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Davis insisted that “there are no strings attached†to media access to McCain. Yet just this week, McCain abruptly canceled an interview with Larry King as punishment for a tough CNN interview with one of his spokesmen. What’s more, top McCain aide Mark Salter said that “only the good reporters†would get the best seats in the new campaign plane. “You have to earn it,†he said.
Surely, that's enough: if you know she's an extremist you know she's not fit to lead or to face foreign leaders.EMF said:...
There are only 60 days until we vote and we have the right to know who is the best choice, to try and turn this mess around. Biden is no mystery, but Palin frankly, I don't know that much about so far, other than she is an extremist.
...EMF said:...
The campaign handlers keep saying she is qualified and ready to lead, but we need to try and get information that allows us to decide for ourselves. We need some candid interviews and the opportunity to ask questions.
A politician is someone who never says what they truly believe, but always what their apparatchiks tell them the public wants to hear. So it follows, you should vote for them or not on the basis of what you discern is what they will do, not on the basis of what they say. If they're an extremist, you surely don't want to vote for them... Or am I missing something?EMF said:I'd like to see how she reacts on her own two feet
paultrafalgar said:Surely, that's enough: if you know she's an extremist you know she's not fit to lead or to face foreign leaders.EMF said:...
There are only 60 days until we vote and we have the right to know who is the best choice, to try and turn this mess around. Biden is no mystery, but Palin frankly, I don't know that much about so far, other than she is an extremist.
...EMF said:...
The campaign handlers keep saying she is qualified and ready to lead, but we need to try and get information that allows us to decide for ourselves. We need some candid interviews and the opportunity to ask questions.
A politician is someone who never says what they truly believe, but always what their apparatchiks tell them the public wants to hear. So it follows, you should vote for them or not on the basis of what you discern is what they will do, not on the basis of what they say. If they're an extremist, you surely don't want to vote for them... Or am I missing something?EMF said:I'd like to see how she reacts on her own two feet
If you read blogs and newspapers and watch MSNBC or CNN you get a lot of info about Gov. Palin. For example,EMF wrote:
Biden is no mystery, but Palin frankly, I don't know that much about so far, other than she is an extremist.
Thats not very extreme, I pray for pipelines all the time. Whats really extreme are the various Humam Rights Commissions across Canada which are limiting free speech (selectively of course).nutsandvolts said:According to EMF? This woman said the iraq war is a "task that is from god" and asked students to pray for pipelines.
From the American Thinker:
Two heated public debates are taking place north of the 49th parallel these days, and broadly speaking, both debates pit progressives against conservatives. The funny thing is that the progressives are illustrating how it is possible to believe two mutually contradictory things at the same time.
Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, as well as the magazines they respectively wrote for and owned, were the targets of complaints filed with various Human Rights Commissions across Canada, accusing them of publishing material that was offensive to Muslims. The Human Rights Commissions, which were set up to protect the rights of minorities -- including it seems, the right never to be offended by something they read -- are not so zealous when it comes to protecting human rights such as the right to free speech and the right to freedom of conscience. Targets of the HRCs include a man who wrote a letter to the editor arguing the traditional Biblical strictures against homosexuality, and a restaurant owner who objected to a man smoking marijuana in the doorway of his establishment.
Journalist Joseph Brean notes, in an article which provides a good overview of the HRC controversy,
"f there is a pattern emerging in [these human rights] complaints, it seems to be that the complainants are frequently Muslims or progressives, and the respondents are frequently Christians or conservatives."
Defenders of the HRC counter that the Commissions uphold "human dignity." "Who ever said freedom of speech meant you could not be held accountable for what you say and how it might impact another person or group?" wrote the head of a provincial Human Rights Commission.
Another fan of the Commissions asks,
"Is a 19th-century English philosopher [John Stuart Mill] really the best arbiter of Canadian human rights standards in the 21st century? At the time Mill wrote [in favor of free speech], England was openly racist, sexist and anti-Semitic."
Okay. So apparently we are right to use the power of the state to repress speech deemed to be racist or sexist. Patrolling speech is something a civilized, modern, multi-cultural and tolerant nation should do.
Unless you happen to be a filmmaker facing the loss of federal tax credits which subsidize the film industry in Canada. The federal government is contemplating a new bill which will deny tax credits to a film "deemed offensive." The examples used are films that are pornographic or extremely violent. Please note: the government is not saying the film can't be made. They are saying the taxpayers won't have to subsidize it.
In this square-off between free-speech absolutists and the government, it's the progressives, like actress/director Sarah Polley, who declared:
"It's the job of artists to provoke and to challenge. Part of the responsibility of being an artist is to create work that will inspire dialogue, suggest that people examine their long-held positions and, yes, occasionally offend in order to do so."
The loss of these tax credits, she charges, has "a whiff of censorship."
Okay. Censorship bad. We are wrong to use the power of the state to repress speech deemed to be offensive. But surely pornography would be offensive to Muslims? If a Muslim is offended by a cartoon Mohammad, wouldn't he be offended by actresses writhing in simulated ecstasy who are not covered by burquas?
So what happens if the bold, transgressive Sarah Polley decides to make a film that provokes dialogue by portraying, say, a neo-Nazi in a sympathetic light? [Update: She did! hat tip: Kathy Shaidle and Five Feet of Fury]What about her right to "occasionally offend" then?
I'm kidding, of course, that will never happen. And I don't mean to suggest that she ever would or should make such a film.
We're fiercely anti-Nazi in Canada. The Human Rights Commissions are vigorously prosecuting "neo-Nazi losers in basements," as Steyn puts it, who run pathetic little websites.
On the other hand, Communism, responsible for the deaths of untold millions? No problem. The Canadian government not only won't suppress you, they will pay you to spread your message.
Canada's National Film Board promotes films like "They Chose China," the tale of the "courageous" American P.O.W.s who elected to stay in China after the Korean War.
Seriously. This "award-winning" documentary is about soldiers who were tortured and indoctrinated in Chinese prison camp, and argues that the brainwashed victims were American "dissidents."
Our national broadcaster, the CBC, recently ran Oliver Stone's documentary about Fidel Castro.
I am highly offended by these films. What are my chances of having a Human Rights Commission reining in the propagandistic efforts of our tax-payer subsidized film board and television broadcaster?
It's all clear once you understand the rules: Fascism: must be rooted out, condemned and suppressed. Communism: go right ahead, make your film. Bonus points if you can take a swipe against the United States in the process.
And of course the neo-Nazi losers in basements aren't asking for federal tax credits to underwrite their enterprise. The progressives are. (For the record, I am against tax credits for neo-Nazis.)
Lona Manning is a freelance writer living in Canada.
nutsandvolts said:This woman said the iraq war is a "task that is from god" and asked students to pray for pipelines.
nutsandvolts said:I don't care if people believe in flying spaghetti monsters, but I have a problem with politicians using religion as an excuse to maim and kill people.
nothing fails like prayer. too bad, i'd pray for an engine failure while she's aloft.
Yes, and if McCain wants to get our attention, he better start talking about the economy too.He really talked about issues of local concern to us (mainly the complete shit economy), was very friendly and engaged the audience really well and also happened to be extremely funny with awesome stories relevant to whatever he was talking about. No matter your party affiliation if he comes to a town near you I highly recommend seeing him
Not impulse; McCain's been watching her since Newt Gingrich mentioned her in February.re Palin:
It would be like going to Ace hardware to buy a hammer, and walking out with one of those cute little flower embossed hammers by the cash register. Kind of an impulse buy.
jerryt said:Not impulse; McCain's been watching her since Newt Gingrich mentioned her in February.
He can't. McCain himself admits he is a dufus when it comes to economic matters, so he can't speak about it and his party is tickled with the economy anyway. To them, things have never been better!jerryt said:Yes, and if McCain wants to get our attention, he better start talking about the economy too.
"Everywhere I go, we've been talking about change, that's been the theme of this campaign," Obama told supporters Saturday in Terre Haute, Indiana. "And we must be on to something, because I notice now everyone's talking about change now."
"Suddenly [McCain's] the change agent!" Obama laughed. "He says, 'I'm going to tell those lobbyists that their days of running Washington are over.' Who's he going to tell? Is he going to tell his campaign chairman, who's one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell his campaign manager, who was one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell all the folks who are running his campaign, who are the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington?"
I tend to believe he's talking entrenched bureaucrats, earmarks and general slothfulness if not downright malfeasance.What gets my goat is how now McCain is talking about "change" all of a sudden,