As a historical document, The Hunt for Red October is accurate about a lot of things, but it’s still fiction.
ah, point well made
I cannot believe that Cindy McCain parroted Steve Doocy’s line that Palin has national security experience because “Alaska is so close to Russia.”
Palin’s own mother is law said she wasn’t sure what Palin brought to the ticket other than being a woman and conservative.
I’d say man of 'em only seem to care about life until you’re born.
uuuh…i didn’t mean to derail things…just wanted to get a better idea of why the hell anybody would want to identify themselves as conservative and why things are so damn polarized (us or them) when the overwhelming majority of us in canuckistan are moderates. got a nice eloquent answer from taranis before things started getting out of hand…
I wouldn’t call the Harper-led Conservative Party very left-centrist. Harper has tried in the past two years in his minority government to bring back the issues of same-sex marriage (several provinces had it legal since 2003 to 2005 but it was finally made legal federally in July 2005 by the previous Liberal government) and abortion.
Harper isn’t stupid, I’ll give him that, so he knows that with minority government has no chance of making amendments to address socially conservative sensitive laws on legal abortions and gay marriage in Canada. That’s why his party appears more “center”, a political space occupied by the Liberal Party. If he was a truly centrist, he would have worked with the opposition parties (the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP) instead of playing chicken (and winning) everytim there was a vote of no confidence in Parliament.
I agree Eric, I just meant in comparison to the crazies down south.
The reason why most of us here in Canuckistan are moderates or left-leaning (in our political spectrum at least), is that the majority of the 33 million Canadians live in urban areas (the metro population of Canada’s five largest cities – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Ottawa – is around 14 million, or 42% of the nation’s people) and along the US-Canadian border. As such, Canadians tend to be exposed to other races, ethnicities, cultures, and languages, hence more open-minded and “liberal.”
The major difference I noticed between American and Canadian politics are the issues of religion and patriotism. The religion (or even lack of) of a political candidate, as far as I know, is never brought up because frankly we don’t care. As for questioning a candidate’s patriotism is a rather moot point up here in Canuckistan since Canadians are rather held back in showing our national pride when it’s not July 1st (Canada Day) or a Canadian hockey team wins in the Stanley Cup or World Cup of Hockey finals.
Yeah, true.
The Conservative Party at best would be equal to the Democratics in the American political spectrum. There would be never a Liberal Party (I really have no idea with the term “liberal” is a four-letter word down there) or a separatist party (unlike our Bloc Quebecois) in the US.
But that’s the difference. We have a parliamentary system, which is open to more political parties.
I can see this argument being made about the hypocrisy of “social conservatives” opposing abortion while also opposing aid for single mothers, but I don’t think this is what you’re talking about here. I think you’re referring to the death penalty. Which is a tired old chestnut.
“Pro Life” voters who also support the death penalty do so on grounds of justice rather than the inviolable sanctity of life. They view unborn children as fully human and, as children, innocent victims of the murder they claim abortion to be. They view murderers and rapists as deserving of the death penalty as the consequence of the crimes they have committed against society.
The best arguments I have heard against the death penalty have not turned on any claim to the sanctity of human life, but have instead used the more utilitarian arguments of cost, effect on crime rates, victim safety, and wrongful accusation. To paint opponents of abortion/supporters of the death penalty as unthinking hypocrites is merely an example of a fundamentalist’s unthinking worldview: and while Qt3 P&R may not be better than that, I know people like Athryn are and can do much better.
I’m referring to both, actually. It seems that they don’t care about the poverty that these children are born into, the underfunded schools they have to go to, the crime they end up so often committing. They get put into jail for mandatory minimums for drug offenses and end up becoming more hardened criminals because of it.
It really does seem to me that all they care about is whether it lives, not the quality of that life.
Then why don’t you just ask her to clarify, rather than provide a rebuttal to a claim she hasn’t necessarily made.
I can see how pro-life voters would appear that way, as the candidates they tend to vote for tend to be pretty traditional GOP platformers. I’m not sure if it will be possible to gather meaningful polling data, but I’m predicting that we will see quite a few former single-issue voters (abortion) supporting Obama in November. I’ve always felt the social justice aspect of the DNC platform was a better fit for the so-called religious right in America… it’s just that abortion is such a tough sticking point (many view it as the equivalent in terms of generational sin to slavery in pre-civil war America). Because McCain and Obama are viewed (by many) as equivalent in their position regarding abortion, the election can become about all of the other issues this single-issue bloc has traditionally ignored.
This isn’t the right thread for that debate.
What’s your stance on the death penalty? Is life only sacred to you when it’s a fetus?
I’m against it, I think we should instead implement a “Cool Hand Luke” style of prison for the worst offenders in our society. Death is to good for them.
Why is it ok for you to bring it up, but not for me to respond? You’re the one who mentioned the reasons why in the first place, how does it become inappropriate for someone else to express their opinion? There’s already been plenty of other abortion discuccion (see obama and laundry room et al several pages back.)
If you don’t want to talk about it, then don’t bring it up.
I was responding as to why I was Conservative, to show “rei” why someone like me would vote for someone like Palin, even though I don’t believe everything the far right does.
I don’t time right now to start a new thread on abortion but I’ll be back in a few hours and then we can go round and round on the issue if you like.
Babygate’s been done in this thread already.
How about something more interesting with regards to her abuses of power?
She was evidently very close to being recalled in Wasilla because she fired the police chief and library director for not supporting her.
She’s like the female version of Bush, seriously. :\
I’m just going to leave this here.
Awesome :)