The Terrible Sweal

There are several... -lack of accessible wealth -ineffectual institutions -unfavourable climatic factors, famine and disease -unfavourable trade treatment -corruption -socio-economic inequity -violence -'anomie', unreason and insufficient 'citizenship'.

Choosing "option B" in the poll requires an ideological assumption too. I don't see how. Feel free to conduct your own poll with whatever 'real' question interests you. MY 'real' question was the one I asked. Linked? Of course it was. Don't put words in my mouth (unless you're putting your tongue in there with them). The people who self-selected wanting better health care for the rich than for their own children either read what the question said and answered what they think, or made an assumption about what the question should mean and answered the question based on that assumption rather than the plain interests of their children, or don't understand written English. I make no conclusions about 'love'.

I don't see how a bare 'it has always been so' is a sufficient reason for 'so it must always stay'.

Well, if there is one issue where religious groups complain that their views aren't being respected, it's same-sex marriage, right? Sweal says faiths should arrive at a consensus before they bother the rest of us with their views. I think all major faiths have arrived at just such a consensus on the issue of marriage. First, I did not suggest some vague manipulable concept of 'major' faiths. I said ALL faiths. They all claim God is speaking to them, so it shouldn't be that hard to get the message clear. Second, this is not a matter of slicing off some things (e.g. SSM) to agree on or not. It is the overarching question of whether religious belief can have currency in public policy at all. Finally, there is substantial support in many faith communities for SSM, including the United and Anglican churches. You're as game as a pitbull sometimes, kimmy. Don't let that trait lead you into dangerously fallacious positions.

Yes, that is true, but it is not the same as what you said earlier: That is the very issue you and I both agree Gomery is supposed to answer. I am glad I have been able to bring you to see reason.

Well maybe there's some people who voted that way by mistake, or some who voted that way to satisfy a contrarian or iconoclastic impulse. But they shouldn't need me to carve out their exceptions for them. But as to those who voted that they want their kids to have worse healthcare than the rich, I wish you would enlighten me on what other possible interpretation I should apply. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> As I said in the thread itself, it could be that people believe a system where their kids receive worse healthcare than the rich might also provide their own kids a *better* standard of care than a system where everyone suffers equally. Could be. But the question didn't ask them any of that. It asked whether they want equal or worse care for their children. Those who answered the question as you suggest deliberately imported an ideological assumption into a the question in order to justify not marking 'equal to the rich' for their children. Not really. My question was not really a "crappy poll". It was an attitudinal test. It was not designed to impugn motives and character, more like identify them. Consider: personality testing theory

The source is Andrew Coyne. Ah, no wonder then. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually if you read the article you'd see he is actually FOR gay marriage. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I read the article. That didn't seem to be the main point to me. But as I said, with Coyne it's sometimes hard to discern what he thinks he's saying.

No, a democracy is a competition designed to select the best choices. A majority of the MPs came together and reached an agreement. Stephen Harper said that, as I recall. To me it is one of the most outrageously scurrilous comments I've ever heard from any Canadian politician. Both.

Put it this way, anyone who opposes equality of rights among people must tender some sort of intelligible reason for the position, or they should expect to be measured by the fact that they lack it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Here we go. How do you define "rights"? If I'm stupid and ugly and you are beautiful and smart, do we have "equality of rights"? I don't think your hypotheticalization is particlarly relevant here. We are dealing with a right to equal treatment by the state. If the state were making its laws apply differentially to people based on their physical beauty, I would object to that too. Since we have no information about what the laws or rules of these countries, I think that is an absurd question.

Okay so far. People who won't hear out someone who disagrees with them are not very smart or fair. But then there are people whose ideas are not workable, and not just and when their ideas are tested in discourse and found faulty they persevere against reason to demand that they be 'respected' or 'tolerated' when such respect or tolerance really means they just want their way, anyway. That's where I draw the line. Exactly. You're right. Public discourse was much better before the triple crown of social destruction came along: Reagan, Thatcher, Mulroney. Why do conservatives insist on repeating this mendatious claim that they are being denied free expression. Give ONE example. Just ONE.

Other than your fraternity-lampoon elaborations, can you offer any reason for voters not to think that the Conservatives are the party least favourable to universal public health care?

And yet that's what passes for debate in this country, at least on the subject of healthcare. If you don't agree, go back and review the past election. Your intent on applying that assessment to everybody who voted for "option A" in your crappy poll is exactly what I'm talking about. Well maybe there's some people who voted that way by mistake, or some who voted that way to satisfy a contrarian or iconoclastic impulse. But they shouldn't need me to carve out their exceptions for them. But as to those who voted that they want their kids to have worse healthcare than the rich, I wish you would enlighten me on what other possible interpretation I should apply.

You have chosen your examples badly. In those cases there is genuine culpability on the part of the executives involved, so they are a poor match for Paul Martin's situation. Do I recall you pretended to be a lawyer in another posts? Funny, because you don't have a very good understanding of the differences between culpable conduct and mere negligence. If you are saying Paul Martin, finance minister should have known and his failure to know constitutes a negligent failure of his duties, that is one thing. It is an argument with some potential merit as regards how one should vote. But to say without any sort of reasonable facts that 'Ontario wants thieves' is both false regarding the current Liberal options and false about Ontario's intentions. That skates pretty close to defamation if not right into. Where is your evidence?

The source is Andrew Coyne. Ah, no wonder then.

Perhaps advocates of more private participation in healthcare are not vilified as fascists or bigots. But certainly vilified. We've often seen opponents try to break this into an "either or" choice where if you're not 100% behind the Canadian model, then you must be talking about "US style healthcare", some Dickensian nightmare-world where poor people are dying in the street right in front of the hospital, while inside gaggles of nurses attend to a few wealthy patients in silk robes eating smoked salmon sandwiches with the crusts removed. SOME people take positions that would amount to that outcome. I agree it is never proper to attribute such a position to someone who doesn't actually hold it, but do you really think that in the proper cases just saying the truth about an idea counts as 'vilifying' the proponent of it??? How then can a meaningful policy discourse be conducted if persons cannot speak of means and ends, choices and consequences? An accurate assessment of what people themselves indicated. If someone runs, is it vilification to call him a runner? If someone steals your bike, is it 'vilification' to call her a theif?

You all keep repeating this piece of groundless stupidity. Why does this particular mendatious vituperation have such appeal, I wonder? After it cost the tories any chance in a spring election, especially. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> been watching gomery? the Libs stole from you. even paul martin admits that, why can't you? Why can't you accept what the actual evidence indicates. Yes, a clutch of Quebec Liberals around Chretien stole. Ontarians are not going to vote for them. There is no evidence linking Martin or the current cabinet with those activities. The Cons insistence on pretending otherwise is ... well, a Con.

Jerry, as an academic no doubt you are familiar with providing sources for material used in your papers. The same practice is appreciated here. As for the article ... What a miasma! I can only guess the point was this part: The quote from Harper is alomost totally meaningless. The claim that so-cons don't want to impose their values is transparently false. The suggestion that society it actively undermining their values is bizarre. The available evidence runs counter to both sides of Harper's formulation. The desire by So-cons to legislate against abortions IS a desire to impose religious values on others. Opposition to SSM DOES revolve around a desire to have the state act in accord with their religious values. It would (does, and has) cost non-so-con conservatives a substantial amount of credibility to curry more favor with the so-cons. The reason for that is that the mainstream can see that religion is not a valid basis for constructing public policy. The mainstream wants public policy constructed on reasonable, pragmatic, effective, useful, beneficial grounds.

Bingo.

Why? I don't think anyone has raised either the concept of fascism or bigotry in relation to the healthcare debate. When that one breaks into name-calling it is usually along the lines of 'communist' or 'rapacious capitalist'. Just because you think that doesn't make it so. Well, we've already dispensed with the idea that people make that claim regarding health care. Regarding SSM, I have reached my point of view anything but "instantly". I have concluded that opponents of SSM are basically acting out of bigotry after many many months of trying to deciphyer their rationale. In each case the objection winds up being based on grounds that simply make no sense other than as an irrational opposition to being made equal with someone they don't like. But I keep an open mind. If you have a sensible answer for my first question in this post: "WHY?", maybe it will be apparent that you are not basing your view on bigotry. Try me. No one is hindering your freedom of speach. To pretend that your freedom of speech is being hindered makes you appear ludicrous. Tolerant does not mean we must never disagree. Because you don't have an accurate picture of reality. Yes, I think that you are off base.

Put it this way, anyone who opposes equality of rights among people must tender some sort of intelligible reason for the position, or they should expect to be measured by the fact that they lack it.

What else should it be called, when someone insists that others deserve different and lesser treatment under our civic institutions? So that makes the Norwegian government bigots? I don't know anything about the Norwegian laws. Maybe, I guess. No. I'm not ready to do that just yet. August, answer my question for a change: What else should it be called, when someone insists that others deserve different and lesser treatment under our civic institutions?

In every SSM discussion someone eventually asks the opponents these two basic questions. So far no answers are ever forthcoming. What you mean is that you dissaprove of and dismiss the answers they have supplied. No, it does not mean that. It means NO answers which describe ANY harms AT ALL. You, for example, have never answered that question. Not just to my satisfaction, but at all. What harm is there to you if SSMs occur?

If we already act on the basis of an established ethical/moral order acheived by a functional consensus as you suggest, then those who demand an ethical/moral order outside that functional consensus are making a special plea.

You all keep repeating this piece of groundless stupidity. Why does this particular mendatious vituperation have such appeal, I wonder? After it cost the tories any chance in a spring election, especially.

I.e. ... They are religious bigots. That depends on what you mean by 'should'. They 'should' set that aside for their own good because it's irrational, useless, and distracting. Depends on what you mean by 'illegitimate'.