> the Canadian prime minister imposed martial law on the protestors
No, he didn’t.
I was wrong, we need crypto
81–90 of 336 posts
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
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One idiot or provocateur in a sea of tens of thousands does not override the 99%. That's an absurd, lazy smear. What this episode makes clear is that many people actually love authoritarianism as long as the actions of the state in the moment appear to align with their own ideology. Next time it won't, which is why it must be resisted on a principled basis. This precedent being set is a dictator's dream come true and…
> Next time it won't
Sadly, it most likely will. The left I used to know wouldn't be caught dead cheering on the coordination between federal government and private businesses/banks to deny people the ability to organize and protest. But here we are, and there we'll be when the government decides to label whatever the next movement is as a "threat to democracy."
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#83Canada just made the warrantless asset seizure permanent (running past the duration of the Emergencies Act). This is a warmup/trial to implement the same policies in the USA.
no, the Canadian version is worse because I don't believe they even need to inform the court what they are doing
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then arrest the people who are breaking the laws and blockading critical infrastructure, and charge them with a criminal offence. The BLM protests also saw many criminal elements that did looting and assaults. None of this is a valid argument for freezing accounts of people "involved" without due process.
The Emergencies Act is specifically for when there is an urgent and critical public order emergency. It's invocation is going to be ratified by the Parlaiment today. The police unfortunately dropped the ball, they tried that option too. But just arresting specific people also wasn't enough. Polling shows that the majority of Canadians supported the use of the act.
>Polling shows that the majority of Canadians supported the use of the act.
The majority of southerners supported slavery and breaking away from the union.
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#85Using crypto to fund illegal activities is already well explored and I don't think your post has much to add to the pitch for crypto.
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Please note that the Canadian government has, in the past, on multiple occasions [0], used agents provocateurs to falsely smear a protest movement by planting their own agents who attempt to inflame a situation. For example, trying to turn peaceful protests violent. To my knowledge, there was a singular incident of Nazi flag on the very first day of a 25 day protest. There is also some evidence that it may have actua…
There is no evidence it was "Trudeau's personal photographer" that took the picture in question. Zero.
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#87"In just three weeks of honking, blocked streets and bridges, bouncy castles and flag waving, this peaceful protest" 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…
>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
I don't think, it is entirely fair to blame it all on one side. What the government could have done is meet with the protestors and solve the problem diplomatically. Agree on a reasonable compromise, like suspending some restrictions conditional to hospital utilization. The protestors with reasonable demands [0] would have then condemned the complete nut jobs, most general public from both political camps would have supported the peaceful resolution and Trudeau would have been known as a good diplomat. After all, it's his direct job - negotiate terms on behalf of people he represents.
Instead, he decided to basically threw a tantrum and declared that it's below his royal highness to go negotiate with some pesky trucker plebs, quickly passing emergency regulation barring public assembly on the Parliament Hill and near "official residences" [1]. This is the most divisive and nonconstructive way of handling the situation, and I do think this is done on purpose.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8tzXazvyHQ&t=44s
[1] https://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2022/2022-02-15-x1/html/s...
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#88Canada just made the warrantless asset seizure permanent (running past the duration of the Emergencies Act). This is a warmup/trial to implement the same policies in the USA.
I don't support these policies, but they are already well in place in the USA. They don't need Canada to perform a trial run.
The US has has a long history with warrantless asset seizure, the most recent being the laws passed in the 1980s and still used today with the stated intention of curbing the illicit drug trade. In short, officers can size cash, valuables, vehicles, and property they believe might be used in a crime. Simply traveling with a few hundred dollars or more can be considered suspicious. Hundreds of millions of dollars are sized every year by police this way.
The US government can also freeze bank accounts of people they believe to be involved in crimes.
In all these cases, victims can go to court to reclaim what was taken from them and to get their accounts unfrozen. The same is true with what happened in Canada. There is very little difference with what is already the reality in the US.
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
One idiot or provocateur in a sea of tens of thousands does not override the 99%. That's an absurd, lazy smear. What this episode makes clear is that many people actually love authoritarianism as long as the actions of the state in the moment appear to align with their own ideology. Next time it won't, which is why it must be resisted on a principled basis. This precedent being set is a dictator's dream come true and…
> One idiot or provocateur in a sea of tens of thousands does not override the 99%. That's an absurd, lazy smear. Do you feel the same about the BLM protests?
This is a really lazy whataboutism.
Let's assume that both the blm protests and the convoy both had "a few idiots or provocateurs in a sea of tens of thousands." Now compare the media coverage and government handling of the two things, and compare how those idiots are portrayed compared to the tens of thousands. Do you see a difference? It seems to me that all blm-related events are generally considered peaceful protests (even the ones where buildings are burned down), while the convoy is nothing but a big nazi flag waving party. Did any blm related entity have their bank accounts frozen?
Re: I was wrong, we need crypto
#90It is one thing whether or not the Canadian government should seize funds from people who support the "convoy" movement. It is a different thing whether or not the Canadian government should lose the ability to seize funds , in general, from its citizens. This article conflates the two.
The Canadian government can still seize crypto funds from citizens, it just requires them to actually go through a due process, and perhaps get a court order or warrant. What's going on in Canada right now is a disgrace that perfectly exemplifies why the legacy financial system is morally - and quite literally - bankrupt.
The key point is that seizing someone's property needs to be costly.
It's immensely problematic when violating someone's individual rights is not costly, and you can seize the money of tens of thousands of people with the stroke of a pen and the push of a button.
The same argument applies to surveillance. If the FBI has reason to suspect a person of a crime, then they have the right to set up some surveillance apparatus to gather evidence against that person. But this is a costly endeavor and requires many manhours of work. But, if you can automatically surveil every person in the country, and run it all through machine learning to constantly monitor every single person, then that becomes an extremely dangerous slippery slope into an inescapable authoritarian state.