With student population numbers declining rapidly in Dundas, the city has promptly decided to close Parkside High School. Unless a contractor swoops in to change the building's fate, the demolition of the historic building will be complete by February 2017. Plans to turn the land into cemetery ground follow. Outraged, Dundas citizens are demanding Hamilton declare Parkside a heritage site, and renovate it into affordable condo units.
Many argue that a cemetery will destroy the natural artistic beauty and history of the building. However, the road to becoming a heritage site seems eternally long for these activists. This is because Hamilton is struggling to philosophically define Parkside as a historical/traditional work of art, which defines art as something that follows a tradition of things which were (or are) considered works of art at some previous point in time.
Robert James, a community volunteer is urging Hamilton to reconsider: "We don't want to see [Parkside] become less than [a work of art] if we can help it."
Unless Dundas citizens can prove that Parkside has a connection to a previous work of art, Philosopher's sees a wrecking ball in its future.
Recently, P.M.Trudeau announced a road trip to supposedly meet with “everyday” Canadians in Tim Hortons. At first glance, this trip seems to be in the best interest of Canadians, however, upon further research it is evident that Trudeau has dug himself into a distributive justice grave. Rawls would be ashamed.
Distributive justice is the nature of a just means of allocating wealth in society. Equal distribution occurs when everybody shares an equal amount of wealth. John Rawls, an American philosopher, formulated a ground-breaking theory on distributive justice. Essentially, his theory did not guarantee equality for all, but instead supported a society where the naturally skilled and privileged were free to exercise their skills on one condition – that the less fortunate benefit from the talented exercising their skills (i.e. taxes).
Still think nothing is wrong with Trudeau’s trip? From November to December, the Liberal government entered a crisis mode, dropping nine points in the polls. To recover, Trudeau is foolishly using tax dollars to do what he does best – take selfies for popularity points. Rawls was in favour of taxing the rich for the benefit of the poor, but he was strongly against stealing from either parties via taxes.
Aleppo, a once bustling city in Northwestern Syria, is the site of a major civil war between the Assad government and anti-government rebels. Currently, it is divided in half with the Russian and Iran backed Assad on the west and the Qatar backed Rebels to the east. The deprivation of food and basic supplies from the siege caused by Russian airstrikes has the entire world in fear of a humanitarian crisis. 250,000 people are trapped in Aleppo, dangerously low on supplies. So why is Canada not interfering?
Simply put, Canada does not have a strong enough case to philosophically and morally justify going to war. Let’s look at the criteria to justify a just cause or “Jus ad Bellum” for going to war: just cause (defending yourself or intervening to protect others), right intention (not for gain, like annexing), proper authority (political entities going to war), last resort (attempted peace, driven to war), probability of success (winnable war), proportionality (overall harm outweighed by good).
Unfortunately for the civilians of Aleppo, the conflict is too confusing for many countries to justify going to war. A just cause is virtually impossible to define since the “good guy” and “bad guy” alternate often. For this reason, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan of Canada declared that we will not be interfering in Aleppo militarily.
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