Videospirit

Well, it's a kind of intimidation regardless of where it's taking place, but if we banned all intimidation no one would be allowed to protest anywhere. But like the right to vote, the right to life is pretty damn important too. Don't infringe on people's ability to access healthcare is not an unreasonable policy. The intimidation is also not much of a problem when it's far away from the location either, as people can easily find a route where they don't have to pass by the protests when it's far enough away from the target of those protests. I'm not sure I'd oppose putting minimum distances between protests and the target of those protests as a law universally applicable to all protests though, there's certainly an argument for it. The only reason I'd consider opposing such a law at all is that it makes protests less effective, but I'm not sure people have a right to cause losses to businesses and scare potential customers away just to make their protests more effective, even if doing so isn't a huge human rights infringement for most scenarios.

Wow... Someone wants to return to the days of voter intimidation, where political thugs would stand around at polls trying to intimidate voters into voting for the ruling party it seems. That was banned for causing the same kind of harm these protests are. There is a reason political campaigning is not allowed within a certain distance of polling locations, even in the U.S.. Seriously, sod off and go educate yourself about politics before getting involved in politics. Your ignorance is disgusting.

This question basically sums up all the nonsense your rant devolves from. It really doesn't reflect well on your character that you are asking this after it's already been explained in this topic, suggesting you have not been interacting with this conversation with good faith until now as it's been brought up before, but I'll repeat it once more just in case we somehow have not been clear enough to you. Many individuals have been protesting in front of healthcare facilities in the united Kingdom. One of the common forms these protests have taken is mass groups holding "Silent Prayer Vigils" in an extremely public manner and this was intimidating individuals into not entering the facilities. Residents complained that these people were scaring them, and that they weren't able to access healthcare because of the emotions they were experiencing as a result of these protestors, so these zones were setup to allow individuals to freely access healthcare without intimidation. So yes, it needed to be stopped to prevent harm.

Yes it does. I know this may seem strange to an American, with your dysfunctional healthcare system that people refuse to use because it's too expensive, but most of the west considers access to healthcare to be a human right, and trying to prevent people from accessing healthcare should be a crime. Free speech, as you in your war on truth, misunderstand it, has never existed. It has never been legal to intentionally hurt other human beings using speech without consequence. For example, defamation laws in the united states predate the American revolution and the country itself, inherited from the legal system of its colonizers. This was an example of arresting someone for trying to harm people by denying them access to healthcare. The context is controversial enough that bad actors like yourself are likely to misunderstand the context as "being arrested for silently praying in their own homes.", but such people deserve consideration too, so you could criticize the letters sent out to these homes as not taking enough care to reassure residents that they won't be unjustly punished, but to act like this is an assault on freedom of speech is a morally vile act. Anyone who does so champions the idea that humans have no rights to their own person, life, or dignity, and that individuals should have the freedom to harm and even kill each other without consequence. All free speech is, is the belief that individuals should not be punished because of the words they say alone. But if that speech causes harm, they can still be punished for that harm without violating freedom of speech.

You've got America's war against truth, and Europe's war against misinformation. The results of america's war is a corrupt government quickly destroying government agencies meant to prevent corruption, and in Europe you have healthy democracies actually working for the interests of their citizens. I think the results speak for themselves. It may chafe those with anarchist tendencies a bit, but the cost of inaction is pretty steep, as evidenced by what's happening in the US right now. So no, my idea of free speech is not "People are encouraged to lie openly and cause as much harm to others as they can without consequence for their own personal benefits." and "People who intentionally harm others should face consequences for their actions, even if the method they use to commit that harm is mere speech." is an acceptable alternative.

The zone was put in place to restrict the actions of the public in order to protect the rights of citizens to access healthcare. This came into being after a series of incidents where health was jeopardized by protestors, some of which framed their protests as silent prayer vigils. These zones are enacted at the municipal level. Than this guy came along and started creeping people out by holding a prayer vigil, something that had been weaponized against individuals recently and had a negative context because of events that lead to the creation of the restricted zone in the first place, in the area that the community had setup to allow individuals unimpeded access to healthcare. Even people standing around and gossiping in this area could have them asked to leave, and this guy was obviously loitering in the area rather than using it in a permitted manner. You can have objections to the creation of restricted areas in what you feel should be public spaces, but this guys actions went above and beyond "just silently praying." when he refused to leave after being asked to do so, and to claim all he did was "silently pray" and that was the reason he was punished is blatantly false and untrue. People were afraid to seek out medical services because his presence was scaring them. He was in a space where that was not allowed, and he didn't give two shits about that fact when asked to leave and refused to comply with a reasonable request. This man does not deserve anyone's sympathy. If the cops had just rolled up and carted him off out of nowhere, that would have been one thing. This is a relatively new law and they tried to cut him some slack but the man was extremely belligerent and was asking to be charged. He could have done his prayer vigil anywhere else, but he chose to do it in the most harmful manner possible.

It wasn't a public area people are free to be in, it was a designated PSPO zone restricted area. You are not being a serious person here at all.

Yes, his silent prayer was making people uncomfortable, so they asked him to leave, he could be blasting rock music at 100 decibels or painting passerby without their permission, the issue was he refused to go elsewhere once people started getting bothered by him. How does that translate to "Try again." If I walked into the Oval Office and started praying on the Presidents Desk I'd be arrested, my reason for being there doesn't matter. I don't have permission to be there. The U.S. absolutely would arrest me if they didn't just outright murder me "just for trying to pray silently." This is no different. He didn't have permission to be there and refused to leave, and that's why he was punished.

He was arrested because he refused to leave when asked. What he was doing there was irrelevant to the arrest beyond the fact it was making people uncomfortable and they wanted him gone. If he'd just complied with the request no charges would have come to him. His prayer itself was not what caused him to be punished, and it was explicitly explained to you in the post you responded to with your outright lies, that you continue to double down on.

I'm not going to even bother reading the rest of your post when your first sentence is an outright lie without the slightest trace of truthfulness.

Well, it's true that people were concerned that private prayer may be illegal under the law, but it isn't and no one has ever been prosecuted for praying privately since it was passed, and the vice president of the united states has access to the resources to know whether or not that was the case before opening his intellectually challenged mouth, so he has no excuse to justify spreading misinformation. He was punished for refusing to leave after being asked to do so by those with the authority to ask him to do so. His performative silent prayer vigil was the reason he was asked to leave, but he wasn't punished because of it, but because he refused to comply with the request. Now, this is a slightly more controversial issue. Especially for the psychos living in the U.S. who feel that bullying someone into suicide should be protected under freedom of speech. Private prayer is not in any way restricted, as the bbc article you linked clearly explains. But publicly holding a prayer vigil on your own private property as an act of intimidation is the kind of thing such psychos would try and claim as private prayer, when it clearly is not. Local legislators in Scotland are pretty reasonable about this, and saw that people's health was being jeopardized by such actions and took action to protect them, passing the legislation with overwhelming support, but many citizens of the united states of america don't have the same level of respect for human rights that the rest of the west has, so they want to be legally allowed to harass people.

Yeah, Canada has a bigger economy than Russia does. We're not a trivial ally for Ukraine to have.

Canada started making plans to up their ammo production in 2022. It wasn't until September 2024 that we started really seeing results though. Kind of took our sweet time, but it's definitely happening now. Over the next two years western military production in general should rise quite a bit just from the commitments that have already passed the planning stages even if the war ended today. Ukraine isn't going to have to worry about materiel going forward unless the west stops supporting it or their consumption suddenly massively increases.

I've seen reports that North Korea's deployment was made at North Korea's request. That doesn't seem out of character for North Korea either if they thought of it as some kind of test of their military. If true, it's not really indicative of desperation on the Russian military's side. Regardless, Russia will run out of money and materiel before it runs out of soldiers.

At the Russian losses to land conquest progress ratios right now, Russia would eventually lose this war, but it's not just land Ukraine is losing. Ukraine is struggling to replace their military losses. They have enough manpower in the country, but the Ukrainians healthy enough to do so who want to fight are already fighting. They have enough material for their military at the moment, although they burn through supplies quicker than they can replace without foreign aid, but a lot of their units are at 20-30% strength from unreplaced losses. Russia has the opposite problem, they've got reserves for years, but they don't have enough gear to arm them all. Ukraine's biggest issue right now is manpower.

It's a likely scenario. Trump isn't 100% pro russia, but he is definitely a little pro Russia.

One thing Trump cares about is his own Ego. Even if Putin does have some leverage on him, Trump isn't the type to bow to another. He also has himself in a position where, unless the Republican party agrees to impeach him he can do whatever he wants for the next over 4 years no matter what Russia leaks about him. He can easily delay any criminal trial until after his term starts, and than it will be suspended until after his term ends. While he's not committed to saving Ukraine, it's completely up in the air how generous he'll be towards Russia. What happens if he offers a deal to Ukraine, and Ukraine accepts, is unclear. Worst case scenario he offers an awful deal to Ukraine, Ukraine refuses, and Trump cuts off US support to Ukraine.

It doesn't seem like they're proposing a peace deal, merely a ceasefire, so they don't need to give up territory. And I'm not sure what Russia feels about a conflict with NATO, if it wasn't afraid of NATO it wouldn't have freaked out over the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO and insisted Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO as part of a peace deal. NATO could supply a hell of a lot more to Ukraine than it has been. The US could supply a hell of a lot more to Ukraine than NATO has been. Western Arms industries could easily ramp up production if western governments were willing to pay the bill upfront. Their commitment to Ukraine so far has been extremely light, a more solid alliance would change that.

Even just a properly enforceable mutual defense treaty between the US or EU and Ukraine might do it, don't necessarily need all of NATO. It's not like the US doesn't have non nato allies. since it's not NATO membership it could have whatever terms both parties want, wouldn't have to obligate whoever signs it to help Ukraine reclaim occupied territory.

"matured enough to know the error of my ways" still uses the term "nerd factor" Excuse me while I get my eyes back under control after the epic eye roll you just induced. Anyway for something actually on topic since the above is not enough to justify a post. https://kyivindependent.com/trump-ukraine-plan-wsj/ Main points of the "peace plan" that isn't actually a peace plan, merely a ceasefire. Threaten Ukraine to cut off all US aid if it doesn't agree to the US plan, Threaten Russia to massively escalate the conflict if it doesn't agree to the US plan. If you want to enforce a ceasefire rather than achieve peace this isn't the worst way to go about it to start. It's only delaying the inevitable resumption of hostilities, but Ukraine could probably benefit from some time to resupply to be honest. The actual details are kind of up in the air since not even today's Trump can honestly tell you what tomorrow's Trump will do, but Ukraine likely isn't going to gain a single thing in reparation for all the losses they've unjustly suffered at the hands of Russia. The "Demilitarized" zone Trump wants to create along Ukraine's border with Russia will likely be carved out of territory currently controlled by Ukraine as well. The most concerning details are potentially denying Ukraine NATO membership for as long as 20 years. Ukraine needs more security guarantees than that if they don't want Russia to unilaterally resume this conflict whenever they want. All in all it could be a lot worse, but Trump's USA is not shaping up to be a champion of global security. Although there is a slight chance Trump tries something like this, Putin tells him "No" and Trump gets the US directly involved in Ukraine and it actually works out for the world. It's Dangerous times we live in though.

The vast majority of voters voting for Trump over Biden because of Israel are white though, it's got nothing to do with race.

The Israel situation has very little to do with Arab Americans. I mean, any kind of minority is still a fool for voting for a man who hates them and encourages his followers to hate them, but the Israel situation is barely relevant at all. Arab Americans who hope to emigrate to Palestine if it ever achieves peace or have family living there are pretty screwed, but that's a tiny minority of Arab Americans.

A shame we didn't go to the same school. Trash who were so insecure they bullied other people were so fun to bully back. Things got real peaceful after they realized they couldn't get away with that shit in public. Sounds like nobody was around to school your fool ass so you turned out as pathetic as you have.

Citation Needed. The sources I investigated did not list a single instance of Donald Trump personally approving lethal aid to Ukraine that wasn't just him not vetoing aid that Congress passed. He did approve of Ukraine purchase requests for lethal weapons, but that isn't the same thing. As for the "Trump Threatened Putin." comment you speak of. Russia has not confirmed Trump ever threatened them. Trump has provided no transcripts from the American side that he threatened Putin. I'm skeptical of the truthfulness of this claim. Regardless, Trump doesn't value his promises and lies every other time he opens his mouth, so even if he had said that there's no guarantee he meant it. Actions speak louder than words regardless, and Trump's actions don't support him opposing Russia. Hell the conversation where he claimed to threaten Putin was started with Trump bragging about how close his relationship with Russia China and North Korea was and how much he respected their leaders.

How so? What did Trump do to resist Russian Expansionism? He sold American weapons for profit to Ukraine, but he probably would have sold American weapons to Russia too if he'd been allowed so that doesn't count. Even the aid that congress tried to give to Ukraine pissed trump off and he tried to use it to bribe Ukraine to get some personal benefit from it. He certainly didn't go out of his way to make sure Ukraine was in a position to resist a Russian invasion, and he let Russia run all over Syria. He does seem to not be a complete tool subservient to Russia, but his attitude in office has always been how to most profit immediately, without any consideration for long term stability, and no concern for Russian expansionism. He treats Americas allies the same way he treats their rivals. Trump can't even comprehend the sense of giving military aid to Ukraine for free. He literally cannot imagine a single scenario where that would be a good idea.