Gangs of Toronto: Troubled Youths or Mafia

I talked about Toronto's gang problem a couple years back during the so called "summer of the gun" in 2005. The whole thing has remained a major problem facing the city and Canada at large as violence seems to spill outwards into the suburbs and even rural communities. There have been numerous efforts to curb the violence but all have failed. In this article, I'll look at why this is.

Imagine you're Don Michael Corleone. You've grown up around crime and after years of resisting you decide to join the family business. The government's response to you doing this is to build more football pitches. After all, Italians love football (soccer) and so more places for them to play will keep them out of trouble. Do you honestly think Don Michael is doing to give up the family business now that he has a place to kick a ball around? What if there were more honest work though. Do you think Johnny Tightlips is going to give up his job at the union racket now that he can work at a near by McDonalds for $7 an hour? Yeah right.

Isn't this the same philosophy Toronto socialists are using to combat black gangs in the city? I know if I were the leader of the local Crips or Bloods, I'd feel a little insulted by it. Do they really think that these people are going to give up joining gangs because they build a basketball court, or that they'll stop dealing drugs for $2000 a day to make $70 a day at the local fast food joint? I think that's even a little racist since they're assuming that all blacks love basketball. Why don't they just open up some watermelon stands and a few KFCs in the area? Maybe that will work too.

The mistake Toronto's socialist leadership make is assuming that the city's gangs are simply loose organizations of thugs who became such because they're troubled youths. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are mafias. Any black gang in Jane and Finch is just as highly organized as the Gambinos. They know the business and they know they can make big bucks, especially with the drug and prostitution rackets. The structure is complex and widespread from smuggling schemes at Pearson to extortion, robbery, and small scale terrorism. The violence itself comes from disputes between the different "families", just as it did in Chicago back in the 1920s. Youths join the gangs because they know they can make more money than doing any honest job. They don't care about the risks associated with it. Imagine $2000 for simply working a couple hours an evening selling crack. You're armed, you get the latest wheels, and most importantly, you're feared and respected. It's a mighty tempting prospect for any of us. The reason most of us don't do it is we stick to our moral system or we fear getting caught. That's not the case in these gangs. With the way the legal system is, gang crimes are not harshly punished or the race card is pulled and they get off on a technicality. Just like a mafia don. They're released and the cycle continues. They are neither poor, nor oppressed, nor troubled. They are simply bad people.

I don't really know how to solve this problem, but I do know that people need to start seeing it for what it actually is before we can even talk solutions. We keep fooling ourselves, especially with mothers' pleas on how such a good boy Shaquan was before he was shot. Chances are the mother knows about or is part of the family too. The issue is not about race. Its not a black issue or a white issue. It's a justice issue. Until we start treating them like the mafias they are and not as if they're troubled youths, this problem is just going to continue.

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Made In China: Corporate Greed or Cheap People

I was reading in the Post today about the continuing saga of unsafe Chinese products. More toys are being recalled, taken away from teary eyed youngsters because their Batman action figure could kill them. Well, maybe it's not such a bad thing to have killer toys because it would remove the surplus population of stupid children in the world. I kid of course.
Now the socialists are inevitably blaming corporate greed for this problem.

According to the article in the National Post, one man only going by the name of Dennis noted that "The first thing it makes me think is these companies are only thinking about money. They want to make money, they’re outsourcing their manufacturing and basically contributing to exploitation" (CanWest News Service, August 15 2007)

I have to say that "Dennis" is way off base here. Do corporations have to share some of the blame for this? Definitely they do since they should have been paying closer attention to their contractors. It's negligence. However, I don't think corporate greed is at the root of these problems. These corporations aren't exploiting the workers either. The Chinese government is. Remember that the People's Republic of China is supposed to be a communist country. The Chinese government and its people don't really give a rat's backside as to whether or not their products are dangerous as long as we keep buying them. Indeed we are the real problem.

North Americans demand luxury goods en mass at the lowest price possible. Most goods made in China are luxury goods. You don't really need that Chinese made video game or toy to survive. Ironically, we want luxury on the cheap and we won't pay more. We as consumers are the ones that are fueling demand. Such so that in a population of over one billion people, China actually has labour shortages in some regions. China is good at mass producing things and they can do it cheaply. Corporations turn to Chinese factories not because of greed or the desire to exploit workers but because nobody would buy their products if they were made in North America. Why? Because it's several times more expensive to produce goods domestically due to high taxes and union fees. It's been proven that consumers will not absorb the costs. Businesses exist to make money. They're not their for your egalitarian benefit. If businesses don't make profits, nobody will invest in them and our economy goes down the toilet. They cannot sell domestically produced goods since people deem them to be "overpriced". Therefore they turn to other countries to manufacturers at a lower cost. If you don't want to buy inferior Chinese goods, then you're just going to have to get used to paying more, or doing without.

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Panhandling a Free Ride for Youth

This past week, Toronto experienced it's 51st homicide of 2007. In this particular case, a man was stabbed to death after an altercation with four panhandlers. Apparently this man had refused to give them money. The four accused range in age from 21 to 22. This got me thinking. I'm around this age and I would never think to do that, or think to be homeless. What causes these kids to go out and do these things. One of the most common explanations that left wingers put fourth is some kind of a failure in the system to protect these youths or to ensure their safety in shelters so they're forced to turn to this.

In Canada, very few people are ever forced to turn to that lifestyle. For the most part, your average street kids actually come from fairly well off families. They're lazy and refuse deal with the rules of their parents and of society. While there maybe some legitimate cases where youths turn to this lifestyle due to lack of jobs or abusive families, they are a minority. This lack of respect for rules is also why they avoid homeless shelters. The shelters don't give them infinite freedom. They cannot smoke, drink, or do drugs in them which they somehow feel to be going to far. They still seem to understand that they need money to support their habits. That's how that man got killed. People are beginning to wise up and are not giving money to these people. We will likely see an increase in similar acts of violence committed by aggressive panhandlers.

So what do we do. Well, aggressive panhandling is supposedly illegal but there seems to be a lack of will to enforce it. I would go one step further and make all panhandling illegal with enforcement. NDPers and people like OCAP need to realize that panhandling is not an appropriate lifestyle and it is not in the best interests of these people to allow them to keep doing it. There needs to be programs and enforced laws in place to get these people off the street. Our nation's cities will be better for it. We won't have incidents like what happened in Toronto, and the former panhandlers will have better lives in the end.

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Polygamy in Canada

I was going through the usual newspapers today when I came across an article in CNEWS questioning recent legal decisions regarding Polygamy in BC. I'm sure you've heard by now about the Bountiful community in BC. It's an orthodox Mormon community that embraces having multiple wives, to the point of claiming it's some sort of sacrament. For the life of me, I can't understand why any man would want more than one woman. All kidding aside, this poses an interesting problem for Canada's justice system and whether or not the government should indeed concern itself with the bedrooms of the nation.

They're not the only men to have more than one woman. Here in the rest of the world, we call them adulterers. Personally, I think a man who cheats on his wife is a despicable man-whore. This, however, is different. These marriages are open, for lack of a better term. Well, that's what we'd like to think. Some parts of the world, notably in Africa, do embrace this lifestyle but its not common. Biologically, humans are semi-monogamous. We may have multiple mates during our lives but usually we only have one at a time. Whether the person is heterosexual or homosexual doesn't matter; the rule still applies. Therefore, we can consider this semi-monogamy to be normal. Therefore polygamy is not normal. Of course, you'll have people who will dispute that, vigorously, whether they believe in it or not.

The problem with the Bountiful community however is the attitude they share towards women. They are radical Mormons linked to a similar sect in the US. In fact, that US sect's leader was on the FBI's most wanted list for numerous charges including abuse. He was arrested a few months back. There have been numerous proven cases where women and young girls are being abused sexually in these communities. Girls in their early teens are often being forced to marry much older men. In that community they call it a sacrament, in our world we call it pedophilia. Women have little to no rights in these purely patriarchal communities and they often end up abused or neglected.

Another problem is that the law is unclear. Or is it? Even if the laws concerning polygamy itself are uncertain, the laws concerning abuse and pedophilia are very clear. They're indictable offences. Many of these problems are stemming from the concept so by association, polygamy is and should be illegal. There are some questions as to whether anti-polygamy laws would stand up against a Charter challenge based on Section 2's guarantee of freedom of religion. I think the law would stand. According to the Rastafarian religion, marijuana smoking is a sacrament but we don't allow them to do that. Pedophilia and sexual abuse are far worse acts than smoking weed. If pot smoking is considered to be a reasonable limit on freedom of religion, then certainly the abusive acts that happen in these polygamous communities are. It's not an issue of discrimination sexual identity like gay marriage was. It's a question of protecting people in situations where they cannot protect themselves.

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Made In China

There have been several scandals involving Chinese made goods. If it's not toothpaste made with antifreeze, it's lead paint on children's toys or toxic cough syrup. Canned fruit tends to be the worst. Thankfully those little oranges come already in their own wrapper.

Back in the mid 20th century, the Made in Japan used to be the mark of inferiority. That changed in the 1980s when companies such as Sony and Honda began making names for themselves. Now, many of these big companies contract out their manufacturing to the lowest bidder. It's a fairly common business practice in both the private and public sector. The problem is that Chinese businesses always seem to be the low bidder. Sony does this, so does Apple, and HP in the case of electronics. Many of those contract companies are based in the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) but have factories in the People's Republic of China. (Two different countries despite what the UN claims) This is done to skirt around certain laws. The PRC itself is managed by an oligarchy of elites under an authoritarian system. It is not a communist country, despite what they claim. Displays of freeing oppressed workers and executing corrupt officials on the spot are only done to appease us foolish westerners into thinking that they're on top of things. The truth is that Chinese officials let A LOT of things slide. What we know about is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm also sure that what the Chinese government knows about is also but a small portion of what actually goes on.

The big problem is that China truly is now the 'world's factory' as one person put it in the Financial Post today. I have several items sitting on my desk right now. My Sony PSP was made in China. Ironically, the game currently inside it was made in the US. The remote for my DVD player was made in china. My Camera bag was made in China. My laptop, and Apple iBook G4 was 'assembled in China.' The laptop's power supply was also made in China. In fact, I'm willing to bet most items in any given room of your home were made in China, contain parts that were made in China, or were manufactured using equipment made in China. Everything from the furniture to the light bulbs. The cloths on your back are probably the only exception, most of which are now made in India or Indonesia. The first world is sure fueling the third world's economy. Many big businesses have turned there to avoid lawsuits from litigation happy/disgruntled customers, costly fights with greedy unions, high taxes, etc. It's just cheaper and easier to do business in those countries. It's not that these companies are evil (well, maybe Sony is), it's just that it's become very difficult to do business and remain competitive in North America. Such so that it's now actually cheaper to make items for local consumption half-way around the world. It's easy for us to say "I support Canadian workers" or "I'll only buy Canadian goods because I know they're safer for my kids to use." Guess again. As I said, it's impossible to find any item that isn't somehow linked to the Chinese economic leviathan. It's really our fault for not maintaining a competitive edge in manufacturing. Not all North American goods are of top notch quality anymore. I think cars are the best example where Hondas and Toyotas tend to have double the shelf life of Fords and GMs. Ironically, cars are the one few thing China doesn't produce for a global scale, though parts are still made there. That's about to change though. My point is that we here in North America still happily feed the beast, sometimes without even knowing it. The fact that these dangerous products exist is because we buy them. As for the poisoned products, sometimes even the companies that contracted out the work may not even realize what the Chinese are doing. It's ignorant of them, that's for sure and they should have been testing these products more closely. These Chinese factories are infamous for making unilateral decisions as to what materials to use in order to cut costs. They're not above using stuff that's known to be downright dangerous.

So what can we do to solve this problem? Well, it's already happening. Businesses are becoming more reluctant to contract their work out to Chinese manufacturers and consumers are beginning to demand more domestically made goods from reputable places like North America, South Korea, Japan, and Europe. Here in North America, we definitely need to encourage manufacturers to open up shop here and to stay here. Particularly through tax incentives and discouragement of unions form gaining too much power. I'd tackle the union issue by opening up government led arbitration systems by setting up an impartial tribunal to hear both sides and make judgments based on law. That would end some of the bickering and greed. Since strikes usually benefit nobody but fat cat union bosses, this system would certainly be a much better alternative. Thirdly, pressure needs to be put on places such as China. If they don't shape up, we'll put trade embargos on goods deemed to be dangerous. Without their badly needed North American markets, the Chinese government would certainly begin to sweat. Let them know we don't tolerate crappy, unsafe goods.

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