I have serious questions about the fundamental validity of the social contract as a concept, I am not at all convinced that social democracy is preferable to libertarianism, and I work in the arms industry.
A lot of Canadians get really freaked out by the idea of someone who views the state not only as not benevolent but not even benign...regardless of the party in power. That tends to disturb people more than the armament, actually. I get regular hate mail because there is a fairly public inbox that directs to me. And a lot of the ideas I've expressed publicly, which I consider fairly run of the mill philosophical musings about the nature of multipolar power structures and the legitimacy of the monopoly on use of violence the state arrogates to itself are treated as REALLY crazy here.
I mean the 90% of the country is demographically equivalent to an upper middle class suburb of Seattle...I don't really blame people for being all "who's this crazy guy talking about the nature of violence and the inherent expression of violence in all state actions?" because the overwhelming majority of people here have never had state force directed at them, or anyone they've ever met.
Well...unless they're native, in which case, yeah, chances are they know someone who experienced a powerful and well-meaning state firsthand. Google, if you so choose, some of the letters sent to native families advising them of the wonderful privilege being offered to them of seeing their children for Christmas, provided they met a series of conditions...
I apologize for introducing political philosophy to this thread. I mention it only because it's the reason I periodically get accused, most recently by a bunch of family members over Christmas, of not being a real Canadian. Which is humourous to me, given a) my spelling of "humourous" and b) the fact that a bunch of my accusers were present for my birth. One, in particular, was rather instrumental in the process.
