand to believe that, one only has to recognise the moral imperative of contractual unions and obligations. Enlightened self interest, self development, self actualisation allows people to conduct themselves in a socially responsible manner. As Paul Kedrosky said in the NP on the weekend - more or less - capitalism is not some red in the tooth concept of butchery and deceit. That is not how anyone who actually works in the free market would describe it. To succeed you need to create, build, sell, implement and then rebuild products, services and models. By not serving you fail. Socialism has no such moral imperative. It is a coercive philosophy of take and give and command. It leads to centralisation and regulation and rules. In Canada - a pretty left wing country - the contradictions in gov't regulation for anyone who works in the market are almost endless. Everything from source deductions to double dividend and savings taxation to sur taxes to consumption taxes. Socialism is the 'take away' and buy votes system. The immorality and immaturity of Socialism can be found in the Charter of Rights which 99 % of Cdns have never read [i would guess] and yet a plurality fully support [how is that for logic], private property is not defended nor even mentioned. Private property is the cornerstone of modern civilisation. The CoR is replete with twaddle about rights, minority entitlements and justice and vague legalese make up the document. Pity even the West has bought in. What happened to the Mounties out there ? www.cric.ca/en_html/guide/charter/charter.htm The Charter's main rights include: Nothing about markets, property, democratic institutions, individual responsibility, freedom of choice, nor the ability to ensure that gov't is transparent, accountable and rendered honest. Just endless twaddle about love. The CoR reads like a bad John Lennon lyric. Protection of Canada's multicultural heritage ? Interesting. I thought before 1980 Canada was an Anglo-French nation ? What about the 2 solitudes ? Now we have one supposes the 191 solitudes plus of course Gay Rights.

KK, you are right about the left. They love CONTROL. Their view of the world is that we are all, as humans, stupid, unable to think, and need the caring hand of the almighty Hobbesian Leviathan to guide our actions. Besides our stupidity, we are craven, immoral, pleasure seeking idiots, that would slit the throat of our mothers for coin, and have orgies with our sisters to satiate our bodily desires. To counter such paganism we need the strong hand, arm, and mouth of the state, to guide, cajole and if necessary beat us into submission. Socialism and Fascism are just variants of tryanny. Elder i agree with you Islam as submission to the divine will and the expression of the Koran and Sharia duty is a failure and a rather grubby one at that. You are a religious man and that is great. I am not, i am not even spiritual, nor do i like trees or nature that much. I prefer concrete, money and civilisation. Having said that - some faith is important in life. Faith can come from religion or from philosophy. I choose the latter - and importantly that is the main difference between 'us' and 'them'. I can choose what 'faith' or framework fits me best. Muslims living in fascist societies have no such freedoms.

What nonsense. The US invaded Afgh. to control opium production - according to Riff and Fleabag. List all sources that support this along with some common sense explanation of why a nation would spend $1 billion per week to rebuild a country formerly the base of the Taliban, terror training camps, and terror fund raising. [$1 billion per week comes from this week's Economist]. Such insipid allegations do nothing to stimulate debate but override reality - 9-11 did happen and the US had every right to react and invade with allies, the home of the Taliban. Besides the fact that the Afghan people have a chance at a real life, destroying Al Qaeda's base has obvious security benefits. According to Bush 2/3 of its leadership has been 'dealt with.' Canada's contribution while large for an country with only 17000 able bodied fighters pales in comparison with the men and money other nations are pouring into the country. The Cdn media would do better to instil some objectivity into their analysis instead of telling their readers or viewers that the world revolves around Canada.