Diane Francis, Global One Child Policy Fangirl, National Embarrassment

What is going on at the Financial Post? I was under the impression that in the context of Canadian media the Post was a relatively rational provider of economic news and opinion. (True, the day they hired Buzz Hargrove as a weekly columnist was the day I cancelled my subscription to the National Post, but I did qualify my last statement.)

Let’s assume (for the sake of argument) that a burgeoning global population is actually a problem. First of all, that’s got nothing to do with Western democracies. Our birth rates are already below replacement and continue to fall decade by decade. (For a more convincing explanation for why this is so than I can muster, please watch Lord Monckton’s presentation in Minneapolis. It’s long but it’s worth every minute of your time.) As it stands, we need higher levels of immigration just to maintain the assorted taxation pyramid schemes that pay for our current standard of living. Artificially reducing our already low birthrates only exacerbates this issue.

More importantly then, what Diane is proposing is encouraging Third World countries to adopt and enforce rigid population control policies. Countries like, let’s say, Sudan. We’ve seen how Sudan handles inconvenient populations. Throw forced abortions and sterilizations into the mix and what she’s proposing (intentionally or not) are dozens of little holocausts worldwide as dominant demographics seek to meet globally mandated targets by shifting the pressure to shrink onto their minority populations.

This is lunacy that would be unbecoming of some leftist hack in the back pages of the Star. Imagine my surprise seeing this spreading across the US blogs this morning only to discover that it’s the brainchild of a respected economics reporter at one of Canada’s more reasonable financial papers.

Religious & Free Speech Rights Upheld In Alberta

After the abomination known as the Alberta Human Rights Commission ordered an ordained minister to refrain from expressing his religiously held views, and to pay an academic who had in no way been affected by the minister’s words, it is heartening to see that ruling overturned by a (real) Alberta court today.

Obviously the fight is not over as there are many out there who would still use HRCs as their own personal whips, and unfortunately others who are misguided into believing the HRCs are a positive force in our society, despite their disregard for the rule of law and British legal heritage. Nonetheless, the fact that we have one less political prisoner (by virtual of the expression restrictions) in this country today can only make Canada stronger!

Big Government vrs. The Virtue of Governing Oneself

I’m all for gun and property rights. But I can’t understand people that always want to get tough on crime, particularly with stiffer prison sentencing. Can’t they be more imaginative? Why don’t they buy a gun, then get involved in some group or another to elevate the character of young people or the otherwise dispossessed.

The political culture is such that we are subjects of a massive state apparatus and comforted with infinite means to entertain ourselves, but why such little appreciation for the responsibilities that come with citizenship? with looking out for your own self-interest, especially in the community where you live? taking pride in your own capacity for self-governance?

Such prison policy is bearing fruit south of the border and it is rotten! … Reform is needed, and as the New York Times reports, it’s becoming a bipartisan issue.

I watched Gran Torino for the first time last night. Great movie!

There is a scene in Gran Torino where Clint Eastwood’s character, Walt, is asked why he didn’t call the police instead of confronting a gang outside his house. Walt’s response, “Well you know, I prayed for them to come but nobody answered. … when things happen quickly like that, you have to react.”

When faced with any individual or social “problem,” be it crime, the need for some agent of welfare, or even some public works project or another, we need to consider how civil society engenders a much larger definition than Big Government prefers to accommodate. Big Government is not the natural result of civil society, rather, Big Government is what Max Weber called an “iron cage,” and we require a responsible citizenry to moderate its role in civil society.

Consider what John von Heyking writes in his insightful review of “It’s the Regime, Stupid! A Report From the Cowboy West on Why Stephen Harper Matters:”

And so Canadians have come to view their sovereign as the agent of “gift giving,” … This decadent regime has been rendered possible by a decadent Christian culture that has forgotten the distinction between compassion, which benefits bureaucrats (because the purpose of compassion is to feel good about oneself), and caritas, for which the language of costs and benefits are irrelevant (because the purpose of caritas is love for another). Subjects of the modern regime need to balance their interest-calculation with some pride, which Cooper describes as a “something that you hold on to without qualification as to whether it is in your interest to do so – otherwise there would be no ‘you’ to have an interest.” …

In other words, too many take Big Government to be the default solution to whatever ails them. And yet, there is no virtue, no individual dignity to be gained, in not taking responsibility for your own life.

Pope Looks For Extraterrestrials, So What?

I love the topic of aliens when it comes to theological issues. It seems to be a simple, straight forward issue that shows critics of Christianity, be they militant atheists, stateists and company, for the ignorant windbags that they are. I’m not sure why either, but the topic seems to melt away any pretension that these folks have of getting Christianity just by having them muddle through the implications of having alien life on other planets.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Vatican has fallen prey to this culture of confusion as it’s now launching an investigation that will, in part, deal with the ramifications of aliens existing. We should’ve expect better from the seat of Roman Catholicism, since it has so clearly drawn the line in the past on other issues that are, er, more down to Earth although as the axiom of the the believer’s faith teaches, we’re all prone to err. It’s also a shame too since ABC is currently airing a (so far) excellent remake of the 1983 classic “V” series in which a Catholic priest serves as one of the principle characters and the theological ramifications are only mentioned briefly.

Wouldn’t it strike a huge blow to Christians, especially those who are faithful to the word of Scripture, you ask? Not as much as you would think. Those who study the Bible know that it is primarily concerned with one thing: the redemptive plan of God for humanity. The state is very Earth-focused, and narrows down even further for most of the Old Testament to what’s going on in and with Israel, only to shift later in the New Testament to what is happening to churches planted in Rome, Greece and modern Turkey. Scripture could’ve written about God’s creation of little green men in Genesis 1 and 2, but for that matter, it could’ve also covered the Qin Dynasty of ancient China. Investigating and understanding why the Bible doesn’t do this is crucial to even beginning to rectify The Way with visitors from other planets — it simply doesn’t deal with the plan of salvation ordained by God, but nothing in Scripture rules out God exercising His creative power by creating other life forms.

Most Bible critics who moonlight as sci-fi buffs know this, and that’s why they try to target the redemptive implications instead. A common presumptive mistake, made by the V series mentioned above, is the automatic presumption that aliens, if they’re intelligent, would need to be redeemed.

There are three possibilities: a)yes, they need redemption; b) no, they don’t; and c) they do but they’ve been set aside as beyond redemption. In a)’s case, the aliens would be much like humanity, but before missionaries run off to expand the kingdom, it should be pointed out that God’s plan for redemption would be different for another species than it would be for humans, who are born again as children of Abraham. If a) were true, what is to say that there isn’t already a plan that God has implemented long before a visit to Earth? This is where the attacks begin to fall apart, because they simply presume to know too much. b) is the case that all the other creatures on Earth fall under, and frankly would be the most likely. The notion of innocent creatures interacting with humans is not a new idea as many faithful would see angels as fitting this role perfectly. As for c), it might not be the most politically correct, but God is beyond silly political notions anyway; nothing says that a race needs to be redeemed, and Christians already believe that demons led by Satan will not escape their punishment. The true could apply to another race of beings from space, which is why evangelists should be cautioned against falling into the trap of how the Church would handle alien beings.

Any which way though, I’m again puzzled as to how any Bible scholar would find conflict between the Bible and the mere existence of aliens. Their appearance on Earth wouldn’t necessarily surprise this author, although much like the V series, I don’t know if I would be too trusting at first either. Let’s get the facts on what we do know, namely the Christian faith, right first though before we start pondering the implications of things that only might be true!

Gay Promiscuity by the Numbers

We’ve had our debates about same-sex marriage at ThePolitic (and I’ve started my share).  Well, nothing’s been settled, and the debate rages.  Scott H. Payne at The League highlights a comment from Joe Carter, posted on a thread at The American Scene:

It’s a radical change even from your own definition, which includes “and commit to do so monogamously.” As has been understood for decades, the homosexual (at least gay male) definition of monogamy does not entail sexual exclusivity. That this fact is dismissed or swept under the rug is not surprising since it would make the cause of SSM even more difficult to achieve. But it’s been well established and used to be the justifying reason why gays weren’t interested in marriage.

If this is an important component of your definition then you need to ask what happens when the majority of gay men refuse to include this in their own definition of “marriage.”

Rather than reject Joe’s contention out of hand, Scott does the responsible thing, and looks for some numbers on monogamy and sexual orientation.  After digging up some stats, I’d describe Scott’s response to Joe as, ‘yes, but…’:

On the face of it, that finding generally supports Joe’s point: gay males are a great deal more likely to engage in sexually non-exclusive relationships. That points remains true both historically, in terms of the 1975 numbers, and more recently, in terms of the 2000 numbers. However, what the numbers also show is that there is a substantial downward trend in attitudes towards extra-marital/extra-partnership encounters and while the rates for such encounters remain higher amongst gay males as compared to other groups, the rates for gay males have declined in a comparable fashion to the declines noted for the other groups, at least as far as this study reveals.

…

What those numbers tell me is that there has been a shift in the recorded attitudes of gay males on the specific topic of extra-marital/extra-partnership sexual encounters that has occurred at a rate that surpasses what these psychologists recorded for all other groups, which, I think, may well indicate a normative change on this particular topic in the specific culture of gay males.

There’s a lot of back and forth in the comments, and Joe Carter responds, in part:

Now people like Conor have the best of intentions. By bringing gay men into the heteronormative circle they believe we can condition them to reject all that “queer stuff.” He thinks that culture would and should shape their attitudes toward monogamy, further bringing them into the mainstrem. Obviously, when this is the attitude that is considered “gay-friendly”, what choice do gay men have but to surrender ot the forces of heteronormative conformity?

But back to the question of how all of this fits into my larger argument. I would say that if the (heterosexual) public were aware of the predominant view of monogamy within the subculture of gay men, they would be less likely to accept same-sex marriage—and for good reason. It is only be being blissfully unaware gay attitudes about monogamy or by being willing to de-queer gay men that the advocates of SSM are advancing the cause.

It’s a very interesting and thoughtful debate.  However, to me, the scope is a little too narrow to be conclusive.  Consequently I ask, am I the only one that believes marriage to be transformative?

The Cruelty of Circumcision

Over at my blog, I comment on a recent story of the effects of routine circumcision on a boy’s brain.  I’d love to hear people’s comments.

On a related note, here’s an old post by Freddie at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen in which he completely eviscerates a Matt Steinglass post on circumcision.  Putting aside the substance, it’s a great explanation of how not to write a blog post.

The Marriage Commissioner Hiding Behind Religious Freedom Deserves to Lose His Job…

…just like that racist dirtbag down in Louisiana.

Okay, to recap, in 2007, Orville Nichols, a marriage commissioner in Saskatchewan, lost his fight over his refusal to marry a gay couple.  Tom Cerber wrote in support of Orville Nichols on this web site.  Recently, a Louisiana Justice of the Peace, Keith Bardwell, refused to marry an interracial couple.  Blogger Dr. Dawg noted that there was a lot of outrage by the right over the former, but silence about the latter.  I responded here, but misunderstood his post.  Dr. Dawg was talking about the issue of public servants not doing their jobs; I thought he was directly comparing gay marriage and interracial marriage.

First things firts, dude that doesn’t want to marry an interracial couple should be fired.  I’m not even going to bother justifying that.

Contra Tom, Orville Nichols, too, deserves to lose his job.  I am more sympathetic to his plight, as the nature of his job changed and ran afoul of his religious beliefs.  Nonetheless, he cannot defend his refusal to execute his duties on the grounds of freedom of religion.  It just doesn’t wash.

Keep in mind, we’re not talking about a minister being forced by the government to do something his faith (and, potentially, his employer) deem improper.  We are not talking about someone employed in the private sector being forced by the government to act in contravention of his faith.  We are talking about public servants employed to administer civil marriage unwilling to administer civil marriage.

Civil marriage is, by definition, the domain of the state.  The state has the right to define this institution as it deems appropriate.  In choosing to be an agent of the state, you are choosing to carry out the functions of the state.  Your personal beliefs do not necessarily hold any sway over the duties associated with your employment.

Further, it is a simple fact that the demands of a workforce can change over time.  It is not “fair” that the status of one’s job can change so dramatically as to force one to leave, but such is life.  Mr. Nichols had no reasonable expectation to carry out his duties as he saw fit, the needs of his employer be damned.  If his employer was doing something immoral in sanctioning gay marriage, Mr. Nichols should have acted responsibly and resigned rather than run to a Human Rights Commission to seek protection for his antiquated vision of what his job should be.

No one has the right to a specific job.  Sure, we may have the right not to have our potential for employment unfairly hampered, but we have laws and regulations to dictate what is reasonable and what is not reasonable in our dealings with our employers.  If Saskatchewan’s labour code is anything like Ontario’s, Mr. Nichols probably could have claimed constructive dismissal and walked away from his job with several weeks termination pay.  (Though it would have been more fair for the government to offer a transition period for marriage commissioners to continue working while they sought other employment.)

Putting aside the issue of gay marriage, Mr. Nichols has no right to demand that the state bend to his will and to his will alone.  Public policy is created by our democratic institutions, not a cantankerous marriage commissioner.

Prizes that patronize

One wonders how many White House staffers are wincing with the news that Obama has won, undeservedly, the Nobel Peace Prize. Even the President can’t be altogether comfortable with this one, though he wouldn’t be the first world leader carried away by his own hype, be it trivial and rhetorically insincere.

Tom Piatak assesses it well:

Comes news this morning that our beloved President has at last won the Nobel Peace Prize. We can all be glad that the Nobel committee overcame the stark racism that denied Obama the Nobel Prize for Literature for Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope. I suspect that racism has also been behind the denial of the Nobel Prizes for Economics, Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine to Obama, whose accomplishments in those fields very nearly equal what he has accomplished so far in the Presidency. We can only hope that we make contact with extraterrestrials before Obama leaves the White House, so that other worlds will be able to join ours in giving Obama the honors he so obviously deserves.

Or as John Podhoretz surmises:

I can’t agree with my colleagues here on CONTENTIONS that a) Barack Obama should reject the Nobel Peace Prize or b) be embarrassed by it. The Nobel Committee chose him wisely because he does, in fact, represent the organization’s highest ideals.

He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership. It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than “the indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s the most obvious choice, once you think about it, since Michael Moore won an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine.

Satire to one side, Peter Schramm offers a sensible enough strategy for Obama’s way forward:

I woke up to this stunning decision (as the WaPo calls it) this morning. (We should be prepared to be surprised in politics, right? And we never are, are we?) The problem is that everyone understands that he doesn’t deserve it (and I mean no disrespect to the President Obama). One wag said on CNN this morning that the lefties in Oslo are attempting to tie Obama’s hands on foreign policy, especially regarding decision on troop levels in Afghanistan. Maybe. But this does give Obama a great opportunity: Mickey Kaus suggests that he turn it down. I agree. It would be magnanimous-like act, offered by a statesman who understands that the world does move, or should move, on merit. If he accepts it, there will be a political backlash for some will start arguing that his future war decisions will be taken for the wrong reasons. He cannot afford that opinion settling in on the public. The decisions on Afghanistan, just to cite the most obvious example, are tough enough to figure out without such calculations. He should turn it down.

Torture in Canadian prisons?

The parents of Ashley Smith are suing the federal government for the treatment of their daughter. She committed suicide while in custody.

Allegations in the lawsuit have not been tested in court.

On Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan told the Star that Smith did not belong in federal prison, along with what he estimated as 12 to 15 per cent of inmates with mental health issues. Van Loan said he could not discuss details of the lawsuit, but blamed the provinces where she was incarcerated for failing to provide psychiatric care.

“There’s a limit to what we can do,” the federal minister said.

A spokeswoman for the Correctional Service of Canada said the agency could not comment on the allegations because the matter is before the courts.

Smith’s mother has watched as federal and provincial ombudsmen have investigated her daughter’s case.

Despite recommendations to improve the care of inmates, little has been done. Smith’s mother hopes a court action will unearth the real story of her daughter’s death, incite accountability and help other inmates in the process.

“During the last year of her life Ashley was shipped across four provinces and between eight institutions … all the while in segregation,” Coralee Smith said.

“Her location changed, but the callous treatment of her most basic needs did not. When she asked for help, she was ignored. I owe it to Ashley to ensure that the truth comes out about how she was treated.”

Raised in Moncton, N.B., by hard-working parents prominent in the local business community, Smith was first jailed at age 15 for a relatively minor incident.

She was caught throwing a crabapple at a letter carrier, whom neighbours believed was withholding welfare cheques, and jailed four months. In custody, a pattern began where she was accused of destructive behaviour and received escalating sentences, which ultimately landed her in federal prison at age 18.

Once in the federal system, Smith was transferred 17 times in less than a year, including moves from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan to Quebec – ending up in Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener.

The lawsuit alleges Smith was continuously held in segregation and that prison officials sidestepped the rule that triggers a regional review after 60 days.

“The claim lays out conspiracy because a simple examination of the facts in this case makes it very difficult to believe this all happened by happenstance,” the family’s lawyer Julian Falconer said.

If the allegations are established to be true, the individuals responsible should be held criminally responsible. This could well be a case where conscience should have been expected to take precedence over just doing one’s job.

Dear Libertarians: The Policies Aren’t Always Greener On The Other Side

Gerry Nicholls reports back today on some of the events at this years Liberty Summer Seminar which was hosted by Western Standard guru Peter Jaworski during this past weekend with a story on whether libertarians would be better served by the liberal (or left-wing) parties of their jurisdictions — an idea proposed by a few like Cato Institute’s Will Wilkinson.

We’ve heard of this theory before because it was precisely what was practiced by many libertarians last year during the US’s presidential election; many small-government post-modernists elected to vote for the party that would at least bring in an attitude of anything goes since the GOP had only delivered big wars and big spending during the past three (2000-2006) congressional election cycles. It made sense, if that’s where your values lied except for one thing: I doubt if there are many libertarians today who are happy with their choice! Barack Obama, only seven months into office, has introduced a massive, 12-digit debt in his first budget, moved to nationalize the American health care industry, and is on the verge of reintroducing the ‘fairness doctrine’ that saw free speech radically censored from the 1960s to the mid 1980s. Outside of the token argument of teaching the Republicans a lesson for being such big spenders (which was admittedly due), what did libertarians gain by sending a boatload of Democrats to Washington last November?

On a more ideological note, I’m skeptical on just how libertarian libertarians can be. While you can never paint an entire group with a single brush, I’ve met a fair share who tag themselves with the label but became very statist whenever there’s an opportunity to get back at those Christian parents, or moral teachers of youth — even if it is just in a cathartic sense. I’m thinking here of examples like when libertarians sat by complacently while other conservatives campaign to make US schools less about indoctrination and more about education, or how few libertarians would defend Saskatchewan marriage commissioner Orville Nichols against a direct attack on his explicit section 2(a) rights are being sacrificed before the alter of political correctness. These folks are quite in their rights to believe what they want, but it is hardly libertarian to cherry pick the times to scream outrage before the ever-aggressive state. So it might well be that for these types of fair-weather libertarians, entities like the Liberal Party of Canada are perfect for their support as that party has proven itself quite anti-Christian of late and is a natural fit for any voter who defines him/herself first and foremost as whatever Christians are not.

For all the rest, the true believers if you will, the question remains: would a coalition with conservatives where there aren’t any abortions in the country and marriages were respected as the legal contracts they are, but there are concrete property laws, unmitigated free speech, and yes, the occasional marijuana coffee shop be such a bad place to live in? Surely if libertarians are willing to entertain the party of Mr. Dithers, there’s room for compromise with social conservatives…

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