161–170 of 336 posts
Okay, but crypto already existed when all this transpired. If crypto is such a good idea and would prevent these problems, why didn't they just use it?
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Why must we choose between doing nothing on the one hand and freezing assets without due process on the other? Why can't we just have a functioning liberal democracy that arrests the purported criminals quickly, charges them with a crime, and tries them in a court under the full scrutiny of the voting public?
Canadians only have two hands. Even the Quebecois.
Okay, but crypto already existed when all this transpired. If crypto is such a good idea and would prevent these problems, why didn't they just use it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's voting in Democratic Republic of Korea too. It doesn't help if anyone speaking against the mass propaganda is silenced.
> There's voting in Democratic Republic of Korea too. Wow that's a really interesting fact about North Korea that has absolutely and unequivocally nothing to do with Canada. > It doesn't help if anyone speaking against the mass propaganda is silenced. Except they're not. So. After all, I can hear you now, Comrade Phil. Consider than rather than being silenced, people may just not agree with these fringe positions?
Except it's all the same everywhere. Maybe you habe never been out of your well so you don't know. Just so you know, free speech is protected right as per the North Korean constitution... except in practice, it's just like Canada.
> Consider than rather than being silenced, people may just not agree with these fringe positions?
What fringe position? That vaccines without long term data and questionable efficacy against the prevalent variant should not be mandated? Which other country has mandated it?
Okay, but crypto already existed when all this transpired. If crypto is such a good idea and would prevent these problems, why didn't they just use it?
Excellent question. The post also begs the question: does DHH really think that people in Canada are performing everyday transactions in cryptocurrencies? Donations in those forms would almost certainly be liquidated immediately, into ordinary banking accounts.
Not necessarily, p2p and cash.
Canadians have a right to protest. Canadians also have a right to the enjoyment of their property. The former does not override the latter, and the latter was severely infringed upon by the occupiers. These protests caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage. There is a $300M lawsuit against the occupiers in Ottawa, similar ones will happen against the occupiers of the Ambassador bridge. The bank accounts…
I think a better approach was to fine individuals for breaking the law.
The second option is civil, which are lawsuits against the protesters to recoup losses by businesses.
And then if crypto is a possibility, one could say you have to seize the assets now before they can be laundered, in other words, you're pre-empting the potential of illegal behavior.
Bank accounts are being frozen because currently it is an efficient way to instill fear into anyone thinking of supporting a similar protest in the future. If you eliminate the banking angle, there will be always others. In Russia, they can void your parental rights and send your kids to an orphanage where you won't ever see them. Back in the 80s USSR they could declare dissidents legally insane, forcing them to undergo "experimental treatment". Further back in the 30s, they would just send an unmarked operative car to your apartment and take you for questioning at 3am, after which you won't ever return.
These are all the symptoms. The real problem is the centralization of power. Russia was formed by centrally managed conquests, while many Western countries emerged as a compromise between equally powerful entities as early as 800+ years ago [0]. There's no trick to it - people only respect law if their opponents respect it as well, both knowing that the alternative (mutual destruction or an exhausting fight) is more expensive.
In the peaceful times, power is mostly an economical thing. You wield power when you own/control products that others depend upon. In a small closed community with a couple of farmers, a few local groceries, small banks, local factories, breweries, etc. the power is distributed. If Alice decides to not sell corn to Bob, he can always go buy it from Carol. This got disrupted by information technology, where Alice and Carol got outcompeted by Mike owning a grocery chain, employing minimum wage employees that decide nothing, and using the leverage to negotiate better prices with the suppliers. It also had a side effect of transferring the power from both Alice and Carol into Mike's hands. As the lower interest rates fueled more mergers, the power became consolidated in fewer and fewer hands.
So currently there is a shareholder class getting their income from the capital gains, and the rank-and-file class, working the corporate jobs. There is also a dwindling small business owner class that finds it harder and harder to compete in a market where selling goods below cost fueled by endless capital is just fine. The shareholder class holds most of the power, owns most media companies, and is using it to facilitate further transfer of wealth from the employee class (e.g. the move from owning suburban houses to renting corporate-owned condos). The rank-and-file class and small business class appear to be fighting each other over invented identity issues, pushed by the corporate media, and fail to recognize how they are both being robbed by the corporate class.
I don't think using distributed ledgers to hold your savings/pay for your expenses will solve the underlying problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's voting in Democratic Republic of Korea too. Wow that's a really interesting fact about North Korea that has absolutely and unequivocally nothing to do with Canada. > It doesn't help if anyone speaking against the mass propaganda is silenced. Except they're not. So. After all, I can hear you now, Comrade Phil. Consider than rather than being silenced, people may just not agree with these fringe positions?
> Wow that's a really interesting fact about North Korea that has absolutely and unequivocally nothing to do with Canada. Except it's all the same everywhere. Maybe you habe never been out of your well so you don't know. Just so you know, free speech is protected right as per the North Korean constitution... except in practice, it's just like Canada. > Consider than rather than being silenced, people may just not agr…
I grew up all over the world, including having lived in the US, Canada, KSA, and plenty of other places. I've also traveled to 50 countries or so. I strongly suspect I have seen more of the world than you have.
I can tell you that you are unequivocally wrong if you think that NK is anything like CA. It's a fun narrative of the uninformed.
> What fringe position? That vaccines without long term data and questionable efficacy against the prevalent variant should not be mandated? Which other country has mandated it?
Yes this is a fringe position that the science does not support.
It is clear that the hospitalization and death rates are orders of magnitude higher in the unvaccinated, and at the moment, I support policies which keep ICUs and hospital resources at or below capacity. Your positions are not in keeping with that.
I support mandatory vaccination campaigns until removing all restrictions would keep hospitals from being flooded, then lifting all restrictions.
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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."
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This was one year after similar group attacked the American Capitolium. Holding critical infrastructure hostage, threatening the government and harassing people is not peaceful. Invoking the Emergencies Act after 3 weeks was warranted after the police failed doing it's job. The government did not have a clear picture or control over the situation. A foreign organization could have used it to supply these people, whic…
> Invoking the Emergencies Act after 3 weeks was warranted after the police failed doing it's job. This is what I don’t get. The Canadian police had the power to stop the protestors who crossed the line from protest to riot. But they didn’t. I don’t understand why. Why did they allow the ambassador bridge to be shut down so long? They had the power to stop it. They just chose not to.
Only that the protest turned into an occupation and/or a blockade that caused economic damage and negatively impacted the residents of Ottawa.
These were remarkably peaceful protests, for the most part, by both the protesters and the police.