GrittyLeftist
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Posts posted by GrittyLeftist
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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.
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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.
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20 hours ago, Dougie93 said:
let the Mounties deal with the indigenous, that's what Mounties are for, since 1885
Not many people are willing to say this out loud any more. FWIW, I agree that that is what the Mounties were created for.
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2 hours ago, blackbird said:
Of course the Holy Roman Inquisition which lasted for about 400 years was a great evil that killed millions of people. There have been many evils done in the name of Christianity or religion; however this does not negate the truth of the Bible or gospel which was taken to heathen nations. There has been much savagery in various parts of world. It is nonsense to suggest aboriginal culture is somehow something to be admired or encouraged, without knowing what all it entails.
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.
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2 hours ago, blackbird said:
It can cause a lot of harm by spreading this false ideology of choosing gender to children, who become very conflicted. It can destroy their lives, make it impossible to have a family and a normal life. They could end up committing suicide as many do. Some may opt to seek escape from the mess with alcohol or drugs and O. D. on fentanyl. It also causes division and stress to families who have children who pursue changing their gender. There is a father in jail now who refuses to accept the authorities and judge's direction to keep silent about his daughter transitioning to a boy. People into that sort of thing are doing their best to spread their lifestyle and changing gender to other young people and society at large. It also can cost the medical system a lot of money as more people seek psychiatric care and drugs or sex change surgery. Teaching that to kids in school is the just the beginning of an ongoing disaster.
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
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2 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
...and Canada gets off benefiting from the Americans dropping bombs on people, including defence contracts, military procurements, NATO interventions, mining around the world, oil services contracts, etc. A U.S. demise means that Canada and other nations will no longer have the big stick they have relied on to enforce the "rules based order", and if this is inevitable what Canada should have done may be quite different.
Agree 100%, although "gets off" is maybe a little unfair. What alternative action do you propose that Canada should have taken?
QuoteIt is no longer true and Canada's own government(s) have recognized the erosion of relevance and significance on the world stage. Canada has less influence at the UN and may be paying a price internationally because of the close alignment (our buddy) with American policies and interventions (e.g. Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Haiti, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Saudi/Yemen, etc.). Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and other America's nations are not viewed as so closely aligned with the Americans...recently (and ironically), Canada still hasn't learned that the U.S. is not Canada's buddy where U.S. interests are concerned.
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.
QuoteCanada is America's closest and oldest...enemy. Risks and threats are assessed from Canada just like any other nation, including post 9/11 risks. Methinks it is Canada that wants and needs the relationship to be more amicable and bilateral than it really is. Canadian governments use words like "harmonizing" and "collaborating" despite the influence and power imbalance tilting mostly the American way.
American corporations are already exploiting Canadian resources, and Canada's governments beg them to do it (Foreign Direct Investment). Canada lacks the population size, market size, and domestic capital to exploit resources on a national scale, depending on investment from and exports to the U.S. and other nations. Canada is far more dependent on exports (30% of GDP) than either China (20%) or the United States (13%).
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.
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2 hours ago, Army Guy said:
Don't you think that if anyone could tell , do, act upon or believe what ever they want that it would cause total confusion. While at home you should have that freedom, but outside in public, here is a few problems, take the gender issue for instance, there has been cases of fathers being taken to court by the school districts for not calling his son, daughter as he wanted..., the case is in front of the justice system right now, proof that one can be harmed by the law.. or it has consqences....at one time it was thought the world was flat and we could sail off the edge, until science proved other wise... so why is this topic any different why have we disregarded any requirement to have it based in science or facts? We seem to have shit tones of topics that we either let slip by as being harmless, or just don't have the time or energy to prove them wrong with facts, and in our laws....like anti vaxers and much more...
Second, we used to have everything taught in our school based on facts or proven by science not only is gender issues being taught in school , but it has a become fact in our laws, but has not been based on science or facts...It is getting crazy out there, and we don't need to encourage any more crazy...
Yes by me preferring to be a fire truck as a gender is harmless, until someone goes to court, or the same person grows tired of being called a fire truck and wants to change it when they grow up, or more to the point having parents approve surgical operations to change gender, when science has already said the human brain is not fully developed until 20 or 25 not sure of the exact age...and maybe this is all just a young child being confused...So harm can be done, both by the law and surgically.
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?
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3 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:
You missed my point, which is that Canada isn’t all about any single group. We all compromise a bit because of the multiplier effect and cross-pollination of ideas that comes from the dialogue and combined talents of all individuals and groups. The result, hopefully, is a strong, innovative, generous, and harmonious country that can stand on its own two feet.
Thanks, now I get it!
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4 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:
Do you think it's ok for leftists to ignore the crimes of Stalin ?
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.
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8 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:
Zeitgeist and Gritty have embarked on that rare thing: an interesting, informed and edifying discussion on here. Unfortunately Canada's relationship with its first peoples is barely related to the topic so maybe I can offer something to tie it back.
Marxism has this concept called 'reification', which I roughly understand to be the process of turning abstractions into something real. For example, money is an abstraction of exchange between people that has turned into something thought to be 'real'.
The tie-in is that the problems you mention could be solved if we do what the 80s corporate types called "thinking out of the box". That is, to realize that legalities, ownership, symbols of power are meaningless contrivances that should be discarded the moment they fail to serve the common good. So, "ceding of land" or even ownership and custodianship are "in the box" ideas that, themselves, could stand in the way of truly creative problem solving.
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?"
QuoteInstead we have fake "we care about everybody" Liberals and fake "we are smart and pragmatic" Conservatives who are basically the same. They are especially similar in their limited vision.
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.
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17 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:
I won’t go point by point, but a few main issues: Indigenous policing on reserves is already prevalent. You can’t have a different set of criminal laws on reserves unless it becomes illegal to leave reserves. A two-tier justice system is a recipe for disaster. We could have a whole conversation about the additional fishing, hunting, and other liberties Indigenous enjoy. A lot of looking the other way happens on smuggling through cross-border reserves.
If you allow reserves to veto all resource and national or provincial infrastructure projects, many if not most national and provincial rail, highway, energy, mineral, and environmental protection projects won’t happen. There are good reasons why interprovincial projects are subject to federal approval rather than provincial and band council, because otherwise the “Not in my backyard” contingent would make it impossible to have viable trade routes, resource development, manufacturing, and employment. It would basically turn Canada into a completely uncompetitive backwater. We saw quite successful attempts to do this over LNG and other pipelines in B.C. Canada struggles to utilize her own resources and distribute the benefits to her own peoples, Indigenous included.
Again, you have said unceded many times but haven’t identified who has the right or legal title to cede the lands. In most cases surveyors and settlers entered and settled territories because there were no apparent claimants. I agree that where a legitimate land claim can be made, it’s the prerogative of the claimant to take their evidence to court, but you seem to assume that there are homeless people sitting on sidelines waiting to get their territory back. Establishing title that far back is hard to prove and becomes more dubious the more claimants come forward and the farther back in time one has to reach for evidence.
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. -
2 hours ago, blackbird said:
Dancing around in painted faces and war costumes seems harmless on the surface but it is really a retrogressive harkening back to a heathen culture. Let's be honest. Many aboriginal cultures around the world involved murder, warring with neighbouring tribes, and various barbaric practices including cannibalism. That's what missionaries put their lives at risk to travel to remote jungles in Borneo, Indonesia, Africa and other places to take the message of Jesus Christ and the gospel of salvation for the aboriginal people. Today we have modern man dressed in suits, living in fancy homes, and driving expensive cars who do not believe the gospel and prefer to support aboriginals returning to their heathen ceremonies and politicians supporting them. Not all aboriginals agree with this and there are some who have been saved out of the darkness and embraced the gospel. An example is the Tribal Trails Christian broadcast out of Saskatchewan.
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)?
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1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:
You have a lot of educating to do on here, if you choose to.
People feel that pro-business governments are 'Communist' because they have narrow cognitive capacity. That's ok, but you might want to also investigate the 'ignore' feature.
Also - are you Canadian ? And Communist ?
Do you think it's ok for leftists to ignore the crimes of Stalin ? What about the 1970s Philadelphia Flyers ?
Hm ?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.
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4 minutes ago, blackbird said:
I don't support my tax dollars being used to teach kids they can choose whatever sexual identity they wish. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) is enforced by the BC government department of education and is a perverse lie. The only possible way around this travesty may be for parents to home school their children.
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.
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17 hours ago, WestCanMan said:
In the real world, where we live, almost all FN people in Canada people have benefitted from the events of post 1492.
The stone age was brutal. It was dangerous, cold, dark, boring and there was no real culture to speak of. They didn't even have music. If you think I'm wrong then check your spotify account.
People might fantasize that they'd want to live in a stone age society on Vancouver Island but the reality is that's bullshit.
I'm not counting grievances by the FN people against Canada as anything with merit. The balance sheet favours them now, greatly.
I'm especially not entertaining any conversations that sound like "Canadians are the worst ever, they're committing genocide", etc. The historical perspective that I brought into this argument is important. Humans are basically really shitty, Canadians - less so.
I hope I never "benefit" from Canada like the FN have.
"Didn't even have music?" I've watched performances by drummers, singers and dancers. I've seen totem poles and canoes from pre- and post-contact. I've seen pictures of wampum belts, war paints and face masks. If you don't like their culture, fine, that's about your subjective aesthetic and political preferences. Claiming that they have "no real culture to speak of" is clearly false, and implies that you think you are the judge of what is, and isn't, culture.
The court cases are real, whether you choose to acknowledge them or not, and their consequences will also be real. Ignoring the law doesn't make it go away, and a price deferred is a price increased.
I'm genuinely sorry if all you've heard me say is, "Canadians are the worst ever, they're committing genocide." I'll have a couple people I know go through this thread and let me know where they think I could have communicated better, maybe I can do a better job next time.
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20 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:
When you strip out the pure wool Québécois, Eastern fishermen, BC tree huggers, Alberta resource barons, Indigenous North and thousands of distinct groups, recent isolationist immigrants, and all other forms of exceptionalism, who speaks for Canada?
This is a really interesting question. Why do we need to remove a bunch of Canadians from the equation in order to figure out who speaks for Canada? Why would any of those people choose to remain in a country that needs to silence them in order to let the "real Canadians" have their say?
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20 hours ago, taxme said:
The way things are going on in communist Canada today, the Charter of Rights is nothing more than a piece of ass wipe paper. Our rights and freedoms are being violated every day because of this Covid 1984 hoax. All the Covid restrictions in place today are in violation of the COR, but yet, ask our comrade politicians if they really care about our rights and freedoms. To your face your welfare bum recipients will say yes to our rights and freedoms and that they must be protected. But behind your backs you get the communist up your ass COR anti-rights and freedoms finger. Hello?
Covid equals communism.
FREE THE FACE. ABOLISH THE MASK.
The next time someone asks why they should have to be taxed to pay for the education of someone else's child, show them this post, and ask if they want their child to be outvoted by people with this level of understanding.
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On 5/18/2021 at 5:18 PM, Zeitgeist said:
My whole point is that we shouldn’t create policies that create winners and losers in a zero-sum game. Favouritism is wrong. Merit is what counts, with the understanding that the strong help out those who can’t help themselves. That’s a different position from collecting money from taxpayers and redistributing it and certain benefits to people based on skin colour or ethnicity.
When the government declared that making and selling crack was illegal, they chose winners and losers. When the government instituted a minimum wage, there were winners and losers. When the government said you need a degree in order to be a doctor, there were winners and losers. When the government put in common sense environmental regulations, or created income tax, or brought in fishing licenses, or made it legal for wealthy Canadians to incorporate themselves to avoid paying taxes, or set the rules around lobbyists so that the super rich have the ear of our government on a daily basis while the voters have the ear of the government ever four years, they picked winners and losers. Just about everything the government does ends up influencing who gets to be wealthy. For the government to refrain from it entirely, government would have to not exist. If government didn't exist, what would fill the void it left behind? Where are our roads, fire departments, schools, etc going to come from?
FWIW, indigenous people don't get benefits because of their skin colour. There are white-passing Status Indians and there are folks who look native but aren't Status. That whole schmozzle is super complicated and doesn't really boil down to "you are X race therefore you get a handout," it's more about "the government has tried to avoid culpability for certain crimes for decades and it's currently arbitrarily giving some people free money because it prefers that outcome to the one where it actually answer for its crimes under its own laws."
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20 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
And still, Canada has purposely sought to benefit from American economic and military power as a matter of policy to preserve a "rules based order". Chrystia Freeland explained this obvious reality to Parliament in 2017:
Accordingly, Canada is far less prepared for a future world without a "rules based order" and purposeful American isolationism. Unlike depending on the Americans after Britain's decline, there is nobody else to run to...again.
I agree with your interpretation, but I'm not sure what else Canada should have done. Given that we can't beat them in a fight, even an unfair, arbitrary "rules based order" is preferable because it gives us an avenue to dispute things such as softwood lumber duties, however ineffectually, without getting thousands of pounds of bombs dropped on us. Americans really get off on dropping bombs on people who can't fight back, it's kind of their thing.
Basically, if America is our buddy we are secure from any kind of invasion - America won't allow another military power to exist in the Western Hemisphere if they can help it. This is why we dismantled quite formidable merchant navies after both world wars. If we want to be America's buddy, we have to trade with them at a moderate disadvantage. However, we have a big advantage over much of the rest of the world at figuring out how to navigate their so-called "rules based order" because we have so many cultural similarities, which allows us to try to project "soft power" as mediators on the world stage. Canada loves to see itself as the quiet voice of reason in the room when world leaders gather. Is this actually true? Probably not, but maybe every once in a while, and it makes a useful propaganda point.
If America is not our buddy things get a lot dicier. Now we're worried about everything from their Air Force dropping bombs on us to their CIA assassinating our elected officials so that fascistic juntas can be installed, allowing their corporations to exploit our resources for pennies on the dollar, just like happened to many countries in Latin America. I have no trouble believing that the media apparatus that convinced Americans Iraq was behind 9/11 and had WMD, and convinced Americans to bail out the banks that caused the financial crash, and convinced Americans not to hold anyone to account for either of those debacles, would be able to convince Americans that Canada is the enemy. You play ball with America, or they stick the bat up your...
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4 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:
Who is claiming the land? Such claimants have to prove continuous habitation on the land. What’s the statute of limitations on that? In other words, how many generations and centuries back are fair game for someone today to reference? For example, my town was largely settled by United Empire Loyalists. None of their descendants are clamouring for land that belonged to great great great great grandparents. Anyway, the courts decide land claims based on evidence.
I just think it’s extreme privilege that certain racially pure groups get to live in a parallel universe where little is expected by the people who foot the bill for health, education, and much of the reserve infrastructure, namely non-Indigenous taxpayers. I’d love a status card. I’d feel like a Roman citizen. It certainly discourages intermarriage with non-Indigenous. Anyway we’re stuck with this welfare program and it’s protected by the racist Indian Act. Either people are Canadian and subject to the same rights and freedoms and taxation or they are not, yet Indigenous are a special category of Canadian with extra privileges. Only they can change the Indian Act and reserve system or else they can claim colonial interference. Let’s be honest, who wants to give up getting free stuff? There’s always the choice to leave the reserve and join the work slaves.
I admire the reserves that have found ways to use their resources to be more self-sufficient and are well managed. For the unsustainable reserves, I wish that Indigenous would choose give their people a way out, as the current system incentivizes unsustainable settlements. Some real injustices took place at residential schools. It was misguided to discourage the use of native language and cultural practices. It’s wrong to forcibly remove children from parents. Where that happened of course there’s good reason for sympathy. We have also read the stories about the expulsion of the Acadiens by the English and the brutality of the Six Nations against the Hurons. How far do you want to go back? The majority of Canadians are either first, second or third generation immigrants who weren’t here when such events took place. How much should they pay the distant descendants of early contact Indigenous? Land claims will continue. Healing will continue. Everyone will need to move on because the biggest challenges ahead impact all of humanity. The pandemic is an example of this, and the vaccines were developed in “colonial” countries.
RE: The questions raised about legal details: I don't know all the specifics of every treaty in the country. Those are valid questions but I don't know the answer. I did research that three-part argument though, I am not a lawyer but I am reasonable confident that it is correct. Law is hard.
I agree that the Indian Act is racist, that the concept of Status is problematic at best, and that much of the money that is allocated to "help" them ends up being too often wasted or embezzled. I confess to being frustrated at the enormous gap between the amount of money spent and the results obtained - normally Canadians are a fairly sensible people. When has Canada ever wasted money on such a scale on anything else? That said, if native people have so much wealth, why don't we see them among the wealthy? A moderately ambitious, capable adult could leverage the benefits you describe into a pretty cushy life, and their kid could leverage more benefit, and so on and so on. They've been in Canada for, what, eight generations? That's a lot of time to force multiply. Surely there ought to be at least one or two big-R Rich families, or some kind of "reserve as corporation" cornering the market on, I don't know, all the fish in X lake or something.
Anyways, I do agree that we've wasted a lot of money, and I don't want to throw more good money after bad. Problem is the solution I see is politically impossible. I think we will need to eventually sit down and negotiate some kind of "meech lake accord for FN people." Sweet, salty Christ, what a mess that would be! We'd be negotiating with hundreds of elected Chiefs representing dozens of peoples, hundreds of hereditary Chiefs trying to do the same, all of them with different amounts of leverage, different grievances and demands, and a whole bunch of rivalries with each other. Not to mention public sentiment, elected politicians and the Senate while enduring the meddling of the media and other corporations and foreign governments trying to influence the outcome with an eye to helping or hindering Canada's resource development and geopolitical situation. No reason to think this would end better than the real Meech Lake, and it could end a lot worse. As far as I can tell, the reason Canada continues to waste money the way it does is because it can't think of anything else to do. It's like knowingly doing a bad thing because it's the least bad of the alternatives you believe you have. That said, if this did someday happen here are a few ideas that might be raised:
Maybe make it so that instead of needing to know English and French to have an important government job, you should instead need to know English or French and any other officially recognized Canadian language, including non-indigenous ones such as Mandarin (otherwise we're just fighting this battle all over again in fifty years over THEIR language rights).
Create a new language department in school. Students may choose to learn any officially recognized language from Cree to Cantonese by zoom teaching, or French in person.
Keep federal and provincial flags below native ones on unceded land.
Create a new division of Police modelled on New Zealand where there's a regular cop and a Maori working as a pair and train them specifically for on-reserve and inner-city work focused on reducing harm and recidivism instead of punishing offenders.
Create a volunteer group of specially trained people (part bouncer, part therapist, part guidance counsellor, part drill sergeant, etc) that will live in prison, bear witness to what goes on, and do their best to advocate for the well-being of prisoners.
Allow indigenous groups autonomy over justice on unceded land or on reserves (that's a spicy one)
Mandate that the Senate must include an indigenous quota and create a bunch of new MPs of reserves so that indigenous people are electing their own federal politicians.
Give on-reserve schools the same per-student funding that the average Canadian gets (this will be the average of all provinces).
Give one hour per day off-reserve and three hours per day on-reserve of class time in public schools to an as-yet-nonexistent group of indigenous teachers to teach an as-yet-nonexistent history that fairly tells both sides of the story. No big deal, amirite?
Set national standards for child care and elder care and increase funding for both.
Accept that Canadian law gives indigenous people on unceded land a veto over any resource development.
Anyways, you kind of get the idea. Some of this could be talked about today, some of it would be political suicide to bring up, so even the Greens know not to raise these ideas. There is a way forward that isn't just throwing money onto the fire, but it's going to be a difficult, stressful, expensive mess with an uncontrollable outcome and nobody really believes we'll be able to create a consensus that will make the effort worthwhile, so in the meanwhile we keep shoveling money on the fire. Did you bring some smokies? You should bring smokies. This sucker's gonna be burning for a while. Unless a Wayne Gretzky of politics suddenly shows up and skates to where the justice is going, instead of where the justice is. I guess that could happen. Fingers crossed!
Finally, you asked "how far back do you want to go?" My answer is: until the damage has been healed. I don't see a way to achieve justice in my lifetime. Maybe if someone finds a magic wand lying around I guess.
Also I was off regarding the extent of unceded lands. If you go to https://imgur.com/Jdby1aM you can see that it is smaller than I said - most of BC and the Yukon are unceded, a bit of the NWT is unceded, a smidge of Ontario and a third of Quebec and nearly all of the Maritimes are unceded. Still, that's a lot of very valuable land.
Okay, it's been fun everyone but I gotta go watch the Oilers, who are not about to wet the bed, nor will their goalie drop a big squidgy turd, thank you for asking. If there are any Jets fans here, all the best, and I sure hope I end up being the one saying "better you than me."
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21 hours ago, WestCanMan said:
If you really think that the net result of bringing them from the stone age to the space age just boils down to: "we gave them science", that just displays an astonishing level of ignorance on your part.
How many little girls would choose to live the actual FN lifestyle GL? If you offered families $100,000 to live one full winter in northern Canada, just like the natives did pre-1492, not even 1% of them could hack it. Life here was beyond brutal.
The FN have it pretty good by any stretch of the imagination now GL.
Think for a second about the fact that in 2021 a single hereditary chief (FYI there are 'hereditary chiefs' in Canada that are as white as King George was, to the naked eye) from one small band has the power to kibosh a pipeline that benefits entire provinces and moves strategic resources around the country. That's almost idiotic, but it's the power that they wield.
I'm sure you're well aware that oil is an extremely critical resource, both militarily and for the economy. So, in effect, one single person has the power to put our country in jeopardy, and there's no requirement for them to show logic or reason. They just have veto power. BOOM!
The FN also get tax breaks, free money, they can hunt and fish year round, and they get many other benefits that other Canadians don't.
I'm not saying that life is perfect for them, but it's more than just 'fair'.
They should be thankful that it was Europeans that came here instead of middle easterners. If it was Mohammed's own armies that came here then the FN men would have had the option of beheading or conversion, and if they chose beheading then their wives and children would have been forced into rape slavery. The cultural mix here now would be like modern-day Pakistan:
We'd have to wipe out every single one of the FN people twenty times over to equal the human rights record of Pakistan (they've done 2 massive genocides since WWII, killing many millions of people), and yet the only two bad countries on earth - according to leftists - are Canada and Israel. Forgive me if I don't take leftists seriously. You're not making a great case here.
And FWIW, you still forgot to mention where the event that you spoke of occurred. I'm curious.
So none of this actually touches on the premises or the conclusion of that argument. Even if we grant that all of your claims and conclusions are true, this:
1)Ever since 1763, it has been the law in Canada that Aboriginal title can only be extinguished by negotiating treaties between the Crown and whichever group claims the land.
2)Canada broke this law.
3)Therefore, Canada has a legal obligation to accept justice, under its own laws.
is still true as well. That said, you touch on a lot of ideas that come up commonly among reasonable adults while discussing indigenous issues, so I'm going to condense them into standard form and then address them, because they're important and relevant. This requires rephrasing them - it is likely that you will disagree with how I understand some of your premises or your conclusion and I certainly welcome correction.
My understanding of your argument, in standard form, is in regular text.
Replies are in italics.
1)Indigenous people would rather have the benefits of modern society than have the existence they had before contact.
Maybe? People have freely chosen to live in lots of strange ways for many reasons - religious ascetics would deliberately choose to inflict starvation and/or whip themselves in many different societies, including Europe. Several groups of monks took vows of poverty or silence. There have been warrior societies who would freely choose to die young in glorious combat rather than old and safe in a bed, such as the Vikings. In Canada, some Law graduates turn their back on more lucrative opportunities in order to work for causes that pay them less, such as legal aid or treaty rights. People sometimes choose irrational things.
It could also be argued that people should be free to make those choices. Indigenous people did not choose modern society, it was chosen for them.
2)Indigenous people are better off having the benefits of modern society than they were before contact.
Better off, according to whom? One person might look at the city of Vancouver and say, "What a beautiful city!" Another person might look at Vancouver and say, "How beautiful this place would be if there weren't a city built on top of it!" One person might point at the miracle of the modern hospital. Another would point at the horror of the juxtaposition of billionaires and homeless people. I'm not passing judgement, just pointing out that people who value different things will see the same society in different ways, and those values can't be objectively evaluated. Therefore, one person or group can't factually say what another person or group should or shouldn't value. (We do this all the time, but that's because it's necessary - some values don't play nice with other values).
3)Indigenous people don't have the skills necessary to live the way they did before contact.
If this is the case, it is the direct result of crimes that Canada has committed against them. Hard to raise your kids to know how to live on the land when the government won't let you raise your kids.
4)Indigenous people wield real political power in Canada. For instance, in 2021 a single hereditary chief from one small band vetoed a pipeline that benefits entire provinces and moves strategic resources around the country.
There was more than one person on that blockade - the assertion that construction was halted by the actions of one single person is highly dubious. Extralegal Police violence, delivered by militarized RCMP members, was used to clear those protesters and ensure construction of that pipeline, which is proceeding as we speak.
5)Indigenous people enjoy many benefits to being Canadian, including tax breaks, year round hunting, and more.
True, and if we were arguing whether Colonialism was justified this would be relevant. If we are arguing over whether Canada has broken its own laws, it is not.
6)Other peoples would have done worse things than Canadians did.
"Someone else would have broken the law worse than I did," is not an ideal legal defense. If this were about the morality of colonialism, this premise would have merit. If this is about whether Canada has broken its own laws or not, this point is not relevant, although I guess a judge might show some leniency in sentencing based on it?
7)Indigenous people are better off for the results of Canada's actions instead of the more severe atrocities that have been historically inflicted by other peoples.
Yikes. Don't get me wrong, I know what you mean, and you're right, but still... yikes. I mean, we could justify basically anything this way, right?
8)Therefore, Colonialism is justified.
This is a completely separate conclusion than the one I was getting at. I am pretty sure you will feel as though I just made a bunch of strawman arguments, rephrasing your points in less valid terms then attacking my less valid points as though they were yours, and I apologize for that. I'm sure this must not be what you mean to say, but when I read what you wrote as though it were an assignment in practical logic class, that is the way I break it down. Maybe the reason for our disconnect is that we are arguing for separate conclusions? Or maybe I'm not seeing something obvious, that's a thing that happens sometimes.
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4 hours ago, Shady said:
Complete nonsense. You have no right to not die of a plague. If you wish to not risk yourself, stay home. You have no right to have others do the same to keep you safe. Take personal responsibility and keep yourself safe. Regardless, covid is not the plague. The plague killed 40% of Europe’s population. Covid has killed 0.0001%. Learn what rights are. Also, the reason for covid restrictions was to not overwhelm hospitals, not keep everybody “safe”.
Not only was that argument not "complete nonsense," it contained a factual claim that can be verified, if you are willing to put the effort in.
Lots of people can't afford to stay home until everyone is vaccinated, and it's disingenuous to pretend to be unaware of that. This is a very ablist solution - those who have wealth will be fine, those who lack it will serve to incubate the next disease so that we'll be able to make a new vaccine to sell to the wealthy. Neoliberalism marches on, turning every disruption of the status quo into a way to profit the wealthy at the expense of us all.
Personal responsibility does not work for an infectious disease (plague was a shorter way to say that, but your criticism of it is valid) because the gains made by the responsible many are squandered by the actions of the irresponsible few. With money, if you work hard and make good decisions, you can hope you'll succeed, even if your neighbour does not work hard or make good decisions. In fact, it's good for you if your neighbour doesn't work hard or make good decisions, because financial success is a zero-sum game. With infectious diseases, the hard work and good decisions you made can be undone by your neighbour if they do not also put in hard work and make good decisions. Health is not a zero-sum game.
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19 hours ago, WestCanMan said:
The woke have declared that you have to identify people as a product of their skin colour now.
It's awkward and stupid, but that's 2021.
Idea - what if "wokeness" is Neoliberalism trying to co-opt the far left? Belong to groups and movements by being seen purchasing certain things and not purchasing certain other things, learn what slogans to shout but don't learn any of the philosophical arguments underpinning them or engage with other people's ideas in good faith, accept a simplistic worldview where you always get to feel morally superior to the people you disagree with, and be sure not to deviate from the standards that are required in order to belong to the group. It's the co-option of punk all over again - a movement that started out with people making their own clothing, which genuinely did threaten established corporate interests, and ended up with people spending several hundred dollars at stores owned by those exact same corporate interests so they could make a certain fashion statement/be part of a particular "in" crowd.
That's all of the top of my head though so I'd definitely welcome any thoughts on it.
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2 hours ago, Dougie93 said:
Canada does perhaps, but the provinces within the Confederation don't actually
under Section 33 the Notwithstanding Clause, the provinces have the constitutional right to opt out
That's a really, really interesting point I've never heard made. I wonder why none of them have done it? Hmmm, did a bit of googling, I think maybe the Notwithstanding Clause only applies to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Indian Act was already on the books then? Google says that the NC applies to "the Charter" but doesn't explicitly say more and I'm house sitting for someone with terrible internet so I don't have the patience to go digging further right now. Just posting is tedious AF.
Understanding Privilege and Critical Race Theory
in Moral & Ethical Issues
Posted
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.