The Audacity of Hype took another hit, as two MSM papers discovered Obama supporting America's military presence in - Iraq. I would say the most damaging line comes from the New York Times: "He voted against the withdrawal of troops and proposed legislation calling for a drawdown only after he was running for president and polls showed voters favoring it."
In this series of blogs, we are celebrating some "success stories" for women in honour of International Women's Day. [Somehow, my second in the series disappeared the first time I tried to post it. Here it is again.]
Do the Crime; Don't do the Time:
The second success for women we can celebrate today is that they find it nearly impossible to be sentenced to jail for a familial transgression. A story in the Ottawa Citizen on Monday, titled "Mother who absconded with children gets conditional sentence," illustartes our second theme.
When Thomas Zinns and Deborah Jean Craddock were divorced in the Dominican Republic in 2002, Mr. Zinns was given custody of their 2 children. That should already tell you something about Ms. Craddock, since men only win primary care of children in contested divorces in about 10% of cases -- i.e. when the mother is basically derelict.
In 2006, Ms. Craddock falsified a court order and used it to abscond with the children to Ottawa, where she was quickly arrested. Justice Ann Adler handed her a 12 month conditional sentence, including 4 months of house arrest where she will "only" be able to leave the home for work and necessities. If that's the value judges place on Court Orders, to say nothing of international abductions, it's no wonder mothers flout them, and even falsify them.
Said Justice Adler, "I am sympathetic to you. It is a terrible thing not to have your children when you want them." Yes, indeed it is -- I'm sure Mr. Zinns was thinking exactly that when he discovered the abduction. More to the point, one wonders how many times in her career Justice Alder has given a mother permission to move with a child to another city or province or country, despite what a "terrible thing" it is for the father to be disenfranchised thereby.
Justice Alder pointed to the fact that Ms. Craddock had no criminal record as a "mitigating factor" in her sentencing decision. That is an error of law. Having a criminal record is an aggravating factor; but not having a record is not a mitigating factor, it is the norm. This shows how far judges will go to find ways of being lenient toward women convicts.
Needless to say, when the shoe is on the other foot, and a father adbucts his children across international borders, the courts are less than sympathetic. Jail time is de rigour.
We can thank feminist legal activism, preying on male chivalry, for the widely recognized "female discount" in criminal sentencing.
Nothing sets prognosticators a-flutter like by-elections (or as we call them down here, special elections). The one for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's is a typical one in which the winners (the Dems) see glorious November victories.
In this series of blogs, we are celebrating some "success stories" for women in honour of International Women's Day.
Shield the Guilty; Expose the Innocent:
The National Post reported on Tuesday that a Toronto woman fabriacted a rape story last weekend. She told police she had been abducted by two men at gunpoint, driven to an unknown location, and sexually assaulted. Police spend hours investigating, before her story fell apart.
Of course, the woman's identity was not revealed, and she was not charged with making a false report to the police. And of course, commentators, including Detective Candice Flis, immediately started making excuses for these leniencies.
"...for a victim to come forward in a sexual assault case is a difficult thing," Det. Flis says. No doubt; but in this case, the woman wasn't a "victim," she was a perpetrator of public mischief. Even if the law should shield complainants in sexual assault cases from public exposure, there is no justification for continuing to sheild women who make provably false allegations. Who knows what other false allegations she may have made -- what men she might have sent to prison -- or may make in the future? (Google Cathy Fordham for a particularly frightful case of a woman who caused several men misery -- and one, a 6-year jail term -- by making numerous false allegations, before she was eventually exposed.)
As the adage goes: "Anonymity promotes candor, but it also promotes slander." We would have fewer false allegations if those who made them risked being exposed and punished. Of course, apologists deny that false allegations are a serious problem. But that isn't true. In my own practice of family law, every allegation of sexual abuse of the children is automatically investigated. One Justice told me in open Court that at least 80% of these allegations come back as "unfounded." (As a matter of principle, they never come back with a finding of outright "false.") Other studies have shown that at least 25% of rape allegations are false. Has everyone forgotten about the Duke lacrosse team so soon?...
Basic fairness would suggest that if the complainant's identity should be protected in sexual assault cases, then so should that of the accused. After all, it is nearly impossible to shake off the stigma of being accused of sexual assault, even if one if found not guilty in the end. Not guilty merely means the accusation has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt; and a not-guilty verdict rarely attracts the same media attention as the initial allegations.
It is long past time we revisited the feminist rape-shield laws that protect false accusers and expose the falsely accused.
Whenever I hear talk of women's voices being "silenced," it invariably comes from the left. It's not enough that there are plenty of Women's Studies courses all across North America. And it's not enough that there are special centres and drop-in places everywhere where men are not allowed (very few "men's only" places exist and, when they do, they are one lawsuit away from being opened to women).
But don't get me wrong. I don't mind. Women's only places are just fine as far as I'm concerned. To be sure, I don't want to pay for them--but I don't want to pay for anything apart from the police, the law courts, national defense, and (on those exceedingly rare less radical days) basic infrastructure, that I didn't expressly enter into a contract about.
What galls me is the silencing of conservative and libertarian women.
True story: I once told a female professor of mine at Queen's that women had a profound intellectual influence on me. I told her about Harriet Taylor, Isabel Paterson, Ayn Rand, Margaret Thatcher, Wendy McElroy and others. Especially Ayn Rand, I told her. Her response? Those women don't really count as women. Why? Because they're busy pushing for "male" philosophies and "male" preferences--like capitalism, negative liberty, and competition. In order to count as fully female, you have to push feminist care ethics and the virtues associated with caring for infants and the household and the community.
Alison Jaggar explained the need for feminist ethics through her criticism of standard, western moral systems. Part of her critique was that traditional ethics, "overvalues culturally masculine
traits like independence, autonomy, separation, mind, reason, culture,
transcendence, war, and death, and undervalues culturally feminine
traits like interdependence, community, connection, body, emotion,
nature, immanence, peace, and life." In addition, "it favors
culturally masculine ways of moral reasoning that emphasize rules,
universality, and impartiality over culturally feminine ways of moral
reasoning that emphasize relationships, particularity, and partiality."
You see, women care and men compete. Men like rules, women like the flexibility of acting in accordance with making everyone feel better (rules are supposed to apply independently of how anyone might feel--that's what makes them rules and not just suggestions). And so on. Since Ayn Rand, for instance, falls squarely in the deontological, natural rights tradition, and--egad!--supported capitalism as the only moral economic system, she sort of falls out of consideration as a representative of women. She represents a distinctly male approach to the ethical life.
Is Rand covered in Women's Studies programs? I doubt it. Apparently, she doesn't count as a woman. And neither do you, reader of the fairer sex, if you think that free markets and capitalism are anything other than elaborate systems of rules devised to keep women oppressed, in the kitchen, and raising children.
Wait. I'm confused--are women in the kitchen and raising children because they are suffering under "false consciousness" brought on by oppressive capitalist machinery, or are they there because it's, uhm, a distinctly feminine sort of task that is--how do I put this--natural? It looks to me like some feminists (of the distinctly left-wing variety) are talking out of both sides of their mouth here: On the one hand, women are raising toddlers and infants because capitalism forces them into those social roles; and on the other hand, they are raising the munchkins because it naturally flows out of their distinctly feminine nature as caring, emotional, and community-oriented people.
Never mind. Better not spend too much time untwirling that Gordian knot. Instead, let's do what I'm guessing Women's Studies departments don't: Highlight some pro-liberty, pro-free market, pro-awesome groups and individuals who happen to have two X chromosomes:
The Independent Women's Forum is a fine source of conservative and sometimes libertarian news, information, and commentary. A little more libertarian is Ifeminists.com, also a great daily read for everyone (the "I" stands for "individualist.") You can always check out the conservative women's network blog roll. Or ProWomanProLife, Shotgun blogger Andrea Mrozek's project.
And, to make you smarter, read the following:
The Ayn Rand Lexicon, full version, now available online. The whole thing. Rand was influenced by Canadian-American journalist Isabel Paterson who is sometimes called the "earliest progenitor of libertarianism as we know it today." Her most trenchant book is "God of the Machine." Paterson was born on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, but soon moved out west to a cattle ranch in Alberta. Then read up on Rose Wilder Lane. This triumvirate of liberty is featured on the Cato Institute's "Three Women who launched a movement" site.
(Of course, there's plenty more where that came from. So hold on to your hats for an update in the next two or three hours. Or provide your own ladies of liberty in the comments for our readers).
Today being International Women's Day, I thought I should counter all the gloom and doom about the status of women you are likely to see in the mainstream media by celegrating a few recent "success stories" for women. I'll be posting 5 blogs dealing with: custody; criminal sentencing; rape-shield laws; pay equity; and intmate partner violence. In each case, these topics deserve at least a full column, and will receive their due in the weeks and months to follow. Below is just a teaser.
A Custody Tale:
First, let's celebrate the fact that women almost always win in family courts in Canada. To illustrate the extremes to which judges go to favour women, consider the front-page story in Monday's National Post about "Obesity new factor in grading parents."
The parents separated when their chilren, boy-girl twins, were 2 years old. At that time, the boy was already diagnosed as "morbidly obese," and the girl was "overweight." Through a series of interim applications, custody of the children went back and forth between the parents for the next 8 years, until a trial was finally held.
At the trial, renowned obesity expert Dr. Glenn Berall, chief of pediatrics at the North York General Hospital, was called as an expert witness -- and an advocate for the children. He observed that whenever the father had care of the children, their weigh issues improved, and whenever the mother had them, their weight problems tended to return. On that basis, he recommended that the father be given primary care.
The judge rejected this advice, awarding primary care to the mother "where the children seemed most happy and well-adjusted." Well, duh! Of course the children are happier with Mom -- she indulges them to their own detriment. Judges, like parents, are supposed to do what is in the child's best interest, not what makes them temporarily "happy."
I wonder what part of "morbidly obese" the judge doesn't understand. Morbid obesity is a life-endangering condition, certainly a life-shortening one. What this case illustrates is that a separated parent who tries to instill discipline in their children risks losing custody. Although this case stands out as an extreme example, it is entirely typical for judges in family court to interpret the child's best interests in the shallowest of terms -- at least when it favours mothers to do so.
Separated parents beware: you discipline your children at your own -- and their own -- peril!
Here is the right song for International Women's Day: "Declare Independence" by Bjork (as with anything by Bjork, a certain amount of insensitivity to electronic dissonance is a requirement).
Lyrics below the fold (they're worth checking out).
I'm still chuckling over Mark Steyn's latest column on the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Here are some excerpts:
"As for victims, you have to feel sorry for John Edwards. He was born in a mill. He weighed 1.6 pounds and what did his dad get? Another day older and deeper in debt. John spent most of his childhood in chains workin’ in the coalmine. He spent most of the 19th century as a spindly seven-year-old sweep with rickets cleaning chimneys in Dickensian London until Fagin spotted him and trained him up as a trial lawyer."
"The Democratic primary season seems to have dwindled down into a psycho remake of Driving Miss Daisy. The fading matriarch Mizz Hill’ry (Jessica Tandy) doesn’t want to give up the keys to the Democratic-party vehicle but the dignified black chauffeur Hokey (Morgan Freeman) insists it’ll be a much smoother ride with him in the driver’s seat, full of gear change you can believe in, etc. Yet, just as he thinks the old biddy’s resigned to a nomination as Best Supporting Actress, the backseat driver plunges her hat pin into his spine, wrests the wheel away and lurches across the median."
"One Historical Guilt gives upscale white liberals a chance to demonstrate their progressive bona fides in unison and with nary a thought. Two Historical Guilts shrivels from transformative feelgood fluffiness into sour tribalism."
Like most of Steyn's work, it manages to be amusing and incisive at the same time. Check it out.
Women like me don’t look to international, top-heavy, unaccountable bodies to guard their rights. (The United Nations can support women’s rights about as well as they guarded against genocide in Rwanda.)
So who does look to anti-democratic bodies to support their rights? These ladies do. They’re the ones who have their knickers in a knot because of the anodyne Unborn Victims of Violence Bill. The ones who guard abortion rights without ever thinking about what those “rights” are. The ones who, across the country are trying to silence women like us.
So in honour of International Women’s Day, I’m changing one of the categories on ProWomanProLife. You’ll note the former category “Feminism” is now “Feminist nonsense”-a home for all the tired and ridiculous assertions of the old-school, pro-abortion, freedom-hating, 1960s feminist crowd. It’s Michelle Malkin’s idea-and I like it.
As far as campaign ads go, I think this new one from John McCain is the best. And you all thought McCain was from the planet earth. Not so, my friends. McCain is a Republican from a distant world, come to save us from the tyranny of Hillary and Obama.
Seriously, folks, this is more like the kind of ad I'd expect from Ron Paul's supporters. Except if they did it, Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt would be replaced by Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises.
"Obama's campaign worked Monday to distance the Illinois senator from the
artwork.
'While we respect First Amendment rights and don't think the artist was trying to be offensive, Senator Obama, as a rule, isn't a fan of art that offends religious sensibilities,' said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki."
I was going to say something substantial about Obama and his candidacy in this post, but then realized everything I had to say could be summed up in the phrase "Nature abhors a vacuum."
Green Party calls for renewed focus on equality on International Women’s Day
In a press release today, the Green Party announced it is celebrating International Women’s Day by calling for a renewed focus on achieving equality for women in Canada.
“The situation for women has improved immensely over the past century, but there is much work to be done. Women still earn only about 70 percent of what men take home,” said Green Party leader Elizabeth May.
“Marriage raises male incomes and reduces those of females, due to the unequal sharing of household tasks, labour force participation rates, time spent on child rearing, etc. The evidence? There is no pay gap whatsoever for never-marrieds; zero; nada.”
This evidence won’t deter Elizabeth May who claims the situation for women in Canada “has been made worse by the regressive actions of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has done more damage to issues important to women in two years than many of us thought possible.”
May thinks Harper’s decision to scrap the Court Challenges program, for example, is partially to blame for the declining fortunes of women in Canada. But it might be that the "regressive" institution of marriage and the burden of child rearing are really to blame.
So the question for policy makers is whether the wage difference between men and women (now at 30% in Canada) is worth tolerating if it means healthy marriages and strong families?
Canadian Federation of Students Censors Students' Voices
Ontario wing of CFS passes a motion to ban student group
The Ontario Progressive Conservative Campus Association (OPCCA) has expressed disgust at a Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) decision to back student unions that smother the free expression of students. The Ontario wing of the CFS passed a motion supporting the banning of pro-life groups by student unions. OPCCA is calling on the CFS to reverse their motion.
"The Canadian Federation of Students has once again proved that they don't represent the diverse interests of students," said Holly Bacchus, OPCCA President. "Universities should promote a healthy dialogue on any topic, not shut it down. The Canadian Federation of Students should support that basic tenet of higher learning and reverse its decision to support student unions that muzzle their students."
The CFS motion follows a decision by both the student unions at Carleton and Lakehead Universities to ban pro-life groups on their campuses. Since then, the coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition issued the shocking statement that pro-life groups are comparable to "Neo-Nazi movements" and York University shut down a campus debate on abortion.
OPCCA believes that freedom of expression and healthy debate is an integral part of a university and college education. By curtailing not only students' freedom of expression, but also their freedom of assembly, the CFS is failing to adequately represent all students. They are also failing one of their Founding Principles, "to articulate the real desire of students to…be accorded the rights of citizens in our society..."
OPCCA believes it is not the job of the CFS to act as an ideological compass for Ontario students and thinks it becomes extremely troublesome when students can be silenced based solely on the criteria that they do not conform to the beliefs of the CFS.
"When a top-down organization like the CFS stifles student voices, it's time to worry about the future of students' freedom on Ontario's campuses," said Bacchus. "One only has to wonder what student groups the CFS and their student unions will try to shut down next. The CFS must rescind their motion now and show support for the rights and freedoms of the students they claim to represent."
What’s the big deal, you ask? Isn’t this just a bill which expands the protection of women to include a fetus they are carrying?
Well, no, of course not. This is Canada, where the mere mention of the word “abortion” effectively guarantees the cessation of any reasonable dialogue. Much like discussion of private-sector participation in health care, the myths and goblins that surround the state of abortion in this country heavily outweigh any knowledge of the actual state of the law of the land, which is to say: there is no law. None. There may be a litany of regulations governing who can operate a backhoe or a restaurant in the various jurisdictions of our federation, but nary a byline addressing the provision of the termination of a human fetus.
The pro-choice lobby would have us believe that the landmark Morgentalerdecision entrenched a woman’s ‘right to choose’, when all the Supreme Court in fact did was strike down the particular abortion law in existence at the time, and left the door wide open for some other, more equitable law to take its place. The Mulroney government’s bill, drafted in response, was defeated by the Liberal dominated Senate, and since that time no party, fearful of the political fallout, has dared to come near the issue with a ten foot pole. But whatever you may think of the legal vacuum surrounding abortion, good or bad, you can hardly call it a moderate position: rather, it’s the very epitome of extremeness. (Indeed, if we were talking about health care in general as opposed to abortion specifically, the progressive left would be going apoplectic with rage, cursing the anarchy and unfettered tyranny of totally laissez-faire forces running amok.)
But I digress; my point isn’t to relive this age-old debate (my own position, for the record, is marginally pro-choice). It’s to suggest that adamant pro-choicers need to come to terms with the fact that (1) an overwhelming majority of the public are not comfortable with, for example, partial birth abortions, and (2) that the recognition of a fetus as more than a legal non-entity does not create a slippery slope leading to the ultimate criminalization of abortion. Indeed, Bill C-484 actually avoids this specifically by including clear language to avoid it:
238.1 (1) Every person who, directly or indirectly, causes the death of a child during birth or at any stage of development before birth while committing or attempting to commit an offence against the mother of the child
So, there can be no crime unless an offence is being committed against the mother - and having an abortion is not an offence! Nor does it in any way change the likelihood that it will become one, any more than reducing or increasing the prescribed sentence attached to a crime affects whether that activity remains a crime.
So everyone can just take a breather. I would advise the pro-life lobby not to get too excited, since the number of individuals who are willing to go along with some protections for a fetus exceed considerably the number who are willing to allow those protections to trump the autonomy of a pregnant woman. And I would advise the pro-choice lobby to put away the horrifying spectre of coat hangers and stifling social conservatism that supposedly lie just around the corner.
No one seems particularly disturbed by the recognition, for example, of animals and even plants as worthy of protection in some instances (conservation and animal cruelty laws), since wherever the fundamental rights of a person and another legally-protected entity conflict, the rights of a person prevail. So why this insistence by some that either fetuses must be treated as persons, or as non-existent? Is it so outrageous to suggest that perhaps they deserve less rights than a person - but more than nothing at all?
Who cares? This is news? This is an “exclusive” worth sharing with America?
Well the story might be more important than it first appears, even more important than TMZ and its Hollywood-obsessed readers understand. The show obtained Archuleta’s grade 11 reading list from Murray High School in Utah. On this list are classics including Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, and Macbeth. But #1 on the list -- not mentioned in the online article but flashed on the television during the story -- is Anthen by novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand.
Anthem is a novel about “the struggle of the individual against a paralyzing collectivism....” Not a bad choice for the young minds at Murray High School.
After a week of careful reading, I have a pretty good theory as to the exact origins of the Chuck Cadman “bribe.” It’s going to take a few steps, so read carefully. Imagine this, if you’d like, as being kind of like the ending of one of those Jerry Bruckheimer crime dramas that the public adores for some bizarre reason – flashing to differently-lit moments from the past.
These are universally agreed-upon facts. Stripped of context – or twisted by those with a partisan agenda – they can be slanted to sound absolutely damning (well, depending upon your view of the world). However, once we inject two other very relevant facts into the conversation, a very different picture begins to emerge.
First – no insurance company was going to write a life insurance policy for Chuck Cadman on 19 May. The premiums for a $1 Million policy for a man with terminal cancer would be in excess of $1 Million, due upon signature of the documents.
Yet, all of the reports of what Cadman said have been very specific. He claimed that he was offered a life insurance policy as a “bribe.” He – and every other statement made – has been very particular on that point. This makes no sense at all. The whole idea of a bribe is that it should be untraceable. Yet, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with insurance ought to know, a life insurance policy – especially one with odd conditions – is the exact opposite of that. It must be thoroughly documented. In triplicate. Backed up on tape drives. With multiple signatures. Bribing someone with an insurance policy would be the white collar equivalent of the criminal trying to run away from the police in the night wearing those sneakers with blinking red lights.
The second fact – about which the media and the government have been oddly silent – is this: there was a large and pre-existing insurance policy which was in play at the time.
Commentators have dismissed as “absurd” the notion that what the Tories offered Cadman was help in running a campaign for re-election. I think that’s probably a mistake – since I believe that it was exactly what Cadman was offered and what he considered to be a “bribe.”
Remember, even in 2005, there were rumours circulating to the effect that Cadman would vote with the Liberals in order to preserve his Parliamentary life insurance. It’s not unthinkable – it’s likely, even, that those rumours would have gotten back to Cadman. It’s also likely – if I heard about them in Coquitlam, British Columbia – that they were all over Ottawa.
Hearing this, Cadman is approached a receives an offer: if he votes to bring down the government, the Tories will ensure that his is easily re-elected to Parliament so that, when the inevitable arrives, he will be able to collect his Parliamentary Death Benefits in full.
Think about it for a second. This is the one way in which everything that everyone has been saying can be taken as basically true. The Tories offer Cadman, as they’ve claimed, election assistance in order to “replace financial considerations he might lose due to an election.” Cadman, on the other hand, is deeply offended by the notion that he would vote to retain a corrupt government in power in order to collect on his Parliamentary life insurance and goes around telling his family that he was offered a life insurance policy as a “bribe.” However, he makes no public statement to this effect for the simple reason that to do so would inject into the public sphere the idea that his vote in favour of the Liberals was a vote to retain his own life insurance benefits.
It all makes sense. The original offer. Cadman’s rejection of it. The later statements made by multiple individuals. Then, once the story falls into the hands of other people, it’s transformed into a weapon to be used against the government.
Badesha is a Sikh whose religion demands that he wear a turban – and it is impossible to wear both a turban and a helmet at the same time. So Judge Blacklock decided that Badesha’s personal safety is more important than his religious freedom.
But Badesha doesn’t agree. He’d rather be true to his faith than be safe while on this motorcycle – and shouldn’t that be his choice? It’s his head after all.
I’m sure some people will say – “I don’t want to pay for his medical bills when he crashes his motorcycle and splits his head open.” Fair enough. Fight against socialized medicine then so that the cost of high risk behaviour isn’t externalized. Make people like our Sikh freedom fighter pay for their own reckless choices.
Or should the cost of public healthcare include the loss of our freedom? Helmet laws, smoking bans, trans-fat bans, drug laws...the list of petty health and safety related restrictions on our freedom grows daily.
Ron Paul, recently re-elected Congressman from the 14th District of Texas, has decided to wind his presidential campaign down. I'm not too clear on what that means exactly--whether Paul is dropping out, like Salon and other sources are reporting, or whether he's simply not going to actively campaign as his video implies--but it surely does mean that there will be a lot fewer YouTube videos.
Here's Paul's message:
Paul makes it plain that he intends to continue an "individual liberty, free market, private property, sound money, and non-interventionist foreign policy" multi-candidate campaign, as well as a non-political campaign as well. In the video, he talks about the "campaign for freedom," rather than the Ron Paul campaign for president. He intends to continue his work with the Liberty PAC, and the FREE Foundation.
So the "Revolution" continues, but in a much-changed form. Paul will no longer head it up as a presidential contender (at least, not as an active presidential contender). Instead, he'll either become its figurehead, or will try his hat as leader of a grassroots movement.
Viewed as a "movement," rather than a presidential campaign, Paul has been staggeringly successful. Not since Ayn Rand has anyone so singularly contributed to spreading and disseminating the message of individual liberty. To be sure, many libertarians will take issue with some of Paul's positions--Randy Barnett, for instance, and a few other libertarians, view the War in Iraq as a venture not merely consistent with, but a natural outgrowth of, a thorough commitment to principles of individual liberty--but he still has made more people aware of the philosophy than anyone else in a very, very long time.
He'll continue to be a gadfly to the big-government "conservatives" in the Republican Party. He'll continue to wave his gold standard stick. He'll continue to vote against every tax increase, every unbalanced budget, and every new government program. And he'll vote against funding for the Iraq war, and its continuation.
So long, Dr. Paul. I'll hang on to my pure silver Liberty Dollar with your mug emblazoned on it, and I'll go ahead and hang up that t-shirt I had you sign at the University of Michigan rally way back when. You surprised the hell out of me and others with your rallies that drew thousands, your internet army that no one has seen the likes of since Howard Dean (and even then it wasn't quite as large as yours), and those remarkable one-day "moneybombs" that blew away all previous records.
I guess these primaries and caucuses, and the next general election for president of the U.S., is going to be another snooze fest without substance. At least Paul advocated policies and talked about the issues. With Paul gone, all that's left is a discussion about "hope" and how "audacious" it might be (does that even make sense?), about "Yes, we can" vs. "Yes, we will," about the age, gender, and race of the various contenders for president. The world's grandest daily soap opera.
Hard on the heels of Christopher Hitchens' excellent analysis, in the National Post earlier this week, of the vacuous rhetorical pamblum being served in the U.S. presidential campaign, Lifesite has published a powerful analysis of Barack Obama's vacuous candidacy.
Writer John Jalsevac concludes: "Obama's politics of hope is actually nothing more than a politics of oversimplification. By capitalizing purely on the positive connotations of certain words skillfully pulled from the 'pool of stock expressions', he has firmly driven sober thinking from the political process, and has introduced a politics of emotion at which he excels more than any other candidate.
"For this reason, Obama is the most dangerous candidate seeking the presidency."
Stephen Harper might want to borrow Clinton's 3AM ad
One of the more interesting twists in the Democratic race was Senator Clinton's "3AM phone call" ad, which suggested that Obama was not ready for a crisis. Obama's aide Susan Rice responded thusly:
They're both not ready to have that 3AM phone call.
It says something about the Democrats that they're willing to acknowledge that neither of their candidates can yet be trusted in a crisis - but they'll support either one against the fellow who can: John McCain.
Meanwhile, for anyone at Conservative HQ who may be reading this, you might want to ask the Canadian voters how they would feel if Stephane Dion were answering that phone.
I went to Middle School with that girl. What I remember of her is that she was religious - and that she got caught smoking during the "30 Hour Famine" (an event which I thought was ridiculous then, as I do now).
She was a nice girl. As I recall, a bit of a goody-goody (save the aforementioned bit), but kindly. I don't think I ever saw her again after that (I went to a different high school than most of the people I went to Middle School with).
Actually, it's particularly sad - as one of the first things which sprung to mind when I thought of her was that she seemed to be particularly close with her mother.
Sad, but also enraging:
The day after the crash, Aaron Forrest, 31, turned himself in to police. Court was to hear that after fleeing the wreckage, he swam the Nanaimo River to fulfill his quest to buy drugs. Forrest admitted that on the day of the accident, he was not in a sane state of mind, and had checked himself in to hospital the evening before after a two-day cocaine binge.
Oh, and I found this little bit which, for some reason, the Province didn't mention:
Before being charged with the deaths of the two women, Forrest had been convicted of dangerous driving, driving without insurance, possession of narcotics, assault, fraud, and other driving-related infractions.
First of all, the guy is thirty-one now. That would make him twenty-nine at the time of the crash. I count at least three indictable offenses on that list of crimes - it's insane that we let people like this roam the streets and kill people.
Indeed, they gave him just four years for driving down the road at one hundred and fifty kilometers an hour for forty-five minutes while high on drugs.
Actually, that's not exactly true - they gave him less because of, "the man’s relatively young age, guilty plea, supportive friends and family, and the fact that investigators had not proven drugs were a factor."
Yeah - you know why they didn't prove the drugs were a factor? Because he fled the scene of the crime.
It's one of those things which can only make me mutter, "this stupid country..."
How much respect can we have for a government which lets criminals roam free and barely punishes them for killing two absolutely innocent people - and which uses its resources to harass Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant?
Obama will change the world! Glory, glory, hallelujah.
The Obama fans are beginning to creep closer to the Ron Paul fans in their ardour and willingness to, uhm, put together music videos for their hero. In the most recent celebrity-filled video, Ryan Gosling tells us he wants a better world for our children, and some other celebs tell us that we can be "hopeful" and that America can be admired again, and that all Americans need to do is to vote for Obama.
Gosh, he's so dreamy.
Let's do a comparison of the latest vids for Obama and Ron Paul. Here's Obama's (h/t Reason TV):
And here's the latest for Ron Paul, courtesy of Aimee Allen who, I guess, is a famous singer:
Conservatives are used to leftists calling them fascists. In his new book, Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg reveals that the true fascists in our midst just might be on the left side of the political spectrum. In an interview with Western Standard radio, Goldberg discussed his book and also delved more deeply into matters of political philosophy. This review, titled "Does liberalism equal fascism?", is based not only on Liberal Fascism, but also on the answers its author gave in response to some concerns the interviewers had with his book.
An excerpt:
"Goldberg is not calling all liberals--and certainly not all modern liberals--Nazis. However, his book does describe many of the ideas American liberals favour--from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson--as examples of fascism. Fascism with a friendly face, perhaps, but as authentically fascist (in their own way) as Adolph Hitler, who according to Goldberg should be considered a 'man of the left.'
Goldberg agreed that Canada was an example of liberal fascism--the fascism that comes with a friendly face.
...Modern conservatism, liberalism, and fascism each attempt to bring about a heaven here on Earth. A different heaven in each case, for sure, but each its own picture of a timeless, unquestionable (and ultimately inevitable) state of perfection.
Those who stand in the way of the end of history should be marginalized and demolished. In Canada, this impulse to immanentize the eschaton takes the form of hate speech laws that aim to completely eliminate racists from society but are now being used to stifle legitimate debate about, for instance, radical Islam..."
EDMONTON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today released the estimated "transition allowances" paid to retired or defeated MLAs following the 2008 General Election.
There were 32 retired or defeated MLAs after the March 3rd vote, 20 of which retired and 12 of which were defeated. The transition allowance payment is based on three months salary for each year served as MLA. The payments range from a low of $11,511 to defeated Liberal MLA Craig Cheffins to a high of $601,744 to retired PC MLA Mike Cardinal.
In total, taxpayers will pay an estimated $8,061,107 in transition allowances.
"We have to decide whether this is some sort of severance payment or a form of retirement payment," stated CTF-Alberta director Scott Hennig. "But, either way, just like the one-third tax-free portion of their salary, the transition allowance is a double-standard."
"Few workers get more than two-weeks severance for each year of employment, let alone three months, and no one gets paid severance for quiting or retiring," said Hennig. "Conversely, if this is intended to be a retirement payment, then taxpayers shouldn't be funding MLA RRSP contributions as well."
MLAs are currently provided with a RRSP allowance equal to 50 percent of the maximum RRSP contribution limit. (Limit is $20,000 for 2008)
The current transition allowance formula was passed by the all-party Member Services Committee shortly after the 2001 election.
Defeated and retired MLAs under the age of 70 are also eligible to stay on the Members' Extended Benefits Plan, with taxpayers continuing to pick a portion of the premiums for up to five years.
Reasonable people have reasonable concerns about abortion-and, I might add, about pro-life arguments.
But you don’t find reasonable people at student unions, for the most part. And you certainly don’t find them at “women’s centres.” (That’s a place on campus the vast majority of women just don’t go.)
Yet these people have the power to ban debates, as we’re seeing at York right now. They are the quickest to take offence; their voices are the loudest.
The reasonable students are studying, playing sports and doing whatever it is students do.
These centres represent a fringe, barricade mentality: They are trapped in a 1960s ideology.
I’m glad Ms. Kelly Holloway of the York University Graduate Students Assocation banned the abortion debate on campus: It highlights the strange alternate universe she inhabits for all to see. And I thank her for the national, front-page coverage on the abortion debate that never was.
Perhaps soon we can all move on from the notion that pro-lifers are the extreme ones here.
A collection of Gairdner’s essays, Oh, Oh, Canada! is a well-written, cogent, intellectual defence of Canada’s traditions, values and freedoms that conservatives of all stripes would enjoy.
From Quebec nationalism to global warming; from the politics of sex to the basis of natural law; from Senate reform to the essence of morality, Gairdner provides the conservative perspective on key issues facing this country – and he does it all in less than 200 pages.
Of course, Gairdner, the former Olympic athlete, successful businessman, academic and now political philosopher, has a good track record when it comes to skewering the Left’s arguments.
His book The Trouble with Canada, for instance, was one of the most devastating critiques of Canada’s leftist economic and political failures ever written.
But in Oh, Oh Canada!, Gairdner goes beyond politics and economics, digging deeper to explain and defend the philosophic underpinnings of conservatism while at the same time exposing the logical fallacies of the Left.
In the process, the author provides powerful intellectual ammunition to those Canadians who value Western traditions and who wish to resist those forces which seek to undermine them.
Mind you, as a libertarian I didn’t agree with some of the book’s social conservative stances, but even then I found Gairdner’s arguments provocative and thought-provoking.
Anyway, if you want a concise, clearly written yet profound manifesto of Canadian conservatism, than Oh, Oh Canada! is for you.
If you want to pay $50 instead of $65 for registration for the Libertarian Party of Canada 2008 Convention, you need to register tomorrow March 5th. The convention is taking place at the Holiday Inn Downtown Express in Edmonton on May 17th and 18th.
Registration is a simple as printing out a pdf, filling out the simple form, writing a cheque, and popping it all in the mail, you can find all the details here. I sent mine off today and my guess is that there'll be more than a handful of other Western Standardites in attendance.
That's as much of a selling job as I'm going to do, so the commenter who gives the best reason to attend wins ten-thousand Whuffie points.
Some thoughts on Ron Paul heading back to Congress
For me it's a bittersweet conclusion to know that at least he'll be back to Washington to cause trouble and embarrass his party. Right now it looks like he'll also be joined by his pal bizarro-Paul. He'll likely return as the most popular member of the House of Representatives and with some newfound respect from his colleagues (politicians respect fundraising ability). He is also now the leader of a mass grassroots movement and may may even soon be leading a small caucus of "Ron Paul Republicans" to add to his existing Liberty Committee. Sure, he probably won't get a single piece of legislation out of committee, but every party needs a conscience. Republicrats included.
UPDATE: Jaws pointed out to me that my comments below which were intended to be sarcastic may not have been interpreted that way and that the lack of clarity could also have caused some to misread this post. Let me make it clear: I'm a hardcore Ron Paul groupie and Kucinich is my homeboy (except for all that socialism business). The bitterness in my bittersweet comes from the fact that Ron Paul didn't meet the hopes and expectations I had in late December or early January before the primary season started. Moreover, I'm bitter tonight because, as Matthew Johnston reminded me yesterday, every time there's an election, the government always seems to win; that certainly seems to be the inevitable result with either Barack, Hillary, or John as president. The sweetness comes from the fact that we, and many others, are talking about Ron Paul and his ideas quite a lot these days, he's making the case for liberty and people are listening. His return to Congress as a figure with a national profile and a dedicated following ensures that he and this r3VOLution movement will be a major force in the American political scene in the coming years.
