willy

It is no surprise, I don't see this country as revenue starved and if I did I would not advocate more taxes. I would advocate more economic production. The government does however have little to do with economic growth directly. All government can do is enable a competitive tax environment, good transportation and an educated work force. Then they need to stay out of the way. It is reasonable to expect our military to be able to be in the air, on land and in the water. Our equipment is not sufficient. The fact we have to lease planes is a clear example of inadequate capital resources. This does not make us war mongers but recognizes that for peace keeping and disaster aid we need equipment that works and does not put our soldiers in unreasonable danger.

To follow your argument. We are only part of nature Nature is never wrong _____________________ Humans are wrong Are you sure that you might want to think about that a little more.

Decisions and issue positions should be made with the context of each situation being examined. All situations are dynamic and as information changes positions may change. The values that help you make decision should be more concrete. The party is not perfect but who or what is. I don't agree with many things in the Conservative party from simple messaging to complex policy but that being said they are my team. What is your team? If you don't have one you aren't even in the game. Fans make lots of noise but really do they change anything. daniel what brilliant leader would you have us follow and what are the clear positions they represent.

What's your point? It is clear you don't like how they approach these issues but to say you really don't know where they stand is silly. No one likes taxes. But governments need revenues. They think the MP's should represent constituents and debate issues in the house like Same Sex Marriage. They wanted Canada to support the US in Iraq but recognize that we don't have the resources to help. We are active in Afghanistan and that is in conjunction with the US war on terror. Canada should be careful when poking the big elephant to the south and it would be wise to use discretion when we disagree. We are dependent on them to maintain our standard of living and the revenues in taxes we need to pay for our government services. So again what is your point? You put a negative spin on their stance and I put the positive. It is a democracy and they represent me well. You don't have to agree that is why we have other parties. One other little thing, what does this have to do with the topic of tax cuts and military spending?

What kind of shares? Were they part of a mutual fund or did he purchase them individually. Are they voting shares? When were they purchased and has he intervened to make a difference to the stock value? Should politicians own any investments? Say he owns his home in Vancouver and went for the Olympics and the value of his home went up because of it. Is this not the same conflict of interest? As for the Suzuki Foundation, they are not an unbiased source. Do businesses even have the right to operate anymore in BC? At one time the fish farms were thought to take the pressure of over fishing the wild stocks. Now they have dueling scientists. I don't know what the truth is but I do know that I trust environment Canada's studies more than Suzuki, Sierra, or some lady with a net.

Read it yourself. http://www.conservative.ca/english/issues.asp The small c "conservatives" on this forum are individuals and they can think what they like. None of us are in a position to say what everyone of anything believes. But I can read a policy statement. If a new issue was to arise, I can guess based on my experience what the position of the Conservative Party would be. I am usally in agreement. This makes me a Conservative with a big C. The Conservative Party has some core beliefs and I am sure you recognize them. And please don't hate me because you aint me.

Jesus? Who was he? It is presumptuous to say you know the will of God but that is not to say we no nothing of God? Prayer, bible, spirt.

This is not without substance. The style of politics that the Liberal Party has used for the last 12 years is one that lacks vision and substance. They govern by polls and try to be everything to everyone. When doing this one gets caught in many lies. At least the NDP and the Conservatives have a clear stance and ideals. The Liberals have the Gormly commission!! Back to topic, I am a Conservative and we need a public military. Neocons don't believe in no government, that would be anarchy. When commenting on parties we should not get confused with the definitions of the words that are used to describe our political beliefs. The Conservative Party is a title and not the definition of neocon. Many views can be accommodated by the party as a coalition of interests. I think this tread was trying to explore what those that support this party feel about these issues. The socialists among us are so egotistical they had to chime in, because as they always state it is not fair or equitable unless they can wreck a good thing.

Two points: I never suggested that this was an ideal. Many must be self reliant so the few who can't will be taken care of. Look at it this way, some need to produce to much so others may have some if they can not produce at all. If we were all waiting for someone else to produce we would grow hungry and cold. The world needs productive people. Second point is simply that the US gets a bad rap. The underprivileged that you talk about flock to the US for a better life. They call it the land of opportunity for a reason.

If you are going to quote me, you should include the qualifier statement. We need government help, but to give up our self determination to institutions is Russia 1904 - 1988. That worked out well. This is not about no institutions, but to think institutions can propagate the common good is not realistic. That my friend is the worst kind of romanticism and it plays out on both sides of the political spectrum. The answer is what works and not to idealize organizations. If we have all seen the movie the Corporation or read the book by now, it show very good examples why we should not trust institutions. They have no personality, no individual accountability, they are in essence psychopathic.

"In essence, freedom and compulsion are one. Let me give you a simple illustration. Traffic lights restrain your freedom to crosss a street whenever you wish. But this restrain gives you the freedom from being run over by a truck. If you were assigned to a job and prohibited from leaving it, it would restrain the freedom of your career. But it would give you freedom from the fear of unemployment. Whenever a new compulsion is imposed upon us, we automat6ically gain a new freedom. The two are inseparable. Only by accepting total compulsion can we achieve total freedom." Ayn Rand And with that being said accepting God is the greatest freedom I have ever known, and for none Christians, faith is something one experiences. It has both a physical and perceptual reality. As for banning the Church, not possible if there is a God.

Maplesyrup, I care about being able to pay for my kids, education, health care ect. What worries me is that people like yourself believe taxes are limitless. I don't want to be left hoping someone else is still able to make enough money to afford to pay for my kids and everyone else’s. For this thing to work called society we need some self reliance and the more the better for those who have no choice but to rely on help (disabled, disaster). As for the military vs. tax cuts. We need to have a competitive tax system so we can grow our economy; this is separate from the military. The government has certain roles to play and the military is one of them, and they need adequate funding. It is hard to argue that they are getting it now. We have an 8 billion dollar surplus this year, going forward we have room for tax cuts and military spending. Conservatives do argue for smaller government but I for one still acknowledge the roles government needs to play and this does take taxes.

IMO we should come to the aid of those in need. caesar, if you need money do something of value that you may get remunerated for. In other words find a job. If your house burns down give me a call and I will give you 5 bucks, that should be sufficient because my family needs to eat and go to the dentist. I feel no guilt August, but I do feel lucky not to of had my family washed away. I agree the PM PM will make great statements, like he did earlier this year with Sudan and then make meaningless gestures. The fact the story will die does not make the suffering go away and we have an opportunity to be useful with our resources. I know we find many other ways of wasting the money. (add scams, gun registries etc) Okay so the Red Cross, Unicef, World Vision, Doctors with out boarders are all bad then. We should not bother. Going by this theory we should not send any of our tax dollars to Ottawa because they have ripped me off for many years now.

Can you say disaster? 11 countries 65 000 dead A 100 million doesn't even build a bridge in Vancouver. Save them? 100 million is still inadequate, but at least it is not the pennies in my pocket. 4 million cant buy a decent hockey player let alone, aid millions of people who will die. How arrogant can you be? And by the way who have we offered our services to? Source a story that doesn't state that the team needs to be requested. You chime on about the evil Campbell government but when people really are in immediate need you go to this Canadians first stuff. without an overwhelming out pouring of help that number above will double because of disease and starvation. You help because you can. I am sickened by your response. Wow, this is the compassionate left in our country. I hope your other socialist friends at least have a hart outside of their own self interest. When people cant help themselves you help them. We have an annual budget of 180 billion in our federal government. .5% of that goes to world aid and that number has been shrinking for ten years. And this is not systemic aid, it is disaster relief. We should do more and we use to. The last Conservative government spent millions fighting world hunger and building schools around the world. We never should have stopped.

Caesar, The DART team, two areas of expertise: * water purification * mobile hospitals Both of which are very much needed and will be for some time. They need to offer it now. They also need to send more than 4 million. That is a joke. If we can claim to be humanitarians we need to pony up. Order of magnitude, like 100 million would be more like it.

His name is Todd. He got what any other person who committed a first offence would get. The civil case is also yet to come. You fix hockey by getting rid of fighting and not by punishing one poor shmo who played the way he was taught.

War and Peace, long book for a great last chapter. I took a different conclusion out of his last chapter. Individuals are parts of great events but the events are larger than any individual. When I learned history in grade school the focus was on the great leaders or hero's of history but I thought Tolstoy articulated quite well how the actions of many individuals culminates into a historical event. (Not just Bonaparte) The quote I used here was from Anna Karenina, again in the last few chapters Tolstoy gets to the meat. Levin an intellectual and reasoned fellow comes to his faith in an instant when it occurs to him that it was an emotional decision and not a reasoned process. As for what do I mean by reason. I was trying to explore the basis many use on this forum to form their world view. Science is king and we will figure out this world. The basis of science in my mind is logical deduction. I would state that deduction or reason is a limited human experience and there is more to life. I am interested to see if there is a strong argument that this is all there is to life.

Your examples of evolution are just the development of technology. They have changed the context to which we live. Have we really evolved as people? People still treat each other the same way. We are not more compassionate. Show me examples of how individual behaviour has evolved. We are still self centered, angry, scared, joyful, loving, and hating people we have always been. The notion of evolution connotes progress. When only grey moths lived through the industrial revolution were they improved because as prey they had better camouflage? Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge. We figure some things out but we don't rely on our reason to breath, we just do. Emotion vs. Precognition Many things we react to. This is not an absence of mind but the reaction of mind. Baby in a burning building may cause a parent to run back in. I am only suggesting that much of our lives are not spent in reason. AND When we reason we are always bound by our experience, our experience is limited, thus our reason is flawed. The process of reason puts individuals as the center of their universe to decide the validity of God, good, bad, and responsibility. Some of these concepts may not be understood by way of reason, and may involve emotion. And as someone who believes in God I can say by design.

We have had many debates about pluralism, reasoning to prove God, and the way it should be. I have noticed a strong trust that many who post here have in their ability to reason. So as it has been said about God on this forum, why would life be better if we have only faith in reason. As a conversation starter, I found a quote:

Ask the family? They would offer opinions as to why but that would not be quantifiable or testable. The only reason that you say the family is because I stated why the cake. If I did not give the why, you would not know to ask about a family or any other relationship for that matter. The measurement and testing in science is limited to the data set that judgments deem related. This is always bounded by the person measuring. My point is that studying a subject i.e. the cake will never tell you why the cake. Change of pace and unrelated to the cake question. Test fun. Test happy. Test sadness. Pure observation will not work. Tears can be caused by many things. The science of people is tough. We can relate to these emotions so adjectives describe the study of these emotions. Studies also offer descriptions of behaviours that would suggest theses emotions. The study becomes as much about the studiers experience as it is about the subject. So when an atheist studies a religious culture they come to many different conclusions than if a person of faith would if they were to study the same thing. Scientific method works well with chemistry, physics, geography, but the study of people is not consistent. The control group is never the same. The theories have too many exemptions.

So say you had a cake and it had candles on it. You wanted to find out why the cake was there. The scientists started to run the tests. It has sugar and flour and the candles are wax. The candles will burn and stay burning for 15 minutes. The colour is white of the out side is white and the inside is brown. The cake weights 1500 grams and takes up 20 cubic cm. We then observed the cake and it just got old. What test could you run on the cake to find out why it was made? This is the problem in science, it does a great job of examining what but it is incapable of answering why. By the way it is a birthday cake for a family. The cake was made to make a little girl feel special and her mom new chocolate was her favorite.

Great Doodler, I was making a statement about how to encourage less people to have to make a tough decision. You came back with everyone can be stupid. Granted everyone can be stupid, but how does that further any discussion. My statement was not to blame young people. It was knowing they are more likely to engage in behaviours that are more likely to result in unwanted pregnancy we have an opportunity to influence that behaviour. What are you saying? Should we not care how many people get abortions? Do we neglect that even if you are pro-choice this is a negative experience that women don't need to experience?

Sure but if I looked it up (Maybe later I will go and find the supporting evidence) those between the ages of 16 and 26 would be the ones that use the service most. They tend to have more partners, less wisdom and are not married. This of course is a generalization but the correlation is likely. I am sure that as with any distribution that those out side of one standard deviation exist.

This is a good reason to not have the government look after us. They may not know whats best.

I will bite a little. We should spend a lot more time and money on promoting prevention of unwanted pregnancy. Abstinence programs, condoms, teaching kids that it is important to be responsible. Everyone should respect the consequences enough not to engage is sex lightly. Culturally we are very casual about sex. Should we aim to restore some of the stigma back to the sexual habits we maintain? I do know that any young person having to make that choice of abortion will affect them for the rest of their lives. Better if they never had to go there.