Political Commentary and Opinion
Dick Freeman
FC on Line
Each and every day, what we Canadians are seeing more of in this country, is this outright socialist addenda and stupidity, that expects tax payers to foot the bill, for allowing certain groups of people with mental health issues and who have drug problems on the streets of Victoria, to misuse what the laws are in this country. The excuses given are not excepable as far as not to stop those in the drug trade with drug problems that communities have to deal with every day. Yes those, violating the very laws on the people themselves, and hear you have those in the mainstream media really are about, Yes those who want people to be tolerant of drug addicts with mental health issues, that commit crimes on the very people, who they in the mainstream media tell to be tolerant, yes the very same people breaking the laws that harm familys, children and property rights in this country.
I beleive those who promote all this really need to get a reailty check, as their are many rights and freedoms being misused by governments and police and the mainstream media.
It underminds what is good and decent in this country.
Also See the Editoral on this issue:
Victoria shows "nice" attitude over drug ads
From BC Fathers
Hi Jodi;
You wrote about Stigmatizing the Poor and said “We have banished many of the laws and practices that once fed stigma at the institutional level. What keeps it going now is just us. All it will take to banish stigma is for you and me to refuse to let it cloud our thinking.
So quit.”
I heartily agree.
In fact, I emphatically agree that stigmatization is something we need to banish, especially the prevailing laws, government agencies and court and media who routinely stigmatize men and fathers. We know that the feminists and lawyers don’t want to banish that one because they enjoy the money and power that the stigmatizing brings. As you rightly point out, stigma was the mark signifying slavery – and that’s what this is all about.
Having been personally stigmatized, marginalized, impoverished, slandered, robbed, and dismissed by officialdom in the courts, I know this only too well. The cozy cronyism status quo of the legal system, the government, and their feminist apologists is built on lies and slander. (Read the website, if you doubt that) Maybe you could find it in your heart to write on this topic, and educate your feminist friends about the evil of this particular stigma and their part in perpetuating it before it destroys any more families. Maybe try to persuade them that what they are doing is corrosive and destructive and an insult to Justice – before we completely give up on your insane corrupt system and try a revolution.
What keeps this system going, Jodi, is you.
Thanks.
Ken Wiebe
BC Fathers
http://www.fathers.bc.ca
Responce from Jodi PatersonFrom: Jody Paterson
Sent: February 14, 2011 8:11 AM
To: kwiebe
Subject: Re: Stigmatizing the Poor
Thanks, Ken. I have written on that topic over the years, and will keep it in mind for future writings. I do agree that the justice system is a rather hopeless fit for parents trying to sort things out around children, money, etc.
Jody
Responce back to Jodi Paterson
-----Original Message-----
From: kwiebe
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 6:21 PM
To: 'Jody Paterson' ; 'kwiebe'
Cc: 'Mark G Hansel' ; MartiK1@parl.gc.ca
Subject: RE: Stigmatizing the Poor in Times Colonist Newspaper article
Hi Jody;
Thanks for replying, but I think you are missing the big picture.
The problems in the Justice system are a reflection of, and a consequence of problems in society generally. The stigmatizing of fathers in the Justice system is a result of deliberate government policy of stigmatization, promoted by feminists (at taxpayer expense) over many years. I think you know this, but prefer to overlook it because it causes a bit of cognitive dissonance.
I encourage you to look at the nitty-gritty of how this is done with taxpayer support. All the gory details are available in the Supreme Court (BC) judgment and trial transcripts on the BC Fathers website (http://www.fathers.bc.ca). You will see that the Status of Women Canada has been advancing a campaign of Defamation and slander (Clear Stigmatization) against me personally and all fathers groups generally, for many many years. You will also see very clearly that SWC spreads this stigmatizing agenda through the entire government – including the courts. They explained how they do this, in BC Supreme court under oath.
No Justice is possible because “feminist jurisprudence” and “feminist legal theory” now dominates the courts. How else can you explain a BC Supreme Court judge letting them lie and Defame so many people (including me) with impunity? How else can you explain a Supreme Court judge granting a mistaken “comment” defense to “the best quality scientific research” written by the most-respected feminists in Canada? When no Justice is possible through courts or elected representatives, then Revolution is inevitable – or did you miss that in history class?
In short, Jody – the Justice system may be a hopeless fit for families, but it is that way because government-paid feminists want it that way and they lie and steal and slander people to keep it that way. They squash anyone who disagrees, especially people like me who lack sufficient wealth to defend themselves from such attacks!
…and for some strange reason, the mainstream media goes to great lengths to defend drug users and bums, while completely ignoring the government and courts inflicting torture on decent men, fathers and their families. If you doubt that, ask my wife and children how this all works for them and who exactly in the mainstream media or politics or court gives a rat’s ass! Nobody, that’s who.
So, excuse me if I don’t shed too many tears for those who choose to take too many drugs, and suffer some ill effects. I wish I could help, but I’m tapped out paying the government and the courts and the lawyers. I might be able to devote a bit of time for Revolution though….
Ken Wiebe
BC Fathers
http:/www.fathers.bc.ca
Stigmatizing the Poor
I will remind you Jodi, and those socialist misguided others, that nice people don't do drugs and those decent parents teaching their children, that drugs are harmful and destroy lives is something that you in the mainstream media need to be reminded of. You remember Justin Wendland, 15, who was killed while waiting for a bus on Douglas Street by the very type of people you think you are defending. Every day I go the bus stop with my children, only to have street people (scum ) who decide they want to push their drugs on children, because their lives are screwed up.
If you Jody and those other misfits want to make excuses for the pushing of the drug trade, and want people to be tolerance for crack heads, junkies who commit violence and serious crimes on law abiding citizen's, need to get a reality check.
Yes Jodi, hard core drug using criminals, who have violated the rights of parents and children on the streets of Victoria, including the fact of children being robbed and killed by street people with mental health issues, because their use of hard core drugs, people who need to be rounded up wirh the very laws we all are to uphold in this country.
Children and family's come first before drug using trash....And parents have the right to defend themselves from street people damaging private property, home invastions or harming Parents children.
I have seen and had to deal first hand with these street people and their criminals actions, nor will I put up with such criminals, who violate the very laws that law abiding citizen's have to up hold.
You Jodi and the mainstream media are the problem!
See Links
Mark G Hansel
.........................................
Responce from Jodi Paterson
-----Original Message-----
From: Jody Paterson
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 8:16 AM
To: Mark G Hansel
Subject: Re: Stigmatizing the Poor
I'm not going to argue with you because I can tell we see this issue from very different viewpoints, but I do want to be clear that I certainly wasn't suggesting that people be allowed to commit crimes just because they're addicts or have a mental illness. I'm just saying that simply being an addict, poor or mentally ill is NOT enough information to hate people for. I know many, many people who are in those categories who do not commit crimes (beyond the purchase of drugs they use due to their addiction, but even
there, they may be addicted to legal drugs and not even doing that).
Jody
Responce back to Jodi Paterson
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark G Hansel
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 12:01 PM
To: Jody Paterson
Subject: Fw: Stigmatizing the Poor
Jodi,
If you are not going to argue your case to people with different view points, to those family's, children, or those many others in my community to get on board, then how the hell are you going to convince the majority of people in Victoria City, or anywhere else in BC, to go along with this "nice people do drugs propaganda".
Yes I'm mad as hell, but I want you to know that not once, have I promoted hate towards any of these street people, who have drug issues or mental health issues, despite the fact, I have been more then tolerant, towards drug users living in the streets. Yes Jodi, despite having dirty needles thrown at myself, or having some of them pulling knives on myself or my children, or trying to sell drugs to my kids, or leaving their feces and garbage everywhere on the property.
And you think people should be more tolerant.
Just how many children have to die or be harmed before the very laws are upheld, that tax payers are required to do as such. Or how about where those single mothers with their children are forced to come up with $200 to $300 hundred extra dollars to pay to ICBC, because street people smash out their car window and stole their property. Who covers their cost Jodi, those street people, are you Jodi, or the Times Colonist going to do that, or the City of Victoria elected officals. No, none of you will cover those people costs.
Issues caused by street people, who not only took food out of those women's children's mouths, but also caused great hardship on those mothers. Are they to be tolerant too or thankful for you political favor of the day views!.
The Facts are Jodi, many of these street people state themselves, that they want to be left alone, so they can do as they please and the laws don't apply to them. That's what they say....
You figure that one out Jodi. Because it says it all about a lot of street people.
So tell myself again, how are you going to convince people to be tolerant..
Yes Jodi, I have gone out of my way for these people, to be decent, kind and so have many other home owners in this area, what you don't get or want to grasp, is how long should people put up with this nonsense, while others human rights are violated at the same time, while our government's make things worse every day in Victoria, for the lives of the people who uphold the laws.
What you should have done and wrote in the news, is shown how the government of BC is responsible for the lives of those people, they put in the streets, by closing down mental health facilities, where a great many of them should be, because governments feel it's better to save a buck or two, and give that to their banker friends, since they the government believes and took on the role as the state parent in B.C.
They do it in Family Law all the time.
In the mean time, food cost are rising, cost of rental units is up, more family's living in poverty, as more taxes on people, and soon enough Jodi, everyone is going to be living in the streets, the way things are going due to city and provincial governments corruption. Yes Jodi, both political government parties are guilty in B.C., be it NDP or the Liberals, as both are corrupt and rotten to the very core and are too busy lining their own pockets, because those in elected office, who go a long with the influence peddling in this province to please foreign country's, with our BC resources, they hand out like candy.
People are not fooled Jodi, and the mainstream media is the problem, and always has been, by not telling the real news stories.
Others political views-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Swanson
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 12:43 PM
Cc: Media-CAN-Print-Journalist-Joey Thompson-The Province-Vancouver
Subject: RE: Stigmatizing the Poor
What do you honestly expect from the Times Colonist OR The Province for that matter? The answer and the communication you get from Jodi Patterson is the same one you would get from Joey Thomson of The Province. Nothing more than over confident, swaggering left-Wing Femisustahs hoping to make a living on the approval ratings of their adoring femifascist disciples. You know that. What we need to do is, like the judges and others in the system, is make sure they lose their jobs and their pensions and get them eventually to make direct contributions to a restitution fund . We have to see them lose all their material things,-benefits, property and all as we have. To make that happen we have to start by getting those papers taken over by responsible right thinking fair editors. We have to take over those papers and make sure the new editors know exactly what is being done to us. Just keep recording the writings of these people and make sure their indifference, their refusal to accept the truth and their hostility is part of that record. Our legal time for retribution will come. We are already on the way there. We should make Ken Wiebe the collection agent. Hoooha !
-----Original Message-----
From: kwiebe
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 8:26 PM
Cc: 'Media-CAN-Print-Journalist-Joey Thompson-The Province-Vancouver'
Subject: RE: Stigmatizing the Poor
Sure… I’ll be happy to help collect from those. Or maybe I’ll be a lot more generous to them than they’ve been, because I am forgiving person… I’ll just fire them all, so they can find honest work.
That would be doing them a favor, really.
Hello Jodi,
I agree with you that we stigmatize groups too often. Its often the way people try to elevate their sorry lives over others so they feel superior. Or other times its the result of emotional arguments taking the place of logic.
Unfortunately you stigmatized gun owners just recently when you said "Loughner still couldn't have killed six people with ease and efficiency were it not for the gun in his hand. I hope ordinary Americans wake up to that truth soon." The idea here is that if you support lawful possession and use of firearms, you are in some way part of the problem that lead to the death of six people, and you "don't get it".
People that think treating all gun owners as potential killers 'under the law' or that they are somehow responsible for those that are, is also a form of stigmatizing. The idea here is if you own a gun... even if you using it lawfully, you have some blood on your hands. Sorry Jody, not me... my hands are clean.
The ONLY distinction TRUE LAW can make is in the use - whether the use was lawful or not. That applies to hockey sticks, bats, knives or explosives. Loughner's use of a gun was not lawful, and that is why he is in jail, and deserves to stay there for the rest of his days. However, to use this incident to argue removal of the right of people who understand the difference at law, is to punish them for the actions of those that don't. That is just not how lawful and just societies operate, and it makes no logical sense - it is purely an emotional knee jerk reaction.
You mentioned the Pickton women in your article. Do you know about Robert Hansen? He killed 17 woman in Alaska, and a documentary called 'The Human Hunter' was done about him. I watched that documentary, and they tell of how one of the victims mothers bought a gun for her daughter because she was worried about her. She refused to accept it, and later became one of his 17 victims. We'll never know if it would have given her a chance to live, but literally millions of others over the years have documented their own survival stories, but they rarely make the press. Who's choice is it to make? Who does our life belong to?
There is a man in Ontario right now who protected his home from a group of three men who threw firebombs at his home. He fired his gun toward them and scared them off - now thanks to the repeated media stigmatization of owning a gun, even his lawful use is deemed a crime, and he is now being charged as a common criminal. True north strong and free my ASS! Perhaps things would have been better for those who hate guns if the three men had had the guns, and they could have burned their disarmed victim at will, and the public could keep its feeling of superiority, and demand even more restrictions on guns. We Canadians could then feel smuggly superior to those wacky Americans and their gun rights.
Has anyone even asked what might have been if even one of Picktons victims had been armed? What if his first or second victim had shot Pickton? 28 victims saved, but you'd never hear about it. Did any of his victims have a right IN THE LAW to have this option, or is that too much freedom to ask for? Should government make that decision based on the inability of an emotional few to distinguish a lawful use from an unlawful use? Should we worry that our nets kill a few dolphin in our attempt to catch tuna? Maybe its just easier to blame the dolphins...
In actual fact, Canada has the exact same common law and Constitutional protection of gun rights as the United States. The Americans got their second amendment from the Magna Carta and English Bill of Rights, which understands that in order to be found "a criminal", you have to actually DO THINGS things that are criminal. You need a victim and intent AT A MINIMUM under our system of common law. Magna Carta established the contract between us as free people and the Crown. It prevented us from going to war against the Crown, so if that document is no longer in force, then we have no legitimate "Crown" government. Owning property for a lawful purpose (like self defense) is not a criminal act, nor will it ever be, and statutes that make such ownership criminal are themselves unlawful according to our historic law - despite the media's spin, or the publics ignorance. Read the document yourself.
Statutes that in any way disarm people who are acting lawfully, and intend to act lawfully, only increases the power difference of those who act unlawfully.. Loughner did what he did not just because he was able to get a weapon, but because nobody he shot had one, or fired back. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. At the Dawson shooting they took over 30 minutes to enter... and in Virginia Tech they took over an hour.
If Loughner was firing at you, would you have thanked the government for making the choice for you of whether or not you have a lawful right to shoot back? Why do I need to "Wake up" if I decide differently than you about such an important lawful right? Why should I be stigmatized as a criminal for exercising my right to shoot back, and knowing there is a huge difference between lawful and unlawful use?
Michael Jebbett
Man faces jail after protecting home from masked attackers
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/01/20/man-faces-jail-after-protecting-home-from-masked-attackers/
"neither We, nor our Heirs, shall procure or do anything whereby Liberties contained in this Charter shall be infringed or broken; and if anything be procured by any person contrary to the premises, it shall be had of no force nor effect." 1297 [37]
"Here is a law which is above the King and Parliament, and which even He and They must not and may not legally break. And in the event they or anyone else were to try to abrogate it, such attempt at abrogation shall have no force nor effect [1297] and can be safely ignored with no legal ill effect. In addition, in the event of successful attempts at abrogation of such liberties, customs, or rights, the King has commanded and do hereby compel any and all subjects to swear oath to join the barons to assail the properties and persons and families of those (saving the King, Queen and the royal children) who had successfully completed such abrogation, including but not limited to that of the individual Members of Parliament who had voted in favour of any such successful attempts at abrogation [1215]. This reaffirmation of a supreme law and its expression in a general charter is the great work of Magna Carta; and this alone justifies the respect in which men have held it." - from volume I, chapter 8 of Churchill's "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples" published 1956. @p. 218 of The Folio Society's 2003 edition,published in London.
Responce from Jodi Paterson----- Original Message -----
From: Jody Paterson
To: Michael Jebbett
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: Stigmatizing groups
On guns: I'm not against guns or their owners, just against the use of them in killing innocent people.
Jody
O
thers political views
'Nice' addicts tolerated, smokers persecuted By Norma Steer, Times Colonist
February 13, 2011
Let me get this straight. We have to tolerate hard-drug users because they are nice people and need our help. Meanwhile, we can persecute those "nice people" who legally just smoke cigarettes, continuing to make them feel like hardened criminals. What is happening in our world?
"Nice people take drugs" trips off the tongue and is easy to remember. And I'm sure I'll find it consoling when I come to my burgled house, my stolen bicycle or my damaged car.
Jon Blair
Sidney
Drugs tolerated, sugary pop banned
By Renay Turner, Times Colonist
February 16, 2011
We not only tolerate hard-drug users, we taxpayers supply their crack pipes and needles to inject their drugs. But light up a cigarette? Careful. Imagine if you or I walked down the street smoking a joint or drinking a can of beer? The police would arrest us for such unthinkable actions. And if you work in a government building, don't think about buying a can of pop out of a machine in your building, because that is so harmful. Thank goodness we go to work every day so that our taxes can help to teach us tolerance.
Renay Turner Victoria
The Victoria Times Colonist
From: graceful@shaw.ca
To: faith-in-action@victoria.tc.ca
Subject: [FIA] Jody Paterson on Stigmatizing the Poor
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:16:29 -0800
At the end of anti-stigma week, a column that explains why we need to look at this issue through this lens. As well, here's a reminder about a vigil being held tonight to honour the victims/survivors of the war on drugs. Susan
Attention Victoria Community!
Please attend Victoria's First Vigil and Procession for the Victims and Survivors of the War on Drugs. The Vigil will take place this Friday, February the 11th at 6pm. We will gather at Centennial Square nearer Douglas St, by the large Sequoia tree. Candles provided.
Following the Vigil there will be a procession to St. John The Divine Church for a most excellent Coffee House Hosted by the Society of Living Intravenous Drug Users (S.O.L.I.D) to begin at 7pm. Music, poetry, honesty, love, rage, and goodies to follow. All are welcome.
Stigma blinds us, and destroys lives
Jody Paterson
Times Colonist
Friday, February 11, 2011
The dictionary defines stigma as "a distinguishing mark of social disgrace." Once upon a time, it was the common term for the permanent mark burned into the skin of criminals and slaves.
We like to think of ourselves as too civilized for such things nowadays. But in fact, the practice continues for all kinds of people singled out for scorn and judgment.
That we even sort people that way is probably the most interesting aspect of this thing we call stigma.
Scorn and judgment are not attitudes a "nice" society generally wants to cultivate in its citizens, and for the most part I think we're fairly kind to each other. We're respectful of each other's differences.
But not always. Some categories of people still end up singled out for social disgrace, their lives marked as surely by stigma as if we'd burned it into them.
This is Anti-Stigma Week in Greater Victoria, and I love the theme: "Nice People Take Drugs." People with addictions experience tremendous stigma, although almost 90 per cent of Canadians report having used alcohol or illegal drugs.
But stigma has an impact on a number of other groups, too. Sex workers are profoundly affected by stigma, as everything about the Pickton case continues to remind us.
If it had been bank tellers or 7-Eleven workers or small-business owners who started going missing, I don't think we'd be in the situation of pulling together a task force 20 years later to try to make sense of why so many died while we dithered. It simply wouldn't have happened that way. Stigma kills sex workers.
Stigma against poor people is growing at an alarming rate. It's why we can justify keeping income assistance rates at levels that are impossible to live on.
It's why we build way, way less subsidized housing than we did a couple of decades ago and wince at every tax dollar spent on supporting people unable to work.
Like every group we stigmatize, the poor have become unworthy and shameful in our eyes.
We use hateful language when describing people living homeless. We ignore our governments' endless service reductions and policy changes that crank up the misery for people in profound poverty. We watch the creep of poverty in our community, and still think it's "their" fault.
That's what stigma does. It blinds you to the obvious. It misleads you.
We've selectively stigmatized certain health issues, too. Mental illness is the most striking example of that.
If I sprained my ankle, I'd have no compunction about posting it on my Facebook page and waiting for the flood of caring comments. Or writing about it in my column.
But what if I posted that I was staying home to work through a severe anxiety attack? Or a rough period in my schizophrenia? Or had just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder?
Truth is, I doubt I'd even write such a thing if I genuinely had a mental illness, which is perhaps the worst part about stigma. It demands silence.
I've often thought that if a purple light suddenly appeared in the house of everyone in the region who'd had a problem with drugs or alcohol, we'd be blinded by the glow.
If we could ever see the faces of the people in our community who have been affected by mental illness -or participated in the sex trade, for that matter -we couldn't help but rethink our views just on the basis of how many familiar faces we'd see around us.
But who's going to step forward with such declarations when the stigma is unbearable? How many people are prepared to be brave for the good of the group, when the impact on their own lives from publicly revealing themselves can be horrendous?
Stigma costs people jobs. It costs them their children, and their housing. It brands them as outside the norm, forever "other."
Our laws say we don't allow things like that to happen. But we do.
Fortunately, there's a simple enough solution. We can stop. Stigma is kept alive in this day and age primarily by our attitudes, and it will die as soon as we quit substituting prejudice for thought.
We have banished many of the laws and practices that once fed stigma at the institutional level. What keeps it going now is just us. All it will take to banish stigma is for you and me to refuse to let it cloud our thinking.
So quit.
patersoncommunications@gmail.com
Times Colonist (Victoria) 2011