marksman

No logic can save a mistaken premise. Violence does not equate to genocide. I don't advocate death and destruction to stop genocide but I recognize that force will likely be necessary to stop genocide. Your premise means that when a police officer comes across a victim being assaulted or murdered they should do nothing except try to talk to the criminal. The logic itself is ok. Particularly for those people who support killing people with capital punishment because killing is wrong.

Your link doesn't say what you're claiming. It says that before the nato campaign the dead was less than 2000 and it escalated to 10000. It makes no claims as to how those people died during the nato campaign. Policing the world implies a wide range of actions to stop a great number of crimes or enforce an entire moral code. That's different than trying to prevent only the most serious of crimes. I can agree there's always room for improvement on anything including how nato acted. But when the people committing the genocide are an army then it's hard to stop without an army. They chose legitimate targets to hit. It's not like nato was repeating the firebombing of Dresden. So you don't support death unless it's to hurt someone else and show them they're helpless? I don't consider someone stopping genocide an aggressor. I can't say what you've heard and what you haven't heard. But for something to be called a genocide certain things need to actually happen. 1 nutjob saying something doesn't mean there's a genocide going on.

But who gets to judge? And how does it get enforced? What happens when circumstances change for better or worse? Can people get their children back? Owning an item like a gun isn't the same as having children. You continue to assume that the only explanation for needing help is poor choices by a person. That's just not true. Where we are in life is largely because of our choices but not completely. You're not where you are in life only because of your choices any more than someone who needs support is only in that position because of their choices. I want people to have freedom to make choices. So if someone can't get skills training they need because they've got to spend all their time working a low paid job just to have food for themselves and their children then I don't have a problem with government helping them access that training. Thanks for at least recognizing it was sarcasm. I'm not sure everyone got that. But my answer is no I don't think any government should be setting prerequisites on people for having children and I don't think they should be enforcing any. I do think as a society we can recognize that people need help for all sorts of reasons and I see no reason why we shouldn't be compassionate enough to offer that help.

But your statement implied a binary situation. You didn't see forcing someone to give up their newborn for adoption as breaking up a family. So at what point does forcing adoption on someone count as breaking up a family? Unless you're saying that forced adoption is never breaking up a family. You're right where there's harm to a child I don't have a problem with removing that child from harm. And I think we do this in Canada not only for abusive situations but for other reasons too like extreme living conditions. But it's preferable to stop the harm and have children remain with their families not just take them away. Even the example about not giving medical treatment to car accident victims? It's a selfappointed position. Others're free to give out their own awards and many do. We've even had a bad teacher prize in this topic. What makes me qualified to judge is the same thing that makes you qualified to judge other people's life situations. Now we can all feel morally superior together.

You ignore the weaknesses of speaking in absolutes. It didn't show the positive and negative of both isms. It showed the positive of 1 and the negative of the other. A statement may simplify or frame a debate but that doesn't mean it's a helpful way of looking at an issue. Ignoring the complexities of isms like capitalism and socialism doesn't do justice to the debate at all. The quote just supports 1 side of that debate. That's nonsense. Some people call public healthcare socialism but Canada isn't the USSR. Some people call the financial bailout in the US socialism but I don't think the US is going communist in the near future. Not even everyone who says they believe in socialism can agree on exactly what socialism is so saying there's no variation is just hiding from reality.

My thoughts exactly. I remember reading an Australian magazine that had an article about the best places in the world to ski. Canada was 1 of the 1st places it talked about. Being a frozen wasteland isn't all bad.

Even if your guess about profits is right your math is wrong. $30million from the government doesn't mean $20million disappears. $10million in profit means at least $30million being spent and that assumes a profit of 1/3. The money doesn't disappear. I prefer common sense over blind mistrust. If we followed your advice we might as well throw out the entire study of economics. We don't have to blindly trust every claim made about government projects but that doesn't mean that all claims are false. You admit that several thousand customers show up on that weekend. Pretending there're no economic benefits assumes that these thousands of people don't eat don't stay in hotels don't use taxis and don't spend any money at all. The only claims that deserve to be ignored are the 1s that don't make any sense or are totally unsupported by reality.

Then quote your non western source. So far it looks exaggerated. Policing the world isn't the same as intervening to prevent the worst crimes like genocide. I've already said our failing with Rwanda and Darfur don't mean that intervening in other ethnic cleansing situations is wrong. Perhaps you should read the post you're responding to. I would've thought that my explicit support for intervention to prevent genocide would've been the part that shows I don't think Canada was wrong. Your attempts to shame Canada for killing people is nothing but hypocrisy when you then cheer on the killing of people by other countries. Is there a genocide happening in Caledonia right now? Please show me where natives are being massacred.

I doubt that. At the time almost all economists said income tax cuts would be better for Canadians. I'm not sure why that would change. Lower consumption tax may stimulate some spending but having more money each week from income tax cuts stimulates Canadians to spend or invest. And that spending can be used for anything but with GST cuts you only get savings on GST taxable things.

It's only meaningless when you ignore the evidence that there're problems associated with larger gaps. But I see you've just decided that there're no problems and only benefits. Must be nice to be able to pick and choose your information like that. This statistic is part of an overall picture. When discussing things like equality in society no single statistic will suffice.

Yes I too call for proactive action to prevent unsuitable parents from bringing up kids. I say let's create a database for everyone. All information about potential parents can be entered in. Age education income ethnicity occupation religion allergies. We can include town of residence and dietary needs and hair colour and political preferences. Those already with kids who're deemed unworthy will have their kids removed. We don't want unsuitable people bringing them up. Whether you've got kids or not all deemed unworthy shall be prohibited from having kids. Wait that's not proactive enough. Accidents happen. All deemed unworthy shall be prohibited from having sex. Much better. Except that might need enforcement. We'll start signing up recruits to watch these people. That even creates jobs so 2 problems solved. Who wouldn't want to spend their lives watching over teenagers in private? Maybe on 2nd thought that isn't a great idea. Too expensive to employ those people. Why not just go for sterilization? Then all those deemed unworthy can get a simple and quick procedure and we don't have to worry about all those unsuitable parents from bringing up kids.

I'm not sure why people are arguing this. The recent OECD study found that 1/5 of the change in the gap had to do with changes in age and household structure in the Canadian population. So people who say it's got an effect are right. And that effect was linked to 20% of the change in the most recent study. Up to each of you to decide if 20% is significant enough to outweigh the other factors.

Oh you're using the common "long-duration" definition of family. Tell me how long is long duration? Obviously a newborn child isn't part of any family. He or she's just too new. When does a child become part of a family? A decade seems like a long duration. Do kids have to be 10 before they're considered family? But they change a lot growing up so maybe it should be longer. 13 maybe? Maybe even 16? Seems a long time. Do you have kids? When did you start treating them as family? If you don't have kids that might explain the absolute idiocy of that statement. There's a difference between letting people live comfortably off the state and giving people enough breathing room so that they can take responsibility and make their lives better. You don't distinguish between these 2 options. Look at all the money we can save using your philosophy on life. We don't need to treat car accident victims any more. It was their choice to get in the car. They knew it was a risk therefore let them suffer. You want to work at a company like Enron? Sorry you're on your own. Sure you worked hard got an education and joined what everyone called 1 of the most successful companies in the US. But that was your choice. You should've realized that Enron would collapse taking all of your 401ks with it. No help for you. You should've worked somewhere else. You get the prize for most unenlightened post of the day. Depending on the day around here that's saying something.

The reality is that you say you don't want to break up families while seeming to support forcing families to either abort pregnancies or give their children up for adoption. You can't have it both ways. Your choice of options is interesting. You've missed the 1 option that we've been talking about here. 4. Support people so that they have the chance to improve their own situation. That doesn't involve making excuses for anyone and doesn't involve bailing them out. It's giving people the chance to bail themselves out. You can't demand that people take responsibility for their actions if they're in a situation where they can't do anything but struggle to tread water.

Are we making up numbers now? How exactly do you figure that 2/3 of any investment disappears? How is it that you continue to think promoting an event that's guaranteed to give economic and public relations benefits is something the government shouldn't do? You keep ignoring this by saying that money gets lost or that the project is a wash.

I've heard people say this in attempts to avoid discussion about poverty in Canada. It's a dismissive argument that misses the point entirely. Obviously Canada's poverty problem really doesn't compare to the poverty that exists in many other parts of the world. And hopefully we're compassionate enough to do something about it. But we can't solve the world's problems. What we can do is look at our problems. We can try to address our poverty issues. If someone complained about hospital wait times in Canada how would you address the problem? Would you point out that most people in the world don't get anywhere near the level of healthcare that we get and then tell them to stop complaining? Would you expect them to say well I guess if it's worse somewhere else then we shouldn't complain or try to improve our system? Just because it's worse elsewhere doesn't mean we don't have a problem and it definitely doesn't mean we should give up on trying to solve our problems.

Union members like that do exist. Many unions will publish their strike vote results before heading out on strike. I don't think I've seen any that were 100% in favour of striking.

It's a wonderful sentiment. Ideally people would plan to have children when their finances are in order and all that. But it's not reality. Some people make mistakes or poor choices. In other cases life intervenes and what used to be a financially sound situation changes. No matter the reason I don't think our society should be breaking up families. We should be helping them to stay together and get back on their feet. Statements like yours do nothing to help and don't reflect reality.

I'm not saying economic inequality is a 1 to 1 cause for crime. But higher inequality correlates with higher homicide rates so it isn't unreasonable to say that growing inequality is worrisome from that point of view. You tried to say there were other factors but the evidence shows those factors were controlled for when proving that correlation. I was referring to your guess that people are most likely healthier. Maybe that's true but you'd need some evidence to show that not just your feelings on the matter. Without something concrete it's just a guess. I think it matters. Especially if we see that the inequality is a large 1. Growing economic inequality means we should probably look into this as well. There was a study comparing England with the US. I think it found that the English were better off. I don't have the link but I'm sure if you search for SAS gradient and health it'll come up. Your question is better suited for google. That's exactly my point. We can both speculate on what a wider gap means. Is it really so hard for people to see that a widening gap raises questions and concerns that we should investigate? Your question on utility is better suited for an economics class. I don't know offhand any good intro to economics links but I'm sure you can find some. Or an economics textbook at a library. The 1st question can never be answered by a study like this. It's up to us to decide at what cost we're willing to do something. Polls will answer that not studies on statistics. Your 2nd question has an easy answer. We aren't. We're never ensured of anything with any government program. How are we ensured that a tax cut will deliver the promised benefits? We're not. See Reagan's policies for an example. How are we ensured that daycare will be improved with a small tax credit instead of investment in daycare spaces? We're not. Those questions only get answered in hindsight years after policies are put in place. You're entitled to your opinion. My speculations are just as valid as yours. I've even said that the wealthy do invest their money. Just like you so our examples aren't that different. But I'm saying it isn't hard to see that many won't be willing to risk their fortunes and will choose safer investments that usually lead to less growth than riskier investments. It seems that for some reason you think spending on immediate needs means the money just disappears. But you've missed part of the problem. If fewer people have greater wealth then there's less people out there with the opportunity to take risks and innovate. It doesn't seem a big stretch to think that less opportunities mean less growth. Either way recent studies seem to show that higher inequality leads to less growth and more growth leads to greater inequality. It's obvious that information like this leads to more questions and areas for potential concern. Saying a statistic like this doesn't matter ignores reality. This statistic can't be used on its own as the basis for any great policy change but it can form the basis for more research and should be a part of any policy rationale.

It seems like you're equating focusing on people who've got legitimate needs with a poorly designed system. Having that focus doesn't automatically mean you'll have a poorly designed system. We can agree that a poorly designed system isn't in anyone's interest. Support should be given so that people can meet their needs. Minimum wage shouldn't enter into the equation at this point. Once you know the level where those needs are met then if you want to give incentives to people to get jobs raise the minimum wage if you've got to. But giving support that can't even meet basic needs doesn't help anyone and helps to keep people poor. That's why I'm saying focus on the needs 1st then do what you can to limit freeloaders. So we're clear basic needs doesn't mean 4 bedroom house and playstations for everyone. Noone should have to give up their child because they can't afford food or shelter. Our system shouldn't force families apart. IOW any system has to have benefits that ensure basic needs are met so that people have the chance to improve their situation and get out of the system. Incentives to get out of the system need to come after these basic needs are met.

Source? From what I've read that number doesn't seem accurate but I'm happy to read your sources. No we're not the world police. But we now live in a world where we can get accurate information about the horrible things that happen in this world. We don't need to police every jaywalking infraction in the world but if people are being ethnically cleansed and nothing is being done to stop it then the whole world is to blame. We can't keep turning our backs on the innocent when they're being slaughtered. We should've been in Rwanda to stop the killings. We should be in Darfur. But our failings in Rwanda and Darfur don't change the fact that it's a good thing when genocide is stopped. The only people spitting in anyone's face were those who were killing people in those Slavic nations and those supporting it. That support came from people vocally supporting and from those who wanted a do nothing approach. The fact that you think Georgia was payback shows exactly how much you value human life. You don't care about people. You care about a political agenda. You've got no right to lecture others about what's right and wrong when you support death and destruction. The traditional notion of sovereignty is slowly dying. We're approaching a point where countries can no longer do whatever they want within their borders without regards to the consequences. If a nation is unwilling to protect its people from horrors like genocide then it forfeits its right to sovereignty. Going into Iraq at that time and in that way was a mistake. But you won't catch me mourning the fact that a regime that supported torture and ethnic cleansing is gone.

Aaarrggh! 2 seconds of google searching or reading the posts in this topic can answer some of these questions. http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index....st&p=354216 August1991 you're absolutely right that demographics plays a part in this. The article didn't say this but the country notes for the report did. 1 of the reasons why I'd like to see the real report. I'm just not going to pay $100 for it. The part you'd be interested in is this The article didn't report this part of the country notes. It also didn't get all of its information correct so I'm guessing this was a rush job that turned out poorly.

I find those that immediately label discussions like this as appeals to communism are those that've already made up their minds about how they think about socioeconomic status and don't want to consider any statistics or evidence that might upset their world view. Capitalism does produce income inequality and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But that doesn't make it a good thing. It can be a bad thing and complaining about the negative effects of income inequality is not pointless. Others want a balance? Your description of the options available is 1 sided. Some people dismiss the freeloader problem. And some people dismiss the legitimate needs of poor people. The people that want a balance recognize that some freeloaders will get into the system and some legitimate people will be missed. Within that balance there's the camp that says it's better to try to help more legitimate people and we'll try to limit freeloaders as best we can. Compared to the other camp who want a balance that focus on eliminating freeloaders and say we'll try to cover as many legitimate people as we can. Personally I think the focus should be on helping those in need and not on limiting access. But that doesn't mean I dismiss the freeloader problem.

There are lots of factors but if you'd read the link and the sources cited there you'd see that those factors were controlled for in the studies. The evidence shows that you can say there's a link between economic inequality and homicide rate. It'd be nice to believe otherwise but that's not what the evidence says at this point. But you're guessing again. It's been shown that socioeconomic status affects health where poorer people are less healthy than richer people. This doesn't just apply to some poverty line cutoff where only people below that line are less healthy. It's a constant gradient. Poor people are less healthy than middle class people who're less healthy than rich people. It's true that poor people in Canada may be better off than poor people in the US but that doesn't change the fact that within Canada itself increased economic inequality means increased health inequality. And that should be a cause for concern or at least further investigation. Remember I was answering the question about why economic inequality matters. I'm not saying the OECD results show that poor Canadians are dying in the streets. You're speculating again. A wider gap can also be taken to mean that resources and rewards are being inefficiently focused away from those who can produce because the rich keep all of this to themselves rather than allowing others to reach their economic potential. Efficiency doesn't mean efficiency of consumption or production. There're other measures. And utility isn't the same as efficiency. I know we don't all have time to do research on every topic that comes up here but I included the link for a reason. It has information on the definition of economic utility, distributive efficiency and the possible effects of economic inequality on economic growth. I'm not an expert but much of the research seems to show that economic inequality is overall more bad than good. But it isn't hard to come up with examples of why economic inequality can have a negative impact on growth. Growth comes from hard work and risk taking. If most wealth is concentrated in a few hands then what incentive is there for risk taking? All the hard work can be done by the poor in industries that keep the rich in comfortable lifestyles without really innovating or risking their investments. A lack of resources keeps those at the lower end from making meaningful attempts at starting their own businesses. That's a more extreme example and doesn't seem to be the case in Canada. And economic inequality does give an incentive to people to work harder to get richer. But I don't think Canada was at the point where we were so equal that incentive disappeared so to see the gap widening to me seems more likely a bad thing than a good thing.