Security? Not a Canadian Value, Bless Tony Blair, Our boys in Afghanistan, Happiness, Books: Attachment & Conscience, Refugees

Security? Sorry that is not a Canadian value.

I watched CBC's Kathleen Petty interviewing Martin Rudner, from the National Security Branch (Aug. 5). Rudner was explaining the new government approach to security. It seems that Transport Canada is going to study whether to set up a no-fly list. The 2002 recommendations after 9/11 stated this should have been implemented right away. Now three years later, they still haven't gotten around to studying the idea? A few million dollars and zillions of bafflegab words later, they will consider implimenting it. When Petty asked Rudner why Canadians were so laid back about their security, he answered that they were in deep denial. None other than Osama himself has twice put us on the list of future targets, he insisted. Still Rudner also thought that Canadians were so indoctrinated to not singling out one ethnic or religious group, that politicians feared intelligent methods of profiling. It might offend the Muslim population you see. What a goldmine Canada must seem to al-Qaeda. Perhaps, Father Raymond De Souza, in Friday's National Post put our dilemma most succinctly, "The British are begining to confront a question that has gone largely unasked, both here and in Europe, "If there is a problem with "unassimilated" ethnic or religious groups, could it be because--having jettisoned Western traditions in favour of moral and cultural relativism--we are not sure of what such groups are being asked to assimilate into."

© Bud Talkinghorn



God bless Tony Blair

Blair is not only articulate when speaking about the need to contain the terrorist threat, he is backing up his words with necessary legislation. Now to be prohibited are speeches advocating terror, or even justifying it. "If you cannot come here and embrace British values than you are not welcome. And you will soon be leaving." Deportations will be speeded up. Predictably, the left is screaming, "racist" and "No to profiling!"

The Prime Minister is not without blame for the current situation however. It was his Labour Party, with its human rights cadre, that allowed Muslim extremists to operate in English mosques and Islamic cultural centers. This crowd would mumble about 'root causes' or diversity. Meanwhile, the imams would stand in Hyde Park and openly call for death to the infidels and homosexuals, or for the assassination of leading British politicians. Unbelievable! Still, Blair sees the error of his past attitudes and has reacted swiftly. In Canada we would not have such legislation. We were not even told what Martin said to the Canadian-Islamic leaders. Flog me with Liberal pamphlets, if he had the nerve to say what Blair said. The ghost of Neville Chamberlaine walks the halls of 24 Sussex Drive.

© Bud Talkinghorn

You know that PM was canvassing votes and doesn't give a hoot about anything except getting re-elected. A weak man, no leader, and PM probably does not even understand the term "statesman" . . . . Perhaps if it were something that could be sold? NJC




Our boys in Afghanistan--What are they there for?

I thought the original plan was for our soldiers to go to Kandahar and help track down the Taliban and al-Qaeda remnents. Now, I keep hearing that they are going to build up infrastructure, play nurse maid to the NGOs and perform other non-offensive missions. Have the Carolyn Parrishes gotten to the Graham? I do not want to see Canadian soldiers die, but they are needed to flush out these evil ones, before they destroy whatever progress has been made in the country. The drumbeats of a real war, which will engage the entire West, grow stronger by the day. It will probably be a war much like the current guerrilla situation in Afganistan--low-level conflict, but now spread across a global canvas. The Americans who have been fighting in the badlands would be excellent teachers. We are fighting an enemy that has no respect for life, their victim's or often their own. The great English war historian, John Keegan, has stated that his research has shown that Arab militants only respect brute force. Any compromise by the enemy is seen as weakness, and invariably exploited. Canada and its NATO allies should be part of that brute force.

© Bud Talkinghorn




Get happy!

UCLA has been doing a study for half a century to track whether more money equated to greater happiness. In the early 50s, the researchers studied polls taken across the range of economic groups. They found that about 30% said they were happy. In the latest poll taken, they found that, despite the average person being three times as wealthy (in real terms, with inflation factored in), they were not one iota happier. Today's upper-middle class family, who would have been considered fabulously rich by 50s standards is no more content than his poorer predecessors. It seems if you have two cars and a small McMansion, you obsess about your neighbour's three car/super-sized McMansion. In a world-wide study done on happiness, Colombia, a Third World country, racked by violence, ranked higher than Canada and the United States in life satisfaction. We have bought the materialism package holus bolus, and lust after the neighbour's Land Rover. The whip of consumer greed is constantly lashing us . . . which is a rather sad commentary, really. Still, the handwriting was on the wall a decade ago, when an Environics poll on youth values came out with some scary attitudes. To the question: "How do you define yourselves?", the vast majority said, "By what I buy." When asked if they would consider becoming one of the helping professions, the majority said, "No way".
© Bud Talkinghorn




Isn't that last bit sad? A life lived to buy. I have been reading a book, High Risk: Children Without a Conscience, by Dr. K Magid and Carole McKelvey, ISBN: 0-553-34667-9, published by Bantam, 1987.

Excerpt from page 165 "... WITHOUT CONSCIENCE as a vivid-indeed, an unforgettable-example of what can happen to children who fail to "attach" or "bond" to their parents or primary care givers during early life. His book, High Risk, first published in 1987, outlined the position that the failure ..."


Frankly, while the book does not disparage daycare; in fact, as far as I've read, it skirts the effects, does not address it in any detail, read between the lines. I would question anyone sending an infant or child under two to daycare but, the more I read, the more it becomes evident that a parent should accept the responsibility of having a child and do the work of parenting that this entails. That means that women should NOT have children if they intend to send them out to daycare as infants. I don't care what our government says. The child's conscience arises out of attachment to parent(s), particularly the mother's loving touch and care.

Secondly, I would make having a child out of wedlock so painful (e.g. economically -- that is, not reward it with other people's money to support it, particularly in teenagers to whom a high number of out of wedlock children are born) that women would think long and hard before having a moment of abandon resulting in a lifetime of parenthood. Why? This momentary pleasure often entails no father in sight and consequent poverty of the most basic and worst type--read the many books on the effects of this--and of course, that single parent must work, so the child is shipped out to strangers to be cared for. Read the book or one of the later ones. Truly scary.

Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare

Read reviews (4.5 stars) here .

[a friend who works for the FBI] His response: 1 out of every hundred people is a psychopath. They are not all murderers and they are not all in prison - they live among the rest of us and are often charming and interesting, at least on superficial acquaintance.

What is important is the parenting in developing a normal child with normal responses to his fellow man, one who has attached to a parent and internalized a conscience and empathy with others. That means parenting, not sending a child to strangers so you are able to work to buy . . . whatever.

If you are going to have children, read something about how important your parenting is.




The "silent killer" of refugees

The major lobby group for refugees, the Canadian Council for Refugees, has maintained that Canada is endangering the lives of refugees, who are turned away if they have already reached a safe country. This Third Safe County agreement that Canada signed with the U,S. was to stop to asylum shopping. There are millions of people who have been sitting in refugee camps abroad waiting to be admitted. To let them sit there for decades while economic 'refugees' pole vault into Canada is obscene. The Toronto Star has trumpeted these CCR claims lately.
However, Lorne Gunter, a respected jounalist, found that in the last six months of this year 89.4% of refugee claimants, who turned up at the American/Canadian border, were admitted. Not only are the CCR's figures wrong about "the border being closed", but our government has broken its promise to obey the Safe Third Country Protocal, but they are making a mockery of the word "refugee".

© Bud Talkinghorn--Another thing, doesn't the fact that many of these Third Country refugees have already been rejected by U.S. immigration authorities give you pause. Are our standards that much lower?

But of course, Bud. Need you ask? NJC

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