it's real simple:

energy in - energy out = energy stored.

therefore, if you're active then you need to eat more. and, if you're not so active then you need to eat less.

the advice provided in this article is not science-based, either. you need to think of your stomach like it's a giant pit of acid - because it is, actually, a giant pit of acid. it doesn't really matter what you throw in there, it just gets broken down into the same constituent parts. your body then takes those parts and puts them back together in order to make different molecules.

the actual reality is that your stomach is unable to determine the difference between these different types of fats. your body will metabolize them in different quantities, but it has to do with things like your liver and your pancreas. you may very well have too much bad cholesterol, but it's not because you ate too much of it - it's because your body synthesized too much of it.

you need to make sure you're getting certain things that your body can't synthesize. and, your stomach can pull some stray sugar directly out of your stomach. but, besides that, it's really just all broken down to the same handful of molecules.

there's a saying: eat food*. not too much. mostly plants.

*food may not be defined as most north americans imagine it is.

www.cbc.ca/news/health/eating-fat-makes-you-fat-idea-debunked-dietitian-1.3206180

well, getting ahead in ontario is certainly necessary for the liberals if they want…if they want to avoid being obliterated, really. but, you’d be wise to maybe pull those results back a little to the margins, given that they’re non-standard. just let me check what that is….

oh. right. there is no margin of error. because online panels are not polls.

www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/abacus-poll-election-race-tightens-as-ndp-support-dips/

i'm not particularly upset by it, but health care fraud from americans coming over and using our system is absolutely a measurable phenomenon.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/scott-walker-canada-u-s-border-wall-worth-considering-1.3209152

i'm not sure how it is that our response in this case became some kind of debate (do canadians no longer support freedom of the press?), but let's look at the two possibilities of what we're seeing here.

1) these posters are paid conservative trolls designed to alter public opinion. now, i'm not saying that's true in this case - although we all know that all the parties do this. and, if that is true, then what is one to conclude, when combined with the passage of c-51? can we expect somebody reporting on the war crimes in israel to be charged with "reporting false news", charged with hate crimes and thrown in jail? or, might that be a punishment more reserved for somebody critical of harper's time in office? for the government to go out of it's way to try and alter public opinion in this specific way is really quite disturbing.

2) these posters are not paid conservative trolls, but merely reflective of where their base sits. they very rarely address the actual issue. nor is their argument isolationist. rather, it's meant to enforce the idea that he's "not canadian". and, on what basis is this? there's really no secret what's driving that.

it's a sad reflection of the state of affairs, either way. and i do hope that the cbc continues to remove these discussions. they have no place in a discussion on this topic.

that said, kenney is probably correct. public opinion in egypt is a hard thing for canadians to understand. i'll leave that analysis out of here. but, the double whammy of releasing a traitor and capitulation to the west is likely to harden rather than to soften them, if it becomes an issue in the court of public opinion. egypt is a country that has strong leadership that is tough on crime. i otherwise don't have enough details to further comment intelligently.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/mohamed-fahmy-case-ndp-liberals-say-harper-should-do-more-to-free-jailed-journalist-1.3208922

Censoredagain
Why is that? Because they don't agree with your?

Jessica Murray
no. because they're racist.

it's really very thinly veiled.

Censoredagain
Because they don't agree with your point of view. So, if someone disagrees with you, they should be censored.

Jessica Murray
i'm very tolerant of other opinions. but, racism is not an opinion. and racist comments should be removed.

i don't think i've had any difficulties expressing myself. if you're having difficulty understanding, i would suggest that the cause is a low level of intelligence on your side.

i'm glad you did this. now, let's see how close you are...

q1: "How involved should the Canadian military be in the fight against ISIS?"

see, this is a bad question to start off with. i know that if i say i want to be more involved, it's going to tell me to vote for the conservatives. but, i want to be more involved in a way that is very different than what the conservatives are suggesting.

isis are bad guys. really bad guys. but bombing people isn't how you get rid of bad guys in this area of the world. it's how you create blowback.

i certainly don't want to be less involved - i'm not an isolationist.

so, i'll have to say "i don't know" - even though i know exactly what i want.

q2: "How supportive should Canada be of Israel?"

this is again a very badly worded question. but, in this case, constructing the context means i definitely want to say "much less" - even though it's not technically, exactly true.

q3: "How much should Canada spend on foreign aid?"

well, quantity is less important to me than quality. we need to manage this better more than we need to just increase the number. but, broadly speaking, i think we can do more - even if that doesn't mean spending more.

q4: "Quebec should be formally recognized as a nation in the Constitution."

i don't know. ask quebeckers. seems irrelevant and sort of childish.

q5: "Quebec should become an independent state."

well, definitely not. i realize it's not my choice. but, i'm willing to try and plead with them that this is not in their best interests.

q6: "First Nations should have more control over their ancestral territory."

absolutely. but, this is not an election issue. it falls entirely to the courts due to what is a jurisdictional hole after patriation.

q7: "How much should the government do to make amends for past treatment of First Nations?"

again, this is an issue for the courts. broadly speaking, they should do more.

q8: "To what extent should law enforcement be able to monitor the online activity of Canadians?"

without a warrant? they should not be able to monitor any online activity at all.

q9: "Longer prison sentences are the best way to prevent crime."

this is an empirically false statement.

q10: "Handguns should be banned in Canada."

i hate guns. but i know that gun control is largely a canard. i'd support very stringent licensing requirements that are restricted almost entirely to employment purposes. and, i wouldn't include police officers in the list of exemptions, either. but, it's the very first steps towards coming to a real solution, not the solution in and of itself.

q11: "Government workers should not be allowed to strike."

lol. they're not trying to pretend they can pass that without the supreme court striking it down, are they?

q12: "How much power should unions have?"

this question is incoherent. you don't allow entities to have power. entities take power. this is a perpetual struggle.

q13: "Canada should introduce a publicly funded childcare program."

i like the idea of publicly funded ece, but i don't think that's on the table. daycare, itself? i don't care.

q14: "No new oil pipelines should be built in Canada."

strongly agree. and, they should keep it in the ground, too.

q15: "The Canadian government should put a price on carbon."

it depends. carbon trading is a bank scam, but carbon taxes are potentially a good way to change behaviour, if targetted at corporations rather than consumers. i don't think anybody's talking about carbon taxes this time around. so, again, i have to say "i don't know" - even though i know exactly what i think.

q16: "How much should Canada do to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions?"

all the things.

q17: "How much tax should corporations pay?"

about twice as much. seriously.

q18: "How much should wealthier people pay in taxes?"

well, corporations are people, right? so, they should be taxed like people.

q19: "Abortions should be allowed in all cases, regardless of the reason."

my technical position is that it's none of my business.

q20: "Terminally ill patients should be able to end their own lives with medical assistance."

none of my business.

q21: "Possession of marijuana should be a criminal offence."

of course not.

q22: "How much of a role should the private sector have in health care?"

this is again a very badly worded question. the private sector does almost everything in health care, but they charge a series of insurance monopolies. so, i'm going to assume that they're talking about private insurance, and say absolutely none at all. but, that doesn't mean i'm opposed to a private office that only accepts the provincial health insurance.

q23: "Illicit drug users should have access to safe injection sites."

this reduces health care expenditures on related illnesses.

q24: "How many new immigrants should Canada admit?"

i think that the policies should be more directly targeted towards social needs. it's not a question of more or less. it's a question of better management.

q25: "How much should be done to accommodate religious minorities in Canada?"

courts.

"Canada's budget should be balanced no matter what."

this is absurd.

"The most effective way to create jobs in Canada is to lower taxes."

this is also an empirically false statement.

"Canada should end its ties to the monarchy."

yeah. i'd rather get rid of the governor-general than the senate.

"Only those who speak both English and French should be appointed to the Supreme Court."

this is a functional job requirement. they're required to look at issues in both languages. how is this an election issue? it's basic common sense.

"The Senate should be abolished."

no. we need to reform it to act in it's stated purpose.

yeah, this is awful. voter be very aware.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/vote-compass-2015-canada-election-1.3204489

obgii
Always appreciate your posts and the reasoning you give behind them. In this series, can’t say I agree with all of them, but that’s as it should be, we’re not all clones. If you care to, I’d like to see you expand on your #14; ie.:

q14: "No new oil pipelines should be built in Canada."

‘strongly agree. and, they should keep it in the ground, too.’

Questions I have for you are:
- Are you interpreting “oil” literally or do you include other petroleum products such as natural gas in your objection?

- Since oil is used in the manufacture of plastics, fueling virtually all of modes of transportation right now, home heating, etc., I take it your objection is an aspirational goal, not absolute and immediate. Is that correct?

- Are you also opposed to existing pipelines?

- Unless we are in a completely petroleum free environment, which we aren’t at the moment, the product must be transported. In that case, do you prefer rail transport over pipelines?

- I fully understand the objection to putting pipeline depots in and through sensitive areas (Energy East insanely wanted to place a terminal near Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park). Someone once proposed approving and creating a single corridor that all such things would have to pass through (eg. hydro transmission, rail, pipelines, etc.) to contain them in a very limited spot. Would you objectto that?

Probably more I could ask, but that will do.

Jessica Murray
the tar sands are a particular carbon nightmare due to the carbon cost of production. and, with the price of oil the way it is and likely will be for some time, we have an opportunity and an obligation to abandon the project altogether. that doesn't imply an immediate, overnight end to all oil production - just an immediate cessation of this particular dirty type of oil production. we could very well have more than ten years to play with before the price of oil comes down to the point that this source is even economically viable again.

plastics can be made with sources other than oil. oil is really just a bunch of carbon and hydrogen in a bubbling, soupy mess; anything that you can create with oil, you can create with renewable plant matter, like hemp.

the solutions to moving away from a carbon economy are widely available and widely understood, so i don't feel the need to go over them here.

(sorry. that's badly worded. the decision to produce will come down to profitability, which requires the price of oil to go up.)

Thomas McClung
The NDP can lead right up to voting day but when time comes to cast a ballot most canadians will not support a socialist, isolationist, union controlled party. They will turn away from the NDP because they know and have seen what a party like that does to a province and or country over the long run. That and the fact that Mulcair rejects free trade, the military, and that he advocates for a palestinian state and of ignoring Israel. These things in the end will cause many a canadian to simply say no to the NDP.

The NDP have voted against all free trade deals, the NDP have no policy on the military except for vague statements such as you mentioned, and the NDP support the establishment of a palestinian state and that all arabs in Israel should have a vote which would turn Israel overnight into a muslim state. The unions do still support all socialist parties since that is what their organizations are based on, socialism. They will support and expect support from the NDP, always have, always will. Proof is in the voting record of the NDP the past four years, the support of all union initiatives and rejection of union accountability acts, and the entire policy of the NDP on the middle east. That you are blind to this is regrettable. The NDP are a socialist, no trade, high tax party that I believe most voters as they always have in the end will reject pure and simple.

Jessica Amber Murray
listen: i actually *am* a communist, and i'm so disappointed in the ndp's positions of being in favour of free trade, military jingoism, pipelines and budget cuts that i'm probably going to vote for the liberals out of protest (or maybe the greens, that's a local riding choice).

the spectrum is realigning. and the ndp are falling in as a "progressive conservative" party, while the conservatives get pushed back out to their socred roots.

the ndp are not in the the process of becoming the new liberals. this is an easy trick, and i initially fell for it, too. rather, they're in the process of reconstructing the old tories.

we consequently might want to consider ndp-conservative government arrangements in the list of likely outcomes.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/29/election-2015-seat-projections-ndp-liberals-tories_n_8059864.html

Dennis Schmunk
Social Democrats have done wonders in places like Norway. No deficits. No wars. Billions in the treasury. All with universal health care, education, day care and good sound pensions.

Why would anyone in this day and age vote for Lib/Cons who ignore them after elections?

Jessica Amber Murray
the ndp have recently taken down their party convention policies because they felt they were misleading voters. they renounced socialism in 2013. judging from mulcair's actions and statements over the last few years, i think you're going to be very disappointed in how right-wing their platform is, when it gets released.

mulcair himself has suggested he wants to govern in the mould of tony blair - a thatcherite. and a war criminal. if you want a scandinavian type welfare state, the ndp will move us in the opposite direction.

i think that a lot of people are missing the point on this one.

i'm not a religious person, but one could view anarchism's critique of liberalism similarly to jesus' critique of the jewish law. liberals have this wide swath of rules meant to govern how states and people interact with each other. anarchists would say that there is but one simple rule, articulated in a wide variety of manners, but here in the old english saying: 'an' it harm none, do what ye will'.

but can any of us cite an example of a human right (not related to private property, in a traditional socialist definition: means of production, land, etc) that we explicitly disagree with? i would claim that we mostly cannot.

regarding natural law, let's take a step back to where it came from. we've all become very confused about this. for, aquinas would never have claimed that the natural law is an ethereal force or an authority. to the contrary, he would have claimed that it is to be arisen at individually through reason. aquinas' concept of natural law - which early liberal and anarchist thinkers wholly adopted - most closely resembled what we today call secular humanism. anarchists may be moral nihilists, but it is merely a step in reasoning rather than an end of it. we may reject absolute morality, but we would not reject our own logical intuitions as to what is just and what is not. we just claim that it is a human construction, arisen at through reason and carried out not because we are forced to but because we want to.

there are two kinds of rights: rights that individuals have in opposition to the state and rights that humans have in opposition to each other. in the first case, the fundamental issue is property. the right to food is about property. the right to shelter is about property. after all, the purpose of the state is to protect property. anarchists are consequently going to have a hard time with these kinds of rights, because we neither believe in the state nor in property. we would rather abolish both, and the rights laws that come with them, than accept the hierarchy they put in place. but, none of us would claim that we are not all entitled to food or to shelter.

in the second case, a moment's reflection is required: we would not have so many court cases in front of us that attempt to rule on human rights if we did not have so many violations. and, the underlying issues are often very deep seated. i think that anarchists should view this class of rights as an experiment. what it's doing is slowly putting in place the framework that we will one day adopt, when we are ready. it would be nice to claim that we do not need this - but, unfortunately, at the moment, we clearly do. we cannot abolish hierarchy overnight. there's not really a way around this in the short run - an anarchist society would need a tort-like system to deal with personal conflicts until the proper behaviour becomes enforced as social norms.

so, it's really a very subtle point. and it reduces mostly to the issue of property.

anarchy101.org/453/why-according-some-anarchists-is-the-concept-rights-mistake

dot
i would absolutely say that people are not entitled to food or shelter. where does such "entitlement" come from? who determines it, and where do they get their authority?

deathtokoalas
we would provide the entitlement because we want to. it doesn't come from a greater source. it doesn't have to. this is a strawman argument. we have the right to make the rules that we want. we don't have to draw from an authority. this is the point.

these are the kinds of arguments you get from 12 year-olds that base their ideas of anarchism on sex pistols records.

why exactly is it that you wish to abolish the state, if it is not to create a system of distributive justice? if you don't believe people have rights, why not just leave the state in place to continue to enforce barbarism through property relations?

there has never been a literary form of anarchism that denies the rights to food or shelter through a fair distribution of resources. if you don't accept these principles, you are not an anarchist. you are merely a barbarian.

(deleted nonsense)

i think it's clear that i'm dealing with a collection of ancaps, randians, thatcherites, primitivists, thoreauvians, "lifestyle anarchists" and other people that throw the word around without a clue as to what it means. so, i'm going to be going away, soon.

hopefully i've got a bit of a trail here for random onlookers.

but, the term "distributive justice" is as fundamental to anarchism as the term "anarchism" is itself. it's really not possible to begin to have a discussion about anarchism and rights, or anarchism at all, without bringing in this concept.

unless you're taking some thatcherite position that "society doesn't exist" or something, which it seems like some of you are. but this is not anarchism in any literary sense. it's a dictionary definition used to construct what is essentially status quo neo-liberalism.

anarchism does not just pre-suppose a society, it is a set of rules for people to live by to ensure that such a society can function without the need for centralized control. that is not what it says in the dictionary. but it is the crux of the philosophy called libertarianism that came out of the left of the french revolution.

but, the question of who the "we" is does bring up a fundamental point, one that would be well understood by the people that are posting here if they'd actually ever read any anarchist philosophy. anarchism is a social movement; again it does not just pre-suppose society, it is a means to transform society. so, what do you do with the people that disagree? this is the challenge in getting there. an anarchist society could not function if it needs to be policed. there's a place for freedom of association; it needs to be taken for granted that anarchists would use the tool of ostracism to prevent capitalist or hierarchical systems from re-establishing themselves. to boycott capitalism itself. and, this would be relatively easy so long as property rights are abolished. but, it requires a majority adherence to function. we cannot have anarchism if anarchists are only a minority. we can only have anarchism if the majority accepts the moral principles underlying it, without the need for any police to enforce it. i share the viewpoint of many that this could be accomplished relatively quickly, with the need for minimal institutions to resolve conflict resolution. most conflicts are about property.

when i say a literary form of anarchism, i mean the type that exists as written expositions. this is contrasted with something like lifestyle anarchism, which is generally written off by actual anarchists as "dumb hippie bullshit".

Fa
“how, exactly, is the "we" that you refer to, not a "greater source"? it points directly to the generalized concept of "society", which pretty much by definition takes precedence over any individual. which, in turn, completely negates any possible claim to "individual autonomy."  (from the dictionary definition of "liberalism," which you - in the other thread, i think - basically equated with anarchism.)"

deathtokoalas
see, you're getting lost in this insistence on nothing. anarchism is not nihilism. it's not the absence of anything. that is neo-liberalism. anarchism is the abolition of authority. if you and i get together and decide that we're not going to kill each other because it's in our best interests, that's not an appeal to authority. that's just a social contract between us to agree to abide by rules that will make us both better off. we don't need to appeal to any source. we can just decide this is good for us. *and this is the epiphany that is anarchism, and which you are completely missing*.

the abolition of authority does not lie in the absence of rules. it lies in the absence of the enforcement of the rules. if we all agree to the rules, there is no enforcement and consequently no authority. there are simply people agreeing to rules. and we can talk darwin on that, if you want. dawkins is a good introductory source for this; he made multiple videos explaining the concept of reciprocal altruism.

there's not a contradiction there between the individual and the collective. again: your rejection of society is status quo neo-liberalism. there is no anarchist theory that would adopt this. anarchism seeks to bridge this gap by understanding the individual and the collective as a holistic whole that cannot be separated into parts. we can only truly have individual rights with collective rights and vice versa. liberalism is certainly a different spin on this (it usually pulls a state into the equation), but it's not fundamentally different.

fa
no doubt you will find some intellectualized rationalization for the contradictions in your ideology, probably by quoting some 19th century greybeard (as if that makes it fact), to whose ideas yours seem to be tethered.

deathtokoalas
well, it's a nineteenth century philosophy. and, you know, some of these people were pretty smart. you might try reading some of what they wrote.

human
I don't understand how I have a right to food, shelter, and water? How does that work without someone enforcing that?

deathtokoalas
so, anarchism is a left-wing idea. like all left-wing ideas, it seeks to place property in the hands of people through the abolition of property rights.

consider the current system. a farmer owns property. they grow food on that property. they sell the food. so, in order to gain access to the food, you have to perform a task for some other person to generate the income to buy the food. it is this specific social relation that anarchism specifically and totally rejects. we do not distinguish between wage slavery and actual slavery. anybody that is working in exchange for a wage is a slave. and all slavery must be abolished.

our solution is to seize that property. is that violence? no. what is violent is trying to prevent the seizure. the theft and violence and exploitation is in owning the property. abolishing that property relation is a process of liberation. and, because the state exists to prevent people from abolishing property, the state will need to be abolished, too.

now that property is abolished, and the state along with it, the better question to ask is who prevents us from eating? we may all go to the fields and pick the fruit as we choose. the abolition of property allows us to exercise our natural rights.

modern technology provides for a lot more possibilities than existed in the nineteenth century. but the basic idea remains the same: by abolishing property, you abolish the relation that *prevents* people from accessing what they are entitled to. this is the anarchist concept of the right to food - and the reason that we seek to abolish the state.

(deleted nonsense)

you're describing classical liberalism. neo-liberalism is focused much more on the abolition of connecting social structures, in favour of total atomism. thatcher famously stated that society does not exist; no classical liberal would hold that position. classical liberals naively thought that everybody focusing on their own self-interest would benefit society; neo-liberals deny that such a society exists, and instead elevate selfishness to a virtue (via ayn rand). for example, the idea of converting housework into wage labour is staunchly neo-liberal - despite being argued by many on the left. classical liberals would not have argued this.

as i've stated repeatedly, rights do not need to have a source. that is a strawman argument.

if we get a room of people together and decide that we have a right to cake on sundays and will all work together to ensure we all have cake on sundays, then we have a right to cake on sundays. we don't need some magical source. we can just make shit up as we please. and that's the epiphany in abolishing authority, rather than some neurotic insistence on doing everything possible to reduce it, which is in truth some kind of liberalism.

(deleted nonsense)

rights are never anything more than collective decisions. this fantastical idea of them existing in some ether is just that - a fantasy. i've gone out of my way to reject this, yet you continue to come back to it. but, they need not be determined by states and enforced via violence. they may be determined by popular will and enforced by choice.

(deleted nonsense)

you just presented the same strawman i've been pointing out repeatedly, again, as you claim you're not presenting a strawman.

and, neoliberalism - like liberalism - relies on state subsidies to exist, because markets are silly, imaginary things that do not actually exist in reality. the point was that neo-liberalism is entirely bereft of any concept of morality. it's ethical component is objectivism, which is entirely nihilist.

nor have i even discussed my own ideas of anarchism. i'm going to avoid doing so, here. i'm really just laying down the 101.

and, this discussion has become very trite.

(deleted nonsense)

you continue to erect a framework of rights that no rights theorist ever would erect. it's a strawman constructed by karl marx.

no rights theorist has ever argued that rights are ever anything more than decisions. and it's very ironic that you're not able to get over this requirement that a right be an authority. i'm not answering your questions because they have absolutely nothing to do with any concept of human rights that has ever been seriously articulated. it's like asking me why flowers decide to eat people. you can't answer this.

a right is *not* different than any other decision. it's arrived at through logic. it's decided upon collectively. it's enforced through choice. and, despite these marxist strawmen, the reality is that no rights theorist - *ever* - has argued otherwise.

i need you to understand, and demonstrate that you understand, that your entire concept of rights theorists is a strawman before this can continue. we cannot continue further so long as you insist that rights are some kind of magic, entirely on the projection of your own imagination.

(deleted nonsense)

we don't speak of rights differently. but, we may speak of them specifically for the simple reason that they're a category of decision, one that comes in force under the person-person social contract that was described by proudhon. that doesn't mean they're inherently different, or exist with the force of some greater authority. it's just convenient to pull together certain types of agreements and talk of them in the same breath.

and, of course, there are certain rights that really do rely on a state. property rights are impossible without a state, as they directly contradict other types of rights and consequently must be enforced through violence.

your sarcastic examples describe why anarchism understands itself as a social movement. should individuals start making decisions that are outside the public good on a large scale, then a truly free society would reserve the right to expel those individuals because it would not be shackled by an ideology (like liberalism) that restricts it from acting in it's own interests. on a small scale, reciprocal altruism would put these people at a disadvantage that would face them with exclusion and ostracism. note that i have not claimed that rights are inalienable. and, this is where logic asserts itself. we may imagine that there are endless possibilities. but, in fact we do not have these endless choices: should we choose to be irrational, we will be excluded, so long as there is not a system to uphold our irrationality (as there is today). those who share will be more successful than those who steal. those who collaborate will be more successful than those who compete. etc.

again: this is anarchism 101. and i'm wasting my time.

in theory, there is nothing preventing any group of people from deciding that they have the right to kill each other. that has nothing to do with anarchism, rights theory, constitutions or anything else. obama could introduce that to the house tomorrow, and if it passes it exists. but, such a society would not be very successful or last very long, for the precise reason that this is entirely irrational.

"liberal" may very well be the most complicated word in the english language. it means so many different things that this question is very hard to answer.

in the united states, "liberal" tends to mean almost the opposite of what it meant two hundred years ago. and, if you take a detour a little bit north to canada, the liberal party - which has run the country for most of it's history - is probably the closest thing to a social anarchist party in the history of the western world. this is for the precise reason that it sticks closer to the old eighteenth century ideals that liberalism and anarchism both developed out of. if you swing down to australia, the liberal party is a bastion of right-wing extremism. in russia, "liberal" tends to actually mean "nationalist" - and often borders on fascism.

if you want the strictest definition, "liberal" and "anarchist" are essentially interchangeable. worse, keep this in mind: marx never called himself a marxist. he always called himself a liberal. and such is also true of a wide swath of thinkers that we give all sorts of other titles to, retroactively.

to co-opt a famous canadian saying, one could say something along the lines of that anarchists are liberals in a hurry.

don't interpret that to mean that anarchists will support political parties that call themselves liberal parties - we usually will not, or will only do so very tentatively. this, however, has less to do with anarchists disagreeing with liberals and more to do with liberal parties generally not being very liberal.

http://anarchy101.org/4250/do-anarchist-agree-with-liberals

Fa
@dtk: "if you want the strictest definition, "liberal" and "anarchist" are essentially interchangeable."

from merriam-webster's dictionary (since you mentioned "strict" definitions):

a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties;specifically :  such a philosophy that considers government as a crucial instrument for amelioration of social inequities (as those involving race, gender, or class)

aside from the "autonomy of the individual" - which conflicts directly with the clear desire for "government" (to, i guess, enforce that autonomy?) - there is nothing anarchistic about that philosophy/position/political perspective. at least not to this anarchist.

i don't see any way that individual autonomy can coexist with the concept of "rights". for reasons articulated pretty well below by rice boy.

deathtokoalas
that's a definition that is lacking, though. it's less that it's wrong and more that it's kind of over-specific. and, in the end we're talking about splitting hairs. when you talk about "using government to ameliorate social inequalities", it's not clear what that refers to: parliamentary democracy, workers co-operatives, council democracy. if you restrict it specifically to parliamentary democracy, you get the kind of liberalism that exists in canada. if you're a bit more broad about it, you're constructing anarchism.

i consider the opposition to rights, as articulated, to be marxist, not anarchist. i'd actually point to this as one of the differences between anarchism and marxism, and why anarchism is superior.

nor do i think it's off-base to suggest that anarchists are hegelians or that they believe in the inherent goodness of people.

to me, the only serious defining difference has to do with private property. liberals are, of course, advocates of private property; anarchists are generally not. but, there's a spectrum, there, and degrees of support - enough that if you want to be as general as possible, it sort of fades away.

to clarify a little: what i'm trying to get across is that anarchists would support and uphold the idea that people have the rights to certain things like food and shelter, that's the entire point of abolishing capitalism and private property, but they would also argue that the state acts to restrict rather than uphold those rights. so, the idea of having this constitution that says what rights we have and don't have would strike us as the wrong approach, sure. but we do agree with the idea that these rights exist, we just don't agree the state can do anything but interfere in them.

it's marxists that look at the situation and declare the whole thing a "bourgeois fantasy" and throw it out the window in favour of some pseudo-fascist, collectivist concept of contributing to the whole - creating untold human misery.

so, it's one thing to point out that anarchists are generally going to look at the idea of a constitution upholding human rights and say "no. no. this is all wrong.", and it's another to suggest that they don't accept the existence of natural rights - of course we do. we always have. it's the major reason we're not marxists.

Amorfati
'rights' don't have anything to do with anything. in terms of food and water, for me it's about opening up the possibility that i, and others, can obtain them in a far more direct manner than we may currently under this oppressive system.

Fa
you obviously speak for yourself, but you do not speak for me or most anarchists i choose to associate with.  i do not accept the existence of "natural rights", any more than i accept the existence of some universal morality, or "god".  i surely can't "prove" those things don't exist, any more than you can "prove" that they do. it is irrelevant to my life.

i also agree with amorfati's comment above.

in the spirit of clarity, let me point out that there is no single, universally accepted "anarchist" perspective. as evidenced by the existence of folks that identify as anarcho-capitalist and others that identify as anarcho-communist. (just to point out how wide the spectrum can be, in the minds of some).

a number of the regulars on this site tend towards a perspective that diverges from the classical (radical) "left" that anarchy clearly shares some roots with. there are surely some core tenets that any conscious anarchist would acknowledge, but "natural rights" would not be one of them. being against all forms of government, and capitalism, and any other institutionalized hierarchy, would be.

edited to add: an obvious problem, from my perspective, with the concept of "natural rights" is this:  who determines what those natural rights are?

deathtokoalas
natural rights are inherently atheistic. they're erected on the framework of reason and logic, in opposition to written laws that were seen to be the results of supernatural dictates. and, historically, that's how they've been used: to overrule positive and theistic law.

again: the purpose of anarchism is to remove the state and capitalism because they infringe upon people's rights. liberalism seeks to use the state to enforce rights. anarchism claims that is impossible. but, there is no disagreement on the existence of those rights.

but, of course natural rights don't actually exist. they're just the arbitrary rules we make up and agree to abide by, because we want to, not because we're forced to. that underlying system of morality (derived through reason) is what separates anarchism from barbarism.

if you want a reference, it's basically the social contract, as articulated by proudhon. but it's really rather intuitive. and, i would claim that anarchism could only be barbarism, otherwise.

or, to put it another way: without a near-universal, willing adoption of the principles of natural rights theory, hobbes was right, and we are wrong.

Amarfati
the framework(s) of reason and logic are supernatural dictates by definition precisely because they're axiomatic, that is, they are believed worthy and fitting prior to any exercise of reason and logic. circularity ensues since one would have to 'prove' them as actually worthy/fitting by the very framework they provide!

deathtokoalas
i guess you can think what you want, but you have no right to call yourself an anarchist. anarchism is a philosophy in the tradition of locke, paine, proudhon and kropotkin, all of whom placed enlightenment principles at the core of their thinking. you cannot be an anarchist and reject the enlightenment at the same time. it's like claiming you're a socialist, but don't oppose private ownership of the means of production. it's a position of utter nonsense. you need to come up with something else.

i suggest the term "lout".

traditional societies generally have very clear concepts of natural rights.

but, of course, let's remember that anarchism is not rooted in engels' racist romanticization of traditional cultures. again, that is marxism. what we call "anarcho-primitivism" is just a nonsensical stringing together of words that do not make sense together. anarchism is not and cannot be primitivist - it is the search for civility. advancement. it assumes mass societies of the type that exist in europe, and is void of context when removed from such a thing. it is not a plan to abolish society. it is a theory of how society may function without centralized control.

(deleted nonsense)

see, this is a symptom of the general problem. the principles of anarchist thought are laid out in two hundred years of writing. and, for all your own language aside, none of you have provided me with anything worth responding to further.

one of the principles laid out in anarchist writing is that we get to figure shit out as it's coming at us, relative to a set of ideals. and that's really just democracy. saying that we're not willing to write down an authoritative plan is not the same thing as rejecting the principles that have led us to that position. this is the same point as seen elsewhere: it's not the abolition of principles, it's the abolition of enforced rules. the rejection of arbitrary restrictions. it's not a total absence of thought, but a rejection of all authority in controlling that thought. if we don't have a set of ideas, we're not proposing a real system of thought. we're opening up space for ancaps and other people that would oppose our basic values. and, that's inevitably just a hobbesian world of neo-liberalism that pits everybody against each other.

but, all i'm getting at is that you're reinventing the wheel where you don't have to. all of these ideas have been worked out elsewhere. you're not going to get anywhere novel by starting from first principles. taking the time to read through the existing arguments can only broaden your understanding of things, by drawing attention to things you hadn't thought of before and presenting arguments from perspectives you hadn't previously contemplated.

making every generation start from scratch is a surefire way to get absolutely nowhere.

and, if you're going to call yourself an anarchist, you really ought to have defined perspectives, at the least, on what property is, on mutual aid and on distributive justice. otherwise, it doesn't mean anything.

do you really think the bank of canada has ever seriously been entirely independent of the pmo?

i think that the independence of the bank of canada functionally refers to the ability of the bank to reject decisions that are clearly wrong, rather than the ability to evade any political influence.

i mean, i know what's supposed to be true. but it's really never actually been true.

"Although the Bank enjoys substantial independence, the Bank of Canada Act gives the finance minister the right to issue a formal, written policy directive to the Bank of Canada if, after consultation,  disagreement on policy persists. It was the resignation of Coyne in  1961, over differences with the government, that influenced the introduction of the legal provision clarifying that ultimate  responsibility for policy rests with the government."

i think this is important in regards to the dollar. of all harper's failures, that is the one that hurt us the most - he did nothing to slow the dollar's rise. that killed the export economy, made us dependent on imports and is the ultimate cause of the inflation we're dealing with at the moment.

that oil is stranded, and harper seems to actually be the only party leader that realizes it. so, *now* he's pushing the dollar back down. it's too little, too late. and, it's left a mess.

and, you know, i'm going to be pissed if he starts taking credit for this - because he's spent the last ten years blaming the decline of the manufacturing sector on the ontario liberals', when it truth it was a failure of his own monetary policy.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/canadian-keynesian/2015/08/harper-jeopardizes-conduct-monetary-policy

i'm not comfortable with the liberals' position on this bill - i think they should have voted against it. but, it's disingenuous to not mention that:

1) it would have passed had they voted against it, and
2) they claim that they'll follow the recommendations of the lawyers you speak of in amending it.

the liberals actually have a pretty good track record on this issue - when they pass these kinds of laws, they insist that it's a reasonable response to an imminent threat and they insert things like sunset clauses so that the increased powers run out when the imminent threat has resolved itself.

they clearly screwed this up - it's widely acknowledged that this is the primary reason the ndp are leading in the polls. but, they claim they'll change it. and their track record on this particular issue suggests you can believe them on it.

further, it's worth noting that mulcair has since moderated his position to align almost identically with trudeau's.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/kgrandia/2015/08/why-privacy-matters-this-canadian-election

acs
Put them in power, and the Dippers will NOT repeal C-51. They may give another go at the 'lawful' language, which the Chretien Liberals also tried to sneak in, with their post-9/11 legislation. Only Freemen, right wing extremists, or some other bogeymen will replace the Islamists of Stephen Harper's narrative, if/when we have an NDP government. All three main parties advocate a corporatist managed democracy, along the likes of Singapore. Anyone who puts their faith in a new government to protect civil rights and freedoms is seriously deluded.

deathtokoalas
see, the thing is that we really have nothing to base any projections of ndp legislation on this topic on. there's no provincial legislation from either the ndp or mulcair. but, i really don't think it would look very different than the typical trudeauvian post october crisis language of limited action and sunset clauses. that's really my point - there's not an *actual* difference between the two parties on this issue, it's just a shady political ploy.

Content Disabled
". . . with the Conservatives winning between 92 and 132."

It is truly disheartening to think that there still people who support this crooked, fascist regime.

Jessica Murray
they have roughly 100 safe rural seats. i'm starting to think they may poll around 20% in the end - and in that scenario i'd *still* give them around 100 seats.

meanwhile, the liberals could poll at 30% and win 20 seats if the ndp are ahead of them across the board.

it's just how the vote is distributed. if you want to take this party down, you have to find a way to compete in the sticks.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-polls-aug28-1.3206184

i wouldn't be surprised if you see the greens push ahead of the conservatives in the *next* election, but it requires two pre-conditions:

1) the ndp has to break it's base, pushing them into the greens & liberals. i think this is almost a given. if mulcair hangs on long enough to form the first ndp government, it will almost certainly be the last ndp government. this is the overriding trend in areas where there are three parties - they get one chance, they prove themselves conservatives and they obliterate themselves. mulcair has a lot in common with bob rae.

2) the conservatives need to get stuck in an existential struggle with the christian right, which will force them to swing right on social issues. of course, the party heads will seek to avoid this at all costs. but, if they do poorly enough in this election, they will have no choice. they've been told to be moderate, and wait it out. if they get beaten down to third this election, that strategy will have clearly failed.

in such a scenario, the conservatives would move back into their previous place on the spectrum before the tory-reform merger as a minor party on the far right. this is the place in the spectrum that the social credit party occupied for many, many years. this party has been all but forgotten, but it was an integral part of the canadian spectrum for 40 years. it didn't disappear so much as it eclipsed the pcs in importance. but, it created a lot of confusion as to what the merger was - it's inherently unstable and must eventually fall apart.

the greens would move into the space the ndp used to occupy.

and, here's the counter-intuitive part: the ndp would move into the space the pcs used to occupy.

only the liberals would remain in place on the spectrum.

of course, harper will no doubt be gone by then. it will be left to somebody that is more socially conservative, like jason kenney, to deal with the resulting mess.

--

Cayyce
Not only is it not working, this negative strategy and "nice hair though" commercials couldn't be a bigger disaster and are driving voters away in droves especially women.

Jessica Murray
it's ok - they'll bring them back with a puppet show that inconceivably suggests that trudeau is some kind of hopeless alcoholic. where'd that even come from?

you'd think they'd have learned their lesson with the attacks on chretien's face. trudeau needs to be waiting, tactically, to pounce.

--

Cayyce
And because these polls rely on traditional ways of contacting the electorate, specifically land lines, they're samples are more than likely to be biased in favour of the Conservative so it's potentially even worse than it currently seems.

Jessica Murray
it's kind of complicated, but it seems to balance itself out relatively well. they weight the results via the census, so if they get less young people in actual results they inflate their weight before they publish. that said, there's a growing consensus that they need to stop weighting under 34s relative to the census because they vote in lesser numbers. most phone firms claim they're doing that now....

i want to update my understanding of the ongoing realignment mildly. i think that the broad, general idea is correct - and that what we're seeing in the election polls up to this point is broadly consistent with the conveyor belt i've described. it seems as though the ndp are going to take a large amount of voters away from the liberals, and that the liberals are very solidly solidfying the red tories as their own - and perhaps even eating into traditional urban conservative support, leaving the conservatives as an almost solely rural party. this is maybe a bit faster than i expected. the conservative--->liberal support is probably being exaggerated by disgust over the duffy scandal, but if the conservatives swing right on social issues under new leadership with a purely rural base then this could end up setting in permanently. it sounds like a dumb strategy, but the mps have to represent their voters. and, if it ends up that badly for them, they're going to see increased competition by entities like the christian heritage party. as soon as they lose power, all their moderating arguments collapse. there's going to be thousands of people that pumped thousands of dollars into the party, and didn't get a single thing out of it - and they're going to be upset about that.

however, it's becoming increasingly clear that the ndp want to leapfrog the liberals to the right. and, while the federal party has historically stayed to the left of the liberals, provincial ndp governments have often been to the right of their provincial liberal counterparts. added to this mix is the fact that thomas mulcair came out of a quebec liberal party that is the major right-wing party in that particular spectrum.

i maintain that we're realigning, and that these are the four ingredients that will stabilize in the new system. however, i think that it is becoming clear that the ndp will fulfil the role of the centre-right party in this new spectrum, while the liberals retain their place on the centre-left.

the election has only just begun. but, a clean sweep by the ndp would have the following ramifications between 2015 and 2019:

1) the ndp would lose it's left base to the greens, as i previously postulated.
2) a rump conservative caucus would place them in competition with openly social conservative parties, and force them to the right. such a rump caucus would be more concerned with it's own existence in the short-run than retaining power in the long-run.
3) a rump liberal caucus would be progressive by nature and force them to oppose the ndp on the left. this will allow them to regain some of the votes they have lost to the ndp as of the moment, and place the traditional red tories back between the ndp and the liberals. they will need a new name, of course.

so, the duffy thing may be acting as a catalyst of unknown strength. and, it seems as though the ndp and liberals are changing places on the spectrum. but, i otherwise hold to my theory - and think it's actually proving rather predictive.

that means my new prediction is as follows:

quasi-fascist ("conservative party"): 20%
*moderate conservative ("ndp"): 40%
left-leaning centrist party ("liberal party"): 25%
**left libertarian party ("green"): 10%
others: 5%

* the ndp's place on the spectrum will not be understood by most voters at the time of voting.

**the new left is not really going to be a social democratic left as it was in the past. we're moving out of the era of industrialized labour. a lot of the policies are similar, but the core principles are at times drastically different. it's something i overlooked previously for brevity.

i can't see them settling somewhere in the low to mid 20s. the strongest argument they have for voting for them is that they're in power. as soon as that begins to erode, the whole stack of cards falls apart. and, you have to understand that the conservative party *is* a stack of cards.

they've never polled under 27 since confederation [if you add up reform & pc support in the 90s]. it's stretching credulity.

if they can keep the glue together, they'll poll closer to 30. i've changed my electoral predictions downwards, but i'm forcing myself to do it - i still can't really actually believe it.

if they start to unravel by consistently polling in the mid-20s polling, they will plunge towards the teens - because they will start to leak on all sides.

liberals won't vote for the tories to keep the ndp out, or at least not in measurable numbers. but, conservatives will vote for the liberals to keep the ndp out - because the conservative propaganda is surreal.

and, if they're no longer seen as seriously vying for power, the argument they've been pushing on their base for years - "patience, minions" - will not just erode, but evaporate. the floodgates will open, and you'll see movement out of the party to their right.

see, you have to understand that stephen harper is a very bad reflection of the people that fund the party. they've got all this money, right? it's not really coming from corporations, like the left likes to imagine. we've got laws against that. it's coming from private citizens that have an agenda for right-wing social policies. the single, biggest driver is abortion. that's not fantasy. it's the blunt truth.

now, suppose you're one of these donors that's been giving this party thousands of dollars a year since 1985 for the sole reason that you want action on abortion. you could very well have sunk upwards of $50,000 into this party. and, what did you get for this? absolutely nothing. you're bound to be irritated, and not likely to want to play this game of pretending to be moderate in order to reposition the spectrum anymore.

so, it's this one way or another thing. they will perform around their historical floor if they can get the perception out that they're still in it. but they can't hold themselves together if they're not competitive - they will collapse into whence they came.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-polls-aug28-1.3206184

those job creation numbers seem slightly exaggerated. 17,000 construction jobs? really?

see, it's probably calculating spin-off jobs and keynesian multiplier effects. the right may be broadly clueless on economics, but the left simply does not understand that keynesan theory assumes a closed economy and collapses under the reality of free trade. that is absolutely imperative to address.

i don't know how many construction jobs the plan would create. that part is valid. the rest is using a 20th century model for a 21st century economy, and needs to be re-examined to take into account the consequences of living in an open, global economy.

if we want this kind of analysis to work, we need to get rid of free trade.

if we want to keep free trade, we need to leave keynes in the past.

there's no middle point. it's a hard choice.

you can have multiplier effects or you can have free trade. you cannot have both.

experience is good and all. but the economic policies of the continent were entirely shattered by nafta. and while it may seem like good politics to reassure voters of steady hands, the liberals really need to be looking forwards. what worked in 1995 will fail today.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-liberals-infrastructure-deficits-1.3206550

Cayyce
....conventionally 1.5 to 3.0 multiplier, is that consistent with your understanding?

Jessica Murray
the multiplier effect relies on forces, like tariffs, to contain things within boundaries as they spread. an open economy doesn't reverse the idea of a multiplier, but it distributes it outside of the country.

let's look at what actually happens in 2015 when you hire construction workers to build a bridge or a road or a monument to the people that built the monument or whatever else - although we have plenty of infrastructure issues, and arguments about holes in the ground and bridges to nowhere as "make work" are currently not well utilized. there's plenty of things to do.

first, chances are the worker has some debt. credit card debt. maybe some loans. a student loan, maybe. that's likely to be the first issue to be dealt with. and, the numbers suggest that this is a pretty big issue right now. so, you have to acknowledge a lot of it gets eaten by the banks right off the bat - it's as dead as an economic driver as debt repayments.

but, if you stick with it, that goes away, eventually - or is at least minimized. and, we're all better off with less people in debt.

so, our construction worker has made positive movement on their debt. what's next? a trip to walmart, of course!

and, where does the multiplier from spending at walmart come from?

the theory suggests that spending at the local hardware store will lead to further purchases from the local hardware supplier, will allow them to expand production, which creates more jobs and etc.

in reality, spending at walmart does not help local suppliers. walmart will not hire more workers, they'll make customers stand in line longer. it may increase production, but production is out of the country.

rather than a multiplier effect, we should be talking about a vacuum effect: all of the money that we print gets sucked out of the country.

in order to get that multiplier effect back in place, there has to be barriers in place that keep the circulation local.

it's free trade or multiplier effects. you have to pick one. you can't have both.

see, the mild green boost after the debate was predictable - but that it would come back relatively quickly was also predictable. and, that it will slowly bleed back (i wouldn't expect to measure it week over week) over the next several weeks is also predictable. mulcair still has lots of time to piss of his base, and he will. it's going to be a series of "last straw" moments had in sequence as, one by one, people burst veins in their head and fall out. it probably won't cost him the election. and it probably won't win the greens any seats. but, it will be realigning for the protest vote minority. protest voters are not swing voters; they don't come back. they vote with their hearts, not their heads. it's the price the party pays for moving to the centre. i don't think they'll hit 10. they might get close.

it's that liberal/conservative swing that you can tie to the scandals, and these are all conservative voters moving out. it's various degrees: the red tories seem almost fully swung, now, and it's traditional conservatives that are lending their vote out because they've just had enough. even while this is happening, the liberals are probably not done bleeding to the ndp - although what's left to go will likely be strategic. this might not be thought out well, because the liberals will become more competitive in certain ridings as upset conservatives vote liberal by default, and out of spite. the result of this kind of strange voting pattern (where liberals vote ndp strategically to beat the conservatives, while conservatives vote liberal or chp out of disgust) is not something i want to predict.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/08/28/ekos-poll-duffy-awakening-slumbering-electorate/

steal?

i admit i don't watch much (any) tv, but this makes no sense to me. i've always assumed that the conservative base is primarily composed of social conservatives and that, if you were to measure it directly, you'd find out that they are the least knowledgeable about basic economic ideas and terminology. the exception to this comes in the form of certain types of investors and just flat out upper class earners, but they're certainly not interested in "jobs and growth" when they vote for the conservatives on "economic issues" - they're concerned about markets and tax rates.

conversely, liberal party supporters tend to actually mostly vote on the economy - it's their primary vote driver.

i've posted about this elsewhere, but i just don't think we can draw much out of these polls as we think we can because we can't really determine what the respondents actually mean. when you have a government that is constantly barraging people with ads that claim they're best at "managing the economy" (which is an absurd concept), it should come as little surprise that they rank highly - not because people like their policies, or even understand them, but because it's what they're bombarded with. the polls become a measure of the effectiveness of the conservative advertisement. and, sometimes you have to wonder if it's even intentional - the poll questions are worded almost identically to the ads. it's the same thing with the leadership question.

so, when the polls shift, then, what are you seeing? ideological shifts? the onset of the ultra-paradoxical phase, where stimulus leads to rejection? collateral damage from something else?

essentially all data you could construct from any source at all suggests the liberals should be blowing away the competition on anything remotely related to the economy. it's really not debatable. it's in the realm of objective fact. and, my experience has been that pretty much everybody that i've ever actually *talked* to has understood this - even very solid ndp and tory supporters.

i'm just not sure this is actually what people care about, or if it's what they've been told they should care about; and i'm not sure that people actually support the government's economic positions, so much as they're constantly being told they're the best on the economy. and, if you unravel the situation with this in mind, and then you look at the polls, you're left to conclude that the opposition parties should be focusing on everything *except* what the narrative has been defined as.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/08/27/can-progressives-steal-the-jobs-and-growth-issue-from-the-tories-absolutely/

jh
Interesting analysis. Im going with collateral damage for something else. For example the cons marketed two things which have benefited the NDP. 1st -"Liberals have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. They managed to balance a budget on the backs of the most vulnerable and then pretend they are progressive. Of course it boggles the mind at why people aren't worshipping the Liberals!"

2nd- Liberal performance on managing the economy is very much debatable. They did balance the budget, but how they did it it, and at what cost is what people may remember. Did the actual Canadian economy grow and jobs increase? Were people better off ? Maybe on paper but most are not going to look that up. They are thinking what they are experiencing day to day.

Arrogance, deception and corruption scandals is what led to devastating election results the last time around. This was marketed very well by the Conservatives so uninformed people did buy into that narrative.

deathtokoalas
yeah, this is another media narrative that i'm convinced is wrong.

if you look at the combined pc & reform vote in 2000, it was 38%. in 2011, he managed a hair under 40% in an election where a lot of liberals stayed home. he got 38% in 2008 and 36% in 2006 - and 30% in 2004. the reality is that he's been spending the last 15 years hanging on to the progressive conservative vote for dear life, and he hasn't cut an inch into liberal support. so, where did all these liberal voters go, when he made a big stink about the scandals?

well, they went to the ndp, eventually, although a few seem to have parked with the greens on the way there. and, if you ask them about this directly, they won't tell you anything about scandals. they'll tell you that they didn't like the idea of electing paul martin (due to his budget cuts in the 90s) and didn't like ignatieff for his foreign policy views.

i'm less pointing out the objective supremacy of the liberal economic record in the sense of it being spotless, and more comparing it to the conservatives. harper & mulroney have both been just atrocious on any metric you could possibly pull out. it's just not a comparison.

i do think the scandals may be swinging some red tories to the liberals.

but i'm broadly leaning towards the ultra-paradoxical phase to explain the polling. you have to keep in mind that harper's economic competence (in the polling public's mind) has generally outperformed his polling results. people will repeat the ads, say the economy is most important and then tell the pollsters they're voting for somebody else. it's like the information sinks in on the surface, but doesn't *actually* sink in in the sense of forming voting intentions. how ads effect us is kind of weird, right? we sing major brand jingles and refer to products by their trademark names (like "mayonnaise"), but, at the end of the day, we buy the better bargain.

i think he may have over-advertised, to the point that now people just get irritated by the ads. and, the more he spends all that money, the harder hit he may end up.

maybe he could try flooding the lab, or something. i'm not giving him any ideas, though.

this is a more important issue than it appears at first glance - and that 15% number is misleading, given the low bandwidth definitions.

for people living in isolated, rural communities the internet is a kind of a gateway to the world. rural culture expects conformity, and often in ways that uphold social arrangements that much of the developed world considers to be out of date. this is the primary reason that the conservatives get such a lock on these constituencies. their policies are not particularly beneficial to farmers, but their perceived ideology places them as a buffer to protect their purity from infiltration by the outside world.

it sounds trite and cliched. but, wiring rural canada may be the only way to break the conservatives' perpetual lock on rural communities. and, as such, this is really a social engineering plan - one that both the liberals and the ndp (as well as the greens) ought to be backing with the strongest language. it would be very smart politics for them to stand up on this - and follow through with it.

that is, of course, why the conservatives will likely stall on it. they'll do it, sure. but only slowly, and with obfuscations that retain the national post as the de facto dominant source of information. this is simply not going to be in their interests until the dull roar turns into a resounding scream.

rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/fact-check/2015/08/fact-checking-conservatives-rural-broadband-strategy

i'm glad somebody did this, but it's youse guys...

first off, ivr actually has a far better track record than self-selecting online panels. this idea that you've got kids mashing numbers or whatever is kind of silly. but, the lack of randomness in the online polling is a significant problem - and this kind of polling has tended to do very poorly in shifting elections near election dates as a result of it [the last ontario election is an example where phone polling was very accurate and online polling was way off]. in stable campaigns, it's less of an issue. in this election, i would expect to see wide fluctuations, which is the particular weakness of the panel method.

after the bc election, firms have indicated that they will pay closer attention to overweighting the youth vote. they claim they got it wrong because they weighted young people by their size in the census, rather than their likelihood to vote. that correction would have taken most of the polling into the margins. this is a valid thing to point out, but it's not dependent on the survey method - and they claim they're adjusting for it. we'll see how that works out.

that said, this particular ivr poll is probably pushing the margins a little. that's an important point you forgot to mention. when a polling firm says they've got the ndp at 40 and the conservatives at 23 with a 3% margin of error, 19 times out of 20, what that actually means is that they claim there's a 95% chance that the ndp are between 37 and 43 and the conservatives are between 20 and 26. a little common sense will suggest that the ndp are probably closer to 37, and the conservatives are probably closer to 26. note that that also puts the liberals between 27 and 33, and comparisons to previous polls would suggest they're probably still in the 20s, anyways.

but, expanding on the regional part - i think the ivr polling had the ndp at 32% in alberta. that's a pretty good showing in a federal election for a party that isn't the conservatives. and, given the circumstances, it's entirely believable. but, it's really just good for second place everywhere outside of edmonton. the difference between 34 and 37 nationally would not be much if it works out purely to that kind of boost in alberta. they also had them in first in ontario, which is less believable. but, even a nice ndp bump in ontario is probably not going to make a lot of difference if it's almost entirely in traditional conservative-liberal races, and just ends up splitting the vote - while not making a dent in the conservative dominated rural areas. the reality is that the conservatives could easily win a plurality of 50+ seats in ontario with 25% of the vote, given the nature of the rural/urban split - and that they get very quickly diminishing returns as that number increases. they could get walloped in toronto, and still end up with the most seats.

the polling also broadly indicates that support for the ndp is largely "leaning", and that current snap polls may consequently be exaggerating support for the ndp and underestimating support for both the bloc and the liberals.

something else to keep in mind is to look at the swings and ask yourself "does this make sense?". if you saw a poll with a 10% swing between the ndp and the conservatives, you'd be wise to be wary. in the ivr poll, there was an apparent 6% swing from the conservatives to the ndp, which had the firm claim it was clear that the ndp was gaining at the expense of the conservatives. but, you can disentangle that a little if you look at it carefully.

you could first take note of the margin of error to cut it down to 3%. and, then you might want to take note that the liberals went up by 2% and the greens and bloc each went down by 1%. that leaves a 1% swing between the conservatives and the ndp, which is likely accurate if it's restricted to alberta - which makes sense, in context.

yeah. that's right. keep lobbing nonsense back and forth. the banks love it.

you want to know the actual truth?

trump would likely relax border controls. he'll very quickly fold to business interests. if he somehow wins this thing, nobody will even remember this phase of the campaign.

this guy is the biggest rubber stamp ever.

although you'll have to expect a lot of things will go "missing", too.

is this really still shocking in 2015, or is it just kind of clownish?

"i just made another killing,
gonna spend it all on bitches."

yikes.

the weeknd are by no means the worst pop act i've ever heard. in years past, i would actually tend to gravitate towards the artsier fringes of pop music (radiohead, for example), so it's not like it's inherently outside of my sphere the way that the bulk of modern pop is. but, if the weeknd is the modern equivalent of art-pop, it really leaves the form with a lot to be desired - both conceptually and practically. i suppose that's reflective of the broader culture, really.

i can't say i've ever taken the time to sit down and listen to an entire record, but what i'll say is that most of what i've heard from him presents an idea or two that could potentially be expanded upon, and yet never is. and, so it always feels unexplored - half-finished, unrefined.

i don't know how old he is or how much potential there is that he'll ever build on the bits and pieces and flashes that he's shown for himself up to this point. but, i guess he's making lots of cash. and gets lots of bitches. so, there may be little incentive, anyways.

to make sure they're still real.

my guess is that it meant to save energy, although it may have perhaps miscalculated this particular hill.

i think the court is wrong. and i'm openly queer, fwiw.

i'm a canadian, so i'm approaching it from a slightly different perspective. but the issue the way i would understand it is related to the question of general service v. individual service. there's a difference between walking into a store and ordering a pre-made cake and requesting that a cake be made with a specific design on it. while the discrimination law ought to apply to the rejection of discrimination on general service (walking in and buying a pre-made good), i don't see any legal precedence or coherent argument that suggests that a store owner does not have the right to deny individual service, for whatever reason it could possibly imagine. it could deny a floral pattern because it doesn't like flowers. it doesn't have to explain or justify this, and it's really beyond any legal scope to question it. so, it's not a question of religious freedom, or even a first amendment protection. it's just the basic autonomous right of individuals to choose who they wish to carry out business with. the entire question is really outside of the scope of law; this case should have never even been heard, and the arguments are really not relevant in the context of any of the discussions being had. so, i would expect the supreme court to reverse this ruling, if it gets there. this is an example of what you call judicial activism - it's not legally rooted.

i would further expand on the issue as it relates to access. in canada, there is a specific circumstance where the court would rule that the business must provide service, and that is only if it has a monopoly. that would apply mostly to government services. so, you can't deny a driver's license for this reason, for example. that's what anti-discrimination laws actually exist for. but, we're talking about wedding cakes on the free market, here. chances are pretty high that you can just go to the next store down the street. and, that's what the judge really should have said - that the government does not exist to police this sort of thing.

there's an irony underlying the situation. you don't have to agree with this guy - i certainly don't. but you have to respect his rights to make his own autonomous decisions and carry out his own autonomous actions. you're the one that's being aggressive here, not him; you have no right to try and force him to bake a cake if he doesn't want to - and it doesn't remotely matter what the reason is.

to be more succinct: this doesn't have anything anything to do with the first amendment, it doesn't have anything to do with religious freedom and it doesn't have anything to do with anti-discrimination laws. it has to do with somebody trying to order somebody to do something they don't want to.

there's no fancy legal argument necessary, and getting lost in one is just confusing. the most powerful legal argument the store owner has is the following simple statement:

"no. i don't want to."

once the layers of superfluous arguments are stripped away and that simple point is understood, there's really no further room for debate.

underlipetx
+deathtokoalas except for the fact that if you turn the tables it's okay. When someone wants to have a cake done with a bible verse on it and the bakery refuses, the courts favor the bakery. There's a bias agenda in here people refuse to acknowledge...

the simple statement would not be "no, I don't want to" but "no, it violates my religious beliefs",

deathtokoalas
+underlipetx see, this is a typical right-wing culture war argument, and i don't really want to get into it. the courts should uphold the autonomous rights of individuals to make decisions as to the nature of the business they carry out. critical theory would tend to come down on the other side of this, but activism in the judiciary exists on both the right and the left. the bottom line is that they're both wrong, and this isn't a spectrum issue - it's an issue of fundamental rights and freedoms to not be ordered to do something you don't want to.

the religious freedom clause in the united states constitution is widely interpreted, and widely misinterpreted. but, one thing that is absolutely clear is that it's not meant to be applied to financial transactions on the open market.

the point, though, is that it doesn't matter what the reason is. that reason belongs to the individual making it, and it is not within the realm of state criticism.

as stated - the case should have been thrown out.

underlipetx
+deathtokoalas yes "right wing culture war argument" as in point out the hypocrisy, but then of course we just label it as "right wing culture war argument" and feel okay about it...... Freedom of religion act is meant for protection wherever you go. It's religious discrimination when someone believes that religions place is only "in the household and churches"

although I believe we agree on the issue as well.

wouldn't that go against the view of right to healthcare as well? Honest question since you're from Canada, cause that "right" is saying that you can force someone(a doctor) to treat you.

Drew Gaughan
+underlipetx No, it's not hypocritical because those doctors are government employees providing a service which every Provincial citizen is guaranteed. They aren't baking you a cake.

underlipetx
+Drew Gaughan doctors aren't governmental employees, even in Canada they still have "super hospitals" or privately owned ones, even so, that statement would say it's okay to force a doctor to do something cause the government says so isn't valid. Just a note in not comparing this to baking a cake, it's a separate question.

Drew Gaughan
+underlipetx We don't have privately owned hospitals here in Canada, save for a few in major cities. The problem here is your conflating a life-saving profession with baking a cake. Should a police officer have the right to refuse answering a 911 call because they don't like the colour of the house which they were called to? No, and neither should a doctor refuse to perform a surgery because they dislike the patient.

underlipetx
I said earlier, I'm not comparing this to baking a cake, its a separate honest question I was asking, and since 2005 where the founder of the Canadian healthcare system was sued and deemed that his care system  was " a crime against humanity" they allowed the establishment of super hospitals, which in America is just called hospitals. 

deathtokoalas
+underlipetx i'm not getting your reference to a 2005 case. i think the closest thing to a "founder" of health care in canada would be tommy douglas, and he died in 1986.

i'm going to take a step back and try and go over this slowly.

first, freedom of religion in the united states is about the government. it's not about behaviour between individuals. what it says is that there can't be laws that force people to do certain religious things or give people certain religious benefits. the basis for this law was to prevent denominations from fighting with each other, which was a legitimate issue at the time. for example, you couldn't pass a law that states that the trinity is true and unitarians are heretics. it's that sort of thing that it meant to address.

the truth is that this part of the constitution is very antiquated and should really read off as rather quaint.

there are a lot of conclusions to draw from this, some better than others. but, the interpretation you're pulling out of it is really just simply wrong. none of the people involved in the process would have for a moment thought it a good idea to get the state involved in policing market transactions - one way or the other. they would have neither supported a religious restoration type act (for reasons other than the first amendment) nor would they argue that the state has the right to order a baker to make a cake. they would have just said that this is a crazy thing to contemplate, and that the entire discourse is tyrannical. the baker decides to make the cake. the customer goes to another store if they're refused. now, let's all smoke a j.

however, they would have all mostly argued that the market is a useful tool to carry out social change. they would have certainly supported the idea of boycotting the bakery in order to put pressure on the baker to change his position. and, some of them may have argued that the anti-discrimination law is in breech of the first amendment, while rejecting the idea that the baker's opinions are protected by "freedom of religion". the idea is that the anti-discrimination act would be a law establishing the primacy of irreligion. let's be clear that this is a very different argument. and it's a bit of a stretch. but, it's the one you need to make if you're walking down this path.

so, the idea that the first amendment bestows rights on individuals in market transactions is wrong. it's just not what is in your constitution. however you feel about the discussion, this is simply not a first amendment issue.

however, the baker still has a constitutional argument. it's just not a first amendment, religious argument - it's more basic than that.

in canada, our human rights laws have specific scope. the federal human rights code deals with issues under federal jurisdiction - government services, basically. the provincial human rights code deals with issues of power. it's actually very specific in what it reduces itself to, but the idea is that somebody in power cannot discriminate against somebody they hold power over. canadian law would be entirely silent on the issue at hand, and the case would no doubt be thrown out of court.

i will address the doctors in a new reply.

deathtokoalas
canada has a clause in it's constitution that will come off as rather alien to americans. it is the following:

7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

it looks a little bit familiar: you have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. but, the difference is rather dramatic.

canadian courts have interpreted this part of the constitution, in conjunction with relevant legislation, to mean that canadians have a constitutional right to receive health care (see the morgantaler cases).

now, let's consider the driver's license thing again. let's say the guy that works at the dmv is a religious fundamentalist and is absolutely insistent that women should not drive. is it tyrannical to force him to hand out licenses? the answer is no: because he can quit his job. as an employee of the dmv, he is required to carry out a job description, and that job description is to uphold the rights of women to not be discriminated against when they're getting their license.

this is the kind of argument that we use in canada with doctors and care. patients have a right to certain access; as a doctor, it is a part of their job to provide that. the state will not force them to provide care. rather, it will tell them that if they do not want to do their job then they can find another job.

conversely, nobody has a right to buy a cake. i certainly suspect that the case was driven by entitlement issues. but, that's not an actual right - not in canada, not in the united states, not in the un - nowhere.

underlipetx
+deathtokoalas
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaoulli_v_Quebec_%28AG%29

I will rephrase that it was deemed "a violation of human rights"

The person I was thinking of is Claude Castonguay, the former Minister of Health who was in office when the current medicare legislation was enacted.

deathtokoalas
+underlipetx the chaoulli case has not led to any concrete reforms in canada. but, this is not related to the question at hand.

the canadian health care system is essentially a system of insurance monopolies. every province has it's own insurance monopoly, which is funded through progressive taxation. that means everybody uses the same system, which means nobody gets to jump ahead.

the case in question was asking the question of whether this is constitutional. the argument was that the absence of a market increases wait times, which breaks the clause i referenced previously.

a lot of the debate circles around the validity of the idea that an open market would actually reduce wait times. the general opinion is that this is false. this is important, because if the premise is flawed then the argument collapses.

but, no, this case did not rule the system a crime against humanity, and did not create superhospitals. it has not led to any legislation whatsoever

underlipetx
I rephrased as a "Violation of human rights"(it was also deemed a crises as well) and its has led to the ability to have privatized healthcare which they do have that in Canada

deathtokoalas
+underlipetx that's still not quite right. again: this has gone off-topic. the issue in this case was not whether doctors may be allowed to refuse service, but whether the provincial government may be allowed to maintain a monopoly in health insurance. canadian court rulings can sometimes be very subtle and hard to understand from the outside.

what the ruling did was give the quebec government a choice to increase funds to reduce wait times (and uphold the right publicly) or allow that part of the law to expire (thereby theoretically allowing for faster access in a theoretical private system). it was based solely on the idea that the existing system was not providing fast enough service, and that reality was infringing on the existing right.

now, a lot of people have read the ruling as an attempt for the court to increase public investment, rather than allow private practice. but, the government did not amend any legislation or react with any greater funding.

the result has been a small industry of private doctors in quebec that cater solely to the ultra-rich. it's what is called "two-tier healthcare", and does in fact allow the extremely wealthy to jump the queue ahead of everybody else. it's well outside of the financial means for the average person, and has consequently not altered the health care system in any meaningful way.

the general consensus is that should the private system be expanded then the wait times will reappear. at the end of the day, you have x patients and y doctors. whether it's a public or private system doesn't have any effect on how long it takes for those x patients to get to see those y doctors - unless you create a special category of doctors that only the rich can get access to. then, they can get in faster while everybody else has to wait.

there's an argument that a class-action suit would reverse this ruling by arguing that the two-tier health care is increasing wait times by taking resources out of the public system. it hasn't yet materialized, because the private industry is only capable of appealing to the elite and is consequently only siphoning the system of minimal resources.

this is a provincial ruling, not a federal one. most provinces in canada prohibit private practices.

underlipetx
its not off topic as much as comments to the others on this thread, however I do believe your comment is wrong to say that it "cater solely to the ultra-rich"

What is a reality is that if you do not have private health insurance and you want to do something as little as a blood test, that can take up to 2-3 years on a waiting list for a family doctor.

here is a video from a youtube personality who shows the results of such instances:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw

(yes hes a youtube personality, so its done in a  bit of a goofy way.)

deathtokoalas
+underlipetx you have a tendency to exaggerate.

blood tests are actually done largely by private offices, or at hospitals. remember: canada's system is an insurance monopoly, it's not government operated. so, you go to the private clinic and they accept your health card. they then bill the insurance company for it.

if you go to a doctor and they want a blood test, they usually send you to one of those private clinics. they tend to give you a few days so you can carry out instructions, like prepare to fast for a few hours.

i've had plenty of blood tests done. i've really never taken notice of how long it was - a couple of days. i mean, they'll book you based on your schedule. i may have not taken the first opening. two-three years is ridiculous.

the market forces at play in quebec act to keep prices disproportionately high; there is a high-quality tax-funded public system available, and, yes, people complain about the waits, but people are whiners. despite the language in the court ruling, the private industry is selling the privilege to jump ahead based on social status.

mris, for example, run into the tens of thousands of dollars. if you can wait a month or two for the people ahead of you to finish, the public system will pay for it. most people make the obvious choice. but, if you've got tens of thousands to burn...

Emmanuel Villa
If your a private business you should be allowed to serve who you please

L1ttleT3d
+deathtokoalas You feel the same about black people, right? I should be able to deny service to black people if I wish? And women? I should be able to deny women jobs or service if I want to?

deathtokoalas
+L1ttleT3d see, this is the part of the thing that the authoritarian left has a very hard time understanding - they think all situations are comparable in these broad general ways, and everybody should always be forced to abide by state dictates in all circumstances. this is not a liberal position. it's a totalitarian statist position. liberals need to be very subtle in terms of how they analyze freedom, and allow for complex clauses that are specific to certain contexts and circumstances.

your question is consequently impossible to answer because the way that it's phrased is incoherent and nonsensical. i cannot answer a question about always denying or not denying service to any specific identifiable group - and it's absurd to suggest anybody should. if you'd like to be a little bit more specific, i'll be happy to expand upon my views.

again: i'm a canadian. our constitution is probably the apex of applied liberalism; it's not the un charter, but it's as close as anybody's ever gotten. and, our rights are all subject to exceptions within the limits of a free and democratic society. rights are always a balance of interests. i'm not able to think in these simplistic, generalized, binary terms that give one side a sickle and the other five minutes to run. it's not a culture i exist in, or a legal tradition i understand.

so, you'll have to be more specific, please. i need a specific scenario. and i will deny you the right to generalize it.

L1ttleT3d
+deathtokoalas Sure thing. Specific question 1: Mary and Peter are up for the same management job. Mary is infinitely more qualified but is a woman and so will inevitably need time off for "woman issues" and pregnancy. It's my business. I don't want to hire Mary - I WANT to hire Peter. Are you going to make me do something I don't want to do? You're not one of these authoritarian government intervention lefties, are you?

Specific question number 2: I have a flower business. I believe mixing the races is abhorrent and violates natural law. A mixed race couple wish me to provide flowers for their wedding. I don't WANT to. Are you going to make me do something I don't want to do? You're not one of these authoritarian government intervention lefties, are you?

Specific question number 3: I am a landlord. I have various tenants applying for housing. Jews are shifty and can't be trusted. As such I don't WANT to let my house to any Jews. I wish to place an ad in the paper that specifies "NO JEWS NEED APPLY." You're not going to make me do something I don't want to do, are you? You're not one of these authoritarian government intervention lefties are you? It's MY house. 

deathtokoalas
+L1ttleT3d regarding the first question, there is not a jurisdiction in the world that would force you to hire mary. however, some jurisdictions may require you to compensate her for discriminatory hiring practices. i would agree that this is the proper balance.

the second question is similar to the issue at hand. the couple can go to another store. that is the proper rights balance. however, they are also free to draw attention to the situation in media, organize boycotts and do other things to inform consumers of the views of the store in question and try and convince people to not shop there.

the third issue is similar to the first, with the difference that some jurisdictions will force the landlord to allow the tenancy due to the nature of housing. housing is in a category of rights that is only weakly enforced, but it is at least abstractly recognized as a right. most jurisdictions, however, would approach the situation by rewarding compensation for discrimination rather than forcing unwanted tenancy.

you can see that there is a pattern: people are free to be assholes, but may have to pay a fee for it. and, i'd like you to step back and ask yourself the following questions:

1) would mary want to work in this establishment, given that she understands the views of management?
2) would a mixed race couple want to support this business?
3) would the jewish person in question want to live in a property owned by anti-semites?

L1ttleT3d
+deathtokoalas regarding the first question, there is not a jurisdiction in the world that would force you to hire mary. however, some jurisdictions may require you to compensate here for discriminatory hiring practices. i would agree that this is the proper balance.

I live in New Zealand. YOU WOULD BE REQUIRED TO HIRE MARY. You're talking like you're an expert on law. You clearly are not. You need to change your language accordingly.

1) would mary want to work in this establishment, given that she understands the views of management?
2) would a mixed race couple want to support this business?
3) would the jewish person in question want to live in a property owned by anti-semites?

Your position is fairly consistent. I'm cool with that in a way - liberty over equality. We just prioritise them slightly differently.

These responses are nonsense however. If you live in a place where you are a small reviled minority then you're not going to get any support for your boycott. Black people in the 60s could have all the boycotts they want - they weren't welcome anyway. Also fining people IS coercion. I don't understand why you think financial penalties aren't coercive... that's bizarre... 

deathtokoalas
+L1ttleT3d i am a moderate expert in canadian law; i took three years of it, before i decided it was just a charade for the ruling class. i naively thought it might be a useful way to fight the corporatocracy. the truth is the rules of the game are rigged.

new zealand doesn't count. it's in the middle of nowhere. you have giant crickets and weird birds running around all over the place. you can have your unique legal practices if you wish, but understand that you're living in a bubble. and, to be honest, i'm rather skeptical - although i cannot dispute your point.

the reason i asked you those questions was to have you see that forcing compliance is not a solution to anything. it's not a question of prioritizing one over the other, it's just a realization that you can't get to equality by beating it into people with a stick. at best, it forces people to be dishonest in public. at worst, it fuels resentment. getting to a proper balance that promotes harmony requires working with a scalpel, not a sickle.

so, it's not that i'm arguing against coercion. it's that i'm arguing that forcing people to do things against their will is not a good approach. i'm recognizing that discrimination is an offense, and agreeing it requires compensation - but i'm pointing towards what is almost universally agreed to be the better approach in remedying the injustice.

the civil rights movement in the 60s was a populist movement where whites and blacks worked together. that said, this dynamic was an urban phenomenon. there was a large migration of blacks out of the south in the middle part of the last century. the government passed laws that forced equal treatment in restaurants, motels and other contexts. it didn't work; white southerners just got more violent. in the end, the most immediate answer was escape. but, if you really want to get to the root of discrimination in racialized societies, you need to analyze systemic root causes. this is the basis of the critical race theory that came out of the failure of the 60s reforms; while i'm not entirely in agreement with their analysis, the basic premise that they're working with is quite difficult to dispute. on some level, you're right - but forcing them to sell them the flowers hardly addresses the issue.

anti-discrimination laws are not powerful enough to eliminate discrimination and oppression - they can only provide for compensation in situations where a clear loss or injustice can be demonstrated.

L1ttleT3d
+deathtokoalas i took three years of it, before i decided it was just a charade for the ruling class

We were taught that day 1 of Law 101. I'm not even kidding. I remember it very well. The definition of law was discussed and it was defined as basically a mechanism for maintaining the status quo. The rich keep their stuff because the police work for them. It's a shame your university lecturer wasn't as forthright as mine, I guess. :P

new zealand doesn't count. it's in the middle of nowhere. 

Sure. That's an odd response but I'll take it. It's right next to Australia (and has almost identical laws to Australia and the UK)... but then I guess that's the "middle of nowhere" too, probably.

you have giant crickets and weird birds running around all over the place. 

Well we're not quite overrun. I'm not sitting in my house with Weta's and Kakapo clawing at my windows... but O... K...

it's just a realization that you can't get to equality by beating it into people with a stick 

I disagree. You can do anything you want if you're willing to get violent enough. We're not willing to impose totalitarianism onto ourselves of course - but technically you CAN beat people into doing what you want.

at best, it forces people to be dishonest in public. at worst, it fuels resentment. getting to a proper balance that promotes harmony requires working with a scalpel, not a sickle.
 
Fair point. Fines are a sickle, though. Not a scalpel. You need to find a better tool.

you need to analyze systemic root causes. this is the basis of the critical race theory that came out of the failure of the 60s reforms 

Now THIS I agree with. Treat the disease not the symptom. Couldn't agree more. The main thing overlooked the the race issues of the USA by many is that it really isn't about race... not really. This is a class thing - with Black people as the underclass. Fix social inequality and the rest will follow, in my opinion.

deathtokoalas
+L1ttleT3d white supremacy didn't come to exist by accident. it was very carefully created by a combination of landholding interests and religious groups to enforce an economic system by theological decree. over time, that evolved into a divide and conquer strategy where poor whites and poor blacks were played off against each other in order to prevent them from uniting to change the status quo. the social aspect of it is the part that's hard, not the class aspect of it. the race issue has to be resolved before the class issue can be addressed. it's really the desperately poor and strikingly uneducated white underclass that is the biggest problem on the ground, even as they take their cues from the top.

it's not that i wasn't told that the law is a tool to maintain the status quo. it's a widely held opinion, even amongst people that have never taken a law course. it's that i didn't realize the extent of it until i actually read the cases. you walk in thinking you've got a hill to climb, but with optimism that you can make a difference. it takes some time for it to really sink in.

L1ttleT3d
+deathtokoalas Oh, don't get me wrong, racism exists. I just think the social inequality / class aspect of it is far more meaningful than pretending this is a simple race issue would lead you to believe.

Alicia Etler
+deathtokoalas You make a valid point, and I do agree with you. The cake example is a poor example to use here. The only ones truly hurt are the business owners who aren't making money off of a potential customer. And even more potential business for anyone agreeing with the gay couple's opinion. A business owner shouldn't need to pander to customers. Yes, they tend to be more successful if they do, but it's not a requirement. A florist who doesn't carry daisies doesn't have to suddenly go out and get some just because the customer requests it in a bouquet. A restaurant doesn't have to offer an all-you-can-eat buffet just because a customer wants it.

However, while that example doesn't fit, I'm sure you agree there's plenty of examples that do. A person applying a job shouldn't be turned away for being homosexual or transgender. Beliefs have no right to be used in determining job performance. If they're qualified to perform a task, and perform it well, why shouldn't they be allowed to? As a specific example, my mom works for a bookkeeping company. A few years back, a transgendered individual applied for a job there. They were perfectly qualified, but they were denied for being transgendered. The excuse given was that they were worried about anyone coming into the office and seeing them, given they would sorta be representing the company. The company is even an Equal Opportunity Employer, to make matters worse, but North Carolina law doesn't protect transgendered people under that. This is a very common practice in far too many states.

As an analogy, the saying "women must work twice as hard for the same amount of money", while slightly inaccurate, is generally true, given the proven pay differential between genders. However, being transgender or homosexual means doing even more work than that because of the sheer amount of businesses that will reject them or hinder their progression (raises, etc.) because of it. Far more than if they were cis female.

P.S. For the record, I'm both mtf transgender and lesbian, so the only thing I have going for me in the sense of job security and otherwise being treated like a sentient being is that I'm white.

deathtokoalas
+Alicia Etler i don't have a point of disagreement with you. but what the actual law in both the united states and canada (and i suspect australia, the uk and new zealand, despite the previous poster's comments) says is not that the employer must hire the individual if they are found guilty of breaking discrimination laws, but that they must pay them a fee to compensate them for losses. it's what is called tort law - it deals solely with financial damages. the idea of the government dictating hiring decisions in private businesses is outside of it's jurisdiction in common law countries; it can set hiring practices, but they can only be enforced by threat of fine.

it's not that the cake example is really fundamentally different. it's just that it's difficult to establish any kind of damage or loss.

Alicia Etler
+deathtokoalas Wow... umm... my apologies. I just realized my other comment massively failed to say the original thing I wanted to say: Thank you for opening my eyes, as I never thought much about the cake incident until reading your comment. Once I did, I realized some irony that is probably your underlying main point. That event is getting far too much publicity for what it deserves, and partly due to people associating it with things it doesn't relate to. The owner has as much of a right to not do business with a customer as that customer has to complain about the owner. Anyone who wants the owner to do anything about it is just as bad as those trying to abolish gay marriage. Both acts are attempting to force someone to do something against their will.

Naomi Nabbit
+deathtokoalas IANAL, but my understanding of the law in the US is that if you offer something to one person, you must offer it to everyone. You cannot legally give preferential treatment to one person over another in a business. A landlord can't deny a black man an apartment who meets all the specified conditions for renting just because "I don't like him." A job can't refuse a woman employment but offer the same position to a man (jobs are actually forbidden from knowing the gender of a candidate before the first interview, though the name usually gives it away, just like they can't know the candidate's age or ethnicity) even if they say it was because "I didn't like her."

Do these things happen? Yes, probably all the time, but that doesn't make them legal, and that doesn't mean they'd win a court case. You can refuse anyone service or fire anyone for any reason you want, but if it comes out that the reason was solely due to the person's membership in a protected minority class, it is not legal in the US, no matter what the person says or believes. Of course, different states have different protected minority classifications, which is what that non-discrimination bill is all about. It's about adding protections at the federal level so that in addition to things like race, gender, and religion which are already there, sexual orientation and gender identity are added to the list everyone has to use. 

Donald Lanoux
You see, if all LGBTQ individuals thought like you, they would all collectively better themselves and their community, and have my respect.

deathtokoalas
+Naomi Nabbit you've got the right idea, using official language. i'm just taking what is called a "critical" approach to the law in seeing it how it actually is.

which is that the state cannot prevent or reverse or order behaviour. it can just make you pay a fine if it doesn't like what you're doing.

you're right in saying that if you have general service available, then you need to make it available to everybody. that doesn't apply in this circumstance, and it's easy to come up with circumstances where specific services are not for everybody. like a midwife, for example. or perhaps even a stripper. tutors. and etc. but, if you have something sitting on the shelf, and the transaction involves walking it to the cash? the law says that if you will not serve the person, you are entitled to pay a fine.

that's the "critical" part. the law says "thou shalt not be an asshole". it's just language. in practice, the reality is "thou shalt pay a fine should one decide to be an asshole.". and, worse, half the judges are assholes.

deathtokoalas
+Donald Lanoux i don't think it's a good idea to stereotype people one way or another.

deathtokoalas
+Naomi Nabbit i should clarify a little, i didn't mean to say i'm merely thinking critically. it's a type of legal philosophy. the search term is "critical legal studies". and, it's actually firmly rooted on the left.

Donald Lanoux
+deathtokoalas In a perfect world. Unfortunately a stereotype holds true until presented with opposing evidence. Anyway, I applaud your defense of individual rights 

Alicia Etler
+Donald Lanoux "If all LGBTQ individuals thought like you, they would all collectively better themselves and their community, and have my respect." No disrespect meant, but that stereotype is immensely incorrect. Replacing "LGBTQ" with "Christians" is just as inaccurate and wrong. There's many religious people out there that follow their religion's teachings properly. In this case, that means "Judge not, lest ye be judged yourself." Just because the media focuses on the extreme views doesn't mean the vast majority of us are like them. Most homosexual/transgender people are sensible, just like most religious people are sensible. The media aims to label all of us based on a few extremists under the "one bad apple ruins the bunch" idea, and so far, it looks like they succeeded with you.

deathtokoalas
+Alicia Etler yeah, it runs across the spectrum of portrayal in a lot of ways. with transgendered people, specifically, the whole point is that we're trying to fade in. we want people to focus on everything except that aspect of us. even when the media portrays us in what are really absurd (and often regressive) stereotypes, they get applauded - because those stereotypes are the only way that most people interact with transgendered people on the level of them being transgendered because the vast majority of us are really just trying to not draw attention to it, and the vast majority of people, even people that mean well, consequently legitimately don't know better.

i've been a bit of an activist for a while. both online and off. and i could interact with a group like occupy in ways i couldn't interact with a queer rights group, because the trans component invariably ends up dominated by drag queens, which are essentially very dominant queeny gay men that just don't think like transgendered women. there's a spectrum. i'm not trying to box anybody in or cast anybody out. but even the people in these groups that identify as trans tend to think like gay men. those dominant gay male voices end up drowning everything out, and it becomes very hard to get a word in. the general passivity of trans women in face-to-face circumstances makes it hard to get heard over this.

and, it's not just the dominant gay men. i think there's an argument that the t doesn't really belong in lgbt. often times, the transgendered person ends up presenting what is essentially a straight perspective (straight relative to their transitioned role) in what is an overwhelmingly queer group, and ends up far outside the spectrum of acceptable opinion within it.

but, media doesn't seem to want to get beyond the glamour of drag culture to deal with the reality that your average trans person is really a pretty average person with pretty average perspectives and is really just seeking acceptance on the basis of no longer being interpreted as abnormal.

Naomi Nabbit
+deathtokoalas While I agree with some of your larger points, I feel that there are a lot of holes and assumptions in your arguments. Yes, your average trans person is really a pretty average person just seeking acceptance. So is the average homosexual person, bisexual person, intersexed person, asexual person, queer person, and two-spirit (blanket term for Native American people who identify as their native culture's third or fourth gender) person. The average person in a minority that;s discriminated against doesn't want to be discriminated against and they don't want special treatment. They just want to be treated like any other average person.

Heck, the United States was founded on that very principle - an oppressed minority didn't want to be discriminated against just because of where they lived or what religion they practiced, so they rebelled and made their own country. Yes, it was more complicated than that, but at its core, that's what the Declaration of Independence says - we're being treated differently by the government, and that's wrong. Now, I'm not saying we LGBT(QIA2S) folk should throw a bunch of tea into the harbor next year during Pride, just that the US was founded by people who were upset that they were being treated differently for being a minority.

And the reason the T belongs in LGBTQIA2S is that it was in the original term and the original movement (in the US - can't speak for Canadia). The modern LGBT movement in the states started with the Stonewall Riots, which Pride commemorates every year. There were LGB and T people at Stonewall. Yes, there were dragqueens there, but there were also trans people. (Dragqueens, from what I understand, generally identify as gay male crossdressers, not transwomen, but I haven't actually met any dragqueens.) It's part of the same movement because it is the same movement, started at the same time, in the same place, for the same reasons. Yes, straight transgendered folk have a non-marginalized sexual orientation, just like cisgendered homosexuals/bisexuals/etc have a non-marginalized gender identity. That doesn't innately segregate the civil rights movements (even if trans folk often get thrown under the bus by gay rights activists in exchange for LGB rights - being a minority within a minority isn't always easy).
Also, many of the trans people I happen to know, including myself, are also bisexual (or pansexual). I think it's common because we often see gender differently than cisgendered folk. Or, it's just common for people I know because the social circles I tend to hang around include a substantial number of bisexuals. Either way, referring to transgender people as typically straight is pretty heteronormative.

Yes, most transwomen just want to be treated like any other woman, just like most homosexual couples just want to be treated like any other couple. 

deathtokoalas
+Naomi Nabbit what i'm getting at is that queeny gay men revel in their rejection of norms, their open flamboyancy and their desire to stand apart from the crowd. they want you to know they're gay and will yell it from the loudest rooftops. it forms the core of their identity, and the filter they desire to be interpreted through.

trans people tend to prefer to fade in to the background and not be noticed. broadly speaking, they'd rather you didn't know that they're trans. they tend to be very shy. they don't base their identities around it, or want you to interpret them through that filter.

this is just diversity. that's fine. the problem is that the queeny gay men almost entirely control the narrative on trans issues, which distorts the public perception on it. and, because we interpret things broadly differently, we tend to disagree more often than we agree. that distortion consequently creates a large disconnect between perception and reality.

there's obviously power in numbers. i don't propose that transgendered people disassociate from the broader queer movement. but, outside observers - especially friendly ones - should realize the limitations that exist.

Naomi Nabbit
+deathtokoalas Aren't you using some pretty negative media stereotypes of gay men? Isn't that exactly what you're complaining about other people doing regarding transwomen? I know quite a few gay men - exactly zero of them are as you've described. You can't argue against stereotypes by using them. That's not how this works. Most gay men I know don't want to be perceived as gay men, they want to be perceived as men, just like we transwomen want to be perceived as women.

I guess it's reasonable for a member of one minority group to be prejudiced against members of another minority group and only see them through the lens of stereotype, but it certainly doesn't support your case or make you sound sympathetic. It just makes you sound like the people you are speaking out against.

Donald Lanoux
+Alicia Etler Fair enough. But I'm a firm believer in silencing extremists and zealots who infringe on others. The problem is the individual above is the first of his/her kind that I have witnessed calling out these zealots. Regardless of a zealot advancing your cause, if he or she infringes on the rights of others who disagree with you, IT IS YOUR DUTY for your cause to check them. 

deathtokoalas
+Naomi Nabbit i'm not speaking of these characteristics negatively. if queeny gay men want to be queeny gay men, that's entirely their prerogative - and i don't hold that against them. i'm just pointing out the reasons that the media presentation of transwomen is so thoroughly lacking: transwomen are not gay men.

there's (at least) three transwomen on this thread. we all have pictures up. have you ever seen a media portrayal of a transwoman that looks like one of us?

Dalton Reyburn
+deathtokoalas i'm just curious, would you support the same cake shop's hypothetical decision to not serve people of color? i suppose you're right, ideally the free market would just elevate shops that were more inclusive. but at the same time, don't you think there ought to be some basic protection against people being denied service for things that they can't control? it's not like anybody was asking the baker to graphically depict anal sex on the cake. for all we know, it could have just been the names of two men.

deathtokoalas
+Dalton Reyburn you have to set the hypothetical situation up comparably, and there's not really a very good comparison. an almost comparable situation would be a cake shop owner refusing to make a cake with a black panther flag on it, or something. that's not the same thing as outright refusing general service.

and, i'm also not exactly supporting the decision. i certainly don't actually agree with the store owner. i'm just pointing out that the court ruling is overstepping itself.