The Terrible Sweal
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Posts posted by The Terrible Sweal
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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.
Choosing "option B" in the poll requires an ideological assumption too.
I don't see how.
As I already argued, the real question is ...Feel free to conduct your own poll with whatever 'real' question interests you. MY 'real' question was the one I asked.
While you now say your crappy poll was not linked to the real issue facing Canadians in healthcare,Linked? Of course it was. Don't put words in my mouth (unless you're putting your tongue in there with them).
"Boil it down" the poll suggests, and people who support private healthcare don't love their kids.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'.
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I have opposed SSM principally for one reason. That reason is that "Marriage" has a;ways been the union of two biologically and genetically complementary individuals.
I don't see how a bare 'it has always been so' is a sufficient reason for 'so it must always stay'.
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Until and unless you can get your own game sorted out, all your clamoring is just an annoyance.
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.
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There is no dispute that federal Liberals stole federal funds. The only question Gomery will answer is which ones.
Yes, that is true, but it is not the same as what you said earlier:
This is largely the same goupr of thieves as served under chretien.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.
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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.
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.
And as I said in the thread itself, I think the way the question was phrased is an attempt to impugn the motives or character of those who question our present system ("the truth hurts," I believe you said in the thread.)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
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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!
The source is Andrew Coyne.
Ah, no wonder then.
Actually if you read the article you'd see he is actually FOR gay marriage.
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.
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In a democracy, is it not the idea to compromise to come to a solution?
No, a democracy is a competition designed to select the best choices.
Should the parties not be trying to work together to come to an agreement?A majority of the MPs came together and reached an agreement.
"So I guess what it should remind Canadians is that when push comes to shove, the Liberals will make a deal with anybody. It doesn't matter if it's with socialists, or the separatists or any bunch of crooks they can find."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.
So is this democracy in action, or sneaky underhanded Liberal antics to pass the budget while some conservatives are not present?Both.
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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"?
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.Let's put it this way: not all who oppose SSM are bigots, but all bigots oppose SSM.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.
But Sweal, I'll stick with the Kimmy-Norway-Denmark argument because it shows the absurdity of the "bigot" claim most obviously. Should we instruct our Ambassador in Copenhagen to insist that the Danish government provide immediately an intelligible reason for its bigotry otherwise we will impose a complete embargo against Carlsberg beer?Since we have no information about what the laws or rules of these countries, I think that is an absurd question.
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... If you disagree with them on abortion you're evil and hate women. If you disagree on SSM, you're an evil homophobe who doesn't believe in equality. If you disagree on health care you're evil and want to destroy public health care. There seems to be no room in their tiny minds for the possibility that you might believe your opinion is more workable and will help the greater number of people (never mind the possibility that it actually IS more workable and will help more people).
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.
.... how can you argue against someone's opinion when it's based on nothing but emotion?Exactly.
I've been talking politics a lot of years, and I don't recall seeing this level of simplistic, self righteous ignorance twenty years back.You're right. Public discourse was much better before the triple crown of social destruction came along: Reagan, Thatcher, Mulroney.
And why should such a person even be allowed to speak?Why do conservatives insist on repeating this mendatious claim that they are being denied free expression. Give ONE example. Just ONE.
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Excellent post Argus. Except you should have left out the "idiot" part, because I guarantee you that is the only part that the lefties will latch onto in their retort.
It's sooooo true, though. I was raised in a marxist household and whenever I have a (healthy) debate with my father I always ask him: "do you SERIOUSLY think that Harper, Klein et al are sitting in some smoke filled room plotting the demise of health care?" I can just picture it
Harper "god-DAMN this UNIVERSAL health care. I hate it when average citizens get coverage. We need to do something about this. We need to GAIN POWER and DESTROY the system so that only our rich friends can get care and EVRYONE ELSE WILL SUFFER HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA........."
It sounds absurd, but that seems to be what lefties really believe, or WANT voters to believe so they can cling to power and the staus quo.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?
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I agree it is never proper to attribute such a position to someone who doesn't actually hold it,
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.
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?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.
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Usually when a corporation commits fraud, it is the CEO and CFO who are ultimately to blame. The buck stops with them. When Enron and Worldcom went down, the head os those organizations took the fall.
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.
When ADSCAM happened, PAUL MARTIN was the finance minister. Whether or not he knew what happened, he was culpibale in that he was in charge.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.
But that aside; your case is weak that the government has changed because the LEADER has changed. This is largely the same goupr of thieves as served under chretien. Just a different face on the theft.That skates pretty close to defamation if not right into. Where is your evidence?
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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!
The source is Andrew Coyne.
Ah, no wonder then.
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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'.
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?
Why, just last week I was in a thread where someone accused supporters of more private healthcare of "loving their ideology more than they love their children."Now, if that's not vilification, then what is?
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?
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... stupid people in Ontario would vote for a known bunch of thieves and liars, ...
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.
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.
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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:
For all the excitement the so-cons raise in the press, their "agenda" is decidedly, almost pathetically, limited. In Stephen Harper's apt formulation, "We will not ask the state to impose our values on others.But we will demand that the state stop undermining those values." In other words, just don't make things worse for us. (Perhaps that's a little too neat. On occasion, the so-cons have had only themselves to blame, for failing to pick their fights well. So narrow was their focus on stopping gay marriage, for example, that they lost sight of the broader erosion in the legal status of marriage itself. But the point stands: the so-cons are fighting a rear-guard action, nothing more.)
It would cost mainstream conservatives little to show the so-cons some elementary courtesy, even a little respect. They are not asking for much: just to be listened to, or more precisely, heard.
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.
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It is really no more than a veiled attack on rationality.
Bingo.
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... I am in favor of civil unions, not same sex marriage. I think these unions should be afforded the same rights (spousal RSP contributions, family allowances, estate planning etc.) as all other couples. I just don't think it should be called marriage.
Why?
These (above) are some key issues which have, in the past, been used to paint conservatives in this country as fascists or bigots.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'.
... there is nothing hateful or mean spirited in the above views.Just because you think that doesn't make it so.
What IS hateful and mean spirited is when people who disagree with the above instantly brand people who espouse these views as "fascists and bigots".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.
We are supposed to be a country that believes in free speech.No one is hindering your freedom of speach. To pretend that your freedom of speech is being hindered makes you appear ludicrous.
We are supposed to be a tolerant society ...Tolerant does not mean we must never disagree.
Why does it seem to me as a conservative in this country that if I express these views, I will be breated, name called and brandished as a fascist.Because you don't have an accurate picture of reality.
Am I off base here?Yes, I think that you are off base.
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Let's put it this way: not all who oppose SSM are bigots, but all bigots oppose SSM.
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.
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What else should it be called, when someone insists that others deserve different and lesser treatment under our civic institutions?... I am offended when people who are against gay marriage are treated as "bigots".So that makes the Norwegian government bigots?
I don't know anything about the Norwegian laws. Maybe, I guess.
Should we not cut diplomatic relations with bigots?No.
Should we not organize a trade embargo against such countries just as we did against apartheid?I'm not ready to do that just yet.
Sweal, you are throwing the word "bigot" around a little too loosely.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?
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How does it harm you for others to be in [a same sex marriage]? And do you recognize that your position harms them?
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?
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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.
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... stupid people in Ontario would vote for a known bunch of thieves and liars, ...
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.
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There are millions of people in this country for whom their religion is their guide as to morality. Since their religion says homosexuality is immoral and wicked they believe it is immoral and wicked.
I.e. ... They are religious bigots.
This is not a belief they can set aside, nor should they.That depends on what you mean by 'should'. They 'should' set that aside for their own good because it's irrational, useless, and distracting.
What you're really sayins is that their sense of morality is illegitimate and they should ignore it.Depends on what you mean by 'illegitimate'.
Aid for Africa
in The Rest of the World
Posted
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'.