The Tragedy that is the pro-life movement

Generally speaking, I'm not a very socially conservative person, in the sense that I do not wish to impose my personal moral preferences on society as a whole.

However, there is one issue that puts me firmly in the "socially conservative" camp, and that issue is abortion.

Now, some people might see that as a contradiction, and I can't blame them. Some people innocently believe that being pro-life means imposing personal religious beliefs onto society.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I don't blame people who believe that pro-lifers are insane wackos for two primary reasons:

The pro-life movement itself was horribly thought out and organized. Most "mainstream folk" came to assume that only evangelical Christians were pro-life, and that being pro-life was directly tied to being a religiously active person. Sadly, that is largely the case, but it isn't ALWAYS the case. People can oppose abortion for a VARIETY of reasons. Nothing in my religion causes me to oppose abortion... I oppose abortion because of what I see as the taking of a life. My religious scriptures don't advise me on the issue - my judgment is completely my own. Here's where the biggest problem was... evangelical Christians (in the United States) saw absolutely nothing wrong with defining the pro-life movement as a Christian movement. How stupid and short-sighted. Instead of broadening the movement to include people who were less religious or even atheistic, the pro-life cause let it be known that it was content with the perception that being pro-life was synonymous with being Christian. Of course, I'm generalizing. Some pro-life Christians are remarkably far-sighted and awesome people, but I'm trying to speak about the rule, not the exception.

Second, let me paste a comment that was posted on my blog a few days ago under the name "White Metal":

ABORTION IS EVIL!Kill abortioners to show them what its like!DIE ABORTION!There is no excuse to end the life of an infant. Whether or not you think they are nice is irrelevant. It is a BABY. An UNBORN one at that. **** abortion. It is pervese sickness. It is satanism. There can be no other words for such sickness. It disgusts me. Think about it-they are CUTTING up a baby. Lets cut up abortioners too! Then the scream won't be so silent.**** ABORTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a horrible comment to make. I can understand the emotion behind considering abortion evil, but the way to lessen abortion is not through condemnation or threats. The pro-life movement needs to spend more time winning hearts. The pro-life movement in Canada is dead because the left did an excellent job of tying "pro-choice" with secularism, and consequently, "pro-life" with religious extremism. It doesn't always have to be that way. Winning hearts isn't always easy when pro-abortion orthodoxy dominates most fields in society, but it isn't impossible either. Society continues to renew itself every decade, every generation. Creating a pro-life majority might be out of reach in the foreseeable future, but creating an environment, where at the very minimum, government could place some commonsense restrictions on abortion besides the idea of "viability" is very possible... but instead, Canadians seem content to elect a bunch of demagogues who are spineless and conscious-less because they will do anything to spin common-sense restrictions on abortion into a full-fledged fear campaign.

The Canadian political system in disarray

(A friend asked me to write a post explaining the possible outcomes of the upcoming federal general election.)

No matter the results from the upcoming election, the upcoming Canadian government will be weak and unstable.

Electoral reform may eventually be necessary in order to break the gridlock that will define the Canadian Parliament for the forseeable future. If not electoral reform, then at least a structural change in Canadian politics that will put less emphasis on party identification.

There are a number of possible scenarios that might come about from the vote in January, all of which are not pretty.

Scenario 1) Liberals win a plurality of seats, let's say that number is 115, the Conservatives win 105, the NDP wins 25 and the Bloc wins 63. What happens here? Even if the NDP were to support the Liberals, there would be no working majority in the House. The only possible working scenario would be an explicit partnership between the Bloc and the Conservatives. Both the Bloc and the Conservatives will almost certainly never be able to support the governing Liberals into the near to medium range future, but could they support each other?

Scenario 2) Conservatives win a minority. Let's say they win 130 seats, the Liberals win 90, the NDP wins 25, and the Bloc wins 63. This scenario is perhaps the best possible one for Conservatives. They can only be defeated in this case if the Bloc vote to bring them down. The Bloc can simply abstain on budgetary matters, allowing the Conservatives to stay in power. It would be hard for them to justify voting out the Conservatives since they would then be likely replaced by the Liberals.

Scenario 3) Conservatives win a plurality of seats. Let's say they win 115 and the Liberals win 105. The NDP could win 25 and the Bloc once again wins 63. In this scenario, the Liberals and NDP would not have a working majority, but they would still outnumber the Conservatives, requiring EXPLICIT instead of implicit Bloc support on confidence matters - Not pretty.

Scenario 4) Somehow, someway, the Liberals maintain their 135 or so seats, and the NDP gains a few as well. I don't see this as possible. The Bloc is almost certain to make further inroads in Quebec, and therefore I can't imagine the Conservatives dropping by 10 or so seats. The Conservatives at the very least, will likely maintain their seat numbers and will therefore form the majority of the house along with the Bloc.

What is the problem in all 4 of these scenarios? The Bloc Quebecois. Quebec still makes up a little less than one quarter of the seats in the Canadian Parliament. By not allowing either of the two competitive options to win seats in that province, Canadian parliaments into the future will likely continue to result in stalemates.

More proof that France is a thoroughly backwards country

This story in the Guardian shows why I increasingly feel as if most of Europe does not live up the liberal reputation that it enjoys in North America.

A French rapper faces the prospect of jail for referring to France unfavourably in a song.

Europe, where enlightened ideas on the place of government were put forth centuries ago, currently has a very twisted and warped idea of what role government should and could play in society.

Canada and America both have their problems, with freedom, and with a host of other issues, but there's no two other countries I could imagine living in, at this time.

Air India Investigation

Further investigation into the Air India bombing will be suggested tomorrow. Good.

It has the potential to uncover a number of institutional mistakes in the Canadian criminal justice system, but it also has the potential to fail miserably.

I just saw a piece on CBC's The National which showed me why further investigation into the Air India case might not be all that fruitful. CBC's Terry Milewski (one of the most pathetic excuses for a reporter I've ever witnessed) and the Vancouver Sun's Kim Bolan (also in the same category) put forth a number of very poorly reasoned arguments that they believed pointed back towards the two men who were exonerated this past March (one of those men I know quite well.)

In almost every news story on the matter of problems in the Air India investigation, theories put forth by journalists show a shocking lack of understanding of both the case itself as well as of the community at large.

The first misconception is that "terrorists" still and have always had a strong grip on Canada's Sikh community. This is such a pathetic slander, and I can't believe that they so strongly insinuate it in every story. By terrorism, if the journalists are referring to the indiscrimate killing of civilians, or even the assasination of political leaders, I can confidently say that no mainstream Canadian Sikh organization holds that view. Not a single one. And not only that, but the only "Sikhs" I've ever heard espouse such a view are teenagers on internet message boards. That's it, and I've been raised in the Canadian Sikh community all my life.

The second misconception is similar to the first. The journalists grossly overexxagerate the strength, organization and financing of the "terrorist groups" that they refer to. There is no well-established and well-connected movement for an independent Sikh state in the Punjab province of northern India. I actually wish there was (incase India moves into full-mode communal and ethnic violence some day), but there isn't. There never really has been. Saying that there has been is indicative of either wishful thinking or shocking ignorance.

The third error in reporting on this matter attempts to connect issues that are completely independent from one another in order to advance an agenda (the emotionally-driven agenda of wanting certain people who the journalists believe to be responsible for the Air India bombing to be held responsible for it). For example, almost every story on the investigation mentions the death of Tara Hayer. As I've said before, Tara Hayer was an opportunistic and disingenuous man who was never the "moderate" that he was portrayed to be by the news media. Also, it is an incredible stretch to imply that Hayer would have been of any real or critical value to the Air India case had he been alive. There is NO evidence of that being true.

There are a number of other errors and misunderstandings in the news media's coverage (by the news media, I refer solely to Milewski and Bolan) of this matter - errors and misunderstandings that I really hope do not carry themselves into any further investigation by the government.

Does Canada's right need rescuing?

There's a new book out this week called Rescuing Canada's Right which attempts to lay out a blueprint for conservative success in Canada. I haven't read the book, but from what I've gathered, I agree with certain ideas put forth while not accepting the premise on which other ideas are put forth. The main focus of the book seems to be that the Canada needs a conservative infrastructure. Right-leaning journalists, think-tanks, media, etc. are needed in order to make conservatism more mainstream in Canada. I agree with that. The presumption of leftism when people bring up politics in discussion with me is frustrating, to say the least.

Having said that, there are a number of assumptions in the book that seem off-base to me. Firstly, when I look at Canada and the state of conservatism, I first look at the world in order to find examples of small-government success stories. There aren't many. The world loves statism. The ENTIRE world it seems, at this juncture in time, when given the option between small and big government, picks big government. I can't think of any exceptions at the moment. Small-government reforms only seem to be made in the most dire of circumstances.

Humans seem instinctively tied to having a state that will make decisions for them. Government is no longer universally about 1) keeping people safe and 2) creating favourable economic conditions. It's about so much more. And that certainly isn't limited to Canada. Having said that, let's look at right-leaning parties throughout the world. Right-leaning parties in most African and Asian countries are usually more about nationalism than they are about free market-ness. Western Europe? They're slightly less statist than their leftist counterparts, but they have no real desire to scale back government in any significant way. Eastern Europe? The jury is still out on Eastern Europe. Lastly - America. America's current federal adminstration is both statist and free-market oriented, which is weird. They're anti-tax but pro-spending (although that's partially the fault of the congress). America's deficit could be cut significantly if enough Republican congressmen had the will to cut "social spending", but they don't. America had Reagan during the 1980s, but he wasn't as radical when it came to social spending as most people paint him to be today. He had a Democratic Congress to deal with, and thus was unable to cut spending that much.

As for conservative infrastructure throughout the world, I believe it only exists in the way we in North America view the right-left divide, in the United States and to a much lesser extent in England. Even here, the success that is painted by the authors of Rescuing Canada's Right is overstated. There's the National Review and other conservative magazines in America, but none of these are that mainstream. Most people in America who vote for Conservative candidates don't do so for fiscally conservative (or "movement" conservative) reasons as much as they do so for social reasons, like gun-rights, opposition to gay-stuff and abortion - or simply because of identity politics - wanting a strong leader instead of a waffling one (Bush v. Kerry).

Basically, the right-left divide as seen today has only been manifested in political parties for the past few decades. Before that, it was largely anyone's guess on the question of which political party was for small or big government (that goes for Canada, America and England). America had Goldwater (who was trounced), and then Reagan (who came to office by defeating the most pathetic US president in history), and since then, they've rarely shown any meaningful small-government tendencies. England had Thatcher for 11 years until she was defeated by her own party. England's Conservative Party hasn't really been all that small-government oriented since. In Canada, we didn't have a Goldwater, a Reagan or a Thatcher. That was the problem.

Canada's right needed rescuing around 30 years ago, when a leader could've came in, in order to clean house and establish Canada's Conservative Party as truly separate from the statist policies of Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Instead? When England was picking Thatcher and when America was picking Reagan (almost in 1976, then successfully in 1980), Canada chose... Joe Clark. (and then, to be fair, a few years later, Canada did better, but did not hit a home run with Brian Mulroney) Instead of picking a leader who could sharply draw a contrast with the paleo-liberal ideas of Trudeau, Canada's conservatives picked Trudeau-lite. No sharp contrast was drawn, and therefore no infrastructure really popped up. Today, drawing a sharp contrast is harder, considering that today's Liberal Party isn't as hard-line left-wing as it was under Trudeau.

My basic point? It was the PC Party of the 70s and 80s that is the cause of conservative troubles in Canada today. Instead of being taken over by actual conservatives, which was happening in England and in America, the PC party did not allow ACTUAL conservatives to have a voice. What happened then? We all know - Preston Manning founded the Reform Party and Conservatives have been in the wilderness ever since. Finally, the two parties united, and Canada's current Conservative Party is less than 2 years old... but let's look at the party itself.

Canada might lack a conservative infrastructure, but it certainly doesn't lack an ideologically right-of-centre party (on this point I seem to disagree strongly with the authors of the book) It is my humble submission that Canada's Conservative Party is the most small-government oriented political party in the entire world. Conservatives who were aliented by the rigidity of the PC party are now in control of today's party apparatus.

Based on my research, I can't think of any mainstream political party (that has the possibility of attaining power) that has more genuinely conservative policies than Canada's Conservative Party, at least in the way I personally view conservatism. Read the Conservative Party's policy declaration - it isn't perfect, but much of it is on the right track. Look at the Conservative Party's leader - Stephen Harper. Besides Reagan and Thatcher (and arguably W. Bush) there haven't been many supply-siders (economic theorists) who have been elected to executive political power in the world. If Harper becomes PM, he will be one of the few. The Conservative Party is also incredibly reform-oriented, when it comes to transparency and things of that nature - whether these items actually become reality upon election is something we'll have to wait for.

In summary - yes, a conservative infrastructure would be good... but let's not lose site of the fact that a) conservative success is hardly commonplace and b) Canada's Conservative Party compares relatively well with right-wing parties from around the world. It's just about getting elected now, which is where the infrastructure comes in. One last thing - the Conservative Party of Canada hasn't really had a chance to fight a proper campaign yet. It fought one campaign in June of 2004, but that was less than a year after the merger. Things were still a bit shaky back then. The results of the next campaign will tell us a lot more about the state of conservatism in Canada.

The Father of Quebec?

The Parti Quebecois has just elected a cocaine-sniffing homosexual as its leader.

Why is either of these characteristics significant?

Not because of their morality or immorality, but because I can't imagine Quebecers, or really any people in the world, electing such a person to lead their nation into sovereignty - based almost solely on perception.

In 1995, Quebec had Lucien Bouchard, and to a lesser extent, Jacques Parizeau leading the charge for independence. Bouchard had just fought his way out of a potentially life-threatening disease. The way he responded gave the sovereigntists a huge boost in a referendum that would have otherwise resulted in a much larger federalist victory.

Personally, I wouldn't mind voting for a homosexual candidate as long as his or her ideology was in relative sync with my own... however, when creating a nation, when asking someone to lead you towards sovereignty, I would think that "identity politics" would cause many Quebecers to hesitate putting the potential "birth" of a nation into the hands of someone who was weak enough to take cocaine when he was a cabinet minister.

Bosclair also doesn't have that sort of traditional family that most Quebecers could relate to. I'm not trying to make his homosexuality out to be a big deal... but, when dealing with issues such as education, childcare, etc., I'd imagine that it's tougher for a province to elect someone who will never have children of his own (barring a mid-life conversion to heterosexuality.)

Fascist Leader Celebrates

The leader of France's far-right, Jean-Marie La Pen is rejoicing at his renewed electoral prospects due to the rioting and unrest in his country over the past 2 weeks.

As predicted in the post below, extremist electoral triumphs will undoubtedly increase as the French, and other Europeans turn to "strongmen" who are seen to be more likely to keep order.

However, La Pen is probably unlikely to win the Presidency himself. However... if the far-right in France find a younger, more charismatic leader... who knows what might happen.

Scariest Scenario

As rioting continues in France, and as it will inevitably (unless there are major reforms) spread throughout Europe, there is one scenario that seems the scariest...

I remember in my History of France class last year, my professor kept referring to the French tradition of rebelling against the principles of the French revolution and opting for the security, the return to tradition and all of that of a strongman; a dictator.

He said that since 1789, this has been a constant of French society. It most recently happened when Charles De Gaul basically drafted his own constitution in the late 1950s, which greatly empowered the French Presidency.

What stops France from reverting backwards once again, once their demographics further weaken their welfare state?

Many in North America think of France as some sort of progressive and liberal state, but its history says otherwise.

It's probably too late for a strong-man to secure power in the 2009 presidential election, but I'd be surprised if a strong-man candidate didn't win in 2016 (French presidents have 7 year terms!).

Wouldn't that be scary? It'd probably be some sort of right-wing fascist too. And once France does, what's stopping the rest of Europe's failing states? I don't want to prophesize with a great deal of certainty, but the failure of the French society to integrate its immigrants and to be realistic with its "social programs" might just end up leading to major catastrophe - i.e. another war in Continental Europe.

The failure of the ban on religiousity

Good article in the Telegraph today which sums up many of my thoughts quite nicely on why there's rioting right now in Paris.

Immigration need not mean social exclusion. Most of the people who move from
poor to rich countries do so with the best of intentions: to work hard and make
a better life for themselves and their children. I write this from the United
States, a country built on immigration. But the US has long excelled at
integrating newcomers into American society.

I wanted to add some other thoughts as well...

Two years ago, the French government instituted a ban on religious headware in public schools and other government buildings.

In essence, they were trying to move forward with a forced assimilation policy.

Coerced assimilation rarely leads to successful integration into society.

Instead of developing a sort of "French Islam" in which French Muslims could be both proudly French and Muslim, the French government opted to go with a route that the Muslim community, by in large, found to be undignified and unjust (and indeed it was).

Of course, the resentment as expressed in the rioting isn't justified, but it isn't all that surprising either.

Integration is only successful when immigrants feel included; when they feel that they can latch onto something in their new society... something that they can call their own.

This doesn't happen in France. I don't know why... but I suspect that it's because of a deep-seated racism in French society that doesn't bother dealing with those, who on the surface, appear to be unFrench.

As mentioned in the article and in the post below, the second problem is clearly economic. Unemployment rates (and particularly the difference between immigrant and native unemployment rates) in Europe are a disaster, and they only seem to get worse by the year.

Free-market reforms and a willingness to genuinely include the Muslim population into French society through properly educating them (and therefore employing them) are the only two things that I could imagine saving France from further imploding.

Riots in Paris

As rioting continues in the suburbs of Paris, many commentators have pointed to the lack of integration and assimilation that plagues many Muslim youths in France and throughout Western Europe.

This commentary seems to be largely right.

Basic economic factors that make the French economy and welfare state unsustainable also seem to be showing themselves.

I hate to sound like a social scientist aiming to look for "root causes" but the explanations I've read that have attempted to explain the alienation of European Muslim youths are largely off base.

Being Muslim does not in and of itself cause alienation. Many Muslim youths throughout Europe are simply uneducated. The public school system seems to have failed. The school system is the best and often only chance to integrate children into the dominant culture.

Being born and raised in Canada, I could confidently say that it would take a lot for a Muslim youth who attended all of grade school in the public system here to be hostile to western society. It's possible, but it just isn't possible for it to happen often or for it to be widespread.

I say this with some confidence because after the July bombings in London, and even after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, polls of British Muslims showed that almost a half of all respondents were sympathetic to the cause of the Jihadists. Those numbers would never exist among Muslims in North America.

I'm pointing to the school system even though I went to a private SIKH school (Khalsa School), where we had a prayer session and a religious class every single day (added onto the regular curriculum). I still remember having to memorize O Canada in the second or third grade. I still remember having a special assembly with veterans every Remembrance Day. We all still wore poppies this time of year. We still did a lot of the same stuff that was done in public school, meaning that it's even possible to integrate youths into the dominant culture through private, even religious schools, as long as there's proper guidelines and regulations.

European Muslims don't seem to get schooling that enforces any kind of nationalism or even any kind of attachment to western society. That really confuses me. How hard is it to use the public school system in order to integrate the children of Muslim immigrants?

It shouldn't be so easy for Jihadist recruiters to enlist misinformed, uneducated and paranoid Muslim youths.

The riots in Paris aren't really an Islamist issue right now, but they definitely seem to be a product of alienation and a lack of integration.

The presumption of guilt

Normally, I don't like to write about American politics, but I'm currently taking a class on American government in school and I had to write about this topic a couple of days ago.

Why did the Vice President's Chief of Staff have to resign?

Doesn't it seem as if society in general has moved so much away from the presumption of innocence?

Does being charged with a crime warrant resignation from government posts?

The charges put forth last week are just that - charges. No jury has said that they're true. They're charges from a prosecutor. Many charges put forth by prosecutors are proven to be unsubstantied and unfounded.

I read a news article which dealt with the last time a White House aide was indicted on a crime - it was 130 years ago.

The aide stayed in his post - he was put to trial and then acquitted. The White House stuck by him during the process.

Why is that so unthinkable now?