The Terrible Sweal

Which presumes ownership or authority derived from the rightful owners. All of them. You keep putting the cart before the horse. "Ownership" is created by the social contract, not vice versa. Cut it out. You are not in a position to be casting aspersions on my debate. You don't like that criticism, eh. Well then, stop impetuously or impertinently misstating the positions of your interlocutors.

Of course wholesale slaughter is moral. It's in the Bible. {Judges 8:17}

Why 'especially the Americans'?

No, the same does not apply.

That was the end of her participation in caucus. The Liberal party can tolerate a wide range of opinions, but it will not tolerate a member who isn't completely focused on winning power.

Science can't make claims of absolute truth. But what persons may claim as science is not the fault of science. If you encountered someone making such a claim and claiming it was scientific then that person's claim was fallacious. But this is not a flaw with science, it is a flaw of the claimant.

Do you think it would be more prudent to have attacked him in a few years when he would have rebuilt? International law does not allow you to attack other countries merely because they have armed forces of their own. Iraq was confined by the Gulf War Cease Fire Agreement as to what it could and could not build. By and large it is clear they were not in breach of those restrictions, although not compliant in every detail of transparency. The inspections process was effective against WMD, evidently. When do you imagine that happening, though?

Anyone who has ever been actually involved in a story in the media can usually find an astonishing number of utter error in the reports. The media as we know it is incapable of rendering straightforward truth.

Internally this argument is valid. However, most religions make claims much higher, greater, broader and more universal that a simple equivalence of ontological disprovability. Most religions make a positive claim to knowing ontological truth at the very least. Most religions elaborate a highly developed, interlocking narrative about metaphysics and the nature of reality. The advance of reason and science has demonstrated the implausibility of most of these elaborations.

Jesus is quantifiable. He existed. Liar, idiot, or God. But whether Jesus existed is not the issue. His theological claims/characteristics are the issue.

We did not agree to what you say. In any case, our negotiators were not "manipulated". They knew fully what they were doing - as did the Canadian public who elected Muylroney in 1988. The public? You can't be serious. The public had no clue about the details of the deal.

August of 1990. And when did Dumbya invade? More than a decade later. He attacked a defeated, long quiescent country, for no valid or useful reason.

You raise a very important issue here. Obviously many persons who claim a religious affiliation operate effectively in the world. Unfortunately, to the extent they make rational choices, followers of JudeChrisLam and other religious traditions must do so in spite of their adherence to these faiths. This has to do with the elemental characteristic of these religions. They assert the authority of the dogma over the real/experienced which is incompatible with the very concept of rationality. Some religious flavors have a relatively confined area in which they assert this authority (e.g. United, Anglican), while others have an extensive area (e.g. fundamentalist JudeChrisLam of various types). Thus the former are in some sense 'less irrational' than the latter, but at the core they cannot claim to admit rationality either.

Demonstrably not. Not demonstrably. No, 'power' is created by the interaction of individuals. Absent the interaction the 'power' does not exist.

Poor show.

Y'know, I just remembered ... according to Islamic doctrine, the Holy Koran cannot be translated and still remain the Holy Koran. If I recall correctly, the product of a translation is no longer considered to be 'authoritatively holy'. Based on this, to require Islamic religious services to be conducted in a language other than Arabic would be effectively a ban on Islamic worship.

Well, first off I wonder who you mean by "we as Christians", since there are numerous flavours and various versions of the Bibble. Second, for myself, I see no reason that a panel of fallible humans assembled by a pagan Roman Emperor should have the authority to declare what is and is not god's word. Third, if one believes that the four evangelists captured the true words and deeds of the Divine Son of God, it seems odd that the words and deeds of the merely human "Saint" Paul should be given equal weight. Fourth, any reasonably critical comparison of the words attributed to Christ with those spun by apostles and others paints a pretty clear contrast between the clarity and simplicity of the former, and the drivellous cant of the latter.

Odd. You see something particular and special about "marriage" which you feel is worth particular and special treatment, but at the same time you purport not to understand why same-sex couples might place particular and special importance on "marriage".

Since that is what you believe, I would really appreciate if you would explain HOW same sex marriage undermines either inter-sex marriage or the traditional family. Thanks.

Rather than expatiate pointlessly, how about we look at some actual facts. Do you have a transcript of van Gogh's alleged hate-speech? BTW, do you feel that death is the appropriate penalty?

I support improvements in Canada's military capabilities. For example, among other things, we should add a nuclear deterent capabilility, and a rapid deployment force capable of protecting Canadian citizens and interests in remote parts of the world. That would be good. What would not be good is interpreting Canadian interests to be whatever a U.S. president may assert at any given time, no matter how mad or foolish. You use these terms like they necessarily equate with your preferences. But such assumptions don't really advance a discussion. I can equally well say that it showed 'common sense' 'resolve', and 'character' to decline to participate in the Iraqi quagmire. Well, that's all spelled correctly and your grammar is good, but the content is lacking. What threat? It is in our common interest to divest ourselves of archaic superstitions which stand in the way of reason-based humanistic policies that offer the best chance of improving life for the greater number of people. History (for example, the 30 years war) demonstrates the dangers inherent in basing public policy on the convoluted, irresoluble irrelevancies represented in religious dogma. Nothing cheapens human life more than placing unprovable aesthetic doctrines above the actual interests of persons. Your assertion that fetuses should be accorded the civil rights of full-blown humans is an example of placing a doctrine before the interests of actual persons (i.e. the women, my fellow citizens, you would enslave to the service of mythology.). On another thread, I asked if anyone could please explain to me what actual harm would happen to marriage or families by allowing same-sex marriage. I wish someone (perhap you?) would at least attempt to explain that.

I am very well aware of what I am talking about. I am talking about the very old and well surveyed question of censorship vs. free expression. Personally, I think that the legislation you refer to is wrong-headed and goes too far, to the point that it violates the Charter of Rights. BTW, here is Canada's law on promotion of hatred:

I disagree. To me Trudeau ameliorated many failings Canada laboured under, for example -kowtowing to the 'senior' international partners Britain and the U.S. to the detriment of Canada's best interests; -unwarranted deference to prosecution-side interests in criminal law; -remnant moralistic statism; and -persistence of a hereditary underclass. I see no evidence that Canada is kowtowing to Islamofascists. Furthermore, the UK, Australia and Poland have all followed the U.S. into an illegitimate, ill-conceived war which in no way serves the interest of their citizens. Canada was right to recognize it had no business mixing into such a mess. You say that like it's a bad thing.

I supported the removal of the Taliban regime in response to the 9/11 attacks. There was a clear link. Beyond that, the proper response to 9/11 would have been improved security/intelligence efforts (WITHIN the bounds of constitutionality and international law). It is a serious mistake to undermine constitutionality and law because those are the best tool for meeting and beating the criminal violence of terrorism. It is also exactly the wrong tactic to (as Bush did) play into the politicization of terrorist objectives. The moment a state declares 'war' on 'terror' it elevates the terrorists to the very status they seek. As for Iraq, since it had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, and had no weapons of mass destruction, and was completey subjected due to the no-fly restrictions, attacking it was not at all necessary from the perspective of international safety. The johhny-come-lately justification that Saddam was a very bad man is a poor fig-leaf, given the satisfaction with which the Bush regime is willing to tolerate and carry on business with other very bad men holding their people under tyranical rule.

I found this article very interesting. G&M story link