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Coud be. I just saw an interview with actor/director Sean Penn. My god, he actually sounded like he had a thought process going on.

I am stunned.(and happy)

   

There's actually quite few intelligent Americans out there, BAB. Penn is one, another in acting is Johnny Depp. The Dixie Chicks are smart, but they've been silenced. There are all sorts of writers, actors and comedians that are not only smart, but have been speaking out against Bush and his adminstration. In a lot of cases it has damaged their careers.

   

By 'intelligent' american, it sounds like you mean to say, 'anti-war' american. If that is your only qualification for intelegence, I seriously doubt your qualification for making such a judgment. I don't mean to start a flame war, but lets try to be objective. To say that some one is intelegent only if they agree with your point of view is by definition ignorant. I would appreciate it if you broadened your definition.

   

S-o-o-o-o..... you're saying somebody who likes war is "intelligent"???

Hmmmmm.....

   

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of recognizing how dangerous and stupid Georgie and his oily little buddies are. Being anti-war is part of that...only an idiot would support an illegal war based on lies and fought so a select few could get rich on the proceeds.

The war isn't the only thing though...intelligent Americans also speak out against predatory trade practices, ridiculously lax environmental laws, increasing governmental secrecy, the constant erosion of human rights in the US and abroad, a foreign policy that creates terrorism, drug laws that create criminals and drug addicts, agricultural policies that starve those in developing countries and family farmers in the US, a huge an increasing debt-load, economic plans less stablethan a house of cards. Actually I can type this particular list all night.

Not trying to start a flame war or anything, just wondering what the hell happened to democracy....

   

It's too bad that so many Canadians are preoccupied with the question of American democracy when we need to figure out what the hell happened to our own democracy.

Do we have any inteligent Canadians out there? Or do we need to constantly attempt to point out the flaws of the Americans in the hope that our own flaws won't seem as bad.

   

I never started the thread, Anti...just responded.

The fact is that we have a much more diverse and pro-active democracy in Canada than is presently available south of our border. That shouldn't be the case given the respective constitutions of our two countries, but it is.

I take it by your moniker that you are a social conservative as well as a fiscal conservative. If that's the case, you speak of democracy but not of social equality; you speak of peace, but are willing to subjugate others for profit; you judge others by your religious standards while refusing to acknowledge theirs. That's what social conservatism has brought into the light in the US and it's what social conservatives have been unable to keep hidden in Canada. Social conservatism is as anti-democratic here as it is in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

So in answer to your statement...the erosion of Canadian democracy is not as advanced as the erosion of American democracy. Since the US affects Canada first and foremost that is of immediate concern to us. Since everything the US does has ripple effects all around the world, we are doubly concerned.

   

Fair enough, but I disagree. We have unelected judges shaping social and government policy. We have an unelected Senate that does....well, nothing, but they are unelecetd just the same. The PMO's office has more relative power and control than any other equivalent office in any western industrial nation. Our MP's are basically uselss and have no say in anything the dictator decides to do. Politicians regularly get elected on promises they proceed to break and then they go ahead and ram through policies that they never had a mandate for. And then to top it all of we have absolutley no accountability for the way the government spends money and conducts its affairs.

Don't judge too much by moniker - I usually have a hard time making them up.

I am definitely a fiscal conservative, but socially I probably fall in the centre. I don't practice or preach any religion, so you can't play that card on me. I tend not to get too worked up on social issues except for when they adversely affect fiscal concerns.

As for your comment "you speak of democracy but not of social equality" - you might wish to note that many have tried, and still try, to achieve social equality by the removal of democracy. In general, Canada's trend toward social equality is being achieved by lowering the bar for everybody, not by raising it.

Equal rights are a must, but government legislated equal standing in society is unnatural and impossible. If social compassion must be forced by government decree, then there is no compassion. Prosperity is the only way to improve the general lot in life of the greatest number of people.

I don't get your relation of social conservatism to being anti-democratic.

   

Social conservatism in North America is based on far right-wing Christian values. In short it is Puritanism. It affects fiscal policy in some very definite ways...a minimum wage that people can't feed themselves on; constant attacks on our medi-care system; constantly reduced social benefits; calls for stiffer penalties even while our crime rate goes down under the current laws; Christian values-based education and laws.

You cannot have equal rights if you are calling for reduced spending on education and health-care. You cannot have equal rights if immigrants from some countries are more equal than others. You cannot have equal rights when racial profiling is mentioned as anything other than racism. You cannot have equal rights if the government does not participate by ensuring that everybody is treated equally. A rising tide does not lift everyone...it lifts the really big ships, imperils those in small boats, and drowns those without boats.

In Canada it has time and again been the NDP who have spoken out for civil and human rights, who have spoken out for democracy. The further right the party, the more likely they are to curb human and civil rights and the more likely they are to impose the will of undemocratic organisations on the voting public.

Social issues are continually under attack in this country. Social programs have been cut to the bone and now we're digging at the marrow. In the jargon of the right, there are no longer welfare recipients; only shiftless, lazy bastards who spend their cheques on booze and dope and their time breeding the next generation of lazy, drunken dopers. Sorry, but I know some people who have been or are on social assistance and they are more fiscally responsible and likely harder working than the average business person.

The Supreme Court in the US, arguably the only one that matters when it comes to setting laws, was mostly appointed by George Bush Senior. That court appointed George Jr. President.

Both houses in the US use "riders" on bills as part of doing business. "Want my support on this farm bill? I have this piece of unrelated legislation..." The result is that bad laws get passed without really being voted for and good laws get killed because people are voting against unrelated riders. "Chickens should be illegal because I like bicycles," doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?

I don't agree with the Canadian Senate and someplace on this board I put up a few suggestions about that. Those suggestions do not and never will look like the US model though because that system results in deadlock...nothing being done...far too often.

Again I would say that the left in Canada has done far more to promote real electoral change than the right has. Keep in mind that "Blue Tories" ran this country for two terms and whatever you want to call Kim Campbell's stint was before Chretien took over. Not only did they do nothing to make things more fair, but actually made things worse.

Every government is accountable for its actions every time it goes to the polls. In between all we can do is bitch and judge them on how they respond.

A very good example of that is the recent deal to let an American Death Merchant conduct our next census. I wrote to Bill Blaikie (my MP and the guy who brought the matter up in the house), the Federal Progressive Conservatives (we didn't know that backroom deals had them already licking the Alliances butt at that point), three Liberals (Rock, Martin, and the PMO) and the Reform Party (the official opposition). Blaikie's office was the only place I did not directly ask for a response from and it is the only place that responded. Guess who I'm voting for?

So you can agree with me on any of these things or not, Anti. Be prepared though...i've been known to talk back.

   

I said before I'm not religious at all but I defend the right of people who are to hold the views that they do. That being said, I don't think you can fairly tie all socially conservative points of view to "far right-wing" Christian values, if there is such a thing. What exactly is a "far right-wing" Christian value? And please don't go of into some sort of anti-Christian rant. I think the stereotyping of Alliance supporters as rednecked, bible thumping hicks has been played a little to the extreme. But then I guess it's right in line with the stereotyping of NDP and Liberal supporters as Mao Tse-Tung worshipping, brown-shirt wearing, communist thugs.



You said the dirty word. NDP is to me what the Alliance is to you. The NDP are further to the left than the Alliance is to the right. I assume you didn't live in Ontario during the Bob Rae days when he almost destroyed the province. Hopefully he scared enough people off of left wing extremism forever. An NDP government in Canada would be the end of the country.



But if the people in the really big boats don't lift those with small boats, or without any at all, then society has failed hasn't it? (Oddly enough, it would seem that Americans as a whole are more compassionate than Canadians - they give more to charity per capita than any nation on earth).



It's too bad that the unions they support do more damage to democracy than any social conservative ever could.



And so scratch your head along with me and wonder - just where is all that money going? Revenues are at an all time high, yet services continue to decline. If the government is not willing to prioritize, get back to the basics and fund essential social programs like health care and education, then we will continue to see cuts in social programs.



That's okay. I'm not fragile. Just so you know, though - sometimes I play devils advocate to opposing positions even though they may not be my own.

   

Far right wing Christian values include things like blocking access to abortion even while discouraging sex education. They promote their creation myth as a science that should be taught in the schools. They use charity to control the actions of others. These are the values of George Bush and Oliver Cromwell.

I don't have a problem with Christians...an overwhelming number of my friends and aquaintances adhere to some form of Christianity. I do not feel their values should be used to create law though. A good and recent example of that is the gay marriage issue. The far-right Christians were screaming about family values and how this would be the end of our society. Meanwhile Jean Chretien, by most accounts a fairly Pious Catholic, was being leaned on by Pope Jean Paul. Chretien resisted that kind of pressure to do what's right...he did not allow his religious beliefs to interfere with how the country was run. Now compare that with what the social-conservative leader to our south did.

I watched Ontario when Rae took over, Anti. He may have done a lot of spending, but he is the one who actually got the economy rolling again.

Social conservatives (and fiscal ones too) have shown time and again that their policies do not help the poor. Wage rates stay low, social services, including education, decline (Mike Harris had a Minister of Education with only a high school diploma...he cut money to post-secondary education drastically).

I'm not talking about charity here. I spent a couple hours taking food to a food bank. So what? It's a short-term solution at best. What conservatism leads to in the long run is more poverty...more need for me to go to the food bank with donations. Look at the numbers since the Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney triumvirate began in the eighties...it ain't working.

And, since I took us all the way back to the time of Mulroney, lets talk about where all that money goes. A huge amount of it goes to service a huge debt incurred by conservative fiscal policy. A lot of it also goes to paying for tax breaks and benefit plans for profitable business. A lot of it doesn't exist because of loop-holes in the tax laws that benefit large business.

Government has prioritised, Anti. They've put the wants of business ahead of the needs of people.

   

I would think it is obvious now which party realy has been destroying Ontario. For people who profess to be the true democrats and champions of freedom, it sure seems like hte Conservatives in ON went on a wild pork barrelling spree. Pickering A was run by one of Harris's good friends. Ontario Realty basically gave away public land, again to friends, the Oak Ridges Morain was sold against the wishes of most people in the province, etc.....

It seems to me that the Conservatives are exactly the opposite of what they say.

   

They are free to promote it as much as they want. It will never happen, because they are the minority. See how that works?



Funny, their values were used as the foundation for this country. Are you saying we should abandon that and rebuild it on some other set of values? Besides it is not only Christians who are against gay marriage. Why don't you ask one of the million or so muslims in the country how they feel about it? Or why don't you go to officially atheist China and see how they feel about homosexuals? You seem to want to ignore the fact that a majority of Canadians are actually opposed to gay marriage. You also ingore the fact that the ruling regime was also against it in majority, and likely still is.

For every value of the Christian's that you say is extreme, there are many more that are just part of everyday life. Why don't you just live and let live and stop persecuting people for their beliefs? But at least we can agree that religion should not be used to make laws.



See my sig.

If you call businesses moving to the US in record numbers under his tyranny gettting the economy rolling, I really have to question your grasp on reality. I don't know what they teach you out there in NDP-land, but having lived here through Bob Rae, I feel qualified to say that his reign was a near disisater for Ontario. Please don't be so blind in your hatred for the conservatives so as not recognize a simple truth such as this. The records are there to prove it: NDP - economy bad, PC's economy good.

You want to have all of this money to spend on social programs yet you would advocate punishing business for generating that money? Without business, there are no jobs. Without jobs there is no money. Without money, people are poor. When people are poor we need to spend more. To spend more, we need to raise taxes. To raise taxes, we need jobs. To have jobs we need businesses. Whoops! All of the businesses moved or were taxed to death! Oh well. When we punish businesses they die or leave.....and the cycle continues.

And before you blame all of the cuts that happened in Ontario on the PC's, you should look a little further to the criminals in the federal Liberals. They balanced their books on the backs of all of the provinces by dramatically cutting transfer payments. How do you expect a province to fund it's programs when the federal government steals all of its money and redistributes it as they see fit? Let's remeber that education and health care are bad across the whole country - not just in Ontario. The federal government is the sole cause of all that is wrong in Canada today.



Wow. Mother Theresa look out! Seriously, good for you. If you somehow think that food banks magically disappear when the liberals or ndp are in power, I must ask you: can I have some of what you're smoking? And while we're going into the past, lets consider that we have had 8 years of conservative rule federally in the past 40 years or something like that. We have basically had 40 years of liberal social policy and yet according to you things are still getting worse. Are you going to blame everything on those eight years of conservative rule? How long does it take for these magical social programs to magically make all of the ills of the world disappear? How long before we can all step out of our doors and see the wonderful Utopia rising before us, in all of it's glory, with nary a food bank to be found?

Seriously, I am really interested to know why you think that after 40 years of social programs, things are still as bad as they are?

Perhaps you can refer to this while you think about it.

Let me know when you have all of the answers and not just some anti-business, anti-capitalist, anti-everything-but-what-you-think tirade.

   

I think it's funny that the conservatives in Ontario are still blaming Rae too. That was a long time ago and the PCs have had two premiers since then. Criticize Harris though, even for something like the murder of Dudley George or Walkerton...things that had nothing to do with the Rae government...and the first thing you hear is that everything is Bob Rae's fault.

   

And now on to my new Anti:

If you look what has happened in some US states, such as Ohio, you will find that you are wrong. See how that works?

In another post I pointed out that the conservative values being put forth by the Christian right were no different than Afghanistan. You don't want to go there Anti. Social conservatism is social conservatism no matter what god's name you use when committing the crimes inherent in it. Here it is the Christian god...a pure white Jesus with blonde hair and blue eyes and no Jewish relatives...whose name gets used that way. In other cultures they use other lies to promote their puritanism. When talking aboutthe religious right in North America it is necessary to talk about Christianity...or at least their peculiar bastardisation of it.

This country was founded on the values of democracy. The values espoused in our constitution are universal, not the domain of Christianity. If you talk to a Buddhist or a Wiccan you will find that they too support equality and fairness. They too think killing is bad. They may shy away from the idea of forcing others to adhere to their peculiar religious beliefs though.

I've seen your signature. I can't help it if you missed Dostoevsky's overall message or if you grabbed a quote that you didn't understand, of if you choose to quote him out of context. All I can do is point out that you are, once again, wrong.

You missed my point about food banks. I suspect you did so purposely. Those food banks didn't exist before the tenets of neo-conservatism were embraced. Where we used to use our wealth to at least attempt to raise the lot in life of the poor, we have now set up systems to ensure the poor stay that way. I have never seen a neo-conservative promote an educational program for the disadvantaged, for instance. They cheer for work-fare programs...slave labour with no chance of betterment...they champion purely labour driven training...those factories need obedient, non-unionised workers...but shun any attempt to bring true advancement to the poor.

The companies that headed south did so largely because of NAFTA, Anti. You should maybe read a little Mel Hurtig once in a while. I'm pretty sure you won't like his writing because it will show that you are, again, wrong.

BTW I have google too. I suspect most here do. I like the version with the bar permanently displayed on my screen. I'm not really too impressed that you read a book, or at least the reviews of the book that you could get for free on ther Internet.

Let me know when you are willing to discuss things like an adult instead of spreading poorly thought out platitudes based on a world that never was.

   

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