I am Groot

The deficit when Reagan took over was $74 billion. When he left office it was $153 billion.

For some reason the system seems to now be joining multiple replies to separate people into one reply. is this something put in place on purpose?

Of all the goofy expressions to come into American politics the 'unborn' has to be way up high on the list. LOL Uhm... I consider myself fairly rational. I think Biden and Trump are both failures. But of the two Trump was certainly the worst.

Please would you explain to this dumb foreigner why it is the US spends less of its GDP on social programs than almost everyone else in the OECD but can't somehow afford them? I had previously thought the US was a rich country. Wokeness and MAGA are both terms for groups of brainless simpletons.

No. What the court said was that the person defamed did not have the right to launch a defamation suit because as a blasphemer he was now fair game for whatever anyone wanted to say about him.

Virtue signaling support for it IS an ideological stance.

This was not hate speech. They even said it wasn't hate speech. The people whose hate speech IS protected are the ones who don't like what he said and insult and accuse him. They won't have to worry about proving what they say in a court because they're immune.

Those who dare to transgress society's new speech codes and offend protected members of identity group should have no access to lawsuits when people defame them, the supreme court said in its recent ruling. Your right to protection ends when you dare to question or criticize transgenderism. At that point people can call you any names they want and do their best to cancel you with truths or falsehood and they should be immune from lawsuits. The right to accuse someone of promoting hatred against a vulnerable minority group deserves protection from defamation lawsuits, the Supreme Court ruled 6-1 on Friday. Borrowing a term from First Amendment cases in the United States – “counterspeech” – the court stressed the value of expression that seeks to defend these groups from criticism. The vulnerable minority in question was transgender people, whom the court described as “uniquely disadvantaged.” The case featured, on one side, an elected school trustee, who had said in a social media post that British Columbia’s education policy would result in the teaching of the “biologically absurd theory” that gender is not determined at birth, and that heterosexual marriage is not the norm. On the other side, a gay union leader had labelled the trustee hateful and a homophobe, and accused him of creating an unsafe environment for transgender youth. In short, objectionable speech (in the eyes of some) was up against cancel culture (in the eyes of others). The lawsuit was brought in 2018 by the trustee, Barry Neufeld, of Chilliwack, B.C., against Glen Hansman, who at the time was president of the BC Teachers’ Federation. The question for the court was whether the suit should be allowed to proceed, or whether Mr. Hansman was protected from such legal action on free-speech grounds. It is the type of question that has bedevilled courts since Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec passed laws over the past decade aimed at protecting free speech by blocking defamation suits intended to intimidate and silence critics. The laws are modelled on state laws in the United States, which take aim at lawsuits by powerful companies designed to muzzle their opponents. Mr. Hansman sought to use the B.C. law (known as an anti-SLAPP law, for strategic lawsuit against public participation) to have Mr. Neufeld’s defamation suit thrown out before it could be heard. Justice Alan Ross of the B.C. Supreme Court granted Mr. Hansman’s request in 2019, saying the need to protect public debate outweighed any harm to Mr. Neufeld’s reputation, which he had not proven anyway. Mr. Neufeld was re-elected trustee after Mr. Hansman made his comments. (He has since lost a subsequent bid for re-election.) The B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the ruling 3-0 in 2021 and said people like Mr. Neufeld would face a “chilling” effect on their own speech if they could not sue others who had potentially defamed them. The Supreme Court majority said Justice Ross got virtually everything right, and the appeal court got nearly everything wrong. For one thing, it said, anti-SLAPP laws and the case law on free speech in Canada deal with chilling effects on those being sued for defamation, not those bringing the suits. But the court’s most important point was that not all speech is equal, or equally deserving of protection. Speech defending equal rights and “diversity in the forms of self-fulfilment and human flourishing” is closer to the “core values” of free expression than speech undermining them, the court said. “Mr. Hansman’s expression is counterspeech motivated by a desire to promote tolerance and respect for a marginalized group in society. His expression is deserving of significant protection,” Justice Andromache Karakatsanis wrote for the majority, joined by Chief Justice Richard Wagner, Justice Malcolm Rowe, Justice Sheilah Martin, Justice Mahmud Jamal and Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin. The court did not view Mr. Neufeld’s comments as hateful but said Mr. Hansman’s response was fair comment – a valid defence to an accusation of defamation. In dissent, Justice Suzanne Côté cited the late U.S. Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis, who said in 1927 that the answer to objectionable speech is “more speech, not enforced silence.” Her point, though she did not use the term “cancel culture,” was that some counterspeech seeks to cancel, or silence, others. “Counter‑speech aimed at completely removing the initial expression from the public sphere appears to be inconsistent with the search for truth,” Justice Côté wrote. Paul Jaffe, a lawyer for Mr. Neufeld, said in an interview that the ruling turned anti-SLAPP law upside-down by siding with a powerful teachers’ union against an individual trustee who attempted to speak for the public that voted for him. “I think it’s a terrible, terrible sign that freedom of speech is under attack by a judiciary that’s becoming politically and ideologically driven,” Mr. Jaffe said. Access to the courts is the real issue, he said. “The competing views on the underlying debate ought not to be a factor.” Justin Safayeni, a lawyer for an intervenor group, the Centre for Free Expression, said it is in keeping with the purpose of anti-SLAPP laws to consider the defence of vulnerable or marginalized groups in deciding whether to dismiss a lawsuit. He said his comments reflect his own views. Robyn Trask, a lawyer representing the BC Teachers’ Federation, said the ruling is important because it is the first from the Supreme Court to describe discrimination against transgender and non-binary people. “I think this is a really important precedent for anyone who wants to speak out in defence of vulnerable communities and marginalized groups,” she added. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-supreme-court-of-canada-ruling-protects-counterspeech-from-defamation/#comments

I said conservative not Conservative Any sort of symbol or belief that evokes a conservative view or mindset or historical occasion. Do you think these schools would celebrate Sir John A MacDonald, for example? Would they fly the flag under which Canadians fought in the first and second world wars on remembrance day? Would they celebrate Canada's historical ties with the British or the Royal family? Would they tolerate and teach tolerance for conservative beliefs in either morality or traditions?

Your point to which I replied was that high school Muslims would be more tolerant. This shows that isn't necessarily the case. And from what I understand most of the Muslims in Belgium come from Morocco, a relatively more tolerant Muslim state compared to say, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

What are the odds the same people adamant about flying Pride flags would be willing to fly a conservative flag and tolerate, much less respect conservative values and moral codes?

Redesigned passport is yet another step in Canada's decline It seems the mission of this government is to remove any sense of pride in our history and our accomplishments — apologizing endlessly on our behalf, embracing the view that our forefathers perpetuated a genocide, allowing our military and diplomatic strengths to wither, and now removing any image that might have fostered pride in our past. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-new-passport-is-yet-another-step-in-canadas-downward-spiral

I wonder if it could also impersonate someone's eyeball if it got a few pictures... Or their fingerprint if it had a copy. I'm thinking of those biometric security measures on some phones and other security systems.

An AI system will probably be able to break the passwords of any computer system not governed by AI, just for a start. So that will give you complete access to everything stored on any computer system, giving you access to opposing government's secret information as well as information they can use to blackmail individuals of power in government and industry. It will allow you to develop better weapons faster than your enemies, allow you to predict their military responses, both strategic and tactical. It would likely allow you to manipulate financial systems like the stock market to your advantage.

The SC decided that it was 'cruel and unusual punishment,' and thus a violation of the Charter to require homicide sentences be served consecutively without parole eligibility. As far as they're concerned, kill one person, kill fifty people, it makes no difference. The most you can give is life and they have to have parole eligibility in 25 years. This was a finding not justified in history, not justified by the definition of the term, and not justified as per the feelings of Canadians. Appoint the right nine judges and the supreme court will find for or against anything you can name.

The problem is not the Charter it's the people appointed to the Supreme Court, mostly by Liberals. Their belief in the Charter is that it's a nice little document, but wherever it departs from their personal beliefs then it's outdated and must be changed and 'adapted'. The Charter is a 'living tree' and must change over time. But not by government. Oh, no! By judges! Almost everything bad about the Charter has been 'written in' by the judges of the Supreme Court. Often with no legal sense behind it. But when you're the supremes you get to 'interpret' a document any damned way you want and no one can overrule you.

He DID make it worse by using the vaccines as a wedge issue during the election to gain votes. He made it into a political partisan issue just the same way Trump did.

Harper wasn't Donald Trump. I think he'd have taken care of things a lot better than Trudeau did during Covid. He wouldn't have started out trying to rely on China for vaccines, for one thing. Pretty sure he'd have closed down the border faster, and stopped entry from China a lot faster too.

Any attempt to regulate AI will fail because the idea of having it while others don't would be a major strategic advantage. Thus China is and will continue to go full bore ahead at developing it. They may even send some money under the table to help efforts at restricting it in the West. Russia will also be going all out on it, as will countries like North Korea and Iran. And because of this, US defense and intelligence agencies will do it under the table if necessary, no matter what the law says.

I can't. Nor can you. I remember one video where a guy who shall remain nameless since it's not pertinent but is/was a clinical psychologist explained how he spent thirty hours trying to teach a guy how to fold a piece of paper so it could go into an envelope so he could keep his volunteer job. I saw another video where a guy was talking about being detailed to help low mentality guys brought into the desperate army during the vietnam era. It took a lot of effort just teaching them how to tie their shoes. Trying to teach them how to shoot at people was even harder. They could do it if they had a LOT of time but it took them a LONG time to carefully lay the barrel down and point it. And if the target moved at all it took another LOONG time to shift over and retarget. Likewise teaching how to throw a hand grenade was almost impossible as they just didn't get the idea of throwing it up in an arc to let gravity carry it along as it lost momentum. No matter how many times it was demonstrated they kept throwing it directly at something. We can't put our heads into that kind of low mentality thinking. I don't know but these people are largely dispensible now and I don't think we know what to do with them.

Well, 10%-15% of the population is too cognitively impaired to do any sort of sophisticated work (or even ANY work) beyond sweeping. There used to be a place for such people on farms and doing jobs like washing dishes and sweeping floors. Now those jobs make use of machines too complicated for them to operate. I don't really know what's to be done with these people.

You see the government doing anything about that?

The Canadian government has made it clear that it wants corporations to become benevolent organizations that put workers before shareholders. It favours taxing corporations and the rich and adding regulatory impediments to corporate activity. It is a big supporter of income redistribution at the expense of making the pie larger for everyone by investing in the expansion of productive capacity. It wants to regulate the economy and nudge corporations to submit to its social views and economic philosophy. Its policies discourage entrepreneurship and wealth creation and replace them with handouts to every significant lobby and activist group. The government increasingly seems not to understand how people get jobs and how they get by – and how heavily favouring environmental issues stirred up by activists over economic concerns kills jobs. Meanwhile, Canada has a productivity problem that has gotten worse over the past 10 years. Its GDP per capita has increased at a much slower pace than those of countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the United States since 1980 and particularly since 2015. GDP per capita grew about 4.8 per cent per annum between 1980 and 2022 in those four countries but only 4.1 per cent in Canada. Since 2015, it has grown about 4.1 per cent in those four and only 3.2 per cent in Canada. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-canada-economy-disaster/