Evening Star

The two-axis idea is good but the chart is calibrated very poorly, in my opinion. By their own standards, whereby the chart should map every ideological viewpoint that has ever been held, extreme left should be total collectivism and extreme right should be extreme economic libertarianism. Thus, someone who believes in e.g. a Nordic-style mixed economy and social democracy should fall right in the centre. The vast majority of the current Western world would be right of centre. No one should really be left of centre unless they are fairly supportive of some significant degree of collective ownership of the means of production. They actually recognize this when they map current politicians and parties. However, anyone with even moderately liberal views ends up in the bottom left quadrant; the world does not contain that many anarcho-syndicalists! I basically add 5 to everyone's left/right score and 2 to everyone's tom/bottom score. There used to be a Hans Eysenck Political Attitude test online that was much better; can't find it now though.

I still don't see how it's relevant to the discussion. It just seems like a weak attempt to troll lefty posters, which failed since most of them had never heard of Uygur.

Assuming you're right (and I'm sceptical based on what I know of him), what is the relevance of this? There are plenty of misogynists who hold views like this without being charged for hate speech. What does this have to do with free speech vs hate speech?

What exactly is your argument re Cenk Uygur? Are you arguing that he should be barred from entering the country? Or just that his views are as outrageous as Roosh V's and therefore the one person on this thread who advocated for barring him on hate speech grounds should also be advocating to bar Uygur (keeping in mind that Roosh V got free entry into Canada)? If so, what is the purpose of posting a video where he tells someone to make him a sandwich? I'm a little reluctant to keep watching your linked videos at this point.

He is arguing for setting the age of consent at 16. It is 16 in Canada (since it was raised from 14 about a decade ago) and in 31 US states (going by Wikipedia). What are your grounds for saying that "n most places in North America a 17 year old cannot legally consent"? Edit: Also, I've always understood 'pedophilia' to refer to a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Is there any respected source that would classify someone as a pedophile because they were attracted to a 17-year-old? Statutory rape and pedophilia are not the same thing, as far as I know. This seems to back me up: "A pedophile is a person who has a sustained sexual orientation toward children, generally aged 13 or younger, Blanchard says"

I watched about half of the first clip. What I saw Uygur say was: i) male and female teachers should be treated the same way in these situations ii) the age of consent should be 16 (which it is in Canada) iii) teachers who have sexual relationships with 16- or 17-year-old students should be fired and they have issues but they should not get jail time. Unless he says something more inflammatory in the rest of the clip, this is nowhere near as outrageous as saying that all rape on private property should be legalized (and I was totally willing to defend Roosh V's freedom of speech in that case). Edit: I watched the whole clip. I don't see the issue. In fact, both hosts were clear that they oppose a double standard where male teachers are usually regarded and treated more harshly than female teachers in cases like this (i.e. they are advocating for men's rights!). I didn't watch the second clip but telling someone to make you a sandwich has never been considered hate speech by even the most draconian interpreter. I was familiar with TYT, btw, but they are surely nowhere near as big as Fox News. Maybe MSNBC is closer to what you're getting at?

Yeah, this could be seen as harassment and might be a reason to argue against letting him into the country: http://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-49726.html If he's doing this, I'd definitely consider it harassment that should be criminal:

I think he gives a green light to neoliberalism now?

Kevin Page has argued, fairly convincingly, that there has been no real increase in military spending under Harper: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-gets-poor-grade-for-military-spending-1.3030862 I see no reason to believe that the NDP will gut the military any worse than this. I tend to support the first two and the last of these. (I would prefer to scrap TFSAs altogether but that's probably politically unviable right now.) I disagree with the NDP about the OAS eligibility age and am sceptical that a federal day-care programme is a good idea right now. I'm undecided about corporate taxes but I'm not sure that the slight increase they're talking about would be that damaging. (Edited for formatting)

This is what? One person?

I don't disagree with you but this is still different from actively advocating and promoting the rape of women, which might justify a hate speech charge.

This issue is a bit puzzling to me. I generally agree with what Moonlight Graham has written. As far as I can tell, there is no reason why this person should be muzzled. The fact that people were petitioning to deny him entry only serves to illustrate the problems with our hate speech laws imo, unless there's something he has written that is far worse than anything that has been linked here or that is available in the first few posts on his page. However, I'm puzzled by the actions of the Toronto and Montreal mayors. Both Tory and Coderre have stated that he is not welcome in their cities but it doesn't seem to be stopping him. I don't really see how the mayors have actual legal authority over whether he enters those cities so it seems odd that they would make these statements for a symbolic purpose. What I do know is that I never heard of him until this controversy.

Yeah, I don't even really get the furore over McQuaig's comments. What is the alternative to leaving some of the oil in the ground? Pumping all of it out until none is left?

See, now you're looking to other factors to explain how PR systems can produce stable governments (and how a FPTP system can do the opposite) in multiple other countries, supporting my view that stability has more to do with factors other than PR vs FPTP. What about India? Their Parliamentary system is really not so different from ours but look at some of the pizza Parliaments they've produced with FPTP (some durable, some not): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_Lok_Sabha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Lok_Sabha#List_of_members_by_political_party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Lok_Sabha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_Lok_Sabha#List_of_members_by_political_party Also, what's so wrong with minority governments that last for two or three years? Pearson's two minority governments were possibly the best we've had since WW2.

I think the long-time Con dream has been that, with a weakened Liberal Party, in a CPC/NDP two-party system, many 'blue' Liberal voters would prefer the CPC to the NDP.

I dunno, I'm not convinced that these things can be attributed to the presence or absence of proportional representation. Some of the most stable governments in the world (in the Nordic countries or Germany, for example) are elected using PR. India elects sometimes-unstable (and sometimes quite stable!) coalition governments using FPTP all the time, particularly at the state level. And let's not forget that the two-party FPTP US government actually shut down a few years ago, the pinnacle of the sort of gridlock with which it is continually plagued. There are so many factors involved when it comes to political stability.

Right, I basically agree with this, but global reduction targets (implemented on a nation-by-nation basis) are different from a global CO2 emissions tax, which is what Euler was suggesting.

Also, you didn't answer my question: were you taken by JT's sincerity in that closing statement?

I'm allowed, right? Even so, I'm not sure that the view you describe is the prevailing one: this suggests mixed reviews, for example, with many agreeing with me, including Liberal supporters. (A strong Liberal supporter has said on this thread that JT's closing statement made him want to be ill.)

Yeah, I have issues with CPC economic policy but it didn't seem at all fair to blame them for presiding over two recessions or even eight deficits (which are pretty defensible if the economy is receding). I'm glad that May managed to get in a criticism of the FIPA with China.

(Thread drift but this point is interesting; if a mod moves this to another thread, I'll continue it there.) Although this seems like it could work, who would collect this tax? The UN? Or would it require an agreement by individual national governments around the world? Where would the revenue go?

Were you? I'm far from a Harper supporter and I sure wasn't. Nor was anyone on the other sites I read, which are far more lefty than this one. What was he being sincere about? That "we are what we are and Canada is what it is"? That you need to feel it in your bones? That his Dad was PM? Other leaders at least tried to say something of substance. One can dislike Harper and still recognise the emptiness of one of his opponents' speeches.

Like, this was not a comedy sketch?:

I'm not sure that's what he meant: I interpret the idea as being that without a healthy environment, we will eventually have no economy to speak of, and thus, it is foolish to think that we can choose one or the other. However, it is possible that his thinking is in fact as simplistic as you suggest.

I think they'll exist but will likely go the way of the British Liberal Party and become a third party. Their role as the centre party might eventually be taken over by the Greens.