Sunday, September 21, 2008

Chris Reid Strikes Back!

Mr. Reid, Tory candidate for Toronto Centre, has responded to an earlier post of mine re his position on Canadian gun laws and other issues:

It's a shame BigCityLib, since my campaign info is easily available, you could actually contact me asking me to explain how I developed my conclusions on issues. I would have happily responded, as I love a good, civilized political conversation.I was hoping to raise the level up political discourse in this election.

Well fine, lets have a civilized conversation right here.

Chris, while many of the views expressed in your recently disappeared blog I would classify as "merely Conservative", or "wrong but not far gone", this statement I find highly problematic:

Allow law abiding citizens who are qualified and trained to carry concealed handguns for personal protection. It's the only proven way to reduce violent crime and murder. If women and gays really wanted to stop being victims of hate crimes, they'd be in support of this, but judging from discussions, they'd rather be helpless and rely on government.

You seem to conclude that gays and women 1) are and want to be victims of hate-crimes, 2) are and want to be "helpless" 3) are and want to be wards of the State ("rely on government", to use your phrase)?

More generally, you seem to be of the opinion that many of the people with whose actions you disagree (native protesters, for example) want

...to stay victims so they can tell other people to fix their problems.

Indians, gays, and women embrace victim-hood, in other words. Is that right?

Is this really your opinion, and how do you think that opinion jibes with the official position of the Conservative Party of Canada?

Also, I'm afraid I have to disagree with your statement that your "campaign info is easily available". Others have noted your campaign's lack of on-line presence, and of course you have restricted access to your blog.

Finally, in a October 2007 post on "Political Thoughts..." you note that you are "getting back into blogging". Do you mind sharing the name/url of your previous blog?

PS. If you do want to respond to any of this, you can do it in the comments and/or I will run it as a guest post with no editorializing on my part.

Cheers,

10 comments:

Carrie said...

Heh! Great job BCL.

I wonder how many hours he spent drafting that paragraph of b.s. It certainly could benefit from some editing for grammar and structure.

bi -- International Journal of Inactivism said...

Wait a minute. It's not the government's job to protect citizens' rights?

What the hell is the job of the government then?

Unknown said...

“Allow law abiding citizens who are qualified and trained to carry concealed handguns for personal protection. It's the only proven way to reduce violent crime and murder.”

Following Mr. Reid’s bizarre logic, his solution for world peace would be to have all countries armed with nuclear weapons?

Ti-Guy said...

It's the only proven way to reduce violent crime and murder.

I'd like to know what evidence that assertion is based on.

Reality Bites said...

Mr. Reid and his blog need to make their mainstream media debut

buckets said...

And of course it would only be the other passengers with hidden hand-guns, not the lunatic in the back seat, who will only have a knife.

jschrode42 said...

Oh man, I've debated with Chris Reid before and he has got to be one of the most outrageous men in Canada. Imagine if those in Toronto centre knew the kinds of garbage that he put up on his blog???

Reality Bites said...

Speaking of lunatics, who'd have ever thought Harper would manage to find a bigger one than dandy Don Meredith to run in Toronto Centre?

Does Reid even live in Toronto? His defunct blog says he lives in Kingston, a stone's throw away from fellow wingnuts Connie and Mark Fournier

Anonymous said...

I've had the misfortune of getting to know Chris Reid back at Queen's, where we were both undergraduate students. Last I heard, he was living and working in Toronto (but that was two or so years ago, so he have moved back to ktown).

Oddly enough, back in the day he was a big time supporter of the Green Party. He was a right of centre loon back then, and it sounds like not much has changed since then.

Auntie Liberal said...

How many times have we heard these idiotic comments from people - progressives always:

"I'd rather be raped than carry a gun and kill somebody."

"If you carry a gun, it'll be taken away from you and you'll get shot."

You gun-hating mouth-breathing morons can't seem to address the reality that

Armed women don't get raped.

Armed gays don't get bashed.

Armed seniors don't get robbed.

Your knowledge of handguns in a defensive role is incredibly weak. Your 'argument' of equating handgun ownership with nuclear proliferation is childish. Trying to negate somebody's argument with derision and disdain is the sign of a weak debater and even weaker counter argument.

ti-guy, the evidence is out there, everywhere. It's just that your extreme left-wing media chooses to ignore it's existence, hoping that nobody will bring it up. Google "Mauser and Kates" and see what comes up. You'll have to get an adult to read it to you, though.