Scotty

If you prefer. That's still divided between Right and Left.

These are per year. I didn't get into the higher figure. The lower figure did not include the cost of prisons, police or courts. No, but those aren't the costs of crime reduction, but the cost of the existence of crime. That is, if it weren't for crime, we wouldn't be putting so many resources into protecting ourselves and our businesses from it. How many people are going to put money into alarm systems if house burglaries are rare?

I think the point was the government ordered a more modest increase, just 2,000 extra militia, and they've been ordering it for about 20 years now without the military doing a thing about it. In fact, the ranks of the reserves have shrunk instead.

I find that to be utterly absurd, to be honest. We have too much tail to tooth as it is. Why would they remove soldiers from the combat arms? So we can have more clerks? Has there been any discussion of the report authored by Lieutenant General Leslie? Bloated Military Staffing

Almost all the growth in the regular forces has been in headquarters staff. Actual soldiers have not grown much at all, if any. The number of navy personnel, those not in headquarters, has actually shrunk. Human Resources staff, on the other hand, have grown by about 30%

How about people who don't believe in God looking up bible quotes they think helps their political point?

Whenever teachers go on strike, and this goes the same for health care workers, and they campaign publicly "on behalf of children" or on behalf of "patients", and cry crocodile tears about the fact that, of course, they only have the most noble of intentions. We see it right now with the teachers ads in the Ontario election trying to get Dalton McGuinty back into power, talking about children. What they really mean is "Please re-elect Dalton because he's been our bitch for years now and given us big fat raises while lowering our job requirements" Fact is they could not possibly care less about the well being of children or patients. They care about themselves. And what they want is more money for THEM. Screw the system. Screw the patients. Screw the children. Give the teachers or health care workers money, and they'll be quite content.

It has the air of truth to it. I've heard the promises by various defense ministers for many years now with no action being taken. So if we presume it is true, what's to be done about it? Further, what's to be done about the mini empires in Ottawa, and the fact they've grown so much while the number of actual soldiers has remained constant? Can we rely on the very people who have frustrated all other attempts to cut back on the bureaucracy, or do we need an outsider to go in there with a chain saw? Canada’s bloated military bureaucracy has consistently defied explicit orders from government ministers and failed to increase the size of the army militia as directed. National Post

I don't believe the police have ever had 'courts'. Are you suggesting military courts are akin to vigilante justice or dictatorships?

Some of our laws protect people. Some of our laws are simply political, designed to make the government of the day look good, and some are moral judgements on what society does not approve of people doing - like prostitution.

Assuming, of course, the government knows about it.

Sure, and Left wing ideology isn't all about rules and regulations and reigning in freedoms, beliefs, and behaviours the left doesn't like... The only real difference is that left and right want to outlaw different things. Except for porn. They're both against it, but for different reasons; the right because it's 'immoral' and the left because it 'exploits women'. For what it's worth, I'd love to experiment with legalizing both soft drugs and prostitution. I just don't think it's going to happen any time soon. That being the case, I don't oppose most of what's in the Tory crime bill. I don't like a few things, I'm ambivalent about a few more, and I support others.

I think that a lot of these clowns will think twice about sticking a gun in their belts, and if not, well, then we're all better off with them in prison.

True enough. But there are no win-win choices with respect to most decisions. They generally involve some good and some bad. If you've made the right choice, the good outweighs the bad. In this case, the good of society vs the bad of over-sentencing for certain individuals. On the other hand, individuals who like to carry hand guns around are probably the people we ought to be over-sentencing anyway. The last forty years has been all about trying to be more offender oriented, about trying to rehabilitate, about understanding their unique circumstances and trying to teach them skills and to avoid violence and crime. We've made parole far easier, and sentences have dropped since the sixties. We've made prisons far more liveable and humane, with far more programs. Well, it's all failed miserably. While our 'official' police-reported crime rate (as accurate or inaccurate as it is) has dropped over the past ten or fifteen years it's still far higher than it was before we started the kinder and gentler approach, and our approach to recidivism has failed even more. I'm not saying three strikes and you're out. I'm not a baseball fan. But there has to be a point at which the system realizes that the only time an offender isn't in prison is when he hasn't yet been caught for the crimes he's currently committing, stop screwing around, and put him or her away permanently. I mean, how many times does a guy have to be caught burglarizing houses or shops, or selling drugs, before we decide that society's protection outweighs concerns for the criminal's well-being?

Union thugs rarely murder people by the thousands, as Putin has done.

It'll work. Most murders in Canada are not premeditated. The presence of guns makes it far easier for some asshat to yank out his 'piece' and shoot someone who's 'dissing' him.

You mean we would have had to shoot them under military law instead of hanging them under civilian law? Awwwwww.

An organization primarily made up of dictators can't be considered a democracy.

Which is when, exactly?

The real solution to gun control is fairly simple. It's a life sentence for anyone caught with one. Have an illegal hand gun, point it at anyone, in a robbery or for any other reason, never mind shooting someone, and you go to prison for the rest of your life. Some might think that an overreaction, and in many cases, it would be. On the other hand, I would imagine the effect on the population at large would be fairly noticeable. Not many punks are going to carry one around with a law like that on the books, provided it's strictly enforced. Not many would want to rob a corner store with a hand gun if they knew their punishment would be life in prison.

Only to some extent. The actual cost of damaged, lost and stolen material, the actual cost of medical treatment and lost wages, the money spent on bars for windows, security guards, alarm systems, those are very real. It is the intangibles which are more complicated. However, if you checked out a number of them you should have seen that most say their estimates, whether 50 or 100 billion, are actually conservative, and probably understating the real cost. I would suggest, exempting police, there are likely more people working in the private sector because of crime, starting with all security guards, store detectives, alarm system installers, and all the people who manufacture and sell crime deterrent systems.

in·ane adjective /iˈnān/  Silly; stupid Web definitions asinine: devoid of intelligence wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn (inanely) fatuously: vacuously or complacently and unconsciously foolish wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn Lacking sense or meaning (often implying, "to the point of boredom or annoyance") en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inane (inanely) In an inane manner en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inanely silly, empty of meaning or value quizlet.com/3953093/nln-vocabulary-flash-cards/

Putin is already president in all but name. Stalin and Mao were the same. Did you not mind them either?

Yawn.

The problem is that almost everyone can consume alcohol in moderation without difficulties ensuing. The same can't be said about people who smoke crack or use heroin or meth.