Moonbox

As I said before, I enjoy picking apart poorly formed and biased arguments. Just found it funny that you omitted the sentence saying exactly WHAT the attack was. I would think that's the most important part of the whole story. You didn't and as a self proclaimed Liberal partisan, it leads us to wonder why. I didn't say he was partisan. I said he was a Liberal MP. I said it was not news that federal parties are bickering. I criticize your perspective on things. I don't have anything to say about you personally other than I think it's sad how blind you are to Liberal criticism and how unrealistic your view of politics are. If that gets me suspended, so be it, but I think it's more a matter of you being constantly discredited and ridiculed for your VERY compromised postings and opinions. Keep hoping.

Afghanistan shouldn't have happened to begin with, the question is what do you do now that you're there?

That's your argument? It's not trivial because I come on here and tell you it's trivial? You're really hung up on the whole personalization thing aren't you? All I'm doing is making fun of your obvious bias. Are you even going to claim you take a fair perspective when you post things like this? I dare you to. Once again you're putting words in my mouth that I never said. I didn't blame the Speaker. What I said is that parliamentary bickering is hardly exciting news and that you deliberately omitted relevant details from what you posted (just like the magazine grant post). You cut out the sentence where it explained EXACTLY what the attacks were (calling Ignatieff a hypocrite) and tried to pass it off as if it was something worse. Not to deny anything happened. I responded to clarify how misleading and politically charged your posts were. Is it the 'rolling eyes', the mockery or sarcasm that leads you to that belief? Flying off the handle? My personalization is VERY tame. That's generally the angle you take when I've hit the mark and you know you can't defend yourself. If I get suspended for taking you to task for being a fanatical and totally unobjective Liberal Partisan, so be it. Like I said, it's entertaining to pick your dubious/misleading arguments apart and watch you get into a huff over it. If we're talking emotions, you rule the day in that regard. The incredible effort you take to dig up anything anti-CPC is VERY personal and your defence for the Liberal Party on all sorts of issues is beyond denial.

I really just don't even understand why we'd even stay there at this point. We're just establishing and supporting a draconic and primitive fundamentalist islamic government. Isn't that what we had there before???

I don't think that's what he was saying man. I think he was assuming that you're attacking the Afghan mission altogether. For the record, I AM attacking the Afghan mission if this is the sort of thing we're supporting. This isn't a 'culture' that we need to respect. There is NOTHING cultural about abusing and subjugating women. They're valued like animals in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. It makes me want to puke.

See my previous quote. I told you exactly what you omitted. I'm also not arguing against the speaker. I'm mocking how you surf the internet what seems to be enormous portions of the day to find anything you possibly can to support the Liberals and criticize the CPC. When you can't find something worthwhile and obvious, you find something trivial, LIKE THIS, and try and twist it into some sort of newsworthy story way bigger or badder than it actually is. I didn't say he's unfair. I'm saying that this is hardly the outrage or worthwhile news you're making it out to be. There's nothing interesting/surprising about a LIBERAL speaker (elected by the majority opposition) reprimanding a Tory MP for calling the Liberal Leader a hypocrite. Again, I'm just mocking how desperately hard you're crusading on behalf of the Liberal Party. Liberal hack is about the worst you'll get from me. The rest of the 'personal attacks' I direct your way generally criticize your conclusions and your deliberate efforts to ignore anything that doesn't support your religion the Liberal party. Take whatever satisfaction you get from thinking you're getting under my skin. The fact is I get a laugh out of watching you squirm/avoid/ignore/plug your ears when people unravel and knock down your often dubious claims and conclusions. Let's look at what you've dug up in the last few days. There was the story of the $27,000 of help a western magazine received (clearly the PM was involved with such a giant sum of money) and now we have the SHOCKING story of a Conservative MP calling Ignatieff a hypocrite after being warned not to....WHAT SCANDALS!!! You're trying so hard, but you're failing so badly. Please man, no personal attack intended, YOU MUST see how silly you're making yourself look right? This stuff you're digging up...it's garbage news...The more of this junk you throw the community's way the less likely ANYONE is going to take you seriously even when you DO have a legitimate and well-reasoned point to make. By now you've so clearly labelled yourself as living, eating and breathing LPC that it's impossible to see ANY objectivity in your posts. With this you lose any credibility you might otherwise have. I don't think you're a dumb guy, I just think your unquestioned support for the LPC is far beyond rational. It's VERY emotional.

I'm mocking your post. YOU don't get it. I'm mocking the depth to which you'll plumb the internet to find everything and anything that can be in any ways construed as anti-CPC, no matter how trivial. You've turned it into a crusade and now you've take to obscuring and omitting relevant facts. You failed to mention here that the Speaker Peter Milliken is a Liberal MP. The Tory MP in question has been warned for accusing Ignatieff of hypocrisy on a number of issues. THAT'S the personal attacks we're talking about here. Like the Liberal hack you are, however, you deliberately left out the sentence where they explained they were only criticizing Ignatieff's hypocrisy, because you'd like to spin that they're attacking his personal life or something. Nice try. The news is thus: Liberal Speaker threatens to suspend Tory MP for criticizing Liberal Leader for hypocrisy. When you give the FULL story, it's even less interesting, but that doesn't do anything to promote your Bible Thumping Liberal cheerleading, so you omit details to fudge the story.

He didn't claim to be American. He said 'we' in an American publication so as to avoid being disregarded as a foreigner in what he was writing about. If Americans thought they were being preached to by a Canadian they would have scoffed at what he was saying. Unless he has American citizenship it's pretty hard for him to claim that. What about him? Is he like...some biblical figure or something? Is it not possible that he wrote and spoke of freedom in an entirely different world and context? What's more important? The right to live in freedom of persecution for your religion/race/sexual orientation or the right to commit it? What a terrible thing for Ignatief to ask a question like that....

I think it's fair to be upset about this law. We give far too little credit in the strength of women to shape society. You can call me sexist all you want, but it's not the women who are committing terrorism. The overwhelmingly vast majority (almost all) of the terrorists are men and they come almost exclusively from countries where women have no rights. Unless women have these rights, terrorism will continue to grow and breed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia etc...If the West is serious about turning this country around this is absolutely an area in which they need to fear. All they're doing otherwise is overthrowing a dangerous, rotten and backwards Taliban government and using our money to prop up and support an equally rotten and backwards government.

More boring, trivial and meaningless 'news' brought to us by our very own Liberal zealout. Next up, Jdobbin will dish out the dirt on the private lives of Tory MP's extended family! Headline: Jim Flaherty's second cousin's daughter got a tatoo! Stay tuned for more!

I think it's fair to criticize Ignatieff as a convenient Canadian etc, but I really think you guys are off the mark labelling him as an 'American'. He lived in the US for a couple of years to teach at a prestigious University. Harper has more pro-American in him than Ignatieff does. Harper's speeches before becoming CPC leader were ridiculous. Only a special type of hack can criticize a man for questioning the US's protection of the right to baseless, ignorant, hurtful and sometimes violent hate.

Please. If anything this BLOGGER makes Ignatieff look good. Ignatieff said most develloped countries are intelligent/reasonable enough to understand where to draw the line on freedom of speech. Namely, when someone publicly starts inciting baseless, ignorant and sometimes violent racial/gay/religious hate, there's absolutely no purpose in preserving that freedom. The majority of Americans, however, have decided that the Constitution is some sort of second Bible and follow it with the same sort of blind zeal. Thus, even though the rest of the civilized world understands how harmful public hate can be and how there are LITERALLY NO benefits to preserving the freedom to commit it, the Americans would rather follow an archaic document that's totally out of context with the reality of today. Spin that guys.

Jdobbin I'm not going to respond again to this thread after this because you're like a broken record. I'm not blaming the Liberals for the deficit. I'm saying that up until now everything the Liberals did, said or promised indicated increases in spending. The increased program spending since 2006 is totally 100% Harper's fault. Stop saying I'm blaming the Liberals because I'm not. What I'm saying is that you CANNOT intelligently and reasonably make the argument that the Liberals would have spent less. If the Liberals were against the spending increases, in the 2008 election they would have said they were going to reign in Harper's extra spending and return to fiscal responsibility. There was ZERO mention of that. All they mentioned was $85B in NEW spending. They spent like mad before Harper and they were demanding spending in December. If I'm speculating, it's based on THAT, whereas your speculating is based on.....nothing. Wait...it's based on the LPC of 14 years ago. I'm not defending Harper. I think he's a fool and I think that more every day. I'm not defending his spending increases. What I AM doing is calling you out for the Liberal party hack that you are. The fact that you would even TRY to say that the Liberals would have cancelled Harper's spending increases to finance their own $85B worth of election spending promises is a perfect example of it. First, the LPC spending promises were FAR beyond anything Harper had already spent. Second, they never mentioned there would be any cuts. It's all just propaganda and misinformation for you. I don't even know who you're trying to fool. It looks like you're fooling yourself more than anything. The 1995-1996 spending cuts are NOT good indicators of Liberal fiscal responsibility today. The '95 Liberals were NOTHING like the Liberals today, just like the Trudeau Liberals were NOTHING like the '95 Liberals. Blindly following a political label is a dangerous and stupid thing to do. All that matters is who's running the party and what they're saying they want to do. When I see people like Bob Rae (a big spender as Ontario Premier) and Dion promising giant spending increases, I'm going to assume that's what the LPC wants to increase spending. You, on the other hand, plug your ears, close your eyes and say they're going to do the opposite of their promises, deliberately blinding yourself to the reality of today and desperately trying to suck everyone in with you. The Liberals are not the government, you're right, but that doesn't mean we can't judge their policy and platforms of the recent past and the present. Those all indicated increased spending.

Whether or not the programs were Liberal or Conservative is irrelevant. Either way the money was spent or promised to be spent. To make the argument that the Liberals would have cut spending to finance their new spending programs you actually need something to base that on. THE ONLY actual facts we have to go on here is that the Liberals were promising spending increases. My claims are based on their party platform. Your speculation is based on whatever you think makes the LPC look better. I didn't. You are again ignoring what I said. I said the Liberals promised, campaigned on and demanded increased spending. You've decided that what they would have done was the opposite.... I'm not speculating. I'm basing my position on the LPC party's platform and what THEY THEMSELVES said. If they were serious about scaling back Harper's spending they would have indicated such during the 08 election. As it turns out the only thing that was mentioned was $85B in new spending increases and STILL you insisted that they're somehow going to cut spending. and the responsibility is duly Harper's. That STILL doesn't mean you have anything to back up your claim that the Liberals would have or even would now reduce spending. Even THEY are not saying that. They promised before and have been promising the whole time to do the opposite. It is a bogus argument. Other than the stimulus spending at least, which they did indeed demand and Harper did it to save his government. When the Liberals turn around and pretend they didn't want the spending and promise to reduce spending, I'll vote for them. I'll know them for the snakes they are but at least I'll have a reason to believe they'll reduce spending. They are the ones promising extra spending with no mention of cuts. Trivial examples with little bearing on the overall picture. The via rail cuts were politically motivated. The military college was a tiny overall spending boost to our military. You're grasping at anything you can hold on to now huh? My partisanship extends only so far as criticizing the bleating of blind sheep cheerleading the party of their choice. When you come up with made up balogna and start misrepresenting facts I'm going to criticize you for it. When Mr. Canada used to post his nonsense I'd similarly call him out on it.

Interestingly enough i agree with everything you're saying here.

It's not lashing out to mock your assertion that we have a separatist conspiracy within cabinet and that these same cabinet ministers apparently read separatist magazines. There's very little anyone can say when you start going down that road. It's far beyond the realm of intelligent argument or discussion. You bring the so-called 'personalization' on yourself.

Posts like these are why the forum community at large has trouble taking you seriously.

The Liberals DEMANDED stimulus spending and threatened to bring down the government over it. Forgot that didn't you? They would have started their own spending programs, as promised in their election platforms. Forgot that too didn't you? I'm getting so tired of this thread now. Every time I've responded to you I've said I'm NOT BLAMING THE LIBERALS, yet you continue to say it's wrong to blame the Liberals. You're not even reading what I'm saying. What I've been saying this WHOLE thread is that if it looks, acts and smells like a pig, it's a pig. The Liberals spent heavily in 2004-2006, they promised extravagant spending in 2006, campaigned on spending increases in 2008 and demanded spending increases in December 2008. I'm basing my criticism of them on THEIR OWN POLICY PLATFORMS. You're making it up for them all in hind-sight and claiming that none of their OFFICIAL positions matter because they weren't in government. Basically what you're saying is that what you've decided the Liberals WOULD have done is drastically different from what they themselves SAID they would have done. You claim they would not have increased spending drastically even though they promised they would. You claim that if they did increase spending, they would have cut spending elsewhere, even though there is ZERO indication from them that this would have happened. You're making up a lot of things on the Liberal's behalf. Like I said before, you're so desperate to preserve the image of the label you've been blindly following that you'll contradict their own party platform and make stuff up yourself to fill in the gaps. You really don't have anything to support any of your opinions. Where was there any indication the Liberals would have reduced spending if they were running things? You can say it doesn't matter, but for you to claim the Liberals want to reduce spending you need the party itself to step up and say so. It's hack partisanship and you know it.

Jdobbin you know how I was saying in the other thread how you'll dig hard and deep for anything, no matter how small you can find, to criticize the CPC? Remember how I said the effort you put into finding even trivial and meaningless articles, no matter how obscure, underlines a VERY emotional and fanatical support for the Liberal Party? Remember how I said you deliberately misrepresent and misinterpret information on a regular basis here? Well THIS is a perfect example. As was previously stated, it was a tiny fraction of the total amount of money doled out for magazine bailouts, although you tried to imply that the CPC was deliberately funding separatists and not normal Canadian media. Barf man. A WHOLE $27,000. It's almost a certainty that Harper was behind this as well. I'm sure high-level cabinet ministers read this magazine all the time and that's why they gave them that gargantuan amount. This is DEFINETLY newsworthy material to be posting here.

I just hope that when that crook Mulroney goes down, he takes his son down somehow with him. Every time I see Ben Mulroney on TV I want to punch my screen.

Come on PT. One promise? How about the GST?

Actually that's exactly what they did. They threatened to bring down the government for not doing enough to stimulate the economy. You have a really short memory. If the Liberals had any desire for spending to be reduced they would have campaigned to reduce spending in October. If you disagree with increased spending you GENERALLY DO NOT promise to increase it even more during an election. I didn't. I voted for Martin in 2004 and only voted against him after the sponsorship scandal. Since then I've supported Harper over Dion/Bob Rae Liberals and ONLY in that respect. I was making fun of you again. It's pathetic for you to claim the Liberals would not have spent in Harper's place when, like I've said before, they spent like crazy under Martin, based an election campaign on huge new spending and then demanded stimulus spending in December. We can blame Harper for the final numbers but it's sad that you'd even try to say the Liberals would have reigned in spending when their own election platform promised the opposite. How are the numbers on TOTAL spending increases NOT more important than a set of numbers you found comparing only a SMALL part of total spending? The TOTAL numbers are the ones that affect the taxpayer's. What if Harper had shrunken the government but increased overall spending by 500%? Would that mean he was better with money than Martin? No! Obviously. I've never argued that. What I'm arguing is your claim that the Liberals wouldn't have spent money like the clowns they have been for the last few years. ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING they did, said, promised and campaigned on indicated they would INCREASE spending. You can repeat over and over and over that Harper is PM. That doesn't change the fact that heavily increasing spending has been an undeniable Liberal policy point for the last 5 years. You can pretend it's not all you want but that's taking party hack to the extreme. NOW you're showing just how little you know/understand about the actual numbers. The Liberals decreased spending in ONLY one year and that was 1995-1996. They reduced it by about $9B. They did not cut spending after that. Spending increases followed inflation. I'll give them credit for that, but it helped that interest rates fell through the floor and that federal revenues skyrocketed. You can give as much credit to the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada for stabilizing the money supply as you can give to the LPC for balancing our budget. Federal revenue under Mulroney barely kept pace with inflation. Under Chretien it pretty much doubled inflation. I don't expect you to care or perhaps even understand. The fact that you even have an attachment is testament to most of your baseless claims. You're so in love with the Liberal label I doubt you've voted for anyone but since the 1970's. If that's what they campaign on then I'm on board. I'm just not going to pretend that's what they'll do when they're promising the opposite. Hmm...sounds like someone we know. If I were him I would have let the Liberals form the coalition. Signing on to the stimulus was political suicide IMO. I take small concessions from the fact that at least this will remind us of the dangers of over-spending and maybe politicians will learn their lesson. We'll see.

I checked it out but found it not so easy to navigate. It seems more like a big blog page than anything.

2008 just ended. The numbers I showed gave enough data to compare how Martin's spending trends mirrored Harper's. That was my intention. Whether or not Harper dropped a spending bomb in the last couple months of 2008 is irrelevant given that's exactly what the Liberals were demanding he do. I'd be inclined to agree with the PBO that the CPC isn't showing exactly how bad the employment, revenue and deficit numbers really are. With that said we don't have any solid numbers on spending right now other than the stimulus and deficit figures so we're both just guessing right now. Ultimately yes, which i've agreed with 100 times already. That doesn't mean the Liberals didn't demand and vote for the spending, which is the best indication for where they stand fiscally. It's your imagination that Liberals would not have spent like Harper did. At least from my perspective I can back it up with their public policy, election platforms and stimulus demands. You're basing your claim of fiscal responsibility on....nothing? You win for imagination. I was never that good at it. I need my facts man! According to you, because it suits your argument. The size of the bureaucracy accounts for a small percentage of the budget. The total spending numbers are the most important, and from the numbers we do have, Harper hasn't even spent as fast as Martin. I'm talking about spending increase RATES, not nominal dollar values. You can imagine and doubt all you want. The fact that they weren't running the government means you can say absolutely anything you want about what they would have or could have done. At least I'm basing my opinions on the offical positions of the Liberal Party, their election platforms and their record in parliament. You're basing it on, once again, nothing. How does that change that they promised spending increases across the board? It'll be aweful convenient during our next election for the Libs to pretend they didn't but that's more because the average voter doesn't pay any attention. After the initial cuts were made it was a simple matter of riding a big economic boom for 8 years. The 1995-96 cuts as I recall were the ones that made the tough decisions. It helped that inflation rates dropped to like 2% as well. No party can satisfy everyone and nobody can every be 100% satisfied with any party. The sooner you realize politics is a science of trade-offs the sooner you'll be able to get off the Liberal bandwagon and vote for them based on their merits rather than this deep emotional attachment you seem to feel. Again, I'm NOT DEFENDING HARPER'S SPENDING RECORD. It's bad. If, for example, Ignatieff decides in June that he's going to bring down the government and reign in spending, I can almost GUARANTEE I'd vote for him. If, on the other hand, he rides the "we're not the government we have nothing to do with the deficit" wagon for the next couple years and then only campaigns on controlling spending AFTER we've recovered, it's a bit less likely. We shall see but I'm strongly wagering he'll pretend he was in a coma or something until 2011. Is someone willing to make tought decisions NOW, or are we going to see all the Keynesian supporters turn into Friedmans only AFTER the money has been spent? There's going to be an aweful lot of irony and hindsight over the next few years.

What? You showed me that the bureaucracy rose by 14.8% under Harper and 14.0% under Martin. You didn't show me that Harper spent faster than Martin. I showed you the opposite WITH NUMBERS. Here's from Stats Can, Federal Budget That indicates surplus for 2008 so it's probably not right for 2008 but at least it lets you compare the spending part. Actually in a minority government you can't say that. Harper writes the budgets, yes, but it was the Liberals demanding stimulus in December and threatening to bring down the government over it. Just because the Liberals aren't running the government doesn't mean they can totally escape responsibility. Yes, it's ulimately Harper's budget but no, Ignatieff and Dion cannot say they didn't demand the spending and then sign on for it. You can say it ain't so all you want, but they DID demand and sign on for the spending. So what? Why would a Liberal government that promises to spend more be any better than a CPC government that spends more? I DID read it. It said that spending increased after Martin. The dollar value of spending increased. Of course the CTF is upset about that. What I've been saying this WHOLE ENTIRE THREAD is that the RATE of spending increases was FASTER under MARTIN. The CTF did NOT refute that. Spending has increased overall under every Prime Minister ever. Looking at strict dollar values is only part of the picture. Given Martin's rate of spending increases, along with his 2006 election spending promises, you can safely assume he would have blown Harper's numbers out of the water, or at least matched them. There's something to be said that Harper increased spending considerably after spending was already increased heavily, but it would have happened under Martin OR Harper. What I'm saying is that EITHER WAY we would have had a big spending government. Again, EVERY SINGLE points to the Liberals wanting to spend. The Liberals before Harper spent like crazy. The Liberals DURING Harper wanted to increase spending, the 2008 election promised HUGE spending and then they DEMANDED spending in December stimulus. Like I said before there is NOTHING to back up your claims that current Liberals are fiscally responsible. The only thing you're going on is 1995. If the Liberals were promising to reduce spending the last few years, I'd be more receptive to your claim. They did the opposite and you're trying to pretend that they're promised spending increases don't matter because they weren't the ruling government.... I think Harper's done a crap job. I'm not sure I'll vote for him again. Hopefully they'll replace him, or at least they get rid of the Bob Raes and Dions of the current Liberals. I'm not happy with what either party is providing right now.