Category: Justice

Global Peace Index

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The 19th edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI) ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness. It covers 99.7 per cent of the world’s population. Produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), the GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness…

Moral numbness

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Writing for The Atlantic magazine, journalist David Brooks comments: There’s a question that’s been bugging me for nearly a decade. How is it that half of America looks at Donald Trump and […]

Rule of chaos, not the rule of law

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Conservative J. Michael Luttig, a former U.S. Appeals Court Judge appointed by Republican George H.W. Bush Luttig, wrote in the NY Times about Trump’s “stunning frontal assault” on the rule of law. Luttig says the casualty “could well be the constitutional democracy Americans established 250 years ago.

The BC Conservative divide, UPDATED

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Ms. Comfort Sakoma-Fadugba is no longer a member of the Vancouver Police Board. Her departure resulted from public statements that did not align with the Board’s values. Sakoma’s words may not have been the only issue. She had charged taxpayers $11,300 for a trip to Halifax. (Return air tickets are available for less than $500 and we have more spendthrift functionaries than we need.) Ms. Sakoma’s rambling statements on social media are now deleted. They included:

Immoral or amoral?

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Rutger University professor Wenwen Zhang, wrote a 2018 dissertation that said conceptions of amorality in business literature are diverse and ambiguous. Belief that morality is irrelevant and inapplicable in business results in unethical behaviors, done for the benefit of individuals, organizations and nations. Discarding or downplaying morality is a shortcoming of business education….

“The opposite of poverty is enough”

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Conventional wisdom says that economic disparities lead to political violence, or mildly violent collective actions. Yet few politicians anywhere are willing to address root causes of social difficulties. It is so much easier to accuse disaffected people of being indolent, abusive, drug-ridden lawbreakers. Those positions gain political success in many places. The Australian Institute of International Affairs noted confusion about the level of American support for Trump and the political party he captured and dominates:

Tough on crime!

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Pierre Poilievre and other conservatives promise to be tough on crime. “Jail, not bail,” says the man who aspires to be Canada’s next Prime Minister. The John Howard Society is a non-profit that offers a more balanced and less political view of crime than Poilievre. In 2023, the agency wrote about major media claims that violent crimes had increased to a level not seen since the days Stephen Harper’s Conservatives held power.

Evil corporate culture, tip of the iceberg?

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Large enterprises often fail to respond effectively when facing challenges. Professional people find it difficult to say that they may have been wrong. Passing the buck is a primary defence for responsible persons. Protecting the enterprise and its managers is more important than dealing fairly and truthfully with the public. Any innocent party damaged by wrongful acts is acceptable collateral damage.

It took a very long time and extraordinary public outrage before the UK government decided to allow a competent examination of the post office scandal. If transparency were an absolute principle, fewer scandals would arise.

If you fail, fail big

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The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law. Virtually there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, one law for the cunning and another for the simple, one law for the forceful and another for the feeble, one law for the ignorant and another for the learned…

Wisdom is timeless

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Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) was a U.S. Supreme Court Justice for 23 years from 1916. He was nominated by Woodrow Wilson but the President’s choice was hotly contested. Writing for the New York Times in 1964, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas explained the opposition was because the nominee frightened the Establishment…

Claims of antisemitism used to defend Israel’s atrocities

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I understand people who believe that Israel should defend its lands against armed attacks and fervently assert the country has a right to a peaceful existence. But I sympathize with innocent Palestinians whom Israel has displaced, starved, and massacred. I reject the notion that Israel can be excused when the country destroys hospitals, schools, mosques, food and water supplies, and kills or injures more than 100,000 people not responsible for attacks on Israel…

Earth cannot satisfy human greed

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Revenues of Chevron Corporation in 2022 were one-third of a trillion Canadian dollars and the company’s comprehensive income was C$50 billion. Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth’s 2022 compensation was C$32 million. So it is not surprising that Chevron’s CEO recently defended his company, saying “We are not selling a product that is evil. We’re selling a product that’s good.”

Constructive anarchism

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Yale political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott, author of the whimsical 2013 book Two Cheers for Anarchism, suggested pursuit of justice demands occasional insubordination and disregard for rules. He described “…an anarchist sensibility that celebrates the local knowledge, common sense, and creativity of ordinary people. The result is a kind of handbook on constructive anarchism that challenges us to radically reconsider the value of hierarchy in public and private life, from schools and workplaces to retirement homes and government itself.”