Happy Giftmas...

Giftmas is a term that has been used to take the Christ out of Christmas as it were.  It's been derided as the ultimate commercialization of the holy Christmas holiday season and as such, a distasteful greedy expression of the worst capitalism has ever stood for.

But for me the commercialization of Christmas is the reason to celebrate...

Think about it. 

We spend our lives working, trying as hard as we can to achieve something.  Whether that achievement is some measure of fame, fortune or some other expression of our happiness, our life, our purpose.  
The commercialization of Christmas is a yearly expression of our success, of our achievement throughout the rest of the year, of our happiness.  We spend our money and our precious time buying things for our loved ones, and enjoying their company, feasting and partying and making merry. 

The products we buy are the product of the labour and creation of all those people around us.  They are in effect the essence and cause of our neighbours, friends and coworkers celebrations as well as our own.  The arguable platitude that "tis better to give than to receive" is not so altruistic if you consider that we give our productive effort each and every day, but our giving is more than an expression of devotion, love or respect, it is an expression of our own pride, our own productiveness.

So don't lament the commercialization of Christmas, give, eat, drink and be merry because not only did you all earn it, you all created it.

Linda Wants US to Pay Instead...

Linda McQuaig has issued a leftist diatribe lambasting the Canadian Government for its stance on Kyoto and Global warming. If you can make your way through the layers of innuendo, appeals to authority, character assassination and argument from intimidation you find yourself staring into the vacuous pit of hysteria and fear induced nonsense that makes up her “article”.

Beginning with the political McQuaig states that a full 70% of Canadians are “Harper’s (Conservative) enemies”. Well if you crunch the numbers in exactly the same fashion as dear Linda you will quickly surmise that 70% of Canadians harbor extreme antagonism toward the NDP. 81% hate Liberals, 94% loathe the Bloc and 96% would rather be dead than caught supporting Elizabeth Mae and the Greens.

Linda, get real.

For those that are paying attention, this is nothing more than the way our multi-party democracy works, but I must admit it is fun to watch the Left twist itself in knots of opposition, when they supported 38% and 40% Liberal majorities as “democratic” and “clear mandates from the Canadian people” for years.  The hypocracy is astounding.

Getting to the bones of Linda’s contention we are once again sucked into the quagmire of the global warming idiocy. McQuaig claims that Cana’s withdrawal from the Kyoto accord has “wreaked havoc” with the process to stop climate change and she implies that Canada’s abandonment of the accord will directly harm the poorest of the poor in Africa. What nonsense.

One simple search on Wikipedia allowed me to compile enough factual information to decimate McQuaig’s assumptions. Canada’s carbon footprint accounts for 1.8% of the world’s total, a number easily surpassed by 3 African countries (South Africa – 1.45%, Nigeria - .32% and Morocco - .16%) none of which are bound by the accord to any Carbon limits.

But never mind these small fries, India who’s Carbon footprint is 5.78% of the world total and China (23.33%) are also not impacted in any way shape or form. Yet somehow Canada is the straw breaking this camel’s back?

Perhaps the thing wreaking havoc is the fact that none of this climate hysteria has been proven and in fact “scientists” have been caught red handed trying to suppress information or game their statistics to match their wild hypotheses (see “Climategate and Climategate 2.0”). This duplicity coupled with the simple lack of any significant actual impact makes a lie out of the assumption that the nations of the world, much less Canada NEED to do something to stop “climate change”. http://www.climategate.com/


McQuaig calls Canada a “leading nation” when she refers to our old policy with regard to sheepishly following the Kyoto cult and this confuses me. She claims leadership is supporting a point of view that is at best inaccurate, untruthful and has not even remotely been established as factual?

She touts “Compromise, coordination and consensus as if they were Made in Canada ideals for the rest of the world to follow, the problem is when we actually see such compromise it is highlighted by the UN’s refusal to declare the murder of hundreds of thousands in Darfur as genocide and consensus is recognized in the Bosnian Civil War that was nothing less than a 10 year long internationally witnessed murder spree.

Meanwhile McQuaig derides the new “aggressive Canadian posture”, the same one that has assisted in the transformation of Libya during the Arab Spring saved countless millions from a life dominated by the Taliban’s brutal theocratic dictatorship.

I know this may come as a shock, but I am one hundred and eighty degrees out of phase with Linda McQuaig on this issue. I believe Canada is (finally) taking a leadership role with regard to Kyoto and some of the other foreign policy initiatives PM Harper has spearheaded, and it is about damn time. We can not afford to abdicate our national interests to a consortium of lesser nations and extra-national busybodies.

We, all Canadians, must take an active and interested role in our international affairs and that interest demands that when the reality of a situation does not correspond to the accepted norms or some international consensus that we MUST oppose it for our own sake and for our own good.

Karma

Karma: cosmic principle according to which a person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person's deeds in the previous incarnation.

Absolute garbage.

There is no cosmic righting of the scales of justice.  People do however reap what they sow.  If you are an ass, you will be treated as such, you will be known as such, and you will have the life of such.  It's not magic, its natural.  There is no divine intervention, only individual's making choices regarding your acts (as an ass) and choosing in their self interest to treat you as such.

Far too long

It's been far too long since I've written anything.  Well that isn't entirely true, I've been ranting quite steadily on Facebook, but it isn't the same.

I'm going to start this blog up again in earnest, promise... or is it a threat?

Till then Keep the shiny side up and live your life at full throttle.

No Tribute for Layton

Since his death yesterday the press and social media sites have been positively swamped with tributes to Jack Layton. So many times I have read in the last two days words to the effect that "although I don't support his politics, I respect his vision/passion/determination/tenacity...", etc.

I won't and can't say that.

Think about it, the act of being tenacious or determined or passionate is not a virtue in and of itself. It is the idea behind the drive that matters more. Would you praise Stalin or Mao for their passion? No, because their ideas were horrible perversions.

I can't even praise Layton's love of Canada, because his socialist vision of Canada would have been an aberration of individualism, a detriment to freedom and would have meant a devolution into nanny statism and a profound increase in the kind of progressive socialism that is an anathema to anyone who loves their personal freedom.

Does cancer suck? Sure, I lost a good friend to Cancer earlier this year. Is it sad when someone dies of a disease? Of course, but just as I wouldn't praise a con man for doggedly trying to deprive me of my money, I won't praise someone who's ideals and principles would mean the sure and steady destruction of my freedoms if they only had a chance.

Lies Journalists tell...

For the sake of clarity, honesty and to dispel any homosexual trepidation I would like it to be known that I, a heterosexual male with a security clearance, had to provide information on my sexual preference and my partner by specifying that I was married and by providing my wife's name, the names of her parents, where she worked, where they worked etc, etc, ect. 

Wake the fuck up people it's a security clearance not the pass-code to the McDonald's lounge area!

I hate this sort of journalistic deceit.

Ug...

Everything that has me pleased about the new status quo in federal politics fills me with dread at the prospect of Hudaguinty and the Consliberals sitting in Queens Park.

It's too bad, that as the article states the peoples desire for change is blind to the prospect of actual change.  Now if Paul McKeever and the Freedom Party were the change du jour then I'd be one happy camper.

Unfair Labour Practices Pt 2

Etcetera:


I really have to agree with the tag line and the first 3 paragraphs of this article .  The practical difference between the Liberals and Conservatives were few and far between, and this led to a parliament more interested (and focused) on throwing mud than really debating issues.  As a result, as strange as it may seem, I am actually looking forward to this session of parliament and appreciative of this new diametric split in Canadian politics.

Having said that though, The only question the writer sees in this dispute is whether the worker has the right to withdraw his labour if he is unhappy with his employers offered wage, and in practice I agree, although not in the way the author would have me I think...  You see, the last time I checked, and in my capitalism riddled mind I believe that indeed the worker does and should have that right, it is called quitting ones job.  Which of course leads to the employer's corollary; the ability to terminate the employment of any worker who refuses to work for the wage offered.  But that is not what the author of this article had in mind.

The Government's solution to this "job action" is an ideological about face and a warning to labour unions in this country.  The conservatives have done what an employer, free of union coercion would do, basically establish a wage which he is willing to pay and allow anyone who doesn't like it, the reciprocal freedom to walk away.

Of course the real reason that this is an issue, is that government is involved in the provision of this service in the first place.  Competition among independent postal services would ensure that workers and companies could only make, in wages and profits respectively, what the market would bear.  There would be no way to blackmail an entire population with a cessation of the service because the people of the country would be free to take their money and their business elsewhere.

Why does the government system insist on one price to mail a simple letter anyway?  It seems to me that were I to accept the idea that government should control the postal services (which I don't) that there ought to be a difference in the price of a letter depending on not only where it is going but where it is coming from. 

Think about it.  How much more in real terms does it cost the post office to pick up mail from or deliver it to Baffin Island than it does to pick it up from Toronto?  In the city my taxes (set by government) are significantly higher than those in the country because of the services which are provided for me by the government (police, fire, garbage, water, sewage etc).  If that sort of disparity is permitted by government then why should there be absolute equity when it comes to the price (set by government) of delivering a letter?

There is just so much wrong with this system and the current dispute, there is a solution though.  End the monopoly, get government out of the service industry, restrict the government's mandate to the protection of individual rights and in all other aspects of our lives... laissez faire!

Unfair Labour Practices

The Canadian Government's treatment of Postal workers is unfair.

Actually the fact that the Canadian Government has anything to do with these workers is unfair.  That is the only reason I can think of why an unskilled labourer (mail carrier) earns $51,466 dollars a year to deliver mail and is eligible for up to 6 weeks (30 days) of paid vacation a year.  Not to mention the cushy allotment of sick, and family related leave that can be taken.

Show me a single equivalent package of entitlements for an unskilled manual labourer in the private sector...

Yup the Government's treatment of the postal workers is unfair...  and in the interest of fairness they should all be fired and new ones hired at a suitable and sane market rate.

Selective Reasoning and the Modern Liberal Mind

The Mayor of Toronto is under fire for "skipping out" on that city's Gay Pride Parade.  This article lambastes Mayor Ford for missing an opportunity to show his support of the Gay community in Toronto.  The Mayor's excuse is that although the tradition of the Mayor to attend the parade during the Canada Day Weekend has gone on for 10 years, his family has one that supersedes and out dates that.

I have no problem with the Mayor's decision.  He, and he alone, must decide how to best divide his time between being a public and a private individual.  It's interesting to note that the people complaining about his missing the Gay Pride parade make no comment on the fact that he will also miss numerous Canada Day celebrations.  Does that fact make the Mayor Anti-Canadian?

Of course it doesn't and no one is suggesting it does, but the modern liberal schism that makes certain groups in society more equal (by virtue of past injustices) than others allows them to suggest everything from wasted  political opportunity to homophobia in the Mayors case.

Reflections on Death

Recent events have me thinking about my own death, or more rightly about the ceremony and social norms surrounding death, and I've discovered I don't much care for them.


Watching a good friend be buried and watching the dynamic of two families each grieving in their own way and witnessing the inevitable conflict created by such raw emotions, and of contrasting traditions, ideals, beliefs and perceptions has brought me to a solitary salient point.  I will not die without leaving specific and exacting instructions as to how I am to be laid to rest.

These instructions (which I will later formalize and place with my final Will and Testament) will be my final act of rational selfishness.  I will design the service and procedures not only with absolute adherence to my beliefs and ideals, but also with an eye to lessening the suffering of those closest to me.

The friend we buried this week was the wife of my best friend, and I watched him go through the hell made up of our societies standard rituals of death and burial for five days.  There was the viewing and the funeral, the burial and a reception, and from start to end a long procession of people showing up on his doorstep to offer their sympathies to "see how he was doing". 

The entire process seemed to me to be a tortuous pouring of salt in a fresh wound.  It demanded all his strength and all his attention, so that he might (perversely) stand straight and tall while people reminded him that he was hurting and that half of his life had been taken from him.

With this in mind I would save my loved ones such a drawn out process. 

I would disallow any sort of visitation.  I will not make my wife or children sit in the same room as my dead corpse while people wander past to do little more than convince themselves that I'm dead, or worse yet to satisfy a morbid fascination of seeing me so.

I would eliminate the funeral service.  The useful parts of it will be handled during the burial and I see absolutely no reason to have someone who doesn't know me lead my friends and family in remembrances of my life.

At the funeral I will act (in absentia) as the one leading the ceremony though a chosen voice, most likely a close friend who will read my final statements.  People will be asked to form a procession and say their goodbyes at this point over my grave and then the entire funeral party will retire to a selected location for a reception party where I, through my eulogizer would encourage everyone to really, truly and irreverently celebrate my life/what I meant to them.

They say funerals are for the living, but from what I have seen they are certainly not for the dearly departed's closest survivors, but more for those people on the periphery.  A death and all that surrounds it should, in my view, be a short, sharp, shock that will bring all the emotion to the surface, yet be over and done with as soon as practical.

Epiphany

Yesterday was my birthday, and it went by almost unnoticed.  Not on the part of those around me, many wished me all the best, but rather on my part. 

You see, I have taken to not celebrating my birthday.  Seeing it as being a “little thing” I have largely ignored it for years, after all a birthday is just another day, you aren’t really a year older, just a day.  I didn’t give it much thought at all. I went to work, didn’t mention it, came home and had a normal unremarkable day.

Then it hit me, spurred by a comment made by my Sister-in-Law who, when I remarked that I had received no birthday gifts and had no plan to celebrate at all, commented that she “hated that”, meaning the trivialization of such celebrations.  At the time I didn’t think much of it, but this morning I realized just what I was doing. 

The Strikers Oath states in its first sentence “I swear by my life, and my love of it”, well this apathy toward my own birthday was not showing my life (Me) the ‘love’ it/I deserve.  Too easily we reduce our lives to indistinguishable days, each following in bored procession one after the other.  This is the antithesis of the Objectivist philosophy.  Objectivism teaches us that we should celebrate our lives, that it is the end of all our means and that it is worth and worthy of any and all tributes we can heap upon it.

Having had this sudden realization I began to see the other ways I had been trivializing my own existence.  I had let others that I value, specifically my wife view her birthday in the same fashion.  Thus I was robbing myself of an opportunity to express with complete selfish satisfaction how much I value her.

Hell the day itself does not need to be important at all.  The mere act of living my life in my own way, however small, is worthy of complete mindfulness, a conscious joyful acknowledgement of life, my life and my living of it.

My birthday has come and gone, but its passing, as unremarked as it was, has left me with this thought… Today, and every day is the first day of the rest of your life.  Live it, consciously, actively, viscerally, fully.

I Wish.

I find it really hard to care about Canadian politics these days.

The same old parties are ranting along the same old lines about the same old things. Not a one of them offers or even wants any change to the system. Sure they gripe and moan about how "they" would do it differently, about how "they" are the only ones offering any new this or that, but the fact remains that if you look at it really hard you can see that all you need to do is change the faces, and the rants spewing forth across the house could come from any party at any time.

We don't have political parties we have pragmatic collectives who feed, vampire like off the votes of those who they dupe into their ideological lairs. Conservatives sell their souls in the hope that their particular status-quo will be maintained, Liberal voters pant and repent at the altar of progressive reform while the Dippers don the revolutionary garb and wave the red flag of socialism. All, in the end, get exactly nothing.

Our politicians word is written in water and nailing down any ideal (other than their prime directive of "thou shall get re-elected") is like nailing jello to the side of a battleship in a North Atlantic gale.

The best-worst thing is I can see an end to it, but it relies on the end of the entire system, which is to say a political or social or economic apocalypse the like of which has never been seen.

I imagine an Atlas Shrugged type collapse, a greatest depression, widespread social chaos spread across the entire planet. I see an unstoppable absolute and irretrievable end to the world as we know it and think...

I wish.

Objectivist Round Up #185

The Round Up is up at Three Ring Binder. Go have yourself a rational read.

The Canadian Farce of Rights and Freedoms #2

Rights and Freedoms Permissions in Canada.

If you are a classically liberal thinker like myself you probably believe in the notion of unalienable rights, which is to say Rights as a precondition to living ones life as a man; To me and those like me rights are an intrinsic necessity to living as opposed to merely existing in this world.

Well, the talking heads that wrote and lawyered the Charter don't believe in Rights like that. As a matter of fact I don't think they believe in Rights at all, only the power of the state.

The second sentence of the Charter is called "Rights and Freedoms in Canada" now that is a tall order, or at least you would think it would be a hard thing to cram into a single solitary sentence but the sentence really has nothing to do with Rights and freedoms and everything to do with who will allow you, and when you will be allowed to have rights and freedoms.

It states in full; "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

This is the first of many caveats in the Charter, and like all the others it is strategically placed to nullify any statement that could give the impression that Rights and Freedoms are a part of human nature as opposed to a permission granted to men at the whim of the state/government/some random constitutional lawyer.

Read that sentence. If you do so without mincing words you will immediately recognize its intent. Were you to simplify the sentence , boiling it down to its absolute meaning it would read... The Government has decided exactly what permissions you have to act and live your life and it will also decide when you will be permitted to do so.

In other words... your rights are what we say they are when we say they are.

So much for the "Guarantee of Rights and Freedoms".

The Canadian Farce of Rights and Freedoms

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a document that chains the people of Canada to a contradiction riddled and unapologetically statist perversion of the concepts of individual freedom and liberty.

"Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:"

This is the first line of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

So, in a document that claims to innumerate and codify the rights and freedoms of the people of Canada the first sentence contains a statement which, if examined rationally and without compromise, would lead to such a host of contradictions that the whole thing ought to have been thrown out of any 1st year law class.

Principle is defined in part as; a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived:

If it is true that Canada recognizes the Supremacy of God then which God?

No, there is no scope here to quibble and claim as many progressively minded people do that the statement is a generalization regarding the spiritual nature of any and all belief in a supernatural deity or notion, because to claim that is to allow a multitude of contradictions.

Remember the word "principles"? Well religions in Canada - which are the earthy manifestation of "God" - who according to our charter is "supreme" - don't recognize or even allow the same principles to be exercised. While some sects of the Christian religion recognize in principle (and action) the right of two men or two women to marry, the Catholic God most certainly does not; and that is one of the more benign contradictions of the notion of "principle" that this fallacious statement incurs.

Who's principle wins?

What sort of principle (fundamental, primary, or general law or truth) if any is upheld?

If you claim that the sentence is merely a recognition of spirituality what principles do we hold as true and which ones are the ones our nation is actually founded upon?

If we as a society get to pick and choose which "principles" we allow our nameless, faceless, secular Deity-thing to actually count as our founding principles why do we bother even trying to shroud the first sentence of this aberration of Rights in a spiritual cloak in the first place?

As for the remainder of the sentence, I have no complaint with the principle of "the rule of Law". That is not to say that I don't have issue with the things that we have been saddled with as "Law" but I'll get into those points as I delve further into this despicable document.