I Miss Trudeau

I'm duly chastised. I'll never attempt to sway you with facts or figures, Hawk.

Come now Eureka! These are right wingers you're talking about. They know that education has negative value... who do you think you're fooling?

Sweal ftw!

But he is happy to ally himself with them to acheive his short and long term goals? Mmmhmmm.

Not all cultural groups are ethnic groups. Also, just because you have nothing but disdain for French Canadians doesn't mean that their opinions don't matter in Canadian policy.

A social club for people that have bothered to read their holy scripture, you mean?

The United church. Most non judeo-christian religions. Actually, a whole lot of Christians that are more concerned with the teachings of Jesus than the teachings of the churches.

Whew boy. Vocabulary and spelling police in the same thread. Lookout!

This "Canada" exists in another universe, I think.

Not to mention those evil people who engage in sexual activity prior to marriage. Surely we can't allow them to get married. We must defend our cultural and religious heritage! And those divorced people...err...wait a minute. They aren't really divorced. Why is the state trying to destroy the world by permitting divorce? Anyway, the state can't seriously permit battered wives to divorce their husbands, can they? Think of the children! After all, I'm sure the stick never exceeded the thickness of their thumbs!

Everyone in this country? Well then, if they're out there upholding my moral and cultural values, they'll be legislating SSM into law ASAP. It doesn't bode well when you go off the tracks in the first sentence of a paragraph. See, you're free to believe that Bob and Dick down the street aren't married until you die and go someplace.... tropical. The government isn't. And many different cultures and religions that are morally supportive of it. I'm sorry, but just because you scream the loudest doesn't mean that you get your way. Why must the title marriage be usurped from religions that totally support this? You've really got this all backwards. You and your religious institution can continue doing whatever it is that you do. The question is why you want to force other religious institutions to do what you want, too.

Like the one that smiley-happy-burger-flipping-Stevie couldn't wait to see investigated because it might interfere with his opportunistic interpretation of the polls? The scandal that even had the nerve to bring forth a non-confidence motion in parliament?!

How do you reasonably expect to enforce these rules?

Its not brilliant nor is it good politics. The important difference is that the Cons were allied with the Bloc to bring down the government and force an election that wouldn't benefit anyone but the Bloc. On top of that, a huge majority of Canadians didn't want an election. Martin allies with the Bloc to provide something that virtually every Canadian wanted; namely, for the government to get on with the business of governing and actually accomplish something. The budget gets passed, the SSM bill will pass (which at least half of the population supports anyway). Unfortunatly for Mr. Harper, Canadians see through his "clever" little ruse and realize that Harper has been the only leader that has done absolutely nothing but try to obstruct the functioning of government. Poor, poor, Stevie. Martin: 3679, Harper: 0

Fair enough. Let me modify, then, by changing it to "you seem unwilling to do so."

Best break open that logic text and have another look. So you wouldn't consider this to be criticism?: Was it just a waste of bandwidth, then? And virtually everyone in academia agrees that the ability to invoke the latin names for informal fallacies is not a measure of intelligence. Especially when you get them wrong.

I'm sorry that you don't appreciate the irony. Partly to raise awareness, and partly as a message that says "We're not going to live by your moralistic, repressive, and often bigoted views." Funny, I feel the same about a lot of God fearing people. My experience with the crusade to rid the city of raves here in Edmonton leads me to suspect that the religious right is probably more horrified by the dance music than the gyrating bronze homosexuals. Or a football game, or a bar, or a cheerleading competition, or Whyte ave on a friday or saturday night, or ........ A lot of the "rules" they don't adhere to are idiotic and repressive. Well, because they're making a public statement. If you wanted to make a statement, would you close the curtains over the basement window, get on your soapbox, and whisper at the concrete wall? And you're still wrong, but at least you can take comfort in the knowledge that some things never change.

Yes, but not a morally significant living human being, AKA a person. Apples and oranges. What do technological advances in medicine have to do with the moral worth of a fetus? Even "preemies" can be wrong, I guess. I don't know anyone who would suggest that life doesn't begin at conception. Thats completely irrelevant to the discussion, however.

Passing the SSM bill will have absolutely no effect on the outcome of a charter challenge regarding incest or polygamy. Actually, most homosexuals just want to be able to do what other Canadians already take for granted. It seems to be the religious right who insist on debating social policy as a sort of sport. By the way, I found this part of your post to be truly entertaining: So, if I've got your argument clear, even if the SSM bill passes, those on the religious right are going to demand that it be "appealed" [sic] and force it to be, yet again, debated ad nauseum. But, according to you, its the homosexuals that are just itching for a debate.

Unfortunatly, you didn't have the pleasure of taking Philosophy 101, in which (my prof, at least) said "Attack the substance and content of the text, not the style of the author." Or perhaps you're simply incapable of doing so.

Whether or not a fetus is "human" (ie. possesses human dna) is not in dispute. The issue is whether or not the fetus is a morally significant entity. Whether or not something breathes (fetuses dont, by the way) is completely irrelevant. Again, being human or not is not the issue. Because the decision on which one to save is, again, completely irrelevant to the issue. I don't see anyone saying any such thing in this thread. Perhaps you could clarify. Extending human rights to fetuses makes about as much sense as extending human rights to cancerous tumours.

What does make him a bastard is using his children publicly to improve his image. It borders on exploitation.

No surprise

Do you have any evidence of this, or do you simply like to pretend that you and your fellow right wingers are the modern day equivalent of the Greeks at Thermopylae?

Well of course Gomery is "toothless;" its an inquiry, not a trial.