G Huxley

Why on earth would anyone want 100 million people in Canada? Is it just greed?

Hey Queen when was the last time Canada was actually attacked by another military? I mean actual boots on the ground. As far as I'm aware other than a couple of mini skirmishes it was 1812 and it was from our neighbours down south. That's over 200 years ago. Can't think of anything else we could be doing with all that money? Although totally agree on your population/environmental position.

If you think Harper hasn't been emulating the neoconservatives in the States Argus you haven't a clue or are in deep denial. Let's talk about refugees. Let's talk about how the neoconservatives and NATO completely destabilized the region and THAT's why there are all these refugees.

We're bickering over the details of insanely huge amounts of money wasted for nothing. The fact is there were far more riot police there than were actual protestors and even if they were 20% underbudget in the end why was there A BILLION DOLLARS for TWO DAYS budgeted in the first place? The current government in Ottawa is utterly INSANE and FISCALLY RECKLESS.

That's it folks. A billion dollars or close to it wasn't enough spent for TWO DAYS. If that's not FISCAL CONSERVATISM from a conservative what is?

So Drummin you must be absolutely appalled then that Harper spent a BILLION DOLLARS in ONE DAY on security for the G20. Correct?

Yes, but it wasn't necessary, like all this cowardliness.

"Well, obviously there's no evidence. Why would they expose themselves if something is working? I mean, that seems like a no brainer to me." Arrests are made public all the time. "I was talking about the guy shot outside, not the guy shot by the Sergeant of Arms. I don't care who killed him, as long as somebody did." So the security system already in place protected it as it was intended. It worked. There thus was no need for the massive perhaps unconstitutional power grab which followed.

Papen wasn't a National Socialist. He was a conservative enabler like Hindenberg. So no hyperbole. " And your lax on gun control statement is laughable, except for the fact that the multi billion dollar long gun registry boondoggle is too painful to laugh at. Billions making sure farmers had their prairie dog shooting boom sticks accounted for. Please." Oh so noowwwwww the far righters are worried about wasting billions of dollars to protect people. Could the hypocrisy be any more apparent?????????????????????? How about the billion dollars spent on ONE DAY of security for the G20 by Harper. You never hear the far righters saying that is a waste of money do you?

So there's no evidence the mass surveillance apparatus saved any Canadian lives. Thank you I rest my case. "As for the gun, I don't know. Was it legal or illegal? Either way the guy's dead." And who killed him? The Sergeant of Arms. What did Harper the guy who hid in the closet while his defense minister twittered do after? He took away the Sergeant of Arms' historic responsibility for security for parliament and gave it to the RCMP the same people who failed to stop the attack a blatant power grab far outside anything in memory.

You don't really save two, because first you've given up democracy by spying on your own citizens so you lost democracy and your own civil liberties and created an atmosphere which encourages more strife. Also by using a massive surveillance apparatus which dwarfs anything the stasi ever had like they currently have in the US/UK you waste billions of dollars of resources which could have actually been used to save far more people. Imagine how many lives would be saved if people had money and nutritional education so that they don't buy mcdonalds food and die of a heart attack in the hundreds of thousands each year or if that money went to better healthcare. I'll repeat spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save two people is a complete waste of resources when there are actual areas where it could do far more good and save far more. Such is the philosophy of utilitarianism. Also no amount of surveillance that was already in place and there were already massive amounts of surveillance saved those two people anyway so the claim that surveillance would have saved them is already shown to be false. Let's say they surveilled the guy who ran those two people over. Maybe they did the entire time. They could have surveiled him his entire life and it wouldn't have made one difference if he suddenly just decided to run some people over. So again the surveillance state is just a false sense of security and is just another paper tiger/waste of funds. Meanwhile the conservatives are for being lax on gun control, when THAT is a real danger. Where do you think that guy got the weapon he attacked parliament with? What do you think guy with the Clint Eastwood avatar?

The US who the Harper government has so desperately tried to emulate has already gone Stasi as has the UK. Re: the second part. You simply don't understand that it's a matter of perspective as tragic as a couple of people who got run over by some dingbat thinking he was taking part in the other side of Harper's crusade is, it's nothing compared to the thousands of lives that could be saved each year if people wore helmets in cars. It's numbers, logic and higher thinking something the far right is in desperate lack of, wishing to appeal only to base animal emotions such as fight/flight fear and insecurity. That's more interesting to watch on the discovery channel rather than to see it as a basis for a national political movement.

Yes the link between the far right and the Nazis shouldn't be a difficult one to figure out. Do you know who formed a coalition government with Hitler? The Conservative party under Von Papen. And you know what was used as justification for the creation of the gestapo? A terror attack on parliament known as the Reichstag fire. Not that I'm saying that our government is likely to be as systematically as vulgar as the gestapo, but massive total surveillance on Canadians due to the paranoia of a bunch of cowards who would have us live in a paranoia state like China or Eastern Europe in the 1950s over something that is less harmful to us than lightning strikes is a disgrace. I'd rather live in a nation of brave people than among a nation of cowards. As Ben Franklin said: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.

"Yeah, I forgot everybody dies." It's something that puts things into perspective and makes the hysteria over fear of unlikely death pretty obvious doesn't it? "The problem is, of course, that you have absolutely no idea of the when, where or who of a terrorist attack." Same with a lightning strike. "You're views are motivated by your political leanings, not any kind of security necessity. That's because more people are killed in car crashes, and at McDonalds, that are killed by terrorists. Me, I think if someone dies from eating McDonalds, it's their own fault." And in this case the people who die are a result of the neoconservatives in North America including Harper trying to draw us into an Us Vs. them conflict with radical extremists so as to secure their elections. " So, while I really have no idea what secret, black op, intelligence gathering steps the government is taking right now to keep me safe and Stephen Harper's head on his shoulders, I hope they continue to do so, and also come up with evermore secret and effective ways of doing so." So just like the Germans in the 1930s gave up their rights to a massive security apparatus that took away their rights to privacy you commit the same error in fear like a coward.

I didn't say it was OK for anyone to die. (Although the reality is every single person dies) In fact I already said that these could have easily been prevented by a government that was much less hotheaded than the previous government e.g. like all previous governments. The point is that the insecurity card is a form of hysteria. It's a protection racket. It plays on herd psychology so that people act like scared sheep giving up power to a dubious leader who has nothing else to offer than a false sense of security. If we are really concerned about human life. Let's ban Mcdonalds. Mcdonalds kills far far far far more people in Canada than ISIS ever will. Or how about let's mandate helmets for people in cars. Oh but that doesn't feel so good wearing a helmet in a car, we'd look silly then. Yet studies have shown that wearing helmets in cars would greatly reduce numbers of people killed in car accidents. So let's face it if we aren't going to ban Mcdonalds, and make people wear helmets in cars, the truth is we really don't need to go hysterical over something that is far less likely to kill us than lightning strikes. What are we a nation of cowards? Do you huddle in a corner and cry for Harper to hold your hand every time there is a lightning strike?

It's not too scary at all. In fact Canadians are far far more likely to die in lightning strikes. You are millions of times more likely to die in a car crash at any time of the day. That's why it's simply a red herring. On the list of important issues it's way way way down the list. Before Harper opened his big mouth we hadn't even experienced an attack due to radical Islam on Canadian soil in memory.

The Us vs. Them protection racket of the far right is herd psychology at it's most base form. It's the same stuff Hitler utilized. I said before the attacks that Harper was using his bellicose rhetoric so as obviously to inspire attacks on Canada that would get him get re-elected. Psychopathology is an interesting thing. The attacks immediately sent his poll numbers soaring afterward which was noted by the pollsters although this has since leveled out afterward. Also your own bellicose rhetoric is a perfect case in point for what I am saying. Since the far right has nothing to offer, like ISIS etc. all they have to peddle and to legitimize themselves with is fear and insecurity.

I explained it a year ago on another board as such: "This was all predictable. Harper has been ramping the Bushite rhetoric against Islamic radicalism with the predictable result that attacks would follow. He could have played it cool and low key and attacked IS entering Kurdistan without the over the top propaganda campaign, but he's doing this to get re-elected. I've suspected that he actually wants Canada to get attacked to help his re-election. Its a tragedy and Harper is responsible. This was so obviously coming. Canada had not had any attack previously, because Canada had played it very cool. Even when we entered Afghanistan we didn't get attacked, because the bombastic rhetoric was simply not there. This is a crime and Harper's irresponsible rhetoric is responsible and should be held accountable by the voters. He is bringing Canada into a sort of conflict we don't need and it is causing the tragic and needless deaths of Canadians." http://www.selectsmart.com/DISCUSS/read.php?16,1013905,1014137#msg-1014137

Expect a whole slew of 'first posters' to appear and then disappear after this thread. Aufait the most dangerous thing to Canadians at this point is Harper opening his big mouth.

Let's talk about the G20. Harper spent 1 billion dollars of Canadian tax payers dollars for an army that day that had far more people than actual protestors. He makes Duffy look like amateur hour.

It's about the party's only asset. Other than the donations and third party advertising of course.

There's a good portion of the base who'll spend their whole lives not believing in evolution (or simply believing in greed) and voting straight conservative no matter what the party does.

Another conservative in the dock. Let's see Duffy, Brazeau, Bob and Doug Ford, Del Maestro. Does criminality run in this party or what?

There was a Flintstones Park in the interior of B.C. when I was a kid, but then Stockwell Day kept trying to turn it into a museum.

Hey BC guess what country William Shatner is from? Canada.