I don’t see the evidence that Jamal was Canadian-born, but I might have missed it. Regardless, as I said, I know lots of rebellious teenagers, and none of them are violent jihadists. They seem to mostly be rebelling about wanting nicer cars and staying out late, not about blowing up Parliament buildings and beheading the Prime Minister. How come? Is there maybe some cultural thing happening here?
Really, I think if you’re going to go on about this we should start a separate thread in GD about Canadian immigration. Because it’s obscuring the recent news that we should all be paying attention to:
No sooner has Harper tossed the coffee mug pisser out of the race than another one bites the dust for YouTube antics like making fun of the disabled. Stay classy, Harper backbenchers, stay classy. Maybe just stick to evolution denial and ridiculing climate science.
I wouldn’t want any PM to join with Duceppe to form a government. The guy has one goal, to breakup Canada. And any political leader that wants to jump into bed with Duceppe is a traitor to Canada in my eyes.
The message I got out of his statements there is that he thinks that if he has a plurality of seats he gets to form government even if the Libs and NDP want to govern as a coalition, whether formal or informal.
No, what he said was he wouldn’t if the Conservatives “lost by a seat.” He did not say he wouldn’t if they “lose seats,” which is a completely different thing. The Conservatives could, obviously, lose some seats they held at dissolution but still win more seats than anyone else.
Okay. I see your point. Trudeau said something similar, but unlike Trudeau and particularly Mulcair who is willing to reach across the aisle, I am rather miffed at Steve’s all or nothing sort of mentality. Either he forms a government or he takes his marbles and slunks home.
FWIW, I think if Harper loses this election he won’t be the party leader for much longer.
It’s probably too early to say but I can picture the NDP forming a minority government, the Liberals as the Loyal Opposition and the Conservatives losing a lot of seats and heading off to the woods to figure out what happened. I could also see the same situation but with the NDP and Liberals reversed. But I feel like the Conservatives are done for a couple few election cycles.
I don’t want to keep belabouring the immigration sidetrack but this is not a matter of “dressing it up”, there really is a fundamental difference. The difference is that it’s not just a matter of some randomly occurring crazies – some cultures are just inherently savage and have institutionalized sociopathic behaviors as the norm.
Like those that believe in infanticide because the baby turned out to be female, who believe in “honor killing” of one’s own daughter because she was dating an infidel and her skirt was too short, who treat women as chattels with no rights, who believe in cutting off limbs for theft and stoning for adultery, and who believe in perpetrating violence on all who are not of their own religion.
As already mentioned, there are those who admire and revere the mastermind of the Air India bombing, and the picture of this mass murderer is prominently displayed at the front of a Sikh temple in Vancouver. It’s like if the US welcomed into the country those who celebrated the 9/11 tragedy and admired the hijackers.
Oh, those notoriously violent Sikhs! Cite, please, for the picture being prominently displayed, and for it being of the person who masterminded the bombing?
It would also be good to have a cite for “some cultures are just inherently savage and have institutionalized sociopathic behaviors as the norm.” I mean, I can sort of see it, but it seems like it would apply to any society that glorifies war and the military, which only some of us do, or keeping slaves, which we haven’t done for almost 200 years (in the British Empire), or things like the Residential Schools, but I gather you’re talking about the scary Them, not Us + Everyone.
Wow everyone should really listen to yesterday’s “As it Happens” interview with Kory Teneycke. You can **really **hear the weariness in his (normally smarmy) voice in trying spin this carwreck of a campaign (and scandal ridden governing record). It sounds like Harper’s camp has just given up, there’s still over a month left til the election but I’m sure they are toast.
I mean, Del Mastro, Duffy, Wallin, Meredith, Angry Tory guy, closed rallys, muzzled candidates, war with media/questions, angry scientist videos, mass Senator investigations…
…the coup de grace seems to have been last week’s Alexander vs Barton (I bet he wishes he could’ve hang up there too) discussion which lead to the public awareness that this government has been secretly freezing/slowing refugee applications (refusing to give a number when questioned)…
This election period has been nothing, but a complete and utter shitshow for the Tories; from start to now.
The cite was given at the end of post #204. Here it is again. Not only did our justice system fail to convict him, but we protected him against extradition requests from the government of India. But he was martyred anyway when the gentleman was on a holy mission to buy anti-aircraft Stinger missiles from the Pakistani Taliban, and was captured and killed by government agents.
It’s beyond ridiculous to have to dig up cites for the fact that these practices occur in specific cultures and some are widespread and commonplace. We have even imported some into our own country. Indeed, in response to these and other horrors, just last year the immigration minister tabled a bill aptly named The Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act. And I think the old “we’re not perfect either” angle is a weak argument that tries to draw false equivalencies by dredging up the distant past, when society overall really was more barbaric everywhere, or trying to compare things that have no meaningful parallels.
Re: the Sikh example: very interesting, and disturbing; thanks for highlighting it. Many of my students are Sikhs in Surrey, and some no doubt go to this temple.
As to the second point, I just think the bar for “this is a bad culture” should be much, much higher than “they do the sort of things we did not all that long ago and now decry.” The Residential Schools are not that far in the past, for example. I take your general point, but I’m not willing to write off entire cultures.
Let’s not forget at least two Conservative candidates (so far) being tossed from the running for stunningly stupid, embarrassing antics. It’s amazing that Harper still has as much traction as he does. I think a lot of his support now is from the “devil that you know” crowd who is willing to hold their noses and stick with the familiar if increasingly distasteful.
It’s a rather honest and realistic assessment of the situation. If the Conservatives don’t win there is absolutely no hope whatsoever of them forming a coalition with the third place party. Why would he pretend otherwise?
