Archanfel

I wonder who are buying those expensive houses in the GTA then.

You mean the history of coming to Canada and slaughtering the natives? If you had said you were too cheap and too selfish to provide services to the people in need, I would have supported you because I don't want to pay more taxes. But don't give me the "English law" and "Canada's history" craps.

Wasn't the star against the war on drugs? Are they trying to advocate free needles for Rob Ford?

Referendums cost money and what's the point? Everybody thought the Liberals would lose the last election and what happened? That's reality in Ontario. People love being taxed. They would say otherwise, but they proved that using their votes.

More likely, the USA did something (or failed to do something) that made him angry enough, but not afraid enough.The solution is not always to appease to people.

A philosopher's job is to solve philosophical problems, to give reasons behind human behaviours. Berlin was a philosopher. I was simply pointing out the different definitions of liberty and their effects, nothing new.

Actually, that's not what's Trudeau's response at all. He simply tried to use it to advanced his views, or like you said, "blame this on his political opponents so that he could profit from it". He didn't tried find out how this happened. He already said exactly how it happened: "there is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded". Gaining knowledge requires an open mind. Mr. Trudeau has made up his mind. He is not interested in knowledge.

There was an article on Boston Globe: They just hate us. The author was shocked somebody was questioning the root cause behind the bombing and said he doesn' want to feel guilty. I am not sure why as soon as you talk about root cause, they feel guilty about it. To them (and to JT), it's a moral thing, yet it should really be a hard cold calculation of what they may have done wrong. Maybe they shouldn't have granted immigrantions to certain people. Maybe they should have helped the Russians. Maybe this, maybe that, but not willing to face the problem doesn't mean the problem does not exist. Finding these two guys aren't going to solve the problem. Unless of course they make such a terrible death and nobody would dare to try it ever again, but I doubt they have the guts for it. Maybe that's the root cause of this. "He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground, and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids. He kills their wives. He kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in. He kills people that owe him money. And like that, he's gone. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night."

I agree. Unfortunately, very few people do.

"Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot." Amazing how we are still learning the lesson over and over 600 years later.

What if he was a cripple that can't put one foot in front of another? Or if he was too hungry to walk? I don't think Berlin is on the payroll of the Canadian tax payers. The definition of freedom signifcantly impacts social policies. Classic liberalism tends to agree with Guyser here that somebody is only not free if they were held back forcefully. Modern liberalism argue that if even if somebody is not forcefully prevented to leave, if he does not have the mean to leave, he is still not free to leave. Some libertarians would go as far as saying that threats do not count as force. Therefore, if somebody told the guy, I would shoot you if you leave, he is still considered free to leave as long as the shot was not fired. Most of our social policies are based on the positive sense of liberty as we believe we should help the most unfortunate members of the society to achieve liberty. Berlin warned that, while well intentioned, such policies tends to lead to the loss of the negative liberty. And in our society, we have limited liberty to spend our money freely due to heavy taxations to fund positive liberty of others. More importantly, we do not have the liberty to use the cheapest labours we could find. Some researchers had an interesting finding. Before the civil war, the factory workers in the north were not necessarily better off than the slaves in the south. While they were certain more free, factory owners were not responsible for their care and retirement like the slave masters were for their slaves. Therefore, these workers had to work harder to save for sickness and retirement. Even negative freedoms are not without their limits. For example, robbing a bank is generally not considered a freedom because it impacts on other people's freedom. Therefore, in the most strict sense, the right to assemble only means that the government should not forcefully prevent people to assemble providing they are not reducing the freedom of others. The government should not facilitate assembles and prevent assembles on public ground is not necessarily a violation of such right. The boundary of negative liberties are arbitrated by the courts.

Is he? If he couldn't afford food for him and his family, how could he walk away? And if he was not even aware of there are another way of life, how could he walk away? What if he had no transportation to leave? So the biggest issue with freedom is whether the negative sense of liberty is enough. Is somebody free to walk away if he is not prevented by force?

Oh, is that how intenrational laws work?

What is the definition of freedom? Philosophers can't even agree. If one man serves another to avoid being beaten, is he free? If one man serves another in order to afford food, is he free? If one man serves another in order to buy a large screen TV, is he free? If one man willingly serves another, is he free?

And where does it say that these freedoms are free? Say I have the freedom of speech, can I sue a newspaper for refusing to publish my ads for free? Say I have the freedom of religion, can I ask the city to give me some land for free to build a church? Actually, can I ask the city to build the church for me for free?

Not if Mr. Trudeau realign the Liberals to real liberalism where each citizen is considered a rational being that is free to make choices and take responsibilities for the choices he/she made. Then the Conservaties will be seriously challenged. Ok, you guys can laugh now.

Fine, that's your liberty, as long as you are not asking me to pay for it. No, they did not. They came to be due to the fact we want to use them to our advantages. I don't remember the US being charged for dropping the atomic bombs. I don't remember the Russians, Chinese or even us being charged for various things we did. They only applies to the weak. Well, maybe the weak and guilty ones, but they have to be weak first. And if you haven't noticed, our moral standards change all the time.

Nobody said rights are free or even cheap. Even the US is not crazy enough to make guns free, despite it's in their constitution. Buy a piece of land and you can have as many assemblies as you like (providing you are not bothering the neighbours). You better pay for public spaces and resources, because somebody is going to pay for them, why should the tax payers pay for your rights?

Is this the same North America where people get free money from the government? Sounds like socialism to me. Actually, I would say that's communism since socialism at least requires people to work to their abilities. G20 is a different story.

I never said it was. The question is how do we evaluate such action. If you believed it's a blunder and could provide evidence that it was harmful to Canada, then I would have no objection. However, that should be the only criteria. And what exactly would a seat on the security council buy us? Can we sell the vote? International laws is just a joke. The only criteria is whether you won or lost and whether you were useful to certain world powers. It deserves no respect.

I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you thought I was speaking for the natives? On the contrary, I was simplying pointing out how hypocritical the notion of righteousness in international relationships. Having said that, all these moral/international law crap, while hypocritical, is not without their purposes. My point was simply that our diplomats' are not under any moral obligations. They simply should do what is necessary for the benefit of Canada. If that means pretending to be righteous, so be it, but we shouldn't forget the reason why they are paid with tax dollars.

That is assuming that the state knows better than the individual. A very dangerous assumption. Unfortunately, the assumption has to be made after the state has already taken responsibility away from the individual. Liberty and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. Losing one usually means losing the other.

It's center because the Conservatives would be a left-wing party if "center" was an absolute term. In fact, I would call the Republicans left wing given it shamelessly supports social welfare. In Canada, "center" is somewhere between socialist and communist.

Wouldn't a rule like "those who gamble shouldn't receive social assistance" make far more sense than "those who receive social assistance shouldn't gamble"? Of course, politics is not about making sense. Just imagine how people would scream if they were denied social services because they made a concious choice to gamble. And before somebody starts, I know it's a disease for some people.

It might be useful to learn that China is not a dictatorship. A dictatorship by definition is ruled by a single individual, whereas China is not. China might be an oligarchy and might be totalitarian, but it is not a dictatorship. Also note that China is also not a communist state or even leftist. It has the typical signs of early Capitalism, or more precisely, Mercantilism. States like that are usually farily right wing with conservative social views and far less progressive economical views. It may also be useful to remember that politicians are professional liars. They say things for political reasons. For example, China is manipulating its currency, but it's not a currency manipulating country. It might be confusing to ordinary people, but it makes perfect sense in diplomatic terms. Therefore, it's not their words that matters, it's their actions.