Friday, September 30, 2011

Ian Mulgrew vs Harper Crime Bill

contribution to Western Christians. We needed it and deserved it. Thank you.

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Failed Plans

When I first returned to Canada ten years ago, I had hopes to start a movement to civilize the legal profession and to conscientize especially Christian lawyers and judges about the demands of the Gospel upon them. Due to a number of reasons, I was not able to get that off the ground, though I did make an attempt, ill-formed as it was. Then I was hoping to start a whole series of posts on the BC legal system. I have not been able to do the research to get a series started either, though I have on my shelf hundreds, if not thousands, of newspaper clippings on all things relating to the law, to the courts, to judges and to lawyers. So, with both of these projects having failed, I will for now be satisfied with writing occasional posts about these subjects.

Introducing My Main Characters

For those not living in Vancouver or Canada, Ian Mulgrew is a Vancouver Sun columnist; Stephen Harper is Canada’s Prime Minister. Mulgrew recently wrote a column discussing BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman’s criticism of Harper’s crime bill as “a strain on [the] system” (“Judge Deems Harper’s Crime Bill a ‘Strain’ on System,” Sept. 28, 2011, p. A6).

A Raging Controversy

Bauman’s critique and Mulgrew’s column aimed at the Harper are by no means the first. A veritable tradition has arisen complaining about crowded prisons and, more recently, about the Harper bill that will increase the number of prisoners so much that more prisons will need to be built—and that at a time of economic scarcity and reduction of crime. Mulgrew refers to a raging controversy.

The Critique

Bauman warns that it will strain every aspect of the justice system, the courts, the judges, the prisons. Correctional officers complain about prisons already overcrowded. In BC, the system is plagued by shortage of personnel and of “dockets so clotted you can’t get a trial date in less than a year.” Cases are thrown out of court simply because it has taken took long for them to get to trial. Many serious cases take too much time for prosecution—three to five years, and sometimes even longer. Mulgrew notes the “absurd anomaly” that under the proposed new law, “pot growers are …penalized more harshly than child molesters.” This crime bill, according Mulgrew and many others, will make all problems worse, not better. And with each prisoner now costing up to $120,000 per annum, the predicted outcome of the new legislation will be a huge increase in the citizens’ tax bill.

Alternative Tethering System

Please recall a suggestion I made back in April of this year in Post 33. I suggested that, instead of putting all criminals in prison, most of them should be placed in qualified homes and severely tethered. For details please go back to that post, for I am not about to repeat what I wrote there. Of course, such an arrangement would not be appropriate for violent and other dangerous offenders, but, it would seem to me it would keep most criminals out of prison while still having their movement severely curtailed. The savings could be phenomenal and no additional prisons would need to be built.

Not only would the proposed system save tons, but it may also prevent new offenders from being further contaminated by fellow prisoners.

Not Based on Leftist Ideology

This is a very sketchy and incomplete proposal from a legal and correctional layman that would need serious fleshing out. But I do assure you, my reader, that this proposal is not another hair-brained idea from some leftist ideologist. I am hardly leftist. In fact, I am a card-carrying member of the federal Conservative Party. I agree with the Prime Minister’s emphasis on doing away with the slapped wrist so many judges are seen to be dishing out. People, including yours truly, have become impatient, not to say furious, with leftist judges who seem to regard criminals as misguided angels and who leave the victims of crime to their own lot.

Elected Judges

Perhaps an additional change needed is to turn judges into elected officials. That would make them respond to the people instead of ignoring them as legal imbeciles.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A Second Pre-emption

Post 45--:

Wonderful Summer Weather


It’s been a wonderful summer here on Canada’s West Coast, though it was unusually slow in coming. I have loved it and spent a fair amount of time—weeks in fact—away from my desk and, hence, away from this blog. Visiting our kids and families in WA and near SF in CA with days of RV-“camping” in between. Since then, “backyard” RVing in southern BC—with more to come. If you like a moderate climate without extremes of heat and cold, then BC’s south-west coast and much of Vancouver Island is the place to be. So a bit of a lull, but one you can understand, I believe. But, while it’s still great summer stuff in the middle of September, here I am, once again slogging/blogging it out. This morning the temperatures are pleasant but the sky is cloudy, something we have not seen for a while—and have not missed. Welcome to Fall.

Writers about Secularism

I told you in the last post that I have a second pre-emption to share with you, a good thing about secularism. Secularism did not just pop up out of the West’s woodworks; it took centuries to develop, the story of which is told in great detail by Canada’s philosopher Charles Taylor in his tome A Secular Age. Kuyperians, among them “Father” Abraham Kuyper himself as well as the movement’s primal philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd and others, have also traced its historical development and exposed its roots, origins and influence.

Secularism as a Chastener

Secularism has lured many Christians into its trap and thereby seriously reduced the scope of their faith to the private, the home and the church, but it has also served as a corrector and chastener of Christianity. In volume 5 of my series Studies in Christian-Muslim Relations, I wrote that “secularism is at least partially the result of an aggressive and intolerant version of Christianity that needed chastening.” Of course, Christians were not the only ones to practice intolerance; it was a major human characteristic down through the centuries; it marked all civilizations. Tolerance and its child, pluralism, are of rather recent vintage everywhere.

Jonathan Chaplin

The British Kuyperian scholar Jonathan Chaplin, a one time faculty member of the Institute of Church & Society in Toronto, a Kuyperian tertiary institution, wrote,

Let me make it clear that the anxieties shared by many secular liberals about the impact of public religion are real ones. Some of them are mine too…. And let me alswo r3ecord that the response of early modern liberalism to public religion was compelling and necessary. In the 17th century religion was not only public, it was backed by force of arms. In such circumstances, we can see why moves to confine the public expression olf faith seemed so necessary. In time, Christians who had stoked up religious warfare were humbled and had to allow liberalism to teach it again what its own deepest principles had always implied: that authentic faith cannot and may not be coerced. So, a religious response to contemporary liberalism must begin by appreciating liberalism’s vital historical contribution to religious freedom and democracy.

In spite of my constant anti-secular bias in my writings, including this blog, I want this contribution of secularism recognised and remembered as we go along. Honour to whom honour is due!

Of course, since then, secularism has gone far beyond its original form and can now be legitimately described as intolerant, more so than most North American Christians. That’s the reason I frequently write negatively about it. But may I never forget their original chastening contribution to Western Christians. We needed it and deserved it. Thank you.