Canada’s Debate

For once, a post that’s not about Warren Kinsella… although it does stem from a reader comment on his site.

but it suffers rather badly from something I see as a flaw with many Liberal ideas - too much emotion, not enough reason.

Ignoring for a moment the ambiguous use of the capital-L, lets consider this statement for a moment. What are liberal ideas? (The “L”iberal party’s only real idea is “stick to the middle and don’t do anything crazy”) I know how people like to talk about how “liberal” and “conservative” values have been transposed in recent centuries, and so on, but that’s bullshit. Liberalism always has been and always will be achieving the greatest liberty, for the greatest number, while Conservatism always has been, and always will be about having as little government intervention as possible. Sometimes these ideologies agree, but that’s the subject of another post.

What sticks to the roof of my mouth is this idea that “liberal” values are emotional, and “conservative values” are rational. I’ve heard this same sort of argument whenever I’ve challenged the doctrine that the free market is inherently more efficient than mixed-market or public-sector services, and various I’ve advanced similar ideas.

The fact is that all philosophy stems from an intuitive (read ‘emotional’) response, and then is developed through a rational thought process. Edmund Burke and Thomas Hobbes were both rational people who took emotional conceits (liberty can only be provided by the state; the French Revolution is democracy run amok) and developed political treatises which defined the Liberal and Conservative movements (”The Leviathan”, “Reflections on the Revolution in France.”)

Everyone believes their core beliefs to be rational. To a homeless guy wearing a tinfoil hat nothing could be less rational than leaving your brain undefended; our very self-awareness depends on our ability to not only reason, but rationalize. The arguments against Hate-speech laws are no more or less rational than those for them. The difference is the core values that underpin them: the Liberal quest to maximize freedom for all (90% freedom for three people is better than 100% freedom for one), or the Conservative ideal of “creating” freedom by restricting the individual as little as possible.

Personally, I choose the latter… And lets face it, I’m much more rational than your average Conservative.

Reading this post got me thinking about my sister. Now, my sister is neither Anglican or gay (and hopefully she is not reading this.) However, she is a feminist… a trait for which I admire her. Every year during passover she places an orange on the seder plate. While the story she uses is apocryphal, I get her point. I just don’t agree with it; not because I think Judaism should exclude women, gays, transexuals, etc., but because changing Judaism in order to include yourself means you’re not actually being a Jew.

I will explain, in the context of this same-sex marriage story. Regardless of whether or not the Anglican church decides to bless gay marriages, the idea of “pressuring” the church kind of irks me. Naturally religions change, so if they choose to change then there is no problem. However, religions are not public institutions (or, rather they shouldn’t be) and as long as they break no laws the state or civil society has no right to intervene. That’s fairly basic libertarianism right there… no surprises so far.

What does bug me is this idea that religion needs to change to suit the demands or desires of those who are otherwise excluded by said religion. (Continue reading…)

I had another one of my frequent, unplanned and uncontrollable free-association daydreams this morning, while I was shaving. Ignoring the fact that this is not a good time to shave, my thoughts led me somewhere interesting. For some reason Blossom came to mind, which led me to porn, and then to a show I remember watching several months ago where a woman said she couldn’t wait to turn 18 to she could get into pornography itself.

If you came here looking for boobs I’m sorry; this is not a post about porn. Being a nice guy I’ve tossed a picture at the bottom of the post though.

Ok, so when I remembered that dialogue I thought, “Man, our subculture is weird.” Now, every generation of youth is different than the preceding one, but I honestly think that something different is happening here. Subculture, or the distinctive culture of a certain group has always existed a bit on the margins. Kids have always hung out where their parents ain’t, geeks have always avoided jocks by hanging out in the library or stage-crew room, artists have always lived in colonies, etc. What’s striking about all of these examples (at least to me) is that these spaces were always at least partially shared; sub-culture existed on the fringes of the mainstream, but there was always an overlap of physical space. Now the internet (and in theory WWW2) allow for unlimited space. It is possible for someone to seek out inclusion and expression in a space that never only that particular group will see. (Continue reading…)

Here’s a simple question with two difficult answers. Is it possible to have a moral society when social obedience (social adherence to the laws of the land) is enforced by further laws?

The subject came up last week during an uncomfortable conversation with my family in a car last week. Does creating new laws to ensure that people follow old ones (creating new punishment regimes, adding regulations, overlapping laws, sentencing enhancements, etc.) really promote moral society, or does it undermine that society? I know what I think, but I’ll wait for someone to chime in before I embarrass myself.

What has one eye, six legs, about ten feathers, and foams tirelessly at the mouth?

Yep, you guessed it: the American media! This is not a critique of that media mind you… what it is is a rejection of the sort of mass “sadness” that seems to follow whenever tragedy strikes. Now, what is the difference between a tragedy and a “tragedy”? The answer I’m sorry to say is that the latter is a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; whereas a tragedy is a lamentable affair which afflicts a large group that reminds people of themselves.

I know I’m being insensitive, and perhaps even a prick, but I am being myself. When I see an outpouring of grief or a virtual font of sappy treacles like I’ve seen in the last thirty-six hours I don’t think of the victims (at least, the press and sentiment doesn’t cause me to think of them, the events however do,) and I don’t think of the killer; I think of the millions of people who don’t give a rat’s ass about the homeless person who freezes to death in the bus shelter down the street (a sign of my continuing decline… I originally typed streat) or the starving children in Mexico City, which is a giant slum punctuated by intermittent wealth. (Continue reading…)

The relationship between democracy and freedom is a very deep one, but the two are not the same. Never have been, and never will be. It is entirely possible to have democracy without freedom… so, the question remains, is it possible to have freedom without democracy, or more pointedly, is it possible to have democracy with no freedom? The reason I ask is simple. For the past thirty years the West (and the United States has led the charge) has been trying to fashion Democracy wherever it could. I use Democracy to denote a specific iteration of democratic government: a stable political regime with formalized public institutions, that is open to Western interests, and features enough participation to dispel potential social upheaval.

Now, whenever someone talks about “spreading democracy” they either do so in terms of benevolence or extreme distrust, but the reality of the “project” is much less idealistic. The truth is that western liberal democracy seeks to replicate itself in the same way that Communism does. Those in power in our democracies view them as the pinnacle of social development and naturally seek to replicate that success elsewhere.

So lets talk about freedom for a bit. There are two “types” of freedom employed by the Political analyst crowd: Political Freedom and Economic freedom… and while nobody knows the formula itself, the idea is that real democracy isn’t necessary so long as there is sufficient freedom of one sort or another. (Continue reading…)

Seeing as I have only one X chromosome, I don’t have any great insight or wisdom to share on what life is like for women. However, understanding women and understanding the circumstances that women face are entirely different; and that is the reason why we should all take some time to consider International Womens’ Day.

I am not going to delineate the status of women world wide (although Redjenny has a pretty good brief on the subject up), or provide some sort of comparative evaluation of the womens’ movement here or elsewhere. Instead, I direct your attention to this story (emphasis mine):

More than 600 Guatemalan women a year are murdered. The figures have quadrupled in the last five years, while the murder rate among men has remained constant. Since January, 102 women and girls have been killed, among them a 7-year-old who was raped and beheaded….

Director Giselle Portenier went to Guatemala after reading an Amnesty International report on the escalating violence against women in this country of 12 million people.

That so few of the female murders are even investigated only adds to the sense that killing a woman is “a third-class crime.” Not one of the 665 reported cases in 2005 was ever solved.

If that doesn’t give pause, then no amount rational discourse will.

Suggesting that you read Warren Kinsella can be a liability on the blogosphere… especially if you’re trying to make it clear that you are not a member of the Liberal party. That being said, I do read him, and occasionally respond to what he has said… I also read a blogger named Robert McLelland, or rather, I should say that I used to read him.

Now, I’ve taken Robert to task repeatedly for his wildly ambitious claims about meeting our Kyoto obligations and his extremely underwhelming follow-through on those claims. I keep checking in to see if he’s made any progress, and he keeps on vindicating me with his cacophony of silence; punctuated occasionally here by his claims of ‘harangue-ment.’

Now, these two pre-eminent members of the blogging community are old rivals, with accusations and proclamations of intellectual and moral depravity being flung both ways. Despite my interest in what both had to say I had made it a point to stay out of the fray. Personal disputes between bloggers are counterproductive and frustrating, and are more often than not childish to the point of insignificance, so I figured that I should ignore the histrionics and take from each blogger what I needed to satisfy my own intellectual and literary goals… but now I’m not sure that I can. (Continue reading…)