Constitutional Reform

[Bonam]

And how many libraries are there on isolated reserves, pray tell?

However many the people living there choose to build.

[Wild Bill]

However many the people living there choose to build.

No kidding! over 2 centuries ago communities built homes, schools and libraries themselves with only hand tools. No one had any money and certainly there were no government grants.

Some of those buildings are still standing today!

It's not just the natives! Just WTF is wrong with people today?! They can't seem to do the simplest damn things! Most seem to be just unskilled, useless, inept, fumblefingered metrosexual excuses for useful human beings!

Put 'em on a desert island with you and all they'd do is be a drag on your resources. It's doubtful they'd even be nutritious, if nothing else! Any capable person would be better off waiting till dark and then scurrying away, leaving them to their own unproductive devices!

[Saipan]

And how many libraries are there on isolated reserves, pray tell?

If I decide to live in the middle of nowhere (which I almost do) I can moan about it too.

Same goes for wheelchair acces at Mnt. Everest.

[Saipan]

Some of those buildings are still standing today!

While commercial buildings designed by architects are falling under the snow load.

Yet it's the homeowner builder forced to buy inferior rafters at Home Depot instead using better quality ones.

[Argus]

No, Argus! I had zero money. I used to collect blobs of solder out of old chassis and re-use it! Virtually all my parts came from discarded radio and tvs that relatives, neighbours and friends of my parents gave me. I cracked open a power transformer out of a radio to remove the enameled wire from the windings to make my antennae that I hung up in the trees.

I had NO way to get into town to buy parts! Even if there was a bus I had no money for the fare anyway..

And I'm sure some of them did too. But for every Wild Bill in a podunk town who builds radios there's probably ten more who just sit around chewing straw and bitching that they've got nothing to do. And so it is in a native reserve.

A properly functioning society, though, doesn't simply make it possible for the exceptional cases to thrive and move on, it makes it possible for the majority to do so. And that's just not the case on reserves becaues they have no economic reason for existing. Other towns grew up among farms or near mines or by forestry and mill operations, or by fishing areas or whatever. The reserves never had that economic reason to exist and have nothing to sustain them, and so their people have nothing much to do -- unless they abandon them and move elsewhere.

[Argus]

Yeah, one generation put a man on the Moon. The next generation sits on its ass and expects the Moon to be handed to them!

You're talking about boomers now? :-)

[Argus]

Ok and because they can't bring themselves to get off their asses and do something with their lives I'm supposed to feel sorry for them?

No, I'm just pointing out that their societies are dysfunctional in large measure because there's no economical reason for the existence of their reserves. There's nothing to do there but collect welfare, and that breeds a certain mentality of dependance. Pointing out they should all leave is fine, but do you honestly expect all the natives to just pick up and leave the reserves? I mean, come on. You've gotta have more of a plan than that. Personally, I think the reserves either need to find something to sustain them economically, or need to be closed down. I'm all for establishing urban or semi urban reserves where they can all live together, but there needs to be some source of work nearby or they're simply wasting their lives away.

[Argus]

No kidding! over 2 centuries ago communities built homes, schools and libraries themselves with only hand tools. No one had any money and certainly there were no government grants.

And when was the last time a community did that? I seem to recall the people of south Ottawa have been bitching at the city for a library for over ten years now. You'd think they'd go build their own, eh? But nope. All across this country when groups of citizens decide they need something, be it a playground, a library, a community centre, a bridge, or whatever, they don't consider how to fund and build it, they consider how to lobby government to do it for them.

It's the Canadian way...

[Saipan]

And I'm sure some of them did too. But for every Wild Bill in a podunk town who builds radios there's probably ten more who just sit around chewing straw and bitching that they've got nothing to do. And so it is in a native reserve.

A properly functioning society, though, doesn't simply make it possible for the exceptional cases to thrive and move on, it makes it possible for the majority to do so.

So how does the society force those "who just sit around chewing straw and bitching that they've got nothing to do", as you put it?

Legislate interest in a hobby?

Will indians recognize such white man's legislation?

[Sandy MacNab]

There is no wall that keeps natives blocked up on their "reserve". I have met several natives who went out into the "outside world" and did quite well for themselves, including a professor, an entrepreneur in the tech industry, and an aerospace engineering grad student. Natives are not some kind of neanderthals who can only fish and hunt, they are just as capable of competing and excelling in the real economy as anyone else. While I agree the system as a whole is a disaster, no individual can fault it for their own failure.

But, it's so much easier to blame someone else. I come from a small town. When I turned 21 and could visit the local bars, I noticed that the farmers who were the most likely to bitch about the government doing 'em dirt were the ones that spent most of the working day knocking back beer after beer.

[eyeball]

It did happen, of course. However, putting aside the question of its relevance to constitutional matters, making a claim that every First Nations individual today is the child of a person who was abused at a Residential School seems to take the claim from mere exaggeration right into the realms of hyperbole.

[c/e]

Speaking of exaggerated hyperbole exactly where did I claim that every First Nations individual today is the child of a person who was abused at a Residential School? I'm certainly asserting that the children of people who were abused probably had a pretty grim upbringing resulting in them having a lot more to overcome than the average Canadian.

My response was to the belief that these hardships are little more than what any average bumpkin raised in the country had to cope with. Compared to this understatement, claims of hyperbole on my part are exactly that.

[eyeball]

Again, how do you account for Robbie Robertson, Graham Greene, Derek Miller and so many other great musicians who grew up on those same reserves?

Random chance and a capacity to cope, probably above average.

[Saipan]

But, it's so much easier to blame someone else. I come from a small town. When I turned 21 and could visit the local bars, I noticed that the farmers who were the most likely to bitch about the government doing 'em dirt were the ones that spent most of the working day knocking back beer after beer.

You can get BANNED for that by the moderator!

Even for suggesting there could be some alcohol in polluted water. Are you saying famers are drunk????

[Saipan]

Random chance and a capacity to cope, probably above average.

How about those who started in some Vietnamese or Korean village and now own a restaurant here?

[eyeball]

How about those who started in some Vietnamese or Korean village and now own a restaurant here?

Pretty much the same thing, it could happen to anyone.

[g_bambino]

[W]here did I claim that every First Nations individual today is the child of a person who was abused at a Residential School?

You made the very strong implication here. If you meant to be more specific, you should've worded your response differently.

I'm not going to comment on exactly how much of a role the Residential School programme plays in forming today's circumstances for First Nations. However, I will say what it isn't: Entirely to blame for every problem First Nations face, as you made it sound in that post of yours I linked to.

[c/e]

Edited September 3, 2011 by g_bambino

[eyeball]

You made the very strong implication here. If you meant to be more specific, you should've worded your response differently.

Worded specifically like the claim you claim I made here, as opposed to a rather weak implication at best?

I'm not going to comment on exactly how much of a role the Residential School programme plays in forming today's circumstances for First Nations. However, I will say what it isn't: Entirely to blame for every problem First Nations face, as you made it sound in that post of yours I linked to.

[c/e]

No, that was just you claiming that. Get it straight.

[g_bambino]

Worded specifically like the claim you claim I made here, as opposed to a rather weak implication at best?

Nonsense deviation away from the nonsensical claim you made. And I wasn't the only one to see the gross exaggeration in it, whether you indended that exaggeration or not.

[Wild Bill]

Nonsense deviation away from the nonsensical claim you made. And I wasn't the only one to see the gross exaggeration in it, whether you indended that exaggeration or not.

I guess I make it at least two readers. Seemed pretty obvious to me!

[Argus]

You can get BANNED for that by the moderator!

Even for suggesting there could be some alcohol in polluted water. Are you saying famers are drunk????

Your post does not appear to make a lot of sense, Saipan.....

[eyeball]

What I said was clearly in response to the gross oversimplification and understatement implied in WB's post when he compared the hardships of his own upbringing to that of an average native raised on a reserve.

So what you perceive to be my gross exaggeration is actually a fairly balanced response. I think it's your intentions that are out of whack here not mine.

[Wild Bill]

What I said was clearly in response to the gross oversimplification and understatement implied in WB's post when he compared the hardships of his own upbringing to that of an average native raised on a reserve.

So what you perceive to be my gross exaggeration is actually a fairly balanced response. I think it's your intentions that are out of whack here not mine.

Translated: "You ALL took it the wrong way, no matter HOW many there are of you!"

[eyeball]

Translated: "You ALL took it the wrong way, no matter HOW many there are of you!"

We are measured not by how much crap falls on us over our lives. That tends to average out for everybody.

Everybody?

Then there's your assertion that everybody can cope with things like no money for antennas or damaged and severely dysfunctional parents by simply choosing to.

Edited September 4, 2011 by eyeball

[jacee]

G&M

This is largely an issue for English-Canadians, not French-Canadians. IMV, Canada needs to reform its constitution to change the federal government's obligations to aboriginals.

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I understand that we Canadians - whether French or English, Catholic or Protestant, tend to be pragmatic, polite. Whether Labrador, northern BC, Quebec or Fort McMurray, we accept a special status according to circumstance.

But this special status for aboriginals has its limits, and I think that aboriginals have abused this constitutional limit.

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Much more fundamentally, aboriginals are smart people, know this land. Yet, too many aboriginals are in jail, illiterate. In this, the Canadian state has failed.

'Special status' is not conferred by the constitution. Changing the constitution doesn't change the treaties we agreed to. Aboriginal rights exist outside of any written law. The constitution simply "recognizes and affirms" what is already a fact of law.

[Smallc]

Aboriginal rights exist outside of any written law.

Rights only exist as long as there are states willing to protect them. In many ways, it is our laws that allow for special aboriginal rights.