A seven year-old girl showed up to school marked with the Nazi swastika. It was removed. The next day, it was worst. So, the school contacted the Child and Family Services, who then came to the girl’s home to talk to the parents about the situation. They noticed “neo-Nazi symbols and flags, and took custody of the couple’s two-year-old son. The daughter was picked up by family services at her school.”

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The dear old Queen of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and so many other countries: just what is she good for? Though, in my experience, few people care about her either way, there are those who see in the monarchy a powerful symbol. That is, a powerful symbol of injustice, of oppression, of an archaic system that goes against the very foundations of democracy and liberty. Or of stability, culture and history; an important part of who we are, of the Canadian identity.

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I’m troubled.

First, Obama decided that those responsible for torture during the Bush administration should not be charged. I’m still not sure what to think of this, but I think that the safest choice — in terms of not wrongly punishing people — is to forgive those responsible for torture now that the movement to end the use of torture by the United States is in swing. To do otherwise would seem like retroactive law in practice, even though this may not be true technically.

However, I think that things have now gone too far. Obama seems to have decided that the public should be shielded from evidence of torture. The reason for this is that it would fuel “anti-Americanism” and lead to more violence. And it probably would, but is this enough of a reason?

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(Recommended Artist: Pineapple Thief – Don’t Hate Me)

Female circumcision, or female genital mutilation / modification (FGM), is an emotional topic. I remember, in school, being shown a video of young girls undergoing the practice. It was presented as a barbaric practice that Muslims — all Muslims, I thought at the time — do, as something that should most certainly be abolished for the same reasons we ban rape and slavery.

But, as usual, when ethics and emotions intersect, the arguments are low in quality and ignorance runs high; people speak of that which they do not understand. It is very tempting to say that FGM is a most terrible practice and should most certainly be banned from all countries, that religion or tradition is no excuse for such inhumanity, but things are more complex than this, and I make it my purpose here to clarify the issue to most.

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(Recommended Artist: K’naan – Strugglin’)

Europeans have been complaining a lot about the Canadian seal hunt, about those cruel, cruel men, devoid of empathy, pity, love and perhaps emotion as a whole — those men who murder seals for the sake of profit. What I find pitiful here is not so much the situation of the seals, as the conspicuous hypocrisy on the part of most politicians, activists and every-day men and women who complain about the seal hunt and use this as an excuse to erect trade barriers, all while revealing troubling hypocrisy on their part.

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(recommended Artist: Karsh Kale – Distance)

REMINDER: I use “liberal” in the original sense of the term, so those who identify liberalism as “the left” — a mistake common in the United States and English Canada — should perhaps see it as being roughly (roughly) equivalent to “libertarianism” or “classical liberalism”. Read more about this detailhere (though I see liberalism a bit differently than the author of that page).

Reminder #2: This is a bit of a rant.

I have an issue with people who spout ideological garbage about individual rights and refuse to go further than that when looking at issues. Individual rights goes just as much for the person who wants to own a pit bull as the person wanting to paint his house pink; as the person wanting grow opium poppy in his backyard as the person wanting to dress as he wants; as the person wanting to masturbate on his front lawn as the person who wants to drive without a seatbelt; as the person who wants to have an abortion as the person who wants to own a gun; as the person who wants to live in a shaky house as the person who wants to let his grass grow tall.

It is extremely easy to argue in favour of each of these cases from an “individual liberty”, “personality responsibility” standpoint; such liberalism, stripped down to its core, makes individuals the sole agents responsible for their what they do to themselves and on their properties; and even, to a certain extent, on public property (such as dressing as one wants and perhaps such as walking naked in public).

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(Recommended Artist: Sage Francis – Crack Pipes)

Journalism plays a key role in our society and is essential for democracy to function as intended. If the media is divided into political factions, arrogant and opinionated, then so will society. But if the media is careful not to offend anyone with “opinions”, then it will be difficult for people to explore different ideas and push towards progress. And if the media pursues the profit margin with too much zeal, then we are more at risk of relying on false information and cheap opinions, and the information we may come across may become more base. The quality of the news media is tied to the quality of our democracy, and this is why we must be be much more careful in considering how it works and where it may go wrong then when we look at other markets.

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