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Who are "the people?" Is it a club I can join? Are there meetings? Which changes are they making, specifically? Are they making those changes based on the best available, peer-reviewed science? Who are they accountable to? Do they release progress reports? I'm not trying to be a clever jerk, I get that government will always be imperfect and frustrating, but what is the alternative? If we weaken our government, it will leave a power vacuum. Who will fill that vacuum, if not profit-driven multinational corporations? What legal, nonviolent means does one individual have to oppose a multinational corporation? The problem with "personal responsibility" is that it pretends we are not affected by the actions of other people. Our current plague is a great example - most people did take "personal responsibility" to stop the spread of this virus, but their efforts were wasted by a few extremely selfish individuals, and now we are here.

If this doesn't scare you, what will. Heritage Minister@S_Guilbeaultin draft order to regulators warns #YouTube videos must embrace "the gov't vision" of internet content. https://blacklocks.ca/decree-government-vision/ #cdnpoli

Stalin also had his political enemies "disappeared". Stalin is a hero of the left.

In 1987 I was a nerdy 6 year old who really liked astronomy. I read every book I could find in my local library about our solar system, and because I was way out in the sticks, most of those books were written in the 50s-70s. I learned that Venus is farther away from the Sun than Mercury is, but Mercury is much less hot - surface temperature of Venus is ~900F while on Mercury is ~800F, even though Venus is about 31 million miles farther from the Sun than Mercury. The reason, I learned, is because Venus' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and methane, which are "greenhouse gasses" that trap heat. FWIW, the only scientists who dispute that greenhouse gasses can alter the climate of planets are the ideological heirs of the doctors who were paid by tobacco companies to testify absurdities like, "passive smoking is not harmful." If anyone is interested and considers the Scientific American to be a reliable source I could offer them this link: Tobacco and Oil Industries Used Same Researchers to Sway Public - Scientific American ____________ OK, let's pretend I've proven to everyone that climate change is real and we should do something about it - I haven't, but whatchagonnado? Let's talk about Trudeau's new plan. Several things can be true at the same time - it doesn't go far enough, it lacks sufficient international buy-in, it is not the most efficient way to rein in the harmful effects of pollution, it allows political expediency to trump real science in some particulars, it is better than Trudeau's old plan. Good arguments can be made to support these ideas, among others. However, politics is not a choice between perfection and the prime minister. It is a choice between multiple competing imperfect people, parties and ideas. Rather than, "is this the perfect way forward," we perhaps ought to ask, "is this an improvement over the plans put forward by other electable politicians?" Viewed through this lens, we might be able to arrive at more reasonable and helpful conclusions. Just a thought; thanks for reading!

Respectfully, I think we are too far apart to agree on very much, so instead of disputing your conclusions I will try to address your premises and share some neat things I've learned in the past few years. ____ Marxists are supporters of the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. BLM is a decentralized movement that opposes the extralegal murder of black people by police officers and all other forms of racially motivated violence against black people. In order to make Marxists happy you would need to get rid of capitalism. In order to make BLM happy you would need to make it illegal to use violence against black people for being black (and actually enforce those laws). Different grievances. They are related only in that both advocate for different types of equality - Marxists want economic and social equality, BLM wants racial equality. There are some Marxists in the BLM crowd, much as there are some white people in the BLM crowd. Calling BLM, as a whole, "Marxist," is about as accurate as calling it "white." ____ The Liberal party of Canada is not "far left", although they are "farther left than they were 20 years ago." Classical Liberals (the ideology that claims government requires the consent of the governed, sees society as composed of individuals, believes strongly in individual rights, etc) are not either. They are, at most, left-of-centre. If you look farther left of them you will see Social Democrats, who believe that we should work within the bounds of capitalism using democracy to advocate for more socialistic policies such as universal health care. If you look even further left you will find your Socialists, Communists and Anarchists of varying stripes. The farther left you look, the more people fragment, and extreme leftists do far too much bickering amongst themselves to be able to promote their ideologies, which is part of why most people don't really know anything about them. Someone who actually WAS far left would be advocating to violently overthrow capitalism so that the working class could assume control of the means of production, or they would be claiming that governments are illegitimate because they use violence in ways that cannot be justified, or they would be saying things like, "eat your landlord," and "the only thing billionaires should be running for is their lives." ___ There are two ways to use the phrases "left" and "right". One of them is to use them to locate ideologies on the political spectrum, for example, "Fascism is a far right ideology". The other way is to describe ideologies relative to your position. For example, if I worked for Fox News I would regularly describe CNN as being "far-left", because compared to me, they are far-left. However, CNN is, in reality, right-of-centre. They are a privately owned, for-profit multinational corporation - they are clearly not trying to create a classless and/or stateless society. It has been argued that the real reason Fox News uses the phrase "far-left" to describe CNN is as a sneaky trick. If the ideas on CNN are radical, dangerous, and subversive, then anyone who has ideas that are even farther left than the ones on CNN must just be a raving nutcase whose opinions can be dismissed out of hand. It has be argued that this serves to artificially limit the scope of acceptable political debate. ____ Anyways, hope this is helpful. My goal is to share knowledge, not to be a troll. Thanks for reading!

Biden limits travel from India -- after calling Trump xenophobic following China travel ban last year.

The minority is not right merely by virtue of being a minority. The preponderance of evidence supports the seriousness of this disease; your continued attempts to downplay that seriousness is reminiscent of cigarette companies denying evidence while pointing to their small group of handpicked (and paid) scientists. In any case, those "experts" you tout aren't being ignored. In places like India and Brazil, they're the drivers of government policy. Take a look at how those countries are doing.

Red China launches its latest space station into orbit.

"Better to live in a stable, if benign dictatorship, than an unstable democracy." - Lao Tsu OftenWrong, "the old philosopher." So maybe moving to Russia isn't such a bad idea now, and for the forseeable future. Living there is kinda more normal. As Vlad Putin states, "We do not have such problems."

Thanks for posting some links that debunk Taxme’s BS. He never posts links to any of the crap he blows. Ever. It isn’t my job to find sources for what others post.

OK, is there a better one, with even remote possibility of success? Is another party offering it? I'm not very hopeful generally, given that the drive to expand and consume the entire environment is natural and possibly genetically coded in the humanity. And the ability of this country to achieve any real progress in any real problem and by measurable factors rather than endless panel discussions, programs, budget allocations, reports, public inquiries (SARS-1, SARS-2, ....). I just have no comments at this point. Either we'll see something new for a change; or it'll end up as it always did, with a bunch of billions spent (call it "invested" if like) and bunch of useless reports on the shelves.

‘I’m in trouble’: Biden engages in desperate search for his lost mask after telling hecklers ‘gimme another 5 days’ to abolish ICE.

Seems so, atheists are in no way a tribe. Atheism still only answers one question, do you possess a god belief? The moral values, ideologies superstitions, philosophical opinions, etc.. . vary widely amongst atheists. Again unlike a religion there is not one book that everyone follows, no authority we must abide by,no specific tenets or ceremonies, etc, etc, etc..... Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but understand that what you've put forth in this discussion, is nothing more than that ,your opinion, and does not correspond with the consensus of academia or that of the general public.

Come on Aristedes. You post links to CNN and their flunkies who use anonymous sources for bold headlines and then just make nearly invisible retractions weeks or months later, if ever. Do you really consider a precious CNN link to be more useful than a comment from a person with thousands of posts here? Also, this wasn't hard to find Aristedes: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html . I just googled "covid vaccination deaths" and it was the top hit. I get that people need to post links with incredible claims that are hard to verify, but that was completely not the case here. So, in a nutshell, instead of getting off your ass and doing the most basic google search imaginable, you chose to insult someone. Back on topic: is 3,848 "a lot"? That answer is undoubtedly either yes, no, or maybe - just like almost every other C19 stat we get. Does that stat mean 'within a half hour of getting the vaccine people keeled over from something crazy'? They died within a week? And from with what symptoms, exactly? How many of them already had co-morbidities, and were over 95 yrs of age? How many already had covid (normally people don't get a flu vaccine when they're already sick, but no one knows if they already have covid)? Were any of them young, healthy people who stood no chance of dying from covid? The only thing I was able to glean from that is that none of those deaths were from allergic reactions. None of the subsequent links shed much light on anything else, unless maybe you go really deep, but if they were going to leave it 'buried' there's not much sense wasting a bunch of time looking for it. It's probably not there for a reason if they're not mentioning it. Side note - here's a little bit of insight into how many vaccine deaths you can expect to see reported as "deaths attributed to vaccinations": https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-19/coronacheck-vaccine-misinformation-debunked/13258256 Covid 'science': if someone has a week to live because they have heart disease, kidney failure and a tumour the size of a watermelon, and they sneeze right before they die, "IT WAS COVID!!!", but if someone dies after taking the vaccine "it was likely coincidental. Shhhhhh.". (To be fair regarding the whole covid BS topic, my guess is that Texas could be reporting far more covid deaths if they wanted to, they just don't want to.) Covid 'stats' are bullshit at best, but the one thing that they've never been able to hide, even with stats, is that healthy people are at no risk from covid. Anyone who doesn't want to take the jab shouldn't have to, and all the leftists who say "preggers can kill healthy fetuses because of the "my body, my choice' rule" need to stfu because their opinion is already carved in stone on this topic.

Manitoba teachers able to get vaccinated in North Dakota, a Trump / red state...sunny ways !

One doesn't need to "believe" in science because it can be verified. The same laws that drive the satellites and iPhones drive masses of gases and control radiation. It may be difficult to believe but that's the reason why a satellite, the truck and iPhone work as they do. Then, one cannot make or convince people see things that they do not want or stubbornly refuse to see. This is a lost cause from the outset and I see no point in going there. As said already there are in essence two choices: do nothing and see what happens; or try to do something. Just say it clear and don't hide behind India, we didn't see, some professor said something and so on. However it is explained or justified now wouldn't matter in the end.

It "freely" allows the super-rich to plunder our economies so that they can "freely" move that wealth to overseas secret bank accounts and "freely" choose not to pay taxes on it. Yay freedom!