Category Archives: Current Events

Steyn on Not So Great Britain

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This is the logical dead end of the Nanny State. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the British welfare regime in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want” to be accomplished by “co-operation between the State and the individual.” In attempting to insulate the citizenry from life’s vicissitudes, Sir William succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. As I write in my book: “Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity.”

Replace “Britons” with “People” and you have 80% of the planet fitting that description.

Big Government means small citizens: It corrodes the integrity of a people, catastrophically. Within living memory, the city in flames on our TV screens every night governed a fifth of the earth’s surface and a quarter of its population. When you’re imperialists on that scale, there are bound to be a few mishaps along the way. But nothing the British Empire did to its subject peoples has been as total and catastrophic as what a post-great Britain did to its own.

There are lessons for all of us there.

Occupy that. I’m going to start reading Steyn’s columns to my kids at bedtime. Forget the stupid fairy books they make me read to them now.

Jason Kenny takes on Amnesty International

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I must confess that my first reaction upon reading your open letter to Minister Toews and myself was one of surprise and joy. For your organization to muster its formidable powers of suasion against the orderly and innoxious proceedings of the Canadian immigration system must mean that the world’s most truculent regimes have discharged their last political prisoners and advocates of democracy are free to march in the streets of Tehran and Pyongyang.

Read the full thing.

Holding Rioters Accountable

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The mayor and police were using tough words last night and this morning, promising to hold the “few” troublemakers and hoodlums responsible for the riots, accountable for their actions.

Talking in my carpool this morning, we could not come up with a form of punishment that would actually do so. I had thought about caning last night. It may work but this morning I thought of this method which may actually provide the public humiliation necessary to prevent things like this from happening in the future.

A week in this contraption BEFORE the jail time. Store & vehicle owners get the first crack at them.

Liberals still don’t get it.

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The NDP and Conservatives agree on a bill, desire to pass it to the Senate ASAP and it will be slowed down by, you guessed it, THE LIBERALS. Bob Rae is doing his best to show voters why they deserve less votes in the next election.

Comartin asked if the justice minister would commit to tabling and passing the bill before MPs leave Ottawa for the summer.

“That is the easiest pledge I will ever make,” Nicholson responded.

To speed up its passage, the government is seeking unanimous consent from Parliament to accept the bill in its current form and to send it straight to the Senate for a final stamp of approval. That would mean the bill would bypass the committee stage.

The NDP has no problem with that, Comartin confirmed Monday, and Liberal interim leader Bob Rae said his party also wants the bill passed before MPs leave for the summer, but he’s not as keen for it to skip examination by the justice committee.

“We think there should be a debate,” Rae said. “I’d like to see it go to the justice committee,” he said.

Parliament is on a tight timetable. It is only scheduled to sit until June 23 which doesn’t leave a lot of time to hold committee hearings. Rae said extending the session is an option.

“We’re not committed to any end date here, we’re committed to treating legislation fairly,” he said.

Comartin said there simply isn’t enough time to hold committee meetings on the bill, and that they aren’t necessary because its contents have already been studied by experts in the legal field.

“I want this thing to have royal assent … before the summer starts,” Comartin said Monday. “If it goes to committee, it won’t get through the Senate in time.

Honestly, if the NDP and Conservatives agree on something, do you want to get your name in the paper as wanting to work against it?

Prisons and the USA

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One of the left’s distraction techniques when talking about the Conservative policy of stricter sentences is that the USA has run into problems of prison overcrowding and budget issues.

Ignoring the obvious cost savings when you don’t have to arrest the same guy 120 times a year, it seems that there is a bigger prison issue that the State of California deals with. This paragraph by Mark Krikorian in the Corner at the National Review states the real source of that problem.

“The GAO reported in March that in FY 2008, there were 27,000 illegal aliens in the state prison system for whom California was receiving partial (very partial) reimbursement from the feds. (See here, p. 30.) That’s close to the total number our black-robed rulers have ordered released. And that’s not counting the legal immigrants who’ve made themselves deportable by committing crimes.”

The Conservatives also have an immigration plan.