I've always thought that capital punishment was one of the things that prevented the United States from being a truly great country. Along with racism, religious bigotry, and the culture of guns and violence. And this only prove my point. Because no nation that executes people, in that manner or any other, can truly call itself civilized. Or claim that its moral values are superior to those of other countries, where the state murders its citizens, like Iran or North Korea. And this is only too clear when you examine where this diseased desire to execute people in the U.S. comes from. And understand that it's a question of history andgeography.
It had to be one of the most grotesque photo-ops ever. Rob Ford, the brutish Mayor of Toronto, gripping Stephen Harper's limp wrist in his meaty paw, in a police station.
The two Cons carrying on like Laurel and Hardy, belching bullshit, and playing cheap politics with tragedy.
Every now and then he betrays himself. Every now and then the mask falls off and exposes the monster behind it.
Like when he woke up one morning and decided to gut the census. For no sane reason.
Or when he plans to jail even more Canadians, especially young ones, even though the crime rate is going down.
New statistics show the national crime rate is continuing its 20-year decline – reaching levels not seen since 1973 even as the federal Conservative government prepares legislation that would put more Canadians behind bars for longer periods of time.
Because this is not only unadulterated bullshit:
“Unlike the Opposition, we do not use statistics as an excuse not to get tough on criminals. As far as our Government is concerned, one victim of crime is still one too many,” Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said in an e-mail Thursday evening.
It's eerily similar to the reason the idiot Tony Clement gave for killing the census. Because a thousand complaints one complaint was too many.
So why is Stephen Harper doing it? I like to think it's because punishment turns him on. He enjoys inflicting it, just like he enjoys humiliating women. But it's probably mostly politics.
Like every demented right-winger, or tin pot tyrant, he knows he can't fool people into supporting his fascist law and order agenda, unless he scares them first.
And convinces them that young Canadians are a dangerous threat. Even though they're not, and they are already treated harshly.
The harsh treatment of youths is even more apparent when the handling of youthful offenders is compared to that of adult offenders. For example, in 1997 the rate of detention for adults in Canada was 151 per 100,000; for youth, 209 per 100,000 were incarcerated
An adult will typically be released somewhere between the one third and the two thirds point in the sentence. A youth sentenced to a long period of custody can have that custodial sentence reviewed in youth court but this is relatively rare.
So how does Great Twisted Leader get away with this monstrous fraud? Answer: with the enthusiastic help of our idiot media.
The specific types of youth crime stories that are deemed newsworthy tend to be those which can evoke feelings of anger and retribution in members of the public. These feelings inevitably lead to movements toward harsher youth justice measures. The media's continued favoring of recent events of youthful offending serves to reinforce and provide added momentum for the "get tough" movement.
And why does the media portray young offenders as a mortal threat to society? Answer: because it sells papers, and boosts ratings in an aging country that hates its young.
Great eh?
You know two weeks ago Seb and I went to the big Scottish music festival T in the Park. We got a really good look at the under twenty generation...with their "new" Beatle haircuts.
And although we argued over the relative merits of the Arctic Monkeys.
We both had to agree that the kids were MAGIC...
And at the end of the day this is the harsh no-bullshit truth.
A Prime Minister who would declare war on young Canadians for no good reason, is a twisted and evil man.
And a country that would allow him to get away with it, is one so old and broken it can scarcely be repaired...
He's angry, tortured man. A vengeful nerd with delusions of grandeur... and a foul bully. He uses American-style wedge issues to pit Canadian against Canadian. He appeals to base emotion instead of noble reason.
His is the government of the brutally backward, the Big Lie, and the broken promise.
But nothing this monstrous political thug does is as bad as his politics of fear.
Conservatives want Canadians to be very afraid as the next election creeps closer. Criminals at the door, Russians probing Arctic sovereignty and prying statisticians poking through family secrets are strands in a rope Stephen Harper wants voters to loop around the neck of nanny-state Liberals, the socialist NDP and separatist Bloc.
Never mind the absence of evidence that packing prisons makes citizens safer, that spending at least $16 billion on cold war stealth fighters is a national defence priority or that vandalizing the census is anything other than a feel-good placebo with sickening side effects. Clinging to federal power is now an exercise in appealing to the gut, not the brain.
It's easy to scare people. The MSM make it look like the crime rate is out of control, when it's really going down. It's effective, especially when it targets the vulnerable. Why do you think if only the over 65s voted, the Conservatives would win 200 seats?
But it's also deeply disturbing. It's a Big Lie. It gets in the way of more intelligent ways to fight crime and poverty. It replaces reason with the howl of the mob. It would force us to live a dark, scary Big Brother world. It's the pablum of every fascist leader from Bush to Mussolini. And sooner or later it leads to a police state.
A Liberal senator is once again pushing back against Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s accusations that the Grits are stalling his crime bills.
“This problem is, mandatory minimum sentences do not deter crime. And this is a conclusion you yourself reached.”
We need people to expose the lies... and the hypocrisy. But we also have to fit it into a larger narrative. We need to challenge The Fear itself.
They will lead you to a dark, frightening, barbed wire society that looks a lot like ugly Amerika. We will take you brighter, safer more beautiful Canadian place, where we don't live afraid, and our values RULE.
We need to fight back. Like we did at the beginning of this long and horrible year, when Harper prorogued Parliament.
And for one glorious moment we stopped being so damn passive.
And marched out of the darkness into the light...
The struggle continues.
A coalition is a good and Canadian thing.
The Cons must be defeated. We want our country back.
Oh boy. It's been this kind of day. Stockwell "Doris" Day tries to prove we need to spend billions on new prisons without any facts.
Given that Day seemed to suggest, in response to an earlier question, that census data becomes "untenable" a year or two after it was initially collected, it's hard to see how he would become "alarmed" by victimization reports from six years ago.
Rob "Man Dingo" Nicholson tries to clarify the Con position without thinking what he's saying.
Unlike the Liberals, we do not use statistics as an EXCUSE not to get tough on criminals. As far as our Government is concerned, one victim of crime is still one too many.
A spokeswoman for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the comments were backed by research from Statistics Canada that revealed a drop in the percentage of self-described victims who reported crimes that were committed against them.
However, Statistics Canada shot down the interpretation, saying that the data could not be compared to police-reported crime statistics since it only surveyed eight types of crimes as opposed to the hundreds of crimes investigated by police.
