Scotty

According to Statistics Canada only a small percentage of crimes are ever reported. And regardless of political climates many people find it not worthwhile to report crimes, either because they fear the police will never find the person anyway, or because they don't want to go through all the formality, reports, investigations, etc, if they believe little justice will be done anyway.

So the opinion polls taken on what Egyptians think aren't of any significance as compared to what a paid mouthpiece for the Egyptian government says?

I am speaking about the fact that the law, as written, said that even though the mortgages were obtained fraudulently, once registered they became valid. Thus lenders were able to take the houses away from the legitimate homeowners because of their fraudulently obtained mortgages. The law was an ass - yet that constituted justice by your way of thinking. Justice is a fundamental issue which is not defined by law, nor in fact, taken into account by law, often enough. If one has a tricky enough contract and the other party doesn't understand the references, the other party can get screwed, and you believe that still constitutes justice?

Anyone whose lives revolve around an ancient religion which hasn't been modernized or updated in centuries is by definition backward in culture, outlook and thought. Christianity has gone through a number of evolutions in the past several centuries. Islam has gone through none. How many Americans in the deep south would agree that anyone who tries to convert to another religion should be executed?

So in your opinion, justice prevails as long as the law is followed, regardless of how unjust the law. So in the case I mentioned where fraud artists falsified mortgage loan papers, justice was done when the banks seized the homes of the innocent homeowners, because, after all, that's the law. It's an interesting concept you have but I doubt many Canadians, aside from lawyers, would agree.

It is part of being a democratic nation at war. It's kind of hard to ensure everything is done politely in wartime.

I disagree. In Iran, the dictator was removed, and a temporary government put in place which was made up of various elements of society which had come together to remove him. There were Islamists, Socialists, Feminists, and a lot of urban elite types who had starry eyes about a modern democratic state. The problem was the bulk of the Iranian population were backward and unsophisticated, and their lives revolved around Islam. Egypt also had various elements of their largely urban society come together to remove a dictator. But Egypt too, has a large, unsophisticated population whose lives revolve around Islam. And given a vote or referendum, those urban educated people will be outvoted - as they were in Iran, as they were in Algeria, and the people will get the Islamic state they desire. Whether all those urban types will wind up getting shot for their trouble, as they were in Iran, remains to be seen.

Actually, yes, given that what he was stating was the OPINION of Egyptians.

People tend to forget, I think, that Democracy is really not an end unto itself. It is freedom, people want, and good government. Democracy is merely a means to that end because we haven't come up with any better way to get it. But Democracy which does not bring freedom or good government is of little value.

This would be the same Frank Graves who was in the news last year advising the Liberal Party to create a "culture war" against the Conservatives, and implying that portraying the Tories as racists and homophobes would result in more votes?

Now you can have a go at looking up the word 'honesty'. So you don't mind my saying you can pay for justice, but fulminate when I say you can buy it? Do you always get this upset over minor technical interpretations of words? This is in response to my statement 'in the case I cited'. Maybe, if you want to see a link you should look at the one I posted.

The problem arises when their failure adversely affects other people. As in, my neighbor has the right to try to fertilize his own lawn. If he puts too much fertilizer on his lawn and burns it that's pretty much his problem and doesn't really impact me much. On the other hand, his failure at building a large natural gas containment tank would. Thus if he tries I'm going to do my best to stop him.

I can find nothing to support this. Perhaps you can offer up a cite.

Australia makes voting mandatory. Nothing says it's informed. I would prefer to have uninformed, disinterested people NOT voting.

In any site like this many people make many posts. I, like others, might agree with some or much of the post, or consider it irrelevant or not worth addressing. I might wish only to discuss or clarify one or more points. Your 'all or nothing' demand is patently absurd. But evidently you are incapable of defending your point so I'll consider that you've forfeited on that. Egypt and Iran bear many similarities.

Had a few courses in college in Business Law, but that was a while ago. Still have the books though.

There are a number of fine dictionary sites online where you can look up the word 'verbatim'. I would suggest doing that. .Oh yes, I certainly agree that if you have more money you can pay for justice while if you have less then your chances of getting justice are greatly reduced. Was that your point? My point was that in the case I cited those with money were able to hire criminal defense attorneys who got them acquited while those without money were screwed over.

In what way are they different, aside from Iran having oil wealth with which to help placate the people's anger? Both nations have a more educated, more westernized urban population, but a huge, rural population whose culture and values are largely the same as their distant ancestors. Their lower class, and rural populations are both extremely conservative Muslims who long for an Islamic state.

City people, the urban educated. Give real democracy to all of Egypt and you'll find a state which will be more similar to Iran or Sudan than Turkey.

I would point out that the Algerian end to their flirtation with democracy came about when the people voted in an Islamic state, and the military decided they didn't much like that idea. The Algerian government has been engaged in a violent struggle against Islamists for years now, and in any real democracy, the people of Algeria would vote in another Islamist theocratic government similar to the one in Iran. And, of course, there would be no further elections.

Answered. BTW, Laurence Solomon makes the point in his column today that the urban people involved in the demonstrations in Cairo etc are a far cry from the rural people who make up the great bulk of Egypt's population. Few of the latter seem terribly interested in western democratic values, instead preferring an Islamic "caliphate" with Sharia law.

The attacks on embassies didn't happen until after the Ayatollahs were in charge.

On what do you base this opinion? While most of the urban generation in Cairo’s Tahrir Square desires a modern Egyptian state of some kind, the Egyptian majority does not: 91% of Muslims want to keep “Western values out of Islamic countries.” For the vast majority outside the main cities, the outrages perpetrated by Mubarak lie mostly in his suppression of Islamic fundamentalist values, such as his ban on female genital mutilation and his moves to phase out polygamy and child brides. Most Muslim Egyptians not only oppose a modern Egyptian state, they would dismantle the existing Egyptian state, two-thirds wanting instead “to unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or caliphate.” Laurence Solomon

Oh stop playing games. You can twist my words any way you wish but I'm not about to debate your own interpretation of them any further. I'll just leave that to stand on its own as I don't think it even needs a response. Hmm, yes, the Kern case was overturned, after those involved had spent 11 years in prison. The Berard Beran case was overturned - 22 years later. In fact, though I hadn't intended it, these are also cases where fundamental justice was ignored by the courts. Some of the claims made against the accused were incredible and ridiculous, yet they were convicted regardless and given long sentences. However, the case I'm referring to was probably the Wenatchee child abuse prosecutions. Wiki

I'm not sure I know what you mean by "hyperbole". I made a statement of fact. You aren't disagreeing with it, only stating that in 'many cases' the owners got their houses back. Which is irrelevant. In every case I'm familiar with they retained their houses because the banks involved didn't want the bad publicity of taking an innocent person's house and NOT because any court cared that the law's application was fundamentally unjust. If you know of a single case where the courts refused to honour the law because of its unfairness, and thus refused to take a person's house please let me know. The remedies suggested in the cite, and which I recall from that period was that after the house was taken away and sold the previous owners could apply for restitution, a process which could take years. I used this an example that justice is simply not that important to the courts as compared to what the law says. The courts don't care about justice. They care about law and precedent. If the law and precedent call for injustice then that is what the legal system will serve up.