I am Groot

And this is part of what I see often from the Left. The attitude seems to be everything was fine here until the stupid rightists started to get all riled up by the American Trumptards on issues like drag queens reading free love sonnets to children and teachers telling 7-year-olds they might actually be a different gender, and complaining about DEI initiatives and immigration and statues being pulled down. And the weird thing is so many on the Left seem to believe that! What they are not quite getting is it was the introduction of all this stuff by progressives passing on what their American counterparts were doing that started to incite conservatives. NOT what we're hearing from the Americans. I personally look at almost no American media. It's too boring and too full of garbage. The essence of conservatism is to conserve. If conservatives see things that seem to be eroding our culture, values, and common beliefs and mocking our history that's going to naturally rile them up. And the response from the Left, when conservatives started complaining, was - unprintable in this forum - and laden with utter contempt, derision and smugness. Surprisingly, this only served to anger conservatives more! Who would have thunk it!? Right. There's an argument to be made there. But the counter-argument is that the continued erosion of everything conservatives believe in at the hands of progressives importing American far-left garbage like DEI and critical race theory and all the utter trash about de-colonialism is not going to stop until it's confronted. Being nice has accomplished absolutely zero. Instead, the ideological situation we saw in universities has now moved down to the K-12 level as well. And our own founding leaders are all referred to by various pejorative names because their social beliefs don't match up to what's considered politically correct in 2023. You think there AREN'T climate alarmists? I regularly come across people online (and one idi0t niece) who think the world is going to be burned to a crisp within forty years. I read people who think civilization is going to collapse in their lifetimes. There's a ton of climate alarmists. And 'woke' is a phrase progressives selected for themselves to describe how enlightened they are! It's not some nasty word the right thought up to insult them. Like chud. I have sad news for you. The scientific method is considered a part of white supremacy. You won't find ME railing against it. And I believe in equality because my culture has a rock-solid belief in justice. What I don't believe in is equity, which is NOT equality. I also fully support secularism, so I'm not sure where you're getting your beliefs in my beliefs from. PS. Progress is good. I like progress. But not all change is progress just because someone says it's so. Why is it a rant? My first OP was one paragraph. The second major post was simply a response to MH. What makes either of those resemble a rant? Did either sound angry to you? They don't read that way to me.

Are you really going to continue this pose of the thoughtful, mature poster educating the rest of us on non-partisan discussion when you habitually dismiss so many people as 'chuds'?

Someone who operates on logic and common sense. And can read a map. The distance between NATO member Latvia and Moscow is a lot shorter. Bullshit. Horseshit. None of this is about Russia fearing anything. It's about Putin's desire to pull the old Soviet Union back together again, by hook or by crook. An independent nation with its own cultural heritage. A nation whose integrity was guaranteed by Putin. But I guess Putin's word isn't worth much. Spare me your alt-right garbage. There are a hundred times more nazis in Russia than there ever were in Ukraine. And the war crimes committed by Russia outnumber anything done by Ukraine a thousandfold. Stop with the bullshit about you knowing anything about international law. You don't have a clue and everyone here knows it.

Yes, I do. I can see all the videos of destroyed apartment buildings, markets, restaurants, schools and such. I can listen to people I trust who have been there, like Douglas Murray, and reported on it. It's been covered extensively for the last year in almost every media large and small, left and right. Not one disagrees. Though perhaps if you go far enough out onto the fringes you'll find some. If I have no idea about that then I have no idea about anything. Nor does anyone else. Let me get this straight. Ukraine has been firing at Russian troops hundreds of miles away from apartment buildings and markets and restaurants? Is that the position you'll be standing behind? By thinking they were an independent country, you mean? Those of us who have an interest in the preservation of Western society and its international norms and order, who don't want a return to the bad old days when vicious, murdering dictators use their armies to attack their neighbors and steal territory DO care what happens to Ukraine. And by the way, if anything is serving to give China second thoughts about the wisdom of attacking Taiwan it's Russia's quagmire in Ukraine. NATO is not a 'hostile military alliance'. If we were we would have already crushed the Russians.

Will you hate them less, then, and just wave away their supposed crimes without interest?

Except these are not experts. They're lawyers who were appointed mostly for their diversity points. What exactly makes them experts in health, society, economics, or wise government policy?

The division is being sown internally but added to and worsened by Russia, China, North Korea, Iran etc. Without the initial divisions they'd be hard-pressed to make much of it. Posting and saying outrageous things gets dismissed except when so many other known people are posting and saying outrageous things. We're supposed to believe climate alarmists who tell us the world is going to burn and civilization collapse unless we close down our industries and live in caves. So why not this when we've already got lots of insight into where we are and where we're going? We have academics who are growing fond of using the phrase 'so-called Canada' to dismiss the legitimacy of this country. These aren't the fringe extremists but people employed in our universities to teach young people and who are filling public roles in various climate and activist groups like Greenpeace. We have actual doctors, allegedly highly intelligent proposing that the training of new doctors should be focused not around medical expertise but social justice. These are the products of an education system which has lost its way and become enamored of ideas which are antithetical to Western cultural values, who dismiss Western cultural values, including the scientific method, who dismiss the legitimacy of western countries. And who indoctrinate young people in similar beliefs. As Abraham Lincoln once said "The culture of the schoolroom in one generation will be the culture of government in the next" I would suggest that he's referring to us discovering huge numbers of people in our societies no longer subscribe to common values and beliefs. When people can bring themselves to wave away the savages sacking civilized towns, gleefully raping, torturing and slaughtering everyone in sight, and instead bring up social justice complaints it's fair to question if our societies are becoming so divided we no longer have a sense of shared values, identity or beliefs. And how long do such societies last when subjected to stress? As for open. Please. We're open here because there's no moderator. Other online place are far more prone to censorship, to say nothing of daring to voice an opinion in public that others don't like, as a teacher in New York found out the other day when a social media picture of her at a demo was discovered and students are her woke school rioted, demanding her firing. And how open is society on other subjects, like transgenderism, for one example? Where a school board head can shut down and then persecute a teacher for daring to question library books. Oh, of course, we have. It's only just been slowly becoming possible lately. Not long ago voicing any dissension to the groupthink mentality around identity issues could destroy you. Look at the furor and fury directed at the likes of JK Rowling, and then imagine what happens to authors with much less prominence, wealth, and power. And Stockwell Day still hasn't emerged from wherever he was driven off to when he dared to voice an opinion that contradicted the prevailing media insistence that Canada was systemically racist. Did any politician dare to challenge the imported belief that police were gunning down black people left and right due to racism? Nope. And they still haven't. There's huge disagreement about the ever-growing amount of immigrants coming into Canada. Not a single politician in English Canada at any level has dared to call for it to be cut out of fear of being similarly attacked by the progressive media. Remember that power lifter who objected to a man calling himself a woman and crushing all the womens records? Banned from the sport she practiced her whole life for 2 years. Cancelled. Erased. Even her exhibit at a freaking museum was erased! And as Saad remarked, when we've reached the point where government grants are awarded due to diversity points rather than scientific merit, and when people are hired, promoted and fired on the basis of race, religion and identity rather than merit, it's hard to see how we can not continue to become more divided. After all, it's not just the Russians and Chinese doing it. Our own government is, too.

LOL You seriously want me to prove that larger populations have more political influence in a democracy?

A. You're taking Hamas word for the casualties. I have my doubts. B. You're acting like a typical innocent, naive Western never exposed to danger or violence who can't accept it's sometimes necessary. I see videos of cops arresting violent men all the time. And when they have to actually hit them, be it with batons or fist, regardless of how obviously violent the suspect is or how much he's struggling you can hear the gasps and cries of protest from the silly people watching. Like somehow, that's not supposed to happen. Sorry, but it's sometimes necessary. War is sometimes necessary too. And war in an urban environment where the enemy is heavily armed, suicidal, and dug in deep is inevitably going to result in a lot of civilian casualties. There's no way around it. No way to avoid it. Israel has dumped millions of leaflets to direct civilians away from the areas they're going to attack, made thousands of phone calls, tens of thousands, to Palestinians in the areas they intend to bomb to tell them to move. I don't think the allies ever bothered with this during WW2. Do you? These are not called war crimes. Only silly westerners with no knowledge or understanding of war call it that. Asking me if I support killing children is inane. I support destroying Hamas. There's no real path to peace without it. And Hamas is incrementally destroying the people, especially the children of Gaza, indoctrinating them into a harsh, unforgiving Islamist doctrine that will wind up ruining their lives. I support Israel doing what needs to be done to free them of that, even if it means civilian casualties.

And you figure it's okay to let them slaughter and rape people as long as they're Jews. There. We're both reducing each other's positions to hyperbolic stupidity.

They grow in numbers and then they get politically active and then they change the laws to suit themselves.

Gad Saad kind of echoes the speech Konstantin Kisin made at Arc. It's very much worth watching. Both take the position that the way the West, particularly the anglosphere is feeding on itself in an orgy of self-loathing is weakening us all against the growing number of ruthless foreign warlords who are taking advantage of it and doing their best to undermine the central, uniting cultural and historical norms, values, and ethos of Western society. It is not beyond the pale to suggest that in fifty years China will be essentially ruling most of the world through proxies if not directly, as the West rots from within. On Oct. 21, I posted a message on my X feed that went viral. It has garnered nearly 11 million views over the past month. I reproduce it here: “You are not going to like this tweet so turn away if you are likely to be triggered: I am a very optimistic person; I am a fighter for Western values and liberties; I am a dogged defender of science, reason, and common sense. I must say though that I am unsure that the West can recover from its multifront civilizational suicide. Yes, I’ve talked about these issues for decades and wrote a book about it (The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense) but the past few weeks have crystallized the extent to which the problem has become intractable. It will be a long and ultimately bloody demise and the West will be the first society in recorded history to fully self-implode due to its parasitic ideological rapture. It is a gargantuan Greek tragedy that will shape the future of humanity. This is not hyperbole. Your grandchildren will pay a very high price for your ‘progressive’ arrogance rooted in the pursuit of Unicornia that only exists in the recesses of deeply flawed parasitized minds.” Gad Saad: The progressive diversity cult is killing the West | National Post

What I get from this is you really don't care who comes in or what their beliefs are.

Resolutions that intend to destroy Israel. I'm sure you pay equal attention, btw, to the million Jews driven out of their homes in Arab countries nearby. Unlike most of the Palestinians, they really WERE driven out. The majority of the Palestinians just fled on their own because of the fighting.

But they're in charge. All decisions are made by them. I'm sure you can find a few 'secular progressive' people but they have no authority, no power, no influence. Half the population of the territories are under 18. They've been brought up since birth to hate. Without contradiction. It's in their schoolbooks, their television, their newspapers, and in the words of their parents. Secular progressives? LOL. Damned few on the ground.

There are none still alive in Gaza. You realize also that Hamas has controlled the school curriculum for 17 years, right? And it teaches that martyrdom is the highest calling. There are videos of kindergarten graduates dressed as suicide bombers and terrorists chanting anti-Israeli songs. Nor is the curriculum under the PA in the West Bank much better. Palestinians are being raised almost from birth to hate, loathe and despise Jews and Israelis. You continue to see things through the eyes of Western culture and values. You don't understand people who are religious so discount it.

They don't need a damned thing if they're the supreme court. There is no appeal to their decision. If they say it's unconstitutional to wear flannel because reasons that's that. They can interpret every element of the charter any damned way they want to. They can twist themselves into pretzels trying to come up with a reason why extending parole for a mass murderer is somehow 'cruel and unusual' when the definition of 'cruel and unusual' requires a decision so over the top Canadians find it shocking. Gross disproportionality is a high threshold. A measure must be more than “merely excessive” or disproportionate: it must “outrage our society’s sense of decency” such that Canadians would find it “abhorrent or intolerable” Do you think any substantial number of Canadians found this law abhorrent or intolerable?"

From what I'm given to understand from people like Douglas Murray perhaps 15%-20% of Muslims can be described as Islamists. And we make no effort whatsoever to determine who is and who isn't when considering possible immigrants. We now have about two million Muslims in Canada, pretty much all of them immigrants and their kids. If we take the smaller number that means about 300,000 are Islamists. And what I see lately is them starting to flex their newfound and still-growing muscles. So 'Let's bring in more' doesn't sound to me like a good plan. Even they admit it. There was no other reason to get dressed up like this and go out unless you were in an old-time burlesque show of which there were damned few.

For me, drag queens have always been associated in popular culture with prostitution and dangerous and perverse sexual activities. To have them reading to children is just, frankly bizarre, and would have utterly horrified people even 25 years ago. Drag queens aren't trying to pretend to be women. They're not dressing like women. Drag queens are fetishizing this incredibly sexual, overblown image of women. It's as realistic as a blow-up doll, if those still exist.

Often enough, they just substitute their own judgment for that of the politicians, not based on law but on ideology. The Bissonnette decision is a prime example of that.

Came across this earlier and it's an example of how this is creeping into western democracies in other places too. Apparently the word juristocracy is becoming well known in legal circles. Over the past few decades, an unprecedented amount of power has been transferred from representative institutions to judiciaries, transforming national and supranational courts into full-blooded political and decision-making bodies — and giving rise to a new type of political regime altogether: what some have called juristocracy. As legal scholar Ran Hirschl wrote as far back as 2004, from matters of national security to macroeconomics, “courts have become crucial for dealing with the most fundamental questions a democratic polity can contemplate”. The view that “nothing falls beyond the purview of judicial review”, as Aharon Barak, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, said, has become widely accepted. As a result, it has become standard practice for core political decisions relating to the very essence of public life — such as immigration policy — to be taken by courts and judges. Questions that ought to be resolved through public deliberation in the political sphere are increasingly being settled behind closed doors by a self-selecting judiciary elite. Power has been delegated away from elected bodies and towards technocratic institutions — not just courts but also quasi-autonomous administrative bodies within the state, as well as supranational political-economic institutions such as the European Union. This process of judicialisation has disrupted the equilibrium between the various branches of government, and the fundamental principle of the separation of powers, transforming judiciaries into de facto legislators, at the expense of democratic deliberation. https://unherd.com/2023/11/britain-is-ruled-by-a-judicial-elite/

Who says they'll stand up for you if you need them? Take the case of Trinity Western University. At one point, the Supreme Court DID stand up for them. When the British Columbia College of Teachers tried to refuse to recognize the graduates from their teaching college because the college didn't recognize gay marriage the court said that religious freedom overrode their delicate sensibilities. But that was over twenty years ago and the court has moved a lot further to the Left since then. So when the same University protested at the Ontario law society refusing to recognize graduates for the very same reason the Supreme Court said "Drop dead, you Christian bigots" and sided with the Ontario Law Society. No one questioned the legal training of their students, of course. They just didn't like that they were Christians. But hey, fundamentalist Muslims are fine! We're pretty sure they love gay people! Although, of course, we don't ask. That would be rude! And probably racist!

I'm pretty sure you're well aware that our judges are not appointed nor promoted because of their great legal acumen. There are probably thousands of lawyers in Canada with more than any judge on the supreme court.

Maybe he was thinking of Moonlight Graham

I doubt there is a sliver of space between Hardner's social policy views and those of Jagmeet Singh.