Humanist Perspectives: issue 212, Spring 2020
Issue 212, Spring 2020
Humanist Perspectives is a refreshing, rational analysis of modern events and culture and is available at select magazine stores or by online subscription.
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Inside Front Cover
- Motion M-103
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On the third anniversary of the Canadian Parliament adopting this motion, which deliberately conflates criticism of Islam with discrimination against Muslims, Dale Branscombe considers its implications to free speech.
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Editorial
- Remembering James Bacque
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Following the publication in 1989 of Other Losses, which presents evidence of the deliberate killing through starvation, exposure, and lack of medical care of as many as one million German prisoners of war by Allied forces, James Bacque went from being an established writer and bestselling author to a pariah of the mainstream publishing industry.
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Features
- The Law and Injustice: The Case of BC Family Relations Act
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This essay provides an analysis of a destructive law that caused serious injustice to the very society it was intended to serve. On March 18, 2013, all provisions of the new Family Law Act came into effect in British Columbia, finally replacing the Family Relations Act that was enacted in BC in 1979.
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- Religious Neutrality is Not Enough
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This essay argues that secularism is much more than religious neutrality and must include an equal consideration of the non-religious and religious. Quebec’s Bill 21 is examined as a case study of Secularism. This article was originally published at http://atheology.ca/special/religious-neutrality-is-not-enough/.
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- Reflections Left: An examination of the evolution of a political movement
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With the fable of Mouseland, the first leader of the New Democratic Party was attempting to describe Canadian democracy, and he viewed the NDP and its forerunner, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) as fundamentally different from the two “old line parties,” Conservatives and Liberals. But is it?
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- Quo Vadis? Or How the Democratization of Ideas Leads to their Degeneration
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In the latest half-century, Western liberal democracies have undergone tectonic shifts of remarkably surreal unpredictability. Where are we going and why? Good questions...In a sense, the opposing poles of Left and Right are about maximum equality versus minimum restrictions on the individual.
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- Learning about Greed
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...We pushed ourselves hard to finish up the job by the end of our shift, and often went into overtime work. We exhausted and injured ourselves trying to speed things up. He sure as hell was making money, off our backs, and then some.
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- The American Health Care Dilemma: A Suggested Resolution
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One of the most divisive issues in American society today centres on whether healthcare should remain a component of the private sector or become a responsibility of the federal government. Perhaps the solution could involve a “means test” wherein families with a certain annual income would be ineligible for access to the government sponsored program
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- Grandma and the Drunken Soldier
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...Only recently did I begin to suspect that there was more than the lure of an attractive melody to her selection of songs. I have now come to the conclusion that this was Grandma’s reaction to the stifling strictures of her upbringing, and that she knew perfectly well the connotations of these songs.
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- Jersey City Shooting and the Rise of Anti-Semitism
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As a former mayor of Shiloh, Israel, I can relate to what Jersey City mayor Steven Fulop and its city fathers must be going through. Plus, as a Jew who was raised in one of the toughest areas of New York and New Jersey, I can doubly relate.
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- Review of John Erik Meyer’s The Renewable Energy Transition: Realities for Canada and the World
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“This is an important book, both for Canada and the world. John Erik Meyer has a lifetime of experience dedicated to this field of study and we benefit greatly from his expertise.”
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- In addition, Humanist Perspectives offers a lively Letters-to-the-Editor section as well as Book Reviews, books available for review and snippets of international news of interest to humanists.