Draw the correct lessons from Ottawa

Last week in Canada generated world-wide headlines for the dramatic attack on an honour guard soldier at our national war memorial and subsequent armed attack on our House of Parliament (seat of the Federal government in Canada).  Twenty-four-year-old Corporal Nathan Cirillo of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Hamilton ON) was shot from behind and killed as he stood with an unloaded rifle at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and a security guard (again unarmed) at the doors of the Centre Block was wounded trying to deflect the gunman as he charged into the building.

This was pretty crazy for Ottawa, but it was in fact the second attack on a member of Canada’s Armed Forces by a Canadian Muslim convert in that one week; see my previous post. This was another act of terrorism, and we have Sgt-at-Arms Kevin Vickers (head of Parliamentary security) to thank for putting the Ottawa shooter out of our misery.  We also still have PM Stephen Harper to thank for calling it the Islamist terrorism that it is.  There seems to be some opportunistic bill jamming-through, but I’ll leave that out of this.

Can we expect more of this sort of thing?  I would say “yes”, and it’s good that a lone-wolf (who could easily have done much more damage) was the first attack, to shake up security arrangements.  The vehicular attack on Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent earlier that week is the sort of thing you can’t really prepare for, except by paying more attention to your surroundings. I stayed away from this until the dust settled a bit, and now I have some observations.

Firstly, more preventative detention of people who express an interest in “jihad” is in order.  It’s all very nice to make lists of potential bad apples, but when they start killing people that practice is obviously deficient.  You “like” Islamic State on Facebook?  Go to jail for 10+ years for terrorism/sedition.  Yes, sure it might “drive them underground” (too many quotes in this paragraph already) but if you’re not going to stop them when they are operating out in the open that hardly makes a difference. 

Secondly, our security needs some tweaking but mostly on the enforcement side.  Canada is not completely clueless (at the pointy end at least) about the threats we face, but there must be political will to do something about it, and I must say from a domestic political standpoint, the current party/leader combination is the only one which looks like it might have the stones for that.   The Guards at Buckingham Palace carry loaded weapons and there has been talk of arming our sentries, but that won’t happen here due to jurisdictional issues. I have thought about this a bit over that last several days, and on balance it’s better it stays that way provided that the local police will guard them, as is happening now. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Now we know.  If I were running things I would give the sentries a loaded mag so that they are not helpless, but still leave the cops as the first line of response.

Thirdly, media and public reactions.  This implies no conspiracy, but I am going to very cynically say that these attacks are timed very well for the Canadian Armed Forces.  The years in Afghanistan are behind us and the military was largely losing relevance to the public, dissipating the high regard in which they were held.  Defence funding was slashed back to levels not seen since the “peace dividend” Decade of Darkness of the 1990s and it was obvious that even the supposedly CAF-friendly Conservative government had lost sight of the necessity to maintain what you have.  The Canadian public has rallied around Cpl Cirillo in particular, (WO Vincents’s murder was far less telegenic) and two attacks in short order have brought the home-grown jihadi problem into focus a bit more.  I have no illusions that forceful direct action will result from this, but it’s better than nothing.

Media response was well handled overall, but I feel that the hand-wringing about 22 October being “the day that changed everything in Ottawa” was overdone.  That day was in fact September 11^th 2001, and it changed everywhere else in the Western world that day too; a sense of perspective is in order here.  It’s now the week after and things are going back to modified normal just as they should be.  It’s time to stop reacting and start acting against the threats within our borders.  If these fucks want to go to Syria to get killed, let them go and cancel their passports as soon as they clear a European airport.  Pressure on them will push some in that direction, and if they don’t leave they go to jail.  I don’t give a shit if you were born here or not; if Canada isn’t good enough for you get out and don’t come back.

District 9 by Osmosis

I've had a hard time writing about immigration policy. It's not because I don't have opinions on it (you should all be that lucky) but more because I see a reasonable policy as a forlorn hope.

That however will not stop me, any more than it stops me on all of my other Quixotic railing against stupidity and ignorance. Here is, imo, the crux of the problem for Western countries and the proximate cause of our eventual disappearance.

Bibi speaks no English and has been working at a small Saskatoon restaurant for the last six months. Her boss and friend, Sahana Yeasmin, told CTV that Bibi’s "situation back home is very bad."

Amnesty International is also urging the Canadian government to reconsider the deportation, saying the work of the UN body should be completed before the Canadian government makes any final decisions.

"There’s no way that Canada would want to be responsible for returning a woman back to a country where her rights could be violated," Gloria Nafziger, an Amnesty International refugee co-ordinator, told CTV.

 Emphasis mine. I do not dispute that Pakistan is a horrible place to live if you're a woman, and I can say the same thing for a lot of other places in the world. The problem is, if being a a woman means that your rights could be violated in Pakistan, by this logic we should accept all c. 90 million Pakistani women to protect them from this fate.

Don't be ridiculous, you say? That is the logical extension of this thinking, and it would take a lot less than that to destroy Canada as Canada. We can help some people, but we need to do that in such a way that they help us too. The harsh market truth is that a woman in her 60s with no money, no skills and who doesn't even speak one of our official languages is a liability to Canada, not an asset.

This is the sort of thinking which keeps the wheels turning and the lights on; mushy bleeding-heart talk about trampled "rights" in places we can't control does not help Canada (or the UK, France, Italy, Australia, the USA, etc. ) retain its' character as a place people would want to live in preference to their 3rd-World shithole.

You see what happens when I start in on this stuff? Obnoxious but unassailable truth is what happens. Sure you can tell me I'm a big meanie or a racist or whatever the fuck else you want to tar me with, but WE CAN'T TAKE EVERYBODY WHO WANTS TO COME HERE. I wish I could find the link to it again, but I saw an excellent lecture on immigration which involved jars full of marbles representing the various populations of the world. It very graphically represented what would happen if we were to open the borders, and that if we do so we'll all be living in Nairobi, and most of us not in the nice parts.

"We" are vastly outnumbered, and we should act like it, or there won't be a "we" left. Be very clear that this isn't some "White Power" shtick, I'm talking about culture, which can be adopted. Multiculturalism has failed. It works, for a while, as part of an empire, but a functioning democracy is a delicate flower which can be crowded out by weeds. Iffy analogy, but I think you get the point.

Going back to Nigeria again, contrast the governance of that country with that of Canada. It's a good comparison, as both have rich resource-based economies and educated, English-speaking ruling classes. Canada has internal divisions, but not the sort who raid each others' villages; the same cannot be said for the diverse parties in Nigeria. Nigeria is not poor, and Nigerians are no stupider on an individual basis than Canadians are (I'll steer clear of "Race IQ" stuff) so I would have to say the difference between their volatile and ineffective governance and ours is mostly a cultural one.

Now, if you like the way they do things, good for you. I don't, and I suspect the majority of people who grew up in (or gravitated to) the Western system would like to keep living in it. That means we can take some immigrants from wherever, but in digestible increments, and not just anyone. Sticking to this sort of policy is not for the meek, but if you like how things are where you are, it must be done so that the fortunate and productive few who we do take in have a nice place to live.

Guns don't murder people, a**holes murder people.

There's a lot going on this week, but one of the big international stories is the "Dark Knight" shooting rampage in Aurora Colorado last week. North of the border there was another gang-banger shooting in Scarborough albeit with a smaller body count, but there are important differences between the two ( i.e. lone maniac vs. sloppy and reckless thugs). I'll look at the common element, guns, availability and use thereof.

Gun control comes up as predictably as the sun every time there's a mass shooting, and I see no reason that will change. There are of course many other ways to kill someone besides a gun, and explosives do a very effective job of it either in concert with or without firearms. As a thought experiment I'll come up with a simple way to recreate the Aurora attack (I will not help immortalize that murderer's name) if guns weren't available to him.

The 'perp's apartment was rigged with explosives, so a remote-detonated car bomb was the least risky way to kill and maim a bunch of people. Want something more personal? He could have made a bunch of pipe bombs and gone into the theatres lobbing them into the middle of the crowd. Neither of these scenarios require access to any specialized or highly controlled items or substances and could have done as much or more damage.

My point? You can't ban enough stuff to keep lunatics from flipping out and going on a spree. Likewise, even in places where it is most certainly illegal to be carrying a weapon around nothing can stop someone who has one (legally owned or otherwise) from doing so. It is a matter of near certainty that all of the gang shootings in Toronto (home of very restrictive handgun laws) were perpetrated with illegal firearms.

My answer? Mandatory concealed carry for everyone with a clean record (capable of handling a pistol) might help to cut these things short when they happen. Otherwise, accept that bad things happen and try to minimize the occurrences and/or your exposure. After that, it's all luck to not be in the path of the rare but inevitable acts of entropic violence that will erupt no matter what the "authorities" try to do to prevent it.

It's good to have a King

I opened this up yesterday realizing that I'd written nothing here in the better part of a month, but was at a complete loss for topics. This has happened before of course, but is happening more often the last year or so as I realize i don't have much to say which is new. Well, who does anyway; it's a post-scarcity world for ideas too. With that in mind, here's what I think about what David Brooks thinks about our modern elites.

Everybody thinks they are countercultural rebels, insurgents against the true establishment, which is always somewhere else. This attitude prevails in the Ivy League, in the corporate boardrooms and even at television studios where hosts from Harvard, Stanford and Brown rail against the establishment.

As a result, today’s elite lacks the self-conscious leadership ethos that the racist, sexist and anti-Semitic old boys’ network did possess. If you went to Groton a century ago, you knew you were privileged. You were taught how morally precarious privilege was and how much responsibility it entailed. You were housed in a spartan 6-foot-by-9-foot cubicle to prepare you for the rigors of leadership.

The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service.

This is very much my argument in favour of continuing with our (Commonwealth) constitutional monarchy. The Royal Family is raised like this (and it even takes, sometimes), providing some institutional continuity much pooh-poohed by "progressive" republican elements in our society. To wit:

Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Wall Street firms, for example, now hire on the basis of youth and brains, not experience and character. Most of their problems can be traced to this.

When things are ALL about results it can be efficient, however ruthless efficiency is no way to live. It's also no way to run a business, i.e. for "shareholder value", but this is the trap that publicly owned companies run into. It is almost universally true that short-term solutions are not good in the long run. The corollary is that long-term things have no solutions, just management.

"Nothing ever ends", Watchmen fans. If I could, I'd be setting things up for my kids and great-grand kids, and it once was that the rich (elites) had estates, Duchies, Earldoms, etc. that were handed down. You can look at this as outmoded feudalism, or you can look at it as a multi-generational company providing some certainty for the tenants.

Yes, it's de riguer to be against "the Establishment", but please somebody explain to me what that is these days? The banks? Publicly-traded companies; if you want stop the ridiculous bonuses that executives get, buy up enough stock to vote them down. Unless you'd rather just smash things because life is insufficiently handed to you. Political elites? Don't make me laugh; they are merely opportunistic and know they have a limited shelf life.

Of course there is some shadowy world-wide oligarchical elite and with enough money there is a whole lot you can influence and get done. After that though we're in Yertle the Turtle territory and if the plebes have a real problem things can go seriously sideways in the planning cycle. That's Entropy, and a multi-generational elite will account for it. They would not, for example invade Iraq and have nothing to show for it but a lot of dead and injured troops and worn-out equipment.

We have something to the best of my immediate knowledge fairly unique in history: the USA as incipient Empire which is controlled by the new meritocratic elite. Accordingly it is REALLY bad at the Empire stuff, since that requires a long-term goal and the personal investment of the planners. The latter you will most certainly not get with a "democracy", so expect more schizo foreign policy behaviour from whatever passes for "America" these days.

The Road to Hell is paved by the good intentions of the new intellectual elites in academia (who make their way into politics; hello, Obamas) and the media. The problem of course is the Marxist/socialist cant that people are prefectable, they just need to be shown the way. The old-school view is that most people are fucked and it was your Duty to lead them by example. You will rarely if ever hear a social progressive talking about Duty, as it's viewed as archaic and patriarchal or something. Not surprising, because serving as an example severely circumscribes your freedom to do what you want. The mechanical difference between the approaches is that Example leadership pulls, the Nanny State pushes.

Different elite paradigms, different problems. There is theoretical upward mobility today, but in the old days there was in the Feudal system too (William the Conqueror, anyone?). All systems bloat and ossify over time, and the newer meritocratic version has merely done so more quickly and by different mechanisms. The much railed-against credentialism of today is the prime means of keeping the riff-raff in their place. As each generation gets positions, they increase the qualifications required beyond what they needed to get there. Forty years ago you could get in pretty much anywhere with High School (admittedly they actually taught something useful back then), but that generation turned that into a BA, and in many cases they now want post-grad and experience.

That's enough from me on that (for now) but the more I think about it the more real opportunity there was under the ancien regime vs. the current system. I'll close with an axiom to keep in mind when people talk about "equality": free men are not equal, and equal men are not free.

Blank Cheques and the Whirlwind

I am not commenting here on the merits of this particular case, but on the precedent it sets:

In the 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Navajo Indians and several other tribes must be paid in full for the services they provided in 1994-2001, including education, environmental protection and security.

It said that it was not the fault of the tribes that Congress had imposed a ceiling on such payments because of the lack of funds.

"The government was obligated to pay the tribes' contract support costs in full," the court said in the ruling.

The federal payments reportedly covered between 77% and 92% of the costs, depriving the plaintiffs of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The verdict is a major victory for the tribes, the BBC's Paul Adams in Washington reports.

But the decision also has implications for contractors in general, as the court said the government has to abide by its promises, our correspondent says.

If a service had been performed, the court said, then it was not good enough simply to say the money was not there.

Emphasis mine in the last sentence. I'm no lawyer, but in all civilized places contracts are taken seriously and they should be. The problem is twofold; promises and expectations

Promises first. Politicians/governments make these as a matter of course, and I don't see any end coming to that anytime soon so I guess I'm done with fold 1. Fold two is really the crux, as democratic governments cater to voter expectations via the promises mentioned above. Again, this case seems pretty straight-forward, but the final sentence shows the road to socialist penury that many nations are already on.

The general consensus (right wrong or wherever in-between) on how the EU PIGS got where they mostly (but Greece and Spain in particular) are today is a tale of unreasonable expectations. It's nice to retire at 50 on a secure pension, but not reasonable since you will not likely have put enough money aside for the next 25-40 years of your probable life. If this is the case, whose responsibility is it to pay your way? On what basis is this liability assigned, your "rights"?

In Canada we like our health care system, at least when we're not complaining about wait times and what it doesn't cover. As a society we have decided overwhelmingly that the taxes required to ensure that people aren't bankrupted by the birth of a child or an emergency appendectomy are worthwhile. You pay taxes (more accurately, are a citizen), you are covered, and nobody, not even cynical contrarians like me complain about it until non-citizens are seen to be sponging services that haven't paid into.

Even that is merely a bug in the system. People get the government they deserve, and if that's the case the Greeks in particular are in aggregate a lazy, grasping bunch. "Austerity" is the buzz-word these days, and people are voting against it all over the place, France most recently kicking Sarkozy and his belt-tightening to the curb in favour of Hollande's socialists. Apparently the French think there is still a vein of other peoples' money to be tapped for their short workweeks.

I am lightly slandering entire countries but have no fear, I don't play favourites and will dish it to my motherland should it become appropriate. At this point I will point out the forgotten detail of Austerity: it is merely living within your financial means.

Who is to blame for the current state of perpetual imminent collapse of the international monetary system (again)? The Rich? They may have influence, but the 1% are still only 1% of the electorate and the ballot box balances that influence, if enough of the other 99% choose to use it. OK then, the government? Pusillanimous politicians and parties only concerned about their political survival indeed heed the siren call of the electorate as long as it'll keep them in power, so I'll lay some blame here.

That incidentally is the best argument for rich people with a sense of national service (hereditary or otherwise) being politicians; if they don't need the money and the pension plan they are more able to make difficult/unpopular decisions. Since that is a fantasy of days gone by, the bulk of the blame for people getting hosed by government policy is indeed the people themselves. Yes, we don't know what's good for us in the long run and suffer for all the easy-credit bubbles and Ponzi schemes.

This is no surprise since by definition (Statisticians, leave me alone on the terminology) half of the population is of below-average intelligence by whatever measure you choose to use. Of the right side of the curve, a lot are mentally and/or physically lazy, just plain greedy or entitled because they are too smart for their own good. It is the job of the productive class (crossing IQ divisions) to keep the system going despite various disincentives (e.g. taxes) from entitlement-minded members of the political and electorate class.

The argument for low taxes is that it incentivizes people to live and work in your precinct. To the eternal consternation of commies of all shades, places with low taxes are typically the places closest to a balanced budget. This is because the low taxes mean that the Socialists haven't taken over, and people are still spending their own money, and not other peoples'. Don't give your government a blank cheque that your taxes can't cover. It's your fault if they overspend for more than one term of government, if they sow the wind you'll reap the whirlwind.

Battle of the Bulge

Today I'm aiming in the general direction of the future of Western countries, staying close to home (Canada, specifically Quebec) to look at the demographic imbalance and expectations for the future.  In other words, wherever this takes me.  According to Statistics Canada, deaths will start to outnumber births in Canada c. 2030, i.e. the near future.  A quarter-century after that the population is projected to be about 42 million.  Here looks like a good spot to wander into the minefield of immigration policy so I shall start there.

It is obvious to sensible people (a rare breed, alas) that we need immigrants, but not just anyone.  Criminals, the mentally or seriously ill, the just plain stupid, we can grow our own, we don't need to import them.  We are looking for people with some kind of skill and/or a good general education including a functional knowledge of English or French (but really English for anywhere outside of Quebec, let's face it) and a desire and ability to go where the work is.

I remember a university class over 20 years ago where this subject came up, and I said something to the effect of the above.  I was promptly branded a "racist" for wanting people with education and skills, the accuser's (stated) assumption that these people could only come from Europe.  As I said not word one about source country, who exactly is the racist here?  I dismembered her quite handily in the brief debate which followed but I'm sure she's running some government department or molding young minds somewhere these days.

The young (and not-so-young) minds marching around Montreal right now are looking into the yawning chasm of the Boomer- Gen X - Gen Y crossover and those working on useless Humanities degrees (the bulk of the ones on the streets) are wondering what's in it (the system) for them.  Good question, but I don't think rampaging through the streets and getting yourself a criminal record is going to improve your prospects.

They are bafflingly getting more support these days, and I suppose we can lay this at the Premier's feet.  The "emergency law" they passed was redundant and just gave the protesters something to rally against.  These things need to be dealt with firmly from the get-go and the vacillation of the government in the early days allowed things to get out of hand.

That however is tactical, and it's the strategic situation which needs looking at.  There is currently a bulge in the population creating an oversupply of labour.  However, just like the bulge which a snake's meal creates, this will eventually pass.  The question is "when" and the answer is not encouraging for these "students".  The tail end of the Baby Boom hit 15 years old (entry to the workforce) in 1981, which means they won't hit the new retirement age of 67 until 2033.

Ouch.  This is not to say that there will be no labour mobility in the next 20 years, but with the general shift in the economy to less labour-intensive modes of production will mean that expanding economy or no, the job opportunities will not be there for many for quite a while.  What do I know, things could change, right?

If I could make accurate economic forecasts I wouldn't be writing my anonymous blog for almost no audience so we can assume there are things I don't know.  Regardless of the accuracy of my model, I would like to see what exactly these protesters intend to happen.  Don't like Bill 78? I've scant sympathy as there is nothing in that "excessive" and "abuse of power" law which will inconvenience anyone who's not invading classrooms and blocking traffic.  The government is corrupt?  No shocker that, but we have a mechanism for throwing the bums out every 4-5 years, so build up a party and get your platform of free education and unicorns for all elected in Charest's place.

All of these movements are problems without viable solutions.  If any of these people can look around at Europe (Greece et al) and remain under the illusion that there is an inexhaustible supply of other peoples' money to pay for their free tuition it's just as well they're not in school right now since education is wasted on them.  Education to me of course means information containing facts, not the hippie/radical feminist/Marxist bullshit the Gender Studies etc. faculty teaches so no wonder expectations are so divorced from reality.

One can rail against the preceding generations for stacking things in their actuarial favour but I fail to see what good that will do the following generations.  Mine (X) is the generation which will bear the brunt of this as we expected to retire at 65 or earlier and now won't be able to.  Life's hard, and we will reap the whirlwind.  It will be a LOT worse for those following us if things aren't reined under control now, and running huge deficits will not accomplish that.  As sad as it is to say, we all have to accept that the skies are not as blue for us as they were for our Boomer parents and grandparents.

Solutions?  Not exactly, but a repeal of the rampant credentialism and grade inflation which has entrenched since the 1960s would be a start.  If it is made attractive once again for companies to hire apprentices or "mail room" level people straight from Secondary school a great deal of money and student debt could be saved.  The days of a "Company" job for life are gone, but something like that could come back with advantages (stability for those who want it) for Labour and Capital.  If it worked before, a version of it could work again.  Banging pots in the streets is not going to help anything unless it by itself can smarten up people and therefore the government that supports it.  I'm not betting on that.

Working for the Clampdown

Being of a generally libertarian bent, I'm never keen on anything that gets in the way of people minding their own business. The corollary to that is of course that I am VERY much in favour of things which put a stick in the spokes of people who make life harder (or shorter) for people like me. This can mean anything from sclerotic bureaucracies and over-reaching police to professional victims who will grind things to a halt because they're not happy.

Enter the Great Mask Debate of 2012. Montreal, indeed much of Quebec, has been regularly disrupted by mobs of "students" bitching about their entitlements. There has also (finally!) been a lot of talk and maybe even some action about the masked idiots participating in these marches. There is still a lot of hand-wringing about what if anything to do about this, but as usual I have some ideas.

Concern #1: Civil liberties. No ban on hiding your face is an imposition on your right to free assembly for peaceable purposes. Things vary country to country, but in Canada we have rules for things that happen in public and there never was carte blanche to disturb the peace. There are laws (finally being enforced) that prevent you from camping in city parks etc. A whole lot of people have been breaking these laws, all of which are there to ensure that business and public life can carry on without undue imposition from mobs.

Concern #2: Enforcement. "You can't arrest everyone if they're all wearing a mask!" No, and it was impractical for a Roman Centurion to slaughter his entire command for cowardice, etc. too. The solution then, as now is Decimation. Taken literally it means "to take one in ten", e.g. kill every tenth man. There is no reason a less-lethal application couldn't set the example. I would apply this with a bit of "profiling" i.e. take preferentially the people who most looked like they were up to no good, but a smattering of "harmless" looking types should be collared as well so that people don't figure that bright colours or hippy, etc. clothes will give them a free pass.

Concern # 3: Violent reactions to #2 above. If you are concerned about the reactions of criminals to the enforcement of the law, you might as well disband the police and give the country over to violent anarchy. "Criminals?" you say? "Isn't that presumptive? These start as peaceful protests!" Well,  ignorance of the law is no excuse as they say, so here is some education for all those participating in a public assembly. This is from the Criminal Code of Canada, but wherever you live I pretty much guarantee you have something similar.

63. (1) An unlawful assembly is an assembly of three or more persons who, with intent to carry out any common purpose, assemble in such a manner or so conduct themselves when they are assembled as to cause persons in the neighbourhood of the assembly to fear, on reasonable grounds, that they

(a) will disturb the peace tumultuously; or
(b) will by that assembly needlessly and without reasonable cause provoke other persons to disturb the peace tumultuously.

Marginal note: Lawful assembly becoming unlawful
(2) Persons who are lawfully assembled may become an unlawful assembly if they conduct themselves with a common purpose in a manner that would have made the assembly unlawful if they had assembled in that manner for that purpose.

64. A riot is an unlawful assembly that has begun to disturb the peacetumultuously.

Pretty neat eh? Check this next bit, this is the part you really need
to know.

65. Every one who takes part in a riot is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 66.

Marginal note: Punishment for unlawful assembly 
66. Every one who is a member of an unlawful assembly is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.


Consequences, people, consequences; these students are supposedly bright types and may in fact know the above already. Likely they (or at least some of them) do, hence the desire to avoid said consequences by say, hiding their identity? Anyway in for a penny, in for a pound; I like these parts too so I'll keep rolling with the CCOC.

Reading proclamation
67. A person who is
(a) a justice, mayor or sheriff, or the lawful deputy of a mayor
or sheriff,
(b) a warden or deputy warden of a prison, or
(c) the institutional head of a penitentiary, as those
expressions are defined in subsection 2(1) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, or that person's deputy,who receives notice that, at any place within the jurisdiction of the person, twelve or more persons are unlawfully and riotously assembled together shall go to that place and, after approaching as near as is safe, if the person is satisfied that a riot is in progress, shall command silence and thereupon make or cause to be made in a loud voice a proclamation in the following words or to the like effect:
Her Majesty the Queen charges and commands all persons being assembled
immediately to disperse and peaceably to depart to their habitations or
to their lawful business on the pain of being guilty of an offence for
which, on conviction, they may be sentenced to imprisonment for life.
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.

[This would be lots of fun in this exact form in Quebec right now...]

R.S., 1985, c. C-46, s. 67;
1994, c. 44, s. 5.
Marginal note: Offences related to proclamation
68. Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to
imprisonment for life who
(a) opposes, hinders or assaults, wilfully and with force, a person who begins to make or is about to begin to make or is making the proclamation referred to in section 67 so that it is not made;
(b) does not peaceably disperse and depart from a place where the proclamation referred to in section 67 is made within thirty minutes after it is made; or
(c) does not depart from a place within thirty minutes when he has reasonable grounds to believe that the proclamation referred to in section 67 would have been made in that place if some person had not
opposed, hindered or assaulted, wilfully and with force, a person who would have made it.
R.S., c. C-34, s. 69.

"...liable for imprisonment for life..."! I don't see that happening but if you want to go out and "smash the state", capitalism, globalization, what-have-you, be very aware of the ice you're walking on. One final bit of the section worth noting for the authorities:

Neglect by peace officer
69. A peace officer who receives notice that there is a riot within his jurisdiction and, without reasonable excuse, fails to take all reasonable steps to suppress the riot is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

Peace, Order and Good Government. That's what Canada is all about. We make no pretense in our Constitution of any "pursuit of happiness"; keeping the wheels on is what this country is all about from its' founding to present. This means that our public officials have a DUTY to do their jobs and keep the yobs off the streets even if that means making them (the yobs) unhappy. I suspect that once you slap fines on your average protestor for wearing a mask, only the hard core (who were going to be a problem anyway) will keep at it. Then comes the richly deserved head-cracking and  tear-gassing.

Making this work is in two parts: enforcement and moderation. The students in Quebec are losing what public support they may have had, so the time is ripe for a crackdown. I've used the phrase "pour encourager les autres" before, and taking enough of these protesters into custody (to be punished as appropriate) will gut the movement and restore order sooner rather than later.

It's possible to go too far (the "kettling" etc. in Toronto two years ago ) but despite the propaganda, another Tiananmen Square is simply not going to happen if a few dozen idiots get picked up and fined for wearing a mask. Random civilians will not be swept up for minding their own business, and that's one of my tests for a tolerable restriction on our behaviour.

Demobcracy

Democracy is rather famously the worst form of government except for all of the others, and it's certainly a shibboleth these days that it is the best, full-stop.  As is my wont I am here to Devil's Advocate that assumption, and current events are certainly pointing out the instabilities inherent in the concept of free-for-all democracy.

Most recently and closest to home, students in Quebec are protesting (more or less violently) the decision to raise their tuition rates.  This is no "Arab Spring" but the idea is similar; they don't like what's happening and they vote against it with sit-ins, and some arson and smashing of things.  Leaving out the details of that protest (except to say I have no sympathy since everyone else in the country already pays far more than they do), this is an ancient problem getting a modern treatment.

First, the ground rules in a standard liberal democracy: they are Representative Democracies.  This means we have a system used to elect representatives for our local interests, and it's an understatement to say that this has limitations.  Regardless, it's the system we have, and it's a "model" of democracy which works adequately as long as people work within it.  "Model" in this case means something which represents the actual thing, and of course anything which isn't the thing itself can't display all characteristics of it.  Details are lost, values are approximated.

A REAL democracy would have everyone voting individually for everything.  Of course technology brings this closer all the time, but ask yourself if you'd really like to see that.  It is pretty obvious that you can (in fairly homogeneous societies) put peoples' political leanings on a curve with distinct Left and Right tails.  Each of these tails overlaps into the Centre, and it is my belief (not tested) that the Right is bigger than the Left.

So what?  The polarization of the electorate in Canada and the USA is very evident in voting patterns indicating a "core" of people who feel certain ways about certain things.  This is of course a model, not the real thing, but it's serviceable.  Of the two tails the Right is bigger, as this encompasses the conservative/leave me alone strains of the population.  We'll say this is 35% of the population.  The other end, the entitlement/nanny state I'll put at a hard 20%.  In between there are a lot of people who don't feel terribly strongly about very much, and that 45% or so will either form a default plurality bloc or bleed off in either direction as circumstances warrant. 

With the map (a.k.a. model) laid out, back to my point.  The above groups display certain basic characteristics, some of them common.  Both tails think they know better than everyone else, and the Right and the Centre will overwhelmingly go with "the Devil they know" than smash everything in pursuit of "Revolution".

Enter the sore losers.  Election didn't come out the way you wanted? Scream "cheating", "recall" or whatever is likely to get you what you want.  Sit-in, smash and burn things, distort peoples' statements, act outraged at everything you don't agree with, lie, and resort to ad hominem attacks on the opposition.  It is to be noted (neatly backing up my numbers) that 2/3 of Quebec students are quietly completing their semesters.  I think this excerpt says it all:
At McGill University, classes and exams have been largely unaffected by the student unrest. Only four departments -- Gender, Sexuality and Women's studies; Graduate Art History; Social Work; and French Literature -- are on strike. (emphasis mine).

This is not to say that any one group has a monopoly on dirty tricks.  Much mud is slung in all directions, but the TEA Party vs "Occupy" comparison is educational as it directly compares both ends of the political curve.  TEA Party groups came out for the day, then went home sans rampage.  Occupy groups squatted somewhere and formed impromptu communes and mini-Woodstocks.  In Oakland Ca there were labour and trade disruptions as well as the usual vandalism and not-always-civil disobedience.

The latter are not the people who keep the lights on in our civilization, the former are.  The evil baby-raping Right Wingers protest within the law of the land and go home, voting their preferences and conscience at all opportunities.  The "you're too stupid to know what's good for you" Left cries "foul" and tries to physically change the terms of the discussion.

There are a lot of different brands of ideas and the farther you go in either direction the less common ground they have.  With this in mind, the dangers of unbridled democracy should become evident.  Here is the reductio ad absurdum of "Democracy is always good":

Last year, the White House began peddling the line that the uprisings in the Middle East were a repudiation of the al Qaeda model of seeking change through terrorism. The argument was that while America opposed violent extremism, the rise of nonviolent radical movements was just fine, and even commendable. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri quickly dismissed this claim, saying that from the terrorists’ point of view, it didn’t matter whether an Islamist victory came through violence or not. The means were unimportant except as they related to the end state: the imposition of hard-line Shariah-based laws and policies. (emphasis mine again)

Of course we've been down this road many times, recently and obviously with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  The thing that people seem to forget is that any political system is a tool, a means to an end.  If the end is the means, anything done within the means is legitimate. 

When you think "Democracy" do you think "one man, one vote, once"?  Theocracy? Democracy can be used to achieve these end-states as easily (more easily, really) than it can produce a stable liberal democratic system.  Hitler was legally elected too...

Life is a struggle (ultimately futile) against Entropy, and anything we do in life requires maintenance.  If you want to live in a society which allows free speech and freedom of association, that cannot be maintained by burning everything down each time you have a grievance.  I started this post yesterday (30 April) but as I wrap it up today it is May Day and further Anarchist/nihilist stupidity can be expected over the Western world.  As the Gender Studies students and loutish vandals co-mingle at various "protests" the former will not recognize themselves as the vectors of the latter "Black Bloc" assholes.

Coming back to the freedoms (speech and association) I mentioned earlier, there can be no absolute freedom in anything.  Although poorly understood, the Universe has rules which are necessary to keep things turning and every other sub-system needs some definable structure too.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and if you squeeze the trigger on your "revolucion" don't be surprised when your Robespierre pops up, Reign of Terror and all.

Libertarianism in the U.K.

This guy was WAY more into "the scene" than I was, but I can find a lot of common ground with him on the punk-conservative idea. "Libertarian" is about as close as I can get to a political label for myself, although my attachment to Good Government goes back as far as I've had an opinion, so the Anarchy thing was never happening.

I think the biggest thing that would have you transition between Punk and conservatism is the fact that you can think for yourself. There were a fair number of slumming dilettantes hanging around the gigs 25 years ago, but the people like me who were living on their own and too poor to buy new jeans when their old ones ripped survived on our own ingenuity. Except those who were on Welfare who were never likely to amount to anything. Some others of this group have gone on to be hateful leftist PC types, but not that many.

The biggest thing I got out of being a "punk" (as labelled by others, not initially self-identified) was the idea that it was a group where I could be myself. There were of course always the "harder-core than thou" types who were their own sort of conformists, but I was quite capable of ignoring them.

A group identifies by certain conventions they follow, and my favourite one of the list McInnes gave was #6 about slam dancing. Slam dancing was fun, because you could actually move, with a (usually) gratifying amount of physicality to make it more interesting. Moshing is an abomination and I personally blame Nirvana for ruining everything. Picking people back up was a key part of slamming, and this made it a social activity instead of a blood sport.

I said I blame Nirvana, so I shall substantiate. It was the fall of 1991 and I was a young guy living in a dank basement apartment downtown with a couple of friends. There were a small number of clubs which were "alternative" at least in the middle of the week when the hard-drinking party crowd was in abeyance. These we patronized on the Tues/Wed/Thurs as appropriate and at the time I knew pretty much everyone who showed up at least by sight if not better.

Then "Smells Like Teen Spirit" started getting heavy rotation on Much/MTV and things changed almost overnight. Fratboy jocks started showing up and trying to flatten people on the dance floors. The rest of us had learned the social mores of punk at gigs and followed them in the clubs; these new arrivals had no idea and seemed disinterested in learning better. It was a flavour of the month thing, but it "broke" the alternative scene in my city.

Entropy is the way of the universe so my time for that passed, but it was mildly disturbing to be off the cutting edge at 21. However, it was never about that; I as an accidentally opportunistic Individual liked the music (still listen to it and seek out new stuff) and was not about to conform to something I didn't like just to stay "in".

Doing your own thing and minding your own business are the traits of both Punks and Libertarians. My current career is a blatant sell-out to financial security as I really don't like being told what to do, and LOATHE being told how to do it. This is how I'm fighting Entropy these days, but I hope to make a change to being my own boss. Having children does tend to keep one's inner Anarchist under control, so I'm plotting and planning, but not holding my breath or betting the house on it. There's the "conservative" part.

What else particularly resonates with me? # 8 (The PC Police Have No Power Over You) and #10 (Violence has its Place). The former is part of the hating-to-be-told-how-to-do-things issues I have, and the latter is merely the way of the world. Indeed, both of these precepts are the underpinning of this Blog's existence.

Categorizing people inherently limits them, and nobody that I want to know would fit neatly into any one category. I'm all over the place in how I feel about things, and what I write here is a fair representation of that, but the map is not the territory. Speaking of a map, this post has lost it's way so it's time to tie it off.

Classy, and logical even.

A group of more than 200 Japanese pensioners are volunteering to tackle the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power station.

The Skilled Veterans Corps, as they call themselves, is made up of retired engineers and other professionals, all over the age of 60.

They say they should be facing the dangers of radiation, not the young.

Admirable sense of duty to start with, but smart too:

Volunteering to take the place of younger workers at the power station is not brave, Mr Yamada says, but logical. Mr Yamada has been getting back in touch with old friends via e-mail and even messages on Twitter.

"I am 72 and on average I probably have 13 to 15 years left to live," he says. "Even if I were exposed to radiation, cancer could take 20 or 30 years or longer to develop. Therefore us older ones have less chance of getting cancer."

There is real shortage of both logic and pragmatism in this world, and these guys have both. So many people don't understand radiation at all but of course these engineers do. The unspoken bit here is the risk of sterility or genetic damage, but with workers (effectively if not absolutely)past their reproductive years this problem is obviated.

This seemed a nice change from my railing and doomsaying, and it ties in with the previous post on nuclear hysteria too so win-win. I hope to still be of some use when I'm elderly, and this group's members are good role models for anyone who's looking for that.

Feminism and Sluttiness

A Toronto cop who warned women that dressing like sluts can attract sexual assault was reprimanded and underwent “further training,” Chief Bill Blair said Sunday.
 

Blair called Const. Michael Sanguinetti “inexperienced,” adding the officer uttered “something stupid and he’s apologized.”
 

The constable’s comment sparked outrage, prompting more than 1,500 protesters to stage a “SlutWalk” Sunday from Queen’s Park to police headquarters on College St.
 

“I don’t think the officer meant any offence,” added Blair.

In that 1500 people on the "Slut Walk" were a lot of people who lacked something better to do, as this was not worthy of a demonstration. Constable Sanguinetti phrased what he said badly, but there is a certain element of common sense in it.

There is of course no excuse for rape no matter how someone is dressed. That said, if you dress like a slut (and so many girls at distressingly young ages do this today) people will think you are one. This is not a "Rape Me" sign, but it's not exactly doing much to promote yourself on any higher plane.
Slutty is Sexy, but Sexy is not necessarily Slutty. What should be encouraged is a bit of restraint in dress and demeanor, provided you want to be taken seriously as a person as opposed to a bit of ambulatory plumbing. This is old-ish fashioned I guess but I'm not telling women to wear floor length dresses and cowls. You should be working your curves, not so much your skin.

Back to the intent of our beleaguered Constable's statement. There is not much protection from the random attention of predators, so the condemnation from rape victims is somewhat off target. What you do have some control over is how you will look to your average drunken 20-something guy toward the end of the night. If you look like a street walker you'll likely get propositioned much like one. If this is your intent, mission accomplished.

Looking nice but not like a "slut" will if nothing else give you a shot at a higher quality of guy on any given night and avoid a fair bit of low-quality propositioning. This however is all of the difference it can make under the law of this land.

What Const Sanguinetti was trying to say was a waste of time and has just landed him in trouble. This is the responsibility of parents, and as long as your daughters live with you, you have some control over what they wear. If you keep your girl(s) from dressing like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry when they're 10 or 12 years old you are well on your way to raising a young woman who sees herself as more than a piece of meat to be flaunted to boys. Last I checked, THAT was Feminism.

On civilized debate

As an obviously opinionated guy I am no stranger to controversy. This does NOT however automatically mean that I am experienced/talented in debate; I'm not bad at it as it turns out, but having an opinion and being willing to debate it is not as common as a lot of people would like. You can count me in with those people. I will go old-school here and take the Oxford definition from an actual paper dictionary:

debate: discuss or dispute about (an issue, proposal, etc.) esp. formally in a legislative assembly, public meeting, etc.

Coming back to the 21ieme siecle, the Internet can be considered a "public meeting" for purposes of this definition, as this is as public as it gets. At least it would be if more than a handful of people (thank you, btw) actually read it. I have over the years continued to put a lot of shaky propositions up on this site in the nearly vain hope that people would take the bait and call me on it. I need the mental exercise which only comes from challenging what I believe to a death match with the wits of others, but that doesn't mean that I'm kidding about what I write.

Even more old fashioned, I was raised to back up what I say. This was always rare in the opinionated, but is vanishingly so these days and the schools don't help. I find this ironic due to the ready access to reams of information which (admittedly with many grains of salt and a lot of fact checking) puts debating gold at your fingertips. We are in fact overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, and a valuable skill is the ability to limit your intake of it.

Boundaries need to be pushed to test them, something I do for fun as often as I can. As I get older I'm slowing down on this (been there, done that), but here's one rule I adhere to: I will always admit if I'm wrong. That sounds easy, and sometimes it it, but you will need to convince me that I am incorrect. There's another problem with many topics; convincing me to care enough to argue about it. People who take contrary positions to EVERYTHING are very annoying, so I try to be discriminating.

People have a lot invested in their view of the world, and you undermine that at your peril. Religious zealots are simply the most obvious; they have in many cases an entire lifetime of indoctrination in whatever it is and it's faith-based so there is really no point in debating religion. It can be dangerous too...

Secular beliefs are often structurally identical to religious ones and often as difficult to debunk. In theory there is no faith involved, but in practice there is a willing suspension of disbelief which is identical. I was going to get into a whole Left-Right thing, but I found that I don't have much interesting to say about that.

Last post's topic of getting along flows more naturally into this. There are times and places (and people) when you can "agree to disagree", and that is the key to civilized debate. This post at WUWT was the catalyst for my ramblings today and it hits that most critical of ingredients for civilized debate: self-selection of participants.

Just building "it" doesn't mean that "they" will come, (faith-based example) and in fact generally the worst reactionaries (of any stripe) will avoid an honest balanced debate like the plague. We like people who agree with us, but you don't learn and grow by preaching to the converted. People who want to convince, not bully, will engage in debate. Bullies will YELL and call you unpleasant things to distract from their inability to support their position on its' merits. In many cases that's their default position, even when they have an easy rhetorical target.

Much like what I proposed for the G8/20 meetings, if you want to keep out the great unwashed masses (e.g. the rabble described above) you need to control the venue, real or virtual. This will allow you to invite people, and if you're honest about it you'll invite your glibbest intellectual opponents. Stacking the deck in your favour only cheats you and your cause of legitimacy. So, the keys to civilized debate seem to be:

• Transparency, which equals a good reputation for those who display it;



• tread carefully on faith based beliefs;



• be enough of a threat to what "they" believe that "they" feel compelled to counter your argument (but not so compelled that they want you dead; see point above), and;



• control of the debating venue.

Again I welcome discussion of this, like everything else you'll find here. Lots of it can be better researched and presented, but as always this is what you get for free. I promise that if challenged I will always give back as good as I get, which will involve more than my usual cursory web searches and pulling things from the dusty corners of my brain. The latter is more fun and sufficient for the "jaw-jaw" part; if it starts getting serious references will start to appear as appropriate before it turns to "war-war". Look for that from any serious pundits, as well as how they talk about their opponents. Civility requires restraint, but doesn't need to be boring...

Can we agree to disagree?

I don't follow the State of the Union speeches as a rule, but this one happens to tap into a vein of thought commonly shunned; talking to people you don't agree with.

First quote (from linked article, emphasis mine):

Former House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill and President Ronald Reagan would be proud of their heirs -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- for truly demonstrating what civility could look like. We don't all have to agree with each other, but for the good of the country, it's important that we sit together as Americans. After all, this could be good for the country, too.

Nice and touchy-feely boilerplate "why can't we be friends?" stuff. It occurs to me that if it were that simple/easy people would do a lot more of it.

Second quote, Lt. Col Tom Kratman, SF author, from an exchange in the Chaos Manor mail (emphasis again mine):

“In any case,” Kratman concluded, “nobody converts anybody; we, as a society, are way past that. Right and left don’t share basic assumptions, don’t use the same words with the same meanings, and generally just talk past each other.”

Ah, fundamentals; where most mortals fear to tread, but the bread and butter of my blog. People are indeed people wherever you go, but nobody pretends that we're all clones of each other. The nutcase who shot Gabrielle Giffords (and killed those 6 other people, but who remembers them now?) is a garden-variety wacko with a grudge who happened to take it out on a local politician (and bystanders). Most people don't do that sort of thing, nor would they under any reasonably probable scenarios. Here is an automatic Us/Them that nobody in their right mind will argue with.

We start here with proclivities, and from the obviously violently insane we can move to mushier boundaries. How about criminals vs. non-criminals? Here lines start to blur, but most people would see them pretty clearly until past the psycho and sociopaths. There are things which are just "not done" which most people will agree on. Killing for fun isn't part of anyone's culture, at least not one which has survived, as their neighbours would quickly eliminate them.

Not that killing for other reasons is so proscribed; a monothestic religion which will remain nameless (but has over 1B adherents) contains within its basic tenets that killing or enslaving unbelievers is perfectly acceptable. No points for guessing who I'm talking about, but needless to say everyone else doesn't think this is a good idea, at least if they bother to know how things actually are. Could be important to them, but sticking heads in the sand is popular pastime.

No amount of hand holding or exhortations to "civility" will change the fact that people often have very different worldviews. I know lots of people who don't share my basic assumptions about life, but I find as I get older those friends sort of drop off. This is as civil as it gets, but at the end of the day it takes a lot more work to either confront or avoid ideological differences, and like-minded people are more relaxing to hang out with.

I have been in huge arguments with people who see exactly the same information as me completely differently. This was fun sometimes, but it stops being fun pretty quickly when the topics are not hypothetical/recreational. People continue to die for differences far smaller than those I have had with my lefty aquaintances. I like to think I'm reasonably civilized, but the veneer is stripped away rapidly from the best of us if we feel threatened. In my case the list of what I will kill to protect is limited to my immediate family, but history tells us that Ideas have killed a lot more people than Self-Defence ever will.

So can we all be friends? Not everyone with everyone else, and NOTHING will change that, certainly not cheap talk from politicians. Like goes with like, birds of a feather, oil and water, all that is as inescapable as magnetism, which of course repels as well as attracts. This is not a Yin-Yang thing of complementary interconnected opposites, but polar ones, separated from each other. Ideas are trouble when they divide people, and you'll be hard pressed to find any significant Idea (caps intentional) that can't polarize people.

Ideas also distort language, imparting particular meanings to ordinary words; the Bolshevik revolution in Russia changed the connotations if not the outright meaning of the word "red". It was to denote "good", but of course the other side (us) uses "Red" to mean "subversive Commie", a meaning it holds to some extent today. And then of course there's the classic Humpty Dumpty dissertation on meanings:

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for youu!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

This brings me back to the Left-Right divide, and I think I'll tackle what I think that means another day; that will hopefully be less "impenetrable" than the above. I'll sign off for now by saying that compromise (from ALL parties) is necessary if we're going to keep the lights on and the wheels turning, but that will be done by Centrists, and I guess I'll work up a definition for that next time too.