The Office of Religious Freedom

Today the Right Honourable Stephen Harper pledged the creation of the Office of Religious Freedom.  Every Canadian of every faith and conviction can be proud of this move.  Its time we as a nation stood up for freedom in the world and this is the Office to do it.  We cannot stand quiet while minorities are slaughtered and persecuted by their oppressors.

I applaud this pledge and we should all stand with Stephen Harper to help create it.   

The corrupt United Nations allows evil theocratic tyrants to make racist rants in the general assembly.  Its Human Rights bodies include mass murderers like Qaddafi.  It has no moral authority to expose and pressure the oppressive regimes from China to Iran that systematically persecute various faiths.
   
A Canadian body that is independent of the backroom world government wrangling that progressives adore is exactly what the world needs.  Canadians should to the world armed not with bullets but with the cleansing sunlight of truth to expose the atrocities of religious persecution.

I myself am an atheist.  This view of mine is not made to spite anyone.  Its just my educated opinion subject to change pending further evidence.  I am not a militant and intolerant left wing atheist. I appreciate religious people and their outstanding society and values that allows us all to prosper together.  We atheists claim this right to religious freedom for ourselves.  Many countries in the world officially view atheists as lower than Jews, Christians or even Pagans.  Atheists not only need to support other religious minorities and their freedom to believe as they choose, but we should welcome the support of the Office itself.

Canada is an island of freedom in an increasingly intolerant and irrational progressive world.  We can be more than an island.  We can be a beacon, an aid, and a comfort to oppressed peoples everywhere. 

Vote for Freedom.  Vote Conservative.  Vote for Canada.

The Long Form Census

I think everyone has had a chance to air their opinions on the Long Form Census.  All the experts have come around with their arguments about how useful a census is.  I agree with them.  Information is very useful.  Data needs to be collected and analysed to inform the best possible decisions.

The argument has not been made by any politician, bureaucrat or stuffy professor as to why I should be forced to provide this data.  They assume, without providing any information of their own, that compulsory data is going to be more true than voluntary data.

This is the heart of the dispute.  The Census is not going away.  Its only going to be friendlier.  I am much more apt to do my civic duty and answer the questions truthfully if I'm not commanded to do so.  Most people including myself will simply give whatever information will keep us out of trouble.  This doesn't make it true information.
 
This was my experience with the census.  When asked about my religion, I couldn't respond "blow it out your ass."  Instead I wrote "Jedi."  Am I really a Jedi, at least in faith?  I won't incriminate myself.  

How do they know that issuing threats makes better data?  Threats corrupt data in one way and voluntary data may be corrupt in other ways.  Why not choose the more benign method?  Did these professional bean counters get pushed around in elementary?  I don't get it.  Half the art of marketing is collecting voluntary data.  So much of the research and studies we hear about is based on voluntary data.  I do believe there is quite a large body of knowledge surrounding the uses and methods of analyzing voluntary data.  My personal freedom is worth the expense of a larger sample size and different techniques.

How about we put this into perspective.  Look at the Highway Traffic Act.  Its not about useful information, its about public safety.  Its vigorously enforced and applies to anyone operating a vehicle.  Speed limits are clearly posted on nearly all roads but everyone still speeds.  Even Judges speed.  Even the finger waging Chiefs of Police break the speed limit.  The threat of fines or imprisonment added to the real threat of death  due to speeding doesn't make anyone stop speeding.  Think about that.  How useful could fines or prison possibly be to getting better data?  Not very useful at all.

I read one justification for this bureaucratic bullying to be that poor people don't answer truthfully to voluntary census forms.  If those poor people don't want their privacy violated, then we should take what little money they have or even throw them in jail.  That's the progressive mind at work.  Liberals in the thrall of progressives seem to have been so successful at promoting freedom previously that they now have nothing better to do than return us to tyranny one little law at a time.

I am a proud and free Citizen of this country.  It is my civic duty to voluntarily provide accurate data to Statistics Canada.  Until the Long Form Census becomes voluntary I hereby vow to skew and corrupt all census data that is compelled with threats of fines or prison.  I hope you take this vow with me and I understand if you don't do so publicly.  Your rights are yours alone.  Others may have the power to take them away but they are yours to claim always and forever.