Machjo

I think what's described above is simplistic at best. Extreme socialist is certainly harmful, but remember even in real life students do help each other voluntarily as friends without any expectation of reward. People do voluntarily give of their wealth to charity. The example above fails to acknowledge that.

IMHO, the Ontario system is extremely stiffling compared to the European systems. Just to compare: Sweden: The voucher system described in the link. I'm guessing it must all be in Swedish, but then again, that is the only and indigenous language of the country. Ontario: You get to choose between the nearest French-medium secular, French-medium Catholic, English-medium secular, or English-medium Catholic school. Hungary: Each school is free to teach the second-language of its choice as long as it can present a course plan for that language to be approved by the Ministry of Education to ensure its pedagogical quality; and pupils can choose to sit the second-language test of their choice among the languages available. The Hungarian model is generally considered the most progressive one on the European continent at the momeent, comparable to the British model. This is s lightly improved version of the British model; and many other European countries, as well as some Canadian provinces, also give at least a few choices of second-languages to fulfil second-language requirements for highschool graduation. Ontario: English-medium pupils must learn French, and French-medium pupils must learn English, with schools not even free to offer the lcoal Aboriginal language or sign languages to fulfil high-school second-language requirements. I don't see why the left opposes the voucher system. Europe is generally considered more to the left than Ontario, though it may be that whereas Ontario's left is a more authoritatrian variety, the European variety is more libertarian. The left could benefit from such freedom and a voucher system too. For example, it coudl allow more choice among media of instruction, including not only English and French, but First Nations languages soo; and it could allow First Nations languages and sign languages as alternatives to French as a second language too, along with the social benefits that would come with that. Looking at it that way, the only reason for the left to oppose the voucher system is to spite itself, a kind of 'drown him even if I drown with him' mentality. Pure spite. So what if the right might benefit from a voucher system? The left could too. Yet the left chooses to sacrifice itself just to hurt the right. How spiteful can it get?

The need is here already. And yes, it was artificially induced unintentionally through the invention of the telgraph.

That's exactly why we'd need a decentralized world government with the world level having the power to enforce its laws.

I guess I used the wrong word. How about 'leveled', as in levels of government. We should point out too that an international organization is not necessarily a government. Even the UN is technically an international intergovernmental organization comprising national governments, and not an international government, meaning that while it can pass resolutions, it can't usually pass 'laws' per se without nations each signing on to it; and its resolutions are non-binding and generally unenforceable, making the UN a paper tiger of sorts. This is where I see the need for a world government. Seeing how intertwined our nations have become, we need a world government to deal with those issues that national governments cannot deal with particularly efficiently. However, there would still be many things that national or even local governments could do better than a world government, and that's why I believe that a decentralized federal model would be the only way to go.

I only brought up religion here because it was mentioned. However, I could not see a world government functioning without, at minimum, national governments and local governments too. For any world federation to work, it would need to be decentralized. And yes, one God, one government, but nothing says that government could not be 'layered'.

Granted, there is a branch of Judaism that accepts the Torah only. I forget the name of that group though, but it's true that they would reject Zephaniah (as he comes after the Torah) but would accept Genesis, as it's within the first five books of the Bible comprising the Torah.

And if you knew a few languages, you'd likewise be aware that some languages recycle roots much more frequently than others thus allowing for greater root repetition over the course of learning new words and thus accelerating the learning of the language. Had you known a few languages, you'd be aware that not all languages are equally easy to learn. Some can be much easier to learn than others.

Esperanto works on redundancy. It relies on set roots that can be combined without restrictions other than universally applicable grammar, capable of creating new words instantly. In fact, it's quite common for Esperanto speakers to create new words and others to understand their meaning chrystal clear even though they may never have heard the word before, owing to the fact that they can decyther the parts of the word. This redundancy provides the necessary repetition as new words are learnt, since they will often simply recycle already learnt words, unlike French and English that always have to teach new words.

Compare: I am Mi estas You are Vi estas He is Li estas She is Shi estas We are Ni estas You are Vi estas They are Ili estas I am Mi estas I was Mi estis I shall be Mi estos I would be Mi estus Be! Estu! Notice: -as present -is past -os future -us conditional -u imperative -i infinitive monkey simio simian simia in a monkeylike manner simie -o noun -a adjective -e adverb suno sun suna solar luno moon luna lunar patro father patrino mother knabo boy knabino girl bovo ox bovino cow ino female -in- feminine bono good (noun) bona good (adjective) bone well bono good malbono evil sana healthy malsana unhealthy mal- direct opposite san/a healthy ul/o person ej/o place malsanulejo hospital jes yes jeso affirmation jesi to affirm jesa affirmative ne no neo negation, denial nea negative nei deny dek ten unu one dek unu eleven du two dek du twelve dudek twenty dudek unu twenty-one I could go on, but I think this shows quite clearly that Esperanto is far easier to learn than either English or French.

Zephaniah 3:9 comes after that, and the Baha'i writings come much later still.

Well, if you want to get religious about it, Zephaniah 3:9. Or alternatively, look up the position of the sacred texts of the Baha'i Faith on the issue of a Universal Auxiliary Language.

OK, you do have a point there. All change must be evolutionary, not revolutionary. I think from that standpoint that countries like Italy and the UK and others have found the right balance by simply giving schools the freedom to teach Esperanto should they wish to do so to fulfil pupils' second-language requirements for highschool graduation. Besides, many in Canada fail to learn English of French as their second language, so instead of wasting their time learning a language that's too difficult for them, why not give each school the freedom, should it wish to do so, and according to the availability of teaching resources, etc. to offer it as an alternative to English or French, especially to struggling pupils who don't stand a chance with the more difficult languages. That could be a start.

I think we can't ignore the fact either that a long protracted war has the military just about recruited out, leaving them with the leftover crumbs still willing to apply.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3717744.stm Your thoughts?

Interesting. I've considered running too if no other intends to run as an independent in my riding. Honestly, I've heard and read people from both the right and the left who are disillusioned with the party system, whether they're left of the NDP, right of the Conservatives, or anywhere in between. There really is a movement here I think and it cuts across party lines. I'm almost tempted to vote in an independent no matter whether he's right or left if he promises to bring us to non-partisan democracy.

If we make enough noise about it, why not? I'd spoilt my ballot last election and have just sent an -email to elections Canada requesting a non-partisan ballot (i.e. a ballot with no party names on it). While one person can't do much about it, if enough people joined in to flood Elections Canada's e-mail box and more people started going to vote even if they do just hand their ballot back, spoil it, or whatever, the current system would collapse. They'd have no choice but to finally respond. Another party will just lead to the same corruption as before.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090802/...oo_fat_to_fight

Am I a libertarian?

Then again, what goes on within a political party is none of my business, as I'm not a member of any party anyway, and don't want to be.

If I should sneak into a harmonious organization to try to spread conflict, I'll fail. If I succeeed in sparking a conflict, then that means the fuel was there already. Now, this is just an accusation, with no proof yet. But for the sake of argument, let's assume the Liberals are in fact doing this. Sure they're in the wrong there, but that still doesn't change the fact that they could have succeeded in igniting the fire only if the fuel was there already.

I'd just e-mailed this to Elections Canada this morning: Dear Sir or Madam, I was wondering if it is possible at the beginning of an election campaign for a voter to request a non-party ballot (i.e. a ballot without any party name mentioned, with any money distributed from that ballot going to the candidate instead of the party) to be sent either to the voter's home or, alternatively, to a voting hall where it is reserved for when the voter arrives to request it. I'm asking this because I find it offensive that my voting for a candidate gives the false impression that I'm also voting for his party, thus making it difficult for me to check a candidate's name when a party name appeares underneath it. Beyond the symbolic significance of this, there is also the material financial benefit that a party gains even from a vote for a candidate which, in my opinion, essentially amounts to a bait-and-switch, whereby I vote for a candidate, with Elections Canada then interpreting it as a vote for the party, and rewarding the party accordingly. I thank you for your attention, and look forward to your response. Yours sincerely, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now I don't know if they'll receive it though. No e-mail address appeared on their webpage, so I filled in the e-mail form on their site. After clicking send, I got a message saying the page could not be found. So either I've sent multiple copies in my attempt to get past that, or that's a normal response. Anyway, at least I tried to send it.

Exactly. That's why the Italians have the word 'cocacolonizare', Coca-Cola colonization, in reference to American cultural hegemony. Italy, by the way, is one country whose government does allow Esperanto in schools. It's also interesting to note that when the EU had a vote on Esperanto to stand as the official default pivot language in the Europarl, 43% voted in favour. Right now, English is the unofficial, defacto one, yet no country supports making that official. I'd read of one meeting where some EU Parliamentarians refused to participate in a debate unless interpretation was available in their language. So it would seem that in the Europarl, at least among those who do support one official language, Esperanto has gained more support than English. Those who oppose Esperanto generally favour official multilingualism.