Zeitgeist

I wish I could take your communist-nihilist opinions seriously, but I don’t. You’re a total MSM Liberal sell-out who will continue to support self-serving elitists.

A better question is, How have wages kept up with the rise in living costs in Canada relative to other countries? The US and many other countries have seen large wage gains at the same time the costs of goods and services have risen, which is inflationary but in a relatively good way. Productivity is also a very important metric, since if wages are rising without adding to the quality and/or quantity of production, that makes businesses poorer and less competitive, driving down wages in the long run. You want high value add products, high wages, competitive growing businesses, modest inflation, and strong purchasing power.

Carney would be another WEF-IMF woke-green globalist suck-up who throws ordinary Canadians under the bus. It’s so bloody obvious you’d have to be a driveling imbecile to think otherwise.

Mark Carney is a totally out of touch elitist who would absolutely fleece the public with more carbon tax insanity to look cool to his IMF and WEF masters. Are you kidding me? My only concern is that I don’t want to see Poilievre water down any policies. I want him to govern from the right. My hope is that he becomes far more conservative once elected, because Canada is fast tracking its way to communist hell.

So on top of the outrageously high 17 cent per litre new carbon tax New Year’s gift from the Liberals, we are seeing a slew of tax hikes adding reasons for talented people who contribute much tax revenue to leave Canada. https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/canada-high-tax-rates-driving-talented-workers-leave-country/wcm/cbea6a67-ddf4-4699-9851-7fd2089f02f6/amp/ The Federal Liberals and the woke communist identity politics activists need to go yesterday.

Below is a clip showing Francis shaking hands with and giving a thumbs up to Serrano, the “artist” who put a crucifix in a jar of his own urine. Catholics cannot avert their eyes anymore.

This clip summarizes conditions at the highest levels of Catholic Church. I never thought I’d see such a radical departure from Church doctrine in my lifetime as I’ve seen in recent years, especially the past six months. I’m not sure that the Pope will be able to exclude the many thousands (millions?) of Catholics questioning his new policies. How ironic that the Pope of “inclusion” is overseeing massive division and exclusion. Under threat of excommunication, clergy seem to be under pressure from secular values like they haven’t been in a long time.

I think we need to ask and answer some key questions about rapid population growth and the fact that it’s entirely driven by high immigration: 1. What are the dangers of such rapid growth and immigration? 2. What will mitigate these dangers and make the most out of our population increase? 3. How are we doing implementing solutions and are they the right ones? My take on the dangers is as follows: - not enough transportation, healthcare, and housing to support the people who are already here, let alone the hundreds of thousands more who are in the pipeline - too much cultural change too soon, causing ethnic, religious, and other cultural tensions - traditional Canadian culture, the existence of which is already doubted, questioned, and under threat of cancellation by new revolutionary ideas and imported value systems, is disappearing - liveable communities that took decades or centuries to build, facing the trial of time, are having their characters radically changed very quickly - new citizens aren’t assimilating but rather sticking to their imported cultural enclaves, undermining national unity and the sense of a common culture, a Canadian culture - high demand for goods and services is driving up costs - crowded, congested, more polluted areas have a lower quality of life - high standard of living is eroded because newcomers are accustomed to lower living standards - democratic rights are weakened because new arrivals came from less democratic, less free places - the cost of social services and the demands on our social safety net are too high Other than lowering immigration and planning more effectively for the people who are already here, I don’t have much to say about solutions. I don’t think we’re doing it right though. The cost of living is too high, especially for housing. Our infrastructure isn’t keeping up. Our cultural values have changed too much for the worse in recent years, though I don’t necessarily blame immigration for this. Perhaps to a degree. We don’t assert our rights or demand better of our politicians. We’ve succumbed to infantilizing governance and radical activist ideologies that are damaging our esteem for Canada and its many very positive aspects, most of which were created by past generations, most of whom were immigrants, and most of whom were from Europe.

Under better leadership both Russia and China would be our allies. We lost an opportunity to really engage Russia in the 90’s. With China we sold out on human rights to make a quick buck.

Exactly. Real conservatives and plain speaking populists are canceled and deplored in Canada. It’s just how it always goes now. People in MSM in Canada don’t understand why independent media like Joe Rogan call Canada communist. Their response, predictably, is to cast him as another deplorable. Y’know, the redneck who supported Bernie Sanders.

The issue is the total dominance and enforcement of one political perspective through government, media, and business, along with the suppression and oppression of any real opposition. That’s what Canada has become. That cartoon and so many like it read like propaganda. One would have to visit places like Cuba to find an analogue.

I agree that we don’t have friends. We have relationships, better and worse, with competitors. You make the mistake of parroting CNN-MSNBC-CBC Democrat talking points that paint Russia as bad and China as good, much as they had tried to say Iran is good and Saudi Arabia is bad. Context is everything. All of these places are at times good and at times bad to degrees, some much better than others. In almost all important wars after the Crimean War Russia was on “our” side. Through the arms race and media influence we toppled the Soviet Union but continued to pretend that Russia was a dark enemy after the Cold War. China was more isolationist but still pushed communism through alliances and funding. Now they run the UN and Africa and are benefiting from lopsided climate treaties and internationalist policies that force economic sanctions on Canadians in the name of fighting climate change. Our reliance on cheap labour and products from overseas has lulled us into a debt-ridden, consumerist facile bubble fostered by Tic Toc and infantilizing and disempowering causes like transhumanism and so-called “anti-colonialism”. Smart people and smart countries have no time for such nonsense. We should be abandoning recent radical ideological trends, so we can stop shooting ourselves in the feet and restore the Judeo-Christian values and the constitutional rights at the roots of our once great country that are essential to a healthy democracy and a thriving economy. The path to prosperity isn’t more euthanasia, sex changes, hard drugs, and belittling of our industries, traditions, and designated identity groups. Canada needs a restoration.

Tell us about your alternatives. Do you mean solar and wind that produce so little energy that we couldn’t operate a developed society or even keep our lights on at night, you know the ones that the oil and gas sector loves because they must be backstopped with natural gas, coal, or oil power generation when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining? Reality dictates that other than the few jurisdictions with abundant hydropower like Quebec and parts of Ontario and B.C., the only way to make up the balance of our energy requirements is through non-renewables. At that point the question is, “Which non-renewables are the least environmentally damaging?” The answer will generally be nuclear and natural gas. The alternative of course is to make people live in tents, reduce their living standards by 80%, and send all manufacturing and most jobs overseas. That’s the radical left carbon tax and regulation plan. Small incentives like tax breaks and modest cap and trade for industry may help spur innovation, but only if the playing field is level and all countries are doing them. Any policies that lower living standards or impoverish people are bad, because only a well educated, prosperous society can afford to give attention to nebulous concepts like “climate science”, and only such a cutting edge society can bring solutions and create wealth from selling technology. Economic consequences will always trump climate concerns, whether you like it or not. No one wants expensive energy and not being able to afford to buy a home, let alone afford rent and healthy food. If a government imposes lower living standards on a population, those with the talent and means to leave the country will do so. The irony is that places without carbon taxes like the US have seen bigger drops in greenhouse gas emissions than Canada through innovation and productivity gains. Canada protects monopolies in the name of maintaining control, but it basically means Canadians pay more for fewer options and our less competitive and innovative big companies are protected by not having to compete. To advance environmentally and in other ways that improve quality of life, we need the widest range of energy options The same applies to housing and other options. We need an abundance mentality Deregulate, unlock supply, let innovation and competition thrive in the freest marketplace we can handle. Maybe also stop bringing in so many people and setting policies that don’t serve the interests of the Canadians who are already here.

Thanks! You have a happy New Year’s as well.

I think the main issue that people of most political stripes and economic status can and should rally around is the idea of subsidiarity: Keep decision-making as local as possible. Whenever too much authority accumulates at the top over how people should live their lives, alienation and oppression ensue. We absolutely must be wary of unaccountable organizations, especially global ones, influencing national and local policy. We must also be very careful not to let “crisis” or “safety” become the justification for suspending or removing constitutional rights. The ends don’t justify the means. I think that the main reason Canadians feel such frustration with government is the sense that the people at the top are out of touch with the grassroots and don’t face the challenges of most Canadians. I’m always wary now of elitist trends/hobbies, because they tend to treat regular people like play armies to be moved around on a battlefield, sacrificed, and pressed into the service of some Cabinet or Politburo central planning dream. It’s fine to have causes, such as climate change and inclusion, but when the policies created to champion these causes lower living standards and alienate people on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., we are creating new problems with no assurance that any significant impact will be made on climate or equal opportunity. There are many revolutionaries who want to destroy the institutions and esteem for the people who built much of Canada: scientific, religious, white, European, etc. There’s a desire to destroy our industries and energy sector in the name of “saving the planet”, but rather than actually making industry cleaner in sustainable ways and creating more opportunity for all, the revolutionaries in government are simply raising the cost of living and shipping industry and jobs overseas. We lose our strengths in the process, feel ashamed of what is good about Canada, and feel like our political and organizational leaders don’t actually have the interests of ordinary Canadians in mind. They use their platforms to make themselves look good internationally and throw Canada under the bus. Of course none of their policies meaningfully reduce climate change. Our inhabitable land simply gets more crowded with immigrants to meet some international UN/WEF target, emissions go up, and per capita growth drops along with our living standards and quality of life. Generally I would call what’s underway an attack on tradition. What are we getting in return? We have the freedom to have government help us kill ourselves, the right to take hard drugs and abuse ourselves in countless ways, yet we have made homes unaffordable for young people, raised the cost of living, and cheapened life by ridiculing those who proclaim that life is sacred and constitutional rights are inalienable. Canada is worse today than it was several years ago, not just financially but politically, socially, and spiritually. Somewhere along the way too many bad influences gained too much power. I hope we can rediscover what made us strong. I’m not sure the country will be as good as it was in the past in my remaining years. There’s a dark, anti-human nihilism in the movement to reduce our carbon footprints. There’s a divisiveness in the equity movement and identity politics. There’s a dangerous overlap of biotech, government, surveillance, and automated data collection in the mission to “keep us safe”. The growing influence of A.I., if left unchecked, adds to human vulnerability.

Wow, unprecedented:

For those with eyes to see, more deeply troubling moves:

I’ll tell you what. As a gesture of friendship, you can have my menstruation kit. I don’t mean borrow either. It’s yours to keep. : )

We don’t even have free tampons for girls in high school. Who decided on behalf of all taxpayers that they should fund tampon kits for men’s washrooms? Can we stop pretending that this is sensible government spending?

Of course this is what’s happening. Shame and erasure of the most central elements of our humanity are what’s happening: women, men, the family unit, reality itself. In some cases people simply have to accept that they can’t have their wishes fulfilled, because the price is too high, and I don’t mean financially. There are reasons for longstanding social mores and reasons why societies that break these rules fail. Whether or not one personally likes or follows the natural order of things doesn’t change the fact that nature exists and there are consequences from ignoring it. Respecting longstanding and essential rights doesn’t make people bigots or excuse harassment. It means that not all wants can be accommodated in a healthy society.

My posts are careful and clear. I have nothing to add or change. Feel free to create your own content.

I said what I said.

Single person washrooms solve this. If we’re going to decide that as a society there’s a physical threshold past which one changes sex under the law, shouldn’t that threshold be one in which menstruation is no longer possible, as menstruation is a defining characteristic of women between certain ages? If a woman is serious about becoming a man, wouldn’t she get a hysterectomy? I’m not advocating for hysterectomies or sex changes. I’m saying that if we’re going to claim that sex change is possible under the law, with all attendant rights of the newly assigned gender, one must commit and transition in ways that aren’t superficial. That’s assuming that one can transition to such an essential degree. This procedure is heavily dependent on pharmaceuticals and surgical technology. It raises big ethical questions that detransitioners are demonstrating in their seriously impacted lives. These are not little moves. Similarly, it’s not a little move for a man to slap on makeup, declare himself a woman, and enter women’s bathrooms, change rooms, and sports. There must be thresholds that recognize the significance of such life choices before rights are granted. From a medical ethics perspective, let alone a religious one, altering one’s natural body so radically is quite an act, one that even science may not be able to abide no matter how developed our biotech becomes. The belief in a distinction between biological sex and gender has opened up questions and contradictions that require compromises that may be impossible for some to make without tyrannical policy and enforcement. A high threshold must be reached in transition before the rights of the assumed gender can be recognized. It will still be rather arbitrary and opposed by many, but it would make a more persuasive case. Be careful what you wish for, because along with recognizing the rights of a technologically modified gender, we would open the door to recognizing all manner of technological entities. That’s the slippery slope of transgender, that it’s one aspect of transhumanism. We enter the era of cyborgs and androids, all demanding rights and all acquiring abilities that could put natural humans well down the dominance hierarchy pecking order in society. Don’t believe me? Watch what unfolds in coming decades. You won’t know what hit you. Without inserting guardrails soon, there may be no going back. It could be very dystopian to say the least.

On .5 I would say that state television sets the standards as much as or in keeping with the CRTC. It’s only about the content, not the infrastructure.

Those are interesting factoids and I understand a certain amount of protectionism around culture. My concern is the ideological/activist capture of our media and institutions. It’s a threat to democracy when governments lock in certain perspectives through media and various funding envelopes/programs. I understand that some of this has always happened. We see it in health and education all the time. It’s disconcerting to see such heavy editorializing and activism coming from news organizations that purport to deliver news with journalistic integrity and neutrality. Basically if you’re going to be an activist mouthpiece for one end of the political spectrum, be up front about it and don’t pretend to be presenting news rather than opinion. My guess is that if the CBC or TorStar editorial boards had to answer to a multi-party committee before cameras about various positions on topics like anti-semitism or the Freedom Convoy, it would be shocking to the public just how ideological these organizations have become and how closely tied the boards are to governments. It would also be shocking to see how beholden governments and the supposedly free press have become to some very well-funded (often by taxpayers) and well-organized activist groups. The public didn’t sign off on this, but if the media only relied on private money, consumers could simply support the media they like. When sketchy media is backstopped financially by governments, we have influence creep and a skewing of free markets in favour of lousy product the public doesn’t want. Of course it’s done in the name of culture, the insinuation being that “we know what’s best for you”, whether or not it’s something you would choose to pay for or support.