GrittyLeftist

Thanks for the story, well told. I don't think "speaking English"="privilege" but I do think speaking English is a form of privilege. I think I can best explain by making two short lists of some of the things I had as a child that most of the kids in my class didn't: My dad made a lot of money, so my stepmom could afford to stay home. I was read to every night, and owned dozens of books before I could read any of them. Seeing my Dad play sports made me want to play sports, so I did, and became very athletic, and of the 30ish kids in my class, only 1 of them is now in better health than I. By the time I was 8, I owned at least a hundred hardcover non-fiction books (this was before the internet). If I asked a question, my parents did their honest best to answer it, even if it was the thousandth question of the day. If they couldn't, they bought me a book that could. For instance, when I asked where babies came from I was given a popup book that clearly showed the process of sex, how it works, what the sex organs looked like, how they worked, how eggs become fetuses become babies, and how they are born. My parents also owned bookshelves, and I read from them as I pleased, encountering ideas well beyond my years without supervision, oversight or censorship. By the time I was 8, I had already read hundreds of books, most of them non-fiction. I could go on, but you get the idea - I represent an enormous amount of accumulated advantage, and it was given to me for free by my parents, because I'm their son and they love me. This is not to say that "being privileged" is the same as "being given everything for free." I spent my formative years as an acceptable target of public violence. When I fought back I was punished, because you're not supposed to hit people, you're supposed to tell the teacher. When I told the teachers, they looked me in the eye and told me I deserved it. When I didn't fight back the other kid wasn't punished, because I shouldn't have said or did whatever got them mad, which emboldened more of them to attack me. I got more and more angry and started winning all my fights, because we were all the same size but I was way more angry, so instead of fighting one person every day I got to fight six people at once every day. I stood and fought enough times to learn that being right, being angry, being fast, being smart, didn't matter. What mattered was being outnumbered, being helpless, being alone. By the time I was 8, I had already been spat on hundreds of times. As with the bit on privilege, this is only early childhood stuff, I could go on but why bother? I don't want sympathy, I want to paint two contrasting pictures of myself and say, "both of these pictures accurately describe my early childhood," so that I can go on to make a larger point about what it means to be "privileged." When Fox News Liberals talk about "privilege" they make it out to mean "everything has been handed to me on a silver plate and I've never had to work for anything or suffer and I don't deserve anything I've accomplished so I'm a bad person who should feel bad and probably give away a bunch of my stuff too." When reasonable adults talk about privilege, we're saying "I represent a higher than average amount of accumulated advantage, and the process by which society decides who gets advantage and who doesn't is unjust, and it would be great it we could make that process fairer." Hope this is helpful.

Sure, friend. COVID doesn't have legs. If its human hosts do not travel, it does not get the chance to infect new humans. Therefore, temporarily halting the travel of humans will temporarily halt the spread of the virus, as has happened after every lockdown so far. Kind of discouraging to believe that anyone is unaware of these extremely basic and well-proven facts in September of 2021. Begging the question is when a person makes an argument that relies on using its own conclusion as a premise. I think the fallacy you may be looking for would be false dilemna, which is when someone makes an argument that mistakenly limits the options available. While we're educating each other, here's one you can consider, if you want to: Good faith: in human interactions, is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives people the right to "life," which is defined as the "right to be alive." The Charter of Rights and Freedoms also gives people the right to freely cross provincial and federal borders. We are in a situation where guaranteeing the Charter rights of individuals to travel deprives individuals all over the country of their Charter right to life. We are forced to choose, then, from three courses: 1)Temporarily suspend Charter rights to travel until the pandemic is under control, 2)Temporarily suspend Charter rights to life until the pandemic is under control, 3)Avoid facing this dilemna head on, knowing that every moment of prevarication increases the body count, the duration of the pandemic, the loss of social cohesion and the economic devastation wrought by the pandemic. So far we have chosen option 3.

Not many people are willing to say this out loud any more. FWIW, I agree that that is what the Mounties were created for.

I've never heard the Inquisition called 'Roman' before, but I had heard it called 'Spanish'. *googles* Neat! It's its own sub-Inquisition! Sometimes I'm amazed at the things I don't know. Roman Inquisition - Wikipedia Maybe an organization that enabled and protected child molesters while supplying them with a steady stream of children to abuse (Catholic Church sexual abuse cases - Wikipedia), in addition to the aforementioned barbaric, savage atrocities, such as publicly torturing people to death for the "crime" of not believing a particular piece of dogma, doesn't have enough moral authority to say who is or isn't a "heathen." Just a thought. Didn't actually suggest Indigenous culture should be admired or encouraged, just stated that people are free to like or dislike it but to claim it doesn't exist is false.

Some good points made here. Did some googling, according to Transgender people and suicide - Centre for Suicide Prevention (suicideinfo.ca) 1 in 3 Trans youth attempt suicide every year. Not sure how they are defining who is "trans" - are these people who have had the operation, people who want the operation, people who are confused about their gender, all of the above, something else entirely? More research needed. For sure it would cause division and stress within a family, I could see that. ...Aaaaaand have now done enough googling to know there is a big old rabbit hole here. I'm not going down it at the moment but wow there's a lot to understand and unpack if anyone wants to put the time in. Instead, I'll just own the fact that I don't have an informed opinion on this matter

Agree 100%, although "gets off" is maybe a little unfair. What alternative action do you propose that Canada should have taken? Definitely agree with a lot of this. I would say it's more that Canada is well aware that whatever "friendship" we have with the US takes a backseat to business interests. Again, what alternative do we have? If there were a "tell the yanks to F right off option" that was possible, effective, and not ruinous, I would be very interested in knowing what it is. Funny, I'd actually put that the other way around - America is Canada's closest and oldest enemy. Maybe that's just semantics. Canada definitely is trying to make it more of a "friendship" than it really is - people don't want to bomb their friends. Sucking up to the bully is not really admirable behaviour, but if the bully has demonstrated a willingness to kill millions of civilians to get what they want on several occasions across several decades, at some point in time geopolitical realities intrude on abstract morality. You are correct that American corporations are exploiting our resources, but we get to keep some of the money that is made, get to keep our own government, and get to keep a fig leaf to hide our loss of sovereignty behind - lots of countries would happily trade struggles with us. The best way to make sure America doesn't bomb you is to make sure they own a bunch of your infrastructure. Don't get me wrong, this is not my preferred situation, it's just that I don't know how to improve it.

School districts have sued parents for not using the gender address their child preferred? That seem pretty outrageous. I just did some googling but couldn't find anything about that. Can you please provide some evidence to support this claim? I'm not really sure how to base this in science. I mean, the question seems to be "should people be allowed to choose their own gender?" No wait, maybe this question is, "should our schools teach kids that gender can be changed?" I dunno, like I said I don't have a dog in this fight. Science can't tell us what we should value. I could see something where maybe you have to reach the age of majority before you can decide what your gender is? That's something the courts could resolve. Lol "fire truck as a gender" thanks for the chuckle. FWIW, if people can change gender, it would seem to follow that they can change back if they choose (assuming we have the science for that). Good point about "maybe this is a young child being confused." Maybe this is something that should wait for the age of majority?

Thanks, now I get it!

Oops - I saw the Flyers and forgot this. No I don't think that's okay. I also think the left has to have some kind of answer for "look what Communism did in Russia and China, why would you want to institute it here?" For me, that argument would be "Russia and China did not have Communism, they had brutal authoritarian governments that pretended to be Communist." Your mileage may vary and I respect that.

Thanks! Very flattering. Zeitgeist is really doing a great job of making me rethink assumptions - I've started to make claims several times and then thought, "wait, am I actually *sure* of that?" and then gone and researched them and, whoopsie, I was wrong! Super useful to me and I'm very grateful because there are only a couple of people I can safely have these conversations with IRL and I already know what they'll say. Reification (Marxism) - Wikipedia I had forgotten about that! Wow, reification is super abstract. I'm gonna have to think about that for a while, maybe watch some videos. I like your approach. I have a maxim I try to remember - "When your opponent offers you two targets, strike at a third. When your opponents offers you two options, create a third. If you ever think you are doing what your opponent expects, do something else instead." In this context, my opponent is... I dunno, "the establishment?" Wish I could upvote this more than once. That may be the most concise, fair, and devastating critique of Canadian politics I've ever heard in two short sentences.

I definitely acknowledge that most of the ideas I raised are implausible and farfetched by today's standards. That said, we currently have federal, provincial and municipal laws, seems adding "reserve" laws would be an extension on what we already have. We have federal, provincial, and in some cases municipal Police forces, adding a "reserve" force would just be an extension of this. Haha we already have a two-tier justice system - those who can afford the best legal help get one standard of justice, and the rest of us get another one. If cops are ignoring smuggling going through cross-border reserves, they aren't doing their jobs and should be replaced by cops who will do their jobs. Police corruption is a serious problem that I wish society took more seriously The problems you describe about resource development are very real. Maybe we could gain their consent by offering them a share of the benefits? I dunno. Maybe they would dig in their heels and not budge on anything and nothing would get done. Maybe it would be chaos. The difficulty you describe is real. That said, maybe Canada should have considered this before choosing to break its own laws. According to Canadian law, unceded land is the sovereign territory of whichever people had it before Canada arrived. You are correct that it is problematic to try to figure out, today, who owned which land a couple of hundred years ago. Once again, Canada should have considered this before choosing to break the law.

Good thing they had the Europeans to teach them not to murder, war with other tribes (List of conflicts in Europe - Wikipedia), or engage in any "barbaric" practices, especially cannibalism (Human cannibalism - Wikipedia). 'A form of cannibalism popular in early modern Europe was the consumption of body parts or blood for medical purposes. This practice was at its height during the 17th century, although as late as the second half of the 19th century some peasants attending an execution are recorded to have "rushed forward and scraped the ground with their hands that they might collect some of the bloody earth, which they subsequently crammed in their mouth, in hope that they might thus get rid of their disease."' European priests were good people who would never torture people to death for doubting their religion (Inquisition - Wikipedia), or burn women and girls at the stake because they're witches (Witch-hunt - Wikipedia). Europeans would also never treat, say, the Irish, as though they were sub-human (Anti-Irish sentiment - Wikipedia). Europeans would certainly never practice genocide (The Holocaust - Wikipedia). The Indigenous peoples of the world were just simple, savage heathens until the Europeans came along and civilized them (Colonialism - Wikipedia). The fact that some modern Indigenous people have come to identify with those who civilized them is proof that this was ethical and enlightened - when has anyone ever come to identify with someone who was trying to harm them (Stockholm syndrome - Wikipedia)?

Haha nobody's asked me my political affiliations yet! I actually think I have a lot of learning to do here. If I approach this with the attitude "I'm the one who knows the things worth knowing so I have to enlighten all these poor disadvantaged peons who weren't taught how reason works," I'm probably going to (deservedly) come across as a hypocritical, arrogant, pedantic asshole, and I don't think anyone will want to engage with me. I sure wouldn't. I'm trying to learn how to communicate with people who see the world differently. I think teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin. I've made some mistakes and I'll make more, but I'll put in a reasonable effort to learn from them and hopefully won't make the same mistake too many times. I never intended to do this, but I accidentally grew into a person who can't ignore people - I can only abandon them. Even if the person I am engaging with totally blows me off, the post will still be there, and someone else may come along later and find ideas worth considering. That said, this is the internet and trolls are a thing. Yes I am Canadian. No I am not a Communist. If I found a magic wand lying around, I would (currently) use it to create a collectivist society - everyone is in a group of 11 people, and each group has 1 person who is in a higher group of 11, all the way to the top, the highest group of 11 does not have a "leader." All decisions are made democratically and people rise or fall through a combination of ability, time served, and acts of dedication/sacrifice to the greater good. Poverty below a certain threshold would not be allowed, otherwise people would not have the education and leisure time necessary to fulfill their civic duties. Wealth above a certain threshold would similarly be prohibited, otherwise a few privileged individuals would have the means to undermine the success of society. I think that would make me an Anarchist of some type, or maybe a Collectivist? I'm unsure if that's even a recognized ideology yet. Until I find a magic wand, I am a Social Democrat - I want to work within the bounds of Capitalism using democracy to advocate for specific socialistic policies that I think will bring about a fairer, better world for most people. I used to be a very angry, disillusioned and isolated radical leftist - basically, I focused on problems in society but had no one to share my conclusions with, so I "stewed in my own juices" for years and became quite misanthropic (dislike and distrust of humans). I was lucky enough to meet people who were patient enough to endure my angry rants and they challenged me to focus on solutions instead of problems, and that was a big change for me. Gradually, over the course of... geez, 15 years or so now?... I've put a lot of hard work in to revisit my assumptions and to try to view myself from many different perspectives. I could not have gone from the person I was then to the person I am now in one decision, or one conversation. I don't expect to be able to magically change anyone else, but I do believe that if people have better information, they will make better decisions. Oh, and I don't think Flyers were a hockey team in the 1970s. Hockey is defined by the rules of the game, and when the rules are not being followed, it stops being hockey IMO. I am an active user on the oilersnation and lowetide forums, but have been posting a lot less lately as I'm starting to see the NHL as a kayfabe league and other people are getting tired of me pointing it out. As I see it, either the games are fair or they aren't, and either the rules are followed or they aren't. Why should I care about the outcome of an unfair match? This is super awkward for me because I've also been an Oilers fan since I was 3 years old. Normally I would be super excited to watch Conner McDavid in the playoffs, now I just don't view playoff hockey as even being hockey. In what other sport would they start ignoring rules, and keeping which rules are being ignored secret, as soon as the playoffs come around? I wish the NHL would go out of business so they would be replaced by a halfway competent League.

Honestly, I don't really care about this all that much. I think people should be free to do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't harm someone else or conflict with someone else's higher priority freedom (ie the right to "life" ought to supersede the right to "travel" IMO). If someone else wants to be a different gender, how does that harm anyone? If gender becomes a fashion statement, once again, who is harmed? Are anyone's rights being violated? None that I am aware of. JMO, I don't really care about this particular issue as much as the philosophical ideas behind it. As I think about it, though, parents really like grandkids (as a general rule). If their children freely choose not to have children, those parents don't get grandkids. Maybe this is where a lot of the anger and anxiety comes from? I dunno, just a thought. Just did a bit of googling, turns out that "the legal concept of parental rights generally refers to a parent's right to make decision regarding a child's education, health care, and religion, among other things." So parents could definitely argue that their right to make decisions regarding a child's education is being compromised (of course, parents could have been arguing this ever since we instituted public schools with curriculums). That's interesting to me. Personally, I tend to have more sympathy for children than parents, but that's a just a value judgement. Again, I ain't got no dogs in this fight, but it looks like both sides have legal and philosophical arguments they can make to support their claims. Gonna be interesting to see how this shakes out over the coming decades.