JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

Well, some people feel it can be a violation of human rights.

"Usually, conscription is only regarded as a violation of human rights if there is no, or only inadequate provision, for conscientious objectors."

And there is this from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription

American libertarians oppose conscription and call for the abolition of the Selective Service System, believing that impressment of individuals into the armed forces is involuntary servitude.[54] Ron Paul, a former presidential nominee of the U.S. Libertarian Party has said that conscription "is wrongly associated with patriotism, when it really represents slavery and involuntary servitude".[55] The philosopher Ayn Rand opposed conscription, suggesting that "of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man's fundamental right—the right to life—and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a man's life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle."

While looking up a few things on conscription I came across this comment from someone on Quora; I think it reflects my view of how rights are granted, because if they are not respected by the government (a tyrant) then The Constitution means nothing.

Conscription is not against human rights. Human Rights are defined by government. Without government, rights are determined by the strongest group of individuals. The strongest group of individuals become the governing body for a particular group or sub-group within the prevailing social structure.

Just to belabour my point that rights are not a birthright, but rather are granted by the government, an American might claim birthright freedoms in the US, but that same American can be denied those rights in China, or Afghanistan, or Russia, or... Thus, as I have said before, the rights that you claim are guaranteed by The Constitution and Bill of Rights only have existence because your government respects those rights.

mwalsh Loc: Houston

LoL

Yet you just did!

Poor Denise...she is horribly abused on here!

LoL

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

I did not cross check your statistics but I will take your word for it that as of December 2021 there were 995 fatal police shootings in the U.S. this year, 117 of whom were Black people. If this is true, then it means that Black people are killed disproportionately less often than White people and other ethnic groups. 117 deaths out of 995 is 11.7%. Black people make up 13.4% of the U.S. population.

By rights, Blacks should make up at least 50% of fatal police shootings because despite their small numbers, they commit at least half of all violent crime, including more than half of all murders. Meanwhile, I took a look at Canada's statistics of fatal police shootings and found something quite startling.

While Blacks make up only 3% of Canada's population, they account for 9% of all fatal police shootings.
While Indigenous people (Indians and Eskimos) make up only 5% of the population, they account for a whopping 38% of all fatal police shootings.
White people are 73% of Canada's population, but only account for 48% of all fatal police shootings.

It would appear that Canada has a far more serious problem with racial equity when it comes to fatal police killings. The U.S. isn't even in the ballpark with these disproportionate statistics.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/what-we-know-about-the-last-100-people-shot-and-killed-by-police-in-canada-1.4989794

JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

There is a gross fallacy in your post. Your fractional/proportional statistics argument only makes sense if you believe that all subpopulations behave in the same way when it comes to law and order. I suspect no one believes that. And I am sure your "jailed population" ethnic proportion would bear that out.

pendennis

And the United States Constitution was written to ensure that government respected those inherent rights. Americans are born with "certain enalienable rights", as cited in the Declaration of Independence. That you believe that "government" is the font of rights is a misconception of the concept. And enforcement of those inherent rights is guaranteed through protection by the judiciary. We also have organizations whose sole "raison d'etre", is to monitor our government's violations of those rights and take appropriate legal action.

The U.S. Constitution was written precisely to prevent tyranny of the majority. Nearly two-thousand years of civic history showed the Founders just how perilous uncontrolled democracy, or mob rule, was. Constitutions are meant to be limiters of, not grantors of, government power.

Again your "interpretation" shows deference and obeisance to "government". Human rights precede any concept of government by thousands of years. By citing Third World countries (Afghanistan. Really???), you only reinforce my argument. There are few Americans, if any, standing in line to emigrate to any of your cited countries. However, the line for entry to the United States is long, and stretches around the world.

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

The only reason I brought it up was because you charged that the United States was killing Black people by police at a disproportionate rate. By your own statistics I demonstrated that they were not, but found that Canada's police forces was killing Blacks at three times their representation in the population. I even pointed out that Blacks in the U.S. commit more than 50% of all the violent crimes, yet are not killed at a rate any higher than their demographic representation in the population. And now this is the defense you are using to defend Canada's disproportionate killing of Blacks and Indigenous people, and you are also shifting the goal posts to indict America on our percentage of minorities in the prison population. And since you brought it up, I did a little more digging.

In Canada, Indigenous people make up 30% of the prison population despite being only 5% of the general population, and 23% of the offender population. On top of this, Indigenous Inmates are:

More likely to be placed in maximum security institutions
More likely to be victims of use of force incidents
More likely to be involved in self-injurious incidents
More likely to be placed in solitary confinement
More likely to be held longer in solitary confinement
Serve more of their sentence behind bars before granted parole
Higher recidivism levels

And apparently this trend has been getting worse over the last two decades because in 2001 Indigenous people made up only 17% of the prison population. A quote from the article I found:

"Since 2010, while the population of White inmates has decreased by 23.5%, the Indigenous population has increased by 52.1%." On top of all this Indigenous prisoners had the:

highest proportion of their sentence served before their first federal day parole release (at 42%).
highest proportion of their sentence served before their first federal full parole release (at 48%).
lowest provincial day parole grant rate (71%)
lowest federal full parole grant rate (24%)
lowest provincial full parole grant rate (18%)
shortest supervision periods on day parole, full parole, and statutory release
lowest federal day parole completion rate (87%)
lowest federal full parole completion rate (81%)
lowest statutory completion rate (54%)

And then there is this quote from the article:

"BUT INDIGENOUS PEOPLE COMMIT MORE CRIME'

"This is a common counterargument I’ve heard when I’ve pointed out that Indigenous people are convicted and incarcerated at higher rates. Technically, the data doesn’t show that Indigenous people commit crimes at a higher rate. Rather, it shows that they are convicted at a higher rate. And if they’re apprehended and carded at higher rates, it makes sense that they’d be more likely to be convicted."

And now for Black prisoners.

Blacks make up 3% of the Canadian population yet account for 8% of all prison inmates. This is actually down by 2% from a few years ago, probably because of the meteorological rise in arresting Indigenous people. I didn't bother investigating further.


All this shows is that if a Canadian wants to impugn the U.S. Justice System for it's unfair treatment of Blacks or other minorities, he'd better look at his own country first. If the Wokesters here in America wanted to bash Canada over it's treatment of Indigenous and Black peoples, they would have a field day.

https://kimsiever.ca/2020/09/16/in-2019-canada-imprisoned-70-more-indigenous-people-than-in-2001/

JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

I did not say that. I quoted an article on killings; they were not my words.

As for the rest of your assault on Canada and our unfair treatment of indigenous populations and other minorities, have at it. I agree that the system has huge failings. My feeling is I don't care what your race/colour/religion, etc, you should be treated as fairly and as equally as anyone else. And my point is that the demographic percentage makeup of a country has nothing to do with the rate at which subpopulations commit crimes, get arrested, or jailed. The fact that the numbers do not correlate indicates something is amiss; it could be their behaviour, or their unfair treatment within the legal system; or both.

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

I actually agree with you about how to judge these justice systems. I have no reason to believe that Canada is racially motivated to put Blacks and Indians in jail. The reason I brought all this up is that you quoted an article saying:

"Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 38 fatal shootings per million of the population as of January 2022. "

It is quite popular among leftists (and some Canadians) to trash the United States as a racially bigoted country, and sometimes the most bigoted country, when the truth is that the U.S. is one of the least racially bigoted countries in the World. The people who make these claims usually have no idea of the actual statistics in our country or in any other country when it comes to incarceration, crime, police shootings, etc... They usually only know what the hugely sensationalized and deceitful press tells them.

JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

The funny thing about your last paragraph and claim of the US being one of the least racially bigoted countries is that a number of years ago, and certainly with the election of Obama, I thought you guys had really nipped racism in the bud. With the work of MLK, the number of Blacks in high government and military offices and other professions (doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc), I actually thought of your country as a model of racial tolerance and ethnic integration. Then along came the media and hyped it all up again. The following link shows the dramatic uptick around the time that Trump came on the scene in his run for the presidency.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-great-racial-awakening

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

That was an incredibly perceptive article that you linked! Great find! I haven't finished reading it yet, but I will. One of the main gists was that the perception of increased racism pretty is pretty much driven solely by White liberals. Even Black Democrats saw racism declining from 2006 through 2015. Those are pretty much the trends I've noticed in my 63 years.

There has been literally an explosion of stories about racism in the news media. And it goes 100% one-way - Whites against Blacks mainly, and any other ethnic minority, and never the other way around. This despite the fact that Blacks and other minorities are just as capable of racist thoughts and actions as Whites are. In fact the Black on White crime is something like seven or eight times higher than vice versa. The idea of racism has become so toxic that to be labeled one is a social death sentence. The "N" word, which had been used occasionally on popular television shows and movies, is now so forbidden that it is practically a crime to even mention it, even in reference. It is now much more acceptable to say "F You" than "Ni@@er," unless of course you are Black in which case you can use it all you want (I'm not kidding).

People on the far-left have become so sensitized as to label everything and everyone they don't like as "racist." It's like a pandemic every bit as pervasive as Coronavirus. The news media are like hungry wolves awaiting the least bit of perceived slight by a White person against a Black, and when they find a victim, they pounce mercilessly and replay the sordid stories 24 hours a day. It is like something out of a futuristic science-fiction movie. It is nuts. It must be noted that the viewership of these sensationalized news organizations has fallen drastically over the last couple of decades. They had a resurgence of viewers when Trump was elected, but fell like a 16-ton weight as soon as he was out of office, literally, within days to a couple weeks.

You were right about the election of Barack Obama. It only proved that America was not as racist as people were making it out to be. Years ago I had a Black girlfriend. She told me that she had never experienced a racial slight in her entire life, nor had ever been called a racial slur. She even once asked me what derogatory names White people called Blacks (other than the well-known "N" word). I told her "Jungle-Bunnies and Jigaboos". She began laughing and said those sounded more like endearments rather than insults! She admitted that she had never heard of them before. I currently have Black neighbors living on either side of my house. We interact with each other without a hint of suspicion or discomfort. I used to tutor one of their daughters in English.

I think this whole racism thing will eventually blow over, just like any mania or hysteria, but we are still in for some more ludicrous ranting and raving by the race hustlers who wish to keep this hatred going as long as possible.

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Well written and true.

Dennis