Hyperbolize Much?

So, the University of Calgary won't permit a student 'pro life' organization to display their signage on campus.

Of course, the wingnuts (including the students) are busy squawking about the evil empire's censorship of them.

However, the university is justifying its censorship of the pro-life display because of anonymous complaints, and claims that the display could provoke violent reactions. However, there have been no such incidents on the previous five occasions the display has been shown on campus.

"Banning an event because of the possibility of someone else being violent towards it, is like telling women they are not allowed to walk on campus at night because of the possibility they may be sexually assaulted," stated Leah Halllman, president of CPL.

Well, one can discuss and debate a well reasoned position. Unfortunately, this particular little "campaign" is about comparing abortion to genocide - with large, excessively graphic images is hardly a reasoned position. Claiming that abortion is a form of genocide is hyperbole in the extreme to begin with - almost to the point of being histrionics.

Reinforcing the point with large, graphic images is simply offensive. Abortion is a surgical procedure, and the human body is a surprisingly messy creation to start with. Most people would cringe at the aftermath of any surgery - including oral surgery to remove wisdom teeth. Why would we be surprised that the remains of a surgical procedure are anything but messy?

I would argue that CPL needs to rethink its campaign. If a movie promoter put out images as graphic as that for their latest splatter flick, nobody would post them. What makes them think that anybody wants to look at large, excessively graphic images for their campaign?

It wasn't that long ago that I happened to be on the U of C's campus when CPL had their signage up - it was beyond revolting at the time. The broader community on campus simply stayed away from the area. (and yes, the signage was big enough that it wouldn't be hard for someone to hide around it - making the area a hazard for students passing through in the evening hours) Is CPL willing to pay for the additional costs that the University would incur to have extra security around those signs - especially in off hours? I doubt it.

Lastly, the University has every right to insist on student campaigns having a certain level of decorum about them, as well as a certain level of respect for others on campus. CPL is not demonstrating anything close to that level of respect, nor have they ever done so in the past.

CPL's cries of "censorship" are ridiculous hyperbole, just like the "abortion is genocide" meme. You might try coming up with a civilized position that can be debated - nobody wants to "debate" with screaming loons.

Of Debates and Conspiracy

Okay, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May will be in the leader's debate this election.

In spite of the fact that the Greens haven't elected any MPs to seats, they have run numbers in the 5-8% range in the last two elections - more than enough base support to demonstrate that there is a significant amount of interest in what they have to say.

There have been many times in the past when the NDP in particular has been polling down in that same range. Which is one of the reasons I take exception to the argument that 'only people who have a chance of becoming PM should be in the debate' that has been put forward. This is a spurious argument, IMO, because it suggests that only two leaders should ever be in these debates - the incumbent PM and the Leader of the Opposition. (Historically, I don't think that the 'third party' leaders have ever prevailed on election day)

But, what really bothers me about this whole affair is the way that Harper and Layton have been moving in virtual lock-step with each other on this:

The broadcasters changed course after Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Jack Layton indicated earlier Wednesday that they no longer oppose May's participation in the debates on Oct. 1 and Oct. 2.

... and just a few days ago, we have this:

In arguing against May's inclusion, the Tories and NDP cited a deal she struck with Dion, in which they agreed not to run candidates against each other in their respective Nova Scotia and Quebec ridings.

It strikes me that Msrs. Harper and Layton are cut from the same Machiavellian cloth - it's all about personal gain for them, not about making Canada a better place to live.

Yesterday's Rules Are Inoperative

Last election, the Green Party was excluded from the Leaders' Debates ostensibly because they didn't have any MPs sitting in Ottawa. Okay, fine. I don't entirely agree with the supposition, but if the 'rule of the game' is that you have to have an MP sitting in Parliament, so be it.

This election the rules change, largely because someone had a hissy fit over the idea of facing another opposition leader.

Harper said letting May participate in the debates would be in essence allowing a "second Liberal candidate" to participate, which he called "fundamentally unfair."

Oh please. Give me a break. May isn't a 'dark horse' alternate Liberal leader. That's a complete crock of crap - another meaningless meme that the HarperCon$ have invented to sneer with.

What is really interesting is how closely the NDP is parroting Mr. Harper on this one:

NDP campaign spokesman Brad Lavigne confirmed late Monday that party leader Jack Layton had said he wouldn't attend the debate if May were allowed to participate.

"We believe that as someone who's endorsed Stéphane Dion to be the prime minister of Canada, she has endorsed Liberal candidates throughout the country," Lavigne said.

"We said that if the Liberals were going to have two representatives, we would not accept the invitation."

Uh huh. I'll tell you what, Mr. Lavigne. If you can show me that the Liberal and Green parties are in fact one in the same, then I'll accept what you are claiming. Inferring something is not the same as proving it is the case.

Personally, I think both Mr. Layton and Mr. Harper are just flat out scared of Ms. May eviscerating their policies in a public debate.

All that said, the current format for the "Debates" is a bad joke. It's not a debate - it's at best a subset of question period, with the spotlight on the four party leaders. In terms of meaningful debate, you might as well watch four chimpanzees fight over a banana.

Argument By Assertion

One of the things that irritates me to no end is when people make broad, sweeping claims without providing evidence to back them up; or they conveniently ignore the broader reality in which their claims exist.

The so-called "Social Conservatives" are particularly nasty in this respect. In fact, this has been one of the bones I keep picking every time Mr. Boissoin pops up as a commenter on this blog.

The first time he popped up here, he made the usual talking point references to the "Gay Agenda" as if it is some coherent, real thing. When I challenged him to be precise about his use of the term, he shuts up and goes away.

Then, in a more recent dialogue, he tries the same ambiguous kind of debating tactic, and combines it with a marginally related argument about what a gay community activist said regarding HIV/AIDS. (Which semi-anonymous commenter "SB" very nicely put into appropriate context.

We can imagine from a statement like "The scientific evidence suggests that homosexual practices are not healthy but instead physically dangerous." what Mr. Boissoin is talking about, but in fact we don't actually know what he's getting at - which means he can change his meaning at whim. As a reader of that statement, for all I know he may have knowledge or evidence that lesbians are generally known to wrestle with each other in a way that has an increased probability of spinal injury? It's hard to say for sure, isn't it?

The same problem exists with the oft-heard railing against the "Gay Agenda" - the Theo-Con set talks about it, but won't specify what they believe it to be; much less how, or why, it is harmful to anyone. The assertion of harm is made, but nobody ever substantiates that assertion with verifiable evidence.

Consider the following from Boissoin's own website:

Watch these videos and see for yourself. The video, It's Elementary has been used to indoctrinate school children over the last decade. It contains actual classroom footage showing educators imposing pro-homosexual propaganda on children as young as six. They even encourage these children to discuss gay marriage in an obvious attempt to infuse a pro-gay opinion in their highly impressionable minds.

He's referring, of course, to It's Elementary. The movie itself is nothing more than footage of GLBT people going into classrooms and talking about their lives. Little different, in my view, than the myriad of people of different backgrounds that presented vignettes of their lives to us when I was in grade school. The point is simple enough - namely to teach the children that the "Others" in society are in fact little different than the rest of the population when it comes down to it.

The religious set likes to claim that these are attempts to "recruit" people into the GLBT "lifestyle" that they imagine as being so licentious. Movies like "It's Elementary" are not "recruiting" tools of any sort, instead what they do is dispel much of the mythology that surrounds GLBT people's lives. (which, for the most part, the religious conservative set would be quite disappointed to learn how amazingly mundane those lives are)

While there is no empirically clear understanding of the causality of sexual and gender identity, the notion of "recruitment" is a silly derivation to make in the absence of that clarity. GLBT youth often know their identity, often long before they have any discrete knowledge of the terms and concepts related to it. (Even in situations where such information has been actively suppressed by the surrounding community) A lack of scientific clarity does not mean that we can simply deny the reality of their narratives, as I have discussed before in this essay.

In my view, it's rather like getting upset because someone from a non-Christian culture gives a presentation in a classroom. It's unlikely that the person is "recruiting" anyone. We all have stories to tell, and it's not invalid to tell them. Ultimately, it removes the stigma that arises in society from someone being "different".

Stelmach Shows Us His Kleinosaur Cred

I'm not even going to start examining Bill 26 in any detail - what I've read about it makes me angry, but I'm even angrier about the Alberta Progressive Conservative government's conduct in the legislature over this bill.

Tories Invoke Closure at all levels to ram the bill through.

Laurie Blakeman, Alberta Liberal House Leader, calls the procedural tactic “uberclosure.” Under the measure, only seven hours were allocated for debating Bill 26 in the committee stage, after which it will move into third and final reading, likely late tonight or early Thursday.

Had you heard anything about Bill 26 prior to this? I hadn't, and neither had a lot of people.

The issue here is not that the government is changing Alberta's Labour codes with what appears to be a worker-hostile approach, it's the fact that a government with one of the biggest majorities this province has ever seen is invoking closure so it can ram it through.

This isn't a government which is losing touch with the people of this province, it clearly never had any real contact in the first place. After voting themselves pay raises that are far in excess of what most Albertans have seen for some years, now they demonstrate that they have even less regard for the concepts of democracy and debate than Ralph Klein did - and Klein was a low point in Alberta's history for leadership that understood just what debate really means.

Alberta voters, your apathy in this past Spring's election has handed the proverbial keys to the kingdom to a bunch of bandits who no longer believe that they are accountable to anyone except their own egos and the desires of whoever happens to be their largest donors.

Well...That Was Unhelpful

Last night's Leader's Debate in Alberta was less than impressive.

If I were an undecided voter, what was in that "debate" didn't help make any decisions.

Frankly, the debate itself was no debate. The leaders were all so carefully scripted that they avoided saying anything of value at all. The entire event was more of an excuse to trot out and reiterate the broad, and relatively dull statements that one can find in any of the party's websites.

There was no point and counterpoint in that debate, it was almost exclusively talking points.

Worse, in my view, was the fact that all four of them were constantly trying to talk overtop of the others. If Albertans want to see grown men shouting at each other, we'll watch Question Period.

These aren't debates in any meaningful sense of the word, and I wonder if we wouldn't do just as well to have a set of speeches for that hour and a half instead of a four-way argument that's less coherent than you usually find at 2 am in the bars.