"Bush campaign ads using team"

[Ajax]

I was speaking only of illegal immigrants there, not people who just don't vote.

got it.

sorry for the misperception :-)

[eppie]

As I said I'm always very bad with giving my sources, but I can not imagine they used illigal imigrants in those numbers, because they are not registered anywhere. I guess it was a percentage of the legal population.

[eppie]

Thanks for the info Kandrathe I knew I could count on you. :D

[/QUOTE]Thankfully. The death knell of a democracy is when the people selfishly vote themselves money from the State. Socialism and Communism only work as ideologies. The reality is that some worker had to produce more at personal expense to accommodate the ones that are not contributing. Ideally, only the infirm, elderly, and children, etc are the ones we are subsidizing. But, once the mechanism is in place that removes the negative consequences for complacency, more and more people find that they can rely on the State to provide for their needs and do not contribute as they should. Look at unemployment in Britain, or Germany as examples. The problems with our current system are when the successful use their wealth to prevent others from attaining a similar success. There is a happy medium between giving a person a fish, and teaching the person to fish for themselves. In the former case, the person is dependant on you and subject to your will, and in the later case that person can tell you to take a hike if they so desire. So that is why I'm a bigger advocate for educating rather than subsidizing. [QUOTE]

Well here we used to have a reasonable socialistic society (untill 10 years) ago, and that is what made the country great. There were a lot of incorrect things going on (like people getting unemployment money just because they didn't want to work) but in total I think it was a small percentage. No with socialism I mean to have a security net for people that for some reason cannot make ends meet anymore. Socialism and market economie can live very well together, and that would be the perfect system. Like I said, we used to have something like that in Holand, and at that time Holland was the best place to live. Now we have more and more market economie and less socialism, and it is getting worse and worse here.

But anyway the socialism I was mentioning was just an example. If a group of people would organize and vote al together, they could really get things done.


To nystul: I wasn't making a point for socialism or whatever I was trying to give and example, of what a big group of people could do if they would vote.


To ajax: I know the numbers. But to me they are still very big. If we let's say compare the gap between rich and poor, it is a lot bigger in the US than in europe.

[Jester]

"The measure should be on misery, which is more a factor of having the basic necessities of life."

Is that utilitarianism I hear?

Jester

[Sir_Die_alot]

As I said I'm always very bad with giving my sources, but I can not imagine they used illigal imigrants in those numbers, because they are not registered anywhere.

That definantly shows you are not a US residant or citizen. :D This is a favorite number trick to pull, especially in California where I live, which is why my first reaction was to check if a qualification was citizenship. A good general rule is: if they didn't expressly use it, it was with almost complete certainty not used.

[kandrathe]

I think you flirted with Socialism after WWII because you could afford it due to your past colonial adventures, particularly the diamond trade in Africa. Your society has some very extremely wealthy people who were supporting an inordinately large welfare population. Your society was once described to me when I was younger as a place where half the population supported the other half, but I think that level of generosity had faded recently.

The Dutch system of disability benefits has been a particular focus of reform. It has been described as the "weak spot of the Dutch welfare system" and by 1993 nearly a million people were receiving disability payments, nearly one adult person in seven. (7) The response was to begin to reduce the control of the social partners and to introduce extra inducements to employers to retain or hire the disabled. This was linked with a more stringent definition of disability coupled with a broader definition of the ‘suitable’ employment a person could be expected to undertake. The revised tests were applied to all new claimants, and those already receiving benefits are being reassessed. The impact was initially significant and the number receiving disability benefits fell to 850,000 in mid-1996, a fall of over 8%.

Another major change in the Dutch system has been in the approach to lone parents, who are now expected to actively look for work once their youngest child reaches the age of five (previously it was twelve). This reflects an important change in social attitudes, partly linked to the overall increase in part time work and in women’s participation in the labour market. Lone parents are likely to receive their assistance payments through the municipalities, so local integration strategies now have to address their needs around child care, flexible working hours, and so on.

The National Assistance Act was revised in 1996 and the different categories of social assistance recipients have now been replaced by an overall assumption that all those who need assistance who can work should seek to secure an income by participating in the labour market. Welfare benefits should only be provided for those who are unable to get jobs and benefit levels should be set at rates that are sufficient but which preserve incentives to work.

Some raw numbers;

• Netherlands has 7.2 million workers (44.1%) with a population of 16.3 million, low unemployment rate of 2% to 4% and GDP per capita of $28,600.
  <>
  
• United States has 141.8 million workers (48.4%) with a population of 293 million, unemployment rate of 6.2%, and GDP per capita of $37,800.<>
  [st]

[Ajax]

(Edit1: Fixed link)
(Edit2: Fixed spelling :))

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I (respectfully) still think that you're ignoring my assertion that smaller countries have lower unemployment rates because it is much easier to find jobs at that lower scale. Large countries like the US have to deal with the problem on a much larger scale, and that changes the parameters of the issue. Thus, it is not an appropriate argument to compare the US with Holland.

To put this in perspective, let's look at the EU. I found this article rather interesting; it seems that when European policymaking is expanded in scope approaching the scale of the US, the problems become very similar, doesn't it?

Some intersting quotes from this page:

Unemployment provides one of the most important  challenges for economic policymakers in Europe over the next ten years. The  question is – how should they  respond to the challenge?

Note that it isn't a question of whether or not there is an unemployment problem (which is getting worse) in the EU; the question is what to do about it?

Persistently high unemployment  threatens the economic and social cohesion of the EU. European countries  now have targets for raising employment and  the participation ratio in the European labour market – but the most  significant problems appear to be structural in nature and may take several years to resolve.


Europe’s labour market shows clear signs of market  failure and this threatens living standards for millions of people in the  years ahead.

Speaks for itself.

How bad is unemployment in the EU? ... The fall in unemployment in the European Union during the late 1990s was  steeper than that experienced in the USA over the same period. However, it  served mainly to narrow what appeared to have become a permanent gap in jobless  rates between the two areas.


Unemployment in the EU as a whole has not fallen  below 8% of the labour force since 1990. The latest data shows unemployment  edging up to 8.6%, some 2.5%  above that in the United States and over 3% higher than the UK.


Unemployment  is a lagging indicator of the economic cycle – the slowdown  in real GDP growth in the European Union over the last two years will continue  to push unemployment higher.


The evidence is that the more deregulated labour  market in the United States has reduced the time lag between changes in real  output and employment for  the USA. Notice from the above chart for example, how quickly the US unemployment  rate started to pick up once the cyclical boom experienced in the US came  to an abrupt end from the 2nd half of 2000 onwards.

And finally, to reiterate my point about the differences in the economic systems of large and small countries:

There are large differences  between EU countries and also within nations. Some economists have questioned  whether there is in fact a “European  unemployment problem” at all.


According to Professor Stephen Nickell  from the London School of Economics (www.lse.ac.uk)


"Unemployment is high in the four largest economies of Continental  Western Europe, namely France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Exclude these  four countries and the famous European unemployment problem more or less  disappears”

eppie--there are some points of yours which I would agree on. For one thing, the potential power of a market economy combined with a limited social democratic government could be quite formidable. China is emerging as the leading example of such advocates (although it lags badly from an ethical perspective). Health care is another issue which you touch on which I would also agree in part. Again, speaking as a medic/EMT and someone who has been on the job, I can tell you about people who should get medical treatment but don't want to go to the hospital for fear that they cannot pay the bills. Some government subsidy seems in order here (or more accurately, a more flexible government subsidy, as one is already in place.) At the same time, I have treated people from the UK and other European nations with diseases needing transplants or tissues. In an administrative system, you get a number and stand in line; the bureaucracy basically allocates its resources so that while no one dies, the average quality of life is lower for everybody because they delay treatment for those who need it. People come to the US so they can spend their own money to try to preserve their quality of life by paying through the nose for it. HMOs allow that. It's their central function. And if people choose to spend their own money to get better care, I say let them.

But that's all tangental. In sum, I'd say you do have some points I would agree with. At least partially. :)
Have a good one.

[eppie]

I think you flirted with Socialism after WWII because you could afford it due to your past colonial adventures, particularly the diamond trade in Africa. Your society has some very extremely wealthy people who were supporting an inordinately large welfare population. Your society was once described to me when I was younger as a place where half the population supported the other half, but I think that level of generosity had faded recently.

We did not "flirt with socialism" I'd like to think we still have a system which combines market econmoy and socialism. Of course some laws left too much space for people who just did not like to work or commited fraud, but that is just a question of making the rules better. Socialsm is not a bad word, it means just that as a society you take care of the less fortunate people.
And why is socialism combined with market economy not possible in the US?.
I heard from several people here that you also have things like unemployemnet money and tax cuts for peopl that make too little money etc. So I don't see the difference really. Of course you can make gradations but making sure that everybody can get good free (through government insurance) health care should be possible. (this point is also stuff for some nice debates in holland. Things like should your (government)insurance pay for plastic surgery etc.)

[dwa]

We did not "flirt with socialism" I'd like to think we still have a system which combines market economy...

There's clearly some misconceptions here about basic economic terms

1) "socialism" is an economic system where means of production are either owned or run by the government, and decisions regarding the economy are largely (or entirely) run by the same. It is not "taking care of the less fortunate", though that may be one of the goals, and yes, it is a bad word, for reasons that should be obvious (trusting a beuracracy far removed from the individuals it runs tends to lead to bad things, as history has aptly shown us).

2) a market economy is one in which decisions regarding economic transactions are run by the people making the transactions themselves.

It should be obvious that one cannot "combine" them; one can only replace one with the other, depending on the sphere of economics one is discussing. And, historically speaking, it should be obvious which one is prefered; things like the potato famine in Ireland (where, due to the Corn Laws, Ireland was a net grain exporter during the famine, as it was economically unfeasable to sell to the local populace), the current ongoing famine in North Korea, the various 5 year plans of Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's PRC, are not anomolies, there are the inevitable result of implementing socialism.

[Minionman]

It should be obvious that one cannot "combine" them; one can only replace one with the other, depending on the sphere of economics one is discussing

The sphere of economics he is talking about is the economy of a whole country. In that case, some industries may get run by the government, some may have no government in them at all, and some may have both the government and people running the companies making decisions about the economics, for example governments having some say in how utility companies are run, how much they charge, etc. These are exaples of "combined" socialism and market economy.

Also, some people talk about socialism as a mixed economy and use communism for what you describe.

[kandrathe]

"We did not flirt with socialism..." Well, I was meaning Social Democrat rather than Marxist revolutionary. The PvdA seems to have been a major force in the Tweede Kamer since the end of WWII.

Even Minnesota elected a governor, Floyd B. Olson, who at the State Convention in 1934 said,

We declare that capitalism has failed and that immediate steps must be taken by the people to abolish capitalism in a peaceful and lawful manner, and that a new, sane, and just society must be established, a system in which all the natural resources, machinery of production, transportation, and communications shall be owned by the government and operated democratically for the benefit of all the people, and not for the benefit of the few.

He was pretty radical for the US.

[Chaerophon]

It should be obvious that one cannot "combine" them; one can only replace one with the other, depending on the sphere of economics one is discussing. And, historically speaking, it should be obvious which one is prefered; things like the potato famine in Ireland (where, due to the Corn Laws, Ireland was a net grain exporter during the famine, as it was economically unfeasable to sell to the local populace), the current ongoing famine in North Korea, the various 5 year plans of Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's PRC, are not anomolies, there are the inevitable result of implementing socialism.

Actually, it isn't obvious at all. Ever since the 'evolutionary socialism' of Eduard Bernstein and the British 'Fabian Socialists', there have existed social democrats/democratic socialists who envision socialism as an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process. As in Marx, they assume that the capitalist epoch is necessary and that it will eventually be eclipsed by socialist state forms. However, the evolutionary socialist sees the process as being one in which capitalism is slowly reformed from within as the means of production are slowly returned 'to the people' through public ownership and the gradual reform of state structures. In Canada we have a vibrant history of such socialists, starting with the CCF in the 1930's right up to the NDP of the modern era. Many elements of the modern NDP are less optimistic about the chances for the actual formation of a truly socialist state; however, the tradition remains very relevant.

As a side note, the Corn Laws weren't socialist; they were mercantilist. In fact, Marxists actually supported the anti-Corn Law movement as it was seen as a class struggle against the landed aristocracy.

Another point worth noting is that, particularly in Canada, the public ownership of utilities was viewed as a boon by capitalists, and it has often been argued that the public ownership of industries and utilities povided capitalists with the necessary infrastructure to advance industry in general. Of particular note is the Canadian National railroad and Ontario hydro. Furthermore, capitalists and economists alike endorsed the Keynesian economic movement of the 1950's-1970's and, more than any other period in history, that period was marked by an explosion in the creation of jobs and capitalist infrastructure. This was the period when the Western world truly separated itself from the rest and now, with the force of the West to 'free up' markets being brought to bear in the less developed regions of the world, we can economically (if not necessarily at a micro, middle- to lower- class level) afford to engage in supply-side rather than demand-side measures as a result of the abundance of cheap overseas labour available in Free Trade Zones and other such capitalist meccas. In sum, we disallow other nations from protectionism and the stimulation of their own native industry through the conditional policies and threat of sanction from the WTO, IMF, and World Bank so that we may, in turn, bring our manufacturing and low-level production capacities to them in a free trade environment such that we may exploit their perennially low wages.

In other words - and the net increase, over the past 20 years, in the gap between our own economic well-being and that of those in the third world serves as proof - protectionism and public ownership isn't always a burden on capitalist economies. In fact, the development of native infrastructure and industry can often benefit greatly from it.

[Jester]

"...the current ongoing famine in North Korea, the various 5 year plans of Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's PRC, are not anomolies, there are the inevitable result of implementing socialism."

I suppose I missed the part where any of that happened in, say, Sweden.

Might I point out that those were totalitarian nations with enormous class and wealth disparity prior to their revolutions, and whose governments have always been despotic, whether devotedly capitalist, communist, or otherwise?

Jester

[Occhidiangela]

Rogue

[eppie]

The sphere of economics he is talking about is the economy of a whole country.&nbsp; In that case, some industries may get run by the government, some may have no government in them at all, and some may have both the government and people running the companies making decisions about the economics, for example governments having some say in how utility companies are run, how much they charge, etc.&nbsp; These are exaples of "combined" socialism and market economy.&nbsp;

Also, some people talk about socialism as a mixed economy and use communism for what you describe.

And that is what we used to have. Things like energy, water, trains, mail etc. used to be done by state-owned company. And I can tell you one thing. The way it is now (all these companies privatized) is a lot worse.
The idea (to lett more companies arrange let's say the energy) seems nice, but the only thing that's good is that it has gotten a bit cheaper. Disadvantages: you get killed by advertisements, the management of these companies get rich, all normal workers get thrown out so there is a lot less work and the service only go worse. BTW if the govermnet has higher prices, so what?? At least the money goes to the government that can do other things with it. Also our companies (commercial) were doing better than they do today, so so much better this market economy isn't. It is just like you see in Russia, China, the US, that it is mostly very good for the rich people.

[Occhidiangela]

Since the allegedly clever Maple Leafs so enjoy whinging about American political issues, I'd like to know what they feel about something closer to home, something the French are wrestling with and have not resolved.

Have you ever heard of the death of a thousand cuts?

Ever heard of the thin end of a wedge?

Do you want the secular freedoms you stand for to be abridged by the Sharia? If you do, you may find the muzzle of many a deer rifle pointed north some decades hence, though I sincerely hope not.

How Do You Solve the Problem of Sharia?&nbsp; Canada grapples with the boundaries of legal multiculturalism.
By Dahlia Lithwick&nbsp; Posted Friday, Sept. 10, 2004, at 2:55 PM PT

This week has seen protests around Canada—and at Canadian Embassies worldwide—as citizens grapple with an issue that blurs the boundary between religious tolerance and oppression. The Ontario government is considering a proposal to allow certain family law matters—including divorce, custody, and inheritance—to be arbitrated by panels of Muslim clerics. Supporters of the proposal say that Canada's commitment to cultural diversity requires that Muslim law be accorded the same respect as other legal systems. Opponents say Muslim law inherently conflicts with the basic freedoms guaranteed Canadians.

Marion Boyd, Ontario's former attorney general, has been appointed by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to determine the appropriateness of these sharia, or Islamic law, tribunals. She's in a tough spot. Ultimately, the question comes down to whether sharia is fundamentally different from other religious codes. And making that sort of determination should not be the responsibility of any democratic government.

The plan to use formal panels of imams and Muslim scholars to resolve family-law disputes is neither radical nor subversive. For one thing, Canadian imams have been informally using sharia law to settle disputes between Muslims for years. For another, a 1991 Ontario law known as the Ontario Arbitration Act permits Orthodox Jews and Christians to submit to voluntary faith-based arbitration. These agreements are then ratified by secular civil courts, so long as their rulings conform to Canadian law, and both parties were willing participants.

Ontario Muslims have merely sought to officially reap the benefits of the Arbitration Act, leaving the Ontario government with two unpleasant alternatives: They must either scrap the act altogether or unearth some principled justification for allowing some religious citizens, but not Muslims, to benefit from its protections. The question somehow comes down to whether sharia is too inherently sexist to be reconciled with Canada's civil rights laws. And if anything definitive can be said about sharia, it's that no such definitive pronouncements can be made.

It's probably no surprise that some religious groups find themselves in the strange position of wholeheartedly embracing the wonders of sharia. For instance, this week B'nai Brith Canada endorsed the tribunals. And while Canadians are deeply divided over this matter, no one is more divided than the Canadian Muslim community. The Muslim Canadian Congress urged the Ontario government to reject the tribunals, describing sharia as uncodified, racist, and unconstitutional. The Canadian Council of Muslim Women similarly says, "We want the same laws to apply to us as to other Canadian women." But Syed Mumtaz Ali—the lawyer demanding that sharia be made available under the Arbitration Act—last month declared that Muslims cannot live under secular law alone: "Every act of your life is to be governed by [sharia]. If you are not obeying the law, you are not a Muslim. That's all there is to it."

If you hear echoes here of religious citizens of the United States who claim they cannot be asked to abide by any secular law that conflicts with God's law, you'll begin to grasp the problem: How does a liberal democracy permit unfettered religious freedom without eventually becoming a theocracy?

Sharia is a centuries-old system of justice based on Quranic law, and while it includes general provisions about the importance of justice and equality, as practiced throughout the world it has been used to justify stonings, the flogging of rape victims, public hangings, and various types of mutilation. In her weird and provocative book, The Trouble With Islam, Canadian commentator Irshad Manji reminds us that on average, two women die each day in Pakistan from "honor killings" (a husband's revenge for adultery, flirtation, or any perceived sexual shaming) and that, in Malaysia, women may not travel without the written consent of a male. Saudi Arabian women may not drive. Moreover, under sharia, male heirs receive almost double the inheritance of females. Spousal support is limited from three months to one year, unless a woman was pregnant before she was divorced. Only men can initiate divorce proceedings, and fathers are virtually always awarded custody of any children who have reached puberty.

Still, supporters of sharia tribunals in Canada have strong arguments—in addition to claims of basic fairness suggesting that if Catholics and Orthodox Jews can have divorces settled by religious courts, fundamentalist Muslims must be allowed to do the same. They insist that these religious arbitrations are voluntary. No one is forced into religious courts. They say that if a party to an arbitrated agreement is dissatisfied, she may always ask the civil courts to overturn it. And proponents urge that this is an opportunity to reform and revitalize sharia; creating a hybrid of Canadian-style freedoms and traditional values.

Perhaps most important, supporters of these tribunals argue that any aspect of sharia that conflicts with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms would simply not be enforceable by the tribunals. The charter expressly provides that "Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons." Worries about a subclass of impoverished women and their abandoned children are misplaced, they insist, as is xenophobic hysteria over stonings or polygamy. Such measures violate the laws of Canada and are simply not available to sharia panels.

Truth be told, it's pretty hard to tease out a meaningful objection to sharia panels under these circumstances. If participation is indeed purely voluntary, if all agreements are reviewable by civil courts, if parties are already submitting to these panels informally anyhow, and if any provision that violates the Canadian civil rights laws is null and void, what do Muslim and feminist groups find so appalling? At worst, some kind of toothless sharia-lite will govern. At best, a more equitable, kinder, gentler sharia may be forged.

But Canadian feminists argue that there is no such thing as purely voluntary arbitration. They insist that isolated immigrant women with limited English are coerced into appearing before sharia panels and never advised of their rights. Refusal to abide by the dictates of these panels results in being shunned in the Muslim community. Supporters of the panels, including B'nai Brith, say this problem can be easily solved by educating women about their rights under the law and enacting protections and safeguards into the arbitration process, including female arbitrators and formal records.

This raises another objection to sharia: Unlike other forms of religious law, there is little consensus on any standardized interpretation. It's hard to advise women about their rights under a set of rules that are always subject to reinterpretation. Inadvertently setting his cause back a few steps, Mohammed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress—another group endorsing sharia in Ontario—recently claimed that: "There are only a handful of scholars in Canada who are fully trained in interpreting and applying Sharia law—and perhaps as few as one." All of which makes the sharia panels sound less like a court than a Magic Eight Ball. Elmasry confirmed that point when he added cheerfully that: "The arbitrators use gut feeling, they use common sense, and in many cases they are successful."

Despite this protest, it is hard to distinguish sharia law as uniquely more sexist, homophobic, or misogynistic than other religions. The brutal truth is that there are sexist and homophobic aspects to most religious law—including Orthodox Jewish and Christian law. (Indeed, some Orthodox Jewish women have used this period of review to question the appropriateness of grafting Jewish law onto the Ontario civil laws in the first place.)

Certainly anyone can waive the right to have a court settle a civil dispute, and religious Canadians have every right to submit privately to tribunals of any religious stripe to mediate their differences. The question is whether the state should be putting its imprimatur on these negotiated agreements.

This Canadian fondness for multiculturalism at any cost stands in stark contrast to the French approach to religious diversity. Last week, the French government began enforcing its controversial new ban on the wearing of overtly religious symbols—Muslim headscarves, large crosses, yarmulkes—in public schools. French democracy now means that everyone must subordinate their religious differences to their French citizenship, whereas Canadian multiculturalism means the civil law must bend and bend again to accommodate religious differences—even where those religious differences violate the spirit of Canadian equality. Somehow, the Canadians are prepared to sell the farm, while the French will settle for shooting all the animals.

When an official government policy of diversity and tolerance gives its official thumbs up to any legal system—Jewish, Muslim, or Martian—fraught with judgment and intolerance, the consequence is a legal hall of mirrors: A system of laws equally protecting the rights of religious minorities to treat one another unequally.

Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor.&nbsp;&nbsp; Photograph of Canadian flag on the Slate home page by Rob Howard/Corbis.

so long as their rulings conform to Canadian law, and both parties were willing participants.
Who ensures that?
The question somehow comes down to whether sharia is too inherently sexist to be reconciled with Canada's civil rights laws. And if anything definitive can be said about sharia, it's that no such definitive pronouncements can be made.
OH, why? Too craven to speak the truth?

Like the French before you, you must choose. Either you confess that you are a culture based on Judeo-Christian mixed with Enlightenment principles, or you reject entirely, in an act of religious intolerance, any and all respect for laws and rules that underpin your system. Many modern societies seem to be going that way, for better and for worse.

Or

You accept into your system a bankrupt, Medeival model as "just as valid" as Christian/Jewish/Enlightenment with peculiar Canadian flavoring model. Had Canada, America, and Britain's fathers done so, we'd likely be speaking either Arabic or German, depending on how far back you want to go, since the acceptance of the Sharia as "equal" meant allying with the Caliph.

All religions are NOT created equal, though an athiest might comment here that all are of equal value: low. Some are better than others, maybe, but some are more suited to the modern world than others, and some to a Free modern world. Some are less harmonious with modern, Enlightenment based political philosophy: Islam must bear that charge, since the shoe fits. It does not fit a non autocratic social model. Will people please wake up? (At least, not Islam in its present form. Reform is, I suppose, possible.)

Only men can initiate divorce proceedings, and fathers are virtually always awarded custody of any children who have reached puberty. Not Equal Protection Under The Law. Aren't Canadians egalitarians? Yes or no?

But Canadian feminists argue that there is no such thing as purely voluntary arbitration.

Go back and read that paragraph in the article again. The feminists are right. Acceptance of the Sharia as an equality into Canada will breed holes of injustice, much as the Illegal Immigrant system in America breeds the sweat shops of New York and Florida. Don't go there, it is a dark road.

A system of laws equally protecting the rights of religious minorities to treat one another unequally.

How soon do you want to be medeival, friends of the North?

This legal issue is NOT about opression, contrary to the author's Opening Line, it is about retaining that which makes you who you are: Canadians. Canada was not founded on the Sharia. When Canada became independent, the Ottoman Turk, the Caliphate, etc, were still the enemy. Theocratic institutions were held in low regard.

Leave the guilt alone, neighbors, and assert yourselves. Be strong. Stand up for who you are.

In order to take that step, I'd suggest you take a good hard look at your constitution and see where the loopholes are. Believe it, friends, the foes of your secular society are, and they will take advantage of them to change your laws for their convenience, and your long term detriment. Will you just let them do that while you watch? Do you care for the state of the land your children will live in?

Will you stand there and do nothing? This may sound alarmist, but it is not the BIG change that kills you, it is the hundred incremental changes that induce that morning of awakening when you realize that, like Kafka, you are now a cockroach.

I hope you will not remain passive. It's bad enough to have a corrupt, medeival country to our south, I'd hate to have one to our North as well. Do not let the thin end of the wedge be driven into the door. Please.

Occhi

[eppie]

All religions are NOT created equal, though an athiest might comment here that all are of equal value: low. Some are better than others, maybe, but some are more suited to the modern world than others, and some to a Free modern world. Some are less harmonious with modern, Enlightenment based political philosophy: Islam must bear that charge, since the shoe fits. It does not fit a non autocratic social model. Will people please wake up? (At least, not Islam in its present form. Reform is, I suppose, possible.)

A big problem indeed. The Islam is much to oldfashioned and undeveloped, a bit like every relgion used to be. The only reason of course it is like that is because the islam religion is mainly "practised" in development countries. I cannot see it in another way, christians also used to tortue everybody that diasgreed with them, or that just looked a bit strange.

The problem in the western world is that there is one part that reacts with hatred and misunderstanding, and the other part react with we do not want to discriminate.

You see the funny thing that in holland especially the christian parties are against a ban on wearing headscarfs (for muslim women) and against the placing of new mosks, against the stop of state funding for muslim schools. The only reason for this is of course that if we stop funding muslim schools we also have to stop funding christian schools...

I think we should just be clear about certain things: we don't discriminate so everybody can have the religion he wants but you cannot perform acts which are against our norms and values, like ritual killings of animals and discrimination of women. Not because it is unchristian, but because it does not fit in our society.

Muslim faith for example will also change in a modern society, we just don't need to treat them as lesser people. Just like the bible you can explain the quran more or less any wat you please. So society will change religion as it has been doing forever. Banning a religion, or a conflict between religion will only set the religion back in time.

[Jester]

I can't see why people think we need intersession by the Sharia between Canada and muslims. That seemed pretty stupid when I first heard the idea, and it seems pretty stupid now.

Why this is even being proposed, I have no idea. Nobody expects law to be handed down by some grand Rastafarian council, or a Zoroastrian tribunal. Why the Sharia? No clue.

This is multiculturalism at a level that makes no sense at all to me.

"...you realize that, like Kafka, you are now a cockroach."

I'm pretty sure that was Gregor, not Kafka. :)

Jester

[dwa]

"...the current ongoing famine in North Korea, the various 5 year plans of Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's PRC, are not anomolies, there are the inevitable result of implementing socialism."

I suppose I missed the part where any of that happened in, say, Sweden.

Might I point out that those were totalitarian nations with enormous class and wealth disparity prior to their revolutions, and whose governments have always been despotic, whether devotedly capitalist, communist, or otherwise?

Jester

I guess you missed that whole time during the 90's when Sweden's economy was in the tank, which was not resolved until government restrictions were lessened and the government took great measures to cap spending on social services.

In re: "those were totalitarian nations with enormous class and wealth disparity prior to their revolutions..." does not answer why conditions worsened so drastically when socialists dictated how the economy was to be run. It also doesn't deal with the fact that the USSR (the only one of the three to both remain socialist and lose it's tyrants) continued to fail, miserably, even after Stalin's death. I am also curious to how you square away the claim of "whose governments have always been despotic, whether devotedly capitalist, communist, or otherwise?" in regards to Korea; the only despots prior to the division post WW2 were the Japanese.

[dwa]

Actually, it isn't obvious at all. Ever since the 'evolutionary socialism' of Eduard Bernstein and the British 'Fabian Socialists', there have existed social democrats/democratic socialists who envision socialism as an evolutionary rather than revolutionary process

This still results in the replacement of capitalism with socialism.

It is obvious that in order for capitalism (or should I say, market-oriented capitalism) to function properly, the market must be as free from manipulation by any group (be it the government, monopolies, and even unions) as possible; it's part and parcel of the meaning of the word.

As a side note, the Corn Laws weren't socialist; they were mercantilist. In fact, Marxists actually supported the anti-Corn Law movement as it was seen as a class struggle against the landed aristocracy.

This is borderline amphiboly. I did not use the example as proof of avowed "Socialists" mismanaging affairs, but of government control of the economy (which is, ipso facto, socialism, regardless of the motives or socio-political orientation of those advocating the laws) resulting in disaster.

Another point worth noting is that, particularly in Canada, the public ownership of utilities was viewed as a boon by capitalists, and it has often been argued that the public ownership of industries and utilities povided capitalists with the necessary infrastructure to advance industry in general. Of particular note is the Canadian National railroad and Ontario hydro

I'm sure the Canadiens are quite thrilled about it; unfortunately, that does not answer the question of whether Canada's economy has in fact performed well, especially in comparison to it's more market-oriented peers. Perhaps every bit of economic data I've ever read is wrong, but Canada's economy is positively anemic compared to say, the US, Japan, South Korea, et al.

Furthermore, capitalists and economists alike endorsed the Keynesian economic movement of the 1950's-1970's and, more than any other period in history, that period was marked by an explosion in the creation of jobs and capitalist infrastructure. This was the period when the Western world truly separated itself from the rest...

I suppose one could give credit to the Keynesians for the economic boom. I would posit that it had a lot more to do with the fact that, given the unparalleled destruction of economic infrastructures during WW2, left those who escaped with said infrastructures unscathed (aka the US), had something of a leg up, which began it's downturn in the late 70's and early 80's, as nations finally started to emerge from devastation in force (namely Japan and South Korea). But hey, to each his own.

In other words - and the net increase, over the past 20 years, in the gap between our own economic well-being and that of those in the third world serves as proof - protectionism and public ownership isn't always a burden on capitalist economies. In fact, the development of native infrastructure and industry can often benefit greatly from it.

I would suggest that the third world's lack of economic growth has more to do with it's general trend toward authoritarian governments running the economies into the ground.

I would also suggest that the historical record indicates that, in the long run, protectionism hinders the ability of it's industries to compete with those of other nations (cf American auto industries in the early late 70's/early 80's, Japan's relative decline in control of the electronics market to South Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, and others, et al)