Scotty

I don't believe you can separate races and immigrants because most of those who are of different races are immigrants. And statistically, if even, say, 30% or 50% were immigrants that would wildly throw off the numbers. From what I've read here, it isn't people of a particular race who have poor employment figures, but immigrants of a particular race. In order to demonstrate there is a problem I think you need to compare the employment figures of the races who grew up in Canada; white, black, asian, hispanic, and see if they are more or less the same given, one would assume, similar educational backgrounds. I don't think you can fairly compare those who grew up in Canada with those who came here from other countries, throw up your hands, and say that because the numbers are different there must be discrimination, and we need a big, expensive program to combat it. Well, yes they are, but not really. Refugees, after all, once accepted, tend to become landed immigrants, and then Canadians. I would expect you're right, so does this not show that Asians are not discriminated against? And if it does, why then are Asians eligible for employment equity, affirmative action, preferential hiring type programs? I don't believe his motivations are important or relevent to the discussion.

Religious Canadians, and there are millions of them, would argue that religious institutions also serve valuable functions in society, guiding and attending to the moral conscience of society. I don't believe you can separate church functions like that. For example, many churches operate food banks, and also throw open their doors to the homeles, and shelter them in their basements on cold winter nights. You would allow tax writeoffs for the food bank, but nothing for the church to help it provide cots and other things to the homeless it allows to use its basement.

And how many people who are complaining about him, aside from me five minutes ago, have reported his inflammatory post?

Difficult to escape the effects, nevertheless, with 17 of his topics on the front page.

I don't believe the moderators routinely look at the site, but only respond to individual complaints.

Yes, it is patently silly.

What is "unchangeable damage". As for the person you quote from Rabble, even a cursory scan showed her reasons to be silly and one-sidedly political. She starts out by saying Mulroney ran up a debt, then Chretien paid it off, now Harper has run up a debt again! That's so terribly simplistic and unfair I can't imagine anyone here won't recognize it.

Would you say the same about political parties? I.E., should no public money go to political parties?

I don't see how any government organization could officially work with Wikileaks on something like this. If your neighbor breaks into your computer and takes out your diary and then asks for your help in deleting the names of girlfriends who are still married because they only want to release the stuff that embarrasses YOU are you going to give them the help they request or punch them out?

I took you to have libertarian type leanings. You don't think Eminent domain has been carried to extremes when cities expropropriate people's houses not in order to build roads but to then sell their property to companies which want to build condominiums or big box stores?

I like a comfortable environment wherever I go. If it isn't comfortable I may sometimes try to make it more comfortable. This is my way of making this environment more comfortable, and as I appear to be interpreting the rules correctly I will stop saying anything but will simply report conduct which goes against the rules.

Canada was a pretty nearly homogenous white country up until the late sixties. The natives were mostly on reserves. There were only a miniscule number of blacks and asians. Which means we are trying to make amends for past behaviour.... to people whose families were not in Canada to experience it.

Aside from natives, who were mostly on reserves, wasn't Canada almost completely white up until the late sixties? Stating it doesn't make it so. I could as easily say there is no legitimate argument to be made in favour of affirmative action. Certainly I have yet to hear one.

Let me propose something which no one seesm to dare to do because it draws accusations of racism. Why not have immigrants come principally from Europe? Life in much of Europe, particularly eastern Europe, is not particularly pleasant these days. Poverty and unemployment are widespread. In places like Russia and Belarus there is no real freedom. Wouldn't Canada be better off with immigrants who are more closely alligned with our cultural/technical/religious values and culture? Are their work skills and educational backgrounds not more closely alligned with ours than immigrants from Pakistan or Nigeria or Thailand?

But that isn't what he said and you are personalizing this discussion when it need not be.

Suppose I said to you that I believe the problem is we're bringing in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who have poor job outlooks due to non-existent language skills, lack of modern technical skills, and educational and work backgrounds which can't be proven in Canada? In other words, that it has nothing to do with discrimination and everything to do with government incompetence in the immgiration/refugee system?

What jobs have minorities been shut out of? Which minorites? All of them or just ones from certain races? Do we know why they've been "shut out" of these jobs? Could it be that as new immigrants their low partiipation rate is due to factors other than their race? Yes, this the reason why Americans have it. Why does Canada have it when almost all our visible monirity members are 2st generation Canadians?

I don't think we need information systems to tell us a growing proportion of the population is overweight. We can see it in our daily lives. Nor do we need information systems to tell us being fat is both unpleasant and unhealthy. Everyone must surely know that. What we need is a way to reverse the trend, and I have no idea how to do that other than taking fat kids away from their parents (who are also probably fat) and putting them on forced diets.

I think all of us are here for entertainment. However, I find intelligent discussion entertaining, not mockery, sarcastic insults and open displays of contempt thrown back and forth. I don't mean to say that an argument can't be taken apart with a degree of wit, but contempt is rarely amusing.

I will grant you that it can be a fine line between tearing apart an argument and being disrespectful towards the person who posted it. But I've read your posts enough to know you're quite intelligent and quite good with words. I know you know the difference.

I hate the idea of sending a message to the moderator every time someone is rude or petty, and I doubt they would act on it anyway. You never know if anything happened when you send a complaint either. And I think that is one of the essential problems. Imagine if you called the police because your neighbour punched you, but they never showed up. They never said if they made an arrest, if there was a trial, and if so what sentence your neighbor got. As far as you can see nothing was done. Then your neighbor punches you again, and the same thing happens. So how long are you going to keep bothering to call the police? So people wind up not bothering to contact the moderator even for direct, nasty insults. And they certainly don't contact the moderator just because someone is being rude and disrespectful. Again, if that's the way you want it, that's fine, but your rules say otherwise. I would report every violation of the rules I encountered if I thought the moderators were actually interested in doing anything about them.

But you make it clear you think they are addle brained tinfoil eaters. That is the whole point. Rather than attack them, even if they ARE addle brained tinfoil eaters, you ought to be attacking the argument instead. I suppose it's expecting far too much to suggest gentlemanly politeness on a web site, but if people didn't do their best to make absolutely clear what an absolute moron they think the other person is by their tone and language, then there'd be less fights and more people would post. If what you really want are the fights there are plenty of places to find them.

What is annoying is trying to have an intelligent conversation and continually encountering people who act like juvenile fools. If that is the wish of the board then so be it. However, the rules and regulations should be changed to warn people that everything aside from direct obscene insults is acceptable.

No, I have been here a while, but mostly lurking.

The rules and regulations of this site are fairly straightford and clear. They state that not only will insults not be acceptable but that all posters should avoid inflmmatory posts, and should treat each other with respect and courtesy. These rules are laudable but appear to not be at all enforced. Almost every topic in every category of discussion is filled with open insults, contempt, disrespect, childish sneers, innuendo and adolescent mockery and sarcasm. It would be harder to find posts which DO obey the rules than to find those which don't. This site did not used to be anywhere near this bad. How has it been allowed to degererate into the state it now finds itself? I'm assuming Charles is gone and Greg is too busy to do much moderation. Is that correct? That being the case I think we need more moderators.