dialamah

Cite?

It's well documented that people use drugs and alcohol to manage emotional pain resulting from childhood trauma. Being taken from your family, having your name changed, forced to accept Christianity - even if not sexually and physically abused - is trauma. If physical and sexual abuse are also present, even more trauma. Kids who are raised in institutions lack parenting skills; combine that with their self-medicating for their experiences as children, perhaps even you can see how trauma lasts over generation: consider that multiple generations of native kids ended up at these schools. Soldiers suffer from PTSD, many end up on the streets, using alcohol and drugs. Do you think they haven't been told "it's the wrong way to go"? Do you think they don't know that? Do you think that the pain they're living with is just a figment of their imagination? Put down your useless Bible for a minute and do some real research on what trauma is and how it affects people. Denying the long-term effects for the policies our government implemented and blaming the victims of that policy is a cowardly way of pretending the White man can do no wrong. Reconciliation is not about money; it's about acknowledgement and understanding, about a hand up and not a hand out. My responsibility, as part of the dominant culture under which these people were ill-treated, is to acknowledge, not deny, that ill-treatment and it's long term effect. My responsibility is to expect our government to give more than money and promises to the people our country mistreated. As far as I'm concerned, that's the very least we, as individuals, can do. That little bit is too much though, for some people.

Why not? Plenty of people who come here maintain some of their traditions. So what? Why are people "required" to work beyond what they need to, other than that happens to be *our* culture. That is such an ignorant thing to say. Did they? Somehow I doubt that was an overwhelming desire on their part; in any case, why couldn't they have that and maintain their cultural traditions - potlatch, belief in whatever spirits they wanted, strong family ties, hunting and fishing for sustenance? Why did they have to be confined to reserves, have their children taken from them, have their culture destroyed before they were allowed to have houses, and appliances and various other 'conveniences'? 1. They didn't "leave them on reserves"; they CONFINED them to the reserves. They weren't allowed to leave the reserve without permission for decades; they couldn't have a job off-reserve without permission from the Indian agent; they couldn't go to university unless they renounced their "Indian" status. Did you know that the Indian agent would threaten them with starvation to encourage them to give up their kids to go to a residential school? 2. What we have now is so much better eh? We destroyed families, villages, culture and have ended up spending plenty trying to make them into 'us'. 3. What a joke. So many of the kids who went to residential school were so damaged when they come out that they couldn't function in the white world, or in their own world. Instead of making excuses, perhaps face the facts that the policies of the time have resulted in the mess we have today and the prevalence of poverty, violence and drug use/alcoholism on too many reserves. Instead of making excuses for the past, maybe figure out what you can do to make things better today. Pro Tip: it doesn't involve excusing what happened in the past, or dismissing the very real problems Indigenous have today as their own fault.

*shrugs* So what? I didn't claim that all-countries-everywhere-all-the-time required vaccines. Only that it was not a whole new thing, and requiring proof of vaccination (whether for Covid or Yellow Fever) hardly heralds a slide into communism/fascism/the end-of Canada. And if you are overwrought and imagining monsters under the bed, just admit and move on instead of wasting everyone's time on it. Nobody will think less of you!

1. What is culture, eh? Beliefs and practices - religious or not. ISIS wants everyone under their control to be their version of Muslim, just as Canada wanted everyone under their control to be their version of "white Canadian". Lack of outright murder does not change the basic goal, which is to eliminate other culture, aka beliefs and practices common to that culture. 2. Whether or not they *saw* a culture is irrelevant. 3. How many Indigenous people died as a direct result of the Canadian governments policies? In the residential school it was upwards of 70% of the kids, significantly higher than even poor non-indigenous kids at the time. The idea was, in the words of the person who defined the goal of residential schools "Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill." How is that any different than the goal of ISIS? Whether by murder or forced and violent assimilation, if it's evil when ISIS does it, it was evil when Canada did it. BTW, those who run ISIS think they're working in the best interests of Muslims generally, saving them for Allah; perhaps we should forgive them their methods because their motivation is good, hmmm? Sound ok to you?

From the link: "the principal attitude of successive authorities in Canada to Indigenous people was patronizing, feckless, ill-considered, and generally ineffectual benignity. We have to make up for our mistakes, our condescension, and at times our nastiness," Agreed. "but not for evil intent and particularly not genocidal ambitions of any kind." Disagree. The goal was to eliminate the "savage" and "heathen" practices and beliefs of indigenous people, to make them "white" enough to fit in. If it's evil of ISIS to desire to eliminate the practices and beliefs of anyone not Muslim under their control, it is no less evil of the government to have that goal for indigenous. Unless you think ISIS should be considered patronizing, feckless, ill-considered, and benign, and given a pass on their cruelty towards anyone they consider not Muslim enough to fit in.

From the CDC: The only vaccine classified as "required" by International Health Regulations is the yellow fever vaccination for travel to certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa and tropical South America. Point is, requiring vaccination is not a new, fascist, communist, freedom-limiting plot by the current government.

Vaccinated people tend not to die from the diseases they've gotten vaccinated against. It's the unvaccinated that die. Whether or not the planet can support 30 billion people is an entirely different discussion.

You cannot tell me my experience isn't true. Yours may be different, but that doesn't make me a liar.

Diseases will ultimately take care of that, let people do what they want. There's a reason life expectancy was 40 before modern medicine and vaccines, eh.

Police suspect a hoax after failing to find witnesses who saw a trans woman at the spa, and that Wi Spa claims none of their trans clients had scheduled appointments that day. I also wondered about children being at a spa, guess I wasn't wrong.

Last time I wanted to travel internationally, I had to get certain vaccinations, or I couldn't go. There's really nothing new or unusual about this, other than in the minds of a certain subset of the population.

You do it for everyone else, on and offline, so why not for MH.

Canada's birthrate is below replacement; without immigration, we'll have declining population and that's not optimum for Canada. Even replacement immigration rates would end up in a stagnating economy. There's no indication that well-educated Europeans want to move here in numbers great enough to grow Canada's population so we're kind of stuck with selecting from who wants to come here. But, instead of relying on immigration to grow Canada's population, we should simply support Canadians having children. Huge baby bonuses to allow one parent to stay home and raise the kids, free education up to a Masters, tax-free kids stuff (not just clothes), better mental health support, better support for single parent families. The more Canadian kids we can grind out, the less immigration we'll need. Persuading people that they can afford kids will be the challenge, and would require a lot of government money. Or forcing businesses to pay workers a lot more money.

It's a key part of information; without data, one is simply guessing. Why not both?

Thanks, I appreciate your viewpoint here. 1. I've read the government-supported R&D has is actually better at R&D than capitalist-supported R&D because researchers are not hindered by profit-seeking, but can freely investigate truly innovative ideas. It's not that private R&D can't also be innovative, but that because they have to answer to shareholders, they aren't going to want to stray far from already proven development. This hasn't always been true; at one time, private R&D was very innovative, but over time has become more cautious and less likely to try new things. I've only read the one article (and sadly I couldn't find it to link to), so only putting it out here as another viewpoint, not as 'the truth'. 2. If the government's role is to support business, wouldn't providing enough income to people who are unable to work to buy products/services they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford, also be considered "productive"?

I'm curious how you define "productive" work? Does it include production of both tangible and intangibles? Is a lab assistant to someone to a researcher who never produces anything useful providing "productive work", in your view?

That's bizarre.

So, will troops take it upon themselves to initiate military action against the "woke communists" at some point? Was Jan 6 a harbinger of what's to come?

Law enforcement agencies would disagree with you, but I suppose they're part of the 'woke' too.

I think kids are just generally exempt, aren't they? What about people who are immuno-compromised and must rely on herd protection? I have a card that shows I've had both vaccines. Is this the scary 'vaccine passport'? It was issued by the pharmacy that provided the vaccines, and it seemed to be more or less optional to pick it up. I have no plans to go to the States, regardless.

Here's a news article that provides information I didn't see in the linked articles, namely that the transwoman disrobed in the women's area; knowing this puts the situation in a slightly different light for me. The spa has a policy of trans-inclusiveness; is this policy well known and advertised? If so, women attending should expect to see male genitalia, rather than being undone by such sightings. If the spa did not make sure their inclusive policy was well-known, then the woman who was traumatized by seeing male genitalia has a valid complaint, in my opinion. Either way, I don't see it as the fault of the transwoman, but the responsibility of the spa to ensure everyone knows that male genitalia may be seen. (Or, if there is a male-only area, that female genitalia may be seen.) People attending should be aware, and if they do not agree with that policy, they should enjoy a spa more in line with their comfort level. The anxiety over genitalia is ridiculous, imo. People showing up to scream about pedophiles because a penis was seen is simply hysteria. People have dicks, tits, pussies. Get over it.

2. I've been to nude beaches in Canada and failed to see people with erect penises or any other signs of sexual arousal. The only people I'd suspect had hard-ons were the men who'd sometimes show up, suits and jackets on, and wander down the beach staring. So yeah, it is very possible for people of opposite genders to be sharing the same space, nude, and no sexual activity to be taking place - well, other than among the fully clothed. ? 4a. The stories you read about - even if accurately reported - do not describe the general behavior of transwomen. I've known a few (one of whom was ex-Canadian military); they do not flaunt their penis (if they still have one). What they do want is acceptance; the ability to be seen and treated as a woman. That would include going into a spa. (By the way, it was ultimately decided that estheticians do not have to wax male balls against their will, so in this case 'women's rights' were protected.) 4b. Why not have genderless bathrooms? I'm starting to see that, even in small-town BC; two bathrooms, both open to men/women/handicapped/other. To me, that seems a much cheaper way to solve the issue of who must use which bathroom. And, it's just like home. 5. Accusing all men of being rapists is exactly as overboard as the assumption that pre-surgical transwomen are lying so that they can access female spaces to spy on naked women, or to provoke them with their male genitalia. Referring to transwomen as "some guy who may think is a women" or "male perverts pretending to me females" in virtually all the discussions I've seen shows that underlying belief. Given that it's actually a requirement that a person live as their gender identity prior to having genital surgery, how are transwomen or transmen going to achieve that if they are refused entry, or beat up if they're "caught"? If the transwoman in this story was simply trying to do that, and your wife complained, would you still beat her up? Transpeople are having the same fight as gay people had in the past in Western countries, against the same people using the same arguments. Think about that. Transpeople in Western countries are having the same fight as gay people are having in other countries, against the same conservative, religious mindset and the same arguments. That's just the way human rights are progressed, I guess.

2. Of course you didn't. Which is why I'm not bothering with #1. 3. Yes, because they're as misinformed and unwilling to be informed as you are. 4. You aren't reasonable.

The assertion that every trans woman is actually a man looking to scare/assault women and children is equally as ridiculous. And as much as the conservative media, Christians and others claim they aren't saying that, their hysteria whenever a transwoman is noticed in female spaces tells us what they think.