I was wrong, we need crypto

Aside from a billion dollars+ in trade blocked when the protest -- having achieved nothing terrorizing the residents of Ottawa and blasting horns/setting off fireworks around the clock -- branched out to trying to block international borders, they harassed schools, healthcare workers, anyone wearing a mask, and attacked reporters from venues they don't like. The vast majority of businesses in the affected zone shut down entirely because the lawless, selfish crowd at this rally proved such a massive liability that simply closing was a better option.

But they set up a bouncy castle and brought children as shields (stated tactical plan of the group), so I guess that is okay.

They fawned over a Fox News reporter, and then spit on and slurred an MSNBC reporter. You might notice a correlation with another group South of the border, and that isn't accidental. Just as it shouldn't surprise that the main "stage" of this operation's daily speeches were chock full of QAnon gibberish (utterly indisputable -- the crowd cheers as conspiracies about the WEF, the Rothschilds, Bill Gates, 5G, and so on were given the daily reading). Appearances by "Canada First" flags, Red Ensign flags (an old Canadian flag repurposed by white supremacist), and more unfortunate correlations. This isn't accidental. Livestreams and discussions with many of the protestors betrayed just a cosmically misinformed, ignorant group, and it's a perilous demonstration of the future we all face as groups fracture off, conveniently declare anything but a few grifting sources "fake news", and then feed off of each other.

To call this an anti-mandate protest is to seriously miss the plot. If it was -- if it hadn't constructed noise-terrorism devices that saw people measuring 100db+ in their apartment -- and actually saved the "Fuck Trudeau" signs and QAnon conspiracies, or that whole seditious "we're not leaving until the government resigns and the Governor General declares us the new government" bit of nonsense, they could have inspired sympathy. Instead it was simply political terrorism, and is grotesquely anti-democratic. 93% of Canadians wanted this shut down weeks ago.

"Martial law"? After three weeks, weeks past being declared an illegal occupation, they were sent home in the gentlest way possible. After weeks of warnings, then days of warning of an action, the police did their job. The only thing above and beyond normal policing they did was that the Emergency Act allowed other regions to add to the police force without the whole normal process. Calling this Martial Law is *gross* and makes DHH look like a clown, though the entire piece manages that so it's consistent. It should offend anyone with any functioning reason.

"First the Ottawa police department got GoFundMe to confiscate donations with the intention of redirecting them to other causes"

GFM was made aware the cause was being used to fund literal crime breaking (indisputable), so they cancelled it. Good for them. And if someone crowdfunded to have crimes committed against DHH or his property, I hope they would be even quicker (but hey, at least his detractors will have crypto, right?). What GFM decided to do then was entirely on GFM's side.

Now the government wants crowdfunding with targets or sources in Canada to report large or suspicious transactions to FINTRAC, given that currently it is a gap in the financial system. There is nothing surprising or bizarre in that.

And before someone cites BLM or "ANTIFA" thinking that's some sort of "haha got you leftist" retort, a lot of us -- those of us who don't frame everything as "right" or "left", and have remotely consistent values -- are against unlawful blockades and occupations fullstop. "CHOP" areas -- terrible, shut them down. Railway blockades -- terrible, shut them down. Bridge blockade -- terrible, shut them down. City blockade and criminal harassment for three weeks -- terrible, shut it down. Trying to undermine or usurp a democracy through criminal action -- terrible, shut it down.

I am embarrassed for DHH. Another hot take bit of nonsense filled with clear lies, all so he could claim that crypto could be the answer? And this trash will see upvotes by crypto enthusiasts who don't realize it's yet another American giving their unwanted, unneeded, ignorant hot takes about a situation about which they are grossly misinformed (or they're just a liar and don't care, because again they know they're talking to an audience that will eat it up).

As one aside, he tries to shame someone who called for them to lose their commercial license, commercial insurance, etc. Imagine if you will that a pilot at JFK airport didn't like....who cares, something, anything...so they taxied their A360 out to an active runway and then shut it down and locked the doors. Until they were satisfied with whatever their cause was, they weren't moving. Now tell me what you think the chances are that this person would maintain their pilot license, employment, or would ever fly a plane again?

So we agree, law breakers should have been charged. Police action should have been constant and aggressive.

But it was an occupation. Police barely operated in their lawless zone at all. That's the whole point, and was the intention of the group. It was a bully group, and their rhetoric and claims were often that they would die before they left. There are connotations to that.

Did someone say otherwise?

Crypto is an attempt to fulfill a broad yearning for financial freedom. The problem is, as it currently exists --- it just doesn't deliver.

Crypto doesn't displace trust, it misplaces it.

Instead of trusting government and regulated banks, you end up trusting the unregulated gatekeepers to the block chain --- the exchanges.

Who is making sure these gatekeepers are not self serving scammers and con artists? Why no one really.

In other words, block chain automates the accounting but it does nothing to eliminate *trust* as a central aspect of the monetary system. So the question simply becomes, who are you going to trust?

If government suddenly ceased to exist, the first thing people would do is re-invent it. Because left to their own devices, people are not trustworthy.