Evening Star

Cite? Davies would be a disaster. Mulcair or Paul Dewar seem like the strongest choices to me.

Because fewer people's feelings are inflamed by their names?

Because the OP has real problems and concerns he or she is trying to address and I can see where he or she is coming from?

But compare our 'fundie whack-jobs' and our economic issues to those south of the border.

QS are sovereigntists but are certainly not 'extreme' in their separatism, less so than the PQ, probably. Extremely left-leaning by the standards of the current mainstream Canadian political context, maybe.

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Ha, the present-day Republican Party seems pretty close!

Which sorts of policies do you mean? What kind of party would you prefer? Something like Doer's NDP? Just curious.

Go back to what Shwa told you earlier. Why would they say Martin-style cuts when they're talking about cuts to a provincial budget? They're two separate levels of government that deal with different things. And the federal LPC of the 90s does not really have that much to do with today's Ontario Liberal Party. Federal and provincial Liberal parties are not formally affiliated. McGuinty and even Peterson have not been ruthless deficit hawks.

(Seriously, dre, is Dissenter's argument the one you want to be defending?)

See, now you're talking about culture rather than descent. And here, I think the arguments made by b_c, August, and yours truly become rather relevant.

I dunno, that 90% figure sounds questionable to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American#Demographics -- (xpost)

Yes, absolutely, and it has had many sources for as long as there has been a United States. People of (more direct) African descent were a presence in the colonies more than a century before Independence, for one thing, and no sensible person would dispute the significance of African-American contributions to what we think of as "American culture". I don't see any error in bush_cheney's response.

I don't entirely disagree that Chretien/Martin deserve some of the blame - and I don't know if I'll be able to really forgive them for some of those cuts. That said, Harris was really ruthless in slashing taxes (30%, right), which necessitated even deeper cuts and did not ultimately result in a balanced budget by the time the Tories were done. (Tbf, Eves was Premier when they left. Still, Flaherty was still Finance Minister iirc.)

Damn, even I like how these sound.

I've heard claims like this a number of times but have never seen anyone provide evidence that PET or any other high-ranking Liberals actually had these ulterior motives. In any case, even if they did, I'm not too bothered as long as the policy was good for the country - and I think it was. I suppose I haven't read the papers and bills myself, but afaik, there is nowhere in Canadian multicultural policy that it says immigrants "don't have to spend any effort in assimilating" at all. That's not what multiculturalism means.

Deleted. I'm just going to let Dissenter's post speak for itself.

Citation for genital mutilation and honour killings happening every day in and around the GTA?

Well, I only used "leftist" and "rightist" because of your original damning statements about "leftists" in post 39. Basically, you now seem to be conceding yourself that those labels are too simplistic, which is how I felt in the first place. I see what you're saying here. I just don't think any of it bears out your assertion that "[leftists] believe they should have a dialogue instead of defend themselves" (post 39), which you then backed up by giving the example of Chamberlain (post 46). I'm sure I could safely say that Chamberlain was to the right of Attlee, who was deputy PM in the War Ministry. And it's still not clear to me what the left-right ideological gulf was between Chamberlain and Churchill, who were both prominent Conservatives at the same time.

This is what I don't get about the 'multiculturalism' comments on this thread!

Jbg, even the American 'melting pot' concept is based on the idea that American culture is defined by the synthesis of all the different immigrant cultures that make it up. Jewish-American cultural contributions are a major part of what defines 'American culture', for example. The idea that the culture can be 'wiped out' because of 'foreign influence' really begs the question.

OK, ha, I just noticed the OP is from four years ago. I'm guessing your current view is more nuanced.

I'm sorry, jbg, but if I post a couple anecdotes about second-generation Asian-Canadians who are doing well for themselves and speak unaccented English, will that prove that Canadian multiculturalism has been the more successful approach? Because I can do that, if you like. -- Also, it was the CPC who really benefited from the much-publicized 'ethnic strategy' in the last election, remember?

And, to be clear, I don't really consider Churchill a leftist at all. I just don't see why Chamberlain was any more of a leftist. Was he less gung-ho about eugenics?