Thinking about further, you may be correct, Crow.  The limits placed by the CoC are quite minimal, so my criticism may be misplaced.

The interpretation by some members, however, has led to a suffocating atmosphere.  Ideas take second place when members take the vapors over a misused word or confuse substantive discussion with personal invective.

Well, I must say I've enjoyed my two minutes of hate.  For my next trick, perhaps I'll praise Mike Murphy or start a "Bring back Kenneth" movement.

Katie, I'm not being prickly about criticism -- but you didn't offer criticism, you offered sarcasm.  And sarcasm is always uncivil, regardless of any so-called "tradition."  It is an attempt to silence another person by attacking that person or misrepresenting their ideas.

My point was to highlight what I believe is your hypocrisy -- using uncivil rhetorical tricks to support civil discourse.

What I wrote in my post is just my opinion.  You don't have to agree with it, but spare me the snark.

Mama, you're right, I used the wrong word.  I meant to say "uptight," which your comment amply demonstrates.

Lucy, I'm not advocating the abandonment of civility, but I do find that members resort to other deeply uncivil means to respond to posts they don't like -- sarcasm (see katievs above), pettiness (see Mama Toad), straw men, even ad hominems, etc.

If that can be prevented by other means (e.g., Steven's suggesting of downvoting), that's great.  Otherwise, let's not be hypocrites about attacking others for sincere posts.

I think you're pushing the comparison just a bit far.  The purpose of monitoring kids in the lunchroom or the playground is to take care of them.  Tracking them with an electronic device is not.

CW, the rule you were following (and the staff were enforcing) was about appropriate activity within the school and likely was intended to prevent students from engaging in restricted activities. 

This rule is about the constant monitoring of students' location regardless of activity.

There's nothing wrong with enforcing specific rules to catch bad actors.  Monitoring the innocent is fraught with potential abuses.

And regarding the idea that if parents don't want their kid tracked, they can take them out of school, you're using the same rhetorical device as Raycon -- that only the guilty would object to this kind of tracking.

Raycon, I have no problems with tracking items, like cell phones and IP addresses.  Tracking people is another issue but an individual has the right to enter into such an agreement if they so choose.

Government-mandated tracking of people is wrong in and of itself and is inimical to freedom.

And trying to boil this down to a kid who wants to hide from the authorities is a poor rhetorical device that imputes bad motives to an innocent party.  Those who have wished to invade the privacy of others have long used the excuse that if you're innocent, you have nothing to hide.

A lefty Brit I used to work with was horrified that this happened under the Labour government.  He had assumed, of course, that only conservatives wanted to make 1984 a reality.

Now here's a Canadian moustache:

Pseudo, you're betting without NAMBLA.

I agree.  I miss his posts -- they were interesting and of a much higher quality than most.

I'd like to hear Caddell and Murphy together.

Heads would explode on Ricochet, which is always amusing.

Rolling Stones.  Except for a couple of songs, like Mother's Little Helper, they sound like a mediocre garage band playing 3 different songs that just happen to start and end at the same times.

Costello was good for his first 3 or 4 albums, during his angry young man phase.  But after that it was all boring, too-clever-by-half lyrics, and mindless leftiness.

Honey trap, anyone?  A la 1960s Soviet Union?

(cont'd)

Many government programs are designed to provide support to chronic low-employment regions, like the Maritimes.  Predictably, that has made genuine economic reform almost impossible, but has guaranteed generations of Liberal seats in Parliament.

We also send trainloads of cash to Quebec, which views this as its birthright and allows them to be the most unproductive economy in Canada, with almost Third World levels of public corruption (as witnessed in a current inquiry).

Our healthcare crisis is well-known.  We no longer even graduate enough doctors to cover our needs -- doctors cost money, you know.

Finally, the opposition consists of the openly socialist New Democrat Party and the left-of-centre Liberals.  The NDP just elected a leader who is pulling them even further left (after a brief interlude as only moderately leftist).  And the Liberals are in the middle of a leadership campaign; the leading candidate is a 41-year-old former schoolteacher whose main accomplishment is being Pierre Trudeau's son.

Canada is no conservative paradise.  We have to continue fighting just to keep the status quo, much less advance the conservative cause, just as conservatives in the U.S.