Ontario Loyalist

You know, whenever someone refers to the Greens as "left," "leftist," "lefties," etc. it simply indicates that the person has no real understanding about the party or, for that matter, politics in general. This, however, became abundantly clear the other week with your ignorant rant about the deficit, which I thoroughly debunked and you conveniently ignored.

So just because you say it isn't makes it so? That's hardly an improvement. Silly nonsense. People are entitled to their opinions, whether you like it or not. I haven't seen you bolstering your tantrums with anything in the way of "proof". All I see is ranting and ad hom attacks. So you're one to talk. Claiming that people are "uninformed" is really useless. It's a cheap tactic. The fact is that I spend much of my time reading, and if anything I would consider myself "overinformed". I think the problem is that you self-censor and only "inform" yourself via media that suits your narrow worldview. I, on the other hand, glean information from a wide variety of sources AND don't simply ape what I learn; I give it consideration and thought, and if I think that it is valid, then I use it. Why is this suddenly a race issue? Who said anything about skin colour? Immigrants come from all parts of planet, including Europe. A university educated white European who can't find work in their field is likely to not want to work as a pizza delivery driver or day labourer. Actually, there are many non-whites who believe that "all whites are racist" and I'm inclined to think that you rank among them.

Doesn't matter.

I'm not talking about literature "on how to scam men" rather literature, programming that normalizes female social aggression etc. that leads girls to believe that lying, manipulating, cheating, and gold digging is perfectly normal.

This was on CTV repeatedly the last couple of days.

I think that the argument can be made that the immigrants who came here a century ago understood that what they were embarking upon was likely permanent. There was some return flow, that's indisputable, but these immigrants were largely committed to making a go of it in Canada. I'm not sure about the "assimilation" part; I think that many of these groups believed that they could maintain their distinctness, but were slowly pressured by the government into assimilation. This is certainly what happened to German-Canadians starting well before WWI. Immigrants nowadays tend not to want to work their way up from the bottom, or spend much of their time back in the homeland. Not all are like this, but seriously when we have to evacuate 50,000 "Canadians" from Lebanon only to see the vast majority return once the fighting ended is a little ridiculous. People who come to Canada have to put Canada first--no exceptions. The way things are now work to a certain extent since Canada is fairly stable, but if we should ever face some sort of a crisis, Canadian society is so fragmented that I fear that Canada couldn't overcome it.

Okay, I just made an argument for why Greens are just as likely to take votes from the Cons. Yes, that's right, the networks decide, but the party leaders can still voice their opinions. The fact that only the Liberals want May in makes them look good, IMO. Again, debates have been organized with more than four leaders in other political arenas, so why can't Canada manage a fifth party leader. What if there were six parties in Parlaiment, do we only include the top four? Absurd. The Greens have a significant following, and there exclusion (as well as all of the others) is simply a way for the media to control what the electorate hears. Yeah, now the criteria has changed to "elected". Then, once they elect a few MPs, then it will be more than the MPs that they have, etc. Whatever. Just for the record, though; the Greens are my second choice, but it looks like my party won't be running a candidate in this riding, so... I don't agree with many of their policies, but the environment is important to me and I don't really trust the mainstream parties when it comes to the issue, except maybe the Bloc, but I won't support them at all.

I don't think the Greens would ever advocate spending money on the environment rather than healthcare. Money for the environment would come at the expense of the military and increased taxes on fossil fuels, etc. My guess is that you're wrong. Nobody that draconian would be tolerated in the Green Party, although the Greens have attracted some nuts in the past.

I'm under the impression that Dion is the only one who wants them in. Saying that the environment is the "Green's reason" for existence is no different than saying "free market Capitalism" is the reason for the Conservative's existence. The environment is simply the party's main concern, but it has broad-based policies just like the other major parties. Look at the Ontario election results for 2007. The Greens got much support and it came from the Conservatives, not the Liberals. Some of it may have simply been protest voting, but I think that Green policies do have more of an appeal to conservatives. Going Green has become the new thing, and the people who tend to subscribe to this are those who actually have the money to purchase new hybrid cars, solar energy and renovate their homes to be energy efficient. Greens also support local agriculture and small business, traditional Red Tory territory.

I can't comment on what the candidate specifically stated, but the Green Party does believe in preventative health care. I mean, it's basically common knowledge now that medical researchers are drawing direct links between pollution and cancer, etc. That's just one example. If you reduced the causes of illness and reliance on health care, that reduces how much money has to be spent on it. Simple logic.

Well, it has a membership of about 9,000 and in the last election ran candidates in 308 riding and received 660,000+ votes (4.5%). It wouldn't necessarily mean that they would be elected. It would mean that the Liberals don't have to waste time on some useless ridings and the Greens can improve their profile. In turn the Greens could do the same in a few ridings, as well.

You know what I'm talking about...

Are you saying that homosexual men are misogynists?

I may get flak for saying this, but here goes: I find it an interesting coincidence that in the news last night it was mentioned that the CJC had complained about the possible election date falling on a Jewish holiday. Now suddenly Dion wants to talk with Harper.

So is somebody going to compensate me for the Soviets dispossessing my grandfathers of their properties???? This kind of post-colonialist nonsense is ridiculous.

What you said was that it is better to have politics out in the open rather than underground. Why does that apply to Communists, but not Facists? Even Germany allows far right-wing political parties, and they have a much more fertile populace for that kind of stuff. You mean "does not meet", right? No, I believe that any Nazi-style party would be "illegal" because it would promote hate. But Communists only promote hate against wealthy, successful people which is different I guess, and so they are allowed to exist eventhough Communism has murderd ten times as many people as the Nazis did. That's pretty half-baked any way you look at it.

Anybody following German politics here and willing to discuss what's going on in this election and other politics in Germany?

Thank goodness that's done and over. Should have been hosted by Toronto...

I haven't been to Toronto in years. I can only imagine what it's like. Downtown here has become fairly ethnic. I'm starting to find myself in situations where I'm one of the only, if not the only white person around and nobody seems to be speaking English. Very strange when you've lived somewhere for 30 years and start to feel like an outsider.

I have profound respect for farmers, but let's face it, they willingly and knowingly engaged in farming practices that placed productivity and profit over quality and safety.

Yeah, whatever. So you're saying that it would be better to have a Nazi Party of Canada, then? I hardly think that there owuld be a mass uprising if the communist parties were not allowed to form. Communists should be reduced to the same level of social outcasts as neo-Nazis, which thankfully are few and obscure thanks to the fact that they don NOT have the right to form official political organizations.

The system is prone to allowing regional movements to gain prominance rather than reflection the national will. For that reason we get parties like the Reform Party and Bloc gaining to much influence while excluding parties that have a broader, national agenda. Who said the Greens are my favourite party? I stated that the same would go for other parties. The exclusion of the Communists is based on the fact that it represents an anti-democratic and authoritarian ideology. We don't allow a Nazi party, yet there is a Communist party even though Communism has caused much more suffering and misery. Certainly even you are aware of this.

So you just made up this arbitrary criteria, or does it have a rational basis? The fact of the matter is that they are a major party based on their level of organization, support, and performance in the last three or four elections. Virtually every other democracy has a PR electoral system; if Canada had one, they would have elected between 9 and 15 MPs in these last elections. I would be saying the same thing if we were talking about the CAP or neorhino.ca, etc. (just not any Communist parties--these should be illegal for good reason).

Oh, I won't be surprised.

Well, family law in this country has certainly been hijacked by certain agendas, and it's frightening to think that people who hold the same attitudes as Drea are managing to institutionalize their skewed beliefs. If you look at the kind of stuff that is currently trendy among girls, literature and programming that basically celebrates and normalizes female social aggression, one has to wonder what it will be like in a generation or two.