Recent Comments
Re: “Cousin & wife”
"By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out."
-Richard Dawkins
Both the quantitative and qualitative data within this article alone shows the high risks of recurrent inbreeding, demonstrating that our ideas about inbreeding are by no means inbred; they are spot on in fact.
Re: “Unite the Left”
To the writer: I really hope that this piece was a cynical and shameless grab for attention, because the alternative is worse. In either case, you cheapen the memory of the victims of mass murder when you make these juvenile comparisons of Stephen Harper to Adolf Hitler. There is nothing "progressive" in what you say when you use this language and imagery. You should hang your head in shame, then follow this up with reading some meaty history and political theory (Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill, etc. don't count) to gain a bit of perspective on these totalitarian regimes you mention. I would also recommend some reading on social and cognitive psychology, until you realize that conservatives and libertarians aren't genocidal monsters who want the planet to burn, but merely have a different vision of what a "better world" would look like. Here's a hint: equality and personal freedom are often in conflict.
Re: “Pool boy economy”
I would think that issmat's (and his family's) experiences under a communist regime should throw cold water over any "Let's do everything locally!" fantasy peddled by the Coast's editorial board. I will take globalization any day of the week.
Didn't India have that whole "self-sufficiency" policy up until the 1990s? Oddly enough, once they jettisoned this position and opened up their markets to the world, their economy went from virtually stagnant to annual growth rates of around 7%.
Re: “CUPW Thugs”
Let's end this monopoly and privatize the whole works. Competition has a bracing effect on efficiency and productivity. Private letter service will be cheaper in urban areas. Rural (and to a lesser extent suburban) residents can start paying the true cost of services to their regions, instead of relying on everyone else to subsidize them.
Re: “Anyone but Conservative”
There are drawbacks as well as benefits to proportional representation (PR).
(1) Party-list variations of PR (which are the majority of PR setups) give party executives even more power, since there is a central ranked list of candidates whose ordering is determined by them.
(2) A party list PR system would also limit regional and local representation, given that candidates in the peripheral parts of the country would likely have less influence in their parties compared to those from more central areas.
(3) Extremist and single-issue parties may also be elected, and could yield decisive influence in certain electoral scenarios--say a government needing a few more M.P.s on side to pass the budget.
(4) The constant compromises required for governing coalitions to function under PR could be a real impediment to reform. A party that stands alone in a majority government is far more likely to be able to plow ahead with changes to the current system. In fact, I think that is the primary reason why the Conservatives have not been particularly fiscally conservative during their time as a minority government--they have to make concessions to the left wing parties to survive, and that basically means greater spending.
Now, perhaps a mixed system would be more workable...
Re: “Anyone but Conservative”
"I have to laugh at the cartoons that regularly portray Harper as some type of jackbooted thug. Leftists always lampoon conservatives as totalitarians (or totalitarian wannabees), while ignoring the fact that the mass murderers of the last century (Stalin,Hitler, Mao, etc.) were socialists/communists."
I'm half convinced that they do it for provocation only. Either that, or the Coast writers live in a complete fantasy land--which is a distinct possibility.
The next time someone decries conservatives or right-wingers in general as fascists or Nazis, ask them how much they know about Hitler's well known radical anti-statist policies. Fun will ensue.
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Re: “Cousin & wife”
Shane,
Just because something is legal, and was done by eminent people such as Einstein and Darwin, does not make it a good idea. Using this logic, I could argue in support of past slavery.
I don't think too many of us would care if they were, say, 3rd or 4th cousins. Many of us would still have a vague sense of unease, but nothing like a situation involving a 1st cousin.
Finally, the guilt by association point, when you bring in Nicolai Sennels. Being in agreement with a disagreeable person on a particular issue does not automatically invalidate that position. This is the "Charles Mason liked dogs. Therefore, you shouldn't like dogs if you are a decent person" kind of logic.