While I'm still digesting - and researching - Ralph's "Third Way" policy paper and it's implications for Alberta citizens, here's an assortment of random bits:
Guantanamo Bay Update
As if we didn't expect these allegations to come out, the interview transcript is positively revolting.
Guantanamo Bay has been called "America's Gulag" before, and it appears that the characterization is quite - well - fitting.
Emerging Theocracy
A "Pizza Magnate" is trying to start a town which will adhere to "strict Catholic values". Just in case you thought this might be a joke, here's the development website.
Some of what they are talking about makes it sound like it's going to turn into The Stepford Wives or something much, much darker.
More cynically, I note that all of the commercial properties will be held by the clowns starting this thing up. The resulting social structure should be near feudal - with only the "lords" {and possibly the Priests} getting richer from it.
Overanxious Conservatives
Apparently, the CPC thinks that they won't be in power for too long. They're chomping at the bit to do all sorts of things to Canada and it's laws - apparently without actually thinking about the consequences.
1) Mandatory Minimum Sentences: Great - you not only shackle the judge's hands in terms of sentencing criminals, you increase the prison population for no good reason. While I accept incarceration as one of the sanctions we can use, it is also one of the best breeding grounds for hardened criminals.
2) Raising the "Age of Consent". This one just irritates me - it really doesn't address anything. If you want to shut down the "sexual predator" thing, then it's far more important to strengthen the sanctions against the predators. (Not to mention defining just what that term actually means)
3) Gutting the Gun Registry. Sorry - it's there. Deal with it. I have to license my car, I see no reason why registering a gun should be a problem.
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On March 19, 2024 the United Conservative Party of Alberta held an event that they called " Let Kids Be Kids " (spoiler alert: i...
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So, India is expanding its temper tantrum over Canada expressing concerns over the suspected role of the Modi government in the murder of ...
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There is an entire class of argument that we see in discourse that basically relies on the idea that “physical attribute X means that Y can ...
4 comments:
I actually like the idea of raising the age of consent, with the following caveats:
1) Make it age 16.
2) Allow a two year close-in-age exemption so that Daddy doesn't have his 15-year old daughter's 17-year old boyfriend charged with Statutory Rape, when he comes home early one day to find them engaged in a little improptu sex ed.
3) Make it the same for the sodomy laws, which have a much higher age of consent IIRC.
Quixote
1) The two year exemption already exists.
2) Canada does not have "sodomy" laws on the books - they were scrapped in 1967 by Pierre Trudeau.
Which really just leaves moving the age up 2 years - which I seriously question the value of.
One additional thought:
What I would like to see is something that deals with cases where the adult is boffing someone who is young enough to be their own child. (and the young person is under the legal age of majority)
Age of consent or no, when the young person is below the age of majority, there's something disturbingly exploitative about sex involving someone young enough to be their own offspring.
This does not involve meddling with the age of consent parts of the criminal code.
I guess sodomy laws aren't what I was thinking of. I meant that the age of consent for homosexual acts is 18, whereas it's much younger for heterosexual acts. i.e. an 18 year old can be charged for having sex with his 17-year old lover, if the lover is also male.
Odds of a Conservative government treating gays and straights equally in this regard are low though.
Quixote
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