Oh, the old "tyranny of the majority" used to describe democracy. Now we have the tyranny of the minorities instead, but I prefer democracy. I do find the total inability to debate and be able to defend their sound bites in an intelligent way amusing. Remove their sound bites and they are speechless.
The Charter is just words on a page. It is the judges who decide what the words shall mean, and, indeed, who deign to add words to it which were never there.
Ah, yes. Evan made this point. This would only work if the courts improbably ruled on the wrong side of the leftist/rightist divide. Otherwise, the social pressure generated by leftist politicians and the leftist press would be unbearable. Guns in the streets. Hidden agendas. Sinister. Anti-Canadian. Inconsistent with Canadian values. Anti-diversity. Hateful. Mean-spirited. Unmutual. Nope, the left has a lock on the Canadian mind and has preemptively effectively eliminated such a move as a practical possibility.
And I suppose that if public opinion swung the other way, and if "right wing" ideals were more popular, that wouldn't be the right having a "lock on the Canadian mind", that would be freedom, right?
In my experience the right is less interested in using the levers of power in a coercive way. I truly believe the right is more interested in actual democratic consensus than the left. That is why the left
a) seeks to indoctrinate within the educational system
b) seeks to coerce via the courts in politics
c) seeks to de-normalize dissenting speech by dismissing it as "unCanadian" "inconsistent with Canadian values", etc.
For example, the gay lobby didn't really try to persuade the majority of Canadians that homosexual behavior is normal, moral, healthy, and good; they sought to "get their way" through the blunt instrument of judicial fiat -- and they did.
Now, the radicals seek to suppress dissenting speech. Even speaking against homosexuality in any way is now considered grounds for dismissal from employment, etc. Leftist instincts are totalitarian. In order to have diversity, we must enforce uniformity of thought and speech.
If the right had its way, unborn lives would be protected, as would the rights of children to know the love of a father and a mother -- rights rooted in biology and natural law -- rights which once defined Canada.
"For example, the gay lobby didn't really try to persuade the majority of Canadians that homosexual behavior is normal, moral, healthy, and good; they sought to "get their way" through the blunt instrument of judicial fiat -- and they did."
But now, Canadians by and large accept Gay marriage. And the sky hasn't fallen.
*
"In my experience the right is less interested in using the levers of power in a coercive way."
As someone on the right, you would feel less coerced. When not just gay marriage but homosexuality itself was illegal, I'm sure that gay people felt coerced.
*
I would love to see evidence of a past "right" to "know the love of a mother and a father". I'd be particularly interested to know if this "right" applied to biological mothers and fathers.
*
Elements of both the left and right want to stifle speech they disagree with. (You have seen how peaceful protesters are treated from time to time, right?). In both cases it's wrong (at least for the most part).
I'm uncomfortable with any law that proscribes offensive speech. But there isn't a clear line to draw between speech and action.
To make my position more clear: take anti-abortion/pro-life activists. I'm against stopping them from organizing, speaking on campus, protesting on parliament hill, etc. I'm also against them harassing women as they try moving to and from abortion clinics.
The right of a child to both a mother and father was implicit in divorce laws and the strong social prohibition against sex outside of marriage. This was once taken as a social "given". It protected children. It placed value on them. Abortion was similarly proscribed because it killed innocent children. Adoption was recognized as a second-best option, but a loving one that emulated the biological reality that all children are born of a father and a mother.
You may think the sky has not fallen, but it has. Canada has suffered a moral collapse. And it will take generations to understand its full effects.
As soon as two men have the right to a child, a child has lost its inherent right to a mother; as soon as two women have a right to a child, a child has lost its inherent right to a dad.
We have seen this in Ontario where birth certificates no longer reflect a child having a mother and a dad. They simply have Parent A and Parent B.
Of course individuals affected by law will feel coerced; I'm sure the thief finds it quite coercive to not be allowed to steal. But this was not the point we were discussing. We were discussing how laws are made -- by truly democratic means or not.
Ah. I think Hobbes's positivism has affected me. I don't think there can be such a thing as an "implicit" right.
Even if there were an implicit right to a mother and father, I think that would have problematic implications. Both of my grandfathers lost their fathers at very early ages. Were their rights violated? What if a child's father or mother or both die when the child is an infant?
What about all of the women who die in childbirth? What about how common that's been over the last few thousand years? Is a child whose mother dies in childbirth deprived of a right? And who deprived them of that right?
"We were discussing how laws are made -- by truly democratic means or not."
I think if our laws were made in a truly democratic fashion, we'd have proportional representation in the legislature. Laws are made by representatives elected by less than 40% of the electorate these days. Hardly rule by the demos.
"It placed value on them." This is wrong. I should have said, "it recognized their value".
Who would have thought that "honor your father and your mother" would become a contested idea (not the honor bit, the father and mother bit).
But that was so year 2000.
Now we are contesting the "male and female created he them" bit and viewing gender as an elastic socially constructed notion.
Canada is in full-fledged intellectual rebellion against the knowledge of God. It may take 100 years, but it will suffer the consequences as they work themselves out.
Usually I moderate my "implicit right" point with words such as "barring natural disaster or tragedy" e.g., sickness, death, etc. It is the natural order of things for a child to have a mother and a father. That is what marriage is for.
And Parent A Parent B is now the law of the land in Ontario. The presumed right of a child to a mother and a father is no longer recognized in Ontario law.
"Now we are contesting the "male and female created he them" bit and viewing gender as an elastic socially constructed notion."
I'm sorry. But I can't help myself.
Forget "gender" or "orientation". Just look at biological sex. There are people born with "ambiguous genitalia" all the time. Sometimes this is just phenotypic. But other times it has to do with genes. Most people are born with XX or Xy chromosomal pairs. But some are born with XXy or Xyy or (my personal favourite) XXX combinations.
Conjoined twins also happen "all the time". This does not normalize them. They are correctly viewed as an aberration. We do not re-orient our society around the fact that this happens from time to time. Ambiguous genitalia are the exception that proves (i.e., "tests") the rule.
We now have cases where young children who are clear-cut biological boys decide to self-identify as girls.
Where does it all come from? We live in a fallen world. Fallen due to sin. And disordered because of sin.
"Ambiguous genitalia are the exception that proves (i.e., "tests") the rule."
That isn't right. It's an exception to the rule. It does not prove the rule.
Below is an example of the exception proving the rule.
Rule: mass vaccinations save lives and drastically reduce or eliminate the number of children who die from childhood ailments like measles, mumps, rubella, etc.
Exception: some small groups like the Amish are not vaccinated, and their rates of infection are the same as everywhere else in the country.
That's an exception that PROVES the rule. Why? Because it shows that mass vaccinations work. The reason why relatively small groups of unvaccinated people don't suffer from those diseases in larger numbers is because everyone else IS vaccinated: there is no one around the unvaccinated to transmit the diseases to them.
That's an exception that proves the rule.
People being born with ambiguous genitalia, or ambiguous genes, does not prove the rule that there are only males and females.
I'll agree with you that that (on it's own) is not a reason for us to rearrange the whole of our society around the exception rather than the rule.
But it's not an exception that proves the rule.
Actually, it's an exception that makes evolution by natural selection a better theory than creation less than 10000 years ago (while still being compatible with "male and female he created them").
Ah, but what you don't realize my friend is that the original meaning of the word "proves" in this expression is, as I indicated, "tests". And that is the sense in which I was using it. A corollary to this would be "hard cases make poor law". Kind of the same idea.
25 comments:
I'm not sure who's smacking who...
Oh, the old "tyranny of the majority" used to describe democracy. Now we have the tyranny of the minorities instead, but I prefer democracy. I do find the total inability to debate and be able to defend their sound bites in an intelligent way amusing. Remove their sound bites and they are speechless.
Smackdown -- Evan showed astonishing naiveté when he talked about the first nations guy who allegedly murdered the gay activist. The idea that, well, this is different, this is murder was well smacked-down by Steyn. According to the courts, it we must discriminate towards aboriginals when sentencing, or we have violated the Charter of Rights.
The Charter is just words on a page. It is the judges who decide what the words shall mean, and, indeed, who deign to add words to it which were never there.
Tyranny -- far better to place public morality in the hands of nine unelected persons than trust it to the raging mob of an elected Parliament.
The Charter is a tyranny of the Left -- no wonder they love it!
What about the fact that the Charter was made law by our elected representatives, and can still be changed by them?
Ah, yes. Evan made this point. This would only work if the courts improbably ruled on the wrong side of the leftist/rightist divide. Otherwise, the social pressure generated by leftist politicians and the leftist press would be unbearable. Guns in the streets. Hidden agendas. Sinister. Anti-Canadian. Inconsistent with Canadian values. Anti-diversity. Hateful. Mean-spirited. Unmutual. Nope, the left has a lock on the Canadian mind and has preemptively effectively eliminated such a move as a practical possibility.
" the left has a lock on the Canadian mind "
And I suppose that if public opinion swung the other way, and if "right wing" ideals were more popular, that wouldn't be the right having a "lock on the Canadian mind", that would be freedom, right?
In my experience the right is less interested in using the levers of power in a coercive way. I truly believe the right is more interested in actual democratic consensus than the left. That is why the left
a) seeks to indoctrinate within the educational system
b) seeks to coerce via the courts in politics
c) seeks to de-normalize dissenting speech by dismissing it as "unCanadian" "inconsistent with Canadian values", etc.
For example, the gay lobby didn't really try to persuade the majority of Canadians that homosexual behavior is normal, moral, healthy, and good; they sought to "get their way" through the blunt instrument of judicial fiat -- and they did.
Now, the radicals seek to suppress dissenting speech. Even speaking against homosexuality in any way is now considered grounds for dismissal from employment, etc. Leftist instincts are totalitarian. In order to have diversity, we must enforce uniformity of thought and speech.
Steyn addressed this specific point.
If the right had its way, unborn lives would be protected, as would the rights of children to know the love of a father and a mother -- rights rooted in biology and natural law -- rights which once defined Canada.
"For example, the gay lobby didn't really try to persuade the majority of Canadians that homosexual behavior is normal, moral, healthy, and good; they sought to "get their way" through the blunt instrument of judicial fiat -- and they did."
But now, Canadians by and large accept Gay marriage. And the sky hasn't fallen.
*
"In my experience the right is less interested in using the levers of power in a coercive way."
As someone on the right, you would feel less coerced. When not just gay marriage but homosexuality itself was illegal, I'm sure that gay people felt coerced.
*
I would love to see evidence of a past "right" to "know the love of a mother and a father". I'd be particularly interested to know if this "right" applied to biological mothers and fathers.
*
Elements of both the left and right want to stifle speech they disagree with. (You have seen how peaceful protesters are treated from time to time, right?). In both cases it's wrong (at least for the most part).
I'm uncomfortable with any law that proscribes offensive speech. But there isn't a clear line to draw between speech and action.
To make my position more clear: take anti-abortion/pro-life activists. I'm against stopping them from organizing, speaking on campus, protesting on parliament hill, etc. I'm also against them harassing women as they try moving to and from abortion clinics.
The right of a child to both a mother and father was implicit in divorce laws and the strong social prohibition against sex outside of marriage. This was once taken as a social "given". It protected children. It placed value on them. Abortion was similarly proscribed because it killed innocent children. Adoption was recognized as a second-best option, but a loving one that emulated the biological reality that all children are born of a father and a mother.
You may think the sky has not fallen, but it has. Canada has suffered a moral collapse. And it will take generations to understand its full effects.
As soon as two men have the right to a child, a child has lost its inherent right to a mother; as soon as two women have a right to a child, a child has lost its inherent right to a dad.
We have seen this in Ontario where birth certificates no longer reflect a child having a mother and a dad. They simply have Parent A and Parent B.
Why not C?
Of course individuals affected by law will feel coerced; I'm sure the thief finds it quite coercive to not be allowed to steal. But this was not the point we were discussing. We were discussing how laws are made -- by truly democratic means or not.
Ah. I think Hobbes's positivism has affected me. I don't think there can be such a thing as an "implicit" right.
Even if there were an implicit right to a mother and father, I think that would have problematic implications. Both of my grandfathers lost their fathers at very early ages. Were their rights violated? What if a child's father or mother or both die when the child is an infant?
What about all of the women who die in childbirth? What about how common that's been over the last few thousand years? Is a child whose mother dies in childbirth deprived of a right? And who deprived them of that right?
"We were discussing how laws are made -- by truly democratic means or not."
I think if our laws were made in a truly democratic fashion, we'd have proportional representation in the legislature. Laws are made by representatives elected by less than 40% of the electorate these days. Hardly rule by the demos.
"We have seen this in Ontario where birth certificates no longer reflect a child having a mother and a dad. They simply have Parent A and Parent B."
That seems a bit premature (if you'll forgive the pun). We still need a sperm and an egg to make a baby.
"It placed value on them." This is wrong. I should have said, "it recognized their value".
Who would have thought that "honor your father and your mother" would become a contested idea (not the honor bit, the father and mother bit).
But that was so year 2000.
Now we are contesting the "male and female created he them" bit and viewing gender as an elastic socially constructed notion.
Canada is in full-fledged intellectual rebellion against the knowledge of God. It may take 100 years, but it will suffer the consequences as they work themselves out.
Usually I moderate my "implicit right" point with words such as "barring natural disaster or tragedy" e.g., sickness, death, etc. It is the natural order of things for a child to have a mother and a father. That is what marriage is for.
And Parent A Parent B is now the law of the land in Ontario. The presumed right of a child to a mother and a father is no longer recognized in Ontario law.
"Now we are contesting the "male and female created he them" bit and viewing gender as an elastic socially constructed notion."
I'm sorry. But I can't help myself.
Forget "gender" or "orientation". Just look at biological sex. There are people born with "ambiguous genitalia" all the time. Sometimes this is just phenotypic. But other times it has to do with genes. Most people are born with XX or Xy chromosomal pairs. But some are born with XXy or Xyy or (my personal favourite) XXX combinations.
Why does that happen?
"all the time. " You're kidding, right?
Conjoined twins also happen "all the time". This does not normalize them. They are correctly viewed as an aberration. We do not re-orient our society around the fact that this happens from time to time. Ambiguous genitalia are the exception that proves (i.e., "tests") the rule.
We now have cases where young children who are clear-cut biological boys decide to self-identify as girls.
Where does it all come from? We live in a fallen world. Fallen due to sin. And disordered because of sin.
Plus, Canadians are more comfortable being a ruled people than a ruling people. First the Crown, now the Charter.
"Ambiguous genitalia are the exception that proves (i.e., "tests") the rule."
That isn't right. It's an exception to the rule. It does not prove the rule.
Below is an example of the exception proving the rule.
Rule: mass vaccinations save lives and drastically reduce or eliminate the number of children who die from childhood ailments like measles, mumps, rubella, etc.
Exception: some small groups like the Amish are not vaccinated, and their rates of infection are the same as everywhere else in the country.
That's an exception that PROVES the rule. Why? Because it shows that mass vaccinations work. The reason why relatively small groups of unvaccinated people don't suffer from those diseases in larger numbers is because everyone else IS vaccinated: there is no one around the unvaccinated to transmit the diseases to them.
That's an exception that proves the rule.
People being born with ambiguous genitalia, or ambiguous genes, does not prove the rule that there are only males and females.
I'll agree with you that that (on it's own) is not a reason for us to rearrange the whole of our society around the exception rather than the rule.
But it's not an exception that proves the rule.
Actually, it's an exception that makes evolution by natural selection a better theory than creation less than 10000 years ago (while still being compatible with "male and female he created them").
This has been interesting. But I have to stop now and get back to work lest I get myself into trouble.
I may come back later in the evening though.
Ah, but what you don't realize my friend is that the original meaning of the word "proves" in this expression is, as I indicated, "tests". And that is the sense in which I was using it. A corollary to this would be "hard cases make poor law". Kind of the same idea.
If the rule is "tested", then it fails the test.
Unless... were you saying earlier that birth defects and the like are caused by sin?
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