Free Republic

if the north has weapons of mass destruction, which nobody doubts, why do they still have millions of soldiers? you don't need millions of soldiers when you have a nuclear deterrent to stop other countries from invading you... even america the superpower only has a few hundred thousand soldiers for occupying anything that is too valuable to be bombed

the whole purpose of the war in afghanistan is to dig a trench thru that country and lay an oil pipeline to export caspian oil and gas to pakistan... from there it gets sold by american companies to friendly places like south korea, japan, taiwan... sold for USA$ to friendly american allies who are good customers at buying american weapons and technology

this leaves the chinese out in the cold.. they have their own energy crisis as do the north koreans... they're spending way too much money building nuclear power plants and hydro dams while their factories are operating below capacity whenever they run low on power... they need oil too... cheap oil coupled with cheap political slave labour is what they need to take over all of american export markets

they can't very well walk into the middle east and start fighting america over the oil... they would just destroy each other and there's nothing to gain there...

what they can do is exercise their right to take over taiwan, push for regime change in north korea and install a puppet that will occupy south korea, and threaten the japanese so they won't allow america to use their island as an air base... and since china and korea have their own nukes the USA would have no choice but to fight a ground war... or compromise and let them have a cut of all that oil

the oil after all is worthless unless it can be brought to market and sold to someone who can pay for it

in quebec the drinking age is 18 and but is usually ignored if you look older than 16... restaurants are required to have a seperate non-smoking section... bars are exempt and attempts to restrict owners from advertising their video gambling units have also failed... the ban on smoking in the workplace is still very new and so far has been successfully ignored

all food and drink establishments must conform to the french language law and have french signs, menus and french speaking personnel... protection of the french minority is older than the canadian constitution itself... so far the non-smokers, ex-smokers, and the we know what's good for you lobby does not yet enjoy similar protection and we can still smoke without being harassed by constitutionally protected "non-smokers"

so why don't bars have no-alcohol sections for recovering alcoholics

a friend of mine once said that the degree to which you're allowed to break the law is an indicator of the freedom of a society... we pay a lot of taxes and aren't allowed to make right turns on red... but rarely is anyone locked up for smoking a joint... i quit smoking years ago but i don't preach or harp on anyone that wants to light up in my home or a company truck... i play the good host or crack open a window...

i hope the anti-tobacco lobby doesn't succeed because that's what the government would love... another moral excuse to judge and sentence americans

patriot act schedule II (if you love american then you won't mind dying in iraq/korea/afghanistan... unless you're a communist, or a terrorist, or a bothist)

they'll definitely be short on troops when china and n. korea get their act together

i doubt very much the chinese and n. koreans are just going to sit there tinkering with their dysfunctional hydro dams and nuclear plants while haliburton begins pumping oil and gas to south east asia for cash on the dollar

all likelihood the north will grab south korea and japan will be threatened with nuclear leverage to remain neutral... ergo no air bases for american intervention... china will grab taiwan and america will be able to do nothing about it unless they have 5 million men to spare or are willing to risk a nuclear retaliation

with no friendly customers in asia to sell the oil bushco will have to negotiate anyway if they want to sell their now worthless oil

nothing is ever as good as it seems

the war on drugs was sold as a way of protecting american children from drug fiends intent on prostituting them to coloured jazz musicians

instead it's being used to lock up non-violent offenders at taxpayers expense and abused by law enforcement agencies who would rather collect brownie points locking up and seizing the assets of drug offenders, than do something about violent crime

of course without violent crime where is the national paranoia? people might ask where all their tax dollars go when it's spent on law and order?

i distrust any government law... with so many private interests in washington it's virtually impossible for them to pass any legislation that doesn't bend to the will of someone's private interest

just because they point the finger at someone with long hair or a turban or call it the "patriot act" doesn't mean they're doing you any favours

the american melting pot had the luxury of ethnically cleansing out british loyalists, genociding the indians and disenfranchising blacks... it's a lot easier to impose your one size fits all constitution on a diverse society once you've silenced the loudest members of the opposition

canada is a little different... the british occupation and the royal proclamation of 1760 recognized french canadian rights to continue to enjoy their own courts and civil law that had existed there for over 100 years... the english occupiers were in the minority and had to put their political differences aside if they were to survive the canadian winter together

nevertheless, american continental seperatist propaganda interpreted the 1760 acts as "intolerable" heretical surrender to subversive roman catholic interests and used it to fuel popularity for the american war of independence... all the more reason to appease the french canadian peasants what with the american war of independence on the horizon

that this principle of multiculturalism was firmly established in the canadian constitution of 1867 and the 1982 charter of rights constitution is a credit to canadian politics... that we've held it together this long without resorting to civil war

civil war amounts to nothing... look at europe... for five hundred they did nothing but fight over kingship, then religion, then finally they began fighting over the nationalist ideals we thought we'd put to rest with the end of the nazis... and when they put it all behind them and formed the european union it looks like little more than a copy of canadian federalism

the constitution of 1867 gave specific powers to the provinces in order that the french and english could run their own social affairs while the federal government could handle such things as war and commerce

the 1982 charter went further and recognized that indians and women were worthy of explicit government protection even if they didn't control any provincial legislature... the courts have also written new law into the general equality clause to include protection of homosexuals... there is an explicit understanding that groups are worthy of protection not only to protect individuals from being singled out for discrimination, but to help them preservie their group status

it is only natural that our political tradition allows us to assimilate people as a group, rather than expecting them to abandon their group affiliation and try to assimilate as individuals

we've already allowed indians a large degree of self government including some discretion over criminal law... why not muslims? in my mind it's the perfect way to assimilate them, teach them canadian values of tolerance in a way that they can appreciate

willie the pothead????

i think it takes a lot of guts to do what willie nelson did and criticize america's "lock em up for life" drug policy... and it certainly doesn't make him a pothead... and kudos for criticizing this war in iraq... we've never gotten a straight answer for why american soldiers are in iraq

and so what if he smokes dope? why don't you take the time to raise your own children and worry about your own problems without subscribing to every prohibitionist, moralist government crackdown on liberty... i'm guessing willie nelson is old enough to make his own decisions about what to smoke... you should all do the same

probably most southerners didn't own slaves... even if a large percentage of them did own a slave, you can assume a lot of them owned perhaps one or only a few slaves to do the housework and sexually molest... the way people today have a philipino nanny to clean the house and sexually molest

but even if you didn't own an agricultural plantation populated by hundreds of slaves constantly being abused and worked to death, you probably benefit by the mere fact of not being a slave

without a visible class of black slaves, who is going to be beaten and worked to death growing export crops of cotton and tobacco? without any mexicans to do the work you're going to have to beat to death one black man to scare the rest of them into doing the work to bring a cash crop in on time... that alone is a pretty good incentive for being white... whether or not you, yourself, own a slave

because without a cash crop for export there's no need for the services of people like captain samuel clemens to write romantic novels about piloting steam ships up and down the mississippi river... and in all likelihood mark twain wouldn't have had the time for moral reflections trying to reconcile slavery and racism

remember huck finn's dilemna... he loves his friend jim the black slave, but he feels pressured to do what he thinks is right, which is to return jim to his rightful owner... aunt polly must have been some tough customer with that strap to screw a kid up so bad

perhaps southerners did fight for states rights... having slavery so up front and personal they were probably well aware of their fate if the likes of george bush and the rest of the federal elite ever managed to pass themselves off as southerners

you can move north and compete for a job with a starving peasant from ireland or take your chances fighting for states rights in the civil war

northerners certainly didn't fight for federal power... they fought because they knew that if the blacks were slaves, they too were slaves... if you have to compete in a market with slave made goods you're no better than a slave yourself

that's why i admire the good people down in places like maine when they say no to walmarts opening in their town... they don't want the waltons steamrolling every small business in town, selling garbage made by the slaves of the communist government party of china

i think somewhere every man is hardwired for solidarity... we don't necessarily want a black family moving in next door but we have some instinct for sensing out where we stand in the pecking order of things and when we have to band together to fight for our common interests... southern white men must have been content not to be black... northerners must have worried whether they wouldn't be next in line