Shwa

I couldn't resist: When Players and Photographers Camera Hole Collide *warning* graphic picture!

Here is the story from the Star: Five years on, children still wait for quality care (I am really surprised by the quality of this article actually, not with any sort of bias, but because it is so poorly written and all over the place. If it was designed to convince, it didn't do so with me. So when you read it beware a sense of incoherency. And using that poor child who was killed in Mississauga last month to "drive home" the point about unlicensed daycare is not only specious, but sickening. But I digress...) Do we need a national day care program? I think standards is fine, even some sort of licensing requirements is a good thing; but do we need to subsidize daycare outside of the present childcare options and benefits? Do we want laissez-faire child care? Do we want Plato's Republic or should the first 3 or 4 years of a kids life be spent doing something else, being raised by family or friends or *gasp* the mother? It is a tricky issue that will turn into a hot one for any election. It won't be long before someone is tying in traditional family roles and values with the new economy - as the article suggests. We lag behind compared to the rest of the word, but is that a problem? That is, is our lagging behind a sign that we are doing something wrong or doing something right? TL;DR - national daycare could be an election issue. How do you feel about it?

Well clearly there is a difference. The barbarians in India were uneducated and immoral while those running the contras got degrees from the School of the Americas.

Even in Native restorative justice, as known today, capital punishment is not include and if it were, it would still apply as illegal in Canada. Not at all, because I have repeatedly stated my perspective. However, such a request in Canada would be ignored. Euthanasia is illegal too. Not the Charter specifically, but the Bill of Rights, which preceeded it. The Bill of Rights also included provisions for the right to life, but didn't seem to carry the same weight as the Charter does today. Capital punishement was abolished in 1976 or so. ut yes for sure, if the political winds change it is possible that capital punishment could be re-instated. Possible, but I think highly unlikely since Western societies are moving away from capital punishment. However, the point being, is that there hasn't been a convincing reason to reverse the abolishment of capital punishment in Canada and more than likely any political move to do so would be political suicide. Which, by the way, is perfectly legal in Canada.

Oh I see now. They have more rights than Canadians. Well how true is that? Here is a test you can try: go into an Inco mine with your shovel and hard hat and start digging for your treasure. When the police haul you off for trespassing, argue with them that you - as a Canadian -have the same rights as Inco. The difference being is that Inco signed a contract with the government for mineral rights. The Natives signed contracts too. But essentially, they have the same rights as you or I.

Very well said! And of course, there is always the defence of mental disorder, or insanity defence, which never fails to raise the bile in more than a few. Because schizophrenics should have learned to control themselves.

On the contrary, restorative justice in the form we know it today absolutely excludes capital punishment. But I don't think you really mean 'restorative justice' and might mean something else. The problem at this point is the the concepts of rehabilitation, redemption and restitution have been extended to all prisoners and is codified in law as a right. If we change that, we are not talking a temporary suspension of rights for individuals, but the removal of those rights that will end in their death. In the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in section 7, it is pretty clear: The question then becomes, and where it turns into a slippery slope, is that do we revert to capital punishment and call that reversion 'fundamental justice?' we have already stated - through acts of Parliament and subsequent insitutional programming - that rehabilitation, redemption and restitution are to be extended to all sentenced individuals which is implied in Section 12: It's a very tricky valley to navigate and I haven't come across someone who can convince me that we need to revert back to capital punishment. The middle ground, obviously, is what is stated in the Chart including Section 15 which states that "Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination..." Are we locked in? I can't know that. All I know is that no matter what the arguments for capital punishment from individuals might be, they are inevitably crushed by the Charter.

I think it would be more correct to say that an R&R policy wasn't mutually exclusive with capital punishment. Well, except for the dead people.

The system doesn't work?

It might be better to say a policy co-existed with capital punishment at one time.

Than who?

Dodge. I suppose science predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall in your lifetime too? Do you own homework and keep up. And yet the principles of redemption and rehabilitation are available to all prisoners including lifers. Did you get that yet? That's pretty vague. How about self-defence or preservation of self against the police? All you are doing is making up categories to fit the condition of your mind. Nothing more. Perhaps, but we don't have capital punishment and there are reasons for that. They trump whatever you can come up, no matter how vigorous you argue. You are not convincing. Why, that was fast. If you can make such determinations that quickly, why bother with courts in the first place? All we need is you as judge and jury. Oh but it does. Because the "worthless 3Rs" is the middle ground at present - that has already been decided. I can cite the criminal code. What can you cite to prove your point except point to your own thinking? So it is entirely relevant since the rehabilition, redemption and resitution is implicit in all sentencing. Irrelevant question. Based on the false assumption that rehabilition, redemption and resitution cannot occur within the institution when current practices clearly show they do. And you can correctly predict the advances of science now can you? Not only judge and jury, but you now possess an amazing omnipotence too. But the reality of the situation is you can't know so you are substituting emotional simplism for a complex moral problem which actually renders your argument impotent and unconvincing. Seriously, if a child rapist was put to death, I wouldn't shed a tear. But you have failed to convince me why we ought to reverse a decision of Parliament that was made with great care and much debate. Better to err on the side of caution I think. Unless you can come up with some other better reasons why we ought to.

Not at all. All incarcerated persons are deemed worthy of rehabilitation and redemption. That is what the political and legal processes have determined, not I. If you wish to repudiate these principles for a certain class of incarcerated person then the burden falls on you to be limited and specific. There is no need for me to delineate since the law applies equally to all.

You are correct, but the point was made in reference to captial punishment not the judicial system in total. You are being over-simplistic here. For example, you say an incarcerated individual cannot provide any real restitution "for society." But can you prove it and can you prove this to be true for the future? No, you can't so you don't know. What we do know is that if we kill them there is no chance for finding out. Plus I already gave you an example of a possible avenue of resitution. Again, as if the argument must fit your thinking when it clearly does not. If you think that redemption and rehabilitation is all about hugging puppy dogs, well, you've just embarassed yourself. Not to mention not providing a delineation between what is death-penalty horrible and what is merely life sentence horrible, which likely exists as a boundary somewhere in your mind. Not to mention that redemption and rehabilitaiton can both exist while the person is incarcerated as noted by all the therapy programs currently in place our prisons. Not to mention that we don't have the death penalty for a reason. And yet we don't have capital punishment. Go figure. When you say 'murderer' what rationalizations are you going through? Government sanctioned kidnapping includes the principles of rehabilitation, redemption and restitution all which are considered in due process, judicial oversight and the political system. These principles cannot be applied to people we kill. But it is not a valid punishment than includes the principles of rehabilitation, redemption and restitution. It's an institution like all other institutions. Why get married? No but rehabilitation, redemption and restitution are winning ideas and is why these principles are deployed to the great extent they are in our prison system. Now perhaps it is tough for you to wait the next half century, but that is a product of your thinking, not a product of the judicial system. Irrelvant.

I am not denying to others, but those charged with protecting the public - the government and constitition - is. If you have a beef take it up with them. Take them to court, let us know how it works out for you.

Full length porn movies instead of the crappy .FLA clips from years ago. The Internet has progressed ya know...

They do.

Hey... me too! Heck I even voted for Mulroney when I was in my twenties. I even had suits back then.

That is indeed a curious phenomenon. Almost an unthinking one.

For someone who makes determinations of whole populations based upon the deviant - and illegal - actions of a very few, perhaps you may want to look at your own trolling instead.

No, I am not assuming those are the only principles we need to consider when sentencing someone, just that they cannot be applied if we execute them. Nope, rehabilitation, redemption and restitution are applicable in all cases and are available to be applied to monsters like Bernardo or Pickton as they are for a petty thief. That you cannot see how these principles can be applied to the monsters is not a product of the principles themselves, but a product of your thinking. Now, believe me, I think some of these monsters deserve to die for their crimes. And if they died, I wouldn't shed a damned tear. But in the final analysis what gives me the right to believe it is okay for others to be executed when they themselves likely held the same belief before they murdered someone? You and I can argue this until the cows come home which only shows that giving the state this right is an ugly slipperly slope and generally a big step backward. Now someone else mentions psychopathy or sociopathy. Fair enough. But those are determinations towards an end state - a diagnosis - they say nothing about how the treatment of such conditions could be implemented in the future once we have given it some thought or applied our knowledge of neuroscience, which is a rapidly advancing field. Is it possible that some day we might cure psychopathy or sociopathy because we had the consent of the psychopaths and sociopaths in our prison system to treat them? Well, we are doing this now. So the end state is not the diagnosis, but successful prevention and treatment methods. And yes, even for a Bernardo or Pickton.

Interesting Christina Blizzard article from Canoe: Special 'school for poor kids' a poor idea I am not sure this is such a good idea...

The tired excuse of a billion adolescents...

Interesting opinion. You have the statistics? Give them a tax break or some counselling to accept the fact that this is the way it is.