This and That No. 11

To the Second Anonymous Commenter On "This and That No. 10"

For some reason my response to your comment will not go through in the comments section. I will have to check my settings for an explanation. In the meantime it will be easier just to reply to you in this post.

As far as the matter of "imposing ones views on others" goes, every time a law is passed it imposes a particular view of how things should be done on everyone in the country, whether they agree with it or not. To some this is an argument for democracy - if views are to be imposed by law, they should reflect the will of the majority. What if, however, the majority is wrong?

The way things currently stand in Canada, social liberals are imposing their views on me. Now, the social liberal's initial flippant response to that is to say "if you don't like abortions, don't have one". It is not so simple. Canada has a single-payer health care system and the single-payer gets its resources from taxes to which I contribute. Abortions are provided by the health care system. I am therefore forced to pay for something I consider to be murder.

I would never say that couples who are seeking a child through in vitro fertilization are worse than Karla Homolka. It might seem like my reasoning points in that direction, but I don't believe it does. When comparing the relative degree of moral guilt between two actions the number of victims is only one of many factors to be taken into consideration. What I would say is that we as a society need to re-think our approach to ethics and science. Hardin's Law states that "you cannot do just one thing". We need to consider our actions in the light of their entire meaning, ramifications, and consequences.

An argument that would defeat my case that abortion is murder would have to take one of the two following forms. Either it would have to refute my case for the embryo being a human life from the moment of fertilization or it would have to make a legitimate case for abortion falling within the categories of justifiable homicide.

Stephen Harper and Freedom of Speech

In my commentary on the recent election in the last "This and That" I pointed out that Stephen Harper has proven himself to be no friend to the cause of free speech and that there was no reason to think that this would change because he has won a majority. It is less than one week since his majority victory and he has already taken steps that would further threaten freedom of speech.

Harper wishes to pass Bill C-51, an act entitled "Investigative Powers for the 21st Century". He pledged to see it pass as part of his election campaign.

Mark Fournier of FreeDominion has demonstrated the dangers to freedom of speech on the internet posed by this draconian piece of legislation. Clause 5 would make it possible for you to be charged with a hate crime if you post a hyperlink to a website containing material deemed to be hate propaganda.

You can read the full details here: http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1614466#1614466

Here are Mark Fournier's comments on Clause 11 of the same act: http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=143529

Bill C-51 is part of the Crime Omnibus Bill that Harper plans to have passed within the first 100 days of his latest premiership.

Blogs Versus Sites

You may have noticed that my links on the right-hand side of the blog are divided into two sections, one for "blogs" and one for "sites". If you are curious as to how I decided which links should go in which section, the answer is that it is largely but not completely arbitrary. The websites of publications like Chronicles Magazine or Touchstone Magazine go into the Sites section. So do websites of organizations like the Monarchist League of Canada. Blogger and Wordpress sites go into the Blogs section. Otherwise it is arbitrary and based upon whether it subjectively "feels like" a site belongs in one section or another. Thus Lawrence Auster's A View from the Right and Laura Woods' The Thinking Housewife are both in the Sites section. Although they are technically blogs for some reason it felt more right to put them in the Sites section.

Articles of Interest

Taki Theodoracopulos on monarchy: http://takimag.com/article/monarchy_the_fairest_of_them_all

Kevin Michael Grace on the Canadian election: http://www.vdare.com/grace/110504_harper.htm