Good find, Mark. Ted Byfield's point is underscored by an ancient human condition: Remove risk and difficulty, and one removes dignity and the joy of success.
It's like dumbing down games so that "everyone wins"... what happens is that the competent feel cheated and the incompetent feel entitled.
Thanks for posting this story; it ties in well with the recent release in Canada of Karla Homolka.
Posted at 2006-01-02 12:50:49 [PermaLink]No more heroes, no more pride of accomplishment. Not for Canada the truth that the many are raised up by the actions of the few. Far better to settle into the red comfy fur and reflect on our entitlements.
Posted at 2006-01-02 14:31:42 [PermaLink]Well, this guy has just flushed his Canadian street cred down the (non lo-flo) toilet. Where the hell does he get off not blaming any and all problems on the US?
I feel slighted. If I'm not having blame dumped on me from up north it's as if nobody cares about me any more.
I believe every Western nation is facing this situation to some extent. All of Western Europe is probably irretrievably down the drain, and the US has started down this path as well. Virtually every aspect of Political Correctness, which the lefties have finally stopped denying even exists, is wrapped up in this.
I hope the likely disintegration of the European socialist welfare states is going to provide enough of an alarm for the Western Hemisphere to take note. I fear not - those clamoring for us to be more like Europe will be in the same situation as those who championed the USSR as historically inevitable - their thesis is still valid, it's just that the application was flawed.
Somebody is going to have to explain to me specfically how 'kindliness' has caused these wrongs in this Country.
As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong in this country but a lack of common sense.
Being kind didn't increase access to guns, nobody said, "hey, could you please bring handguns into our city, please?" Let our kids start killing each other.
Being kind also isn't what makes people *want* to kill each other.
Being kind isn't what made stronger, more addictive drugs, like crystal meth or oxycontin! Extremely addictive substances that have made even St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador a scary place to live. Substances that cause the guy next door to rob convenience stores to support his habit.
Drugs and guns (which you can blame on organized crime I suppose) are destroying this country.
Greed caused those things, not kindliness.
Last time I checked, kids still wrote tests and failed, and got held back. In fact, when I graduated from highschool, I graduated with someone who was 21 years old, he had failed 3 grades! Even with our scary old principal who **strapped** a girl in my grade 1 class, and that was in the late 80s.
Anyway, I guess the point is, 'kindliness' the act couldn't cause these problems. Nor is 'kindliness' the act going to solve these problems. Common sense could solve these problems. Maybe. It certainly could have prevented some of them.
plplokok You are looking at the kindness thing from the wrong angle. It is the kindness and mercey shown towards the scum that are killing innocent people with guns or drugs that remove the deterent factor and let the criminals not worry about doing it again and getting caught.
Posted at 2006-01-02 19:02:16 [PermaLink]Amen, Robert.
Kindliness the Act does cause these problems when it is used to reward evil behaviour. When it is used to reward sloth. When it is used to reward murder.
There was a time in Toronto the Good when it wasn't necessary to carry weapons or to even lock one's back door in most neighborhoods. Some folks, however, have adopted the culture of predation. The culture of addiction. The culture of drug supply.
Given the extent of white-collar crime (Can you spell 'Gomery Report'?), one can hardly keep a straight face and claim that "poverty" is the root cause of Toronto's dilemma. (Hint: It isn't "guns pouring in" from the US.)
It's the culture of minimal individual responsibility, the culture of low expectations and achievement. Kindliness the Act Using Other People's Money and Freedoms turns out to be the most despicable condescension imaginable.
Though let's not be too harsh on our Leftie friends... They'd rather be judged on their intentions. They'll tell you that the reason Toronto is going down the tubes is because it is not socialist enough. If only we had done it properly and comprehensively, why, Toronto would be as peaceful as Havana.
Maybe "kindly" was the wrong word; I'm suggesting 'candyass'or maybe 'wusslike'...;)
We're so soft a Salvation Army squad could take us down.
So if all the gun violence in Toronto is because of our kindliness, then what insane levels of kindliness are being produced in American cities? They must be at least 4 times as "kindly" as a nation as we are according to the murder rates. Their big cities seem to be overflowing with kindliness... and its obvious result of murder.
No it couldn't have anything to do with ease of access to guns, that's just silly, we know that Jane Creba could have been killed just as easily by an errant knife slash from 20 yards across the street, since gun control makes as much sense to commenters on this blog as knife control.
Arrest them, shame them, jail them and get on with life. Toronto isn't going down the tubes. If you think that 78 murders in a city this big is an indication of going down the tubes, then surely you think that the entire US is doomed. But you don't, because they're the shining example of everything good in the world, right? If we could just have as many guns on the streets as they do, we could wipe this kindliness BS right off the map in a hail of hollowpoints.
Toronto's and Canada's crime rate is getting worse, while the US's is improving. Safer in New York than in Toronto. States with less gun control are safer than others.
[External Link]
On a slightly related topic...
Canadian convicts fear Tories will strip them of their comforts.
[External Link]
Dara, most of the guns used in these murders are already illegal, so your sarcasm about stabbings falls flat.
You've also mis-interpreted what people mean by "kindness".
The kindness refered to here is of the sort that renders individuals infantile. It is a kindness that absolves us of any responsability for our actions, including murder, and it is a kindness that promotes faux victimhood of some over and above the real victimhood of others.
One other thing; ever notice how profiling is just fine and dandy when establishing the bounderies and parameters of a particular racial/ethnic/religious *victim* group, but a virtual "crime against humanity" when attempting to ascertain the racial/ethnic/religious identity of the perpetrators of crimes?
Those most likely to be victims of aggressions can be profiled and mollycoddled, but those most likely to commit them can't.
The former is PC, and the latter "racist".
Really Dara, you have to switch your bathroom reading from Stupid White Men to something a little more current. Do note the stats above re: US/Canadian crime rates and get back to us.
We already have gun control. What we need is immigration control.
Yeah John, there will always be illegal guns and they will always be stolen from the supply of legal guns, unless you've heard of criminals running gun manufacturing shops. As the supply of legal guns increase, so do the chances and number of those guns being appropriated for illegal use. Commenters on this blog routinely posit that society would be safer with more guns because, presumably, other bystanders could have also opened fire in a crowd on Yonge St and the end result would have been better.
I'm sorry that I missed the link between giving people welfare and "absolving people of responsibility for murder". I just can't process ridiculous logic like that. The only reason I brought up kindliness is that if it really is the root cause of these problems, then why are these problems worse in the States?
Guns don't kill people, they just lower the standards for murderers.
Sorry Kathy, never read that nor would I. My opinions are my own and I don't read much leftist stuff because frankly, it's not interesting or well written.
"Overall crime rate" is the stat I think you're referring to. This includes all kinds of petty crimes, like vandalism and shoplifting, which aren't really relevant in a topic titled "Killing..." and could be a matter of better enforcement or reporting methodology differences. Frum provides no detail and is obviously a right wing partisan who would prefer Canada to become more like America, so I take his unexplained "supporting facts" no more seriously than Michael Moore's, which isn't very seriously at all.
Kathy S. has a good point about immigration. Lately we Montréalers have been gloating about how Toronto, instead of Montréal, is now the murder capital of Canada.
And Toronto's crime stats are not the result of a dearth of francophones.....
Dara, what nonsense are you talking about?
Investor's Bus Daily just had an editorial on Saturday entitled, "Canadian Whitewash."
Maybe you should read it.
The final paragraph is, "If lax gun laws are the problem, why is Canada's reported violent crime rate of 963 per 100,000 in 2003 more than double the US rate of 475? Maybe because our law-abiding citizens can defend themselves and our criminals know it."
They use stats from 1996-2003, maybe 2004 wasn't available for some of the countries they cite.
"...with 70% of our murders occur in just 3.5% of US counties - inner-city areas where drug dealers are concentrated and gans fight over turf...."
NY has their lowest rate in 30-ish years.
--No it couldn't have anything to do with ease of access to guns, that's just silly,--
You've finally said something that makes sense.
"...37 states have some form of 'right-to-carry' laws that let law-abiding citizens defend themselves against armed predators....
...John Lott, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, notes that murder has fallen faster in these states than the national average and that states w/the highest rise in gun ownership during the 1990s also had the biggest drop in violent crimes...."
Pay attention over the years to Detroit, they just put in in place a short time ago. We'll see if it more people carrying jugs means more people are safe.
--could have been killed just as easily by an errant knife slash from 20 yards across the street, --
Or by an islamo-fascist nutjob on a bike.....
So Sandy P., I guess you have the necessary background info to make those statistics relateable to each other. Like knowing what the definition of violent crime was in both studies and knowing the reporting rates for those crimes over the populace. Please share and make those numbers useful instead of just statistics.
Posted at 2006-01-03 16:38:11 [PermaLink]Folks, please... DNFTT.
Kathy has a point about immigration control. Our issues south o' 49 are similar. Some of the world's finest exports to the US are filling up our "correctional" facilities. Quite a collection.
BTW, John P... I dig your point about profiling. Funny how that works, eh? We can profile for all sorts of handouts and favours... but responsibility? Yipes!
Oh, by the way, Dan...
HOLIDAY'S OVER, PAL! Psbphtbst!!!
And Sandy, yeah... lends a new meaning to "going Dutch."
PK; Sorry, but Dara's pathetic excuses for doing nothing while the carnage mounts, just give me a royal pain. I'm not wasting my energy on him. MY opportunity to do something constructive comes in three weeks. In the meantime here's this week's box scores:
[External Link]
From that link...
"Niceness" yields this
"Halifax has also been shaken by a Christmas Day attack on a 62-year-old taxi driver, who died after being stabbed 11 times in the lungs by a passenger. Police have charged a 17-year-old with the crime.
The teen's mother shocked the city three days after her son's arrest by going public with the boy's long record of violent offences, and by saying she had pleaded with justice officials to take her son off the streets, but couldn't convince them to keep him in custody."
Nice work 'Justice Officials', keep up the good work, eh!
Point taken.
Kindliness after the fact is stupid. After the fact meaning once someone PROVES they don't deserve kindliness. But you have to prove you don't deserve it. Which means immigrants deserve kindliness until they don't try to make their own way.
You can only explain right and wrong once or twice. Once being before any wrongs are even done. We are raised to know hard drugs and gun violence isn't the right way to go.
If someone kills someone else, lock 'em up and throw away the key. Nevermind kindliness. They knew it was wrong.
That's just common sense.
Same thing with doctors prescribing drugs like Oxycontin to those who don't need it. (Sean Buckingham).
Same to drug companies marketing drugs like Oxycontin as 'mild pain relievers'.
Same to individuals bringing guns into this country.
Same to people making videogames featuring themselves killing real people. 50 Cent: Bulletproof feature popular rap artist 50 Cent killing rival gang members for murders they committed. Rather than going to the cops of course.
One review I read mentioned 50 killing 'bad guys'. They weren't 'bad guys' any more than 50 Cent is a 'bad guy' in that videogame. It's very VERY different when it's not a made up character, but a real person like 50 Cent who kids look up to.
Dara - Australia, Britain, Canada and the US have something in common.
Australia, Britain and Canada also have something else in common.
----
Murders are down in the US, Dara, have been falling for years.
Our crime rates are going down, more guns - the other 3 anglosphere countries which have banned guns are going up, not just violent crime.
--
AHHHHH - I cut it out of the paper and can't find it now!
Samizdata just had a discussion on their stats, you can get a Brit insight there, FBI keeps our stats, wouldn't your gov keep your stats? And Ozland - they keep theirs, but I also sometimes read articles from their papers.
AND - I'm sure there are quite a few gun owners who blog about this topic.
Sorry to burst your bubble - not, but this has been bubbling under the surface here for a few years now.
Here's some more food for thought - freed blacks after the Civil War, Germans and Cubans all have 1 thing in common.
What is it?