Zeitgeist

As opposed to jumping off a bridge. Crashing a jumbo jet is mostly homocidal.

Anyone can try to kill themselves without legal consequences. That’s very different from a taxpayer-funded physician showing up with an apparatus that pumps fluid into your body to paralyze you and cause you to drown to death. It’s bad enough that our healthcare system provides this collaborative murder to adults of sound mind. To do it for mentally ill people who may be experiencing situational depression or may not know how to access or be refusing to access treatments for whatever reason, is simply a far too slippery slope into a careless killing complex that resorts to killing as an easy, cheap way out of treating people with illness, which is supposed to be the purpose of healthcare. It marks a decline in healthcare and morality. Such rights to MAID are only expanded, never curtailed.

Certain protections should never be up for debate. There must be firm legal protections for the mentally ill so that no government can vote to let people who are not of sound mind get government assistance and approval to commit suicide. It’s simply medically unethical. This is why we have constitutional protections for minorities, to prevent the tyranny of the majority from deciding disabled people should be euthanized like happened in Nazi Germany. Any court that signs off on MAID for the mentally ill is morally reprehensible. If such people have the power of life and death over Canadians and make decisions like that, we should be very worried about the direction of the country and our so-called healthcare system. What happened to medical ethics?

We spend half the year freezing in Canada waiting for this hyped climate change to warm up the joint. Stop making promises you can’t keep.

Approximate Population Trends: USA ████████▆▅▄▃▃ Canada ███████▅▄▃▂▂ France ██████▅▄▃▃▃ Germany █████▅▄▃▂▂ Italy █████▅▄▂▂▁ OECD Avg ███████▅▄▃▂ Key demographic patterns: Southern Europe and East Asia show the steepest projected contractions. Countries with higher immigration (Canada, U.S., U.K.) remain more stable. Most of the decline comes from: fertility rates below replacement, aging populations, and shrinking working-age cohorts. For example: Italy’s fertility rate has hovered around 1.2 children per woman. Japan’s has remained around 1.2–1.3 for years. Canada’s population growth is projected to depend heavily on immigration because fertility is also well below replacement. Another important point is that even where total population remains stable, the age structure changes dramatically: far more retirees, fewer workers per retiree, and slower economic/labour-force growth. By late century, some projections suggest: nearly 40% of populations in parts of Europe and East Asia could be over 65, while school-age populations shrink substantially. These declines have been driven by factors such as: delayed marriage and childbirth, urbanization, women’s educational and career opportunities, housing and childcare costs, changing cultural norms, lower desired family size, and economic uncertainty Approximate Population Totals Without Immigration Country 2025 2050 2075 2100 Canada 41M ~34M ~26M ~20M United States 347M ~315M ~270M ~225M Israel 10M ~15M ~18M ~23M Japan 124M ~105M ~82M ~58M What This Shows Canada Without immigration, Canada would likely face one of the steepest long-term contractions in the developed world because: fertility is very low (~1.3), the population is aging rapidly, and natural increase is already close to zero in some regions. United States The U.S. declines more slowly because: fertility is somewhat higher, population structure is younger, and regional variation is large. Israel Israel remains a major outlier: fertility remains above replacement, strong natural increase continues, and population growth persists even without immigration. Japan Japan’s trajectory changes relatively little because: immigration is already limited, demographic decline is driven mainly by low births and aging. The Underlying Demographic Mechanism Once fertility stays below replacement level (2.1) for long periods: each generation becomes smaller, median age rises, deaths eventually exceed births, and population contraction accelerates. This is sometimes called a demographic inversion or population momentum decline. By late century, without immigration: many Western societies would have dramatically older populations, smaller school-age cohorts, and much smaller labour forces. This is why immigration has become structurally important for countries such as Canada and, increasingly, the United States.

This is the big memo Canada doesn’t seem to have gotten and it’s the main reason Trump got elected and still has a lot of support despite all the trade nonsense.

I think it depends on Muslims’ country of origin and form of Islam. I know a fair amount about the sects, pillars, etc. Once upon a time many Islamic countries were quite tolerant, e.g. the Moors in Spain (Isabella’s Spanish Inquisition was brutal by comparison), and during our “Dark Ages” the Islamic world was advancing in math, science, astronomy, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should primarily be bringing in people from Christian European countries, not because the people are white, but because of the cultural similarities to Canada’s founding peoples, but the reality is that the West itself is very confused and self-loathing right now. Our hyper progressive ideas are what are causing us to scrap our own traditions in the name of fighting colonialism, the patriarchy, white privilege, gender normativity, and heterosexuality. These are the same left wing lunatics encouraging mass immigration from the most dysfunctional countries. They’re the ones showing up at pro Palestinian rallies with rainbow flags. These lunatics are the grandchildren of many Judeo-Christian families that were well-functioning and growing 50 years ago. See the problem? Yes there are many problems among Muslin immigrants, but we have other problems at the centre of our own modern Western civilization. The reality is that the Muslms and Indigenous are having kids while the grandkiddies of Christians and Jews are trying to figure out what their genders are and who they love.

I don’t know that I see the Muslims in general as the source of our cultural woes. Some are, sure, but they’re also the last bulwark against the LGBTQ2S+ indoctrination that has taken firm hold within our education systems and governments. I have no issues with people having the freedom to choose these lifestyles, but pushing them with public symbols and taxpayer money as our birth rates tank is probably a worse problem than some of our Muslim immigration, because at least many Muslims understand that the traditional family is the cornerstone of a growing civilization. Many people who call themselves Christian and Jewish seem to have forgotten this.

The decision whether to attack a country of around 95 million people that’s geographically far larger than Iraq is not as simple as assessing whether you have more military power than that trouble-making country can resist. Israel could do that on its own. The reason it didn’t, despite multiple small attacks from Iran-funded Hezbollah over decades is because Iran is a major civilization that, if unified, can create serious long term problems. Not even the dumbest, most evil fools would actually attempt to mass murder 95 million people, most of whom are just civilians trying to live ordinary lives. The condemnation of the world would be too much to manage, so everyone understands that massive attacks on Iran aren’t on, particularly after the international fallout from Gaza, and especially since creating lasting control over a country of that size would require a land invasion that no Western nation could stomach. The US therefore tried to decapitate its leaders and destroy its military assets, hoping enough political resistance would step up among Iranians to finish the job. Well the US-Israeli airstrikes killed about 3000 people and the regime persists. It’s the Afghanistan problem: No one can tell who the enemies are. Your friends during the day are putting IEDs under your vehicles at night. The Iranians consider this a war crime, are demanding reparations, and they retain control of the Strait. They are choking off trade and help is required to relieve that trade by opening up the Strat. Well no one wants to get drawn into a war over which they were given zero input, because the message from Washington continues to be, “We do everything and you’re useless. We’ll do what we want without consulting allies.” Who wants to get wrapped up with that? At this point the US has to salvage the original goal of somehow eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, but I don’t know how possible that is or how easy it is to verify that. None of the posters here know, I imagine. The new big problem is how to reopen the Strait, which has become Iran’s leverage in any negotiations. Allies could help reopen the Strait , but probably only after under a ceasefire. Until trade flows resume, we get to enjoy massive inflation.

I don’t know that attacking Iran was the way to go on this. It’s not just about Canada. Multilateral diplomacy and military intervention is almost always better than acting alone or with one other country (Israel). I don’t think anyone here has all the answers on this, but I think this mission was a gamble the US didn’t have to take. It’s hard to know without a lot more information than anyone here has. I hope it gets resolved soon.

The only conclusion I draw from this is that US defence leadership made the foolish decision to go it alone and now they can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Canada should refine its own oil and ensure that we have affordable domestic supply. Why should any country be trying to suck up to Trump, a leader who has basically screwed up well functioning supply chains, abused allies, and driven up inflation?

If Iran was Venezuela and it was as simple as removing the supreme leadership, then it would’ve been a safer bet. Consulting allies would’ve helped both to ensure that other countries could help keep the strait open and to give the US greater moral leverage in that part of the world. As it stands, there’s no removal of the regime and the strait remains under Iranian control. Clearly there’s no support for a ground invasion, so all we really got for this gambit is a cut in the oil supply, costlier shipping, and much higher gas prices. I understand that no one has a crystal ball, but this situation doesn’t achieve the goals you mentioned, nor is it an assurance that Iran will stop trying to make weapons grade nukes.

Are you saying that the US’s attack on Iran was sensible?

It should be 2%. The US overspends on its military. Canada is spending more on its military than it has in 5 decades at least. It’s already past spending 2%. Just because Trump keeps moving the goalposts doesn’t mean we should take the bait. We should all have learned by now that it doesn’t matter what Canada does on trade, military spending, or anything else, the name of the game right now in Washington is squeezing other countries, including allies. While there will areas where we still need to make improvements, the amounts we’re spending on aircraft and ships is significant, especially since so much damage seems to be done by drones now on the cheap. If Canada isn’t going to be part of the conversation with the Pentagon, the Trump administration can’t complain about countries’ hesitation to support American moves in Iran or anywhere else. Besides, as Trump says, the US can do everything on its own and doesn’t need the help of smaller powers.

Australia manages. We’ll be fine..