DAC

Digby, come on! Enough is enough! This business of grabbing a few words out of their context and throwing them around is not far from an attack on Jesus Christ, whom you profess to serve. It's the kind of things atheists who hate Christianity do. Is that where you want to stand? You grabbed four words from Isaiah 58:1 "Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins." This was a command to the prophet Isaiah, with only the force of an example for the rest of us. Further, he was not told to cry aloud to the world, but to the people of God. And yes, you're right. I don't agree that Hosea 4 is a message to us, in the sense you are using it. It is a message to the church of that day, and we can assume that it speaks to the church today, if it follows the same paths as Israel did. But this forum is not the church. There are quite a few who join the discussion who explicitly reject Christianity. The Bible's message warns of judgment, but it is not a slash and bash vitriolic attack on people around. It speaks soberly of sin and its consequences, and calls all people to see the love of God in Christ, who gave his life to cover the guilt of our sin, so we may enjoy God and his blessing. Your throwing around of condemnatory texts taken out of their contexts does not contribute, and gives an extremely distorted picture of Christ.

The original question was, "How can we restore and strengthen the traditional family". We've diverted into a question of whether that is desirable, which is both a valid and interesting question. I've been watching and thinking, and am ready, I think to throw in some thoughts. First of all, the debate about statistics and causes, I think, has become a red herring. The bottom line is that outside of mathematics, an absolute proof of anything is extremely difficult. The best we do is to present theories that have some broad fit. In the physical sciences, which are less complex, we agree that a theory is mistaken and needs revision if a single counter-example can be found. In the social "sciences", that eliminates everything. We outlaw child porn because there is a clear statistical connection between it and child abuse. The statistical connection does not prove a cause-effect relationship, and it is almost certain that some who indulge in child porn do not go on to abuse children. But the connection is clear, whatever the actual cause, and because the consequences are extremely bad, we make all child porn use a crime. There is a statistical correlation between homosexual behaviour and family problems. Nobody seems to deny that. That is sufficient for us to say at least that we don't want to encourage homosexual families. Personally, I would say that until the homosexual movement gets together and makes very plain that groups such as NAMBLA have no place in their movement - that means excluding them from gay pride parades, for example - we should decline to allow homosexuals to adopt children. But at least there are grounds not to encourage formation of homosexual families. That leads back to the original question. How do we strengthen and encourage traditional families? I'd like to broaden the definition of a traditional family, a bit, because what we think of as the traditional family has really only been established in the western world in the last century or so. Before that in our society, and still in many parts of the world, the pattern is what is called the extended family. Children growing up and marrying do not move away from home, but continue as a family group, in which, for example, grandparents who can no longer manage heavy physical work watch over the children, while the parents work. Usually the children as they grow up begin to take on an increasing share in the family business. Through that learn both the skills and the habit of working. Child care is not assigned to strangers who may or may not support the family values, but to those who are likely the core leaders in those family values. Children have both a safe and friendly environment in which to grow. There is a lot to be said for that setup. However, barring some horrible disaster, I doubt we can return to it in the foreseeable future. The first step towards strengthening traditional families is to structure our taxes and our social services to make "family" beneficial. Change the tax code so that two people who are married, whether they are on a single income or a double income, can automatically share their income(s) for tax purposes and file separate returns. Structure social services so that single mothers do not lose benefits if they marry, unless the man they marry has sufficient income that they are clearly better off in marriage. Doing those things takes away economic incentives for avoiding marriage. It encourages two parent families. Next step - though I am right wing, as a Christian I believe in compassionate conservative views - structure our social services in such a way that it is possible for every family with children to make it without the mother being forced to work. Statistics I have seen are quite clear that children generally do better with their mother at home caring for them than they do in day care. Third step, work to restore the acceptance of parental authority. Recognize that children, even when they get into their teens, do not yet have the experience to make good decisions in all things. They are quick to try new things, quick to extend themselves, and need parental restraint. It's interesting that often they equate lack of parental rules with lack of love. Years back I read a book by David Wilkerson, Parents on trial. Wilkerson was working in the slums of New York with children, many of them runaways, caught up into gangs and drugs and crime. He said that he heard from those children, again and again, words to the effect, "My parents don't love me. They let me do anything I wanted. They did not stop me from ..." I may get tarred and feathered for saying this, but we need to back off the anti-spanking crusade. When the children were dragged away from a family in Ontario a couple of years ago, forcibly carried off by police against their will, kicking and screaming and fighting to get back to their parents, it was obvious that the police and social workers were causing those children far more trauma than all of the spankings those children had ever received. In my opinion the police and social workers should have been charged with child abuse. Certainly anybody else doing what they did would have been. As a child I was spanked frequently. I didn't like it. It hurt. My mother used a wooden spoon and my father a wide leather belt. But I was never injured or bruised. And I was not bent out of shape by it. When various authorities tell us that children are traumatized, bent out of shape by spankings, my answer is "Liar!" I have no problem with coming down like a mountain on the parent whose child carries bruises or worse injuries from a "spanking". I have no problem with knocking down the parent whose "discipline" of any sort is so frequent, or so unpredictable that his children walk in terror all the time. But if we are to have effective families, the "ban discipline" outlook has got to go. I'll stop there. I've no doubt given fuel for some to scream "Blue Murder" already. So I won't add more fuel to the fire.

This began with August 1991's post. The response so far has been a symptom of the problem. I'd like to try to start something more positive. That's a very interesting viewpoint, though I think it has an obvious bias. Attitude is the critical ingredient in making a country, as it is in making a marriage. If your attitude is that of an accountant - it's a good deal if I get paid back what I pay out - it goes nowhere. If your attitude is concern for the other person, your desire is to build the other person (or province) as you have the chance, then we find it easier to climb together higher than Everest. If mountain climbers pull one another down as they try to get themselves higher, they don't make it. If they each try to help the other up, they can go a long way up. Our need, if we are to succeed as a country, is to start rooting for, hoping for, & trying to help and build, the other parts of the country. If all of us do that, nobody in the world will come close to us. Way back in the year 1, when I was in the Navy, I travelled a lot back and forth across this land. I grew up in Saskatchewan, where there was very little chance to use French, and I'm not much of a linguist. (It's almost impossible for a poor linguist to learn a language when he has limited opportunity to use it. French Canadians need to accept that and be less critical of Anglophones who can't speak French.) But when I was in Quebec, if I stopped for a meal and some gas, I tried to use what limited French I knew. Back then, I always got a warm response and willing help when I got lost. They didn't mind speaking English with me, when I tried to speak their native tongue as best I could, and got stuck. But too many people, like a lot of the responses posted here imply, said in effect, "What's wrong with you idiots that you don't speak English?" Surprise! People didn't want to give them the time of day. Why should they bother to speak English with some slob who comes to their part of the country, a place where French is the common first tongue, and sneers at their language? Unfortunately, that conflict (& there has been fault on both sides) has developed into settled distrust and suspicion. Quebecois are less willing today to help someone struggling to communicate. Naturally enough, tourists who had troubles go home with the sense that the people of Quebec are a surly, unfriendly bunch. So things get worse. Quebecois feel that they aren't respected, aren't even wanted, so naturally some of them start saying, "In that case, let us out". Anglos feel that the Quebecois are disloyal (all this talk of separation), and a pain in the butt with their insistence on French, so some of them say, "Let them separate; who wants them". And the two conflicting sentiments build. Are there real problems? Of course. There are real problems between Conservative Alberta and NDP Saskatchewan. There are real problems between me and my wife. But if we stop trying to tear each other down, stop sneering at one another, and instead get serious about trying build and encourage one another, the problems can be solved. I hope and pray they are. For the record, I want Quebec to continue as a part of Canada. I think separation would diminish both parts in far more than size. We would lose a richness that we gain through our very differences. The first step is to start caring for one another. Doing that means we try to can the hate talk. That means people from Quebec have to police their own, and people from the West have to police their own ... Quebec would like to have more local control, as opposed to federal control. So would Alberta! I think there are other provinces that would appreciate that as well. So let's think seriously about how we can do that without tearing the country apart. Quebec is concerned about preserving its language and culture. A lot of the rest of Canada is concerned about having French language and culture imposed on them where there is no significant "market". So let's work at finding solutions which don't run to selfish extremes (Kill English in Quebec vs Kill the bilingualism program). A country is built by working together. Unless we are prepared to care about more than our own benefits (i.e. our provincial benefits) Canada will not last as a country. I think its demise would be a tragedy.

Oh, please tell us your hairstyle or eye colour. I'd really like to have something substantil to argue, something concrete, instead of much of the ad hominem abusive that goes on here. Can't we have a nice fight about whether your eyes are acceptable or not?

Something to really challenge your thinking about the basics of political philosophy is "Unbelief and revolution" by G. Groen van Prinsterer. Unfortunately, so far as I know only parts of it are available in English.

That’s why when I’m talking with you and the many like you, Rev B, I don’t focus on my primary reasons. They are not reasons at all for you and others, other than at the level of choosing which day is a fixed closing day, and there the reason I put forward is simply that in our society, Sunday is important to more people than any other “holy” day. But the principle of a closing day (as distinct from a holy day, which is matter of the heart) is protection of the weak, “that your slave may rest too”. If you look at my previous post, I put forward a Christian basis for government of a pluralistic society (we’re not secular, but pluralistic). It included nothing which enforced or promoted the heart convictions of Christians. It does not propose to try to legislate the gospel. It is a government based on honest convictions which deals with outward issues in a Christian way. As someone responded to a similar statement of mine, that involves principles which receive broad support. But one advantage of coming from a Christian base is that it includes a distinct pressure to be honest, even if it means you don’t win. I think from other things you’ve said that you’d agree that such honesty is a refreshing breeze in our present political swamp.

Then let me tell you one thing you can approve about the CHP. Their policy calls for proportional representation. Personally, I might be drawn to a partial proportional system, so we don't throw out one set of problems, just to buy the whole bag of another set, but that's a detail. FWIW, I think you hit the nail on the head on the most important structural principle for a democratic government. Every citizen gets a voice, no matter how much you or I may object to their views. I've been saddened to see how many people would like to deny those with whom they disagree even the right to engage in the political process.

Actually, you did not address my point about the Sabbath, Reverend Blair. All you did was cast again your aspersion against the application of a commandment with which not everyone agreed. My point was explicit in indicating why certain of the commandments and some part of the Sabbath law should not be applied by the government, and in why in our country it is appropriate to choose Sunday as a government applied rest day. The claim that overtime laws give adequate protection sounds good to the person with a full time job that is not affected, and who does not face schedule differences with others in his or her family. But for the retail clerk, the most affected person, who is probably earning minimum wage or not so much more, longer open hours probably mean being moved to part-time status, so the employer can have more people to cover more open hours for the same amount of business, without having costs go up too much. Alternatively, it just means less people working at any given time, with tasks not directly related to customers not reduced, so there is more work for the same pay. Further it means more extended shift work, with the expectation that your husband may be off work Sunday this week, but you are off on Wednesday. As a further problem, remember that it is considered virtually impossible for Christians to have their rights infringed upon in our society. After all, it’s basically a Christian society, people think. That means that when a Christian goes to the human rights commission complaining that she was fired because she refused to work on her holy day, they laugh at her. If a Muslim or Jew goes with the same complaint, there is at least a chance it will be taken seriously, but not for a Christian.

I understand that, and I wasn't trying to be critical. In fact I even noticed your original qualifier, when you said, the CHP did not appear to run. Elections Canada treats parties which do not nominate 50 candidates as a bunch of independents, so they don't appear as such in the official results. It wasn't that the CHP didn't run, but that they weren't "official".

Yes they have. They have followed reason. No judge has gone outside what is explicitly written into law, that I know of. A few years ago in Edmonton a Roman Catholic College was sued for firing a homosexual teacher. At that time there was not one word in our law legitimizing homosexuality. There was, though, an explicit Charter of Rights protection of religious freedom. When the Charter was being written it had been proposed that homosexuality should be included as a protected way of life, but that was rejected at the time. So here the law, and not just a simple law but the Charter of Rights in the Constitution protected the church’s right to free expression of its religion and not one word supported homosexuality. Yet the courts ruled against the Church College. I would like to give you the ruling, but I seem to have deleted it from my hard drive (or just as likely filed it in some wonderful safe place that even I can’t find . But although there were pages of argumentation, the simple fact is that the courts set aside what was explicitly written in the constitution in favour of an inferred homosexual right. Since they have done that, the presumption is rather strong that someday soon, if gay marriage is approved, some pastor will be condemned by the courts for refusing to perform it. 90% of gays would not think of raising such a charge, likely. But there are a few militants who will.

Come on, August1991! You usually do better than that. What I said, in other words, was that God tells judges to be just. That means matching the penalty to the crime. That’s why we talk about justice. He doesn’t tell them “ET, phone home and get an answer”. He tells them to determine what is just in dealing with the offence, what balances, what matches the offender’s pain to the pain of the victim. Why would God give a judge such directions? Look around at what is happening in our justice system. Judges toss out whatever happens to suit their fancy. Recently a man here who invaded a senior’s home and attacked them brutally was sentenced to house arrest. On the other hand, someone who pickets a Morgentaler clinic within the bubble zone gets a jail term. Judges need to be told to give justice. The words you quoted, by the way, “Exactly as possible equivalent to the crime", were my attempt to express the sense of a just sentence.

I confess! I got off topic. But Reverend Blair’s question was “How can you choose?”, and that’s an almost irresistible lure. It’s more than a little obvious that Christian beliefs do not meet with universal agreement, but I think it’s quite clear that the ten commandments do offer a coherent basis for making collective decisions in the political realm. You can take into account some of the other teachings that expand upon and apply the commandments, but they aren’t widely known today, so I’ll stick to the roots. The first three and the last commandments deal with people’s hearts, which government has neither ability nor authority to control. So does the core of the fourth commandment, “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”. But the expansion of that, in Deuteronomy 5:14, is an expression of concern for the weak. A day of rest is established so “that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.” A lot of people today say, “Too bad for them; I want to shop on Sunday, so let them work”, but I think this is a value our government should be concerned to protect. In our pluralistic society the governmental reason for choosing Sunday would be that it is the holy day of the largest group who are concerned about such days in our land. But the motivation which should appeal to all is concern for clerks in stores. The fifth commandment speaks of due respect for authority - it’s application by government should be fairly limited. The sixth through ninth: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.” They are all values we should support. Many today hesitate about “You shall not commit adultery”, but given that almost all formal marriages begin with a contract (not necessarily written) to be faithful, it would seem that government has some reason to be involved in this. Well, I’ll agree that it is not good if my computer interferes with my time with my wife (& it sometimes does, I know). And yes, it’s definitely good that we find a resolution to that problem, quickly! Though my wife would say it’s already far too late to use the word “quickly” about it.

I get so tired of people telling me about the “contradictions” of the Bible. Usually they have not read the Bible very much if at all, but grab on to catchwords that float around our society. If they have read the Bible they have certainly not studied enough to have even a superficial understanding of how it fits together. Please note that it does fit together. The complete Bible has been studied for almost 2,000 years by hosts of people who found no contradictions in it. Until very recently those were mainly people who had studied logic very carefully, and were committed to the concept that contradictions meant error. The claim today by people who have little understanding of logic that they have found huge contradictions in the Bible (usually without reading it seriously if at all) is suspect from the beginning. But let me (again) look at the common objection cited in the above quote. If you read the Bible, Reverend Blair, you would find that Jesus’ instruction to turn the other cheek was addressed to individuals. It follows the pattern of Proverbs which tells us that “a gentle answer turns away anger”. It is designed to guide individuals to build peace in their relationships, not war. On the other hand, the direction, “an eye for an eye” is addressed to judges. In their judicial work, they are commanded to give justice. They are directed by God to punish a violent crime with a penalty whose severity is as exactly as possible equivalent to the crime. There is no contradiction between the two. They do not encourage a person to seek vengeance when attacked. They do not encourage defiance of authority. They both work together towards a safe, pleasant, peaceful society. The real contradiction is in people who say that government leaders should abandon all their principles before trying to decide what is good for our country.

The CHP ran in the last election, but through some reorganization, and people moving to the Alliance to try for a big push (Stockwell Day made it more attractive to Christians, at least in terms of his personal beliefs) they did not have enough candidates to get official party status. That's among my 3 highly desired constitutional amendments, to put "none of the above" at the bottom of every ballot - & to provide that if "none of the above" gets the most votes, no candidate is elected and an immediate byelection is automatically called with the defeated candidates barred from running.

FWIW, while the biblical standard is monogamy, polygamy is far less objectionable than homosexual unions. I'm not greatly troubled by the fact that it could easily be argued that rejection of polygamy is as discriminatory as rejection of homosexual unions. There are three issues that are serious in dealing with gay rights, it seems to me. The first is that they really should have equal protection under the law. We don't need hate legislation to protect them. What we need is to stomp on those who attack them, just as we do (or at least should do) for all others who are attacked. The second is child welfare. That remains an extremely serious issue as long as gays accept groups such as NAMBLA as legitimate parts of their movement. If they can accept NAMBLA they are at best luke-warm in defence of children. That means they should not be allowed to adopt. The third is marriage. By every law we've ever had, by every tradition we've ever had, marriage means a union between male and female. In some traditions it may be polygamous, but it is union between male and female. Rights do not allow you to have some status without meeting the normal qualifications. If they did, I'd be Prime Minister tomorrow, and get this country straightened out. Gay rights do not give them the right to force a redefinition of marriage on the rest of us. Bottom line: they should have the same rights and the same responsibilities as everybody else.

Amazing how many people toss up this garbage statement. Let me put it in plain language for you. What it means is: “My religious beliefs have a place in politics, but nobody else’s are acceptable.” :angry: By definition “religious beliefs” are the base of a person’s deepest convictions on what is right or wrong. They are the views which give a fundamental shape to what you do in the political arena or any other arena, unless you are coerced to hide them. The statement quoted above is a club. It is an attempt to coerce people who put their religious beliefs up front ( instead of pretending they don’t act on their religious beliefs) to opt out of politics. Intolerant and anti-democratic in the extreme. :angry: What is your standard, Reverend Blair, for deciding “what is best for the community at large and individual rights in general”? What makes your idea any better than that of the leader of the political party you most oppose? Or for that matter better than Stalin’s or Hitler’s? I’ve told you plainly my basis. You don’t have to agree. But what alternative are you offering? As far as I can see, you are saying, “I don’t like your views so you and those like you should shut up and let people like me run things”. Surprise! I don’t agree. Have you any reasons to support your view? You’ve argued that there are all kinds of choices, so how do I know my choice is right? That argument cuts everybody equally deeply. It really doesn’t go anywhere unless it is answered. Given multiple choices, there are two ways to get to the right one. I’m assuming they are exclusive choices, though many religions are not completely exclusive. But the partially inclusive religions can be lumped together as one broad choice, excluding all the exclusive religions. One way to get to the right one is to try each and eliminate until there is only one left. The second is to find evidence that supports one in particular. That automatically excludes others. Given Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and a collection of “all ways lead to God” religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Baha’i, you have a mutually exclusive group. The “all ways lead to God” religions only seem to accept Christianity, Islam, etc. What they actually do is accept parts of these religions, but not all - they do not accept, for Christians, Muslims, etc, the first commandment, the command which rejects all other ways. So how do you choose? That’s simple. Christianity comes with a built in, visible, public test. Jesus Christ walked this earth in historical times, and he made a drastic claim. He said that he was and is God; with his Father and the Holy Spirit, the only God. He said he is the only way to heaven, to peace with God. That leaves you only three choices in your assessment of Jesus. Either he was a man of evil, a liar trying to deceive people about the most important choice of life; or he was insane, as C.S. Lewis put it, on the level of a man who walks about saying “I’m a poached egg”; or he spoke the truth. You can’t say he was a great & good man, a wonderful teacher, but not God, because great and good men do not falsely claim to be God. Read the gospels. Can you read them and deny that he was both sane and good? I can’t. Further, he gave us a concrete test. He told us that the ultimate sign of who he was lay in that fact the third day after his death he would rise again - & then he did it. That makes the choice easy. But let me stress, that does not mean legislating Christian religion. It means making civil laws whose basis is God’s teaching about what is good for society in its outward dealings. Belief, inward attitudes including who one worships, cannot be legislated.

Have you ever voted for them? Not yet, but only because we've never managed sufficient support in my riding to establish a meaningful riding association. The CHP is fairly demanding on that score. They are the only party in our spectrum that I have long term hope that they will limit corruption in their party. They are also the only party that I expect in the long term will keep working to establish freedom and tolerance.

First I heard of him or it. Interesting. Thanks.

I can answer that very simply. My wife would dearly love to “squander” my computer, because she thinks (with some justification, I confess) that it interferes with our spending time together. (or should that be ) The problem in this discussion is that unless you have an absolute reference point, there is no basis for assigning value to anything. You can say right or left on some arbitrary scale (as we do in politics), but not right or wrong, because “wrong” always includes a value judgment. Far less can you say good or bad. From the materialist, secularist viewpoint, the universe we know began with a major accident, the big bang. Thereafter it developed through a series of accidents. Life formed by accident. Evolution involves such a long unlikely series of accidents that it is hard for anybody with mathematical inclination to believe. From that perspective, you and I are the results of a billion accidents. We have no value. We are simply each one particular bit of accident. Accidents have no value. If someone kills another person, those who accidentally care about that dead accident may be upset, but it’s really just another accident. A live accident is neither more nor less right than a dead accident. From that perspective the only thing that matters in the end is what each person happens to want for himself or herself. Some take the evolutionists view of survival of the fittest, and trample over everyone else in their drive to survive and get the pleasures they want from life. Some decide the most helpful path for themselves is the path of cooperation, so they gather others together with whom they can forge an agreement on some values they will live by, and then try to enforce those on others. But in the end, all such choices are arbitrary. From that philosophy, you have one or more accidents trying to impose their accidental ideas on other accidents. God gives us a reference point which is not an accident, a reference point from which to measure right and wrong. While some may choose arbitrarily which God they will serve, there is sufficient evidence to direct you to the truth, if you will examine it. The God revealed in the Bible is the only sufficient explanation for the world/universe in which we dwell. He has entered into history, taking human form (Jesus Christ) to make it possible for us to know him. Because he came in recent historical time, we can actually test his claims, and see that he is God. I think that is off our topic somewhat, so I won’t go into that. The point is that God has, in the Bible, given us an absolute standard of right and wrong, good and bad. We can twist it into pretzels (and we have frequently), but it doesn’t change, and keeps telling us to untwist the pretzels. It is frequently condemned by people who have not bothered to study what it says. It is often offensive to people who want to do things it condemns. Lots of people have thought they could come up with better approaches, but those better approaches litter the junkyard of history because soon or late it became evident they were not better. But God’s word stands as a resource anybody can pick up and use for their own growth and to challenge the corruptions that our self-centeredness introduces into our social systems. That’s how slavery was abolished. That’s how sexual equality was established. That’s how labour laws which protected the weak were established. In fact that’s how our present democratic approach to government was established. Christians picked up their Bibles and saw problems, and worked to bring change for the better. They succeeded because they knew they had an absolute standard, and so could hang in there when their world was against them. People may reject God’s standard, but it is the only one which will build a society in which there is real freedom, real toleration, real peace, real justice.

There is only one God set before you for your worship in the Bible, and the two testaments are only superficially different. The Old Testament looks forward to the coming of Christ to redeem us, and the New looks back at that. That means the forms of worship are different and the clarity about Christ and his work is different. But they offer the same salvation and the same God. The Old Testament is set in a context in which the church is a particular race and for most of it a whole nation, while the New’s context is a church which includes people of every race and nation. That means that penalties for some offences in the Old Testament are more severe - you cannot exclude a person who rejects the basis of your race or nation by excommunicating him, but must exile or execute him. But the moral standards are the same. Same God, same principles, same message in both testaments. The message? That in our rebellion against God we incur such guilt that only God’s provision of a substitute for us (Jesus Christ) can restore us to peace with him.

Is the unborn child human? Actually, there is considerable objective evidence. The pictures referred to in my previous post show it rather plainly. One little girl, shown a picture of an aborted foetus at about 8 weeks immediately asked, "Mommy, who hurt the baby?" However, let's go from perceptions to something more direct. We live in the day of genetics. One of the great achievements of our time has been unravelling of the workings of DNA and RNA in our reproduction. From the moment of conception, the egg, then blastosphere, then embryo, then foetus ... have a unique genetic code. That genetic code NEVER matches the mother's. What she carries in her womb is NOT her body; we know that every part of her body has her genetic code, excepting only her unfertilized eggs, which have only half of her genetic code. Though the unborn child, up to about 23 weeks, cannot survive outside the womb, it is clearly not part of the mother's body. The foetus cannot feed? The foetus does feed through the placenta. It doesn't eat through its mouth, but then neither does any plant - but we don't deny that plants are living. As far as evidence goes, the hard scientific evidence is that from the moment of conception you have a new being. It needs a lot of care to survive, but you know, a three month old baby also needs a lot of care to survive. Let's be honest about this.

You could probably split it differently but for the sake of clarity, let me suggest four modes of "taking an eye". The first is unprovoked attack. The second is vengeance, the third is self-defence while under attack; the fourth is judicial punishment. No reasonable person will say the first is acceptable. The second we can understand, but if we want any society left, we have to reject it, however sympathetic we may be to the injured avenger. The third is entirely different. Leaving aside a very few true pacifists who stick to their principles under attack, we all recognize that the fault lies with the attacker. If it were a five year old child attacking a heavyweight wrestler, we might change our mind, but in normal circumstances we recognize that self-defence is justified. The question comes with the fourth. If in the name of justice a third party “takes the eye” of the offender, do we adopt the offender’s morals? The answer is clearly “No”. If it were “Yes”, we would be barred from any punishment. We would have to say, “Go in peace”, to the offender. But what about rehabilitation? That means applying force to compel somebody to change, while we have discarded the right to use force against that person. The theory which rejects justice says that all attacks on another person are equally wrong. If on that theory you seize somebody and compel him or her to go through some rehabilitation program, you are just as bad as the person whom you are trying to rehabilitate. It may be different in degree than “an eye for an eye”, but it is not different in principle. The principle of justice is critical here. Justice requires a punishment that matches the offence. The offender renders himself or herself liable to punishment by the harmful deed done. His or her normal civil rights are voluntarily set aside by the choice to break the law. Therefore the legal punishment by third parties is right, not wrong.

Michael, if you look at the quote you cited you will see that I said the rule of people, not of THE people. The rule of people occurs when the law (which includes the Charter) is applied loosely, with the whim of a judge adding to it whatever he or she thinks ought to be in it, instead of sticking to what the law actually says. At that point the law is no longer really important. What counts is the philosophy of the judge.

Let me say it again. Use of the “notwithstanding” clause is explicitly constitutional. Denying it is contrary to the Constitution. Harper is not against the Constitution or against the Charter (which is part of the Constitution). He is prepared to appeal to them against legislative or judicial action which he considers to be wrong. Application of "intelligence and critical thinking skills" would see that this is not a contradiction, but a consistent appeal to the ultimate legal standard in the country. Those who think the Charter (part of the Constitution, remember) is good and important should not object to application of it in full.

Black Dog wrote: Since when is scientific consensus required, or a statement is misleading? Scientific consensus in Galileo's time said the earth was the centre of the universe. Was Galileo's challenge to that misleading? Scientific consensus until Pasteur's time held to spontaneous generation of living creatures. Was Pasteur's denial of that misleading? Scientific consensus shortly before Einstein held to Newton's laws. Was Einstein's theory then misleading? And actually, I have yet to hear of a scientist who would deny that the fetus is a living organism. They simply deny that it should be considered a human being with the attendant rights. Let me suggest you upgrade your knowledge on this issue. The following website even includes fetal pictures. http://www.w-cpc.org/fetal1.html. You can check the facts in any medical book. Less than 4 weeks after conception that "undeveloped lump of tissue" has a beating heart. The brain, spinal column, ears, eyes and nose have begun to form. While there are tests which can detect preganancy before this, the normal tests are only effective at this time, about two weeks after the first missed period. And by the way, it is enzymes produced by that "undeveloped lump of tissue" which cause the woman not to go through the normal menstrual cycle. By the sixth week the ears begin to be visible, and fingers are visible. By the eighth week, when the "embryo" becomes a "fetus", the unborn child is visibly a child a little more than an inch long. The primary sexual organs are already appearing. It is about this point that most early abortions take place. I know it's easier to be "pro-choice" if you don't know the facts. That's why there are so many screams at suggestions that women should get full disclosure from their doctor or some other before their choice to abort is final.