Bizud

Good question. I would say it isn't acceptable, because I don't think the use of force on the part of the state is any more legitimate than the use of force on the part of an individual. When a democratic government acts, it acts on behalf of its citizens. It's all well and good to just think of the government as the benevolent overseer who can take care of those ugly things that "need to be done," like executions, but a democratic government is a creation of its citizens. The powers that it has are bestowed upon it by its citizens. So if my government kills someone, I'm killing someone. It can't hurt. Two wrongs don't make a right. Actually, if you'll take another look, I said that while prisons should be abolished, those violent offenders that are beyond rehabilitation should be confined for the safety of the public - there's just no need for it to be done inhumanely.

I. Just. Said. Let's. Make. It. Free. I. Didn't. Say. Make. It. Harder. To. Get. In. Stupid. "But how do we do that?" How do you think, TAX THE RICH THROUGH THE FUCKING EAR.

I don't see what safety has to do with treating unrehabilitatable prisoners humanely.

I don't understand what you're talking about with second chances, guy, I just said free education. And some people have a lot more of those dollars, and can thus pay a lot more.

It neither makes it worse nor better. "People should pay for their crimes" is not a criterion for what makes a society fair, in my opinion. "We should hold ourself to the highest ethical standards," however, is. When a democratically-elected government kills someone, its citizens must bear some of that responsibility, and to be honest I don't want that kind of black mark on my (for lack of a better word) soul. It's no more acceptable for a government to mete out that kind of justice than for an individual to take matters into their own hands. Besides not supporting the re-instatement of the death penalty, which would be a collossal step backwards, I do happen to be in favour of abolishing the prison system completely and finding alternate methods of rehabilitating criminals and helping them make restitution where that is possible, and while I accept that in many cases it isn't, and some criminals are in all probability beyond rehabilitation, they must still be treated humanely. In all cases we should strive to be enlightened beings. Enlightened beings do not act out of spite or revenge.

More comprehensive social programs need to be created, we can't put that off. It's absolutely criminal that in a country as rich as ours you still have to pay for post-secondary education. It's absolutely criminal that in a society as rich as ours there are still homeless people everywhere. It's absolutely criminal that, to my knowledge, only two of of the ten provinces (including BC) have anti-scab legislation. It's criminal how overworked nurses are. And so on and so forth. Don't give me any crap about how we can't afford a society that provides these very basic things (I mean, if other countries can provide them, surely Canada can), because we most certainly can. There's plenty of wealth to go around and we all know damn well where we're going to have to get it. Hey, people don't have enough money, let them sell their posessions, right? They're not entitled to the same quality of life as the rich; you only deserve what you've worked for and earned yourself, right? Plutocrat.

Is isn't anyone's "right" to see that people who have wronged them are punished. That's revenge. I don't think the punishment of the guilty, in and of itself, makes the world a better place.

I don't care for revenge.

Your right, the debt should be paid off, but not at the cost of social programs that keep some people (barely) from living in poverty. Low taxes are a luxury, adequate social programs are a right. Wait...you're saying it'd be okay to restrict what families buy for their kids, but not how much profit a corporation makes? Are you on drugs? That's fascism (one accepted definition for fascism is the government running the economy in collusion with big business).

Other than a few token progressive measures (gay marriage, marijuana legalization) that most people have either long moved on about or are in the process of doing so, they're definitely further to the right than, say, Trudeau's Liberals. The past ten years have seen tax cuts, service cuts, and more privatization than nationalization, and none of the cuts made during the Mulroney era have been reversed. Paul Martin's said it himself when the Chretien Liberals took office: "If the government doesn't need to run something it shouldn't. And in the future, it won't." That makes him centre-right, not centre-left.

Of course she's a sicko, but I really don't care that she's getting out if she won't re-offend.

Not really a fan of Manning, or conservatism in general, but the Alliance lost a lot of its populist leanings in the merger. Are they even calling for fixed election dates anymore? That said, though I'll be voting NDP, I think a conservative minority could be a good thing.

The death penalty is completely abolished in Canada for all intents and purposes. Even someone who comitted one of the two crimes that are still theoretically punishable by death would not be executed. Is the world a better place when a guilty person is punished? Is that, in and of itself, justice? Is it desirable? I don't understand why. It's been long proven that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent, is more expensive than life imprisonment. That's sick. Humans have rights, and state-sanctioned murder devalues human life. What right does any government have to make these decisions? Karla Homolka gets out of jail this summer, LOL. ;)

I'm always up for an election, it's the one time of year our society functions like a democracy. I think we should have them every year.

I don't understand that way of thinking at all. How are the Liberals setting things on the right track? Service cuts, tax cuts, deregulation and privatizations? That's not the right track at all. Look south of the border for where that track leads.

Eliminating the debt by transfering it to the provinces... Whatever, dude, it's obvious you buy the capitalist dogma (lower taxes = better economy! That must be why the US is a hell on earth for very large chunk of its population while Norwegians and Swedes live better than anyone else!). I don't. The so-called "conservative movement" in North America is two parts - one, evangelical hicks are growing in number in Canada and the US, which has a lot to do with depoliticization. Marx got it exactly right, religion is the opiate of the masses. People need to participate in something meaningful to help make a difference in their lives - if they can't do that, they'll turn to someone who says "you can make a difference - come to church," and they'll put their faith in a god to help them feel better about themselves, the world, and their place in it. It's almost a universal that as industrialization and modernization progress, the role and predominance of religion decreases. That just hasn't been true in North America, though, and I think its because of the weakness of the labour movements here. Two, globalization and treaties like NAFTA empower the business class and remove power from the worker. For example, there's little to be gained from striking anymore in many cases, because often a company can just set up shop in some country where people haven't even won the right to strike. Workers are afraid to stand up and say "Hey, pay me enough to feed my kid or we'll strike for it." That's incredibly wrong, the right to secure employment (and thus income) is a right on par with healthcare - and remember, in real terms people are earning less and less. Tell me, Matt, how would you resolve this dilemma? Would you even consider it a dilemma?

Okay, but progress towards what? I think we should be progressing towards a fairer, more compassionate, more egalitarian, collectivist society, where democracy has been extended to include democratic control of the economy (and for workers, democratic control of the workplace), free of hierarchy and illegitimate authority and tyranny, including the tyranny of the so-called "free market," where most people possess only one commodity of value - their labour - and are "free" to either rent themselves to others or else starve. That's roughly the line I see us progressing along, and we've come a long way. Remember that fourty years ago universal health care seemed like an impossible dream. Along the way, certain institutions, which were previously held up as absolute "rights" are abolished (such as nobility and feudal rights, or the "right" to own slaves) because they are found to be detrimental to the realization of new, actual rights - such as the right to health care, the right to not be enslaved, the right to vote, a woman's right to control over her own body, etc. This is an ongoing process - liberal representative democracy cannot be the final form of human societal organization. Further down the road, other "rights," for example the "right" to own wealth, land, and the means of production as property, will be challenged, re-examined, and, I believe, abolished. I think in many ways, there are some nations who, as recognized by the United Nations, have made much more progress in these areas than we have, and I think that we should seriously examine emulating these countries in some respects. That's progressivism, as I see it. So what's one reason to emulate Norway? How about eliminating the debt? How about eliminating child poverty? How about a more egalitarian society in general? How about virtually eliminating unemployment? How about free post-secondary education? Those are some nice things I'd like to see Canada striving for right now, and they're all very do-able. That's not to say we should just look at Norway and copy all their policies - I think some of their laws and practices smack of authoritarianism and nationalism, and I think those are, in general, very ugly things. The point is that we should be constantly taking a look at where we are, figuring out where we want to be, both in five years and in fifty years, and figuring out the best way to get there, using our own experience and the experiences of other countries as guides. So when the Liberals, or the Conservatives, say that we have to lower taxes, and that'll help the economy so much that we'll have tons of money to spend on wonderful social programs, we should look at other countries who have decided they want wonderful social programs, and have successfully realized that aim, and we should take a look at what they did. And while we're at it, we should take a look at countries that have followed the prescribed solution - lower taxes - and take a look at the state of their social programs. And then make up our own minds.

I don't believe you should pay people different amounts based on an arbitrary standard of "how good at their job they are."

The death penalty is barbaric and doesn't work, period.

It can only last longer than five years by an act of parliament, which has only been used once, during wartime - if anybody tried to do it again there would be public outrage and a constitutional crisis, the Governor General would probably just dissolve parliament anyway.

And ignore the ferry workers who have almost striked several times. I agree that bureaucracy is bad, and we should endeavor to slim it down, but privatization isn't the answer. The NDP's biggest weakness is they've been afraid to downsize the civil service because that would upset the unions. The answer is to do it anyway while finding ways to create jobs that are actually productive; the Swedish model. No, we shouldn't "copy" others, but if the citizens of other countries have the highest quality of life in the world, and live in much more egalitarian societies, maybe we should aspire to imitate those aspects of their society. I won't accept that Canada always has to be a business-controlled society.

Yeah, that's...exactly it, actually. It's called market socialism. If corporations try to raise their prices because they're upset at having to pay a fortune in taxes, they won't be able to compete with smaller businesses who aren't being taxed at the same levels.

Free market is a joke, no one takes it seriously. Norwegians have the highest quality of life in the world, period. That's who we should be aspiring to imitate, and if we do what they do, we could do it much better, because we have much more in the way of natural resources. Blah blah, crown corporations can't work, there's no incentive to be efficient, blah; just another capitalist myth long disproven.

Yeah, the payment is on the current budget, guy. So, no mention of the Norwegian example, then. Okay, chief.

See response to that post in other thread.