DAC

Not true. Granted there is no support at the government level - but consider the Christian Heritage Party's contrary policy if you are going to talk about social consdervatives or small c conservatives. More directly, though, on a practical level, there are crisis preganancy centres established by conservative Christians all across the country, which not only offer counsel to women in a difficult pregnancy, but provide a lot of help both material and social/emotional, for such women. The interesting thing is that in many cases they find that the person who actually wants the abortion is the boy friend, husband or parent, not the woman involved.

Stalin also thought elections should be about the ideas of recognized politicians, not the people. And I was not talking about a business lobby but about a citizen lobby, a lobby of people like myself who understand that their charter rights have been thrown away by the anti-freedom Liberals and their SCC lackeys. Seems to me there is far more paternalism in the view that only political "fathers" should be allowed to tell us what policy ought to be. I agree that people ought to make up their own mind. But speaking for myself, I have often changed my mind when somebody else pointed out something I hadn't considered. As to mortgaging houses to advertise, it's something I'm seriously considering on this issue. If I were single ... you see I also have to consider seriously my wife's unhappiness with spending which will cut heavily into our small retirement savings.

Typical Morgentaler dishonesty. The Canada Health Act does not specify particular procedures - that is a provincial responsibility, and every province has some procedures which it does not fund that are funded in other provinces. This is the same man who stood up in public in Halifax a few years ago and said plainly that you could not even see the fetus when it was 8 weeks old -- at that point every medical text I have seen says it's about an inch (2.5 cm) long. But perhaps he's just a blind surgeon instead of a dishonest one. However I wouldn't trust a word he said unless I had carefully checked it out myself.

That is indeed the reasoning of the liberal appointed justices. And it is plainly a lie. 301 people in one riding spending $10 each to put up a sign on their lawn attacking the liberal position on this law would be subject to condemnation as criminals -- read a criminal record and up to five years in jail. That's the price of one lottery ticket, hardly the mark of a rich person. The limits are so low that someone like me, who doesn't have much money to spare, could easily borrow enough to break them in a single riding, and with 5 or 6 other lower middle class home partial owners, could borrow enough to break the national limits. That national limit would not even purchase a single one page ad in a national newspaper - as the Supreme Court admitted. As the dissenting justices pointed out plainly, the election law makes it impossible for the citizens of this country to have a meaningful voice (i.e. one which can be heard by a significant portion of the people) in presenting their concerns in the election. And when is free speech more important? :angry:

This one has always puzzled me. I can understand why denying the holocaust might get you a poor mark on a test. But if we are going to make closed minds and stupidity illegal, well, we may have to build an awful lot of prisons! We restrain slander because it causes injury to other people. In my opinion denying free speech where it does no injury to anybody except perhaps to hurt their feelings is a major step on the route to a totalitarian state. That's why the election spending act is sufficient grounds to vote out anyone who supports it.

Some time ago a classmate sent my University class an anonymous article he had picked up, that seemed to me to have a penetrating insight. He was focussing on the Iraq war and the terrorism problem. He says it started with the fact that in the early years of Islam, the Arabic Islamic Culture was a vital conquering fact. It swept the world from India to Spain, by conquest. It was the intellectual and cultural leader of the world of its days. The crusaders who warred against it were largely uneducated savages. Furthermore, the Koran told them that they would soon dominate the world. But their expansion was halted. And in the last several hundred years they have seen little but decay and defeat. "Once-great Arab nations became little more than colonies for heathen Europeans, or economic dependents of America. Our enemy is those who inherit the culture and heritage of that empire. Not everyone within the empire's physical realm now partakes of that culture, but many do." Against that, the western world is prospering (at least in visible ways). "We're everything that they think they should be, everything they once were, and by our power and success we throw their modern failure into stark contrast, especially because we've gotten to where we are by doing everything their religion says is wrong. We've deeply sinned, and yet we've won. They are forced to compare their own accomplishments to ours because we are the standard of success, and in every important way they come up badly short. ... They have nothing whatever they can point to that can save face and preserve their egos. In every practical objective way we are better than they are, and they know it. And since this is a 'face' culture, one driven by pride and shame, that is intolerable." He goes on to say that for the hard core militants, the key to matching western success [so-called] is heresy, deserting things they consider critical to their faith. So their only answer is to tear down and destroy the opponents, so that their own culture becomes successful in comparison. I'm sure it's not the whole truth. It does not look at offensive things done by the West at all, nor at the issues around Palestine/Israel. But I think he has caught something that is a major component of the Islamic terrorism, something we need to keep in mind if we're to have any hope of understanding and dealing with it.

June 3, 2004 Actually, I did both tests, August1991. But like you, I was not much impressed with the second. My numbers on Political Compass were something like -1, -.5 - as I said, I forgot to record them. But those numbers are close enough for the statistics. As I said before, they seem to average out extreme responses in all directions. Some of their questions left me gasping. For example, when they asked my views on “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, I didn’t want to answer because I would choose strongly agree for judges and strongly disagree for individuals. But overall it was interesting. Some of the options on both tests seemed to indicate that the authors did not believe a person could be a hard line fiscal conservative, but still have a conscience of concern for the weak and needy. Out of curiosity, if you don’t mind answering (I know I’m prying), what event in August 1991 shaped your choice of user name? Thanks Don Codling

Interesting test, though I was forced to answer questions in which my choices swung from strongly disagree to strongly agree, depending on the context. I forgot to note my numbers, but I guess all my extreme responses averaged out as I was near centre, slightly left (me?) and slightly libertarian.

I haven't studied the issue thoroughly, and I've seen arguments that look good in both directions, but I keep coming back to one thought. If I'm 50th in line for an MRI or a specialist, and five of those ahead of me have the money and decide to pay for private care, it makes me 45th in line. I won't complain about their getting out of the queue when it gets me closer to the front.

It’s an excellent question, but I’m afraid it’s a question for which there will be no agreed answer as long as people have differing religious (or anti-religious) viewpoints. Muslims believe that the Koran should be the basis of law, because they think it is God’s rule to show us how to live. Some among them, perhaps all in principle, believe that the Koran should be the law of the land. We’ve seen some of the problems that leads to. As a Christian, convinced that the Bible is God’s message, and the only basis for knowing right from wrong, I believe the Bible should be the basis for our law. I don’t believe it should be part of our law, because the Bible makes plain that much that it speaks about is not government’s business. Further, where it deals with government and civil law, it is written in terms which apply to a rural, agricultural society, for the most part. We have to interpret them to apply them to our modern urban, industrialized society. Many others will argue for their different religious traditions. Still others will argue that majority opinion establishes right and wrong - except where they disagree too strenuously with majority opinion. It’s a question we need to face, but the answer you come to will depend on your starting point. That doesn’t mean all the answers are true. In fact, since they are mutually contradictory, we can be sure that most of them are mistaken. Like everybody else, I think my position is correct. Proving that, though, can only be done by establishing that its presuppositions are the ones that actually account for the world in which we live. It would be fun to get into that, though.

Why does everybody blindly accept this amazing claim? If we're talking about the Greek democracies in the time before Christ, they were certainly not based on secular humanism! The people in that time would almost universally have laughed at the secular humanist viewpoint. If we're talking about the development of our present democratic societies, it's still an outrageous claim. My history books talk about the conflict between the nobles and the king, leading to Magna Carta in 1216. That was a simple power struggle. Over the next 400 years a parliament was gradually established, whose only real power by the early 1600s was the right to initiate tax bills. Certainly there was no secular humanist influence in that. The conflict between king and parliament came to a head with the Stuart kings in England in the 1600s. It led to war, and the parliamentary party, with the Scots who joined them, was religious to the core. The fundamental issue, in fact was religious freedom against kings who sought to impose Roman Catholicism or something very like it. That conflict led to a parliament which met regularly, not just at the call of the king. The Franchise was gradually extended. The next major step was in the USA, with the revolutionary war. Read the Declaration of Independence and you see clearly a Christian based document. Even those few founding fathers who, like Franklin, were more theistic than Christian, thought in essentially Christian terms. Secular humanism is a recent development in human history. The humanists are good at taking credit for the free society we enjoy, but they weren't even there when that free society was being established. Oh, there is one place where secular humanism pushed forward a democratic model - in France in the late 1700s. But the French Revolution led to anarchy and tyranny, not democracy.

I have not read 'The Name of the Rose'. What’s it about? It is not so much that I disagree with your comparison as I think it is skewed. A fair comparison would be the Hindu mobs attacking Muslims and Christian with the Inquisition, or Hinduism in general with Christianity in general. In the former, I don’t know which is worse, but both are rotten. In the later, I have no hesitation in saying that, despite its frequent failures, Christianity is more tolerant. What, in God's name, gives you the right to say whether someone is a "good" Christian or a "bad" Christian? Are you the Pope? Well, I hope I’m not the pope. (Will someone please check my vestments in case it has sneaked up on me? ) If you look more carefully, you’ll see that I deliberately avoided the subjective judgment of good or bad Christians. Instead I focussed on the objective reality that the churches in Russian and Germany had drifted away from the Bible. That lead to dead and dying churches, which had little to offer people. It was in that moral vacuum that Communism and Nazism took hold. Though these countries had the name of Christian, there was little actual Christianity to be seen. If you want to discuss abortion, I think we should do it in another thread. However, the idea that prohibiting abortion will cause more death is totally contrary to every fact. More than 100,000 unborn children are killed in Canada every year. Against that it is interesting that some of the claims for deaths through back alley abortions before it became legal came to more than the total number of women of child-bearing age who died for all causes in those periods. In short, as at least one of those who made them has admitted, they were fabricated. As I said, we can debate the issue, but if you want that, let's do it in a dedicated thread.

Black Dog, a very basic test of the value of a comparative argument is to substitute the terms. I’ve done that for you below. If I accepted your premise, which tries to make second class citizens of those with whom you disagree by forbidding their beliefs a place in the political process, I would say & seek to apply the following. You would find it very unfair, I think. Basing laws on secular humanist thought that not every citizen believes in is anathema to the democratic process. Not every citizen supports every decision made by the government, nor should they. However, the idea of basing the law of the land on what I consider to be a fairy tale (the so-called rich traditions of secular humanist thought) is very scary. Our democratic process works by giving all views freedom to put forward their ideas, based on their religious views or ideology or philosophy (whichever you want to call it). The majority rules. We have a constitution which can be changed only by a super-majority. Its primary purpose is to limit what the majority may do, thereby protecting minorities to some degree. But as soon as you say certain philosophies are excluded, democracy is gone.

Because not every citizen follows the Bible. Black Dog, that's an argument for no decisions by politicians. There is no basis for decisions which every citizen accepts and follows. If the fact that not every citizen follows its basis means a decision should not be made, close down parliament. Unless you are prepared to argue that some citizens are second class, their views cannot be considered???

I don't think that's the "materialist" viewpoint at all. It's not a question of how useful someone is. (An unborn child could grow into being another Einstein.) What you're saying is that an unborn child has value because of it is potentially useful. That's the best that come come from a truly materialist base. Everything is ultimately an accident, so it has no inherent value. That's far different from the Christian viewpoint that everybody is inherently valuable because deliberately made by God in his image. People have said that Stockwell Day was scary because he believed that the world was only made 6,000 years ago. I think that (however mistaken) is far less scary than someone who has no commitment which compels him to consider every individual valuable.

Right on! Persuasion but no compulsion. Christianity does not work through compulsion, though there have been times when misguided types tried that, but through example and persuasion. In both Russian and Germany the church drifted badly from the Bible (as much of it has here more recently), and so was rejected. The result was the intolerance you mentioned. Slavery? It took 18 centuries after Christ for the Bible's teaching to gradually penetrate our understanding. But so far as I know, nobody else's teaching opposes it at all, except where Judaeo-Christian influence has been felt. First time I heard of the caste system being considered tolerant. You should also read the persecution web sites before speaking of Hindu tolerance. Hinduism is only tolerant of views that agree that Hinduism is fine and good.

The government cannot avoid basing laws on a religious viewpoint. It may be the religious viewpoint of expediency. It may be the left wing viewpoint that free expression should be limited to those things approved by the intelligentsia. It may be the materialist viewpoint that this world is just an accident so unproductive people such as unborn children or those who are old and sick have no value. It may be the view of a Christian or Muslim or Jew based on the teaching of their holy book. But every choice we make is based at some point on a religious viewpoint. The real question is “In what areas is it appropriate for the state to make laws?” That is still going to leave us with disagreements based on religious views. But at least we are not imagining the ability to set aside our fundamental beliefs in the choices we make.

SirRiff wrote Actually, in the last century we have examples of governments by those who rejected religion. Nobody I have noticed suggested that the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Vietnam, Cambodia were flexible or inclusive or non-discriminatory. The interesting thing is that nondiscriminatory tolerant outlooks have developed only where Christian teaching has heavily influenced government, directly or indirectly.

Black Dog wrote I'm tired of anti-"religion" types cramming their liestyle down my throat. Reality is that you have your own, call it "religious view", since from your perspective it isn't religion (from mine it is). It shapes your thinking and action, just as mine shapes mine. The assumption of superiority of yours is a faith claim. The idea that there is no god has no evidence whatsoever to support it. You seek to promote your own ideas, by denying others the right to do the same thing. That's sad..

Actually, speaking as an enthusiastic Christian, I believe she can. She will make decisions which will rise out of her beliefs, as all do, and that may mean I disagree with some of them. But nonetheless, she can take seriously her constituents concerns, and seek to resolve them in a good way. That's representing me. She might come closer in some things that people who share my fundamental religious convictions. For one thing, such a woman is far more likely to be socially conservative, which I think is important, than many Christians.

I'm not a lawyer, either, but I read the Supreme Court's decision fairly carefully. Part of the law is that if people collude to avoid the limits, that is if they do the same thing independently to get past the legal limits, they are held guilty. If all the people came up on their own with different signs to the same effect, it might be impossible to convict them under the law, but the group effort is clearly denied by the law. Any combination of people who are not working as a registered political party (read 50 nominated candidates) who individually or together spend $3,001 per riding or $150,001 throughout the country on the same issue identified with any party, are liable to be convicted under the elections act - and it's a criminal offence. Are there 20,000 or 30,000 of you who will join me in challenging that attack on citizens participation in the election?

Let’s talk about little people, like me. Or am I rich because I own half of home, maybe? Here’s the gag issue. If 30,001 people each spend $5 on a front yard sign that reads “Vote for democracy, Vote against the Liberals”, they become criminals liable to up to five years in prison. If 601 people in any given riding do this, they become criminals. If a citizen or group of citizens of any size seeks to get an issue related to any political party before the broad public in an effective way, during the election campaign, that citizen or group of citizens risks being imprisoned for up to five years. The Liberal policy is clearly “government for the politicians, by the politicians, and of the politicians”. This is not just against rich people. It's against anybody who wants to express his opinion in a way that makes it heard by a meaningful number of people.