After reading this article over at The Alberta Spectator, I decided I needed to know what discrimination meant because it seems to be thrown around so easily.

So let’s start at the dictionary:

Discrimination - 1. The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

You can easily add culture, religion, and a whole bunch of other preferences. That definition seems fairly straightforward, but you could have debates over what the first couple words (unjust and prejudicial) mean, so let clear those up as well.

Unjust - 1. Not based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair.

Now that’s a can of beans because everyone doesn’t have the same morals. What about fair?

Fair - 1. In accordance with the rules or standards; legitimate. 2. Just or appropriate in the circumstances.

We can see for the second meaning that (un)just and fair create a circle, so let’s stick with the first meaning.

And prejudice:

Prejudice - 1. Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

That’s a little more clear.
Let me see if I can restate discrimination:

Discrimination - The unjust (immoral/unfair/not according to the standards) or prejudicial (preconceived notion that is no based on evidence) treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex (or culture, religion, sexual orientation).

Looking at that, discrimination can be a lot of things and it’s starting to seem like a tall order trying to eliminate discrimation from our society. That begs the question, should be so fanatically obsessed with eliminating it?

I see many problems with trying to eliminate discrimination, but probably the touchiest (which is alluded in the linked article) is holidays. Christmas and Easter are both religious holidays that are instituted federally. What is the fair (”in accordance with the rules or standards”) for other holidays? What are the rules and standards by which we judge a holiday?

Here’s a potential example of what could happen if we tried to eliminate discrimation from holidays. Because we give people time off for Christmas, we start allowing people time off for Diwali, Hanukkah, Eid, and Besaki. But that seems discriminatory to Aetheists. So we give them a free day (or 3 or 10) to use whenever they like. But what if I’m Muslim (or Christian) and I don’t want to be locked into certain days for my holidays? Everyone gets to float their holidays whenever they want. But what happens if I want to get service from my provincial government on Christmas (and everyone has taken it off)? I don’t think I should get poor service because I’m not Christian (or from Europe). So the government must stay open. …. This could probably go on forever. I think you get the point.

What’s my recommendation? I think we shouldn’t get so upset every time a complaint of discrimination comes along. If there is a consensus across the population that a real injustice is occurring, then we act. What about holidays? That’s a touchy one.

I came across Conservapedia today. It sells itself as an American and Christian friendly version of Wikipedia. They devote a page to exposing some of the bigger examples of bias on Wikipedia. I haven’t decided if it’s a good idea or not, but I’d be interested to hear people’s opinions on it.

From CTV:

Richmond fire dept. may exclude white men
The Richmond, B.C. fire department is reportedly planning a major overhaul of its hiring policy by populating its ranks exclusively with women and minorities over the next five years.

Like most people I have very little tolerance for harassment of any kind, but how does this solve anything? Has anyone considered dealing with the harassment? (… oh wait, there are probably union rules against stuff like that.)

So what you are doing here is instituting a policy that punishes a group that had nothing to do with the problem. So how is this not racist (and sexist)?

I seen a number of appalling sentances coming from Lethbridge judges recently.

• Man given house arrest for breaking and entering and aggravated assault.
• Ex-nurse sentence upgraded to 1yr jail time from 18months conditional sentance for drugging and sexual assault.
• $700 and suspended sentance for drunk driver who crashed into senior’s complex.

These are only the ones that got published. I’m sure if you had more time to dig into the issue, you’d find many more injustices.

This goes to prove it doesn’t only take a big city judge to be easy on criminals.

Update: Apparently some judges can get it right: $4 theft brings 15 days in jail

Here’s a great one from CIVITATENSIS:

“Suzuki is not just misinformed: he’s misinforming.”

According to a recent Ipsos-Reid poll, only 45% of Canadians think Stephen Harper has a secret agenda. This is down from 65% two years ago. This number is only marginally worse than the 35% of canadians who think Stephane Dion has a secret agenda. Does anybody care? As far as I can tell this is basically a measures of the effectiveness of Liberal propaganda. So what does that mean? Liberal propaganda is becoming less effective.

I’d be interested to see how people would rate mainstream media and pollsters. According to a recent poll I conducted myself, 90% of polls are useless because 100% of newspapers and media outlets have their own secret agenda and 75% of Canadians are idiots.

In this National Post column, Andrew Coyne details why he believes the Conservatives has sold their soul. This is something that has bothered me for awhile. It seems the CPC has softened on most issues and tend to resemble the Liberals more and more on all the big issues.
I believe this softening has happened for a couple reasons:

• They’ve decided the only way to win their coveted majority is to win Quebec. And of course, the way to win Quebec is to look, act, and govern like Liberals. The problem is the strategy doesn’t seem to be working.
• As more MPs are elected from the east, the more their priorities become the party’s priorities. We’ve learned from Mulroney and the Ontario provincial PCs, that eastern conservatives seem to have a different take on conservatism.

What is a true blue Alberta conservative to do? I have a couple ideas (neither of which seem to have too much general public appeal at the moment)

1. Birth of a serious libertarian party. For those of you not familiar, the gist is that government power must be used only to protect the individual from the use of force or fraud by others (more …). I believe a big part of the Reform Party’s appeal came from its libertarian slant on things.
2. Alberta seccesion. There will never be a federal government that truly represents Alberta because of concessions that have to be made to the rest of Canada. Albertans tend to have clear priorities in the areas of fiscal conservatism, government intervention (or lack there-of), reduction of taxes, entreprenuership, etc that aren’t shared elsewhere.

I’ve long been a proponent of Alberta independence. I believe Alberta does not get a good deal out of being part of Canada and there are significant cultural differences between us and those in the East.

Last night I was channel surfing and stumbled on a documentary on the Knowledge Network talking about Newfoundland, its place in Canada, and the case for independence by comparing itself with Iceland. It was a little bit eye-opening. These guys have just as much right to be pissed about being in Canada as Alberta.

That makes Quebec, Newfoundland, and Alberta all with legitimate beefs with Canada. It really makes you wonder why people think the country should stay united.

If there’s anything I hate about mainstream media, it the editorializing of the news. I’d like to hear the facts and only the facts.

Here’s a classic example from the Globe and Mail about a possible federal cabinet shuffle. The writer admits there is nothing really to base the story on:

If there’s any certainty around the seemingly imminent shuffle, it is that only Mr. Harper is truly certain of where the chips will land.

Even worse is CTV’s practice of using their own staff as sources for their stories. Here are some examples. Apparently CTV doesn’t feel like it can present a complete picture unless they’ve entered their own personal spin into it.

I was a little ticked off when I first heard the story about Shiraz Dossa, the Nova Scotia prof who presented at the Iranian Holocaust denier conference. My initial reaction was very negative and I didn’t have very nice things to say about him and the school. Since then, I’ve thought a little more about it and my feelings have developed a little.

I should make this clear to begin with, I think the guy is a creep. Going to the conference showed very bad judgement (and poor taste). I don’t think he shouldn’t be teaching, and a lot of people agree with me (although I think teachers should teach, not academics). He’s an extremist and shouldn’t have the opportunity to push his views as fact.

On the other hand, he should have the right to have poor judgement. This ultimately comes down to freedom of speech and I have to defend that (I also think that people should have the right to say he’s a dumbass). The defination of freedom of speech is a little murky in Canada, but it should be something that everyone should stick up for whether it suits them or not.