I am Groot

I think you are secretly a Jew. Admit it.

But to what? A post-nation state with no core identity? If your post-nation state has no core identity why would you feel any particular attachment to it?

British UK study Comparisons of official MOJ statistics from March / April 2019 (most recent official count of transgender prisoners): 76 sex offenders out of 129 transwomen = 58.9% 125 sex offenders out of 3812 women in prison = 3.3% Swedish study ‘male-to-females . . . retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime.’ MtF transitioners were over 6 times more likely to be convicted of an offence than female comparators and 18 times more likely to be convicted of a violent offence. The group had no statistically significant differences from other natal males, for convictions in general or for violent offending. The group examined were those who committed to surgery, and so were more tightly defined than a population based solely on self-declaration. Canada A shocking new Correctional Service of Canada study has revealed that 44% of male-to-female transgender inmates are behind bars for sexual offences. United States States which have let biologically male prison inmates self-identify as into women's prison are now dealing with allegations by female prisoners that they are being sexually assaulted by them. It was revealed only last week that Washington state has had numerous reports by women that they are being sexually assaulted by some of the five transwomen put in their prison in the last few months - one of them an actual serial killer of women. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/ https://torontosun.com/news/national/study-finds-nearly-45-of-trans-women-inmates-convicted-of-sex-crimes https://legislature.maine.gov/testimony/resources/CJPS20210518Gingrich132667016258173317.pdf

We talk a lot about cultures, about respecting other people's cultures, and about how people are products of the culture and environment in which they were raised. They can, to a certain degree, adapt, but that doesn't mean they wholly abandon the moral, ethical, and behavioural guidelines they were raised to adhere to. That's true of us as much as anyone else. The culture in which I was raised is Canada's culture in the 1960s and 1970s. Anyone who knows much about history can pretty much guess what cultural queues I have. Everyone else abided by the same values and beliefs. I never had an immigrant classmate until college. I don't recall when I first noted non-white people starting to appear on buses, on streets, in stores, and such. Sometime in my teens, I suppose. The idea they were different was pretty obvious in that they spoke with accents and often dressed and acted differently. So in my younger years there were things I just never even considered. Like races, religions, and nationalities. Whoever might have an Italian or German or Ukrainian name, well, that didn't matter. I didn't know what that meant back then. They acted and spoke like I did. If anyone was a Jew I didn't notice it. One time a friend of mine pointed a church as we walked by and said that was his church. He then said they were Anglicans. I had no idea what that meant so he said prostitant. I shrugged. Not something I cared about. It didn't matter. Girls were strange and mysterious, and irritating until sometime in my teens. Wait, strike that, they continued to be irritating, just in different ways. That there were two genders was never anything any of us paused to consider. We used the word 'f*g' from time to time, but didn't know what it meant. The idea that men would want to kiss each other, much less have sex with each other would have astonished us at least into our early teens, where we only barely understood what sex was. It was a very homogenous world. But that meant we really didn't develop much in the way of bigotry or racism. The first time I saw Asians I was interested but not the slightest bit resentful. Possibly because they were girls and cute ones. It's bizarre to me that fifty years later we've broken out into every possible ethnicity, race, religion and gender (including a lot of made-up ones) and are to be judged on the basis of our membership in these various identity groups, and that these groups are all set against one another by the government - on purpose. We are being guided to resent and dislike each other as much as possible by unethical politicians and pseudointellectual academics spouting gibberish theories that to my astonishment have been taken deadly seriously by the so-called elites. It wasn't bad enough that they flooded the country with immigrants from places with values backed up by rock-solid religious beliefs which were entirely inimical to our own, and then insisted we had to be tolerant of them. No, they designed special programs and policies to give preference to these people and fed money to groups that constantly harangued us for our oppression, bigotry, and a history that apparently would have made Hitler and Ghengis Khan blush. And so as to not offend these newcomers they tore away at the social fabric and culture and values that were already in place, washing away our previous beliefs in things we had been taught were necessities, and then proudly told us Canada had no core identity, wasn't a real nation, and that they'd keep pouring in more people without the slightest interest in who they were or what their values were. And if we objected we were various horrible things that compared us to Hitler again. And then people wonder why we'd like to not only stop immigration but reverse it. Immigration stokes nationalism.

Just what is it about Trump's long public life that leads you to believe he gives a damn about ordinary people? Surely, not just because once he became a politician he claimed he did...?

So, my take on this from what I understand personally and have heard from others. Indian tech workers? They suck. Yes, I'm generalizing, so sue me. The quality of education in Indian tech schools lags far behind western universities. It's all rote learning with no imagination. Indians who come to Canada and the US to work at tech firms will indeed work their asses off. Because they have to just to keep up with Americans/Canadians. That doesn't mean a small number aren't incredibly talented, of course. But overall, their coding is mediocre and full of bugs. They need explicit, exact instructions on what is wanted, and close supervision, because if they run up against anything where a decision needs to be made, where an alternative path is required, they freeze. They haven't been trained to have nimble minds. They will also cheat like hell, scavaging information from others or sabotaging their work, or sending their problems back to India for someone there to work on for pennies. They suck up to the boss but will stab colleagues in the back at the first opportunity. It's all a scramble, to get ahead, to get more money, and there are no morals or ethics involved. They'll do whatever they think will work. This is why guys like Musk and Ramaswamy like them. They're way cheaper, work like dogs, and act like they're super eager to please whenever the boss wanders by. Weekends? Holidays? They'll work and get no overtime and be happy about it (or fake it). Is this good for the company? Perhaps. Is it good for the country? Nope. Who wants to live in a society like that?

Massive corruption and cheating at every single level of society, intense racism toward anyone different, growing religious intolerance, shitty schools...

Gee, where have we seen this before? Oh, wait, here! Musk is such a whiny, sulky child when challenged.

As long as you leave the US. Uh, and you think three billionaires known as being ruthless to their lower-ranking employees are somehow different?

Are you drunk again?

That policy is running out of time anyway. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jamie-sarkonak-poilievres-very-normal-take-on-males-in-female-prisons

I'm not sure what your problem is. Are you proud of Canada? Think there's something special about Canada? Think we're better than other countries? That would make you a nazi, racist, white supremacist white nationalist xenophobic extremist of the far right, wouldn't it? Because the narrative on this subject is quite clear. All our academics, politicians, media and artistic elites have been shouting it from the rooftops for years now. Canada is a horrible place where every single institution is systemically racist with a horrible history of oppression and genocide. And it culture and values are absolutely no better than Afghanistan or Iran. So why would Canadians who have been berated since childhood with such a view be opposed to joining the US?

The idea of academic freedom is nice, in theory. It hasn't existed in reality for quite some time, though. Repeated surveys have demonstrated that universities hire people like them, with their beliefs, their ideology. As such, the staff at these institutions are mostly left and far left. And if anyone is on the right, they keep their mouth shut if they know what's good for them. The twisting of the curriculum in a wide variety of courses, esp liberal arts courses, in order to push that same ideological world-view is a major part of 'woke'. It's what indoctrinates the young and impressionable with CENSORED world-views like cultural relativism and post-modernism that taught that everyone was the same, every culture the same, every group the same. Why would you feel any sense of pride in your country when every country is the same, when no country, no people, no culture were better than any other? Of course, some could be worse than others: Ours. Student loans are one way. Oh, you're taking gender studies? We're not giving you a grant or loan for that, sorry. Federal grants are also given to universities for a wide variety of scientific, technical and social studies, all of which now require extensive information regarding DEI. You have to tell them how many of those involved in your group are of the favoured identity groups, for example, and how your study will further the interests of equity and inclusion. FTFY

There ARE only two choices. After the next election, either the Liberal or the Conservative will be Prime Minister. And taking pride in defining yourself as 'not american' is really so quaint. It harkens back to the days when Canadians considered themselves better than American. And I don't think that's the case any longer. I don't worry about 'us vs them'. Politics is the art of choosing the possible. And as there are never any good candidates, I vote for the least worst candidate. Compared to what else is being offered right now it's very difficult to logically argue that's not Poilievre.

You only feel that way because you're a leftist fanatic and despise anyone even slightly to the right of centre. The clip got a lot of applause not only across Canada but in the rest of the anglosphere.

So you are a Trudeau supporter. Don't brag openly about it or people may throw things at you on the street.

My belief is taken from the numbers given by the former head of Immigration Canada in the cite I posted earlier today. There it was 15%-17%. But given what the Liberals have done in almost doubling immigration (but not doubling immigration officers), their instructions to visa officers to not even bother to check for criminal backgrounds on incoming students (who will be allowed to stay and work for 3 years afterward and then fast-tracked for PR, and the flood of foreign workers combined with huge numbers of 'refugees', who will almost all be accepted, well, how could the number not be lower? The refugees alone amount to about 125k PRs last year who haven't had any background checks to speak of. That number was closer to 25k when the figures were put into that cite. And again, remember that when they say over half of recent immigrants came in under that program they include the unchecked spouses and children of the principal applicant (who make up a bit less than 1/3 of that category). So rather than 50% (say) the figure would be about 16% I'm also unsure if when they say "a little more than half of recent immigrants" that includes refugees who get PR and then citizenship.

LOL. I don't know that you're wrong, but I doubt it. Oh, I'm sure he has a healthy measure of desire to further himself. As all politicians do. But he's also been consistent throughout his political life (which is almost his entire life) in his interest and support of conservative policies and his belief they are best for society. His 'hidden agenda' is a conspiracy theory of the Left you seem to have swallowed whole. I trust it tastes good?

Oh, did I use too many words for you? Were they too large? How about I make it short and sweet. Woke people are racists and bigots who believe non-whites are inferior and incapable of meeting the same standards as whites without tilting the playing field. Then you have nothing to worry about.

What contribution? A 155mm artillery shell weighs 100 lbs. You don't think size matters there? Women are far more fragile than men. Their bones are smaller, they have less muscle, are more easily harmed and take longer to recover. They have less endurance, and of course, far less strength. You should read the article by an American marine captain who was an absolute peak athlete when she joined the men in Afghanistan and what she has to say about the physical problems that resulted from that. I agree. But that's not what we do. In most such professions, including policing and firefighting, what they do is either have different requirements for men and women, or they water down the overall requirements so women can pass.

We certainly aren't going to have one about how great Canada is. Not in this day and age.

Woke is a belief that every policy, every law, every decision has to be at least partially, and often mainly based on identity group membership. That includes who has the right to jobs or to the speaker's podium, whose words should be accepted and believed and not challenged, and who should be blamed for all society's ills. They're people who despise Western culture and its entire history, deriding it as responsible for all of the world's problems, from racism to war while completely exempting every other national, religious and racial group from blame. Those who say woke is an imaginary word are the people responsible for Trump being elected and the Democrats losing the House and Senate. They're responsible for Europe drifting further right with almost every election. They're responsible for Canada becoming more divided and less patriotic. I'm a knowledgeable fellow. Perhaps it's the knowledge that confuses you.

But some of those other countries have lower tired governments with vastly less responsibilities, so those naturally contribute less to the overall debt. Canada's provinces, for one, are responsible for providing public healthcare. That's not the case in most other jurisdictions.

What is this supposed to mean? How do you imagine there can be spending reduction without cuts?