WIP

Then why are you wasting your time on a Canadian discussion forum, TROLL!

What argument is left to keep Harper in power, or give the Conservatives a majority if they can't do the number one thing that people elect conservatives to do - provide sound fiscal management! Conservatives aren't interested in the environment, pay lip-service to equal rights issues, and want this country to be nothing more than an adjunct of the United States, that supplies oil, fresh water and other natural resources! The liberals and socialists can at least claim to be spending the money on income redistribution -- conservatives spend our money to reward corporate interests with rich defense and resource-development contracts!

It seems you can't figure it out yet that McCain - the candidate - is essentially irrelevant in the poll numbers! The Republicans could have nominated a sock puppet or a scarecrow, and they'd be polling equal numbers with John McCain. The poll results reflect the approval or disapproval of making Barach Obama the next president. Buried in those numbers are a substantial segment of Americans who hate blacks, but won't say it out loud, so they will claim he is too far to the left (even though many of them supported John Edwards and Hillary Clinton), and a surprisingly high number - 12% in the latest poll - think that Obama is a Muslim; so the smartest thing John McCain could do is keep his mouth shut and stop whining about not getting enough attention! If the press (and the general public) does start paying attention to what John McCain says, they may start asking why he needs Joe Lieberman at his side to inform him regarding the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, can't get it through his head that Czechoslovakia is now two separate countries, misrepresents or is uninformed about the "Surge" timeline, and yet he confesses to being 'a little weak on domestic issues!' If he gets his wish, and becomes something other than the vote against Obama, he'll wish he had kept his mouth shut!

The only thing making it a wedge issue is the privatization of ethics and morality, so that prolifers do not feel obligated to back up why they feel the 'right to life' should be absolute, or alternatively, why should the actual time of birth be the dividing line deciding when we have new life that should be protected? The debate right now is conducted between two opposing interest groups who are unwilling to compromise. The slippery slope argument is used by every group which fears even a small compromise will cause their movement to collapse. It reminds me of one time at a union meeting a few years back, when I asked why we were spending so much of our money on grievance procedures to prevent management from firing a few workers who are habitually in trouble, and most of us would agree, can't do their jobs -- but our union steward, in his thick, cockney accent jumped up and started lecturing me about how 'a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and we are all in danger, if we allow these weak links to be broken'. Now, eventually these idiots with mental or substance abuse issues end up getting fired anyway, but I am always amazed that the people who think that digging in their heels and holding out to the bitter end - feel that this makes their situation safer! In the abortion debate, it's the late term abortions that raise broad public disapproval and could be used to advance a dogmatic prolife agenda. Taking this issue off the table would weaken the argument for any fanatical prolife agenda that would move abortions back to the blackmarket. It was just an observation, but I have always found it interesting that public attitudes have remained fixed regardless of the efforts of two competing sides. Unless issues of ethics and morality start to move from private personal beliefs into the public sphere, there won't be any way to establish a set of guidelines that most people can agree upon.

A big part of the reason why middleclass and wealthy non-aristocrats opposed slavery, or the European equivalent - 'serfdom' - was because they gained their wealth independently through the skills they learned and practiced, not by owning land and indentured servants. A tradesmen might unfairly enrich himself from the work of his poorly paid apprentices, but it would only be temporary, since once his apprentice had learned the skills of carpentry, tailoring, metal-working etc., he could go and set up his own shop in competition to his former boss. The tradesmen and bankers who started overtaking the land-owning aristocrats in wealth, may not have been any more generous than the lords, knights, dukes, and earls who previously had complete control during the age of Feudalism; if they needed labourers, they just wanted to hire them for their work -- they had no interest in having complete ownership of their source of labour. This is ofcourse, an oversimplification of the issue, since many middleclass tradesmen purchased land and mansions with household servants; but in general, they favoured a flexible society over feudalism, where people could move up or down the social ladder, depending on their abilities and goals in life. Outside of Pennsylvania, you can't really classify the Quakers as the established religion anywhere! The abolitionist churches tended to be the upstart Methodists, along with the fringe churches - Quakers and Unitarians - the established churches in the South did what religious leaders usually do during times of social upheaval -- they sided with and became accomplices for the established order: from: "The Peculiar Institution" by Kenneth Stamp ...when southern clergy became ardent defenders of slavery, the master class could look upon organized religion as an ally ...the gospel, instead of becoming a mean of creating trouble and strive, was really the best instrument to preserve peace and good conduct among the negroes. The writings of Christian pro-slavery advocates pretty much disappeared after the Civil War, since "history is written by the victors", but I found this site online which contains a lot of writings of the abolitionists during the Antebellum period; this is from an abolitionist book written in 1852, and I get a kick out of the vitriolic language used to describe his pro-slavery adversaries, and it's staggering, how long the list is! It's pretty much clear that the slaveholders had their own bible-quoting ministers in tow, to provide scriptural justification for their side: List of Anti-Slavery Clergy, Etc., in Rev. Wm. Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery, pages 27-31, and agreement with Rev. Patton's concept, pages 557-558. The Cold-Hearted U.S. Clergy: Demonized, Lust-Filled, Heathen, Unconverted, Atheists, The Worst Clergy in History, Proslavery Accessories of Devils: As Whittier Says: "their very names shall be Vile before all the people" American Bible Society American & Foreign Bible Society President Spencer H. Cone Rev. Robert N. Anderson Dr. Blagden Rev. Alexander Campbell Dr. Durbin Rev. Dr. A. J. Few Rev. Dr. Wilbur Fisk Rev. George W. Freeman and Bishop Levi S. Ives Rev. Dr. Richard Fuller Rev. Dr. Richard Furman Bishop Elijah Hedding Prof. Hodge Charles C. Jones Dr. George Junkin Rev. Thomas Malthus Bishop William Meade Dr. S. Olin P B R writer Rev. J. C. Postell Rev. S. G. Roszell Savannah River Baptist Association of Ministers James Shannon Professor E. D. Simms Rodney "Gipsy" Smith Bishop Soule Prof. Moses Stuart Dr. Taylor Pres. S. C. Thornton Rev. Joseph Tracy Dr. Tyng Dr. Francis Wayland Dr. Winans Rev. Dr. Wisner Rev. Dr. Witherspoon Editor Leonard Woods, Jr. Clergymen Who Pretended the Constitution Was Pro-Slavery Clergymen Who Pretended the Bible Is Pro-Slavery Clergymen Who Denounced Emancipation / Blacks Clergymen Refusing Slaves the Gospel Clergymen Lusting for Concubines for Themselves Such clergymen are the 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 and Matthew 23:13 and 15 type. http://medicolegal.tripod.com/patton1846.htm#listvileclergy Many historians have pointed out that slavery keeps a society static and unable to change when needed to accomodate new technologies or social pressures. The Southern states were actually impoverished by their upholding of slavery, since it stood in the way of the industrialization that was going on in the North, and made fighting the Civil War a futile cause, since the South couldn't match the economic output supporting the northern war effort. An ancient historian, I can't recall the name of now, stated a number of years ago, that the Ancient Greeks could have started the industrial revolution 2,500 years ago if it wasn't for slavery! The brilliant inventions of Greek scientists such as Archimedes and Hero were mostly unapplied because slave-owners felt cheap labour made their machines unnecessary. The best example was the "Aeolipile" invented by Hero of Alexander -- this early steam engine could have found numerous applications if the Greeks had thought about the advantage of using machines to do work, instead of cheap labour! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile

Since you wanted to revive this thread also, I'd like to add that 'religion' is too big and too all encompassing a term to place in a yes/no, good or bad category. Teaching children religion can run from taking them to Sunday school to sending them to private religious academies, where they can be cut off and isolated from different ideas. And this is where I draw the line on religious indoctrination! It may not be possible to stop religious fanatics from sending their children to private religious schools to be indoctrinated in Islam, Judaism or Christianity, but the decision of parents to do so, only adds to the sectarian divisions of society. The biggenst political shift I've made over the last few years is reversing my attitude about public education and supporting ideas to privatize the education system, like charter schooling, or extending public funding to other religious schools besides the Catholic system (there's should be cut as well!). Because public schooling is prone to the same buraucratic inefficiencies as other government institutions, a good argument could be made to privatize it on economic grounds alone. But, after reading about the situation in England, where Tony Blair instituted a rapid charter schooling program and has broken down the public system in many cities such as London -- the early results aren't showing the great improvement in education promised, but it is showing a rapid increase in sectarian divisions, not surprisingly in the new Muslim schools. As one critic commented: 'a child can now grow up in East London and reach adulthood without having any contact with the wider community or having any awareness of British customs and culture.' Locally, it's impossible for any parents with children in the public school system to not notice that most of the Muslim children have disappeared over the last five years or so. Some of it may be due to fears of reprisal of their parents after 9/11, or it may be further indication that the generous donations for Islamic education we hear about, especially from Saudi Arabia, are actually having an effect. You can't stop people from deciding to send their children to religious schools or homeschool like all of the fundies south of the border have been doing over the last 20 years( at least not yet), but I see this as leading to an increase of separation of Muslims into their own little societies, like we hear about from Europe every so often. An increase in sectarianism is not going to lead to any sort of 'moderation' and blending in to the larger community, that we keep hearing about, and instead, it will lead to wanting increased separation, so that we have our own 'Londonistans' on this side of the pond. Fortunately here in Ontario, John Tory got shot down in flames during the last provincial election, when he misjudged his focus-group polling to believe that Ontarians as a whole wanted start dismantling our public school system and divert money to every religious school that had their hand out. I'm surprised Tory didn't get dumped out after causing this disaster, because McGuinty's relative unpopularity should have made it easy for a Conservative to at least mount a strong challenge. Nevertheless, the Tories focus on bringing in Republican advisors and imitating their strategies and policies is a big reason why I abandoned the Party. My apologies for going off-track, but before I can answer a question of whether "religion is child abuse", I need to know what sort of religious education we're talking about, and what access the child will have to hearing opposing views later in life.

I don't know how long it will take, but back during the Depression, when Niagara was one of the few places in Canada that were seeking workers, my father moved up here from Quebec and he was able to get to around to jobs he held at the Welland Chemical Plant, Thorold Paper Mill and a few others I have forgotten, because there was a rail system connecting Niagara Falls with all of the towns along the Welland Canal, from Port Colbourne to St. Catharines. It was lack of demand that killed the streetcar and bus systems after WWII, when all of the factory workers started buying cars. I don't know if it's still there, but part of the old streetcar line was still left in the middle of Pine Street in Thorold. Soaring gas prices are going to cause more hardship in small towns than in densely populated cities where the transit system survived over the years, but as more people can't afford to drive, they should be banging on the doors of their aldermen and regional councillors to get some of that transit funding that the feds are handing out.

I was going to ignore this whole thread since Argus just seems to be interested in practicing his rhetorical skills by arguing indefensible positions, but since it's still alive, it's worth asking why, after centuries or millenia of general opinion that some people did not deserve personal rights and freedoms, and deserved to be the property of others -- what changed in peoples minds to decide that everyone, even the lower classes, deserved the same rights and freedoms as the privileged?

Actually, McGuinty had to axe the Jewish and Catholic faith-based tribunals as well, so that it wouldn't appear that the Muslim tribunals were unfairly targeted.

Any form of costumed dress that adherents of any particular religion are required to adopt signifies that they are either willingly or unwillingly under the control of the religious institution that demands specific dress codes -- and that goes for the Mennonites too! If you recall a few weeks back when those crazy polygamous Mormons were the big story -- all of the women, both young and old, wore exactly the same type of dresses that were apparently allowed in two or three different colours. And they only had two choices for hair styles! The old wives had their hair more tightly braided, while the younger women seemed to be allowed a more radical, 1950's style hairdo. The women who were taken into custody had the prison doors that kept them sequestered, opened to mainstream society, but few, if any will walk out those doors, even if the State of Texas gives them the opportunity to take their children with them! Everything they have valued, from other family relationships to religious beliefs, is all ties up at that polygamous compound. And I think a similar thing happens with Muslim women who move to the West, but bring their burqas and niqabs with them -- they may have a husband, father or brother, at home who has threatened to kill them if they dare step out in public improperly dressed, or because they have grown up brainwashed that women need to bring their cloth prisons with them when they step out in public, they may insist on it! Opening the prison doors does not guarantee that the prisoners will want to leave! Actually, the sharia fiasco here in Ontario may the silver lining of this dark cloud, because it was two Muslim women's advocacy groups who shot down the Sharia Tribunals Plan. McGuinty was going to pass it, and the feminist leaders over here who are supposed to be looking out for women's rights -- were paralyzed by the desire to be politically correct and appease Muslim allies on the Left, so they had nothing to say on the issure. Marion Boyd, the former N.D.P. attorney general destroyed whatever credibility she still had, when she led the Ontario government committee that would have approved the plan! The only thing that stopped sharia tribunals were the Muslim immigrant women who weren't afraid to speak out against a judicial system that a number of women testified they had to endure in their countries of origin -- the idea of facing a panel of male clerics in a sharia tribunal that uses laws that favour men over women, was a little too much for them to take! The only reservations I have about this issue is how it has been played by Christian nationalists who want to use the spectre of terrorism and Muslim immigration to advance Christian religious agendas and encourage war in the Middle East. This is not as big a concern here in Canada as it is in the U.S. and even in Europe, where both the present and previous popes have used fears of Muslim immigration to criticize secularism and argue for a return of Catholic rule. A more rational decision would be the one the French government is apparently taking now: try to identify Muslims who will not be willing to adapt to a secular society, and stop them at the gates before they move in!

When it comes to the abortion issue, third-trimester abortions are a small percentage of the total number and are usually requested because of concerns over health or birth defects. Most women make their decisions over whether to continue pregnancy long before that time anyway; but is a woman's privacy rights absolute, even overriding the right to life of a fetus that is essentially not much different than a newborn baby? If she has post-partum depression and smothers her newborn with a pillow, she could be charged with infanticide! Does it really make any sense that no crime is committed if the fetus was aborted just prior to the delivery date? Inspite of advocacy groups tugging at us and arguing extreme positions on this issue, the majority of people consistently fall in that mushy middleground, as you call it. Sometimes ethics is a gut reaction to a problem, rather than a philosophical debate, and most people aren't willing to confer personal rights on a fertilized egg, but neither are they willing to deny human rights to a fetus that is close to the same level of development as a newborn baby. I mentioned previously that increased advance use of genetic testing may alter the status quo. Should a third trimester abortion be considered because the child may be diabetic or colour-blind? At some point, someone will have to come up with a way of establishing some rational guidelines for this sort of issue and the end-of-life issues surrounding euthanasia.

The problem with religious liberals or moderates is that their doctrinal beliefs shift like sand dunes in the desert, and are couched with nebulous, obscure language that usually only has meaning to the theologians who create it! But because they don't want to answer questions of what supports their own beliefs, liberals feel a knee-jerk need to protect those crazy fundamentalists who vigorously proclaim their mythologies as facts. People like journalist Chris Hedges comes to mind -- as someone who regurgitates the old arguments that a belief in God is necessary to be moral, even though he doesn't apparently even believe anything in Christian doctrine is factual! Instead he applies a totally humanistic interpretation to his own religion. But Hedges's liberal theology does not stop him from running interference to try to block or divert the criticisms of atheist writers such as Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens, because they dare to connect intolerance, aggression and barbarism with Christian and Muslim religious doctrines.. As long as there are liberal apologists who demand that relgious belief systems must always be regarded as benign, no serious debate over whether harms can be connected directly with religious doctrines can be made! An objective study of any religion will lead to a crisis of faith in most people! When I was in highschool, I was planning on heading off to a seminary to seek a career in the ministry, but I made the mistake of reading books on textual examination of the scriptures and was shocked to discover how cluttered and arbitrary the collection of books that finally made up the Bible was, and the degree of copying errors, additions and omissions - all led me to question whether my religion was any different than the others that were mere mythology. Whenever some fundamentalist tells me now, that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God, I have to assume they no nothing about the collection and copying of the various books. The term "transcendent" in itself, means a belief in supernatural principles that are ultimate and unchanging. The only non-religious belief system I can think of that has transcendent beliefs and principles is Marxism; so besides the commies, transcendent nationalism means that it uses a religious belief system to justify its claims of nationalistic or racial superiority. Now, if that extremist worldview can be connected to being indoctrinated with a religious belief, such as 'martyrdom', then the leaders and adherents of that religion should not be able to duck questions about what connection that doctrine may have had with a man who steps on a loaded bus wearing a bomb-belt. But this is where those moderates like the previously mentioned Hedges, jump in the way and demand that you can't challenge the religion itself. I don't either! It was so long ago, I forget what the point about the Stanford experiment was about anyway. Yes, and some sociologists claim that nationalist grievances or tribal resentment alone, can motivate someone to commit barbaric acts that would normally be out of character. But, once you add the belief that barbarism is actually a holy cause that will be rewarded by God, you have a killer who believes he must overcome his natural revulsion to commit whatever crime is demanded, because it will gain favour with God and lead to reward after death. The Communists' version: 'Heroes of the Revolution' pales in comparison! Nazism was political and religious - the two cannot be separated in any analysis of their ideology. Christians obviously try to unload Hitler and the Nazi movement, but Hitler himself, always regarded himself a Catholic first - although he spoke highly of Martin Luther in some of his speeches -- likely because Luther wrote a book declaring the Jews to be damned for refusing Christ and deserving of hellfire. Luther was angry with the governments of his day because they would not destroy Jewish synagogues and drive the Jews out of Christian lands. Many of Hitler's henchmen, and possibly Hitler himself, were fond of Norse mythology, and wanted it incorporated into a unified German church that the Nazis intended would amalgamate Catholic and Lutheran churches in Germany. But regardless of whether or not they were heretics, there's no denying the huge influence religious beliefs had in formulating Nazi philosophy! From an historical view, this is one of the things that really irritates me about how this story is being taught -- Hitler did not invent antisemitism; and it wasn't a racial issue in the centuries that led up to the Holocaust -- there was always an underlying thought that those who refuse to become Christian were a damned lot, who were on there way to hell and might lead others to destruction as well. Actually, that's not a bad analogy, since socialists or the 'Euro-communists' for example, played much the same role as religious liberals, by getting indignant when criticism of the Soviet Union or Mao's China included criticism of the Marxist ideology that inspired these regimes. The Euro-coms in particular, were always claiming that the Soviets weren't real communists. And to me, that sounds similar to many Muslims who say terrorists are not real Muslims and we have to criticise the "extremists" with language that does not include questions about their religion as well. It's not accepted by all Orientalist historians, but many feel that the growth of secularism in the Muslim World ended in 1919, with the shock of the collapse of the last Islamic Caliphate, when Kemal Attaturk, who decided after winning the Battle of Galipoli, that he would seize upon the new-found national pride of the Turks to scrap the old empire and replace it with a Western-style secular state - the nation of Turkey. The first caliphate was formed by Muhammed, and Muslims assumed that this was God's chosen government, and would continue to slowly expand until it conquered the entire world. With its collapse, many Muslim intellectuals may have become disillusioned and abandoned religion, but there was a hard core that decided that Muslims were being judged by God for their failings and had to return to religion in a big way. One of the movements was the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt founded by Hassan al-Banna; which still exists today, and influenced Al Qaeda, Hamas, and probably every other extreme Muslim fundamentalist group that wants a return to Sharia and Islamic government.

Yet another empty, rhetorical accusation that provides no facts so that it cannot be challenged! Then what the hell are you arguing about in the first place! We've been down this road before, and it amazes me that you aim your gun at the pro-choice side, since a majority who support abortion rights do not support third trimester abortion without restrictions, and would only allow it under circumstances where the mother's health is at risk, or the fetus has serious birth defects. Right now, what would be considered a 'serious defect' is the important point to clarify, since genetic testing may lead some to have abortions for reasons that might seem frivolous to others! In many countries, like India and China, they already have a crisis on hand, because of a culture that favours boys over girls leads to abortions of females. It would be nice if a clear-thinking society could leave ancient superstitions in the past and make rational ethical decisions that are going to increase as technology continues to advance!

If I can stop right here; if you believe the soul is the product of energy, presumably produced by brain function in this case, then every lifeform and non-living thing that uses energy also has a soul -- since they also produce and/or use energy. By this definition, my computer also has a soul. I'm not sure if I got all that, but what you are describing sounds like Pantheism - the belief that the creator and the creation are one and the same, so the universe is a living, self-conscious entity. It is a common viewpoint outside of Western religion and philosophy, but it is also an unfalsifiable belief since it makes no claims that don't also have materialist explanations. Okay! I don't know where to go with this paragraph! It sounds like you are describing the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit along orthodox understanding, but your earlier descriptions of God, spirit and soul are pantheistic or animistic. Many of the simple nature-worshipping religions that began with hunter/gatherer tribes follow this line of thought, and there are more sophisticated expressions of pantheism found in many Eastern religions; but Christianity is part of the Western tradition that makes a clear distinction between creator and creation, man and animal, and living and non-living matter. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for spirit is the same as for breath, and when you stopped breathing, that meant the lifeforce had left your body and returned to God. But in the New Testament, many verses express a belief that the soul continues on after the body dies. Now "stealing souls through abortion" is what inspires most people to believe that an embryo is equivalent to all human life, since the "soul" would be dropped in fully formed, making even a zygote with less than 100 cells already a self-conscious, self-aware entity in the eyes of many believers. I first dealt with this concept a couple of years ago when I was a member of a U.S. conservative forum, and the embryonic stem-cell debate was the hot topic; and that's when I first realized how much damage an unfounded, unsupportable belief can do, when it denies research that could potentially save lives because of a belief that a frozen embryo is already consciously aware. As long as there is that 25 to 30% of the population that wants to set the mark for conferring personal rights on a fertilized embryo, backed by well-funded conservative religious prolife lobbyists, this issue will remain unresolved.

Since you are so determined to keep the abortion debate going, I have to ask again why you and the rest of the prolife crowd, are so overwhelmed by the fertilization process that all other considerations, especially the rights of the mother, are secondary to making sure every zygote is brought full term? Personally, I think this is a totally idiotic way of determining the value of human life! At the zygote stage, when the fertilization process is complete, we're talking about 70 to 150 cells in total. There is no brain, no neurons, no sense of sensory awareness, and yet you and other prolifers keep telling us we should give it the same level of value as a baby, or even a fetus that has started to develop the systems that will make it capable of becoming fully human. A housefly has a brain with 100,000 neurons -- if you feel no concern over flattening one with a flyswatter, you should feel no qualms about embryonic stem cell research or morning-after birth control pills! In the natural order of things, at least half of all fertilized eggs are aborted naturally by miscarriage -- for the religious, this makes God the most prolific abortionist of all time! And 'life begins at conception' is totally bogus in the first place, since there is no magical demarcation of "conception" but instead, there is a fertilization process that can go off in many different directions, including splitting of the embryo to form identical twins, two fertilized embryos merging into one - to form a chimera, and your simple biology 101 lesson failed to note that two different sperm cells can fertilize the same egg cell and add to the male side of the new genome. If the embryo splits, it can form a rare semi-identical twin: http://www.livescience.com/health/070326_semi_twins.html The emphasis you place on forming a new human genome also gives the false impression that it is a blueprint which will determine future development of the person! The reality is that environmental factors, including the physical environment the child is growing up in, social interaction, and even personal interests can cause genes to be expressed that will determine how the brain developes later in life -- things that can't be determined with a DNA blueprint! http://www.livescience.com/health/050708_i...ical_twins.html Put all of the overwrought attention to new human genomes aside and the real motivations for forcing women to bring fertilized eggs to term is either: A. the magical belief that immaterial souls animate the body and are the source of our personal identity. Every new discovery made in neuroscience that correlates mental activities with brain function chips away at this notion. In the case of embryos, substance dualists never venture to answer whether souls split in the case of twins, or merge together in the case of chimeras! B. to have control over the reproductive process and take the choice over when and how many children to have, away from the women who have the babies. No surprise that if you ban abortion and birth control, then every woman who is healthy and fertile, will have as many children as her husband wants -- not how many she would like to have! This is how it was done in the old days, and it's no surprise that when women are able to control pregnancy, they have far fewer children than previously.

Well the Vietnam War is over, in case you didn't notice! So naturally we are going to focus on present conflicts. Vietnam should have provided a lesson for future presidents about the dangers of committing troops to undeclared wars with no exit strategy.

"should be suspended!" -- did I say "should" or did Lincoln and Roosevelt use that language? My guess is that they used language in their speeches designed to convey great reluctance to suspend habeas corpus, and only did so to protect the nation at a time of great peril, and gave assurances to the public that it was only a temporary inconvenience..........and they got declarations of war approved by Congress before sending troops off to battle. It is a well-funded undeclared war in actual fact. The best comparison in U.S. history you can find with Bush's W.O.T. is neither the Civil War nor WWII, but should be the period of the Indian Wars, that were fought intermittently as the United States expanded its territory westward into Indian lands. These were also undeclared wars that had no fixed enemy, and the only determining fact to end the wars was similar to today's "defeating the enemy" -- once all of the tribes had been eliminated or subdued and forced onto reservations so that they were out of the way of settlers moving west, then the War On Indians was over!. In a similar vein, as long as a president determines a foreign terrorist threat is present somewhere in the world that must be fought with U.S. combat forces, then the War On Terror isn't over! It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this has nothing to do with warfare, but is instead an attempt to permanently change the levels of rights and freedoms and the executive powers of the president!

I can't say I'm surprised that you don't find Ben Franklin inspiring, since your wish is to replace democracy with authoritarianism. And I don't find Lincoln and Roosevelt relevant comparisons to Bush since THEY ACTUALLY SIGNED A DECLARATION OF WAR before suspending or restricting civil rights, so the people had an assurance that any loss of rights and freedoms would only be temporary -- unlike Dubya's undeclared War On Terror, which makes no similar distinction between peacetime and a state of war, and does not clearly define who the enemy is, or how long the war will last!

I can't help notice that you have no comment on Benjamin Franklin's point that people who want safety even if they have to sacrifice their freedoms, deserve neither freedom nor protection!

Calling the grenade-lobbing charge a fact is a total misrepresentation of the meaning of the word "fact." All we have as evidence are eyewitness accounts that can be challenged on a number of grounds regarding their credibility, and after violating all of the standard civil rights, including the use of torture, I seriously doubt that the murder charge could stick even with a jury from Lubbock, Texas! If there is a criminal case to be made against Omar Kadr, it has long since evaporated! Okay..... This has got to be the most schizophrenic post I've read lately! According to you, issue one is that Gitmo is part of list of deliberate violations of international law by the Bush Admin. that have made the U.S. no different in respect for rule of law than any other banana republic, but issue two is: the Kadr family is despicable and Omar Kadr is a P.O.W., so that makes him a danger to society enough to continue violating all of his rights as a Canadian citizen! Did you actually think this line of reasoning made any sense when you wrote it? The whole point of having a society with guarantees of civil rights and rule of law is to protect the rights of those who are unliked and unwanted by the majority! The rich, and the powerful, and those who stand with majority opinion do not need as much protection from the government or from the mob, as those who are on society's margins. From what we do know of Omar Kadr, his father was a jihadist, who wanted his sons to be holy warriors also. Omar joined his father and older brother to fight, when he was only 14 years old; so you also have a challenge in proving that he was mature enough to act according to his own free will. Face it, there is no criminal case to be made, and the only recourse the Canadian government should make, is to do what should have been done five years ago; petition for his release and keep a watchful eye on his activities when he returns to Canada. That shouldn't be too difficult! I think it's a safe bet that CSIS is keeping tabs on the rest of the family. The whole argument for the way the Bush Whitehouse has been running the W.O.T. is that the ends justify the means! And if you agree with this argument, as most conservatives seem to do, then you are supporting fascism! "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin

Obama has certainly not been untouchable if you take a glance at the rightwing slime machines: FoxNews, Limbaugh and his neocon immitaters and all of the rightwing pundits on the rest of the MSM. Lately, the Obama campaign seems to have realized that they cannot take the base for granted either since he is paying a price in dropping poll numbers and worse - campaign donations - for rushing across the middle and trying to sound like a Republican on many domestic and foreign policy issues. Today, it looks like he's realized that he better stop sounding like McCain on the issues that won him the Democratic nomination in the first place: WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama says he's running for president to lead U.S. foreign policy in a new direction that isn't focused on Iraq. As he prepares to travel to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama says the fight in Iraq is distracting the United States from all the other threats it faces. Obama says the Iraq war "diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century." http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gXhIn6D...GubXUAD91UC9V01

That's true, but many soldiers serving in Iraq were lured into the reserves in the pre-Bush years by the promotion of it being a weekend-warrior thing and a chance to learn new skills. Back in the Vietnam War, Dubya wouldn't have joined the Air Force reserves if he thought there was a chance he would have been shipped off to Vietnam, and whole lot of reservists and National Guardsmen, were there under the same assumption -- that as long as they weren't Marines or Army, they could skate through without being shot at, except during live-fire exercises.

Taking a quick scan through the posts on this topic, it seems that Canadian Conservatives have abandoned the concept of rule of law, just as completely as the American Neocons who run the Republican Party! Now, with the WAR ON TERROR played as the trump card to deny civil rights, Canadian conservatives are goose-stepping right along with their American counterparts, using the ends-justify-the-means argument to excuse torture, abuse, illegal detention, illegal surveillance etc. Does it matter whether you like Omar Kadr or his family? It shouldn't, unless you believe democracy is too weak a system of government to face the "enemy" and some sort of fascism that can act above the law (like Jack Bauer in 24) is needed to fight this war that Neocons tell us has to be fought everywhere the "enemy" is and will likely go on forever, or maybe only 100 years, according to John McCain. So, now that most Canadian conservatives seem to want to imitate their American big brothers, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Prime Minister Blockhead refuses to act in an effort to release a Canadian national being detained in a foreign country without charge even though his government was aware that he subjected to torture and interrogation techniques that violate international law! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...PStory/National

Do you get an uncomfortable feeling that since Democrats and the Obama team in particular, are expecting to ride a big wave of disgust with Republicans into office this fall, that, instead of reforming the system, they are looking at how they can use the expansion of executive powers by the Bush Administration for their advantage!

And before I'm done with this topic: Three in five support Morgentaler honour Poll results fly in face of vehement protests Jul 09, 2008 04:30 AM Richard Brennan Ottawa Bureau OTTAWA–Three out of five Canadians support the controversial appointment of pro-choice crusader Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada, according to a survey done as some groups were calling it a disgrace to the country. http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/456924