Next thing you know, your laptop is confiscated and brought to an off-site location, your data is being distributed to third party, non-government agencies, and they don’t even need to have any suspicion of wrong doing on your part. At all.

But don’t worry, you’ll get your laptop back after “an indefinite amount of time”, and all copies of its contents will be destroyed. All the private entities are allowed to do is keep any and all notes they make of your laptop and anything you have saved on it. That’s not a breach of civil liberties, is it?

Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave.

Nevertheless, I read the prayer that was published and I think it is a most noble prayer. I could not ask for a better prayer from a politician. In fact, the cynic in me thinks this whole thing was a public relations stunt designed to give Obama a boost above his detractors who wish to paint him as an anti-American Muslim sympathizer.

1)The Garth — Got the reception that he deserved for the “Screw the West, We’ll Take the Rest” redux. I hope he doesn’t come back to tell us he’s inclusive the next time a homosexual agenda issue comes up, but if he does, it won’t be the first time he’ll be caught directly lying to Canadians. That last note makes his quote from today all the more amusing (emphasis added):

For writing and acting in defence of my country, for opposing those who put self interests before Canada, for the decisions I have made, and the consequences they have yielded, I regret nothing.

Who knew Turner had such self-hatred?

2) Regarding the most recent evolution post, “Tom” has actually posted alleged proof for macroevolution (the effort is appreciated). Two problems though; First, after being told repeatedly by PZ Myers’ fanboys that we’ve had proof for years, this opening statement from Tom’s article doesn’t sound too compatible (emphasis really added!):

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers’ eyes. It’s the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

So, before June 9th of this year, would Darwinists have happened to have been acting on some level of faith or is the article, written by a well-respected science publication, just wrong and in need of serious correction? Secondly, I’m happy that the bacteria have discovered some new munchies, but as was brushed upon in the definition of a species argument, can we indicate if these lemon-sucking bacteria are in fact a completely different species from their brethren and not just hungrier?

3) I cannot sit by any longer when it comes to Harris-Decima. The Toronto Star’s resident polling firm (that should tell you a lot about their credibility right there!) has been doing weekly polls recently that indicate a trend in which the Harper Government is now on par with dog food in popularity questions they ask. However, their latest butcher job shows over 60% of Canadians preferring massive carbon taxes if

the rising price of fossil fuels is a reason we must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels

.

That’s a big if to be assuming there, and one that even I would agree with, were I actually polled. However, I thought the article the quote appears in was called Canadians want climate action now, poll suggests, not (oh, I don’t know), Canadians want action now to end addiction to high gas prices, addiction to oil, poll suggests. Oh, The Star…

4)Finally, it’s always cute to see the NDP attempt to orchestrate some sort of public backlash via the government. Of course, what will really happen is that NDP will fail but consumers will take care of themselves by canceling phone plans and the sort. The phone carriers might think that their government-mandated cartel creates a highway robbery scenario, but there are still millions of us non-mobile Canadians who make do just fine without cells, and it’ll stay that way until someone approaches us with a reasonable cell phone plan!

SEE ALSO: Joanne indicates she’ll be first blood if the new texting fees come in; looks like you got a winner here guys! Right From Alberta also noticed an interesting point about the NDP’s petition to stop these fees.

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson.
——-
They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

This sounds like modern-day socialists who are trying to push pan-culturalism down the throats of regular religious folk — the insidious goal being to dilute individuality.

I have knelt and prayed with Muslims before. Knowing full well that I was a Christian who would not understand any of their mumbling, these Muslim guys still invited me to join them. [While they prayed to Allah, I prayed to God with a few petitions to the Virgin Mary tossed in for extra points.] The second time was when a few Muslims — who arrived early for a separate event taking place in our church basement — knelt at the pews of our church and prayed with us during our mass. Each of these experiences praying alongside Muslims was very moving and respectful. What happened at the Alsager School, near Stoke, was disgusting.

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I think abortion is abhorrent just as other people may think it is the salvation of mankind. I have every right to disassociate myself with anybody I want. That really is the only peaceful power I have in our current state of affairs. I say: “Bravo!” to these guys.

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As for the latter though, wouldn’t it be interesting if we, for one moment, got truly investigative and turned the tables on the all too comfortable Darwinians who have become yet another group to hijack our education system for their own self-preservation and motives? After all, in the noise of bitter reviews, intimidating threats and exhaustive and bewildered requests to anti-Darwinists to just shut up, I think the evolution debate has failed to examine a key component: whether the theory of Charles Darwin is truly something worth wasting time on in the science class to begin with. After all, a physicist who learns anything from F=MA to the hydrogen fusion reaction that is continually taking place at the centre of our sun to even string theory is able to take that knowledge and apply it to the benefit of mankind in a strictly physical sense. Even if the highly controversial string theory proves to be a dead end, what it would tell us about how elementary particles don’t interact would help us to zone in on other understandings and ultimately give us a better way to understand the very microscopic. In turn, that would allow us to apply our knowledge one day to advancements that might, for example, allow for microscopic computers that write data onto quarks, just as F=MA gave us the first building blocks we needed to put a man on the moon. Chemistry need only need mention of companies like DOW or Pfizer to prove its contribution to our modern society and even a late-comer to quantitative analysis, biology, will soon prove invaluable to an entire generation of baby-boomers who are in the midst of retiring from the workforce currently. In fact, the driving force behind science is not just getting to have a better understanding of the world around us, from the very small to the very large, but also being able to apply that knowledge in some fashion.

When it comes to the necessity to teach Darwinian evolution in a grade 7 classroom, or high school, or even university, what is the purpose? I mean, we can keep clubing each other over the head about how detrimental it is to society for the other side to get a voice in on the debate, but as I noted above, the debate always ends up in the realm of the meta-physical; things pertaining to the existence, or lack thereof, of God! Has evolution allowed us to come up with any great invention or advancement? Is it so essential to our understanding of biology or chemistry that twelve year-olds need to understand it if they are going to pass their high school biology or chemistry courses? Or are we all fooling ourselves here, using findings that more properly belong in the hit-or-miss fields of archeology and social science to indoctrinate young minds with what is practically nothing more than a contemporary, social statement?

The fact is that evolution is still very much stuck in in the past, and will continue to be until it can offer actual testifiable evidence of one species giving way to another over the course of two or more generations. It’s all about the findings in the dirt, the rock layers and the pretty pastel pictures that appear in text books. The funny thing about history is that as it becomes more remote, the possibilities of the imagination grow exponentially. It’s also the truth that if evolution was so essential for our children to learn, I should have never graduated from university, nor anyone else who currently walks to Earth and believes that evolution deserves a more skeptical analysis, since the understanding of that knowledge should have been essential in understanding everything from RNA-DNA reactions to the immune system. Evolution should have to be to biology what F=MA is to physics if the official story is to be believed, wherein a student that fails to acknowledge the very foundations cannot comprehend or excel while studying the more advanced topics.

So as Expelled comes out this weekend in a fraction of the theatres it did in the US back in April, you’ll probably see a few fireworks fly as the Darwinians campaign to remain the only kid on the block. What the movie will continue to do though is extend a debate that has lasted for over 150 years and certainly isn’t going away; a debate where a lot of questions could be and should be asked. Ultimately, the most dangerous of those question for Darwinians isn’t “Can you prove it?”, although they certainly hate that one. Rather, if they want to spend valuable class time teaching my son or daughter about their great theory about nothing, the worst thing they could hear back from my kid is “So what?” The runner up might sound something like “Why are you so concerned about us hearing from the competition?”

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Days after a major news magazine uncovered a teen pregnancy pact at a Massachusetts high school, parents and school officials struggle to understand the reasons why the girls may have participated in the scheme — and what could have been done to avoid it.

What could be done to avoid it? Well, that depends on who is intervening and when that intervention takes place. From a school nurse’s perspective, I suppose force-feeding contraceptives would probably be the only strategy because clearly these girls wanted to get pregnant.

I have an old-fashioned solution: make girls earn their allowance (cell-phone, movie money, computer privileges, etc.) by baby-sitting their neighbor’s kids. That would be a great preventive measure.

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Obviously, we differ on issues of the economy. Liberals support a welfare state, a “trickle-up” sort of economic policy, if you will. However, on this issue we disagree with Conservatives as well, most of whom are exponents of a “trickle-down” economy.

The reason that we libertarians find ourselves here is because unlike both of these two ideologies, who make a clear distinction between social and fiscal issues, we do not. We oppose government intervention in the economy on a moral level, not a practical one. My business is my business. Not yours, not Harper’s, not Stelmach’s. Be it concerning money or not, they government can just stay out.

Worse than regular welfare, what the Liberal’s propose, is Corporate Welfare. Perhaps one of the sickest, vilest, most disgusting practices of government, this is when the nation gives a boost to a company, often to a company that supports the government.

On to social issues, where many are tempted to lump us in with the Liberals. Yes, we do tend to oppose social conservatism on most issues, like the Liberals. however, once again, our motives are different.

We often do not believe that gay marriage is morally right. We often disagree with people who do drugs. However, we believe it is their legal right to do so, whether we agree with it or not. We don’t legislate morality.

Some issues, most notably abortion, are very divisive for libertarians. I am personally against it, as I see it as murder. Nobody has the right to take the life of someone else. Other libertarians do not see a fetus as a living person, so they see no problem in aborting it. That’s not what I want to debate here.

However, it shows another difference between us and the Liberals. We do not support absolute freedom, we support freedom as long as it does not interfere with the freedoms of others.

And there you have it, from a living, breathing libertarian.

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I’m talking of course (see title) about libertarians, or specifically about what libertarians are considered today. While the term could apply to many distinct schools of political thought, including the one that I subscribe to, the libertarian moniker in 2008 refers to one who is adamant about reducing government spending and intervention in the economy, while also subscribing to the secularist interpretation of human rights. I say this, instead of saying that they are “socially liberal” like libertarians like to describe themselves, because I’ve found that description to be a simple matter of opinion and not a quantifiable statement like one’s opinion on government spending levels can be.

As I said above, I consider myself a libertarian, but one of the Lord Acton (a 19th century Catholic and noble) brand, not of the modern rendition. Therefore, it’s fairly safe to say that I typically agree with most modern (secular) libertarians and find their reasoning to be typically sound on fiscal matters. I’ve spoken and debated with many over the years and have observed their frustration at many on The Left who like to believe that the economy is a macro-sized golden goose which you can feed government dollars and have it produce a “just society”. Many have lamented just how emotionally-based liberal arguments are and how they don’t hold up to the real world realities or mathematical proofs that we now know.

As such, it might come as a shock, but I find that libertarians too easily fall into the irrational and overtly emotional impulses of their liberal friends when it comes to the topics of drugs, abortion, marriage and the family’s role in society. In essence, I believe that modern libertarians have to answer a very difficult question which is why they tend to be onside with the likes of the NDP when it comes to issues like this, despite their dramatic opposition to that party’s attitudes in almost every other policy arena. Put another way, if it that if government endorsement of “gay marriage”, aborting fetus lives and marijuana for all is liberty, how did the NDP arrive at these conclusions and for the same reasons expressed at libertarians. Granted, a broken clock is right twice a day, but simple analogies don’t do justice to over a century of political philosophy development; either socialists and liberals are capable of spearheading liberty as they use national kangaroo courts to squash our speech freedoms, or modern libertarianism has gone astray.

After debating many libertarians, I have come to the conclusion that it is it the latter: when it comes to such issues, libertarians have let their angst for authority cloud their judgment and sense of natural order with emotional impulses, thus letting them arrive at the conclusions they do. Otherwise, why is it so well known that a great majority of self-described libertarians are pro-abortion, instead of pro-life? As I inferred above, if libertarians were naturally and neutrally socially liberal, shouldn’t a sizable minority (at the least) arrive at the conclusion that an unborn fetus’ right to life outweighed a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy that she played a pretty intimate part in creating? It’s too lopsided to be a simple matter of rights since both sides of the debate have a well-defended right they’re trying to argue in favour of. I hope that one day the libertarians in Canada see this as well, and begin to connect liberalism’s attack on free society with our destructive social policy and not in spite of it!

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Officials have called the matter to the attention of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) headquarters in Washington, urging it to prevent any repetition of the incident.

As far as the state is concerned, the main difference solely seems to be administrative:

It is illegal in Virginia for a social worker to sign a parental consent form for an abortion.

The morality of the actions do not seem relevant.

Nobody can possibly know the motives of the people who facilitated this girl’s abortion. All we can do is respond to their actions which, in my opinion, sabotage the Church. I find this whole thing to be demonically appalling and my rage is directed at Catholics. Any and all of the Catholics who knowingly facilitated this horror should be publicly shamed.

I want to re-iterated my recommendation that the Church should stop any partnerships with the state.

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So it is into that context that I thought it could be appropriate for you readers to find out exactly what started all this.

Homosexual Agenda Wicked

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.

Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date - God and the “Moral Majority.” Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage that you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term “morality.”

The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, “I’m just not sure where the truth lies,” or “If they don’t affect me then I don’t care what they do,” abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.

Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is have their future aggressively chopped at the roots.

Edmund Burke’s observation that, “All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.

Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?

Come on people, wake up! It’s time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn’t rooted in protecting homosexuals from “gay bashing.” The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

Don’t allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It’s time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.

Rev. Stephen Boissoin

And now for my comment. As a piece disseminated in the public, I think it lacks tact. I think that the caveat emptor he issues to lead off the piece is true and heartfelt, but this guy I don’t think has heard of the term, “you catch more flies with honey”.

I think it is true that somewhere along the way, the homosexual lobby ceased to press for equality, and is now demanding acceptance and celebration. Witness gay pride parades, which regularly feature explicit behaviour and nudity, but yet are billed as “family events”. I think that people need to demand clarity from our politicians, and even hold the myriad homosexual lobby groups to account, with what they are doing. A civil society doesn’t mean one where nobody ever disagrees. Dissent is necessary for progress, in all areas - moral, scientific, economic, political. If everyone is forced to agree, then you have totalitarianism, Stalinism, take your pick of socialist dictatorships.

Yet that is exactly what we are moving towards if we prosecute everyone for having bad manners. If the mode of the day is respect, then surely we can respectfully disagree with one another. Why does disagreement necessarily have to mean disrespect?

But back to the subject. I will go farther: Boissoin’s letter was inflammatory. It consistently characterized the homosexual lobby as some kind of militant organization bent on destroying… presumably heterosexuality. I think there is a desire that is common to all people to convince others to be as we are, that is just part of human nature. However, if you want to argue with someone, you won’t get very far by using rhetoric like this. The call he makes, not unlike an Old Testament prophet or a Great War recruiter from the early 20th Century, is to rise up and defend against the evil. It is surprising that he elected to use a public forum like a newspaper to make such a call. It is kind of like going to Nigeria to recruit people to combat radical Islam - a good chunk of the people there will actually be opposed to you, so why appeal to them to rally to fight… themselves?

It was not necessary. I do not support the HRC’s decision in this regard. In fact, I find the ruling to be more disgusting, more inflammatory, and more of a challenge to our way of life in Canada than anything Boissoin said. To think that a pseudo-court has the audacity to force someone to apologize for not offending anyone? To think that a tribunal could award “damages” to a person who was not damaged? To think that bad taste is a crime - well, why hasn’t anyone taken Don Cherry to the HRC for offending Canadians’ eyes with those ghastly plaid suits he wears on Hockey Night in Canada? I am sure he has actually caused damage in that case, whereas in the Boissoin case, there is no damage.

Lastly, as a postscript, as a Christian, I firmly believe that Boissoin’s post should have ended with paragraph one. While I believe the Scriptures are clear that homosexual behaviour is an offense against our maker (much as using a pencil sharpener to manufacture nails is an offense against the manufacturer of a pencil sharpener). It just isn’t what our bodies were designed to do. It’s not anyone’s fault. The reality is there are lots of people who for many reasons, prefer to do things with their bodies that are contrary to their design. As a Christian, my job is to introduce people to their creator, and their saviour. If you don’t believe in a creator and redeemer of the universe and mankind, well, then the conversation stops there. But even failing that, I will stand up and fight for a society that gives me the freedom to believe as I wish and the freedom to talk about it in public. Just as I will stand up and fight for the freedom of those with whom I disagree to do the same.

I have no problem with people believing differently from me. I do have a problem with them, or anyone else telling me that disagreeing with them is a hate crime.

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Crash! Five years ago today, gay marriage became the law of the province – and, I note, no sky has fallen yet, has it? Nope. The Dominion remains strong. Nice piece by Martha here – but it would have been nicer if she had mentioned our mutual former home that largely financed the litigation: McMillan BInch

,

but he obviously didn’t look too hard since the very debate on the issue was enough for a government institution to convict a preacher of thought crimes. Alas, there is that small polygamy matter that Kinsella’s buddy Dalton is letting slide under the rug despite the law as well — and guess what precedent the Muslims are using? (first one to post the answer in the comments wins a prize!*) But ya Warren, if you mean that Church Street hasn’t transformed into Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, then I guess you could say that calling the marriage apple just a plain old fruit (thus, making it less offensive and restrictive) did nothing to our poor old Dominion. Unfortunately for Warren though, life isn’t a political campaign, so he can’t attack ad his opinion into reality.

*-like Warren’s definition of “Catholic”, or “Christian”, terms are subject to change. See store for details.

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The very fact that this site is designed for children makes what would be an outrageous site even worse, especially when you consider that your carbon-fattened pig explodes into a pile of blood at the end of the quiz(see image). It is also the latest evidence that the movement spearheading the climate change cause simply does not value human life and in fact sees each human as a virus leeching off the planet’s life source.

When you throw in the comments by a Elizabeth May confidante earlier this year that it would’ve been less tragic for seal hunters in Newfoundland to die and another story from Australia that I reported on earlier this year in which a doctor down under wants to tax families for every precious child they bring into the world, a clear pattern starts to emerge among those for whom the Earth is of chief importance. I don’t suppose that the original claim by environmentalists that we had to protect the planet for future generations of children holds much water anymore as they either want to tax said children out of existence or blow up the ones that slip through anyway when they reach age 8. Let’s just hope for everyone involved at the ABC that no child decides to be a good little trooper and take one for the Earth!

(welcome Newswatch readers!)

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First, to understand the blatant hypocrasy and moral inconsistency (or “intellectual dishonesty”, as our seculatarian friends like to say) of the YFS, you need not read the pages of the National Post, Michael Coren’s column, or the Blogging Tories; just head on over to the Federation’s website, where a big red button titled “Denial of Free Speech at McMaster” which links to this — a letter attacking McMaster for banning “Israel Apartheid Week”. That’s right, the YFS which is making national headlines this month for trying to oppress diverse views on its campus, was the same group that was also making headlines back in March for vigorously defending a campaign that wasn’t just about free speech but was also known for a history of violence and harassment of an prominent ethnic group on campus.

This inconsistency might go a long way to explain why, in the months and years ahead, when Canada starts to examine whether a primitive primate can “argue” for human rights, the YFS will probably be there, strongly backing the cause and at the same time oppressing groups which speak out for unborn humans which can also not speak in a court of law but can, unlike chimps, meet the biological argument for species validation in that all non-genetically defective fetuses have the capability of breeding with humans and producing sustainable, fruitful offspring. Save the primates, scourge the people, as it were. Don’t expect facts to get in the way of York’s student leaders or their cheerleaders on The Left as the entire abortion argument for them has long been one about passion and emotion, but not much beyond the principle that guilt-free sexual incidents should be an absolute right that trumps all others.

Their argument, founded around the reality that men can walk away from affairs without the risk of pregnancy while women cannot, betrays this in that their natural conclusion is that women should have the freedoms that men do in this regard, instead of examining whether men should have the responsibilities that women do for a pregnancy instead. Nor does the rights and realities of the growing child become a discussion point during this whole debate either. Wouldn’t you expect more from scholars, charged with examining all aspects of the issue at hand?

Update:Steyn’s insight into the future of abortion, and a small tip ‘o’ hat to the York affair…

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I’m glad to see the Liberals are going to the fringes again with their plans (Ontario Health Minister and notoriously dogmatic homosexual activist George Smitherman bragged about how this would only affect about a dozen people per year) since it will allow us Conservatives the opportunity to point out the folly to a health care system which on paper is completely financed by the government but in reality is only as good as the government decides to make it. On the provincial level, it would be hard for Dalton McGuinty to justify how he can allow thousands in the province to go through life with debilitating back pains or limited eye sight but hey, at least Fred is happy with that new figure we bought him when we dressed him up and called him Sally! Well, at least it would be if there was actually an opponent out there who wasn’t a complete pushover or leading a party with even less hope of winning the top prize than the Leafs.

All of which makes one happy to see our national government contains MPs who are willing to go to bat for us average Ontarians whose self-esteem issues are generally limited to the names our parents gave us and foregoing extremely expensive cosmetic surgeries for a shopping trip on the weekend. It’s nice to know that somebody out there still get the notion that “public” health care is supposed to cover more than one out of every one million people in this province!

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It’s not the concept of rights that conservatives like myself hate; in fact, the United States — a country many of us neo-cons look to favorably — had natural rights embedded in its system far earlier in that country’s history. Rather, what bothers us the most with our rights is that they are so ambiguous and mailable; so much to the point that the courts could actually use the wording of the Charter’s introduction to justify locking up all Italian-Canadians…or rule just about any other reality into being just by a pronouncement. What good are rights if you can’t be certain that they won’t be written out of the Constitution 20 years from now when social culture shifts a tad, or, as today’s ruling demonstrates, the justice system we all depend on for stability is no longer in vogue over on the real estate west of Parliament Hill?

The credibility of today’s ruling isn’t also helped by the strong dissenting opinion of four of the court’s nine sovereigns. Strong language was used by Justice Rothstein in writing on the dissenting opinion, giving hope that this ruling could be overturned with a modest change in the line-up of court judges. Again, even the most partisan individual has to acknowledge that possibility and by extension, that rights are only as good as the ideologues in high courts who defend them!

Unfortunately, any change that may come down the road won’t come soon enough for the victims of violent crimes, or their families, who go on to see their perpetrators go on to receive a Happy Meal sentence, even when the crimes they commit are anything but a “diminished moral blameworthiness” act, as the court would have you believe!

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As a Christian, I won’t ever own the game and highly doubt whether I’ll ever play a friend’s copy, although GTA IV did strike up some curiosity last week when speaking to one of my gaming friends who holds no allegiances to God but is pretty observant. He mentioned that the game, with fancy next-gen graphics and a deeper, longer story was different than its predecessors since, in this new, more detailed version, the wounds you inflicted were actually graphic and not fuzzy, pixilated renditions; the game code was more realistic so that people didn’t just keel over and die but actually begged for their lives, cried out in agony and added a sense of victimhood that never existed before; and the game was more open-box (a challenge given the freedom this game gave you before) where as the anti-hero, you are now charged with making moral decisions as you go about your life of crime and immorality.

Yesterday, while visiting another friend, I got a chance to see the game in action by watching a mission through which the hero, Neco, was sent to kill the biker-boyfriend of the mob boss’s daughter. The mob boss, my other friend observed while we were chatting, was messed up — there was a strong correlation between his drug habits and the deteriorating relationships he had with friends, family and *business colleagues*. Later on, during online mode, the game spit out “player 1 2nd amendmented player 2″ after the former shot and killed the latter in an airport. It seemed to me like the rumours of hidden messages in this game were true, even to the point where I now wouldn’t be surprised if I was told that Nico could get STDs from some of his dating activities that take place in the game (and which caused the infamous “Hot Coffee” affair in the last GTA game). Could it be that publisher Rockstar games is actually trying to explain to young and impressionable gamers that bad choices in life have consequences?

While it’s still a little premature to say, it might also be suggested that just by striving to give gamers that more realistic experience — right down to going to a bar to play pool — Rockstar is inadvertently making its games so life-like that the ugly side of crime, promiscuity and general ungodliness are all seeping out of the woodwork. If it is this intense, the publisher of GTA IV might have also found a way to reach out to a demographic law enforcement, governments and churches have struggled decades to make contact with. Ironically, Rockstar’s realism might just have the unintended consequences of making the acronym GTA a cultural fossil, given enough upgrades to gaming hardware.

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Rae was angered by the generalization for which he says he sees no basis in fact.

-Toronto Star, Saturday May 10, 2008

That quote, and that link, refer to a story by Toronto Star reporter Tonda MacCharles today that suggests that Prime Minister Harper is wrongfully smearing the opposition with an anti-semitic brush. Rae’s charge is quite simply not true, which isn’t shocking to Ontarians who remember his expert opinions on the affairs of government nearly 20 years ago. However, Tonda MacCharles, a journalist, is not presenting a full picture of the situation in her write up and all it takes is a quick Google search to prove it. That’s right! Three MPs, including Bloc MP Giles Duceppe and Montreal Liberal Dennis Coderre marched alongside Hezbollah flags in downtown Montreal back in the summer of 2006 when the Israeli-Lebanon strike was going on those two years ago. The three MPs never publicly denounced their actions and as public representatives, ignored the due diligence that they are expected to practice as such office holders.

That is because Hezbollah is a radical and dangerous group that wants nothing more than they physical obliteration of Israel and all Jews in the world. That’s the sort of allies that the three MPs above-mentioned had on that summer day two years ago and that is why the Prime Minister is accurate in asserting

Canada, under this government, is never going to cater to that kind of opinion. You know, I am disturbed that there are some elements in our political system; there are even some members of Parliament – we saw during a confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah a couple of years back – some that were willing to cater to that kind of opinion.*

So in other words, the Montreal rally was exactly what the Prime Minister was referring to, lest the opposition now suggest that his “blanket statement” could imply other anti-semitic occasions that opposition members indulged in (a Freudian slip, if it comes?). It will come too though as the Montreal event was pretty cut and dry, something that even the most hardened partisan should see if they simply put the shoe on the other foot and tried to imagine Conservatives marching alongside someone holding a “God hates fags” sign…hey, even having an MP holding hands with somebody down the street would even be fair game I guess!

So are the Liberal and Bloc caucuses full of raving “drive ‘em into the sea” anti-semites? Hardly. Are their numbers, however, including those who give legitimacy to an organization that deserves to be destroyed and at the same time associating themselves with a toxic philosophy that the civilized world should not entertain? Absolutely!

*-emphasis added

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In California the Salvation Army was forced to close down several inner city missions because officials refused to sign a document approving of homosexuality. The destitute suffered terribly as a consequence. In Britain the Roman Catholic church similarly was obliged to shut the doors of its adoption agency.

Aside from also speaking about our government-imposed unhealthy relationship between employees and employers, Coren got me thinking by phrasing the incident that sparked this whole thing in the way he did:

One employee announced to colleagues that she was a lesbian and began discussing her sexuality. Eventually she was let go. She complained to the Human Rights Commission, which fined Christian Horizons and demanded the change. Demanded, in fact, that they not be Christian.

I hadn’t considered it until reading Coren’s column, but what if we flipped this around and an employee started sharing their Christian faith with colleagues? I doubt it would end up before a HRC. And even if we buy into the secularist axiom that homosexuals are born wired to be homophilic (one that, like all such axioms on fetal tissue, the origins of life and the universe, and climate change conveniently lacks that indisputable proof that axioms usually come with), can the state successfully argue that a believing Christian isn’t just as equally inseparable from their faith and what it makes him or her? Think of the parallels: some people in churches leave to join other religions, and some homosexuals realize they just aren’t homosexuals any longer; both groups claim that their respective affiliations colour everything they do; and both groups have their affiliations protected under the current legal community’s consensus.

It’s an interesting situation: one where a group tasked with going out into all the world to spread their Good News has their constitutionally recognized right to do so repressed, while another had beneficial rights literally penciled into the highest document of the land is allowed to ignore the acronym every employee should know: NSFW (Not Safe For Work). It wasn’t the lesbian woman’s decision to become a lesbian that got her fired, it was her insistence on preaching the news to the rest of her co-workers that did. Curious that, when any Christian who pulled a similar stunt would be out by 3pm, box of belongings in hand. To use Coren’s wording, a sane nation would actually follow it’s own laws and both groups would be able to share away but that would also presume that groups like HRCs would be under the law too, now wouldn’t it?

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If you scroll through the article (and just a warning, there is vulgarity used), you’ll find that he doesn’t mince words when talking about how the actual abortion procedure “killed” the unborn child or how he doesn’t skim over the details of his then-girlfriend’s painful day in a London hospital executing her control over her own bodily functions. In fact, I figure that if Emery’s piece were published in something like, say, the Toronto Star or the Globe, there’d be letters of protest screaming about not needing to know the ugly science behind abortion so long as it works — ignorance is bliss to the nth degree.

Of course, I think Emery is closer to the heart of the abortion issue than he knows when he questions whether sending literally hundreds of thousands of men and women to prison for murder (a scenario that would have to occur if we pursued every woman who had an abortion and every husband/boyfriend/fling who was an accessory); it’s true that if we did that we would have an amazingly guilty society. However, while I respect and understand where Emery is coming from on this one (he is, after all, the man who wants to overcome narcotics laws by viral marketing), I doubt our society would be nearly as nice if we didn’t pursue a society just as infiltrated with thieves; there is a reason we have justice systems in civilized societies.

Furthermore Emery’s admission that something died in the womb of his girlfriend 20 weeks after it came to be there is revealing in itself and a mature observation that many today are simply not capable of making. It is, for me, the thing Emery writes that is only trumped in significance by the bit Emery writes on having to name his dead child Ben.

When I read that part, I honestly got thinking and I wonder just how many abortions would go through in Canada if we made the mother give her “collection of cells” a name before the little bundle is escorted out of her. I don’t think that it will stop more abortions because people feel it is wrong, but rather because those who would find the simple act too much to bear wouldn’t be convinced that it was undoubtedly right. And that, my friends, makes the notion all the more significant when we realize that choices are the domain of adults, and not children who want to play grown-up.

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Oh, and just regarding the actual laws surrounding this whole issue, Andrew had it covered last week.

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So when it comes to the case of Waterloo region’s Christian Horizons, the first thing that we should keep in mind is that the government came to them first, not the other way around. If the government didn’t like the way that the outwardly Christian organization did business, or specifically how it hired it’s employees, it shouldn’t have agreed to whatever contracts were set up with CH — after all, with a name like Christian Horizons, it’s not like they were hiding a secret agenda or anything! Now we can debate on whether the government has any business funding any philosophically or ethically-biased group (it’s certainly hard not to, and even liberal atheism has certainly gotten its share through causes like the Court Challenges Programme), but we have to start here with the understanding that the government of the day entered into a deal with CH knowing, or responsible for knowing full well that the organization was guided by divine principles; in the private sector, if you partner up with another company and then expect a change, not only do you become a laughing stalk but chances are you’ll also see your business deteriorate soon afterwards. What the crowd who cites CH’s government funding are trying to do is bad business and bad manners, period.

Next, as far as employment laws are concerned, I have to admit that it’s no surprise that John Tory has once again demonstrated that his lust to win seats in Toronto trumps all common sense and principle, not to mention the desire to hang onto that rural rump that his party currently possesses in the legislature. If a company decides to abide under Charter-protected freedoms of religion as it conducts its business, what right does the state have to come in and impose its own morality. If what the company does is bad practice, won’t its reputation get around and the court of public opinion weed out any unwarranted behaviours? Who would want to buy from a reseller who refuses to hire women when they know full-well that a boycott could be right around the corner? Likewise, we expect Christian organizations, Muslim centres and urbane companies to all hire and work according to what their respective entities stand for. If the public tolerates it through their business practices, so what? Or are we actually, finally brave enough to admit that this is just an attempt to impose state-sanctioned atheist secularism into every aspect of society? I didn’t think so.

Much of this will matter very little though as we will once again see a rip-roaring battle ensue where the God-haters and religiophobes of our society once again rise us to defend a separation of church and state concept they barely understand and always reinvent to suite the flavour of the day. Nowhere will be hear of the 500+ years of jurisprudence that has allowed Christian organizations to serve the public good over that period of time and gave Canada, in particular, such bedrock foundations as the Sisters of St. Joseph, the YMCA or Christian Horizions — all of which have, by a desire to serve a higher calling, given us cheaper, wholesome and quality social services than we would’ve had if we just had the state do it all itself from the beginning. Certainly there will not be a mention of that. Of course, once the crusading secularists have weeded out every vestige of Christian presence in our society, who will be left to do all the things that government is too incompetent to do properly and the rest of us are too selfish to do willingly?

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When discussing self choice in relation to child porn, she had this to say: “Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision as well, even if it’s distasteful to us personally. Some children will make poor choices just as some adults do in smoking and drinking to excess. When we outlaw child pornography, the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children against their will.”

So, following this logic, we should also decriminalize murder, seeing as when it is outlawed the cost of a hitman rises, increasing the incentive for someone to kill for money?

I cannot see how anyone can argue that a child is ready to make the kind of choice that would subject them to child pornography, and in almost every case they will be influenced by either their parents, or the pornographer. Granted, perhaps if she was talking about people who are legally children but widely considered old enough to make sexual decisions, (14-17 years old), her position might be slightly more defencible, but still.

I am all for freedom for two consenting adults to do whatever they want behind closed doors. Children aren’t adults, and I doubt they’re consenting.

It doesn’t look like Ruwart will quit the race, despite the increased scrutiny, but it still looks like the Libertarian nominee is going to be ex-Republican representative Bob Barr after this quotation has been brought to light.

Of course, it’s all a moot point, as the LP Candidate has no reasonable shot at the Presidency, but it’s a start. Now if only someone would read “The Audacity of Hope”.

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Keeping track of all the National Post entries, I have to admit that all the big ones were covered: The Charter, multiculturalism, abortion, The Tragically Hip (actually, that last one didn’t appear, but it should’ve!). The topics covered by Post columnists had the common theme of being either the cumulation of, or source of the social ills we experience today. As I got thinking about this, I quickly came to think of our “biggest mistake” as being something which is a cause, not an effect and furthermore, our biggest mistake should’ve been the biggest cause of things that has hurt us as a nation since.

Once I got into this frame of mind, the riddle became simple: government education! You have to go back a’ways to find a time before we had such a system, but as Ontario’s last election showed, we’re still paying the price for it today. If you take any other problem that we’ve had in the last 100 years since the advent of “public” education, you’ll find that an argument can be made that the government’s meddling in our childrens’ upbringing caused it: Poor performance in the world? Government education. A narcissistic and euthanasia-bent society? Government education. The crumbling of our ability to govern ourselves? Government education. You get the point I’m sure. There’s also the more minor results (relatively speaking) like the over-bearing and scofflaw unions that now indoctrinate our children year after year, or the massive debts that our provincial governments have accumulated because they got tangled in the teaching domain in the first place.

The one thing that makes this mistake unique from the others explored though is that it isn’t unique to Canada. The United States, western Europe, and Australia have all been duped by the allure of having big government pay for every little boy and girl’s enlightenment. If it weren’t for the sparsely populated elitist, religious and cultural private schools consistently out-performing the government systems in the western world, we wouldn’t even have a way of knowing just how much we’re failing our kids. It does present an opportunity for Canada as well though. If we were to take a leadership role in the 21st century by revitalizing and reinvigorating our school systems, doing away with political controls and the presumption that parents aren’t the best decision makers for their children, it would take practically no effort for us to excel to the head of the pack and become the best-educated most potential-blessed nation on the Earth. We’d become the new Japanese, as it were. It’s all something to think about, both from a contemporary and from a visionary point of view. Who knows, our kids might even learn how to properly do their taxes in a couple of generations!

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Today’s events have given me that something, as a couple of friends and I hopped in my car and spent the day (fittingly “Earth Day”) traveling 2.5 hours to Buffalo to see the movie because the powers that be here in Canada feel us Canucks are too fragile to be introduced to dangerous, untested ideas that aren’t directly from former Democratic VPs or Michael Moore. It was a fine day with pristine weather, and as much as Buffalo isn’t exactly the Emerald City, it also has a certain charm for me dating back to frequent trips with my grandparents during the Reagan/Bush Sr. eras. Plus, entering the States, you feel that while people aren’t as polished, but they (be they Democrats or Republicans) are more sincere and rooted in their national values.

Regarding the Expelled movie, I start off with what I was going to suggest earlier this week had a post actually emerged: it is not about destroying evolution nor was that the purpose (see the video clip for more verification). Instead, the Darwinists, who are so scared about what this movie could do in the court of public opinion that they even attack a small-fry blogger in Ontario for merely showing interest in this movie, have failed to address the question this movie raise on why scientists (those with PhDs and impressive resumes) who discuss Intelligent Design are ostracized. Science is man’s study of nature and being a human construct is prone to faulty theories and conclusions; just as the ancients observed the universe revolving around the Earth, or the enlightenment folks developed sophisticated alchemy charts to explain compounds, so too have many scientists throughout many centuries observed, but come to the wrong conclusions because of their perspectives. Even Einstein’s speed of light barrier is now being treated as a special case these days and that mathematically-postulated equation was only invented within the last century. From a political perspective, I have to warn the Darwinian forces that continuing to ignore the argument that Expelled makes only risks their side’s own peril. Doing so only reinforces the statement Ben Stein has made that Darwinian scientists are not interested in the continuous defence of their conclusions that has been and should be inherent to the work of science.

Next, on the appearances in the movie, I noticed a striking difference between PZ Myers and his buddy, Richard Dawkins. Myers, who in the movie gushes about the day when God is marginalized in our society despite the recognition of North America’s founding fathers (not to mention even the UN’s approval…) of the freedom of religious beliefs (and not just on the weekend PZ!) was far more confident in his opinions, whereas Dawkins, who wrote “The God Delusion” was surprisingly stuttery and uncertain as he spoke. Being a political animal who specializes in electronic media, I did pay careful attention to see when cuts were made in the scene (which could suggest editing and misleading question-answer sets) and at the end of the movie when Dawkins was being interviewed with Stein one-on-one, these cuts did not exist in a way that could’ve edited the detailed answer that Dawkins gave — namely that he could see the possibility of aliens seeding the Earth via some sort of ID that they developed. In other words, Dawkins agreed on camera that ID could have merit…but as long as we’re not including God in the equation. A rather meta-physical assessment for a biology professor to make, yes, but he also failed to explain how the A* I discussed a few weeks ago came into being (remember, nothing + nothing != something!). I would also note that nothing that any of the Darwinists said in the movie, when taken at face value, could be taken out of context; one guy actually suggested that molecules attached themselves to crystals and *poof*, we had life on Earth — you just can’t splice that kind of stuff!

The movie also did deal with the Hitler-Darwin connection, admitting that not every Darwinist will become a Nazi, but suggesting that Darwinism does lend itself nicely to eugenics and the bloodbath that has been many atheistic regimes throughout the 20th century (see current news on China for more details…). Could the Darwinists counter this claim? I don’t know, but that’s only because they haven’t seriously tried yet except to collectively say “nuh-uh”!

Ultimately though, the movie sets up a dangerous potential for those who follow the status quo. If the movie does well and becomes as recognized as Bowling for Columbine did years ago, it will either force the Darwinists to adapt to a new environment wherein they actually offer a credible rebuttal to ID or, poetically, are cast off into the great waste-bin of historical movements no longer among us. This will include a healthy debate with the scientists who openly challenge the doctrine of Darwinian evolution. It will also mean contending with the large number of scientists, teachers and faculty who, though afraid for their careers now, will down the road get the protection of tenure and management, thus bringing a delayed, but more potent threat to Darwinian group-think. Who’ll win in the end? Well, it’s all about the survival of the fittest, right?

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But at the same time, Christianity - what it means, what it claims, and how it affects those who follow Jesus - is big news too.  Many people who discuss religious extremism like to compare radical Islam to fundamental Christianity.  But is this a fair comparison?  Is it appropriate for TV shows like Law and Order to product episodes that paint an extremist Christian group stoning people as a conceivable reality?  These types of questions cannot be answered without an understanding of what religions teach and how they differ.

Sadly, religious literacy is becoming rarer and rarer in the 21st Century.  Unless you are an active follower of this or that religion, you may have no idea what they actually believe and how that affects them.  It used to be that Universities, as part of their goal of a “well-rounded” education, would make mandatory comparative religion courses.  Few now do.  Even the options are scarce.  It also used to be that the average citizen knew what the Bible said.  They knew the content, they had memorized passages, they knew the stories, they knew the characters, their virtues and their failings.  They may not have been followers of Christianity, but they knew what it was about.  I am a part of the generation that came after.  I didn’t even know that King Solomon was a Biblical character until I was 16 years old.  I knew the name Jesus, but I couldn’t have named any of his 12 followers.  I had heard the names, Hezekiah, Ezekiel, and Jehosaphat, but I thought they came from tales of the Old West, not from the Kingdom of Israel ca. 1200 BC.

People think they know what Christianity is and stands for, but they know it second, or third hand.  It is something their parents, or grandparents believe, and that’s because they’re old and stuck in their ways.  They’ve probably never even asked them what their faith means to them or why they believe it.  However, now more than ever, a knowledge of what people believe and why they believe it is critical.  What makes today’s situation so concerning for many is that the public thinks they know what Christianity is about, and so makes judgements (incidentally, the exact same judgements they rail against from “Christians” who are thought to be “judgemental”) based on erroneous information or simple ignorance.  If people acknowledged their ignorance, the problem wouldn’t be so bad.  It’s the fact that people think they know but don’t that can and will lead to bigger and bigger problems and conflicts between those who are religious and those who are not.

The reality is, for those many who are religious - whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist, their faith doesn’t just play a part in their life, it defines their life.  Their religion informs not only their daily decisions but also governs what issues in the public sphere are important to them.  At first glance, this could look extreme, but take a step back.  What do you believe?  Everyone believes in something.  If you don’t believe in a God or Gods, then you are your own god.  Everything you do, everything you consider important stems from your belief in yourself as the primary purpose and priority in your life.  This is not extremism.  This is internal consistency.  To condemn another for having consistency with their faith is to condemn yourself and your own consistency with what you believe in to be important.

This is a very important concept.  People who are religious have every right both to express their faith informed convictions in public and to hold public office.  To deny them such is to discriminate against people by religion, which is expressly forbidden by the very tenets of freedom this nation was founded upon.  Yet, we have seen in the ridicule of Stockwell Day’s leadership campaign and the more subtle statements made against many politicians of faith in recent elections, that there is an undercurrent of opposition and censorship against those who exercise these fundamental freedoms.   An opinion is an opinion, and it should be irrelevant whether the opinion was arrived at via reading the Bible or via reading Rene Descartes.

Which leads me to my last point.  Debate surrounding abortion, and also surrounding the gay marriage issue has often been framed by leftist writers and speakers as being about the “religious” trying to impose “their morality” on “the rest of us”.  This is a false assertion because there is no such thing as a faith-neutral political position.  We are all informed by our beliefs, and so our political positions all have equal weight.  There are many