Michael Kwan is looking for cases where we’ve done something charitable for those in need. Well, I have a charitable act that I do very often that helps many many sides of our society.

You see, I’m not the average North American - privileged from birth, full of empathy and sympathy, trying to be self-righteous by doing small insignificant deeds of good that only makes the doer feel good while it does not fix the problem. I’m a very realistic person who sees things for the truth rather than idealism. I don’t believe in basics or minimums that are guaranteed by default, and I believe in Darwinism. Even the right to survive is, technically and truthfully, not a guarantee. We have won it as a society, and we also need to sustain it as individuals.

When you decide to cross the street at night wearing a black jacket, you are gambling with your right to life. When you decide to go to war with Iraq, you are forcefully taking away the right to life from innocent Iraqi civilians. In an ideal world, everybody has the right to live. But who said these rights are guaranteed? I don’t understand how these standards somehow became a philosophy. These standards we set are merely artificial human attempts at achieving a higher goal, but really, there’s no law in physics that grants us any kind of rights whatsoever.

When you ditch out on a job and decide to shoot up on heroine, eventually you will lose your right to an income. When you lose right to an income, you lose your rights to food, shelter. You’ll also lose the right to heroine, since money will be scarce. Eventually you will lose rights to live. You will die on the streets. Unless. We encounter the idiots who decide to give petty change to these people, feed them in soup kitchens, so as to grant them the right to food and heroine that rightfully should be taken away from them. It only makes the problem worse.

Some people might be saying at this point, “In some cases, it’s not their fault. They have mental illnesses.” or something of the sort. Once again, going back to the very basics of physics - nothing is guaranteed. Unfortunately some are born without adequate ability to survive. If they have rich parents who are willing to lend them the right to carry on, great. If they found some other talent through which they can obtain the right to live, great (paralympians, for example). If not, who the hell says that we as society should guarantee them basic rights just because they’re human beings? It’s all man-made, and merely an opinion. It’s not a golden standard, unfortunately.

When a homeless person asks me for change, my response is “No. Get a job.” If you are incapable of getting a job, REGARDLESS of whose fault it is, then you lose rights to money, and in consequence, you lose your rights to food, shelter, and ultimately, survival.

You see, if you give these guys change, they’ll carry on for another day. Buy cheap food, and cheap drugs. That doesn’t solve the problem. The only thing it might do is make you feel like a nice smug person who is generous and all. But it doesn’t really help anything in the long run.

I’m a more charitable person than those donating soups and change to the drug-addicted homeless people in downtown and the eastside (I live in Vancouver by the way). Because I encourage them to learn how to fish, so they can find their own rights, rather than borrow rights from others on a daily basis. We as society, thanks to our ancestors, have created this magnificent world of opportunity and wealth. If you can’t grasp even a tiny bit of it, too bad. Darwinism says you will just perish away and nobody will remember you. It’s cold, it’s sad, but it’s the truth.

Just to make things clear - I donate for other charitable causes that involve childrens charities, as well as international charities for Africa and what not. Their economy and way of life has been raided by the influence of Western civilization, the global economy and the currency exchange system that enslaves some of the poorest nations. This is a fact I cannot change because I’m not that powerful. To offset the fact that the wealths I enjoy are trickled down wealths from the global economy that leeches from the poor 3rd world countries and piles it up in the hands of North Americans, I donate for those causes. I just don’t give a single fucking penny to homeless people in Vancouver.

Today, October 14th is the day of the Canadian Federal Elections. Please go and vote. It is a privilege, an honour, and a responsibility as a citizen of Canada to go vote in the elections to make sure your voice is heard.

Many of you are already aware that I am a Liberal Party supporter, and I support them mainly based on their foreign policies, as well as tax regulations. The Conservative Party has robbed us by reducing one tax and increasing another one. The Conservative Party is also too much in line with aggressive partisan politics of the Republican Party down south.

Many Canadians are supporting a vote that will get the Partisan Harper government out - meaning, they are supporting voters to vote for whichever candidate has a better chance of defeating the Conservative candidate in the riding.

www.voteforenvironment.ca is one of the most prominent websites that promote the anti-Conservative vote. Essentially, these people (and myself) feel that getting the Conservative Government out by any means is a better way to ensure Canada experiences a balanced growth in a peaceful and respectful manner.

But. My opinions are my opinions, and as a staunch supporter of true democracy, I invite you to vote for whoever you wish to vote. Better to vote than to not vote, honestly.

In the recent Global Peace Index Rankings (which ranked 121 rather influential countries), Iraq ranked the lowest, while Norway ranked the highest. US ranked 96th, and Canada ranked 8th.

Yes, Iraq ranked the lowest. It was in 2002 when our brave Southern neighbours set out to the Persian Gulf to turn what was known as a horrible country lead by a horrible dictator who developed WMDs. 6 years later, Iraq ranks the lowest.

MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED.

Well let’s see. The greatest fundamental mistake of this war was that Iraq is not fit for a democratic government. Democracy isn’t for everybody. It’s not even really a global ideal - it’s something that people on this side of the world often call for as they try to re-distribute wealth and power to more people rather than letting a regime hold onto it. Essentially what communism and capitalism try to accomplish is the same thing, but through different methods, if you think about it. Who the hell set this standard so that people in the Western World feels compelled to inject their way of living to other countries? What makes them think that all societies are ready for the same type of government we have? I like the system here, and I don’t want anybody changing it.

We’re not doing anybody a favour by going into other countries trying to “Liberate” them. The last time that was done validly was with France - only because they already had their own sovereignty which got taken over by Hitler. The truth is, the Vietnamese people did not want the South Vietnamese government (backed by the US) to win, because they were notorious for their corruption. But since the ideologies matched better, the US backed the South Vietnamese Government. The North Vietnamese government still had more support from people.

Democracies are only successful if it is self-instigated from within. The French transition to democracy was a successful one and same with Britain. The same applies to the USA, and I commend them for winning the Independence war, and I like George Washington.

The unsuccessful democracies were the South Vietnamese government (which ceases to exist), South Korean Government (which I know from a fact from growing up in that country that it took another 50 years to actually achieve it, and we did it ourselves without the help of Americans).

Iraq was a country with the Sunnis and Shiites head-to-head with each  other, and the only way to keep them from killing each other on a daily basis was Saddam’s iron-fist regime which wouldn’t tolerate such activities. Hence less innocent people died. Yes, I  know that whoever opposed Saddam got murdered ruthlessly in public beheadings, but it’s not like the Western World did not have public beheadings. As our society got all sophisticated and unwilling to publicly display the dirty deeds we switched over to private execution with gas chambers, electric chairs, and lethal injection.

Saddam was a better fit for Iraq. Unless you can justify killing your own children to change a political structure, do not force it on the Iraqi families to do so.

Mission Accomplished. Iraq is now the least peaceful nation in the world due to an attempt that was flawed from its very motive.

The ongoing debate between Canada’s role in Afghanistan is one of the hot issues in this country, and the opinions vary quite a bit. Many, led by the Liberal Government, feel that Canada’s role in Afghanistan has gone beyond that of peacekeeping and that we should pull out. Others, led by the Conservative government, are quick to assert that Canadian troops do belong there to quell the militants of the opposite side of the Axis.

I’m not writing this article to debate whether our role in Canada is right or not, but I’d like to point out what we should and should not be criticizing. Recently an anti-war group in Ontario wrote letters encouraging soldiers to NOT join the mission in Afghanistan, but instead, desert the military before they end up in Afghanistan. Other critics are blatantly criticizing the military itself for its actions in which Afghanistan civilians are killed.

Soldiers are meant to obey. They are trained to obey. People who are well educated and well opinionated do not belong in the army, and will not join an army unless drafted upon because they cannot handle the idea of being in action killing people without completely agreeing to the mission themselves. They will question the authority, and question the motive of their missions, hence reducing their capacity as a well-equipped, finely-tuned combat machine.

Do not criticize the soldiers. They are not the ones you should be criticizing when you are against the war in Afghanistan, but you should be criticizing the government, including Stephen Harper and O’Connor. The soldiers are not the ones to make the decisions on where to fight. They simply do as they are told, with the utmost belief that they are serving their country. They are courageous, self-less, and they endure many risks and loss of lives to accomplish what they feel is right.

Regardless of whether you are against the mission or not, sending letters to soldiers and their families and criticizing the military personel is a stupid, misguided act. By sending those letters they spat on the faces of soldiers, who, regardless of politics, are willing to put their lives at risk for what they believe is right.

If you have a problem with the war in Afghanistan, write letters to the Conservative MPs, or to Stephen Harper, or O’Connor, the Minister of Defense. Don’t write to the soldiers. They are doing what they feel is the best, regardless of how un-opinionated or brainwashed they may be. They genuinly feel that they are doing this for their nation, and for you, and are brave beings.

The Sey-To-Sky highway, which is the prettier name for Hwy-99 that runs through British Columbia to connect Vancouver to  Whistler (with Squamish, Britannia Beach, Porteau Cove, Lion’s Bay, Horseshoe Bay on the way) is becoming the next big strip of development. As many of you may be aware, the 2010 Winter Olympic games are being held in Whistler BC, and the transportation/accomodation infrastructure between Vancouver and Whistler is going through major developments.

The Sea-to-Sky Highway, which was considered a rather dangerous and difficult highway due to the fact that it’s too windy and has only 1 lane each way, is now becoming 2 lanes in most sectors (if not all), and the skytrain lines are being added within the city to resolve the traffic between Richmond and Vancouver, as well as in the Tri-Cities. The cheap accomodations which generally provided eyesores (the buildings and the people who occupied it both) are now being ripped apart and replaced with nicer buildings that suit the beauty of Vancouver. And no, I’m not sympathetic enough to worry about the drug-addicted near-homeless or employment-insurance milking losers who live in those “single occupancy hotels”.

Anyhow back on topic. The developments along the Sea-to-Sky Highway corridors are the next big thing for investors, as the real estate value as well as the community size of the regions are expected to grow even more.  There are already some projects that are confirmed which provide thousands of new homes, and I personally know of a plan that is underway to develop something really big. Can’t disclose the details here, but I’m just hinting - keep your eyes open. If you want to diversify your real estate investments and not concentrate too much on the city (although personally I would invest in the city still), this is a great chance to split your eggs into different baskets.

I call this the extension of the West Coast. LA and SF was the big thing at first. Now we have Seattle, and then there’s Vancouver which already has climbed its way up to being the 13th best city in the world to live in. The beautiful West Coast of North America continues to extend northbound towards Whistler and Squamish, and what used to be considered a rural tourist attraction with limited industry will soon become a diversified area with its own industrial infrastructure, enough permanent population (half of Whistler’s population are transient population at this point, but that will change), and the accessibility from Vancouver.

Exciting, isn’t it?