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Toronto Distric School Board sics cops on blogger BlazingCatFur
March 14, 2013 — xanthippaOh, my, my!
So, for quite a while, Arnie over at BlazingCatFur has been doing some deep investigative reporting into the actions and policies of the TDSB (Toronto District School Board).
Yes, the TDSB has done all that – and Arnie has covered it on his blog, long before it would break in the more traditional media!
His signature is abrasive, not politically-correct language, sarcasm and hyperbole.
In Toronto, that can earn you a visit from the police….
It makes one think of the time the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ theme song got a school lock-down – except there, it was a simple misunderstanding, while here, there is a definite stink of trying to silence the messanger.
A Press Release from the Libertarian Party of Ontario
March 13, 2013 — xanthippaToday, I received an email with this press release from the Libertarian Party of Ontario. It makes for interesting reading:
– M E D I A R E L E A S E – Jobs: Secure & Rewarding
This is the fourth in a series of releases designed to introduce our new Campaign platform for 2013-14.
One of the most enduring myths that politicians and governments perpetuate is their ability to create jobs in the economy. Indeed, governments do create government jobs, and some of those jobs are essential for protecting the rights of citizens. But every additional job created by government places a burden on the treasury, on the taxpayer, or worse requires additional government borrowing. Every government public sector job thus created makes it less likely that a private sector job is created.
If it were true that governments could create jobs as implied by politicians, then why not hire all the unemployed and be rid of that problem? The simple reason is that governments do not create wealth. That only happens in the private sector. Governments can only redistribute wealth and then only because of their monopoly on force.
What governments should do is simply create the legal and judicial framework which allows the private sector to produce the wealth and as many jobs as the market requires.
The reality is that current and past governments in Ontario have created so much red tape for prospective employers and disincentives for employees that our economy is struggling to provide the ideal jobs for Ontarians. Unions with government granted privileges further aggravate the situation, creating barriers to employment and removing choices from citizens.
Ontario Libertarians believe that the best way for our economy to create jobs is to allow employers and potential employees to negotiate wages and benefits, independent of regulation. Governments should refrain from any form of interference in the creation of jobs, labour regulations, or giving special legal privileges to either unions or employers.
To begin to unravel the red tape and the disincentives that constrain employment, Ontario Libertarians would eliminate all legislation that restricts the free market, including how wages are set and what training is required for a job.
Libertarians recognize that unionism has played an important role historically in improving working conditions for employees in Ontario. Today government regulations and the bureaucracy around jobs have largely usurped that role.
While unions are not inconsistent with free market economics, what is inconsistent, are the special privileges given to unions and union shops by governments. Governments have negotiated with unions and created public sector monopolies; governments have granted massive corporate bailouts designed to curry the favour of the unions and their crony corporate bosses, and governments have legislated the ability of unions to block non-union members in bidding for jobs. Libertarians believe that unions can operate in a free market, but they should have no right to control labour within that market.
Where employees were once powerless against their employers, today unions are more than a match for the crony corporations and the government agencies that employ them. There are many instances in today’s workplace where the power of unions, government agencies and crony corporatists work to the detriment of the economy and the people of Ontario. Libertarians will fight for the ordinary people of Ontario.
Over the longer term, Ontario Libertarians would eliminate licensing requirements and other impediments that interfere with job creation and that ultimately damage and distort the economy. Libertarians will strive to allow the free market to resolve the labour challenges of tomorrow.
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The Ontario Libertarian Party has been a registered political party since 1975. We advocate free markets, property rights, limited government, and voluntary interactions within communities between individuals and groups. Contact: info@libertarian.on.ca
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Originally posted: http://libertarian.on.ca/news/jobs-secure-rewarding
EU parliamentarians consider emails from citizens to be spam
March 7, 2013 — xanthippaJust received this email – thought I’d share:
Friend,
If you complain about censorship to the European Parliament, they’ll just censor you.
That’s the message that concerned citizens in the EU have been receiving after the European Parliament’s IT department began blocking thousands of emails from citizens opposed to a controversial new policy (one that itself could have a serious impact on Europeans’ freedom of expression online).
And if we complain? I suppose they’ll block those emails too. So instead of emailing, help us make this petition go viral!
Politicians need to know that silencing people’s opinions is not an option. Share this petition on Twitter and Facebook to make sure they get the message:
The censorship was uncovered earlier today by an MEP from the Pirate Party. Here’s his first hand account of what went down:
“Next week the European parliament will be voting on a resolution to ‘ban all forms of pornography in media.’ After this information became known to a wider audience, many citizens have decided to contact members of the European parliament to express their views on this issue … Before noon, some 350 emails had arrived in my office. But around noon, these mails suddenly stopped arriving. When we started investigating why this happened so suddenly, we soon found out: The IT department of the European Parliament is blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens.”
You can read his full account here.
Shockingly, this is not the first time this has happened. During the widespread outcry against ACTA, Parliamentary authorities decided to send all emails related to ACTA to MEP’s spam folders.
Thank you for taking action against censorship. If everyone shares this petition and forwards this email to friends, we can generate enough outcry to ensure that the public’s voice is heard.
For Internet freedom,
Holmes, Tiffiniy, Evan, and the whole team.
Center for Rights / Fight for the Future
p.s. Protecting freedom of expression everywhere is what keeps us up at night. After you sign the petition, can you donate to support Center for Rights’s international anti-censorship efforts? Every contribution makes a difference!
An interview with Connie and Mark Fournier
March 4, 2013 — xanthippaThe couple who is leading the legal fight for the freedom of the internet in Canadian courts was recently interviewed on the ‘Just Right’ radio program.
Russia Times: Moscow Mayor says no to more mosques in the city
March 3, 2013 — xanthippa“The Mayor of Moscow says there are no plans to build a new mosque in the city, and says the ‘excessive’ number of economic migrants was a ‘harmful thing’.
“It has turned out that the praying Muslims are not at all Russian citizens and they are not Moscow residents. They are labor migrants. There are only 10 percent of Moscow residents among them and building mosques for everyone who wants it – I think this will be over the top,” Sergey Sobyanin said in an interview with Moscow’s Echo radio.
The top city official went on to say that “Muscovites now get irritated by people who speak a different language, have different manners, with aggressive behavior. This is not purely ethnic, but this is connected with some ethnic traits,” Sobyanin said.”
Read the rest here…
The most lucid examination of the gun control issue to date
March 1, 2013 — xanthippaC0nc0rdance is a scientist who often appears on The Magic Sandwich Show, which I sometimes watch. And while I do not agree with all the views expressed on that show, I do like the level and manner at which the discussion occurs.
So, when C0nc0rdance put out a video on the topic of the 2nd Amendment and the whole gun control issue, I expected a well thought out, well supported position.
Having heard C0nc0rdance’s views on individual vs. collective rights, I also expected that his conclusion will not be the same as mine.
I was not disappointed – on either count.
I was, however, surprised how long into the video I agreed with each and every word he said. His conclusion and mine hinge on one very important distinction in how we perceive ‘rights’….
It is my core belief that the only way for a society to function is to recognize the inalienable rights of each and every individual within that society. The very concept of ‘collective rights’ is anathema to our civilization, where all rights derive from the individual. It is therefore not possible for any group to have different rights than those the individuals within that group have….because if it did, then those individuals within these privileged groups would have greater rights than other individuals in society and we would no longer have equality before the law.
In other words, in order to ensure that each citizen is treated equally by the courts and the law, we are limited to only legally recognizing individual rights. This makes any argument based on ‘group rights’ invalid.
Despite this insurmountable difference of opinion in individual vs. collective rights which makes C0nc0rdance arrive at a different conclusion than I, I think his argument is very good and well worth listening to.
Reality Check: VP Biden, “No law abiding citizens fears 2nd amendment infringement”
March 1, 2013 — xanthippa
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 