Moonbox

No they're absolutely not. It's just a question of the optics heading into the election. If it looks like Trudeau forced the issue and they can frame it as an attempt to hide corruption, the narrative isn't good for the Liberals. Trudeau and co. now have an identity of poor judgment and ethical gaffes. If it looks like the conservatives pushed the issue too hard, it will look like playing politics during a health crisis.

I saw this too. Thought it was pretty despicable.

I think you're grasping at straws here. I don't really think "woman" is much of a qualifier. My reservation lies in her background. You usually want your finance ministers to have backgrounds in finance/business/economics, just like you want your justice ministers to have backgrounds in law (whether practicing or theoretical). I've reservations with Freeland in this position for the same reason I have reservations towards Ontario's education minister.

Yeah...so this is pretty despicable timing. If there was ever a time for Jagmeet to stand up and grow a spine, it's now.

This definitely worries me. I think Freeland is a smart woman and could do a decent job as PM even, but I don't see how she's appropriate for the Finance Minister's position. Trudeau seems to use her as his omni-tool. He knows she's popular and puts her in visible places to put out his fires. Unfortunately, Trudeau seems to have a very poor grasp of economics (like his father) and from what I've read he and Morneau (someone who does know finance/economics) were really clashing on a number of plans moving forward. With a historical deficit, Trudeau apparently was intent on going full-steam ahead on environmental spending whereas Morneau felt finances were in crisis and we weren't in a position to do much for the time being. I've never felt that Trudeau was particularly intelligent or that he has good judgment, but my hope was that he'd surround himself with smart people and listen to them. Until now, that seems to have been the case, but as he continues to turf ministers and get caught in petty ethics scandals, it's getting harder and harder to trust him.

This thread made me laugh out loud. Doctors and health professionals are trying to kill themselves! This is against the Geneva Convention (or something)! Alien sex! Hydrochloroquine is the only cure against the socialist vampire cult trying to dethrone our lord and Savior Donald!

Pretty good article. I just wish folk could put aside their outrage and judgment and actually consider what people are saying before writing each other off as the anti-Christ.

The severity is a new thing. Sure, but that's the same sort of argument as "that's just your opinion". Of course it is. The whole topic is subjective. We're really just arguing in circles here. I'm glad the letter was published and I agree with it wholeheartedly.

It's obvious what "can" happen, and what employers are "allowed" to do in the current environment. I think it's dangerous, however, when employees' livelihoods and ability to freely discuss their views are subject to the whim of their employers' "value judgments". Let's not fool ourselves here either. It's often not even a value judgment that causes an employer to cut ties. It's the result of a campaign of complaints, boycotts and shaming by what likely amounts to a very vocal minority. Sort of a petty distinction. When your ability to earn a livelihood is dependent on keeping your mouth shut about unpopular opinions, you are being censored. Please note I said unpopular - not hateful. Folks are losing their jobs because of unpopular opinions or for questioning prevailing agendas. We're not having a legal argument. The fact that McCarthyism was legal doesn't make it any less abominable. It was a perversion of the legal system and championed by some of the most corrupt and frankly amoral people in the history of the United States. What we're seeing today is far less nefarious, but still troubling nonetheless. The fundamental idea behind affirmative action and anti-discrimination aren't in question. It's the misguided, overzealous and draconian way the rules are being applied.

Well it's certainly not enough for an employer to just be embarrassed. You can't fire someone simply for their political affiliation, though vocal Trump supporters might be embarrassing for some companies in the US (or vice versa?). It works both ways of course. You'd probably be embarrassed if your CEO was on Twitter talking about his cross-dressing nudist vacation, but would he be summarily fired for it? What you're speaking of here is perception. You're saying that perception and public opinion are the arbiters of this sort of "justice" and censorship. I know all about McCarthyism, and I think it was an abomination. What we're seeing today is rings similarly, though certainly nowhere near as bad.

What's "objectionable" is the question. Is it because most folks disagree? Is it because the majority of folk were offended and found the comments distasteful? Was it because a lot of people found it offensive and/or threatening? Or did someone just go out of their way to make a stink about an opinion they disagreed with? We never really know. I would have thought the difference is obvious. On the one hand you have someone saying they're "anti-someone" (which is pretty much dictionary definition hate), and on the other hand you have someone disagreeing with an updated definition for a word that had been used for hundreds of years to describe her sex. That's not a trivial distinction. Fair enough.

Which is the problem. She had an outspoken outlook and was punished/censored for it. It absolutely does. This, I'd argue, is the central point of the article. The institutional side of the phenomenon is described as "panicked damage control". I disagree. I think it was pretty clear it was talking about the overall environment of intolerance, and that institutions have fallen victim.

Pretty sure they do that. I don't think that's right either, but that hardly proves there's no such thing as systemic racism. Not sure about Larry. He's hardly thoughtful. "What we should do is pay reparations to black Americans who actually grew up under Jim Crow and were directly harmed by second-class citizenship—people like my Grandparents." From your own link. He's opposed to reparations for slavery specifically. It's so far back historically that any reparation would be arbitrary, wouldn't much purpose and would actually just make tensions and the divide worse.

What are they supposed to do about it? As we speak the Chief of Waterloo Region Police is leading a group advocating the decriminalization of possession. Why? Because it's not effective. You can look to places like Portugal who decriminalized possession and minor selling to see how HIV and disease transmission is down, overdoses are less common and there are HALF the number of minor drug offenders in Portuguese prisons now than before 2001. In 1999, 44% of people in Portuguese jails were drug offenders - just so you have some perspective. The best part? The drug use in Portugal didn't go up. The country is saving money, saving lives and allowing the police to stop wasting their time chasing down addicts. Also if you ignore all of the highly educated, well-respected academics saying the opposite. You a black republican lawyer, a Columbia University Professor and a 24-year old opinion columnist. If black poverty rates are disproportionately higher, the distinction is kind of moot. Nobody is saying we try to help out ONLY black poor people and not Hispanics (who also have high poverty rates) in the USA. Nobody is saying we should be throwing money at rich black folk. Larry Elder is hardly the authority you make him out to be. He's only noteworthy in that he's black and wealthy, while at the same time outspoken and Republican. This is a guy who tries to say that low black unemployment (prior to the COVID crisis) proves that Trump isn't racist. Unemployment rates were historically low across the country, so that was a foregone conclusion. With Black people disproportionately affected by the economic shutdown, has Larry changed his tune? Nah. Another brilliant example of his "intellectualism" is how he uses the Music Modernization Act as evidence of Trump's progressive attitude towards people of colour...total nonsense. He's a Republican squawk box. Coleman Hughes, at least, is thoughtful and even worthy voice in the discussion and he does have good points to make. Are you aware that he supports reparation payments to folks who grew up under Jim Crow laws? Maybe you should read a bit more about what he says.

Because they are all racist cops, or because they have problems with the way policing is done? Oh please. If you go looking for it you can find someone saying anything. Low education standards, lousy schools and high single-parenthood are all hallmarks of poverty. These are true no matter what race you're looking at. The bolded part...I hope you're quoting someone else or something because that just made me cringe.

but Maria Forstater lost her job for just disagreeing with a new legal definition. She was hardly unique. The legislation's intention and it's application in practice are not the same things. Regardless, your example about Scots vs Jews is a non sequitur. Nobody's disputing whether transgender people are discriminated against, or if they deserve some protection. We're disputing what constitutes discrimination or hate and how absurdly exaggerated and unforgiving the standards for proper conduct become when dealing with protected groups, whereas those groups and their advocates get a free pass to bully and threaten their opponents.

Well I obviously agree that it's going way too far, and that's the whole point of this thread (IMO). The universities are the worst among the offenders. Well I'm completely against the rioting and looting for obvious reasons, but you make the common mistake of thinking that this is symbolic of the movement itself, rather than the same sort of criminal opportunism we all the time during protests. As for the "lie", I still think you're missing the message. The message, as far as I can tell, is NOT that police all over North America are racist and looking to kill black people. As for systemic racism, you're being incredibly choosy with your "facts". The idea that "culture" people being full of single parent families and having little respect for education is highly misguided. There's a direct correlation between poverty and single-parenthood, which for obvious reasons affects a child's support and motivation towards education. This is a feedback loop that reinforces itself over generations and it's true across all races. To say it's just a "cultural" with black people is ignorant of the "facts" as you call them. Sorry.

Perhaps not, but debating the definition of "women" and not falling in line with expanded definition is punishable apparently...so if it's not hate mongering, then what is it? This is too black and white Argus. Alicia Garza can't say anything she wants without repercussions, though she'd likely get away with more in the current environment. I'm not entirely familiar with her more inflammatory comments, but politically she's not my cup of tea. Regardless, I can say all sorts of stuff about black people without losing my job. So can you. Just don't say really dumb stuff like I was doing in my last post. Personally I don't really care that much about the transgender debate. I do worry from what I've read that children are being "treated" for gender identity problems before they're even fully developed, and I do sympathize with feminist arguments on the definition of "woman" but I'd have no problem referring to a transgender female as a women out of simple consideration. I don't think anyone here was calling you racist for giving statistics on black crime either. I think your focus was misguided and you were paying too much attention to the negative attention the police were getting, and not enough attention on what seem like obvious problems with policing procedures.

That's pretty much exactly where I disagree with him. Thought the basic idea he's communicating has merit, his application is too broad and definitive. On the one hand, I think he's right that once a group is determine protected (like Blacks or Natives for example), you can't really be expressing opinions or debating whether they're sub-human, less intelligent or less suitable for a job etc. On the other hand, debating the terminology that 50% of the population has for centuries used to describe itself is not even close to the same thing. Either way, at no point has Michael Hardner told me I'm a racist transphobe.

There are certainly a lot of outright deniers and folks with head in their sands, but I'll put myself out there and say that even I disagree with most of the climate change initiatives we see proposed. Most of them are policy catastrophes waiting to happen with a lot of moral back-patting and lacking entirely in efficacy. I've probably argued with you about this in the past, but what you see as "conservatism", I often see as thinly-disguised income redistribution and hollow appeals to Toronto yuppies. I just look at Ontario's Green Energy plan as an example. It was an unmitigated disaster and probably set environmentalism back in Ontario by 10-15 years...and for nothing. Smart energy and environmental spending is one thing, but the politicians need to listen to the economic and engineering experts as well as the climate scientists too.

I've been going back and forth with him on this issue and he's certainly not saying that. The sports argument is one he's made clear he thinks is open for debate. I do disagree with many of his assessments on what is or isn't discriminatory or demeaning, and what is or isn't closed for debate, but he's not throwing around cancel culture slogans.

Why? No, that's a symbolic slap on the wrist. Relatively speaking, it's nothing. What have I been doing then? I think I've been pretty clear on how/why I support Argus's original point. I disagree. I think big changes are resisted, and resisted and resisted until resentment and discontent reaches a critical mass. At that point, all you need is a spark to blow the whole thing up. Changes then come fast and hard. George Floyd is an example.

Not sure I really understand what you're saying here. Moral and economic righteousness? What are we talking about? Moral righteousness is pretty universal, but it has degrees of extremity. It's one thing to be a patronizing lucky sperm telling the poor how his success has everything to do with his work ethic (and nothing to do with his rich parents), but it's another thing altogether to go out of your way endeavoring to ruin someone's life for disagreeing with you. Well some of the silliest and worst offenders here should just be /ignored. There's a handful that seem to bring every discussion downhill. I'm guilty of engaging them (especially with ones I'm not familiar with) but eventually we have to stop paying attention to them.

It's really both. "While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty." Though the article does talk about institutional leaders running panicked-damage control at the slightest threat of negative PR (as moonlight graham explained), we also have large proportions of the population proclaiming boycotts or "cancelling" people at the slightest provocation. The exaggerated culture of moral righteousness has become absurd. "We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences." On a similar note, we need to understand that it's okay to disagree in good faith without sweeping judgment on each other's personal character. Depending on the issue we're discussing here, I'm either a left-wing sheep (for supporting police reform or mocking Rebel Media) or I'm a right-wing nut (for emphatically opposing public sector unions or misguided green energy initiatives). Since coming back to these forums it seems I'm getting accused of the former more than the latter. There's been a pretty substantial shift in tone since the earlier days of my posting here.

No, I'd not exclude you. You've shown the ability to debate my arguments and opinions, rather than attack me personally and try to get me fired and generally ruin my life. As for "definitive line of reasonability", it's not black and white. I think we can at least start with people being allowed to voice their opinions without having their lives ruined, and that cancel-culture should be restricted to only the intentionally rude, demeaning and discriminatory (or the obstinately ignorant and inconsiderate). Folks should have a chance to explain their positions , to be corrected (where warranted), to be educated and to have an opportunity to apologize in good faith rather than have their employers panic and fire them. What sort of consequences did they face? None from their employer. They (and the university) are being sued, and this will be a precedent-establishing case and (hopefully) a warning signal to overzealous academia. We'll have to wait and see, but I don't expect much. They have a point, and I'll argue to support it where I feel it's warranted. I can agree with Donald Trump on certain issues, though I loathe the man himself and think he's danger to humanity. I don't even know where to begin on how we fix things. I can't speak up myself publicly. Most people can't. It's going to require a bold stand from self-reliant (privately wealthy) public figures and probably a good number of martyrs to start making any meaningful change. Barring that, the alternative is a culture war, as you've said before. That will likely work itself out eventually, but at what cost?