The Thirteenth Step is a Soother

So, addiction researchers at the University of Victoria are suggesting that the price on booze should be raised to curtail the drinking of those working class citizens who pay for it but that governments should give away booze to homeless people.

Seriously... you cannot make this crap up.

Yeah. Because people who are stable enough to hold down jobs, house and clothe them and their families need to be protected from themselves. But people who are addicted, refuse to get help in order to improve their lives and are generally unstable? They need their addictions further enabled.

Is it not glaringly obvious the level of hypocrisy in this two pronged suggestion?

If anybody were to suggest legislating societal changes that would force homeless addicts to deal with their problems, they'd be crucified for insensitivity. But it's fine to legislate societal changes that force the stable amongst us to try and become angels.

I think the University of Victoria should suggest government brings in mandatory soothers for all Canadians. That way the image of our citizenry would finally match their intended reality.

The Communism Tax

You gotta love MoveOn.Org and it's sheer honesty/transparency.

If there's one thing that modern politics has illuminated it is the fact that extremists like to hide in the shadows until the coast is clear and then implement their deepest fantasies as if it should be a self-evident life truth. The most recent example can be found in an enlightening MoveOn article titled Top 5 Problems With The Tax Deal.

(Cue scary music)

Since the age of Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the left has done its best to paint the idea of a Communist threat to the West as laughable and paranoid. McCarthy has become the boogeyman thrown up any time a center, right-of-center or far-right citizen has suggested that certain leftist policies sit in the ranks of Socialist or Communist ideology.

Now, I'm not one to jump around labelling leftists as Commies. In fact, I don't think I've ever accused the far left of secretly being Communists. But the aforementioned MoveOn article really goes to show how far the left has gone in its unabashed audacity to propel extremist ideology. Clearly, the intent on the part of this organization, founded by a leftist-loved billionaire who purposefully destroyed the livelihood of countless working class Britains, is to demonize the wealthy and exalt the perceived suffering and/or inequality of the working class.

(Yeah... the irony is hilarious.)

This attitude alone would be enough to confirm that there certainly is a tinge of Communism to the modern far left. But there is one thing that the far left (and increasingly the supposedly moderate left) has fought for that does more than anything else to reveal Communist ideology. And that thing is the Estate Tax otherwise known as the "Death Tax". There can be no clearer modern example that the left believes the state should own everything than this.

I think it's fair to say that most rational people believe business owners who pay:

• income tax
• sales tax
• property tax
• corporate tax
• payroll tax
• wealth tax
• capital gains tax

...and the myriad other taxes out there over the course of their lives in creating, building and developing something of worth -- such a business -- have already paid their fair share of taxes to acquire that which is rightfully theirs. It was their ingenuity that resulted in the formation of a successful business. The resultant property is theirs. They've contributed to the well-being of others by creating opportunities for those people to earn a living. They worked hard to attain success and they should have every right to leave the fruits of their labour to whomever they choose.

The far left? Ehhhh... not so much.

As much as they try and deny it -- while simultaneously opposing broad-based tax cuts or creating carbon taxes on innovative, industrialized nations -- the far left firmly believes in wealth-redistribution. It's undeniable now. It is their clear and firm belief that those who achieve success in their lives don't really deserve it. No, the people who deserve it are the so-called under-privileged.

(And whether under-privileged by circumstance or by choice, the left really doesn't care because everybody's a victim anyhow.)

The Estate Tax is the clearest piece of evidence demonstrating that the far-left believes the fruits of success belong to the state and that the state can claim ownership over whatever it wants. In fact, the folks over at MoveOn.org have gone so far as to call the government not taking a percentage of the estate of the deceased a "millionaire's bailout".

Think about that for a second. In the eyes of the left, the government not taking your property is equal to the government bailing you out!

Communists believe that the government -- a.k.a. the people -- have rightful ownership and sole determination for the distribution of all property. You don't own a thing; everything belongs to the state. It can only be from that mentality that a person could delude themselves enough to perceive the action of letting your heirs keep that which you have built translate into the government giving these things to your heirs. It's absolutely mind-blowing!

When you combine this with the fact that liberals aren't as generous as tippers or that studies show conservatives to be substantially more charitable than liberals, the hypocrisy is rather appalling. The gimme-gimme attitude of the modern left is just another thing that confirms my belief that conservative attitudes towards economic and financial issues are far more logical -- and ethical -- than anything the left has going for it these days.

They don't have it in themselves to give selflessly when they see somebody in need. They'd rather the government take things on their behalf and redistribute it with them taking the credit in being "progressive" and "caring".

As I said, I'm not one to go around calling leftists Communists. But with open calls for an Estate tax that usurps 55% (read: more than half / the majority share) of those possessions which you would give your spouse, children, friends or whomever you choose, I have a much harder time not seeing a strong Communist element to the modern left.

It's because of this that I believe "Death Tax" isn't quite descriptive enough and there's a much more appropriate name for the Estate tax: the Communism Tax.

China's Increase = Canada's Total

So, it looks like John Baird is once again taking flak from global warming / climate change / climate disruption / [insert next useless term here] critics. Again. Why? Because he happened to say the truth: all the efforts by countries like Canada to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are going to be pointless when placed alongside the increases made by China.

It's completely mind-blowing how climate change alarmists can keep a straight face talking about how there are no other options when it comes to "saving" the planet Earth except to stop our contributions to GHG... and at the same time they try and downplay the dramatic increase of GHG in China.

As if the Earth is going to hold different countries to different standards the way alarmists do.

Let's just look at the CO2 component of the GHG equation. Now, these are 2007 figures but we'll use them just to give an example:

• Canada's total CO2 emissions in 2007 were 557,340 thousand metric tons.
• China's total CO2 emissions in 2007 were 6,538,367 thousand metric tons.

According to the numbers, Canada's emissions decreased by 2% while China's increased by 8%. If we were to apply that figure to the 2007 levels:

• Canada reduced emissions by 11,147 thousand metric tons to 546,193 thousand metric tons
• China increase emissions by 523,069 thousand metric tons to 7,061,436 thousand metric tons

So, basically, the total of all emissions by Canada are barely above just what China increased in terms of GHG emissions. And yet the politico alarmists say that Canada is the problem in this equation?

I think these critics need to start looking at basic mathematics courses.

If China is allowed to do whatever it wants -- as is status quo -- just to maintain present GHG levels, every year a country the size of Canada would have to eliminate all of it's GHG emissions. That's just to maintain present levels. And yet the alarmists claim to want to lower levels back to where they were a couple of decades ago.

John Baird is right and these idiots know it. They don't want to admit it because it usurps their position as some kind of holier-than-thou moral authority. Too bad they don't realize that your average Canadian -- when given the numbers -- are going to see right through this and know that the alarmists are lying about how close to the edge we are.

Climate change skepticism is on the rise. With leaders like this, I wonder why...

Godwin's Law and Canadian politics

It seems that Julian Fantino is under fire for equating the Liberal's tactics to Hitler's with his "Hitler theory". And rightly so. There's no excuse for drawing a comparison between anybody and the Nazis.

Personally, I think that Fantino is suffering from what I call the Michael Jackson theory: surround yourself solely with people who agree with you and you'll lose all grip on reality.

Of course Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals are jumping on this as some great offence deserving of censure. Talk about rich.

Mr. Pot... can I reintroduce you to Mr. Kettle, Liberal MP Derek Lee?

I guess it's okay for one of your own to compare Harper's suspension of parliament to the Nazi burning of the German Reichstag in 1933. No need to censure anybody there, right Iffy?

Perhaps both groups should familiarize themselves with Godwin's Law. This is another example of why people hate politics and thus never switch party allegiances.

Wikileaks as Judge, Jury & Executioner?

With the new deluge of information released recently by Wikileaks, there has been great debate over how much is too much information. A friend of mine actually took issue with the fact that there were reporters who were criticizing the release of information.

Wikileaks appears to have focused more and more on the United States as time has gone on. And while they claim to have received a great deal of information, they themselves have indicated that they have only released portions at a time.

Which begs the question, why? If Wikileaks is so focused on releasing hidden information, then why do they hold back?

The one thing that seems to be lost on many people is the fact that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has an agenda. Wikileaks is like any other group that paints itself as selfless entirely non-self-serving; certainly the mission statement of Wikileaks may indicate one thing but the founders and operatives have their own opinions that they no doubt use Wikileaks to espouse.

One need only look at the released attack video and how it was edited. As has been shown, even the "full" version of the video that Wikileaks released had half an hour of footage edited out, footage that painted the troops in an entirely different light to the story Wikileaks wanted to paint. Clearly Wikileaks is trying to mold the story rather than just release information.

This basically makes Wikileaks the judge, jury and executioner in a trial by wire: showing the public only what it wants to reveal in order for the public to lean towards their own political standing. They claim to value free information but ensure that they only release the information they want while editing out any information that doesn't fit the narrative they want to establish. As such, Wikileaks is deserving of the criticism it has received.

Any organization that reveals information that puts people's lives in danger and sets international diplomacy back by decades but makes sure to edit that information that doesn't further their political goals? Their hardly angels.