x

[Birdy]

Similar premises as those that would have me jump into the fray if I was witness to a rape or a lynching.

so you support the war in iraq? would you have supported vietnam? or say a war in uganda under the auspices of idi amin? or what about africa on a day to day basis.. we should have troops coast to coast no?

[Freeker]

Liberal min. with an increase of NDP seats is what I would like to see.

Exactaly what I want as well. Actually what I'd really like to see, outside of reality, is an NDP minority with the Green, just to try it. Give em 4 years to prove they aren't just idealistic with no substance. But I fear if that ever happened, Layton is so conditioned to be a third tier lifer he'd probably vanish, run away in fear of having to lead, and never be heard from again. I love the NDP wish they could get more power in this country but Layton is just not presidential (prime ministeral), doesn't have the voice.

[Birdy]

i think the ndp sits in the best position they've sat in years.

[d_rawk]

No, I''m not sure how any of those examples follow.

Iraq - a case for intervention could be, and long had been, made. The reasons that the US went in - essentially unilaterally (with token support from a smattering of others) - were not valid reasons. I did not, and do not, support it. There is a realm within which I could have supported intervention, but it is light years away from what happened, the way that it happened, the reasons that it happened, and the implications of it having happened the way, and for the reasons, that it did.

Vietnam - flawed domino theory and ideological hair raising regarding communism. Don't see how it flows.

Amin was murderous. I'm embarassed to say that I don't know enough about the Ugandan situation to have a hard and fast position. There are probably arguments that could sway me, based on what I do know. I would definately need to a lot more information before I could say for sure whether I would have supported Canadian involvement in an armed conflict in the area.

Africa, we would need to discuss specifics. 'Tis a large continent.

[Birdy]

raping and lynching.. happens every day. and if those are your means of deciding whether or not to send the troops, we'd probably be the biggest warring nation out there.

idi amin was absolutely atrocious..sick. the ugandan holocaust has almost completely flown under the radar for most of the western world, which i find odd, considering how abominable and horrifying it was.

[d_rawk]

given the abomination and the horror, would you have supported armed intervention?

[Birdy]

as a nation, no. individually, yes.

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

so you support sending troops to Iraq?

[Birdy]

no.. but if you yourself choose to go to iraq, all the power to you.

[Hux]

Birdy, would you characterize your upbringing as affluent, middle, or low income?

[Birdy]

middle

[d_rawk]

as a nation, no. individually, yes

Ah, you know, I think I am starting to see the crux of our differences.

To me, government programs are like when everyone gets together and says "I don't know how many of you know the Jones' upstairs, but man, they've had it really rough lately. They're elderly, they have no surviving children, and they are really having a hard go of it right now. I'm thinking maybe we should each chip in a bit" and everyone is like, "yeah, I think so.". It is the expression of the mutual will. Whereas you see it as something imposed.

But then, I've always preferred Rousseau to Locke ('cept when he starts going on about women).

You see legitimacy in an armed individual, I see legitimacy in an armed nation ... even when we both agree on the desiribility of intervention in a particular circumstance. But to me, a group of willingly armed individuals (which is what might transpire under your scenario) is exactly what an army is. Likewise, the sum total of private charity is exactly what social programs are.

[Birdy]

precisely d_rawk.

but the major difference is in the "choice". when our country is not a "true" democracy, majority rules even if that majority isn't truly reflective of what the people want. ie, i read a poll somewhere stating that 51% of Canadians were in favour of two-tier health care. so, from a libertarian point of view, the sum of total private charity, is better than the social program that seeks to accomplish that same goal, because it is "private" charity.

[d_rawk]

Oops, never mind. You wrote "when our country is not" but I read "when our country is".

Edited December 10, 2005 by Guest
after some sleep, a rested d_rawk corrects a tired d_rawk's earlier post

[bouche]

Guns are banned in Cuba...they also have an extremely low crime rate. The only crime the have is petty thievery.

I don't really see the point or need for a gun except to hold someone up.

[meggo]

That's 'cause they've got a body of water 'tween themselves and the US of A.

[d_rawk]

^--- damn it, that was me doing my meggo impersonation.

[Alexis]

.

Edited December 11, 2005 by Guest

[Lazlo]

.

Well put.

[Alexis]

i replied to stuff at the end of page 1 without realizing it, and i didn't want to read 3 other pages...and while reading this 4th, i find interesting points, there's too much to address, and it makes me head and heart hurt too much.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Politics... I keep thinking of that line I was so happy to have run across and kept as my sig for a while, from Theodor Adorno - "To say 'we' and mean 'i' is one of the most recondite insults," particularly as it has to do with sending troops to war to deal with rapists and pillagers, inter alia.

I mean, check out the stats on how many Germans, considered by many in the 1920s to be among the most enlightened nations in the history of the planet (think of how many luminaries they had spawned in every field of human accomplishment over the previous hundreds of years) voted for the stark mensch (strong-man) party, and went the way they did, because they thought they were so terribly important. Makes me fucking shudder.

I apologise for keeping coming back to this example, but I do think it's important, even for an "Austria" like Canada.

The Tories under Harper, I think, are a really dangerous proposition for Canadians who hold on to the idea that social diversity has any currency. They are definitely no longer the party my parents voted for back in the day; as has been pointed out, they're much more a party of Western factionalism that could only survive by grafting itself on to a moribund PC group through effective free-market rhetoric and fear-mongering.

[d_rawk]

particularly as it has to do with sending troops to war to deal with rapists and pillagers

Of course, just in case my comment is being read as an advocacy of actually going full tilt to war everytime and everywhere there is a rape, lynching, or pillaging somewhere in the world (I know that you, DEM, are far from a literalist , but a previous post seems to have made that assumption), I should clarify ...

Similar premises, rather than identical situations. The examples were on a micro scale of what I might conceive of as circumstances which may warrant an organized use of force on the macro scale. (whoa. How's that for abuse of qualifiers?). So a quick and dirty extrapolation would probably lead us in the direction of genocide.

-- truncated to remove specific examples and direct engagement with the WWII angle, lest this thread go way off the deep end ... DEM, I'll PM you --

Edited December 11, 2005 by Guest

[Birdy]

I mean, check out the stats on how many Germans, considered by many in the 1920s to be among the most enlightened nations in the history of the planet (think of how many luminaries they had spawned in every field of human accomplishment over the previous hundreds of years) voted for the stark mensch (strong-man) party, and went the way they did, because they thought they were so terribly important. Makes me fucking shudder.

I apologise for keeping coming back to this example, but I do think it's important, even for an "Austria" like Canada.

i think it's hard to draw comparison between a Canada today and a Germany post WWI/ pre-Hitler.. pretty much what any historian would deem as the era of desperation amongst German people.. boggled down by the ridiculous demands of the treaty of Versailles, fighting soaring and i mean SOARING inflation rates.. a people who would have probably listened to any "strong" voice out there as they sought nothing short of 'leadership' in times of turmoil. the man who just happened to come along, who for all intensive purposes during the early years did serve the people of Germany well, just turned out to be a quack.

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

'survival of the fittest'

I believe that in our country, many of the fences that have separated human beings for hundreds of years have been either dismantled, or at least tampered with... I think you could suggest, (which is what I believe Dr.EM is saying) that to a certain extent,the Conservative Party, is looking to "conserve" or even better "protect" some of those fences that still remain... to go even farther than that, I would suggest that they might even re-construct some of the barriers that existed in the past...

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I should have apologised more strongly for what might be a facile comparison, but I won't .

No2, I think you're right, and would even go as far as saying that, like conservatives (and fundamentalists) all over, theirs is a very selective reading of what tradition "was" and should be. Society has always been differentiating. Which slice of history would they prefer? The one where grandparents and grandchildren are all together forever under the same roof? I doubt it; why are old folks' homes presently locked in as an institution, and why do we expect our kids to move away from home at a certain age? Where did this idea of "retirement" come from, or why don't we much like the notion of child labour any more? Why do churches persist in hanging on to this idea that marriage has always been their responsibility, when they only really got into the business in the 16th c.? Maybe I'm such a conservative that I'd like to go back to the way things were in, say, the 15th c. While I'm at it, I see my passport needs renewing; I'd like then to return to the time before WWI when no nation had passports. That should be simple enough, shouldn't it?

The Conservatives are appealing, I think, to this fear that people have in the face of spiralling complexity to boil it all away and present the world to them as if it could be something simple. It isn't. It's really confusing. But surely there's a better solution to dealing with all that complexity than by presenting us all with a mythic (i.e. selective, where not completely invented) past that is to be legislated "back" into place. How about, I'd suggest to the Calgary MP, trying to exercise a little empathy? Sure, the motivating logic of the average meth-head (if there be such a creature) or person whose sexuality doesn't fit his norm might take a little effort to tease out, but it seems to me to be worth it, against the alternative of wishing their existence and their identity, which is the end is everybody's own project, away.

The scapegoating is really just ridiculous. I don't know why they don't see what they're doing. Evangelical historian George Rawlyk wrote a great piece once on how 19th c. evangelicals really missed the boat with where they directed their critique, not seeing the explosion of consumerism and the self-indulgence that fueled it in their own day. In the end I think what drives these folks today is the need to pad their own asses but keep all attention away from the fact that they're doing so.

d_rawk - beats me! I'd say I'm with Gandhi where it comes to the application of violence as a solution to violence, that it's one shade better than simple cowardice, but even he sweated blood over that, and never presented a decent response to what he would do if confronted by Hitler; he had the advantage of dealing with an enemy in the British who could still be persuaded through conscience (though there's also the argument that England needed to cut India loose because it couldn't afford to stay there anymore after the war). Your pt will have me thinking for a bit, though, and I'll have to get back to that.

I'm with Tonin, too - I'm all about the peace, but if somebody comes and fucks with my kids, they're done for.