Awww... He cares

"It's virtually impossible not to just to have your heart torn by what happened to her and by what her family, her son, must feel" - Paul Martin, earlier today, commenting on the Iranian torture case.

I can't imagine any other world leader making such an empty statement after the torture and death of one of its citizens by a dictatorial regime, and more importantly, the death of a citizen who was trying to expose the injustices of that dictatorial regime.

There's no "we'll do something about it" type of answer. No diplomatic threats, no threats of sanctions, just stuff about his heart going out to the families, which is the same thing he said after the Air India verdict.

This guy, our PM, is all talk, no substance. None. ZERO substance. He's a joke.

For the superstitious - Election timing

I just ran into this article from Ctv.ca, it was posted the day after this past federal election, and basically, it describes the events from that morning on Canada AM, where some psychic guy got the prediction of the federal election almost exactly right. (He predicted 135 - 97, the result was 135 - 99, although he said at the beginning, he might be off by 2 seats, but no more.) The video from that morning's show is also there with that article.

After they showed that his prediction was right, he made the following comments:

"If there is a call for a vote within the next 14 months, I believe Martin will lose his position and the Conservatives will take over. However if there's a vote anytime after the next 14 months, Martin's people are back in again. I'm absolutely certain of that."

Ronald Reagan made a bunch of decisions based on astrological and psychic stuff, and he turned out to be pretty successful, right?

Conflict Bias...

The media very often portrays an image of intense partisanship on Parliament Hill and to an extent, I imagine that the image is true. Every party wants to win more seats, every party is ideological and has a certain set of principles, but the media never seems to take the opportunity to show the warm and fuzzy stuff that takes place as well.

For example, last week there was a hockey game between Tory and Liberal MPs, and I don't think there was a single story on this in the media. Yes, it's not really that important when compared to the bigger issues (i.e. how the government spends your money), but still, what's so harmful about showing how not everyone in Ottawa hates each other enough to not play hockey with each other?

No! IMPOSSIBLE! It can't be.

This just seems too disturbingly "grassroots" and umm, un-Chretien to actually be true.

Chretien taking part in a rally on Parliament Hill... crazy. And on top of that, a rally for a good cause.

You know that saying... power corrupts.... absolute power corrupts absolutely... does it work backwards as well?

Does the loss of power make people less arrogant and less corrupt? And more importantly, we're talking about JEAN CHRETIEN here, a man who over a period of years convinced me that he was incapable of anything remotely righteous or good.

(This post sort of goes against the basis of my last post, but whatever.)

Conflicted

I'd write a lot more often if I was able to get over a few general conflicts in my beliefs.

Most of my ideas for posts revolve around attacks that are critical of "Canadian values" and things of that nature, but then, I don't want to seem as if I'm a self-loathing Canadian, and on top of that, Canada is still one of the best nations in the world, so it's tough to reconcile my attacks with those issues.

Secondly, it just seems too easy to attack the governing liberals. Every time I think of a way to put down Paul Martin or a liberal cabinet minister, I think, "other people have probably already used this line of attack a million times, so it's probably played out", and then there's the problem of thinking "hey, these guys have committed themselves to some form of public service, so good for them, plus, "they mean well", and I'm not privy to all the facts, so maybe my judgments and attacks aren't all that warranted after all." And plus, purely ideological attacks and ideological whining is boring and generally futile.

And it's particularly hard for me to criticize Paul Martin. Sure, he's more unprincipled than I could have ever imagined. Sure, he doesn't deserve to be Prime Minister. Sure, he's weakening Canada's image on the world stage and sure, he seems more desperate and transparent in his attempts to maintain a hold of power than any other political leader I've ever witnessed, but he just seems so human. I can relate to him. I feel sorry for him. I don't know why. I feel sorry for people that are as well-meaning but also as hopelessly unprincipled as him. I feel sorry for someone who probably wanted to be Prime Minister all his life, just in order to fulfill some sort of dream that his father failed in. You know what I mean? He seems like a generally good guy, and all his troubles seem to be the product of things that I can relate to, namely the obsession with keeping power which he can be blamed for, but it's also understandable. Yes, he doesn't deserve to be Prime Minister, and a nation like Canada deserves better even if it doesn't know that it does, but I don't feel right putting the man down.

(even though much of this post kind of..... indirectly did so anyway)

Why I don't eat out

Grosssssss.

Remember when Fox (I think it was Fox, at least) used to do those behind-the-scenes, hidden-camera, specials on how dirty a lot restaurants (and many cooks) are? I haven't seen one of those in a while, but this story just brought back all those memories.

That doesn't seem fair

Sean McCormick over at Polspy seems to imply that Stockwell Day is somehow either a bigot or just as bad for (allegedly) knowing an (alleged) holocaust denier.

Is this the same Stockwell Day who is well-known for being one of Parliament Hill's staunchest allies of Israel? The same Stockwell Day who had Ezra Levant, a prominent Canadian Conservative Jew, as his Chief of Staff?

There's probably a lot of legitimate reasons to be critical of Stockwell Day, but anti-semitism and holocaust denying (which are essentially one and the same, in my opinion) are definitely not legitimate reasons, in my view.

Questions

A lot of bloggers are dismayed by the Conservative Party's decision to take a stand against SSM. I think in theory, I am too.

Most of these bloggers tend to be either Red Toryish or Libertarian in their leaning, and most of them remind me of Joe Clark, because of their contempt for social conservatives and what seems to be their intolerance for all views except their own.

Most libertarians I've encountered are usually remarkably mature in their disagreements with So-Con policies because they generally tend to 'agree to disagree' in the interests of a greater goal (i.e. a united conservative movement).

People who pack up and leave based on a single issue (some red tories and some libertarianish types) just come across as entirely immature and unreasonable.

They come across as seemingly smarter versions of the main problem that haunted Joe Clark, which was his contempt for social conservatives and his fight to see to it that they had no representation whatsoever in elected politics.

So to my questions: If the Conservative Party drops all so-con policies, particularly in relation to SSM, where do so-con voters go? Is it perfectly fine to completely disinfranchise them? Do they not deserve representation? Is it not possible to have a party with a big enough tent to include people who disagree on a single issue?

The most misleading story I've ever encountered

From today's The National, Terry Milewski, one of the most blatantly dishonest reporters I've ever witnessed (right behind the Vancouver Sun's Kim Bolan).

In his overzealous attempts to sensationalize a story, Milewski knowingly misrepresents the facts, but ah well.

Unsealed documents name Bagri and Malik as Air India conspirators

Unsealed documents that contain what Mrs. Reyat (allegedly) said to the main discredited witness.

Woah. Great find.

Canada, racist?

No. Despite what media reports have been saying today, Canada is the least racist country in the world.

I was a bit shocked by some of the statistics, but still. Canada is far from being racist.

Having an admittedly racist 7% of the population should not diminish the fundamental decency and tendency to be accepting that describes most other Canadians.

I also want to bring up a small point a friend of mine brought up to me a few days ago. A lot of Sikhs complain about the French government's blatantly discriminatory anti-religion policies. However, a lot of Sikhs, particularly in Punjab need to look inward as well. When people from other "Indian" provinces choose to immigrate to Punjab, they are often greeted with explicit racism. When people from Bihar choose to move to Punjab, they're met with much of the same rhetoric that meets Punjabis who immigrate abroad. Isn't that really sad? I just realized this not too long ago. Punjabi Sikhs are often hypersensitive about maintaining a Sikh majority in the Punjab, but at what expense? And the weirdest thing is that, even when the non-Punjabis convert to Sikhi, they still aren't treated properly. They're still considered lowly and dirty. It's especially sad that considering the pre-Khalsa days, most Punjabis were of the lowest castes, and so many of them were even untouchables, and yet, they've forgot that heritage and instead choose to discriminate against outsiders.

So basically, a decision has to be made. We could all be classy and realize that racism and discrimination is bad EVERYWHERE or we could buy into the discriminatory tendencies that are wrapped up in defense of "culture" or "society" or whatever else. It's just annoying when I see Sikhs being racist/castist/regionalist against others in Punjab (and to other Punjabis/Indians outside Punjab), but then they claim racism when they move abroad. Behave at home or prepare to be discriminated against when you move elsewhere. Don't expect a double standard.

Schiavo Case

A lot has already been said about this, so I won't bother expanding on the merits of the case itself (though I do end up coming down on the "crazy, wacky, nutjob, Christian extremist" side of the argument).

I wanted to comment on something that I've probably commented on half a dozen times before.

The US Senate convened on a..... SUNDAY. Yes, on the weekend. The majority of the US House debated late Sunday night, and voted at 12:01am this morning. President Bush was woken up at around 1am so he could sign the bill.

This inevitably leads to a comparison between the US Congress and Canadian Parliament.

Can anyone imagine the House of Commons convening on a Sunday? Is that even legal?

It's actually pointless to discuss the institutional barriers to a weekend session, so let me discuss the more basic issues.

Firstly, it seems almost taboo for Canadian politicians to "care" a lot about a number of issues. I've personally never witnessed much passion or fire from our public officials. And when they ARE passionate, they're usually "extremist" anyway, so who cares. I've rarely seen mainstream Canadian politicians who seemed genuinely passionate about their beliefs and values. Things seem a lot more cynical up here than down there. That's just an observation, I think it's an accurate one.

Secondly, I remember a couple of years ago, I opened up the newspaper to see that another "Canadian celebrity" had abandoned his Canadian citizenship in favour of a US citizenship. As a "proud Canadian", I think I told one of my siblings, "hey, look, Michael J. Fox just became an American citizen, what a traitor", but then I realized something: Michael J. Fox became an American right around the time he was diagnosed with Parkinson's or maybe when his Parkinson's started getting worse, I forget. I realized something at that moment. I thought to myself that he probably became a US citizen in order to lobby Congress for medical research funds (since it'd be awkward to go to Congress as a foreign citizen). I realized that America, and more specifically, the American government's actions and capabilities were far more meaningful and consequential than the Canadian government's. Michael J. Fox can't really lobby the Canadian government for more funds, firstly because we're not as rich as the US, but also because there's no real way for him to do so. The Canadian parliament does not seem as powerful or capable as its American counterpart. Hmm. I don't think this was the best example to give, so maybe I'll come up with another example another time.

One last example of "caring" or "passion", I remember in the last US Congress, a number of new US Republican Senators volunteered to stay in the Senate all night, essentially alone in order to overcome judicial filibusters. I was pretty shocked by that as well - you wouldn't see that up here.

Back to regular blogging

Before I do that, let me make some final comments on my father's acquittal:

1) The acquittal generated a lot of passionate support and happiness amongst various segments of the actively panthic or (media-term) "fundamentalist" Sikh community. For many of them, I can see why. They knew that the case was extremely weak and that the charges were fundamentally untrue. For those people, I can understand their joy and happiness. The entire panth generally sighs relief when innocent Singhs are released from prison, whether that be in India or anywhere else. Now, there's a very small amount of people who just confuse me. They probably make up about 0.01% of the community (almost all of them being young people I think) who probably had no reason to believe that my dad was innocent, but they were happy anyway. Whether my dad did it or not was inconsequential for a few people. They were prepared to support him anyway. Now, I KNOW that my father is innocent, a lot of others reached that conclusion fairly easily after reviewing the evidence, but I don't get the very small group of people for which innocent/guilty didn't matter, they were simply ready to support my dad no matter what. Those people are mostly ignorant and less evil I'd imagine, or I hope at least, because if I sensed that Singhs were actually behind the bombing, I would disassociate myself with them immediately.

2) An obnoxious lefty blogger made an obnoxious comment under one of my recent posts a couple of days ago. He said something to the effect that most conservatives think my father was guilty, so I'm obviously deluded because I'm a "Conservative". First, I don't care if people think my father was guilty, whether they be conservative, liberal, socialist, communist or anything else. I know that my father was not guilty. The judge very clearly dismissed all of the "evidence" against him, every last witness. If more conservatives than liberals believe something without any rational reason, then so what? Is that somehow going to change my views on the individual-state relationship? On tax-policy? On other issues of public policy? I don't understand.

Okay, I'm going to write up a few posts after this, so "regular blogging" begins now.

How certain were we?

Not entirely certain at all. We knew that the case was weak, but we weren't entirely certain of a not guilty verdict. I personally had a lot of faith because a lot of Gursikhs (devout Sikhs) were certain of an acquittal, but even I had doubt at some level. No one but the judge knew anything until the judge declared the main witness "uncredible".

Basically, it came down to one deciding factor. If the judge proved to be brave and independent, we knew the verdict would be not guilty, if not, we suspected that the verdict would be guilty. Fortuntely, the judge did turn out to be brave and independent, and we're all grateful for that.

The risk with a judge-alone trial is the issue of judicial independence. It's much easier to influence a single person than it is to influence a number of people (i.e. a jury). Luckily, we're not the conzpirizoid type, and we didn't believe that the judge would be influenced in such a way. A jury on the other hand, would've been unlikely to grasp the complex legal arguments that dominated much of the case, and they might've reacted out of emotion and irrational thinking as well as the desire to bring "justice" when in this circumstance, there was no justice to bring at all.

What Harper Said...

Stephen Harper came out after the verdict yesterday and most of what he said was perfectly fine and normal. However, he kept repeating over and over that "justice had not been done". This left me confused; did he mean that the verdict was wrong? Or was he saying that because no one had been found guilty alltogether and thus, there's zero murder convictions to show for this tragedy, meaning that justice was obviously not done in the larger picture? I really hope he was trying to say the latter. Stephen Harper knows close to nothing about the specifics of the case, and it's mostly just sad to see hundreds of spectators across the country bemoaning the verdict as if they followed the trial extensively.

He also urged the crown to pursue all avenues of appeal before a public inquiry is set up. I'm sorry, but who is Stephen Harper to urge the crown to pursue an appeal? They'll pursue an appeal if they feel it's in the the public interest. They don't need Harper telling them how to deal with something that they obviously know far more about. Anyways, an appeal seems entirely futile at this point. The case is over, I just hope that the victim's families look back at the case with a degree of hindsight and realize how much they were misled by the Crown and RCMP through all of these years.

Also, did anyone see Paul Martin's reaction? If you haven't, please do. It describes in fifteen seconds, everything that is wrong with this Prime Minister. Empty, sappy talk with no hint of action to back up his words. "Our hearts go out..." Yeah, that's great, but what are you going to do about it? Public inquiry or not? The victim's families (I'd imagine) don't care about your heart going out to them and neither does anyone else. Are you going to do anything about the zero murder convictions? Yes or no? If no, then be quiet and stop trying to relieve the pain of the victim's families. It doesn't relieve or soothe anybody. It might just annoy them though.

Media Bias, Part Two

Too many articles begin with the premise that yesterday's verdict was not the right one. At least that's the impression that's instilled into the minds of many readers, I'd imagine. The verdict is portrayed as shocking, surprising and nothing that anyone expected. However, not all articles clinged to the disproven aspects of the crown's case:

Where's the Justice? This is Justice

Canada needs truth in the Air-India case

Spiteful liar as star witness caused case to collapse

I'm unable to find my way around the last article's subscription... even though it's probably the best.

There's obviously a need to cover the sorrow, anger and disappointment of the victim's families... however, Justice Josephson's clear and straightforward ruling should be used as some sort of context in which to place the cries of unfairness and injustice.

http://www.notguilty.org

Update: The first two stories don't work either. In order to get around them, type the article's author or title into Google News search and the article will come up without the subscription wall.

Freedom

WOOO HOOO!

Full Disclosure for those of you who don't know: Ripudaman Singh Malik is my father.

Update: More thoughts later... This is a happy event for us, but it's still painful to imagine what the victim's families are going through right now. Let's hope that they direct their anger towards the government and not towards two innocent men who had nothing to do with this heinous crime.

Media Bias

Media bias was brought up in the comments section of a previous post so I thought I'd write about the differences between anti-conservative and anti-liberal media bias in Canada. (I was about to call it "left-wing" and "right-wing", but on second thought, that wouldn't be very appropriate)

I agree that the media isn't uniformally pro-Liberal... obviously it is not. Sometimes even the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail publish anti-Liberal editorials. The difference though was summed up in one of Mark Steyn's Western Standard articles from a few months ago when he said the Liberal Party's slogan is essentially "Vote for the Crooks, not the Fascists". And that's really so true. Whenever the media takes on the liberals, it's usually for corruption, incompetency, lack of an agenda and things of that nature. Whenever the media takes on the conservatives, it's almost always about gays, abortion and implicit allegations of racism. Canadians can stomach corruption and mediocrity far more than they can stomach supposed "extremism", and here's the problem, I really don't think that the media really believes the charges of extremism. I really don't, and if they do, they're just as guilty for being biased because of their stupidity.

In June, the first article ran about abortion during the election was a completely manufactured piece and was not a real story at all. I remember opening up The Globe and Mail one morning and I saw an article about Rob Merrified, a Conservative MP from Alberta who supposedly said that women should receive counselling (or something like that) before receiving an abortion. Now firstly, he never even said that at all. He was called by an aggressive reporter who ASKED him whether women should receive counselling in order to have him repeat a long-standing, public position on the issue. Paul Martin stated that same position that very day at a school, but no one cared. The Conservative MP caused a minor uproar.

Also, as demonstrated when Joe Volpe said that Stephen Harper would not want anyone but people who look like Stephen Harper living in Canada and when Judy Sgro claimed that the opposition was out to get her because they were "against immigration" and when stories like that appear, the media makes no effort to tell both sides of the story. The charges of racism aren't even allowed to be refuted. They're treated as completely legitimate and realistic charges that don't even NEED refutation, because they're so obviously true. This was the case in the Joe Volpe article that I linked to a few weeks ago. No refutation.

So yeah, that's the crux of the problem. If I was less informed, I'd vote for the libs in a heartbeat. If I lived in Europe, I'd vote for the parties that were less racist before I'd weigh their economic agendas and that's because racism IS far more mainstream in European society and it's not very mainstream in North American society at all.

The vast majority of conservatives know that if elected, they will not meaningfully enact legislation regarding abortion at all. They believe that they could probably revert the definition of marriage back to its traditional version, but how extreme is that? The definition hasn't even changed yet. And as for racism, c'mon. I honestly can't understand why people even believe that stuff.

Update: Forgot to make one last point: a lot of journalists, in my opinion, don't intend to be biased at all. However, there is a natural "conflict bias" within all of the media (which is a good thing). For the Liberals, the conflict bias leads to corruption, incompetence and all that other sort of stuff while even for an unbiased reporter, the conflict bias for the Conservatives ultimately leads to so-con issues. So... that's unfair, because as we know, it's better to be a crook than a fascist... but there's not much anyone can do about that for the time being. Unbiased reporters will obviously be influenced by their journalistic peers and by their bosses, even if those bosses are unbiased themselves. Conflict sells; and until conflict regarding the Conservatives can centre around non-so-con issues, then media bias will hurt the Conservative far more than it'll hurt the Liberals.

Guantanamo Bay

My brother Hardeep is questioning my views on detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

Before I respond, let me just say that this issue is a messy one. There's no easy or straightforward answer. On one hand, you have people who are almost certainly all violently anti-American. On the other hand, they're still human, which theoretically entitles them to "rights". The Americans claim that although the Gitmo prisoners are not entitled to Geneva protection as prisoners of war, they still receive that same protection anyway. So basically, the Americans will not call them POWs, yet they claim they offer them the same protection as POWs.

Also, let me say that I didn't try to start this argument with my brother. He came up to me and asked me questions that were designed for me to disagree. After being asked about Gitmo, as the supposedly pro-Bush guy that I am, it would be silly to expect me to blast the US government's human rights record, even if I have reservations with parts of it.

Hardeep raises a strange point. He claims that the prisoners should be "charged" in order to be held. I don't see any rational reason to do so. They're not US citizens or immigrants and are not entitled at all to "due process" as far as I know. The American government claims that they're at war with Muslim fundamentalists, so I suspect that they could be held until the war is "over", which is exactly what a Defense Department official says in an article in today's New York Times:

"Our top choice would be to win the war on terrorism and declare an end to it and repatriate everybody," a senior Defense Department official said in an interview. "The next best solution would be to work with the home governments of the detainees in order to get them to take the necessary steps to mitigate the threat these individuals pose."

"Winning the war on terrorism" is obviously hard to claim and likely, it'll never actually happen. However, If detainees a) no longer pose a threat, b) no longer have any value for intelligence, c) can be transferred to "humane" prisons in their home countries, then releasing them would seem to be a rational thing to do. Having said that, I still suspect that there are numerous current detainees who would do everything in their power to strike the US, at home or abroad, if they had the chance. It violates basic self-interest to release prisoners knowing that they would try to kill American servicemen/women or civilians if given the opportunity. Did allied forces in WW2 release Japanese or German POWs just because they weren't charged?

What would be their rationale? "Sorry for not charging you, now please leave, go back to your countries and continue with your plans to kill us."

Or as Hardeep naively (liberally) suggests, give them compensation as well. "Yes, here's some compensation as well for all of the mean things we did to you, promise not to put that money towards building big and bad bombs to kill us later?"

Also, I'm sure if the government was put through enough trouble, they could charge these people if necessary, but that itself wouldn't make sense. You don't charge POWs, do you? And the reason they're not being classified as POWs is to avoid any possible legal problems that come with POW status. It's much safer to keep them as "enemy combatants", in the legal sense. Is Hardeep telling me that if they prisoners were officially granted POW status, Gitmo would be far more legitimate?

As for torture, I've never actually bought into the fact that American "torture" or what is described as Americans using torture is particularly strenuous or shocking. Stress techniques, something about making people think they're drowning when they're actually not, standing up for long periods of time, this all sounds very light in comparison to torture in other countries, especially considering that I haven't yet encountered a single incident of American "torture" that would leave permanent physical damage. There were a couple examples in Abu Ghraib and those people are being court marshalled right now, no? One guy was just sentenced to like twenty years.

I get a lot of trouble because Sikhs themselves were targetted as terrorists mostly in the 1980s, and obviously, their human rights were violated immensely, but there's just no rational comparison between Muslim extremists today and certain Sikhs in Punjab during the 1980s. Those Sikhs did not target civilians. They did not want to "destroy India". Sikhs were "citizens" of the Indian state and India itself was far more brutal than the Americans today (my personal assessment). When that Muslim sniper guy was shooting and killing random civilians in and around the Washington, D.C. area, he was given a trial and found guilty. If anyone in Gitmo was a United States citizen, I would expect the same.

Those Self-Hating Idiots...

Just ran into this article....

But modern woman has taken a reality check. The average 29-year-old now hankers for a return to the lifestyle of a 1950s housewife. The daughters of the "Cosmo" generation of feminists want nothing more than a happy marriage and domestic bliss in the countryside, according to a survey.

Research into the attitudes of 1,500 women with an average age of 29 found that 61 per cent believe "domestic goddess" role models who juggle top jobs with motherhood and jet-set social lives are "unhelpful" and "irritating". More than two-thirds agree that the man should be the main provider in a family, while 70 per cent do not want to work as hard as their mother's generation. On average, the women questioned want to "settle down" with their partner by 30 and have their first child a year later.

Note: The title of my post is supposed to mock far-left liberal thinking on the subject of the roles of women.

If only...

I was re-reading Joel Fleming's post on Liberal Party True Believers and I recalled a scene from The Simpsons.

In one episode, Homer is sitting at home and watching a black comic on TV, and the black comic is making fun of how white people drive, at which point Homer starts laughing hysterically and says to himself "It's so true, we're so lame!" or something like that.

Obviously, in my admittedly biased perspective, I could only hope that an intellectually honest liberal (if such a thing exists) would say the exact same thing upon reading that post... and what a sight that would be.

International Women's Day

A friend asked me to make a post on International Women's Day on a Sikh Message Board and I refused because... well because I'm a male. Males who sound like feminists are probably the single-most annoying people on the planet. For real. Growing up in high school and even in university... witnessing guys who tried to stand up in class for "women's rights" was painful to watch. I never ever got a sense from them that they were genuine in what they said. They always seemed like they were trying to score points with girls. You know what? That's another topic by itself: a lot of male youths are liberal just because it's easier to meet girls that way. I've totally noticed that in university and in high school. For example, the campus young conservatives club is filled almost exclusively with guys while the young liberals club is much more gender-balanced. Like I said: a whole different topic.

So yes - I don't want to sound or look like one of those guys, the type that always seems very disingenuous in their support for "women's rights". Women should stand up for women. During the voting rights movement, women only succeeded because THEY were the activists. It was the same thing with the American Civil Right's movements, blacks only succeeded because the black community developed strong black leaders. Yes, they had many moral and good white men standing beside them, like the Reverend Billy Graham and other Christian leaders who found segregationism appalling, but blacks did not rely on whites to stand up for them. And because of that, they were successful.

I imagine it was the same in the Eastern Bloc of Europe during the Cold War and one can only hope that strong leaders will emerge in the Middle East to fight for their own freedom in the upcoming years as they rely on the Americans less and less. It's more honourable that way and that sort of freedom, equality and everything else is much more powerful.

Women in Punjabi (or Indian) society and in most societies of the world don't enjoy real and meaningful equality and that's tragic but that'll only change if the oppressed themselves stand up for what's rightfully theirs. Men should stand by them, but it's ridiculous when it seems as if men are doing most of the fighting. Equality is never achieved that way.

Floyd Axworthy, Part Two

The portion of Floyd's letter that most bloggers jumped on was the hilarious part in which he asked Condi to come up to Canada in order to observe Question Period.

For someone who routinely stood up in Question Period for six years, to a point where he casually deflected opposition criticism in open view of an uncaring media (like the rest of his cabinet colleagues), I'm shocked that Floyd would consider Question Period to be a legitimate and thoughtful democratic exercise, but then again, I can't imagine that his brand of liberals know much about democracy at all.

Joel - which constituent part of the Liberal Party would Floyd be a member... the Molson Patriots or the True Believers?

Question Period is largely a joke in comparison to US Senate Committee hearings with cabinet secretaries. Secretary Rice was only made Secretary of State after a two-day-long grilling by far-left Democratic Senators (which is a good thing, actually). Cabinet ministers are appointed in Canada, with far less legislative oversight.

When cabinet members sit before Senate Committees in the states, you could notice the humility and seriousness in their eyes. They don't deflect questions by referring to "8 straight surplus budgets" or other random, meaningless junk that's too painful for me to dig up. They don't get cheered by the entire government caucus after repeating scripted attack lines on the opposition. I remember after the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal, Secretary Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were infront of a Senate committee the very next day, answering questions in a very thoughtful manner, reflective of the seriousness of the issue that they were being questioned on. He didn't refer to the fact that the economy was picking up steam, he didn't refer to the fact that his government had provided tax relief to the American people - he answered questions about his specific department in a manner that showed respect for the senators that were doing the questioning. He didn't seem as if he was being evasive, he didn't seem as if he was annoyed or disrespectful to the members of congress.

Cabinet members are only appointed if they're deemed to understand something about their portfolio, prior to assuming that office. Alfonso Gagliano would never be a cabinet minister in the United States - never. Being a loyal Quebec political operative isn't good enough to make it to cabinet.

Do idiots like Axworthy actually believe their rhetoric about the USA being a one-party-state? Do they know all the facts and are just too stupid to process them meaningfully? Or are they that hopelessly ignorant and uninformed?

Oh My God

I never thought it would happen, but Lloyd Axworthy is now the Canadian politician or ex-politician who I dislike the most, replacing Joe Clark.

I knew already that Lloyd's stint as Foreign Affairs minister was a deeply immoral one because of how he stood up for "soft power" and all that other pro-dictatorial and immoral garbage, but I never knew that he was THIS radical.

I like to believe that when even the most lefist politicians enter positions of power, they're forced to moderate their views, out of necessity and pragmatic concerns. I would've imagined that Lloyd would've heard enough logical or rational arguments for American foreign policy when he was Foreign Affairs Minister - enough to disagree with them respectfully and in good faith, but I guess not.

His "open letter" to Secretary Rice is shocking and it highlights so many things about Canadian liberals that should make any rational person sick.

First, his condescending attitude is misplaced considering the fact that Canada would've likely "joined" Missile Defense if a) the liberal government was a majority, if b) they could've more easily relied on conservative support, or if c) they decided earlier when it was "less politically costly". If any of those three scenarios panned out, what would've Lloyd's reaction been instead? It's just like Iraq. Most Canadians forget that Iraq was a close call. If Jean Chretien wasn't out hunting for a legacy, we would've probably gone. And still,Canadian liberals use the refusal to join BMD and the refusal to go into Iraq as proud and noble moments in Canadian history - decided on principle. Whatever.

Just looking through Lloyd's letter makes me more sad than angry. He refers to President Bush as Rice's "divinely guided master", let's just leave aside the "divinely guided" for now, and concentrate on his reference to him as her "master". Would he have done the same if he was penning an open letter to Secretary Rumsfeld? Never. Not the slightest chance. He called him her master because Secretary Rice is a black woman and because Lloyd Axworthy is a racist bigot. Lloyd can't comprehend or imagine the idea of a strong and independent black woman.

Everything else in the article is just as uninformed and uncalled for, but I won't spend the energy dissecting it all. I much rather like Alan's response over at Occam's Carbuncle - which tries to show how Rice could care less about "Floyd's" opinion - but still. Lloyd Axworthy is a national disgrace, much like the rest of his former cabinet colleagues.

What if...

Mark Steyn, the world-renowned Canadian columnist likes to write articles about the unsustainability of Euro-Canadian welfare state society. I think he's mostly right. The Welfare state cannot sustain itself for more than a generation or two. Trudeaupian welfare statism began to unravel in the 1990s and I suspect that it'll continue to unravel in the future. Current attempts at strengthening the welfare state are mostly less ambitious and less encompassing than the attempts put forth in the 1960s. For example, subsidized childcare is nothing in comparison to state-monopolized healthcare.

Anyways, all of that is besides my point. I was thinking that France, Germany and other unsustainable European powers probably had some REAL reason to be against the invasion of Iraq. I've never really grasped a substantive reason, except for short-term political benefit. However, I was thinking and maybe there really was a deeper reason. I'm not sure if this is a new or a unique insight, since there's a lot of smart people out there thinking up this stuff all the time, but what if, the Europeans are against "freedom" and "democracy" in the middle east for basic demographic reasons?

Let me elaborate.

It's common sense to state that much of the Muslim world is "not free". However, it would be racist to state that Muslims are incapable of being free. A single Muslim man or woman is just as capable as anybody else of experiencing the creative potential and energy allowed by a free society. This is why almost all immigration leads towards the west and not the other way around.

If it became possible for the Muslim world to determine their own history and for them to govern their own societies, with the best interests "of the people" driving their governments, then immigration as we know it would never be the same. The creative potential of the world's Muslims would be possible to achieve in the Middle East, without immigrating to the west.

The Middle East would not suddenly begin to look like Europe or North America, but that wouldn't matter. Arabs and others would fail to see why they would have to move to Europe if they're capable of self-government in their native lands. The completely unsustainable and unrealistic European birthrates would begin to therefore have real and dire consequences. Maybe "stability" means more to Chirac and Schroeder and other European nations than they let others believe. Free societies in other parts of the world would completely change the landscape of immigration patterns and the unsustainability of European welfare statism would become that much more pronounced and obvious.

Who knows.

PS. I wrote this post in less than eight minutes! It just flew off my fingers - I guess that's because my internet connection at home has been extremely slow and mostly dead recently. I'm blogging from school right now...