[Makarov]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

To take something as mind-meltingly complex and nuanced as the forces that shape a person's life outcomes, and to wrap it up in such a tidy package is:

A) Intellectually untenable, and

B) Fundamentally illiberal and a threat to liberal democracy.

You've lost me already. No one (let alone the Supreme Court of Canada) has claimed that these things can be wrapped up in a tidy package. No one has ever claimed that Gladue sentences are a perfect or even close to perfect solution. Everyone acknowledges that these issues are complex and difficult. But that isn't a reason not to discuss them or try to take steps that we thing are reasonable and fair and may be effective. Just shouting "identity politics" and plugging your ears isn't helpful.

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Or where a man who rapes a Native woman is less likely to spend time in prison than a man who rapes a non-Native woman.

This is a great example. One consequence of Gladue, combined with the fact that sexual abuse is endemic in many first Nations communities and that people who are sexually assaulted are typically assaulted by someone they know (especially someone e in their family) is that product who sexually assaut first Nations women do indeed (on average anyway) spend less time in custody than someone who sexually assaults a non-first Nations woman. And that does sound absurd.

However, the Gladue decision was in response to to the fact that the proportion of indigenous youth and adults in Canadian prisons is over nine times higher than their representation in the Canadian population. That is also an absurd result.

Which one is more absurd? Which one is more illiberal?

The more we institutionalise group identities in our political and economic systems, the more all groups will exert their political will through these identities. Women and men. Natives and whites. The notion that a narrative of collective guilt will deter working class whites or low-status men from actively organizing along gender and race lines is astonishing in its naivete. I don't know how anyone who has any familiarity with human history can believe this will turn out wll.

I have some familiarity with human history and I think that familiarity makes me far less certain about the future than you seem to be.