Without Sin there is no Hope

Sin. There is probably no other word as useful and necessary that has so completely escaped the lexicon of Western culture. The traditional vernacular of sin and morality has been rejected as a relic of the past by popular culture and elitist-intellectualism. The concept of sin was once used by believers and non-believers alike, but now the mention of the word is cause for suspicion.
On Holy Week, two billion Christians around the world are called to commemorate the passion, crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ at Golgotha. In order to understand the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, Christians are also called to contemplate the meanings of sin, love of God, and moral redemption. These ideas are framed in a language that is, emotionally and intellectually, almost entirely inaccessible to those socialized in a society that is openly hostile to such concepts.
However, it is painfully clear that we are abandoning the notion of moral agency at our own peril. For example, the abandonment of “sin” has also meant the abandonment of “guilt”. Medical and theoretical explanations can wash away any sense of guilt behind the most atrocious criminal acts and the most harmful, and high-risk lifestyles. Responsibility for selfish acts and irresponsible decisions are deflected by blaming society, blaming the media, blaming ones parents, or blaming ancient history. Guilt is a very useful symptom of sin; it is a pain that informs important decisions by giving them moral implications. Removing this symptom leads to ignoring the cause. It absolves the individual from any responsibility and leaves them, and society, worse off.
Celebrities with the most damaging habits and self-inflicted vices are said to have “made a mistake” or that “it was an accident”. Perish the thought that they are callous, selfish, self-indulgent or greedy. “Making a mistake” is empty of moral implication. It does not call for introspection, repentance or forgiveness. Human failings are now some kind of disease, a disorder that is out of our control.
Modern day psychology has a degenerative effect on the individual and society as a whole. It has reached a paradoxical conclusion that as individuals we are all victims regardless of our actions, and that society is collectively guilty. Our consciences are no longer called upon to restrain our individual actions but rather to scorn what we see as a collectively predatory and evil society as a whole.
The absurdity of this is clear in the political sphere. In America Barack Obama is selling “hope” to all the grieving masses of his country. All it costs is one vote to redeem the historical damages done by, in the words of his pastor, all the “rich white people”. Public apologies by politicians for collective, historical grievances are a better example. On February 13th, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia apologized on behalf of his country for the horrible treatment of the county’s aboriginal people. So who is actually sorry? Is the Prime Minister sorry? Are Mr. Smith, Mrs. Mohammed, and Dr. Vasquez truly sorry for historical crimes their ancestors may not have even been there to witness? The truth is that Australians cannot feel guilty or be sorry by decree just as aboriginals cannot be forced to forgive by decree.
The entire episode is embarrassingly farcical, and demonstrates how superficial the understanding of sin and moral agency is in our day. It is imperative however, to recall the importance of such a powerful concept. It is impossible to conceive of the existence of forgiveness without the existence of sin. Without forgiveness, redemption becomes an artifact of history as well. Without redemption, “hope”, is literally lost.

The Ethics of Beijing 2008

In theory, the Olympic Games are meant to be about the athletes rather than politics. However, there is a long history of the politicization of the games primarily through the use of boycotts. The 1936 Olympics held in Nazi Germany is probably the earliest example of an Olympics where the ethics of participation became very controversial, most notably in the United States where debate was livelier than anywhere else. It was evident that Germany was violating the discrimination policies of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). However, at the time the Western world was still not convinced that the reports of massive Jewish concentration camps were true. Unfortunately, Avery Bundage, the president of the International Olympic Committee, expressed skepticism over what he believed were rumors spread by Jewish conspirators. He ultimately decided that the games would go on. Thus, in 1936 the world played as massive human rights atrocities were being committed behind the scenes.

Although attempts to boycott the 1936 games were unsuccessful, there are plenty of examples where boycotts do succeed and nations are able to make their statement. In 1976, twenty-five African countries boycotted the Montreal Olympics due to the participation of New Zealand, who at the time, still had close ties to the South African apartheid regime. In 1980, America successfully led a boycott against the Summer Olympic held in Moscow that year. They were joined by Japan, Taiwan, West Germany, Canada and 61 other nations. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan bluntly told the South Korean junta that the United States would boycott the 1988 Seoul Olympics if democracy was not introduced beforehand.

This summer, the world will go to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to participate in the Beijing Olympics. The PRC promises the global audience that it will be the most dazzling Olympics the world has ever seen. Indeed, the IOC has given China its platform to announce what it sees as its ascendance as a world power that will shape international politics and global culture in the twenty-first century. Most global leaders seem to be standing by idly or cheering China on. No significant state has yet to threaten a boycott of the Beijing Olympics regardless of the fact that the PRC is unequivocally the worst human rights abuser of the twenty-first century.

In fact, it has been estimated that China has already displaced or relocated 300,000 Chinese citizens to make room for the games. A country with no private property rights for ordinary citizens is truly a developers’ dream. Not only are regular Chinese citizens being dispossessed to make way for the games, the new facilities that are being built on top of their homes have been declared off limits for locals. However, not much of this news can be reported in a country where journalists and bloggers are beaten to death for publishing “subversive” material.
Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

There are still at this moment over six million Chinese in re-education camps for expressing dissident ideas. Over 90 million Falun Gong members are still persecuted for practicing their religion and are used as involuntary organ donors for the PRC’s transplant industry. The PRC also continues to support the genocidal regime in Sudan and has blocked any UN resolution that would condemn the Sudanese government for massacring its own people in Darfur. Chinese citizens live with censorship, intimidation by secret police and political persecution by a government that does not grant them basic human rights.

It is unclear how effective a boycott of the Beijing Olympics would be, however, I’m sure that many Canadians would support their government if they did call for one. It may potentially be easier to embarrass and pressure China into treating its citizens with decency by putting it in the spotlight. Unlike 1936, global citizens know what is happening behind the scenes in China. While enjoying the games this summer, it would be reprehensible if we do not make our voices heard for those who are negated that luxury due to the anachronistic dogma and tyranny of the PRC.

The beginning of the end for multiculturalism?

Multiculturalism, the great monument of politically correct liberalism, is striking an ironic cord in the province of Quebec this month. It is difficult not to be amused at the public debate over the "reasonable accommodation" of minorities, called by Jean Charest, in Le Belle Provence.
By virtue of their minority status in Canada, Quebecois francophones have defined themselves as victims. They have also greatly benefited from the misguided policies of multiculturalism. Now, the well-oiled Liberal patronage system has come home to roost. The "oppressed" Quebecois are now being challenged as the oppressor by minorities who do not accept the French secular-fundamentalism that has been established in Quebec by enlightened progressives. Undoubtedly, this has struck many in the Quebec nation as completely "unreasonable".
Several instances across Canada have highlighted the problems with promoting multiculturalism. Muslim girls who wear a hijab but want to participate in organized sports that require a uniform have run into safety issues and have been required to remove their headscarves in order to participate.
Instead of properly dealing with it as a safety issue, the self-ordained defenders of minorities immediately spin the non-issue into an argument over racism. In order to demonstrate how well they "tolerate" other cultures, cultural relativists polarize the debate, encourage victimization on one side, and demonize the other.
The veiled voting fiasco is another case in point. Some well-meaning but nonetheless self-righteous groups and individuals were up-in-arms in "defense" of Muslim women's' right to vote while fully concealed in a Burqa. However, as some Muslim groups later explained, there is in fact no problem with female's revealing their identity while in the process of voting.
No doubt due to the politically correct mind control that holds sway over Canadian politics, it just turned out that no one had the courage to ask them to identify themselves in the first place.
Due to its independent immigration policy, Quebec may possibly be an early example of the scaling back of dogmatic multiculturalism in Canada. The militant defense of the French language will now have to be defended, not on the grounds of being an endangered tongue, but rather, on the grounds of being the language of the majority. In other words, Quebec must uphold its culture in the name of pragmatism rather than dogma. Concepts such as the separation of church and state and gender equality, although not universally accepted by all cultures, has to be held up above multicultural considerations and must be accepted by all immigrants and minorities.
Multiculturalism is a bankrupt ideology; by encouraging the creation of "hyphenated" Canadians it only works to alienate minorities, discourage integration and create dependence on government protection. Institutionalized multiculturalism is the greatest barrier to success for newly arrived immigrants. Canadians should not be apologetic about democracy, self-help principles, free-market society, individual rights and its national languages. These are integral building blocks of this successful nation. The quicker they are understood and adopted by immigrants the greater chance they will have at success.
By arbitrarily deciding that a Christmas tree is offensive to non-Christians or that asking a Muslim woman to remove her veil is an act of racism, politically-correct multiculturalists are poisoning the well of cultural exchange. The fact is that Canada does have a culture and values that should be universally complied with by all groups within the nation.
By pitting one culture against another the liberal policy has attempted to reduce Canada into a state of cultural tribalism. Furthermore, by discouraging integration, multiculturalism in Canada is foregoing a great opportunity of reconciling historical differences between ethnic groups.
Instead of encouraging a universal culture for all ethnicities, multiculturalism creates social tension by promoting difference rather than similarities.

UCU promoting Israeli boycott

This summer witnessed the beginning of a startling attack on the principles of academic freedom. Sadly, the attack derived from one of the world’s first liberal democratic nations. Britain’s University and College Union (UCU), the country’s largest professional association of academics, decided in May to consider suspending links with all Israeli academic institutions. The boycott would affect student exchanges, publishing of research papers and attendance at conferences. The boycott has also been supported by UNISON, Britain’s public service union. This reflects the success of a group called the Socialist Workers Party which has promoted anti-Israeli resolutions. Marxist anti-semetism combined with British Muslim public pressure is rearing its ugly head in the British academic world. The malevolent alliance between a section of British academia and UNISON results in a clear attack on the principles of modern educational institutions.
The promotion of a boycott is a shameless attempt to highjack institutions of higher learning to further a political agenda. The hypocrisy of UCU is patently obvious. Why Israel and not Saudi Arabia, Syria or Iran? It is ironic that UCU wishes to boycott the only country in the Middle-East which upholds the same intellectual and academic principles as Europe and North America. Israeli universities are among the best in the world and have accomplished commendable feats in science, medicine and technology. Restricting exchanges with Israeli educational institutions for political purposes would be an affront to fundamental academic principles. When confronting a reasonable and non-threatening counterpart, rational dialogue, not retribution, will demonstrate who is in the right.
However, it seems as though North American universities may be the champions of reason in this controversy. After the initial proposal by UCU, the president of the University of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, initiated an anti-boycott campaign. In a full-page advertisement in the New York Times Bollinger stated: “boycott Israeli Universities? boycott ours, too!” A second ad was later published which included signatures of Nobel Peace Prize winners Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama. Other academic leaders immediately began to take a stand against the prejudiced boycott regardless of their political opinion. President of Penn State University, Graham Spanier, claimed that academics must “speak out clearly” against the motion since silence can only be taken as acquiescence. Thus far, over 300 American colleges and universities have signed a statement that denounces the promotion of the boycott.
The organization Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) has also taken the initiative and created an on-line petition which seeks to collect 15,000 signatures of academics condemning the promotion of the boycott. Their website states:

We are academics, scholars, researchers and professionals of differing religions and political perspectives. We all agree that singling out Israelis for an academic boycott is wrong…we, the undersigned, hereby declare ourselves to be Israeli academics for purposes of any academic boycott.

SPME has thus far collected over 11,000 signatures, including 32 Nobel laureates and over 50 university presidents. Canadian universities have also demonstrated that there should be no tolerance for political discrimination against foreign universities. The head of Queens University, Karen Hitchcock, rightly stated that the boycott is “antithetical to the core value of academic freedom”. U of T, UBC and McGill are also among 23 Canadian universities that have denounced the boycott.
The initiative taken by North American schools has not gone unnoticed in the UK. Professor Mark Pepys, head of the Department of Medicine and at the University of London, warned that British academic institutions are in danger of damaging crucial ties with American schools. The universities of Cambridge and Oxford have come out in clear opposition to UCU. British universities must be made to realize that their relationships with North American educational institutions are at stake if they continue the promotion of the boycott. My University has thus far made no public statement about the said boycott. However, if Brock University believes in the principles of academic freedom, freedom of expression and intellectual exchange, then we must join the voices of reason.

A Tribute

Canadian Federation of Students Calls for Sharia Law in Our Universities

In a recent report by CFS which represents roughly half of Canadian students the federation has decided that by not recognizing Sharia law we are guilty of systematic racism. The CFS, which tends to be very close to the NDP, is pushing to recognize “Islamophobia” as a form of racism. After reading the report it seems that their definition of an Islamophobe is anyone who holds or expresses a critical stance toward Islam, even if it is not meant to offend ( they call this being misinformed or holding stereotypes). Islamphobia is not simply overt acts of discrimination against Muslims, rather, Islamophobia is seen in our Universityies inabilities to recognize the tenants of Islam and to accommodate Sharia law within the system. The report basically calls for an apartheid between Muslims and non-believers at the expense of the infidels (being non-Muslims) and an elevated recognition of Muslim sensibilities.
The initiative calls for a direct confrontation with “Islamophobes” and an official recognition of the problem. This would include special controls and regulations against critical views of Islam and special training for security staff on how to double as religious police. Recommendations also include an ombudsman for Muslim students to voice their complaints against the blasphemous views of the infidels.
Gender segregation is also recommended by the CFS dhimmi’s. Muslim women should have their own private pool hours to assure that they do not dishonor their families by having the eyes of Kafr laid upon them. Schools should also provide “women-only gym time” and “improve access and athletic facilities for Muslim women students”. Female Infidels have no business mingling with Muslim women, facilitating this would please Allah.
The CFS also recommends instituting “recognition of religious observances on campus…and in university policy” (religious meaning Islamic). Also, in order not to shed our institutionalized racism schools must “ensure that students (Muslims) are not penalized for missed class or lab time associated with religious (Islamic) observances”, I suppose this includes pray time which is five times daily. So in other words the school, and all non-Muslims, must work around the religious schedule of Islam.
Also, student tuition fees should go to constructing “prayer spaces” in order to avoid violating “human rights”. This would include “multiple prayer spaces across campus for easy access from all points”. The report recognizes that campuses already have multi-faith prayer spaces that are open to Muslims. However, the report states that it is “unrealistic” that Muslims should be expected to share religious space with Christians and Jews because they are “uncomfortable with seeing (Non-Muslim) students pray. They cannot ask the other clubs to leave, so they should have their own space”. In other words, Muslim students cannot be expected to tolerate sharing space with followers of inferior faiths. Therefore we should accommodate their bigotry by granting them privileged, Muslim-only areas.
Our Universities should also expand our food choices in order to include halal food at no extra cost. It is a human rights violation for Muslims to pay for the actual cost of their specially ordered food. To help fight food racism Universities should train employees how to “change sanitary gloves and was cutlery and surfaces after preparing non-halal food”. It is not their fault that pig-eating infidels don’t know how to properly slaughter goats.
Personally what I find more disturbing than the call for the elevated status of Muslims at the expense of non-believers is the hint that everyone else’s rights to freedom of expression and the freedom of the press should be curbed in order to protect Islam from criticism. On page 14 the report discusses the negative effects of the media such as the Danish Muhammed cartoons that were published on some campuses. To there disbelief, they point out that some papers “went so far as to create their own cartoons”!. Don’t they know that Muhammed is the profit of Allah?! So what should Muslim students do when they see blasphemous material in the press? They should notify offices of human rights. That one made my jaw drop.
Further recommendations include the re-education of professors who clearly do not understand Islam. Campuses should also be made aware of the “tenants” of Islam.
Finally, the report concludes that racism against Muslims is institutional and systematic (an example is interest accumulation on loans which is contrary to Sharia law). Any on campus athletic program, academic course, restaurant, activity or club that does not cater directly to Muslims should be considered a racist offence. Basically, the CFS is calling for the dhimmitude of all non-Muslims.

We Need a New Reagan

In 1964 during the thick of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan delivered an impassioned and effective speech chastising the liberal Democrats over their policy of appeasement. His speech was delivered with such sincerity and clarity of mind that its principles still ring of truth today. America is still profiting from Reagan's success in revitalizing his nation and defeating the West's greatest economic, military and ideological enemy. However, liberals have yet to learn the lessons of history (and there is no reason to believe they ever will). In Ottawa and in Washington we are still witnessing the disgusting cowardice that Reagan once made so transparent. This is the same cowardice and political opportunism that the Liberals are presenting us right now. They are a defeatist party and are trying to win votes by telling Canadians what they cannot accomplish. Not only are Dion's liberals abandoning their "principles" of multilateralism, but they are also demonizing our Canadian troops and defending the imaginary rights of murdering terrorist psychopaths. It's time for another Ronald Reagan. (This is my first Youtube vid.)

Chavez: more proof that the Cold War isn't over

Any competent observer of Venezuela's demagogue and populist leader Hugo Chavez can predict Hugo Boss's eventual move toward a socialist (possibly totalitarian) state. The signs are so painfully clear. The January legislation which allows Chavez to rule by decree is not unprecedented in Latin American politics, and is a first step toward perpetuating such sweeping powers indefinitely. Not only is he pushing toward his own egomaniac ambitions, he is using Venezuelan's oil money to prop up other socialist leaders in the region. Daniel Ortega, the Marxist Sandinista leader who was ousted in 1990 is back in power. Without the help of Chavez's money machine there is no doubt Ortega would have not lost the election this summer (which he won with 35% of the popular vote). I was in Nicaragua this summer during the "election campaigns", any one could have sworn Ortega was the only candidate running. No other candidates could have dreamed to match the Chavez funded Western style Sandinista campaign (his theme song was "give peace a chance" by the Beatles in Spanish, I wanted to puke).
Yesterday, Chavez once again blatantly exposed his dream of creating another Cuba in Latin America. He warned all political "allies" to dissolve and join his part or they will have to leave government.
This is simply the historical pattern that socialist dictators have taken in Latin America. I'm just amazed that after all the examples of dismal socialist states Chavez somehow thinks he will be the one to pull it off. Chavez can also rely on the full support of spoiled North American University nit wits. I guarantee is approval rating among Canadian leftist liberals ranges in the 90th percentile.
This also reinforces the misconception that we won the Cold War. The West defeated Fascism but we let Socialism sneak by. The Cold War is not over. The audacity of Socialist maggots like Chavez is proof of the resilience of this persistent disease.

PC: the revenge of Marx

This is my latest article on the Brock Press Opinion section dealing with outrageous signs of the growth of PC in Canada. It is sure to recieve some nasty comments from next weeks letters to the editor


PC gone inexcusably wrong.

Political Correctness and Freedom of Expression

A couple of recent incidents have highlighted for me the huge problem that political correctness (PC) is posing in our society. PC is plaguing our schools, offices and even soccer fields to a point where we are slowly being driven to a vocabulary of Orwellian-style double-speak and meaningless, circular phrases. An example is the term “undocumented workers” as a substitute for illegal aliens. Why is the worker undocumented one may ask? Did he lose his papers?

The most recent and absurd occasion of PC gone mad is the UN’s condemnation of Canada as being racist. Never mind ethnic cleansing in Darfur, the slaughtering of Buddhist monks in Thailand or religious persecution across the Middle East, instead, the object of their reprehension is our use of the term “visible minority”. The brilliant minds at the UN have condemned Canada’s blatantly racist slur, “visible minority”, as an explicit denigrating assault on the enslaved non-whites of this bigoted apartheid state. Using their enlightened logic, ethnic minorities should be indistinguishable and beyond categorization even for practical purposes. It isn’t hard to see how this pseudo-Marxist backwards thinking would make it even harder for us to protect the minorities who need protecting.

The other recent event that got my head throbbing with disbelief was the apparent outrage over the “racist” expulsion of a Muslim soccer player for wearing a hijab during a soccer game. We even received a stern letter of denunciation from Egypt, a model of universal tolerance and peace. Egyptian officials, who are experts in Canadian human rights issues, stated that this incident was proof of the "mounting signs of racism and intolerance in Canada". For an inexplicable reason, the fact that the referee who expelled the young soccer player was himself a Muslim does not find its way into the conversation of this international crisis. The referee was following the international rules of soccer, a truly universal game, as well as a convention of team sports called ‘uniform’. The decision had absolutely nothing to do with religion or ethnicity but rather with the safety of the girl. If she wanted to keep on playing, she simply had to remove the hijab from her head (I’m sure surgery wouldn’t be required) and put it back on after the game.

This impractical over-sensitivity to minorities or “vulnerable groups” for the sake of political correctness has been equally balanced with an assault on the majority. This is where the Orwellian double-speak takes place and where an assault on freedom of speech is transparent. Why is it so difficult to criticize questionable practices of minorities for the sake of reason? It is because it’s racist or prejudiced. The newly coined phrase “Islamophobia” is all the rage among advocates and users of PC. Saturday Night Live actually has a running joke about media outlets that are charged with creating “Islamophobia” through their portrayal of Muslims. The skits always end by suggesting that terrorism also might have something to do with it.

“Homophobia” is also a powerful weapon in the arsenal of the PC thought-police. This term is not only a moral judgment and condemnation, but it also suggests a mental disorder in those who object to certain sexual practices. Verbal weapons such as these are clearly aimed at curving speech and thought. They are dangerous as they dissuade individuals from constructive critical thinking by humiliation and condemnation. The very practices that were championed by questioning society are now setting limits to the questions that new generations are allowed to ask.

PC is dangerous and harmful. It is not conducive to liberty and suppresses the rights of the majority to the slightest sensibilities of the minority. Last Christmas, a judge decided to remove a Christmas tree from a court house in Ontario, not because it presented any danger, but rather because she saw it as a sign of exclusion. Even after appeals from Christian, Muslim and Hindu communities to allow the Christmas tree to stay for the duration of the holiday, the ludicrous ruling remained. This compelled the premier, Dalton McGuinty, to ask the question, "How does a menorah offend anyone? How does a Christmas tree offend anyone? How does a celebration of Eid offend anyone?” Simple, a Christmas tree offends judges and deluded people because it’s a sign of the majority and a Canadian tradition. The celebration of Eid will not offend people, but if someone were to offend a symbol of diversity, then you would hear the international outcry.

Why have we been taught to hate ourselves?

As I proudly enter the final lap of my four year history degree at Brock, I am confronted with a bleak yet inescapable reality of our post-secondary education: In the department of humanities and social sciences, we are not merely taught to be critical of our society and history, we are, in a sense, taught to hate ourselves.

It has become evident to me that in the name of "impartiality" when studying and analyzing important contemporary and historical issues we have lost any sense of objectivity. We have lost our capability to acknowledge the fact that Canada and Western nations treat individual life with higher value than any other civilization in the world and in history.

In my seminars, I find that negative statements about the "West" are given an easy pass while positive statements have to be laboriously defended. In our universities, we are socialized to believe that capitalism, Christianity and industrialization are dirty words. Yet these are some of the greatest accomplishments of the Western world because they have shaped, and have been shaped by, our ideas of self-determination, individual worth and progress.

Yet, as students, we are taught to hate Western influence on the world, which has been given terms such as "Westernization", "Cultural Imperialism" and my favourite, "McDonaldization". Meanwhile, we enjoy the benefits provided by these derogatory terms every living moment.We are taught that when we intervene in an oppressive war-torn country, it is for imperialistic purposes. We are taught that when we do not intervene in an oppressive war-torn country, it is because we are racists and so self-involved that if something does not benefit us directly, we will not partake in it - humanitarian purposes are clearly not enough (even though we have invented and coined this term).

When we use our military to attack an enemy nation, we are war-mongers. When a nation attacks us, it is because we 'had it coming'. We are taught that our societies are fundamentally segragationalist and prejudiced, and yet myriads of immigrants still flood our gates (can it be possible that this is because we treat them better than their own countries do?). We are embarrassed of our Christian heritage while we defend the integrity of radical and violent religious beliefs.

We have become socialized in a way that self-hate and anti-Western sentiments have become a badge of honour and self-righteousness. I am constantly astounded by students' anti-Western convictions. We are so easily swayed by figures like Michael Moore, who omit truths, twist realities and invent falsities about the Western condition and our moral sincerity. Easily they push their movies onto the big screen as naive eyes bulge in awe.

We are convinced that capitalism makes us into drone-like consumers led by our corporate masters while unwittingly we becoming drone-like consumers of 'Chomskyesque' mantras. We forget that war, poverty, slavery and imperialism are not Western innovations, and that liberalism, democracy and human rights are very much so.

Che Guevara T-shirts have reached such a high level of "cool" that it is only matched by generic anti-Bush or anti-flag paraphernalia. We scorn American flag-waving and do not realize that under Che's flag we would not enjoy this very freedom of expression.

I fear that students are taught a twisted truth about the world and inevitably grow to not appreciate our own country. Our country and its allies are not perfect. But if we were only presented with a true depiction of the rest of the worlds' regimes we would fall in admiration of nations accomplishments and standards.The evil in this world is not a by-product of so-called Western imperialism. Evil is innate and has always existed. Why is Bush-hate so popular while we give Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the genocidal Sudanese government a free pass? Our self-righteous enlightenment of "moral-relativity" has misconstrued our ability to discriminate between good and evil. Canada and Western society have shown us a model that allows for the greatest possible individual prosperity and social justice yet we are taught to hate it.



(printed in the Brock Press 10/31/06; written by myself)

Solving AIDS easy as ABC

Like Harper's recent warming up to Global Warming, I am afraid that the new spending on the AIDS effort and the renewed collaboration efforts with the Gates Foundation may be but a symptom of the minority governments' need to appease the opposition and the sentimental Canadian public. The amount of money the West has spent on funding HIV projects in Africa has amounted to several Marshal Plans and yet the problem is still growing. The truth is that solving the AIDS pandemic is quite simple and borders on common-sense. What the West is really fighting for is for the protection of an ideology that puts science over morality. Condoms and testing will never match the effects of monogamy and faithfulness with regards to solving the AIDS pandemic or creating a healthy society. Yet big donors and politicians refuse to acknowledge this and it is killing millions every year.

This is my latest article in the opinion section of the Brock Press regarding this issue.