Michael Hardner

Your points are fair, but the Musk layoffs had a perception of recklessness about it, I would say. That would be due to the small size of the DOGE team, the lack of experience of same, the personality of Musk himself, and the inherent conflict of interest. But I absolutely acknowledge the gist of the post, ie. A double standard around Carney and Musk, if they were to do the exact same thing. Also, those who think that LIKING a post is a pledge of Allegiance to one side, take note...

I think it's about benchmarking the rule of engagement to one that locks in a path towards coexistence.

I agree, and I think the genius of the Christian philosophy... extended to the constitutional framework of the United States also... Is that it recognizes And defines a strong border between the self and the other: Do unto others as they would do unto you I have the right to pursue happiness, and the state will not impose restrictions on my metaphysical beliefs and religious practices. ... Maintaining these philosophies on a personal and National basis requires constant reflection, and internal dialogue. When that breaks down... Well look what happens 😔

1. That's the point I'm confused on. To me, "Affirmative Action" (which is what it was called in my day) is virtually the same thing. Have a look at the Link I posted. You seem to be saying that it was needed then, and so maybe we're more on the same page than I thought. 2. Yes, you posted those incidents above. I acknowledge your point about the differences in the current context Versus, say, 1961. I also acknowledge that there are political machinations that advance campaigns based on the incidents cited. I'm not familiar with all of the incidents, so I don't have the bandwidth to research and respond to each point. 3. I've never been a fan of the Democrats in the way you describe: being "right". Parties are coalitions that move forward with a collective set of agendas. In the rare case where they have to make a hard moral choice, they tend to break a lot of eggs, let's say. Such as LBJ's Democrats in 1965. 4. I made this point last night, speaking to a friend. Apply it to any of the Canadian governments... What are the big initiatives of the last generation? I would say three trade deals: FTA, NAFTA, China. 5. Yes. And unlike trade deals, Canadians clearly support it.. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/most-canadians-still-confident-in-vaccines-but-hesitancy-has-increased-poll-says/

1. That's interesting. Effectively, DEI WAS started with good intentions then.... Ok.

Yes I'm asking about how DEI has been reinforced and introduced in government, and business over 60 years. I'm still asking that question. You don't think that these people implementing and maintaining it think it's a good idea, right? So how does it persist? How is it gaslighting if I'm asking you about your very words? If you want to take something back, or say you don't know why or you don't feel 100% clear on how something happened then just say so. It's not like I'm laying a trap for you, you've got some ideas. I'm just trying to figure out what they are.

You made nine points, or maybe better to say you talked about nine issues: two were police killings of black men, two were about indigenous relations in Canada, one about race riots, one is a characterization of the beneficiary of DEI... Not sure if you were just talking about non-white people here or maybe women and LGBTQ, one about the freedom convoy, a couple about terrorism. I really thought you were talking about DEI, not just general issues around relationships between races etc. Not only that, most of your examples are very recent. Dei, or affirmative action as I used to know it, has been around since I was a little kid... 60 years 65 years. I'm still unsure about how this program could be brought in as an organized conspiracy by people who want to bring down the nation. I feel like you're muddying the waters and just talking about everything. Maybe explain from the beginning how it started.... In the Kennedy administration... And then how it grew, how it changed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion

I'm being kind of flippant, but surely you can see there's a bit of chauvinism in every single culture right?

Then every culture is not good 🤔 A culture has extremely complex and subjective attributes. Binary morality only works towards making people smug.

I think you have pinpointed it with clarity here. I will quibble with one thing... I don't think it's neglect. I think it's incompetence. They are not able to manage. The older the industry, the worse it is. I've been managing in Canada for 30 years and the old way of doing things does not work anymore. They use authority to rationalize everything and they don't listen to others or consult on what works. That's the Canadian way. So old industries and organizations like government and Healthcare need to be cleaned out, they need a transfusion of new blood. And yet a country like ours that votes for its government receives inept leadership when it comes to services. It's a paradox for sure.

Don't listen to people who overstate where we are right now, who try to say that we are in unprecedented times etc. Of course, every time is unprecedented, however, we have only had free markets, free elections and so on at this level for a century or two. So losing these things would not be unprecedented. And yet... We still DO have elections, we still have an economy, we still have courts, we still have free expression. Any of these things failing significantly would trigger mitigations and strong reactions in the media and with the public. People who say that this is not the case, who say we are already lost... are playing into the extremist views themselves.

Well... Bush represented the deep roots of the PostWar order... and by Bush I mean either one... the whole family. Carney is more like someone who woefully sees it ending, and is scrambling for something else. If it's not Busy and Carney, is it Trump ? Then the polls and economic fundamentals (aside from the stock market of course) are wrong. So who then ? I can see a populist who takes a wrecking ball to the bureaucracy and implements a basic floor of social benefits. But there is no such person today.

1. So you feel that there is a cabal (organized group or unorganized let's say) who actively wish to do harm to their country's interests by weakening its institutions by elevating unqualified people ? Are they perhaps ASSISTED by people who think it's an actual good idea ? Or does anyone who supports DEI programs at any level KNOW it's a bad idea and just want to hurt their nation ? I'm trying to follow your logic here, to see how such a scheme could possibly be executed for decades without strong evidence coming out. 2. Yes, I get along great with everyone and the money is good. The way I see it, there are social "norms" that are just followed, but sometimes these get eroded... mostly by money. Trust and Loyalty is one of these. Although "trust" is just in the capacity of staying in a job and not jumping, even when it's in ones own interests. My sister once told me that she felt "company loyalty" was in decline. Her husband, my brother-in-law, had been in the same company for maybe 20 years, whereas I had skipped jobs every 1-2 years - which was normal. 3. I completely and utterly disagree. My favourite jobs were in analysis (can you tell ?) and strategy. May I ask what field you are in ? An old girlfriend was a physics genius, and she got a job with a large defense company I believe it was. They didn't have room for them, so they had to house them in part of a manufacturing facility. She said the plant employees were visibly hostile to her, a young woman, and her cohorts who seemingly just sat in a room and chatted around some whiteboard squiggles all day while they worked with their bodies, to the point of fatigue. And of course she made several times their salary. I'm reminded of Peter Fonda's speech in Easy Rider... wherein he talks about the townies hating the hippies because they reflected true freedom, versus buying and selling yourself on the market constantly. Which is what we all do. Unless we're retired of course...

No, I don't even agree with the slogan. But there is structural value in having some different perspectives. One thing that Canadians are not great at is being entrepreneurial. We are very compliant, and defer to authority more than other cultures. Sure but what's he going to say on the topic? I would agree with him more if he had said Muslim Canadians are Canadians like the rest of us. Canada has a melting pot, whether we want to admit it or not.

1. I do believe that there are evil people in the world, however it's pretty difficult for true evil to perpetuate in an open system such as labour frameworks. Do you think that they THINK they have the country's interests at heart ? That is, they're misguided. 2. Fair point. 13. I'm so far removed from such a place that I can't even say "it must be nice". I wouldn't trust work... with anything. I get my paycheck, I keep going in. My boss at my last company left and openly recruited her favourites to the new place, me included. Nobody batted an eye. 14. Yeah, when I thought about it I did come up with a few examples but they weren't exactly the same thing. It was more like a leg-up but... yes... I have seen it.

1. It's not perfect, nor is it explicitly evil. The people who set it up have goals, some noble some not. It's our job to discuss and look through it. I don't think I ever said it was "really fair". 2. If you went to Harvard, your kid gets to go. Period. When you go there, you end up immersed in a network of money-making that is less and less related to merit, skill, and knowledge. These are the so-called 'Elites' skewered often on here, but the thing is they're both Democrat and Republican. 3. What you're describing is a tiny corruption... not even worth thinking about. 4. I agree. 5. That kind of reverse discrimination happens too, if that's what you mean. 6. Not true. We don't give the best jobs to people who got the highest marks in school. It's an idealized view that testing = ability. Instead, you want to make sure that the qualifications are MET - that they can do the core work competently, then other facts will be born out in the job et. communications skill, leadership etc. There's no way to objectively assess based on numbers who would be the best cop, leader, Director of Development. 7. It's one measure, not THE measure. Now, again, I am not saying testing is useless. 8. I have worked with enough Dean's List folks who would never progress above the bottom of the ladder, yes. I also worked with artsies, philosophers and street musicians who found their groove and made millions. 9. I wouldn't suggest otherwise, but go back to the discussion above for context. It was about nepotism not safety. 10. "Diversity gives strength" is the slogan and there are reasons for that. I appreciate the idea, because people from away (eg. Americans - with whom I work) bring a different culture and perspective that can be helpful. 11. It's called the market... again, there are lots of factors. 12. I'll take what you say, but you implied that I am making things up. 13. Do YOU work in a company where there is actual loyalty ? Because the concept went out the window 20+ years ago in my industry. We are, conceptually, collaborating prostitutes in IT as far as I am concerned. Your boss will openly talk about you/he/she leaving if something happens next quarter... 14. What you're writing here is 100% foreign to anything I have experienced at work in the last 25 years. The only time I saw family come in was internship (which is a kind of slavery anyway) in a small/medium company where the kid was fully qualified and the position was created for them because the boss was the president. And it was a bargain for everyone. Not to cast aspersions on the way other outfits work, but I just can't relate. Likewise, when I speak to my friends who work in healthcare the whole setup seems cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs with me... folks filing HR complaints over the weirdest little things... massive and crippling bureaucracy... that's a whole thread topic in itself.

Well, ok ... but you're falling into the trap of thinking politicians have a solid principle that they're following, rather than looking at the day's polling.

Not relevant.

Again... what about age ? What about nepotism and clan loyalty ? Are we allowed to complain about these ?

@eyeball ^ crab guy ^

Ford is the better politician so it's hard to say if he is making a claim for what's real, or for what plays with his audience. Carney needs to do more for the West, in terms of actual improvements and perception. Scott Moe going to China ... will that help him or hurt him ? I hear the cars are bad. I hear they won't sell any.

1. Questioning, discussing... getting specifics 2. No 3. Indeed I DID forget about education, mea culpa. And I agree there that people who are less qualified in terms of marks might get in ... however there is also a thing called legacy admissions... would you be ok with outlawing all of it and making a double-blind admission test ? I don't mean to say that DEI is 'fair' but the idea that it puts unqualified people into jobs is not 100% true and often a situation where people aren't implementing it properly. 4. To say that people with the highest marks didn't get in isn't the same as saying unqualified people get in. 5. Let's not comment on each others' morality. If you think I am a bad person, stop posting to me. I accept that you and I may have different definitions of right/wrong but that as citizens we need to work it out. 6. It is good to use statistics, and I am with you there. I also don't want to imply that cops DON'T deserve danger pay. They are certainly targeted enough. However my point is that we don't actually base salary on how dangerous the job is - lots of others are attacked more or less than cops and aren't widely seen to be in dangerous jobs. That's all. 7. It's not a lie, it's implied in your defense of "hire my kid" practices. Either you want fair hiring or you don't. What are the criteria, what are the details ? I'm assuming you're in a different area than me so I'm interested to hear your perspective. 8. Ok, I'm going to stop reading there due to your personal comments on me. Whatever comes after that statement was unread by me FYI

I guess we're the left-ards who are concerned about selling out human rights to make Western oil sands people and Scott Moe happy? How about we divide into two groups? Group one always supports one side Group two doesn't. Let's call group two - citizens

He didn't do anything. Case in point, China trade policy - which liberals decried - remained relatively untouched or even with increased tariffs via Biden. His presidency was a nail in the coffin of the "new" politics of the Kennedy Administration... which he came of age in back when the hot technology was Colour TV. I can't wait until these decrepit dinosaurs - all of them - are gone.

There is no objectivity in a culture war.... ask them to list the top 5 good things Biden did and you will get nothing back... because all liberals are depraved Marxist id1ots who want to enable pedophilia, replace whites etc. etc. So much anger...