Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed yesterday the Conservative party “will not rest” until the day it abolishes the long-gun registry.
[…]Mr. Harper predicted the “registry will someday be abolished” because it will continually be opposed by the people who understand it–whom he identified as “rural Canadians, hunters, outdoors men and women (and) police officers.”These people will never accept this registry because they know it is ineffective and wasteful. And the party I lead will not rest until the day it is abolished.”
See, the interesting thing is that this is exactly the kind of issue that Harper can use to drive rural voters, some of who vote Liberal or Socialist (NDP), towards the federal Conservative Party in the next federal election. Canadian rural voters tend to be further to the left than American rural voters.
Look at how the left-wing parties are squirming:
The Harper government has gone on the offensive this week in trying to draw attention to Liberal and NDP MPs who were once opponents of the long-gun registry but are now poised to vote in favour of it. Government House leader John Baird has said those MPs have been pressured by “Toronto elites” to switch their votes and will be held accountable by voters in the next election.
In Thunder Bay, NDP MPs John Rafferty and Bruce Hyer, on record as registry opponents, have yet to declare their intentions for next Wednesday’s vote on Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner’s bill to kill the registry.
The bill handily passed a preliminary vote last November, with the help of 12 New Democrats and eight Liberals. The margin this time is expected to be razor thin. The Liberals have been ordered to vote along party lines, while the New Democrats have said they have the six vote-changers they believe they need to save the registry.
And fiscal conservatives also hate the long-gun registry. It was supposed to cost 2 million dollars to implement, but it actually has cost over 2 billion dollars. What a waste! And with no demonstrable effect on crime rates, since law-abiding hunters don’t commit crimes.
Since then it’s been displayed everywhere – from Neil Simpson’s latest round-up to Verum Serum to Hot Air. Um, I mean everywhere except the mainstream media, of course.
A New Mexico School principal has penalized three Christian students with suspensions for giving fresh Krispy Kreme Doughnuts with Bible verses to each of their teachers, according to the public advocacy group Liberty Counsel.
This school is already named in a pending lawsuit filed by Liberty Counsel on behalf of families and students who were bullied, and one suspended, for exercising their freedom of religion by distributing abstinence wristbands and plastic models of babies at 12 weeks gestation to bring attention to the life of unborn children in the womb.
According to Liberty Counsel, about 25 Christian students in the group, Relentless in Roswell, decided to express appreciation for their teachers by giving them doughnuts. Since the closest Krispy Kreme shop was in Texas, some of them drove almost six hours round trip, stayed overnight, got up at 3:00 a.m. filled their car’s back seat with fresh doughnuts, and got back to school on time to deliver the doughnuts.
But when the doughnuts were passed out, they included a scripture verse as well. For that, one student was immediately sent home, and two others were forced to spend a Saturday morning sitting alone in the classroom for four hours as a punishment.
[…]The Christian group has also handed out sandwiches, hot chocolate, and candy canes in the past to the student body and faculty. Some also distributed rocks with affirming words like “U are wonderful’ painted on one side and “Psalm 139” on the other, as part of their ministry.
However, Liberty Counsel says that things came to a head when Relentless in Roswell decided to hand out plastic models of unborn babies. The incident, they said, ended up saving the life of a student who said she had planned to commit suicide because of the guilt she felt over her abortion. Liberty Counsel says that when she received a model baby with the scripture “you are fearfully and wonderfully made” she cried and prayed with the students.
However students were afterwards pulled out of class and instructed by Principal Ruben Bolaños to cease their “Christian” acts because they had made their point. He is alleged to have said, “I don’t like Christians. All they do is smile at you and then stab you in the back.”
Sigh. This is just another example of the public schools – which are really government-run, government-supporting schools – marginalizing the values of Christian parents. We need better options – this system of schools doesn’t work for us. We shouldn’t be forced to pay for it.
Charges against a Calgary man accused of raping a woman over a 10-hour period nearly two years ago have been unexpectedly stayed.
Crown prosecutor Karuna Ramakrishnan issued the stay after the 44-year-old complainant, who recanted her story under cross-examination by defence lawyer Rebecca Snukal on Wednesday, failed to show up in court on Friday for further questioning.
She had been ordered to do so by Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Sandy Park, so Ramakrishnan could reconsider her position.
John Francis Dionne, 43, had faced charges of sexual assault causing bodily harm, kidnapping, assault causing bodily harm and uttering death threats in connection with the alleged incident on Oct. 28, 2008.
His first trial ended in a mistrial in June, because of an issue with one of the jurors, and was rescheduled for this week.
The woman initially outlined in detail what she says occurred during the ordeal, but when cross-examined, she couldn’t remember specific details.
Then, when asked why she would accept a ride from the man she claimed had raped her for 10 hours she became frustrated and denied it even happened.
“I’m lying about everything,” she told Snukal.
“Hurry along because I’m lying about everything. He’s not a rapist . . . so there, that’s it. End of it . . . he didn’t rape me.
“Let Mr. John Francis go free. He’s not a rapist. It’s over. That’s all I have to say. Let him out.”
Dionne, who had been in custody since his arrest, was to be released some time later on Friday.
Her name has not been released – but his name was released. His life is therefore ruined. And she will probably not be charged, since it is very rare that women are charged for making false accusations. The man spent 2 years of his life in jail. Was there any evidence? She says she was lying about EVERYTHING. How could there be any evidence? And yet he spent two years in jail.
What effect will this have on men? What should men believe about women when things like this happen? What does this tell us about the court system?
Why do women make false accusations of rape?
One recent study listed three reasons why women invent false rape accusations.
Excerpt:
A study of rape allegations in Indiana over a nine-year period revealed that over 40% were shown to be false — not merely unproven. According to the author, “These false allegations appear to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, seeking revenge, and obtaining sympathy and attention. False rape allegations are not the consequence of a gender-linked aberration, as frequently claimed, but reflect impulsive and desperate efforts to cope with personal and social stress situations.” ( Kanin EJ. Arch Sex Behav. 1994 Feb;23(1):81-92 False rape allegations. )
In 1985, a study of 556 rape allegations found that 27% accusers recanted when faced with a polygraph (which can be ordered in the military), and independent evaluation showed a false accusation rate of 60%. (McDowell, Charles P., Ph.D. “False Allegations.” Forensic Science Digest, (publication of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations), Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 1985), p. 64.)
And this also happens in divorce trials in order to get custody.
False accusations in divorce trials
Consider this article from Touchstone magazine, by Stephen Baskerville.
Excerpt:
Today it is not clear that we have learned anything from these miscarriages of justice. If anything, the hysteria has been institutionalized in the divorce courts, where false allegations have become routine.
What is ironic about these witch-hunts is the fact that it is easily demonstrable that the child abuse epidemic—which is very real—is almost entirely the creation of feminism and the welfare bureaucracies themselves. It is well established by scholars that an intact family is the safest place for women and children and that very little abuse takes place in married families. Child abuse overwhelmingly occurs in single-parent homes, homes from which the father has been removed. Domestic violence, too, is far more likely during or after the breakup of a marriage than among married couples.
Yet patently false accusations of both child abuse and domestic violence are rampant in divorce courts, almost always for purposes of breaking up families, securing child custody, and eliminating fathers. “With child abuse and spouse abuse you don’t have to prove anything,” the leader of a legal seminar tells divorcing mothers, according to the Chicago Tribune. “You just have to accuse.”
Among scholars and legal practitioners it is common knowledge that patently trumped-up accusations are routinely used, and virtually never punished, in divorce and custody proceedings. Elaine Epstein, president of the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association, writes that “allegations of abuse are now used for tactical advantage” in custody cases. The Illinois Bar Journal describes how abuse accusations readily “become part of the gamesmanship of divorce.” The UMKC Law Review reports on a survey of judges and attorneys revealing that disregard for due process and allegations of domestic violence are used as a “litigation strategy.” In the Yale Law Review, Jeannie Suk calls domestic violence accusations a system of “state-imposed de facto divorce” and documents how courts use unsupported accusations to justify evicting Americans from their homes and children.
The multi-billion dollar abuse industry has become “an area of law mired in intellectual dishonesty and injustice” writes David Heleniak in the Rutgers Law Review. Domestic violence has become “a backwater of tautological pseudo-theory,” write Donald Dutton and Kenneth Corvo in the scholarly journal Aggression and Violent Behavior. “No other area of established social welfare, criminal justice, public health, or behavioral intervention has such weak evidence in support of mandated practice.”
If we care about justice for all, then we have to care about this, too.
