Khadr and Democracy. . . . .

Once again the Harper Government has demonstrated that it is not concerned with international law and basic human rights. A Federal Court judge instructed the Government to demonstrate ways that they can make up for the fact that Mr. Khadr`s human rights were violated and the Harper gang is appealing this, demonstrating once again that they are only interested in `law and order` when the court decisions go in their favor.

And one should be appalled not just at the reaction of the Government to this issue but also at the reaction of many Canadians. Go on any one of a number of Canadian news sites and look at the comments from readers and you will see that they are overwhelmingly unconcerned that Mr. Khadr's rights have been violated, that he was a child when his alleged 'crimes' were committed, and that he has clearly been tortured, probably with the tacit consent, maybe even help, of Canadian authorities. Many people not only don't care about this, but they actively praise his incarceration and torture.

People's approval of this is, of course, the active demonstration that a disconcerting number of people really don't care about the principles of democracy and rights which our system is supposed to be based upon. They are fine with violating people's rights as long as they are Muslims, people of color, or fail to conform to the mainstream. But we either believe in basic rights or we don't; that is all there is to it. And it appears that we don't because the government and many people are just fine with the fact that Khadr and others are subject to torture and are at the behest of Mickey Mouse courts that couldn't possibly be objective.

And the great irony in all this is that if people were honest they would say that even if Khadr did what he is alleged to have done, he did nothing different than other soldiers in war do - he fought back against armed invaders. If Khadr is guilty of a crime then so is every NATO soldier in Afghanistan and all of them should be put on trial. If an foreign state invaded the US, do you really think that Americans who were not active duty members of the armed forces would simply stand around and say 'Well, I can't do anything because that  would make me an 'unlawful combatant." I think not, and every American you can find would say it would be their duty to stand up and fight even if they were not soldiers.

So decide Canadians, do you really believe in democracy, in the UN Declaration on Human Rights, in the Declaration on Child Soldiers? I think most Canadians don't care and that is why it is turned out to be so easy for Harper to Dismantle our democracy.

The Slow death of democracy. . . . . .

Today Nathalie Des Rosiers, the general council for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, told the Canadian Press that ``We have police brutality, illegal searches, arbitrary detentions, people being asked all sorts of questions and being harassed. It`s unconstitutional, it`s illegal and it should not happen.``

This is Harper`s Canada; a Canada in which parliament can be closed and police have unlimited powers. This is how it begins folks, and after you no longer have elections or Habeas corpus, you wonder where it all went wrong.

A Dark Future for Canada. . . . . ..

Though I am not a Liberal it has in recent months become very notable what advantage a Liberal Government has over a Conservative one in this country. When the last Liberal Government was faced with a scandal of a significant partisan nature they called a public inquiry into the issue. Now we have a government mired in numerous issues of huge public significance a number of which should be publicly investigated by an arm's length body. These include the Afghan detainee issue, the In and Out Scandal, the isotope issue and the part played by Minister Lisa Raitt as well as the firing of the watchdog, the Maxime Bernier affair, the Jaffer/Guergis affair, and now the G20 fiasco. But this Government would not call a public inquiry into their own conduct even if we had video of John Baird and the Prime Minister meeting with high-level Montreal underworld figures. This Government's strategy; lie, stall, stonewall, deny, spin, turn the page, prorogue parliament, fire staffers, anything but face a process of accountability. Personally I even think that the Government's conduct surrounding the former coalition should be investigated by a public inquiry because we had a Prime Minister of  Canada publicly lying about the constitution and John Baird publicly suggesting that they would not abide by the GG's ruling if it went against them. This is called treason.


The message to future Governments of Canada? Dishonesty works! Do anything to manipulate the system to your advantage. And of course, future politicians will learn from all this and operate the same way. The future of Democracy and Government in Canada is dark indeed.

Dear Opposition Leaders: This is a Constitutional Crisis . . . . DO SOMETHING!

Don't buy Rob Nicholson's smokescreen. It is a stalling tactic to put the Afghan detainee documents in the hands of retired judge to make a judgement that is none of his business. The Canadian parliament has the ABSOLUTE and Constitutionally guaranteed right to the documents that have asked for EVEN IF, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, EVEN IF their release is a question of national security! That is for the House to decide, not the sitting government. The constitution is clear and the Government knows this. If Nicholson and Harper were sure of their position they would ask for a ruling by the Supreme Court on the question of constitutional rights. But they KNOW that they would lose. And Courts have ruled on such matters before and it is clear. 

Rob Nicholson, and Harper Government is in direct violation of the Constitution. They are now actual criminals who should be in jail and if the Liberals fail to immediately enforce the order of the House in one way or another then they don't deserve to be the official opposition. 

Your constitution is under attack Canadians! It needs to be defended right now. By failing to abide by an order of the House Harper has taken us into the realm of dictatorship and he knows it and so does every informed Conservative supporter. If the Liberals were denying an order of the House every Conservative in the Country would be up in arms. THIS SHOULD NOT BE A PARTISAN MATTER! This is a matter of simple constitutional law. 

I say to all three leaders of the opposition parties: do something immediately! This tyranny cannot stand. 

Conflating categories in Political Science. . . .

Reading the thoughts of some bloggers I continue to be amazed by the degree of confusion that exists concerning the basic concepts usually associated with political science. People are continually conflating different categories within the canon to the detriment of our basic understanding of the central concepts. For example, I read one blogger who claimed that Canada is ‘not a democracy’ but a constitutional monarchy. Here is a basic misunderstanding; a conflation of categories if you will. Constitutional monarchy refers, or course, to the central ways in which a government functions on a technical level. Democracy, on the other hand, refers to the method by which the government is chosen. You could, in theory, have a non-democratic constitutional monarchy, or a very democratic one. (Some one might, of course, try to make the argument that any form of constitutionalism implies some form of democratic process but suffice to say, given the history of constitutional monarchies, this level of democracy could be, like 18^th century Britain, barely considered democratic).

Similarly some people seem to think that any form of democracy implies a priori some form of ‘market economy.’ Again this is a conflation of separate categories. If the constitutional monarchy refers to the technical functioning of government, and democracy refers to the method of choosing a government, a so-called ‘market economy’ refers simply to the way in which the production and distribution of the goods is organized. You could have a, for example, a Socialist Constitutional Monarchy with a high degree of democratic representation. You could also, as is the case with China, have a capitalist system of production with very little democratic process.

One of the most common conflations in this regard is that of ‘Capitalism’ with a so-called free market.  Even a close reading of Smith will make clear this conflation. Capitalism is a generalized system of commodity production in which firms employ labor in the production of goods or services and make a profit from this process while the state ensures the smooth running of these relations. A market, on the other hand, refers specifically to a system of distribution. People love to throw the words ‘free market’ around even though there is very little that is actually ‘free’ in our so-called market. This is because to ensure the smooth running of ‘capitalism’ the markets must be tightly controlled and regulated. The conceptual proof of this argument is found in the fact that you could have a fairly free market without actually having ‘capitalism’ per se. People could come to a market selling goods and services that they have produced on their own without the profit of surplus value procured from excess labor and make sales in this market. This would be a free-market without capitalism.

Anyway, no time now to expand on these issues. Just wanted to make the observation that the concepts of political science are becoming terribly muddy and this is resulting in some shabby analysis.