The ethics of taxation

I believe that taxation is a feudal concept, outdated and immoral, that is undemocratic and unfair and removes true choices and freedoms from the people. Rather than expand upon taxation and government spending ad infinitum as successive Liberal governments seem bent upon doing, we should see taxation as the necessary evil that it is and seek to minimize or eliminate it wherever possible. Governments produce nothing. They take and redistribute. When you hear of government funds being spent, don’t be fooled by the wording – this is your money that is being spent. It belonged to you before they took it.
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It won’t make you blind, but it might make you a liberal

“As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator… will do well to encourage that freedom.???
– Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Perhaps “social liberal??? is a misnomer; for it seems that their liberalism only applies to the altar of “sexual liberation??? on which other freedoms are to be sacrificed. They seem to be obsessed with sex to an unhealthy degree probably only equaled by the most strong-wristed of teenage boys. Freedom of speech and belief are not for them, and they are perfectly happy to let the judicial system and lobby groups stamp democracy into the ground, but, at all costs, anything that might place a limit upon a person’s freedom to fornicate with anyone or anything at any time must be eradicated post haste.
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Supreme Court supports spanking

Today the Supreme Court ruled that parents can spank their children as long as they are not infants or teens. I’m pleased that the result came out that way but I have to admit that this all seems a huge waste of time. Even if a parent wished to spank their children for discipline, it should be obvious that the technique will never be effective on an infant or a teen anyway. Conversely, if a parent physically abuses their children (beating as opposed to spanking) I highly doubt that harsh spanking laws would have been a deterrent. This verdict is a simple matter of common sense and if we need the Supreme Court to tell us that, we may as well just start chanting “B - B” right now and get it over with.

Supreme Court Upholds Parents’ Right to Spank
Canadian parents can continue to spank their children, but only if they are not infants or teens, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The court said it would be more harmful to families to turn parents into criminals for applying reasonable force to discipline children from two until their teen years.

But the high court left parents open to criminal sanctions for using force outside those ages. It also said the force used must be reasonable, and striking a child with objects or slapping the head was not permitted.

The Supreme Court and the Democratic Deficit

Today we see Prime Minister Martin pressing forward with his plan to attack the apparent democratic deficit in Canada. The most recent of his initiatives is to subject judicial nominations to some level of scrutiny by MP’s. While I think this is a great idea, I doubt in practice is will have much effect on who PM Martin actually appoints. Nor do I see this move to be welcomed by the judiciary, who I imagine enjoy (maybe enjoy is a bit strong, but certainly favour) the lack of scrutiny currently paid to these types of appointments.

MPs will vet top-court nominees, Liberal says
Ottawa — Judges nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada will face scrutiny from House of Commons committees, says Liberal MP Roger Gallaway, the man Prime Minister Paul Martin has placed in charge of democratic reform.

Mr. Gallaway, parliamentary secretary for democratic reform, warned Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and other sitting judges who oppose the idea to “remember their proper roles, one of which is to avoid comment on political or parliamentary affairs.???

Mr. Gallaway also took aim at public servants, suggesting they were dismissive of the role of MPs during the 10-year Chrétien government.

“Mr. Martin has said in matters of policy formulation and choice he trusts the judgment of members over that of departmental officials,??? he said.

“The door is now open for House members and committees to push civil servants back to their proper role of administration of the law, and not the creation of it or engaging the public in debate.???

Even more healthcare funding demanded

Despite the glaring and massive inefficiencies in the Canadian healthcare system and persistent failure to deliver improvements despite huge funding increases, some provincial premiers apparently think that these problems can be fixed by… wait for it… yet another huge funding increase.

Ralph Klein and Dalton McGuinty took a different tack, the former describing the current system as a “black hole” and opining that without reform, further spending increases are useless in the face of what McGuinty termed a “sustainability issue” that prevented “money on its own… from bringing us real success.”

Premiers push Martin for health-care funding beyond $2 billion

Provincial premiers were in a feisty mood as they sat down with Prime Minister Paul Martin on Friday, saying they would not be satisfied with $2 billion in extra health-care funding Ottawa was expected to put on the table.

Raising a future nation of spoilt brats

Those with young children and Teletoon as part of their cable or satellite package may be familiar with the antics of Caillou. For those who are not, a bit of background information may be required here. The show “Caillou??? concerns the “adventures??? (like going shopping or to the park, no less) of a child of the same name, of pre-school age in a stable family. One hopes that Caillou will soon succumb to whatever disease rendered him bald, because quite frankly, Caillou is an insufferable and infuriating brat and if his parents were real people instead of animator’s cels I’m sure they would have wrung his scrawny neck a long time ago.
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A Liberal by any other name…

I noticed during my ritual morning perusal of Alberta dailies on the web that the provincial Liberal Party has come to the shocking conclusion that they lack popularity amongst voters in the province.

Sparked by the imminent defection of present Liberal leader Ken Nicol to the Paul Martin team, the few who still vote Liberal in the province and admit it have been throwing around ideas about how to salvage the party from the province’s political scrap heap. Suggesting that it is mere optics that are the problem, some have suggested that a name change will be the remedy that will deliver the Liberals to the promised land.
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A woman’s right to murder

The leading cause of death in Canada is abortion, claiming about as many lives as heart attacks and cancer together each year. Our gift of “freedom of choice” to women has ironically cost well over a million Canadian women their lives. Some were burned with saline solution until they died from shock and pain, while others were torn limb from limb with forceps, without anaesthesia. More were partially breech-birthed until the bases of their heads were visible, at which point they were stabbed and their brains suctioned out through the wound to collapse the skull. In a nation that prizes human rights and humanitarian causes, we have allowed almost 2.5 million babies to be put to death in grisly ways, for the crime of being inconvenient.
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Iraq Bribed France With Oil

Prehaps it isn’t finding WMD that we should be concerned with in Iraq. I suspect over the next few months we’ll see more bombs like this one,

Iraqi govt. papers: Saddam bribed Chirac
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 28 (UPI) — Documents from Saddam Hussein’s oil ministry reveal he used oil to bribe top French officials into opposing the imminent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The oil ministry papers, described by the independent Baghdad newspaper al-Mada, are apparently authentic and will become the basis of an official investigation by the new Iraqi Governing Council, the Independent reported Wednesday.

French diplomats have dismissed any suggestion their foreign policy was influenced by payments from Saddam, but some European diplomats have long suspected France’s steadfast opposition to the war was less moral than monetary.

“Oil runs thicker than blood,” is how one former ambassador put his suspicions about the French motives for opposing action against Saddam.

Alberta, fortis et liber. Ontario, not so much…

The BC-based Fraser Institute and the National Centre for Policy Analysis in Dallas have released the 2004 Annual Report on Economic Freedom of North America. The report casts a critical eye on all 50 U.S. states and the 10 Canadian provinces (sorry, no territories were surveyed), using the following criteria to determine the economic freedom rating for each jurisdiction:

“The study rates economic freedom on a 10-point scale for two indexes. An all-government index captures the impact of restrictions on freedom by all levels of government. A sub-national index captures the impact of restrictions by state or provincial and local governments.”

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