It appears this was the result of terrible security at GiveSendGo. I'd agree it could be state sponsored, but I am certain there are enough people with the skills to do this on their own downtown Ottawa (even if it turned out they work for the gov't).
That said, I am thoroughly disappointed the Federal gov't and much of the media coverage. They have done nothing but make the situation worse. I think it is intentional (I assume some political end game), but their actions are fueling even more outlandish conspiracy theories.
The most insane was that all layers of government did nothing to stop the noise (truck horns), but it ended when a 21 year old who simply filed a court injunction and the protesters complied.
I've watched the Toronto Police Service play their A game through this entire debacle. They shut down the protests hard and were clearly visible throughout the city with heavy trucks and busses to block roads and maintain control of the situation.
The idea that Justin Trudeau needs martial law to deal with parked trucks is outrageous. This isn't an insurrection (reference to an MOU was removed from their website and I agree with the assertion that it was a poorly thought out idea, not a threat), there is no violence, and no obvious danger. The last person to use martial law was Trudeau's father (Pierre) for an actual terrorist attack and kidnapping (the diplomat was later murdered). Get some proper police on the job and drop mandates for ineffective measures and let's move on with our lives.
Media coverage of these protests is vastly negative. I remember only a few years ago (2020) when protests were undoubtedly violent across the United States. Video evidence of this violence as well as mass crowd driven theft was widely documented and distributed. I have yet to see video evidence of any violence from freedom convoys, and the ground based video evidence I have seen appears vastly peaceful. This does not mean there isn’t violence. Indeed, blockading roads could be construed as violence based on an argument for different definitions of the word. Yet, from my personal observations, it seems that the protests are essentially peaceful, citizens living in these cities are in support in large numbers, and this is running counter to the narrative being espoused in mainstream media sources, with the possible exception of Fox News. More or less it seems as though media sources are mischaracterizing these protests overall. Furthermore, it can be effectively argued that forcing workers to get vaccinated or lose their jobs is inherently discriminatory and perhaps even anti-freedom. But these are only my personal observations and conclusions, be what they are, a single individuals insight into the times occurring around him, debate as you will.
Yeah, they intend fully peaceful protests and bring long guns, body armor, large cache of ammunition...[0] and call for the overthrow of the democratic government.
This doesn't even resemble a spontaneous protest, it's organized and funded as part of the global push to fascism. The anti-vax component is a thin pretext.
Far better than CHAZ which established a "no-police zone", did not even recognise the US government and where gangs regularly carried assault rifles. And of-course the shootings and the deaths were just glossed over and the whole movement glorified by the media.
The global push to communism is far, far stronger than any step to fascism.
Considering that the CHAZ was in Capitol Hill, I assume the people in that neighborhood were supportive. As for the rest of us in Seattle, most of us never even visited or saw the place (how often does someone who doesn't live in Capitol Hill visit Capitol Hill?), so it was just something we would see on CNN if we were bothering to watch the news at all (it was cool to see FoxNews have some of our buildings burning down even if it wasn't true, their media narrative was pretty messed up).
I've got a friend who lives on Capitol Hill in Seattle. She hated it - it had all the negative effects of the convoy in Ottawa, about not being able to get where you want to go safely.
I suspect that's how it goes for most instances of protest or civil unrest - the apolitical people in the area hate it, because they're the ones you're inconveniencing to make a point, while distant folks' feelings are determined by whether the protesters are on their side.
"According to the criminal complaint, DAVID-PITTS had arrived in Seattle from Alaska just three days before Monday’s protest. After marching with the group in downtown Seattle, DAVID-PITTS is seen on surveillance video piling up trash against the sally-port door at the Seattle Police East Precinct. Over an eleven minute period the surveillance video captures DAVID-PITTS not only piling up the trash, but repeatedly lighting it on fire and feeding the flames with more trash. While DAVID-PITTS was lighting the fire, other people who appeared on the surveillance were attempting to use crowbars and cement-like materials to try to disable the door next to the sally-port to prevent officers from exiting the building"
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/alaska-man-charged-fede...
It didn’t really affect anyone who wasn’t on tv. I’d only think about it when a friend from out of state would ask what it’s like.
The BLM marches closed freeways once in a while but it’s hard to make I5 noticeably worse. I’ve sat in longer backups more frequently in Seattle due to drunk drivers in Tacoma, for example.
It really wasn’t a big enough deal for there to be a majority opinion either way, I’d imagine. I’d completely forgotten about it until I read your post.
There certainly was quite a bit of community support for the protests on Capitol Hill and the liberation of Cal Anderson Park and the surrounding area from being flooded with tear gas for weeks on end.
Most of the people who were in my scout troop participated at one point or another, the Capitol Hill Business Alliance was broadly supportive, albiet they were focused on business centric issues. Many of the businesses in the area operated like normal as well.
Eventually though the park was looking like a Nicklesville (old Seattlites know the etymology of this), and the crowd that had driven back the cops, painted the street with a mural, and acted in solidarity with their neighbors had dwindled, leaving just those that saw free food, free camping and few people left encouraging sociable behavior.
Support in large numbers and largest against are not necessarily contradictions. There can be a majority against something and still have a large minority for something. For example, if 1 in 4 support something, that 250k Ottawa residents.
> Furthermore, it can be effectively argued that forcing workers to get vaccinated or lose their jobs is inherently discriminatory and perhaps even anti-freedom.
From my understanding, this is only the case for truckers crossing the border. Most of the vaccination mandates I have heard of have been at the provincial or municipal levels and only affect employees of the government or publicly controlled institutions (health, education, police). Even then, it is typically on unpaid leave. Relatively few mandates have come from Ottawa, simply because it isn't their jurisdiction. They aren't leaving much room for human rights complaints, particularly since I believe employers were already within their rights to demand certain vaccinations. I very much doubt that it would even qualify as discriminatory, since it does not affect protected classes.
It is not the employers that are demanding these people be vaccinated, They just want their products delivered. The government wont allow drivers to cross an imaginary line without submitting to vaccination: an even more egregious trespass of an individuals liberty than their usual practice of extortion and/or delay.
If by imaginary line you mean an international border and by government you mean the US government, at least the first part is factual.
As for the second part, the US has been asking for a whole host of vaccinations in order to get a visa for multiple decades, same for the Canadian one, so I don't see how it's "an even more egregious trespass of an individuals liberty than their usual practice".
Do you actually think that referring to borders as 'imaginary lines' is productive? Like do you think that it ads to the conversation, or persuades people to agree with you?
11 people were arrested on weapons charges at the Alberta blockade (handguns and body armor) and one person was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder for trying to run over police with his tractor
That says a lot if that's what a violent protest looks like in Canada when the "peaceful" ones in the US involve millions of dollars in property damage and numerous injuries or deaths.
Strangest to me there is actually the realisation that 'loo' being a mainly British word (I knew that), over there they're not called 'portaloos'. ('Porta-potties'!)
While we're on the subject of the fallacy of relative privation, you'll surely acknowledge that the closure of the Ambassador Bridge for a week is a couple orders of magnitude worse than the 2020 protests. After all, the appropriate measure of a protest is dollars lost, and hundreds of millions of dollars of goods cross the bridge every day.
According to Wikipedia there was up to $2b in insured damages and 25 deaths during the 2020 riots. Now regarding the bridge closure; there will be costs for delays and those will be substantial, but it's not like they just throw $400m of goods in the river because the border is closed.
Not really that fallacy - no claim was made that it wasn't a problem. If anything, it's a musing on how media bias may affect how things are portrayed. Specifically with calling something violent. If violence is the adjective we are examining, the loss (or delay) of revenue from the protest would not fit in this model.
I am curious though, are goods not being rerouted?
Absolutely that fallacy. You're holding the 2020 BLM protests up as being far worse. In fact, you've quantified just how bad they were, as a means of demonstrating that these protests are not as bad. The fallacy is not the claim that this isn't a problem, but that its not nearly as bad as this other problem, and therefore not worthy of the reaction.
Many of the large auto manufacturers shutdown production lines in response to the bridge closure. Delayed revenue is lost revenue.
"Fallacy of relative privation (also known as "appeal to worse problems" or "not as bad as") – dismissing an argument or complaint due to what are perceived to be more important problems."
I have not dismissed the issue. Do you have a source to back up your claim? Also, can you quote where I say this protest is not an issue or not worthy of being addressed?
Again, this was mostly about bias in reporting.
"Delayed revenue is lost revenue."
Here's a fallacy - false equivalent. Delaying revenue does not mean that revenue is lost. Demand and orders do not cease to exist simply because production temporarily halts.
The fallacy is claiming that one is not as bad because the other exists. You seem to be defending your comments from absolute privation. I refer to the first comment I replied to,
>That says a lot if that's what a violent protest looks like in Canada when the "peaceful" ones in the US involve millions of dollars in property damage and numerous injuries or deaths.
Perhaps you read that with a different meaning than it was written with. As I've repeatedly said, it's about the bias in reporting. You seem to not be accepting this. Might I remind you that one of the guidelines of this site is to interpret comments charitably.
You misinterpreted my comment and attacked it as being a fallacy. I explained myself and you attacked further, in the process stating a fallacy of your own. Now you are calling this pedantry. Yet you have not responded to the majority of my comments.
Why would I not correct you when you are saying that I'm saying things I'm not?
You're disregarding my premise, and arguing against something else. The severity of the BLM protests in no way sets precedence for other protests, nor informs the minimum level of violence/destruction/disruption that must occur before other protests are criticized and acknowledged as traumatic for the people whose lives have been disrupted. These events stand on their own, and aren't somehow offset by another protest, or absolved by another protest. It's not an overton window.
> The severity of the BLM protests in no way sets precedence for other protests, nor informs the minimum level of violence/destruction/disruption that must occur before other protests are criticized and acknowledged as traumatic for the people whose lives have been disrupted.
But the comparison does inform us on how biased and hypocratical the media and the ruling class are.
You’re arguing that the deprivations suffered by the victims of one civil disturbance are not lessened in any way by the deprivations of a different disturbance.
That BLM, the Night of Broken Glass, and Selma do not make the lives of those affected by the “truckers” any better.
Those events create neither a defense nor condemnation of the “truckers.”
This is true, certainly.
But it does allow third parties (most people on this forum) to create a figure out how bad the situation is.
Likewise, it allows Canadians to assess the actions of their leaders decided if they are appropriate.
> it seems that the protests are essentially peaceful, citizens living in these cities are in support in large numbers
This is not true in any of the relevant cities; it is an extremely vocal, and very small, minority of people who are in support, and I can guarantee you that most of the few people who do support it would change their minds if it was their neighbourhood people were honking in all night.
Note that over 90% of Canadian truckers are already vaccinated, and similar percentages of the large urban centres being harassed are vaccinated as well. Most people are entirely against these "protests", and will be happier when they're over.
> Furthermore, it can be effectively argued that forcing workers to get vaccinated or lose their jobs is inherently discriminatory
It cannot be effectively argued, because it is not discriminatory; "people who refuse to believe in medical science" is not a protected class. If you need to get a background check to get a job, that is not discriminatory. If you need to have a license to do a job, that is not discriminatory. If you need to be vaccinated to do your job (not just COVID, but otherwise), that is not discriminatory.
> and perhaps even anti-freedom.
Freedom has limits. You don't have the freedom to endanger others.
Freedom does not mean "I get to eat my cake and have it too"; it means you're able to make a choice. Do you want to get vaccinated and do your job, or do you want to refuse to get vaccinated and leave that job so that you aren't endangering others?
What these people are protesting is that they made their choice and have to deal with the consequences of that choice. If you don't want to get a driver's license, you can't protest that you should still be allowed to drive a car; if you don't want to get a passport, you can't protest that you should still be allowed to travel internationally. The rules and restrictions are clear and up-front.
Also: I have friends in Ottawa, and am hearing multiple reports of people being harassed or threatened by these "protesters" (many of whom are acting more like terrorists, trying to intimidate everyone around them) for something as simple as wearing a mask.
> Media coverage of these protests is vastly negative.
Keep in mind that in Canada a lot of the media is state owned and operated. So the media coverage might reflect more on what the ruling party wants the people to think of the protests.
On the livestreams they had music blasting and children playing in the snow near the trucks. Doesn’t look like an “insurrection”, as the state media described it, by any stretch (unless they fear snowballs!).
> Keep in mind that in Canada a lot of the media is state owned and operated. So the media coverage might reflect more on what the ruling party wants the people to think of the protests.
Sure, there's the CBC but the rest of our media is not state owned, so that's a weird claim to make.
Except in this case the major private Canadian media all participated in taking something like $600 million Canadian dollars in subsidies from the government. Justin Trudeau even had the audacity to joke about having bribed the media. [0]
I think it is reasonable to consider the possibility that these handouts may have biased the media to the point where they may be reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them.
I'm not arguing there's not some possible influence, I don't know if you can say that with any media in any country, I was just taking exception to the blatantly false "state owned and operated".
You’re partially correct. Don’t forget the goodie bag the media gets to “support journalism” which basically is a huge pot of money. Or Telford bragging she could get articles written published to smear to smear someone. It not too hard to make the connection between money and favours now is it?
> On the livestreams they had music blasting and children playing in the snow near the trucks. Doesn’t look like an “insurrection”,
Except for the existence of snow, it sounds like things I’ve seen around fighters in the Palestinian intifada. I think you have an unrealistic view of what an insurrection looks like.
> citizens living in these cities are in support in large numbers
Source? The US polls I've seen show 60% support for vaccine mandates, which is probably why the government feels so confident in shutting down the protests. The media I've seen isn't portraying the protestors as violent but as a nuisance.
Do the polls have how many support the protest? If 20% do, then that would be 200k residents in the city. I consider 200k, or 20% of the population to be a large number. Still a minority, but a large minority.
It does irritate me that the media are referring to it by their own name, "The Freedom Convoy", when it should be something more neutral and objective, like "the Harassment Convoy".
Please don't cross into the flamewar style here. Your comment is a noticeable step in that direction, which is against both the letter and the spirit of the site guidelines. You can make your substantive points without that.
Well they did say they were watching videos of it and it seemed peaceful. Basically that the videos they are seeing don't support the message they are hearing. I would be interest to see evidence either way.
> The most insane was that all layers of government did nothing to stop the noise (truck horns), but it ended when a 21 year old who simply filed a court injunction and the protesters complied.
I think one point that the last two years has nailed home (around the world) is that how protestors are treated has little to do with what their tactics and behavior are, and more to do with simply whether their message ideologically aligns with the police.
If the police agree with some group of protestors, then they're treated with kid gloves, and can get away with anything. The police will throw their hands up and say "nope, can't possibly enforce the law anymore, so sorry!" and stand back. If the police do not agree with some other group of protestors, they're going to get beaten, pepper sprayed, and shot with rubber bullets, no matter how they behave. All of a sudden, enforcement is no problem.
Portland Police Department is just one particularly egregious example. Numerous leaked text messages between officers and the Proud Boys. Letting them know to take cover before tear gas is deployed and that they'll be told when it's "all clear" to come back out, letting them know that though some of their leaders have active warrants for arrest, that they are clear to come to the protest because there's no "other agencies" involved in enforcement, so there's no risk.
This is false and I would expect better of HN posters.
A group of the protestors locked the doors to a downtown apartment building with handcuffs and then attempted to set that building on fire.
Although nobody has been injured yet, there have been plenty of weapons seizures as well as incidents of protestors ramming police vehicles and/or attempting to arrest police officers.
Residents of Ottawa are scared to leave their homes for simple tasks like buying groceries because the protestors have assaulted vulnerable individuals for wearing masks.
The entire thing is a tinderbox just waiting for one unhinged protestor to make a wrong move. And even if we escape this incident peacefully, there are the toxic diesel fumes from idling trucks which have been polluting downtown Ottawa's air for the last two weeks and are likely to become trapped in the urban environment.
> A group of the protestors locked the doors to a downtown apartment building with handcuffs and then attempted to set that building on fire.
What evidence is there that that was real? An allegation was made on Twitter, but only thing I've found that digs into the details looks like a complete debunking (see links at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30336974). It's from a biased source and I'm open to any factual refutation, but I've looked for contrary reporting that digs into the details, and haven't found any. Only a lot of repetition of the original allegation.
With a couple rouge agents being your definition of obvious danger, there can never be another protest. Apply that same logic to the protests a year before and see how it goes
I feel like that is an understatement. This is not a few good old boys throwing a snowball. It's acts of arson, attempted murder, probably fits the definition of terrorism. And that's just the apartment building incident.
And of course the protests a year before were in no part better.
Every large protest fits the definition of terrorism, especially I suspect from the perspective of the politicians that the protest is trying to pressure. This is why people have been arguing that the definition is misguided and far to broad pretty much since the inception of that definition.
Oh, so the 'debunking' is not on whether or not an attempted mass murder/arson occurred, but that there is no "direct linkage" between the occupation and the crime.
What that likely means is that they don't know who the people in the video are. It seems pretty likely to me that it's related to the occupation, especially since there was a 'confrontation' earlier that day with residents of the building. It's not like buildings are burnt down in Ottawa every day.
That's great that it "seems pretty likely" to you, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Unless you have concrete information which the OPS doesn't have, I don't think speculation is very useful here.
In the country I grew up in, trying and failing to commit crimes is still a crime. The act itself is the crime, not the success of it. Unfortunately these days it seems like the better determinant of whether something is a crime is someone's political affiliation.
That's fine, you have every right to your suspicions, but unless you feel you have better information about the incident than the police that investigated it, I'm not really sure what your comment adds. The GP made the claim that protestors in Ottawa tried to burn a condo down and a quote from the police chief proves this to be false.
This is one of several accounts I use because my personal identity is tied to my main account, and accusations like the above concern me when I know there are vigilantes out there who find joy in doxing people with different political leanings than them. Rest assured I've been a member of this community since 2014, I'm not one of the dreaded "alt-right trolls" some users are so comically paranoid of.
On that note, I'm not really sure what's alt-right about repeating a quote from an investigating officer, but then again, most people who use that phrase aren't being intellectually honest anyway.
Compared to the violence, burning and looting in front of the American election this is absolutely nothing and have only lasted a few days
Those demonstrations were mostly peaceful according to those we are supposed to listen to, so obviously the current demonstrations are even more peaceful.
Edit: I'm triple vaccinated myself and recommend it for everyone else, but if we have freedom to choose that also must include freedom to do what I think is less smart.
In fact I think at this point the attempt to force people to vaccinate is scaring people away from it.
People still have their rights to do "dumb choices". I'm triple vaccinated, got omicron one month later of being vaccinated, still believe that the vaccine helped me to have it almost asymptomatically, but I'm ok with people saying that dont want to be vaccinated.
To force a division among the population is the real evil. We should demand better investments in the health sector, better salary to all workers involved on that (Doctors, nurses, teachers, policeman, etc), a covid treatment protocol that works and that's peer reviewed and supported by the scientists and eventually not the best for the pharma industry. We need transparency from Politicians in every single decision that affects the population.
>A group of the protestors locked the doors to a downtown apartment building with handcuffs and then attempted to set that building on fire.
For some reason the media failed to show the images in their stories, but the two arsonists on camera (not a group) had purple hair. With all the talk of white supremacist instigators at BLM riots, I wouldn't be surprised if this were a case of the opposite, anti-trucker instigators trying to give the protestors a bad name, and purple hair is more likely associated with the left...which ironically has taken a pro government stance on this issue.
In any case afaik no actual tie to the protests has been reported.
A number of illegal weapons, high capacity magazines, and a large quantity of ammunition were seized in a blockade in Alberta. I would not be surprised if there are people with weapons in Ottawa as well, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
Your link doesn't describe anything as "illegal weapons." It just says "long guns" and "handguns" which are both pretty broad terms that undoubtedly encompass guns that are legal in Canada.
Most hand guns are prohibited[0] weapons in Canada. You need explicit authorization to transport [2] prohibited weapons. There are pretty strict rules[3] for how they're to be transported, too. You're not just allowed to drive around with handguns rattling around in the car, this isn't the US. Large capacity magazines are illegal in almost all cases [1]. Even that machete might be illegal given the context [4].
A machete may be considered a weapon in certain contexts, but that's not a unique law. The US also reclassifies things as weapons once they are used as weapons (in that instance.) Attack someone with a machete and it suddenly becomes a deadly weapon.
Canada bans a lot of weapons for looking "scary" -- nunchuks and butterfly knives for example (both of which are rather notoriously more dangerous to the person wielding them than anybody else). Americans who come to Canada are frequently surprised by the different laws up here. Yes, an attack with a machete renders it illegal in both countries. A concealed machete is illegal in Canada, regardless of intent or use. I'm not so sure about the US (especially with the variance among state laws)
Handguns require a license to transport (ATT). Even if they were acquired legally (and that's a very big if because of RPAL), their presence at the border is very illegal.
Surprisingly, despite "a willingness to use them against police", they didn't use them against police, so it's likelier than not that the story is made up or mischaracterized.
The tweet is deleted. Regardless, I am sure not "all" protesters are looking for violence, but the ones who brought weapons and ammo certainly did. And I am sure not all of them have been found and arrested.
What a convenient thing to happen on the very same day he is expected to announce the taking away of civil liberties of Canadians, and give themselves the right to seize property and equipment.
When asking if anyone in the protest had firearms, a journalist was ejected from a news conference. Would have been a good opportunity to disavow violence, but here we are. In this case, it's not so much painting with broad strokes as much as judging by the company they keep.
I didn't see (nonfringe) calls for martial law. I saw calls for the military to tow the trucks because the actual truck towing companies the police normally subcontracted to were unwillingness to piss off their customer base/risk of violence from truckers/agreement with the protests. And, of the various government agencies, only the military had access to the heavy vehicle movers that were needed.
> I think it is intentional (I assume some political end game)
Most media doesn't have a political endgame. They have a bias for sensationalism and clickbait.
> of the various government agencies, only the military had access to the heavy vehicle movers that were needed
I am 100% certain there are people who can easily pick whatever kind of ignition lock cylinders are used in these trucks. It would be far more efficient to "car jack" these trucks, drive them to an impound lot, and auction them off the next day, than trying to tow them with "military tow trucks" (whatever those are).
Definition, martial law: Martial law is the temporary imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to a temporary emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. [1]
The key phrases are "imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions" and "suspension of civil law by a government".
The Canadian Emergencies Act, which was invoked by the Liberal government today, specifically states the following: "For greater certainty, nothing in this Act derogates from the authority of the Government of Canada to deal with emergencies on any property, territory or area in respect of which the Parliament of Canada has jurisdiction" [2].
I'd do a deeper reading but I'm a bit lazy, but my understanding is that the EA does not allow, in any way, a shift in governance that could be described as "martial law" - where the military is in control of civil functions and can create or remove laws as military leadership desires. Even with the EA invoked, the federal government still controls the Canadian military (but can be assisted in enforcing civil law _by_ the military).
I'm no fan of Trudeau either, but we should seek to be precise when discussing hot situations like this. People can get very inflamed off of internet posts and the idea that we're under "martial law" is riling people up.
> I'd do a deeper reading but I'm a bit lazy, but my understanding is that the EA does not allow, in any way, a shift in governance that could be described as "martial law" - where the military is in control of civil functions and can create or remove laws as military leadership desires. Even with the EA invoked, the federal government still controls the Canadian military (but can be assisted in enforcing civil law _by_ the military).
Is that martial law is? What you're describing sounds more like a coup to me ("where the military is in control of civil functions and can create or remove laws as military leadership desires").
My understanding of martial law (very colored by being an American) is basically direct enforcement of domestic government authority by the military with little or no recourse to normal civilian oversight (e.g. courts). However, the military isn't acting independently, but is still taking orders from some civilian leader in some part of the government.
Both of the situations you described can be accurate simultaneously.
There are two levels of civil government. The military can override the civil functions of the lower level (the states) while still taking orders from the upper level (the federal government)
In ordinary functioning of government and civil society there's an effective separation of the army and the police in law enforcement. In the US, this is governed by the posse comitatus act. Canada doesn't really have an analogue, the government can request the assistance of the army when lower levels of government are unable to perform their duties sufficiently to maintain order.
The use of the emergencies act makes it clear that this is one of those situations and allows the government to utilize the military to support lower levels of law enforcement.
This is not martial law. This is not a coup. This is not unprecedented - after all Pierre Trudeau used the War Measures Act (predecessor to the Emergencies Act) to restore order in the October Crisis.
This is more like a state calling in the national guard.
The answer to lower levels of government not being able to maintain order isn't to roll over. It's to bring in more help. That's what's being done here. And it's governed by the Charter. Much more stringently than the War Measures Act ever was.
[edit] We cannot allow a small, loud, group of individuals to overturn the democratic will of the people as decided in the last election. This is un-democratic, unfair, and must end immediately. We can talk about ending restrictions in the open, but not with a boot on our throats. This occupation must end before we decide on what to do next. I remind you of the interview Pierre Trudeau gave re: the October Crisis.
Pierre Trudeau: Yeah, well there's a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed, but it's more important to keep law and order in this society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a soldier's helmet. [1]
I highly recommend listening to the longer speech [2]. Far more interesting than any speech given by Justin, IMO. Obviously a different situation, but with similar roots: wanting to overthrow a democratically elected government because they don't like the lawful, legal, constitutional decisions.
They can have their say in peaceful protest, in court or at the next election - and not before.
If it's unlawful, illegal or unconstitutional then avenues exist within the courts to resolve their grievances do they not? I'm led to believe that rule of law continues to prevail within Canada.
[edit] Not just that, Trudeau operates a minority government, meaning two other parties could gang up and oust them at basically any time. And yet, he remains in office. I think this really speaks to how small the vocal minority is.
They've brought guns, ammo, knives [1], built encampments, stashed them full of diesel and propane [2], disrupted trade, jobs, lives, supply chains, threatened violence. Harassed and intimidated healthcare workers. And for what? This is not your average picket, and it's gone on more than long enough.
We're all frustrated, we're all tired of this. I'm open to revisiting the health measures, but not like this.
My understanding is that international law requires nation have some form of martial law.
The idea is that if your nation is “hosting” a battle field, and the police start arresting belligerents and charging them with civilian crimes, the military can override them and say “you can’t charge invading soldiers with a crime for honorably doing their duty” - they must be treated as POWs, not criminals.
For example, if Russia is attacking Toronto, and a Toronto Police Officer comes across a wounded Russian soldier with an AK-47, she can’t charge the soldier for possessing an illegal weapon. The soldier would have to be treated as a POW.
This means the military must - must! - be able to say “this area is under martial law”.
I doubt this applies to the current situation.
But if Canada is as diligent as they claim to be about International law, they need to have the ability to declare martial law.
> That said, I am thoroughly disappointed the Federal gov't and much of the media coverage. They have done nothing but make the situation worse. I think it is intentional (I assume some political end game), but their actions are fueling even more outlandish conspiracy theories.
Didn't the father do the exact same thing back in the 70's?
Of course there's political gains, as they say, never get a crisis go to waste.
Also the Ambassador Bridge blockade was ordered by the court to clear on Friday midnight. Police cleared it Sunday with some arrests, some resistance but not much else.
Pretty standard when it comes to Canadian protests.
If I'm hearing you right, your belief is that law enforcement is not enforcing the current hacking laws that exist evenly. I'd like to understand this belief of yours. Who are they discriminating against?
While there is no outright violence, there is torture to local residents, there was attempted arson, there is continued intimidation and harassment of those wearing masks, there is intimidation of visible minorities, there are attacks on businesses....
Is that enough to convince you that the situation is out of hand and than stricter action is needed?
The protestors haven't complied with not honking.
Please, please be careful with how you frame this. There was severe inaction and dangerous incompetence displayed by Ottawa police but please don't spin this as the federal government overstepping.
Edit - within seconds of posting, this is downvoted. Truly a shameful display by the folks here.
I didn't downvote you, but you're using extreme language like "torture" (I know noise and sleep deprivation are associated with torture but this sort of verbal escalation is not objective) and the only in-depth reporting I've seen on the arson thing makes it seem completely debunked: https://twitter.com/jonkay/status/1490557119816425474 (or https://twitter.com/jonkay/status/1490525934948081666 - I'm not sure what the right link is). That's a biased source, but I can't find anything comparably factual that is taking the allegation seriously. At a minimum, it's not fair to repeat words like "arson" as if they are established facts when at best they are highly disputable.
Weeks on end of horns outside your window are absolutely torture. They are demonstrably linked to mental health issues. It's not a verbal escalation. We are talking about people who have literally attached train and ship horns to vehicles and are using them incessantly.
That passes beyond "nuisance". Extreme situations can utilize extreme language.
Objectively, the sonic onslaught of their constantly blaring truck horns is equal in effect to well-known psychological warfare tactics. It is fair and accurate to call it torture in this context.
Even worse, it wasn't just truck horns. There were several trucks driving around with train horns installed. And plenty of the apartments in Centretown are right up against the street.
I don't think making 80+ decibels of noise 10 feet from people's windows is even an okay way to protest, no matter who you are or what your cause is.
I used to live in this neighbourhood, right by Somerset and Metcalfe. Protests happened all the time. Some of them were anti-government, even. And none of them launched this kind of sustained assault against innocent citizens. I get the sense a lot of them think they're sticking it to the liberal elite, or something like that. But really - Centretown is (or was when I lived there, at least) one of the more affordable parts of Ottawa.
I wouldn't doubt that for the train horns, especially outdoors. ~80db inside an apartment is what I heard personally from someone I trust who lives there still, so that's usually what I go with.
It's absolutely torture. I don't live in Ottawa, but I was eating at a restaurant near the trucker protest that sprung up in my city two weeks ago, and I nearly lost my mind just hearing the horns blaring for an hour straight. I can't even imagine what the poor people in Ottawa are going through.
i would challenge you to test your opinion by spending even seven days living in downtown Ottawa. You would then seriously reconsider my labelling of 18 hours of illegally loud truck horns as torture as being "extreme language".
They're honking for 16-18 hours per day. For people that live near the convoy, they've been able to sleep for over two weeks due to this. I have friends and family affected by this. I'm fairly sure this constitutes torture if you don't have the resources to up and leave your residence for days at a time in order to sleep.
> They're honking for 16-18 hours per day. For people that live near the convoy, they've been able to sleep for over two weeks due to this. I have friends and family affected by this. I'm fairly sure this constitutes torture if you don't have the resources to up and leave your residence for days at a time in order to sleep.
Are earplugs not a thing in Canada?
Calling honking torture is ridiculous hyperbole. That word should be reserved for the extremely serious kinds of acts it's normally used to describe, lest it become effectively meaningless.
Words themselves don't have any power, and if you try to harness the power of a concept by misusing a word that refers to it, you just cause the word's definition to shift and to weaken its association to the concept (potentially making that concept much harder to access and refer to).
I challenge you to find earplugs that can be worn 24h a day without any physical discomfort, provide 60dB of attenuation across a wide range of frequencies (these horns probably span low 100's of Hz to mid kHz), and are reasonably inexpensive.
Even if you could find such beasts (which I don't think you can), then you have the problem that you effectively can't use your hearing. You thought that social interactions were hard with a mask? Imagine not being able to use your hearing at all.
(yes, 60 dB is necessary because that's how much you'll need in order to sleep - the human ear has an incredibly large dynamic range and even 30 dB_SPL conversations are enough to keep some people awake for hours)
As it stands, many of the residents near these protests are being subjected to low-level sleep deprivation, which is literally torture (as in, used as such by organizations who actually want to extract information or confessions from people).
To clarify - it's not honking that's torture, it's sustained honking at a duration and intensity that will cause sleep deprivation and other psychological damage.
Completely independently of the reason that these people are protesting - this particular means is not humane.
> I challenge you to find earplugs that can be worn 24h a day without any physical discomfort, provide 60dB of attenuation across a wide range of frequencies (these horns probably span low 100's of Hz to mid kHz), and are reasonably inexpensive.
> Even if you could find such beasts (which I don't think you can), then you have the problem that you effectively can't use your hearing. You thought that social interactions were hard with a mask? Imagine not being able to use your hearing at all.
> (yes, 60 dB is necessary because that's how much you'll need in order to sleep - the human ear has an incredibly large dynamic range and even 30 dB_SPL conversations are enough to keep some people awake for hours)
It sounds like you're challenging me with overkill requirements meant to totally mute the horns almost like they're not there, when the realistic problem is to reduce the noise to the point where someone could sleep.
I kind of find it hard to believe that's not possible with and indoor location + silicone ear plugs (and maybe white noise if you're very sensitive).
> As it stands, many of the residents near these protests are being subjected to low-level sleep deprivation, which is literally torture (as in, used as such by organizations who actually want to extract information or confessions from people).
Again, calling it "literally torture" is ridiculous hyperbole, or at the very least invokes misleading associations. A noisy neighbor is being annoying to his neighbors, not torturing them.
What about young children? You have a handwavy method to get a toddler to wear silicone earplugs for 8 hours a night?
Judging by your post history, you seem to be more interested in stirring up shit than actually contributing to the discussion. This bizarre defence of noisemaking jackasses fits with that.
> Judging by your post history, you seem to be more interested in stirring up shit than actually contributing to the discussion.
I'm not, and I'm pretty sure your accusation violates site guidelines.
> This bizarre defence of noisemaking jackasses fits with that.
You should note I'm not defending them or their actions. I just think it's ridiculous hyperbole to call what they're doing "literally torture." If the ancestor comment had simply said they were being annoying and disruptive, I wouldn't have responded at all.
So are you going to set up crimes-against-humanity tribunals to prosecute all the noisy neighbors of the world for being torturers?
And were those truckers performing interrogations that I haven't heard about? Your comparison is as ridiculous as comparing compulsory school to prison. Yeah, you can find some similarities, but you're missing important differences that undermine the comparison.
I don't follow. Torture doesn't have to be used as part of an interrogation to be torture.
And in the noisy neighbors scenario, are they just loud as a by-product of their self-centered preferences or are they making noise intentionally to make everyone miserable and get something they want? Either way, they are causing sleep deprivation and constant stress, which is a form of torture. In the second scenario, it's even done intentionally as a means to an end. Even so, folks are rarely prosecuted for crimes against humanity even for the most grotesque mistreatment of under a dozen people.
Yes, 30 dB ambient noise keeps me awake at night - I know this as someone who had a sibling that played video games and very quietly talked into his mic from another room - which wasn't even noticeable during the day, but during the night, I could hear him clearly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_pressure#Examples_of_sou... gives 30 dB as a "very calm room", which is what it was.
Comments elsewhere in the thread cite 120+ dB horns outside and about 80 dB indoors.
80-60=20. Let's say the earplugs only have to be 50 dB (and that the average person can sleep with 30 dB of noise in their ears at night) - I still bet you can't find any that fit the requirements above.
There's no "overkill requirements" - I'm handing you concrete, realistic numbers that are reflective of real life and you're trying to handwave them away.
> A noisy neighbor is being annoying to his neighbors, not torturing them.
You literally didn't read one of the last sentences of my comment - "To clarify - it's not honking that's torture, it's sustained honking at a duration and intensity that will cause sleep deprivation and other psychological damage."
My work earplugs aren't rated for super high decibels, but they're a step up from the disposable ones most folks I work with use. They're definitely a solid step up from what most folks are going to buy from the hardware store. I've got coworkers who can converse loudly enough that I can make out the entire conversation over the normal shop noise the earplugs are supposed to be for while 200 feet away and within an enclosed (but not particularly thick-walled) office.
Earplugs will dull the noise, but if I can't take a nap over two guys having a conversation at that distance, I really doubt most folks' ability to get a good night's sleep over truck horns. The earplugs will probably mitigate the physical damage done by the noise, but I highly doubt they do much for the psychological stress. People lose their ability to focus and sometimes their sanity due to injuries that cause a constant ringing in their ears. Even if you can reduce the volume, the constant noise is a type of torture.
Edit: Found the Noise Reduction Rating for a number of different types of hearing pro that I've used in the past. The best one was rated at 33, meaning it roughly reduces the noise by something like 33 decibels. That pair, of course, being the ubiquitous neon yellow 3M product with flames on the sides for enhanced performance. I don't wear them myself because while they're fashionable, they're incredibly uncomfortable for me. This also appears to be among the best non-powered hearing pro that's available on the market. They will take an uncomfortably loud worksite at 105 dB down to effectively under 80 dB and more-or-less within a safe range for hearing. Not a pleasant level for sleeping though, by any means, although I can pull it off myself if I'm tired enough. When you start talking about a truck horn which those earplugs might or might not be able to quiet down close to the level of that 105 dB you'd experience with no hearing pro on a worksite, you're past potential hearing damage and well into a range where there is no reasonable escape from the barrage of sound.
Edit 2: Most of these earplugs in the 25-33 NRR range are definitely available at the hardware store if anyone needs to know that. They're more expensive per pair and seem to come in higher count containers, but they're there and much cheaper than the doctor's visits and hearing aids will be in the future. If you find yourself in a situation where the background noise is uncomfortable at all, please, please, get yourself some if at all feasible. Half the old dudes I've worked with in my life did not think it was worth the hassle and I'm tired of having to scream in people's ears to communicate. Also all the near misses because you have to either throw something at them or close the distance if you see a dangerous situation they don't and need to warn them.
You do know that they're in vehicles that they're moving in and out of the city, correct? It's not like they're all just parked in one spot and staying there the entire time.
Unlike people with fixed addresses, they can just up and move to a quiet part of the city to sleep, and then drive back after.
A line in a Traveling Wilburys song goes "everything is legal as long as you don't get caught." That's what came to mind as I read your reply, which tacitly agrees with my parent comment.
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. I understand that emotions are high on this topic, but comments like this are a noticeable step in precisely the wrong direction, and strongly against the site guidelines.
How about 24hrs? Now that's torture, or as we Americans like to claim "enhanced interrogation"... [Enemy combatants were exposed to sensory deprivation which included 24hrs of American heavy metal music and 24hrs of flood spotlights to prevent sleeping.]
I get it, after living peacefully before these protests started it might appear as torture, however it is again just annoying behavior not torture. As mentioned by other comments, ear plugs are a thing, sleeping pills could help, glass of warm milk perhaps.
You have options in this scenario, unlike when you are being physically tortured, you have no options but to endure.
Chill, no need to curse to get your point across as it only paints a poor image of you.
Anyway, noise is noise, whether it comes from a truck, or a dog, a party, or w/e. If you're unable to understand that, then I guess this discussion is futile.
As a counterpoint - it's not the same regardless of the source. This is happening in my old neighbourhood, and several of my friends still live in the area so I've heard firsthand accounts.
It's not just trucks blowing their air horns. That would have been annoying. A bunch of them installed train horns and during the first week were honking them 24/7. It was loud enough to cause hearing damage indoors. I'd be impressed if a dog could bark that loud.
Looking at the live streams, I see visible minorities going to the protests and supporting the truckers and the atmosphere seems festive and celebratory more than anything else.
I've said this before. There's a strong libertarian bent to HN and I'm not surprised if there's a large contingent of this site that actively supports the convoy. There's people here that are strong supports of Peter Thiel, if that's any indication of where their sympathies lie.
But, most of them are not residents of Ottawa, and the lived experiences of people in that city, particurlarly those who have had run ins with the protesters, or struggled through the 16-18 hours / day of honking, had to walk around or be harrassed by them, see the awful imagery of Trump, Confederate etc. flags being waved around, the yellow star morons etc. cannot simply be dismissed as bad or inaccurate media.
A city is being held hostage by an extreme minority and, even in OPs post they mention that the Toronto police handled it properly, but question the admonition levied against the Ottawa police.
The Ottawa police are complicit in this now as well as city council. They sat on their hands while allowing this to spiral out of control, and now want to play the victim or blame others (e.g. blaming counter protesters today).
It doesn't matter if you side with the protest or not. The sheer fact that they've been allowed to have large impact on the city and it's residents, for this long, is proof that the so-called lack of freedom that they're fighting for is simply not the bogeyman they've made it out to be. Especially if you're white.
>A city is being held hostage by an extreme minority and, even in OPs post they mention that the Toronto police handled it properly, but question the admonition levied against the Ottawa police.
>The Ottawa police are complicit in this now as well as city council. They sat on their hands while allowing this to spiral out of control, and now want to play the victim or blame others (e.g. blaming counter protesters today).
>It doesn't matter if you side with the protest or not. The sheer fact that they've been allowed to have large impact on the city and it's residents, for this long, is proof that the so-called lack of freedom that they're fighting for is simply not the bogeyman they've made it out to be. Especially if you're white.
This is really not much different than how Portland handled the BLM protests in 2020. 100 straight nights of extreme protests with violence against police and federal buildings. Only difference is this is during the night and many neighborhoods were terrorized as it moved from downtown. Not much media coverage of this other than conservative journalist Andy Ngo who has himself been violently targeted for simply recording and publishing video of what is happening.
A major difference is that the police would issue dispersal orders, then attack the BLM protesters indiscriminately, or call curfews which basically declared open season on any kind of protester, journalist, civilian, doing anything outdoors after X o'clock. The police were shooting rubber bullets at people sitting on their own porches.
This is not how Ottawa is being handled, this is not how January 6th was handled, and if BLM protesters decided they were going to shut down an international bridge that provided 1/3 of trade with the US, that wouldn't have made it a hour before an extreme response was taken.
If the trucker protest were treated like the BLM protests, you'd see people blinded and dead, and it would be completely torn apart every night to have to be reassembled the next day. At least compare it to Occupy, although they were in a park instead of blocking roads.
The police protected buildings from being set on fire and their officers being attacked with lasers and fireworks. Dispersal orders were only given AFTER the protests turned violent.
Comparing 100+ nights of protests and riots with Jan 6th is ridiculous...one was night after night of the same thing and having a plan in place to defend and the other is a single day where the police lost control and they actually shot someone with real bullets.
> A major difference is that the police would issue dispersal orders, then attack the BLM protesters indiscriminately, or call curfews which basically declared open season on any kind of protester, journalist, civilian, doing anything outdoors after X o'clock. The police were shooting rubber bullets at people sitting on their own porches.
Whilst also advising Proud Boys and Three Per Centers of their "enforcement plans", texting them to "take cover" and that they'd be given an "all clear" when they come back out.
Or being advised that although their leaders had active arrest warrants, that they would not be arrested at any protests that were "supervised" by Portland Police Department, so they should "feel free" to come to protests.
They were in contact with both sides of the conflicts...only one side made their plans clear and also applied for permits. I'm not saying it was the right call, but one side was violent toward police and the other was not...not a huge surprise that the police would choose to work with them.
The Proud Boys applied for a small fraction of permits.
And if you are ordering a protest to disperse, you don't tell one side to go home. If you have a curfew (leaving aside opinions there), it's not a curfew for one side.
If you're telling people who have warrants for their arrest that you will actively not only NOT arrest them but protect them, that's not working with them, that's working for them. Which is unsurprising in PDX, given how many LEOs are members of those same organizations.
Nothing in what you said was a good justification. You're right though, it's not a huge surprise that police would choose to work with militant right wing organizations.
Of the 3 fatalities during that riot 2 were self inflicted and the only remaining one was when a rioter breached the last line of defence between the people screaming "Hang Mike Pence!" and 60 to 80 members of congress. There's been speculation that the tunnel entrance down the hallway from where the shooting occurred was where Mike Pence was evacuated through. I was amazed at the level of restraint displayed by the capitol police in contrast to clearing of lafayette square in the summer with pepper balls, tear gas, flash bangs, etc. At that time the park police didn't even bother to order the crowd to disperse until after they had already started attacking the crowd.
They did all that for a photo op vs. Capitol police falling back as far as they could without risking the lives of members of Congress. Even in the aftermath once the building was evacuated and they were clearing the grounds they handled that with kid gloves compared to many of the BLM protests.
Not much media coverage? I saw coverage of it all the time. It was covered as if it was the end of civilization and it continues to push the narrative today that BLM protests were burning cities to the ground across the country.
I'm not sure where you're getting this whole idea that there wasn't much media coverage on it. A quick google search shows literally thousands of news stories about it.
Main stream media...I live near Portland and the local news covered very little about it. 30 second clip of the peaceful start...and little about the destruction and chaos that was seen night after night.
Eventually even the local news started showing what was going on when their crew were attacked covering the story. However this happened many times before and they simply left and didn't cover what was happening.
BLM was the lead story in just about every newspaper, news channel, magazine and aggregator sites for weeks.
I noticed on a sibling comment you claim to live near Portland and implied that local media did minimal coverage which is also absurd. Again, it was covered obsessively by just about every single local news outlets from their local networks, papers, and podcasts.
BLM was...Antifa riots every night were not. The media seemed to just ignore them...maybe with the theory that they would stop if not getting covered. Millions in damage, many police officers hurt and hundreds of businesses impacted nightly. Go look for stories on all the businesses that left downtown Portland because of the riots and the lack of city leadership to address them. On top of homeless, crime and drugs...it's an absolute shit show.
Again, a quick google search shows thousands of articles that specifically tie antifa to the riots in Portland.
The media did not ignore it at all. If anything, I'd believe that tie-in with "antifa" is greatly exagerrated by the media, since it seems like the situation in Portland is better explained via the horrible police escalation that happened there and the fact that there's a variety of groups that jumped into the vacuum.
He posts video...how is raw video not a reliable source? He certainly has an agenda, but also posts things that many will not. He was not afraid to post video when the actual news teams were threatened and attacked during the riots (by specific groups that you can't really talk about since they don't exist...it's just an idea).
The nice thing about Wikipedia is that claims are sourced. I had no idea who this guy was, but I looked over the statements critical of his credibility and at first glance many of them are sourced at heavily biased media outlets which isn't encouraging. I'm not digging into it enough to say those articles are wrong, but I'd say the clams that he isn't credibile on his wikipedia page aren't looking very convincing so far, or at the very least that view on the guy doesn't seem widely accepted by mainstream sources.
Since even a sourced and cited claim can be utterly bogus, it is actually worse. Because it looks authoritative at a glance when there are many citations next to a claim.
But some citations are nature.com, and some are People Magazine, and they all get the same superscript number.
Then if those claims are bogus, it becomes a matter of your sources vs. their sources, and it ends up all being a matter of faith and perhaps gut feeling.
It's not just their sources vs your sources, it's about the data those sources have, where/how they got it, and how much of it you can verify.
You have to evaluate the evidence and the sources to decide which is more credible. Some things you have to take on faith, but that doesn't make it a dice roll. When it matters you can apply some critical thinking skills, and at least be able to justify the position you've settled on.
In this case I don't care enough about this Andy guy to dig into it, but I was able to determine that I couldn't justify forming an opinion about his credibility using what Wikipedia was presenting to me. If I wanted to get into the woods, I'm sure I could end up with an informed opinion based on more than a gut feeling.
> I've said this before. There's a strong libertarian bent to HN and I'm not surprised if there's a large contingent of this site that actively supports the convoy. There's people here that are strong supports of Peter Thiel, if that's any indication of where their sympathies lie.
To me the political bent of HN isn't relevant when reading a comment. I'd rather take each comment on its own merits, without guessing or assuming what the ideology of the commenter would have to be.
I recently lived in a country in which wearing the wrong color socks is grounds for instant prison, so I prefer when my government's monopoly on violence errs on the side of restraint, as in the case of these protestors.
Should individual protestors get shut down when they harass mask-wearing doctors or honk horns in the middle of the night? Obviously.
But there is some fuzzy line in which we let protestors do otherwise illegal or fineable things that we don't let individuals do.
I could be convinced that skin color is a factor as you mentioned, but at the moment I have no idea.
I don't know what the answer is with these protests, but criminalizing them isn't the answer. I'm an active leftist and do a lot of mutual aid and protesting. I've been beaten by cops and had them deploy munitions against me. Giving cops more latitude to deal with this protest movement will mean that they deploy even more force against me the next time I'm politely asking that they stop murdering people.
The original comment was mentioning the downvotes, not comments. I agree on engaging comments (hence this conversation) but there's definitely brigading happening with votes if you post anything that the libertarians disagree with.
I'm a total moderate, I try very hard not to view these things through a partisan lens. As a free thinking human I feel no need to have my opinions dictated by any group of people. I think your comment is one that has some merit WRT the police's actions and what they might be able to do better, but it is framed in such a hostile, inflammatory, extremely partisan way. You criticize this website for being bent on some partisan streak that you don't like and needlessly bring race into the conversation when this entire thing has nothing to do with race whatsoever.
> is proof that the so-called lack of freedom that they're fighting for is simply not the bogeyman they've made it out to be
It's disingenuous to equate the lack of freedom that they are talking about with the lack of freedom to protest. They are not the same thing, the protesters are talking about vaccine mandates specifically.
what is wrong with listening to "minorities". Doesnt BLM represent a minority, especially in Canada? Also, a couple of confederate and nazi flags do not define these protests.
These people are not the minority. They're self-professed victimes of so-called tyranny that doesn't exist. The sheer fact that they're able to protest for this long, in this way, at the nations capital is ample evidence that this so-called tyranny they're fighting is a delusion.
Equivocating that with the lived experience of millions of people who are fighting for true equality is truly a laughable position.
minority does not need to be defined by race sex or religion. What about people who had covid and reluctant about vaccines? All that word soup is irrelevant. Getting fired after having worked through the heights of epidemic is a serious "lived experience" and also "an ample evidence" of bureaucratic overreach. Anyway, bunch of provinces including Ontario already cancelled vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, only real holdouts are BC and Quebec. Trackers already won. The government can easily deescalate but choosing not to due fear and spite
Getting fired for not getting vaccines was a line that I didn't agree with.
However, the vast majority of organizations that did this were private though, and it was the organization that implemented these policies. I'd hardly equate that with government overreach, and especially not the federal government if you're a nurse/healthcare worker, or worked in a local municipal government.
My point is that these protests don't have anything to do with vaccines, mandates or some perceived minority status that not following them bestows (which, again, is a choice..). If that was the case, they would not be in Ottawa. There might be some people paying lip service to these ideas, but the majority of the people protesting are self-labelling as minorities due to some perception of tyranny from the federal government that does not exist.
Unless you're a federal employee that was fired due to your position on vaccines (over 95% of federal employees are vaccinated) then protesting in Ottawa doesn't make any sense.
It seems pretty clear to me that the protests have everything to do with the vaccine mandates.
Why should only people who are fired be allowed to protest? Most of the truckers are vaccinated, but they are protesting for the right of those who aren't to be allowed to do their job.
If they actually have anything to do with the mandates, then protesting in Ottawa doesn't make any sense.
All of the health and COVID mandate policy is set at the provincial level in Canada, not federally. They should be protesting in Toronto, or other provincial capitals.
However, a good percentage of provincial capitals are currently Conservative governments. So, by deliberatly choosing Ottawa, they're protesting legitimately elected government to force them to step down (despite being democratically elected 6 months ago) and install a new leadership panel made up of the convoy leadership.
The truckers started protesting due to federal mandates preventing them from crossing the borders, so protesting in Ottawa makes lots of sense.
They are asking the prime minister to drop the mandates or step down.
I agree that it isn't reasonable to expect the federal government to tell the provinces what to do, but they have been protests in all the major cities as well (so far as I can tell).
> ... and it was the organization that implemented these policies ...
That may not be true. It is common for governments to implement the really unpleasant policies by using businesses as an enforcement arm (eg, surveillance via banks and telecom companies). It bears asking why companies have all, in coordination, picked up a set of policies that are both ineffective and divisive - it is entirely on the table that it is because of government pressure in the form of OH&S guidelines.
Firing unvaccinated people barely does anything w.r.t. changing the odds that people get COVID eventually. We've seen ample evidence that being vaccinated doesn't change the transmissible situation. So why are companies doing this? Their employees are still going to turn up and transmit COVID. By this point, the anti-vaccine types have probably caught COVID and gained natural immunity anyway so these policies would represent companies shooting themselves in the foot. It is possible they'd do that of their own initiative but it is nevertheless a bit weird.
> My point is that these protests don't have anything to do with vaccines, mandates or some perceived minority status...
Why do you think these protests have just mushroomed up? Have trucker protests been an ongoing thing in Canada for many decades?
Canada is confusing. The below two comments come from the same person, likely Canadian, referring to other Canadians who are an extreme minority who are not the minority.
> > A city is being held hostage by an extreme minority
My mistake. In my first comment, I should have referred to the truck convoy protesters as perceiving themselves as having minority status. I made this comment before people starting to compare these protests to BLM, which is for a an actual minority group.
> I've said this before. There's a strong libertarian bent to HN and I'm not surprised if there's a large contingent of this site that actively supports the convoy. There's people here that are strong supports of Peter Thiel, if that's any indication of where their sympathies lie.
Wait and you've extrapolated this from claims of a downvote made in the first hour after posting a reply on a politically controversial topic? HN is a huge site, are you really expecting unanimous political views? This is par for the course on these threads.
Anyway society loved it at first until they caused too many traffic jams. Public opinion turned and it was over quickly.
If you are a work at home software dev these kind of protests don't affect you until Amazon stops delivering.
Making one city a bit uncomfortable temporarily is well worth creating justice for an entire country permanently. Sucks for Ottowans, but the truckers are doing the right thing morally.
I read the story. The MD does not claim she or her staff has been harassed. Her one claim is "And a lot of people have been harassed, have been told to take their masks off." The MD also claims "I would say that a huge 18-wheeler is not a peaceful thing to have in the middle of your city" which is weird since large trucks are a primary and pervasive mode of transporting goods nearly everywhere. The story also does not disclose that the interviewee is an Ontario public employee, essentially a spokesperson for the government position, which is in opposition to the protestors.
> The MD also claims "I would say that a huge 18-wheeler is not a peaceful thing to have in the middle of your city" which is weird since large trucks are a primary and pervasive mode of transporting goods nearly everywhere.
I must have missed where large trucks sit for days on end, engine running, horns blaring endlessly as part of their "useful public utility".
> The story also does not disclose that the interviewee is an Ontario public employee, essentially a spokesperson for the government position, which is in opposition to the protestors.
This is blatant bias on your part. Doctors employed by the state to provide healthcare are not government spokespeople, however you're trying to spin it here.
The interviewee does not assert that "large trucks sit for days on end, engine running, horns blaring endlessly," just that "a huge 18-wheeler is not a peaceful thing."
I deny that pointing out the obvious and undeclared conflict of interest is bias, blatant or not. The physician is articulating the same position as her employer who is in opposition to the protestors. Would it be fair for a Facebook employee to comment on an issue regarding their employer and not disclose it, especially if they worked in a portion of the company directly involved in the issue at hand?
EDIT:
Also, the parent comment to mine claimed of the NPR interview: "Here's an interview with a MD in downtown Ottawa, speaking of her and her staff at a medical clinic getting harassed in the street for wearing a mask."
This description is not true of the interview text available at the link when I read it.
I assume of course that you’re equally vehement that any protestor who is employed by the government or military also makes sure to point out that they’re a government employee and that they’re speaking against their government’s policies as an individual, just so we don’t confuse them for spokespeople too, yes?
We would not want confusion and ambiguity there either, after all.
My observations are hardly "vehement." In NPR's home country more physicians are non-government employed so it would make sense to establish that the person is commenting in alignment their employer's position even if they were not specifically authorized to speak. It is also typically disclosed if a protestor is protesting their own employer as it bolsters the case for their integrity.
Since both governments and nongovernmental actors use news media to advance their cases it is important to evaluate and understand the context of an interview especially if it doesn't make the assertions that the linking person claims it makes.
Also, I did not claim that the interviewee is a spokesperson, but that they articulate a position in such close alignment with their employer that they are essentially a spokesperson. It isn't that there is confusion about a person's role. It is that either NPR didn't disclose or the physician didn't disclose a conflict of interest and allow the reader to evaluate the interview with that in mind.
> While there is no outright violence, there is torture to local residents
Why did you use the word torture here? Torture is a well-defined word with an accepted meaning. Do you feel that it is appropriate? Or are you looking for an emotionally-loaded reaction?
Can I also claim that my loud college neighbors are torturing me when they stay up too late on the weekend? Of course I can, but it sure is disingenuous to anyone who has actually been tortured.
> Can I also claim that my loud college neighbors are torturing me when they stay up too late on the weekend? Of course I can, but it sure is disingenuous to anyone who has actually been tortured.
If they did it for a week straight after you'd lodged several noise complaints and had the police go nowhere, yeah, I think that would qualify. It's certainly not the most severe type of torture but intentionally depriving a person of sleep and attempting to damage their eardrums qualifies.
If your loud college neighbours were setting off a train horn outside your building, repeatedly, I think you'd expect them to be handled by the police (if not arrested) pretty immediately.
If your loud college neighbours were assaulting people in the streets, shouting death and rape threats at you, you'd probably consider them violent.[1] Another post of mine has many more links if you're interested.
I'm not sure how much actual violence is required for a protest to become violent. Is it just that nobody's been killed yet? That seems to be what everyone is waiting for and I sincerely hope we don't get there (thankfully it looks like things may be defusing today).
If a person or group knowingly deploys sonic psychological warfare techniques upon innocent people, they are torturers. In this context, the constant blaring of truck horns is deliberate and not meant in kindness or frivolity. The negative psychological effects upon the local residents are now well known and well documented.
Okay but the thing about torture is, in order to be torture you must be prevented from leaving the situation. Are they literally trapping people in their homes? No. You just really really don't like them and so are trying to delegitimize their protest with use of loaded language. Torture means things like having your skin pealed off or your fingernails removed. Torture means things like being imprisoned and repeatedly being made to feel as though you are drowning. Constant honking must certainly be annoying! But as far as I'm aware, protests are supposed to be uncomfortable and annoying. This is not torture. It's like terrorist. The word terrorist now means somebody did a thing that the government doesn't like. Are we going to do this same thing with torture? Because I'm not here for it.
Me pointing out that this is not torture, that torture means specific things and that this doesn't meet the commonly-accepted definition of torture, followed by you glibly inserting the phrase "its fine" is a perfect microcosm of why online discussion is doomed.
Torture means you are in pain and you cannot stop it. Not by getting on the bus and riding across town, not by wearing earmuffs, it means that you, the person being tortured, cannot stop the torture.
This is clearly not the case when there is noise outside your house that you dislike. Words have meanings, let's please stick to using them.
You want to be absolutely pedantic about torture "meaning specific things", and where "commonly-accepted definitions" happen, conveniently, to mean what's more convenient to you.
Dictionaries, on the other hand, define torture as "inflicting pain and suffering on".
The UN Conventions on Torture in no way specify that imprisonment, formal or otherwise, is a required component for something to be defined as torture.
So my opinion is that your vision of torture in this instance is far more narrow, because it fits your worldview more.
I'm just trying to understand here, you're advocating that people lose their livelihoods for donating to a protest movement you don't approve of? Not participating in illegal action, not physically hurting anyone, just giving money to the wrong people online?
Can you possibly think of any circumstances where this sort of principle might backfire?
> It appears this was the result of terrible security at GiveSendGo.
Don't victim blame, and call a spade a spade. It was the result of targeted black hat hacking and identity theft, probably made easier by poor security at GiveSendGo.
Mounties said in a release Monday that they became aware of a small organized group within the larger protest at Coutts.
They say they had information that the group had access to a cache of firearms and ammunition. Officers seized long guns, handguns, multiple sets of body armour, a machete, a large quantity of ammunition and high-capacity firearm magazines.
There will always be some opportunistic groups looking to cause more mayhem in chaotic situations like this. These protests have been literally “mostly peaceful” no?
>> This type of revelation will likely be commonplace in the days/weeks ahead as militant extremists are exposed.
> There will always be some opportunistic groups looking to cause more mayhem in chaotic situations like this. These protests have been literally “mostly peaceful” no?
Exactly. Didn't "Bugaloo Bois" try to hijack the Black Lives Matter protests?
I think it's important to be careful, and not try to paint an entire protest movement with a small unreasonable minority that may be within or adjacent to it.
Several of the most prominent acts of violence during the BLM protests were indeed Boogaloo Boys (murders of multiple police officers in Oakland, arson at a police precinct in Minneapolis, shooting up a different precinct with an AK-47 while shouting "Justice for Floyd!")
> According to the complaint, Hunter would later post multiple messages on Facebook bragging of his actions in Minneapolis on the night of 28 May and morning of 29 May, writing, “I set fire to that precinct with the Black community,” and, “My mom would call the FBI if she knew.”
“I’ve burned police stations with Black Panthers in Minneapolis,” he claimed in one message, and in another, “The BLM protesters in Minneapolis loved me.”
Did you read the article? The quotes from the person bragging about burning down the police station was a BB from Texas who drove 1,200 miles to Minneapolis to foment unrest.
> According to the criminal complaint against Hunter, on 26 May, as intense protests broke out in Minneapolis over the killing of George Floyd by a city police officer, a “Boogaloo Boi” based in Minnesota posted a public Facebook message: “I need a headcount.”
> Hunter, a resident of Boerne, Texas, which is roughly 1,200 miles away, responded: “72 hours out. Another “Boogaloo Boi”, based in North Carolina, posted a public message the same day: “Lock and load boys,” he wrote, adding, “the national network is going off.”
> Prosecutors say that Hunter would later describe himself to Austin police officers as “the leader of the Boogaloo Bois in south Texas”.
> By 28 May, during a night of the most intense unrest and destruction in the city, Hunter was in Minneapolis, just as the 3rd precinct police station, known locally as a “playground for renegade cops”, was being set on fire.
1. He did not burn down the building, per your own source. He was nearby and "assisted". His charge is, from ABC:
> Federal investigators said they reviewed video of Hunter firing rounds with his AK-47 style assault rifle into the Third Precinct building while looters were still inside and that he also *helped assist* them in setting the building on fire.
(emphasis added)
2. The people who did burn down the building are not Boogaloo associated. See my original link.
He wasn't charged with burning down the building -- others were -- that is correct. In any case, a Boogaloo dipshit drove from Texas to Minnesota and was at the site of the police precinct that was burned down and then bragged to his friends that he burned it down.. all the while communicating with the boog dipshit who murdered the police officers in Oakland.
> For example, On May 30, HUNTER sent a message to another individual stating, "I set fire to that precinct with the black community," followed by "Minneapolis third precinct." On May 31, HUNTER sent the following message to another individual: "My mom would call the fbi if she knew what I do and at the level I'm at w[ith] it."
> HUNTER posted other messages on Facebook about his activities in Minneapolis. On June 10, HUNTER posted "I've burned police stations with black panthers in Minneapolis" and "I helped the community bum down that police station in Minneapolis." HUNTER also posted, "I didn't' protest peacefully Dude ... Want something to change? Start risking felonies for what is good."
So by his own words, he helped burn it down. DOJ couldn't find enough to charge him with that -- and by no means were the BBs the only ones causing violence & destruction in MN during the riots -- but the immediate presence of a 'fire team' of far-right agitators sure seems important.
> Under the new law, an Oklahoma driver will no longer be liable for striking — or even killing — a person if the driver is “fleeing from a riot ... under a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect the motor vehicle operator from serious injury or death.”
Super disingenuous to characterize that as "it's legal to run over protesters".
> The person you drove over doesn't get to give an alternative story to this necessity, nor do they have to be somebody that you're fleeing from.
Agreed. This is one of many reasons why rioting is awful—it creates these dangerous scenarios where ordinary people have to make split second life-or-death decisions. Frankly, I wish rioting was prosecuted more aggressively rather than blaming people who are stuck in situations where they have to defend themselves (“but they don’t need to be there!” <- people have the right to assemble in public, but rioters don’t have the right to create dangerous situations).
> I don't think it's reasonable to defend yourself from somebody by going up to a passer by and shooting them
This is an embarrassingly obvious straw man. No one is arguing for the right to kill a third party to defend oneself against another, the argument is that people should be given a pass if they accidentally hit someone while fleeing for their life. It’s one thing to disagree with that, but it’s an entirely different thing to lie about the law or the argument.
Occasionally self-defense laws protect guilty people, but that doesn't imply that the law isn't a self-defense law. I'm sure there's lots of good criticism of this law, but characterizing it as the OP did is patent dishonesty. Even Vox wasn't willing to go that far ffs.
For the purpose of your claim that the law legalized killing protesters, it doesn’t matter.
That said, per my previous comment, there may be lots to criticize about this law, including that it may have been superfluous. I’m not a lawyer, but my best guess is that existing self-defense law didn’t clearly absolve the victim of injury or death to bystanders as she pursued her own safety. But again, none of that has anything to do with what’s going on in Canada.
Sleep deprivation and continuous noise is considered torture under Geneva Convention and by the U.N.[1] and Canadian law[2]. U.S. and others have been condemned heavily for using such techniques and U.S. has since stopped (at least officially) even in black ops places like Gitmo.
Protests and blockade are one thing, continuous noise in areas where people live and work is not peaceful .
It seems super disingenuous to imply that noisy protests are "violent" by citing laws and regulations which pertain to the treatment of detainees.
Our media entertained a serious debate about whether looting or burning a neighborhood to the ground was "violence" or not, and the many preferred to refer to these events as "fiery but mostly peaceful protests". How did we go from that to tenuous analogies of torture?
If your noisy neighbor was setting of a blowhorn with a high duty cycle for multiple days with the express intent to cause harm to you, it would probably be fair to call that some form of assault.
Good grief. Yes, a disturbance can refer to noise or violence, but that doesn't imply that a noise is violence. This is the lowest quality argumentation I've seen on this site for a while.
I'm giving a definition that applies to my own words. That's the way I meant distrubance. Also, it's not because something isn't violent that it isn't harmful.
You specifically likened it to assault. A noisy protest is annoying and it can disturb the quiet but it isn’t harmful in any sense that could be considered assault.
It sucks that your neighbor has gathered many large trucks and is honking them for 18 hours a day in order to compel you to do something. Why isn't anyone doing anything about it? Now that you know you're being tortured what are your plans?
Depends on how you define peaceful; if you consider it peaceful to make enough noise in a neighbourhood such that thousands cannot sleep there for weeks, then yes.
Yes. I've seen no evidence of stores being looted, businesses burned, or anybody throwing rocks at police -- all of which were common in 2020 BLM protests.
As for the police - helps that a lot of them were tacitly helping the rioters. As usual, giving them fuel and supplies, and ignoring clear-cut violations of the law. Why throw rocks at an ally?
Toronto and other cities may have shut them down, but the Ottawa cops were pretty much assisting. Not really a surprise, cops are pretty right-wing aligned in general.
On the footage, he described seeing two individuals lighting a fire in the lobby shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday. After the suspects leave, another individual is seen coming into view and quickly extinguishing the fire near the elevators, Munoz said.
...
Police have not confirmed any link between their investigation into this incident and the ongoing convoy protest.
Trudeau's father had the Mounties plant bombs at civilians (Canadian citizens on Canadian soil) back in the 70's and tried to blame it on some political group to justify armed intervention [0].
I went through the leaks last night and they're wrong about the IP addresses. All of the IP addresses listed are internal to the service itself- they recorded the IP addresses of their own nodes (or possibly cloudflare edge nodes), and they're all from one of a few ranges or localhost.
The email addresses, names, country and zip codes all seem legit though.
I mean, I wouldn't expect the general public to have "true tech literacy" to the point of knowing the difference between IP classes. That seems above and beyond "literacy" to me. Hell, I wouldn't even expect the general public to know what an IP address is; their exposure to them is both so minimal and so shallow that it doesn't make sense to learn the intricacies of.
For instance, I consider myself to be fairly techy. I run multiple VLANs on the class A space on my home network, so I have decent exposure to IP addresses. And I routinely struggle with CIDR notation to the point where I basically have to use a converter each time because I can't remember which bits correspond to which ranges.
If I have this much trouble, I wouldn't expect the general public to even know what any of what I said is.
I don't think it is literacy really, just sloppy engineering process.
Typically this happens when someone develops a service which is front facing without any proxy/ LB before it, goes to production and gets validated IP and other logs are great everyone moves on . Few months/years down to scale their service or improve security a LB or CF type proxy is put in front and no bothers to check the IP logs are still valid because no one actually uses IP for anything in their tooling( like filters/blocks or geomapping etc) so won't notice the break at all.
I'd like to know as well. The Distributed Denial of Secrets [1] page states that "Due to PII in the dataset, the dataset is only being offered to journalists and researchers."
GiveSendGo is a crowdfunding site like GoFundMe, made by Andrew Torba and the others behind Gab etc., as an alternative to GoFundMe given that GoFundMe is politically picky about which kinds of causes it allows donations for and which kinds of causes they redistribute the raised funds of to other charities instead.
Well I'm sure these truckers think and say it's a human rights issue not political, if you ban that you would ban the mechanism liberal democracy values get spread around the world financially speaking, usually under the name of human rights.
As has been pointed out, you can visit relatives in Canada. What you can't do is zip back and forth across the border willy nilly during this pandemic, while refusing to take the preventative measures 4/5ths of your (eligible) countrymen have taken, namely vaccination.
I'm an American living in Canada. Like you I chose to live across an international border from my family. Guess what? Living abroad inconvenient from time to time! During a pandemic when one country (USA) chooses to behave idiotically, the result being a 3x per capita death rate compared to Canada, it's even more inconvenient. Ironically, people like you (who can't be bothered to do anything to prevent virus spread) are the reason we have to have all these damned restrictions.
Despite the inconvenience to me (didn't see family for over a year) I support the border closures and restrictions fully. I am very proud of Canada's success in keeping death and hospitalization rates down compared to USA, and proud of Canadians' civic spirit and collective solidarity. That civic spirit is a big part of why I prefer living here.
If you never want to be inconvenienced in your travels to and within Canada: move back home. You are opting into a certain amount of inconvenience by living abroad, that is your choice.
The adversity of your words is against hacker news rules. This isn't reddit.
>>Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
I appreciate the feedback. What in particular did you find objectionable about my comment? Feel free also to "flag" my comment for moderator review if you think it isn't suitable for hackernews.
Who is barred? I’ve travelled to Canada to visit family a number of times last year and once so far this year. I have another trip planned for late spring.
There was a time that entering as a Canadian citizen by air would get you escorted to a gov't approved place of quarantine for a few days, regardless of your living situation / ability to self-isolate. Granted, that's not the situation currently.
Quarantine != "barred". Perhaps inconvenient to the point of rethinking the trip, yes, but that's different than a citizen being denied the right of return by their government.
And even that inconvenience can be removed with a free, safe shot that takes 30 seconds to get for those that aren't prevented by some other health condition.
Former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford, one of the men who helped draft our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is suing the government, claiming that these travel restrictions on Canadian citizens are unconstitutional.
It's a pretty remarkable situation to have someone who wrote our constitution pointing out that the government is in error.
The case was doomed before it was filed because the pretense and premise is a bit absurd. Air Travel is not a right on its own and the federal government is freely able to place limits on who is allowed onto an airplane already, for a lot of arbitrary reasons (Canadians or otherwise). Setting that aside, provinces also have a say in how that works and could easily also force isolation on returning travelers and invoke the notwithstanding clause to enforce it. Either way, by the time it is argued we will hopefully be past COVID restrictions.
It will also be interesting to see the moment of Peckford's lawyers arguing the intent of the constitution and the crown having to argue against it, given Peckford was there at its drafting. However, it would be foolish to believe the man to be automatically correct and infallible on this point in the court's eyes.
However, I do believe the discussion is worth having because if nothing else it will force the Canadian government to rethink its policies that were clearly developed on the fly without due consideration. Right now, with the benefit of hindsight, 14-day enforced quarantines and 3-5-day enforced stays at government designated hotels don't seem to have done much of anything other than throw the hospitality industry a bone. Personally, I would have preferred to see more aggressive testing done at points of entry, with quarantine notices essentially handed out to individuals who need it. Unfortunately successive governments undermined Canadian biotech industries and left the country without the needed capacity.
There need to be better policies and plans in place for the next time this happens and it is important to have the discussion of just how much you're able to dictate to a given individual.
Next time this happens, public health agencies will be dealing with large swaths of their populations who have zero (actually, negative) trust in them and refuse to comply with any and all measures from day one.
Peckford didn't really contribute to drafting the charter in its relevant portions here, though he had peripheral involvement in its contours as a premier of a province during the period it was negotiated and as part of the basis for the Kitchen Accord that led to s.33. His major position on the constitutional negotiations as a whole was mostly a losing position. So it's a little like arguing the anti-federalists had unique constitutional insight in the U.S. Especially given that the constitution was shortly relitigated vis-a-vis Meech Lake and Charlottetown and the heirs to Peckford's position... lost again!
After losing election in Newfoundland (thanks partially to betting the province's economic future on hydroponic cucumbers -- a little surprising that didn't work!) he left the province, and he's had no real involvement in politics since except to endorse the far-right political party in the last election and become a professional anti-vaxxer, as you note.
I think the appeal to authority here is odd. Whether Peckford has a legal point on the travel restrictions or not, it's not because he was ostensibly in the room when the finer points of the constitution were hammered out. The whole point of the Court Challenges Program and other measures was because everyone -- the legal profession, the provinces, the federal government, and interest groups -- believed that the charter required extensive jurisprudence to understand.
I doubt Peckford wins as the case works its way through; the dominant policy view on the Charter and the court is basically dialogue theory, that the court exists primarily to work affirmatively with the government and that even when the court strikes government policies it typically does so in a cooperative way. The court is largely deferent to state interests. This deference is built right into s.1, which is why charter rights are subject to s.1.
But even beyond that, the court has already circumscribed s.6(1) rights e.g. in Divito v. Canada (which held that, for example, citizens are not entitled to prison transfers to serve international sentences domestically; both because the state has an s.1 interest in limiting such rights and because s.6(1) isn't that expansive to begin with). The court has never held, e.g., that s.6(1) grants an affirmative right to fly, or an affirmative right to fly without ID, or even an affirmative right to get a passport without following instructions. The alternative argument is some kind of nonsense s.7 argument which would clearly crumble when applying s.1.
I suspect they would decline to rule in Peckford's favour here, they aren't in the business of whole cloth concocting these kinds of affirmative rights. The most likely vote would be 8-1 or 9-0, with maybe Brown dissenting?
Of course Peckford being legally incorrect doesn't mean he has no point from a moral or policy standpoint. Totally reasonable to say "I think Peckford's point is well taken." Just think the bizarre invocation of him as a legal authority doesn't hold up at all.
The last man alive who sat with PET and the other premiers to discuss how Trudeau’s unacceptable constitution (to the premiers who had to be on board) was going to pass muster.
Being barred to enter a country because of a lack of vaccination is nothing new from the pre-Covid-19 era.
Like Brazil requires a Yellow Fever vaccination for people from some African countries.
There are probably about 100 other reasons they can be banned from entry if they don't comply. Saying they are "banned" if they don't get a vaccination (even though of course it's not a ban, it's a "de facto" ban) is no more interesting than if they're "banned" if they won't submit to a search, or if they've filled their car with fruit.
> Quarantine != "barred". Perhaps inconvenient to the point of rethinking the trip, yes,
The original quote was "de facto barred". If something is "inconvenient to the point that it makes the trip infeasible" it's pretty much as good as barring entry.
> And even that inconvenience can be removed with a free, safe shot that takes 30 seconds to get for those that aren't prevented by some other health condition.
I'm vaxxed and boosted, but at this point it doesn't seem like vaccines inhibit transmission and thus it's purely a matter of bodily autonomy. "yield your right to bodily autonomy and you may enter" is some authoritarian nonsense.
First, vaccines do inhibit transmission. They're not perfect, and the protection begins to wane after a few months, but to say that they don't inhibit transmission is false.
Further, the vaccines have consistently significantly reduced hospitalization, and most Canadian hospitals continue to be stretched with a long backlog. The continued strain from COVID hospitalizations continues to impact others. Freedom has always been limited when it interferes with the rights of others, (in this case timely access to healthcare) and borders have always had stricter rules than normal life within a country.
We're in a gray area here, granted. Ideally ones' own health choices would not impact others, and hospitals would be back to normal, but the restrictions are not nonsense.
> First, vaccines do inhibit transmission. They're not perfect, and the protection begins to wane after a few months, but to say that they don't inhibit transmission is false.
I was a little imprecise--I don't think the transmission inhibiting effect is literally zero, but I suspect it's marginal (based on US health officials remarks about 'everyone is going to get omicron' https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/11/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday...).
> Freedom has always been limited when it interferes with the rights of others, (in this case timely access to healthcare) and borders have always had stricter rules than normal life within a country.
I can't take this argument seriously while Canada tolerates so many other things that increase one's risk of consuming hospital resources (drinking, smoking, driving, etc) and fails to mandate other things which would similarly reduce load on hospitals (diet, exercise, etc). In these other cases, it's regarded as the responsibility of the government to provide enough healthcare to meet demand--not to infringe on the rights of citizens.
> We're in a gray area here, granted. Ideally ones' own health choices would not impact others, and hospitals would be back to normal, but the restrictions are not nonsense.
I think we left the gray area when it became clear that COVID would be endemic and vaccines don't do much to reduce transmission.
> Abortion in Canada is legal at all stages of pregnancy, regardless of the reason, and is publicly funded as a medical procedure under the combined effects of the federal Canada Health Act and provincial health-care systems
Quarantine procedures were in place during Zika and Ebola outbreaks as well. And those procedures were substantially more harsh. Major metro hospitals had quarantine facilities brought in for Ebola. Patients were shoved into a mobile field hospital for 14 days. Not a single protest happened for that.
The takeaway here is that none of this is new. People are mostly just pissed off that the quarantine procedures now apply to them. It was a-okay when other people were shoved into isolation tanks because, "that's what happens when you go to Africa."
When the rights are infringed upon just for the fuck of it without solid proof that it is to prevent endangering large amount of lives - maybe it is technically legal but I think it is crime.
You can make it illegal and actually a crime. The democratic way to make it one is either make that point democratically elected leaders in a civilized manner or vote against them next election and organize into parties/block to influence policy.
Terrorizing and hold regular people hostage with noise pollution, blockade and disrupt their lives is what revolutionary/terrorist organization would do.
If protestors behave like terrorists and insurgents then sooner or later they will be treated like one.
No Canadians are barred from entry, nor have they been. You'll still be getting into the country, just with testing and quarantine requirements. Working cross border isn't a right
> Not all unvaccinated people end up in a hospital though. So aren't we discriminating against them?
We absolutely are, and I applaud the effort.
If they were fighting against rabies or measles or tetanus vaccinations, I'd say "Good on you! Do your part to clean out the shallow end of the gene pool."
But once their stupidity endangers others, we as civilized people step in and stop them.
When unvaccinated COVID patients flood the hospitals, it means that other people with serious or life threatening medical situations can't get the quality treatment they need. At this point, the antivax stupidity crosses over into danger-to-society.
So yeah, block them until they no longer pose a threat.
> When unvaccinated COVID patients flood the hospitals [..]
In our part of the world, despite eye-watering infection rates over the last few weeks, hospitals are absolutely nowhere near capacity (and that's putting it mildly).
Were younger and fitter people really flooding hospitals if they got Covid? Thought the data on age and comorbidities is pretty clear and has been for a while now.[0][1]
> The fact that Canadian hospitals haven't been overrun is testament to how well the situation is being handled. But one must remain vigilant. Even Germany had problems with their hospitals despite their best efforts.
> Health officials in Sweden have warned that intensive care units (ICUs) in and around Stockholm are under severe pressure and close to capacity for the first time during the pandemic.
> Although the city’s hospitals could increase the number of beds allocated to ICUs, there are insufficient specialist staff to support them, said Björn Eriksson, director of Region Stockholm Healthcare.
> He told The BMJ, “So far, we have been one step ahead of the virus by continuously opening more care places so that they’re available when the need arises. Now, healthcare staff are so hard pressed and the margins are so tight that on 10 December I formally asked the National Board of Health and Welfare for more specialised staff.”
> One option being considered is “borrowing” trained staff from private care providers, he said.
> The Swedish government changed its approach to the pandemic last month when it introduced tougher restrictions on social interactions after cases started to rise. The soft approach the government had adopted, based on recommendations and voluntary behaviour of citizens, has shifted as cases of infection with SARS-CoV-2 have continued to surge along with hospitalisations and deaths.
> This week Prime Minister Stefan Löfven announced that the ban on gatherings of more than eight people would extend to the Christmas holidays, while secondary schools have been told to switch to distance learning for the rest of the term. The government has also asked the parliament to grant it more authority to implement new measures such as closing shopping malls and gyms.
Upstream in this thread we have "it's not torture because no-one is making those residents who live in the area stay" - because of course, they all can afford the time and effort to go stay in a hotel out of the area for a few weeks...
Here we have "oh, well, it might as well be a ban, if you're going to inconvenience someone for a few weeks".
Look, I get it. They’re icky and Canada has a long history of denying or trying to deny entry to “icky” ppl. Mediterraneans, Asians, Eminem (though I forgot about that one eh?).
Canada has just a long list of things its apologized for. Like barring entry to Mediterraneans, Asians and Eminem.
Fun fact - people who live or have lived in disease-plagued areas of the world are far more likely to willingly adhere to guidelines on masks, isolation, and the like, because they've seen, firsthand, the devastating effect of pandemics and epidemics.
Let's not pretend for one moment that your average antivaxxer in the US or Canada is in any way on some sort of moral crusade for the third world.
It's just a "better" reason than "because I'm selfish".
I’ll help your argument out and make it stronger (because “reserved” vaccines have indeed been shipped overseas):
Once a vial is opened the vaccines contained therein can’t be shipped overseas and will expire in a few hours. I could therefore wait outside a Walgreens before closing and get the shot.
Except Im not a utilitarian. I cannot take what is rightfully another’s just because they cant enjoy it. I believe that all young people should have refused the shot, therefore liberating millions of doses. Mine is but the first (literal) drop in what should be an ocean; and Im actively encouraging my friends to do the moral thing and refuse to get boosted.
It is rightfully yours. your government put in the work to develop and produce these vaccines on your behalf. You can always put in more work to make more vaccines to get to others if you think they should also have vaccines
Do you only do this for vaccines? other medical treatment? food? water?
I don't know where to draw the line myself, so I wonder what kind of rules you set for yourself. This sounds like one of the most extreme examples I've heard.
Nice sentiment but this is analogous to the concept of not throwing out food because there are starving people out there. The vaccine you're not taking isn't going to magically get reappropriated for use in the third world. Most likely, it will just go to waste.
Yes it is. My parents were vaccinated with vaccines not used by first world countries.
EDIT:
Also, consider that perhaps the West should be consuming (far) less resources including food? Eat what’s on your plate, even if you’re full, and skip the next meal. Your discomfort and hunger will help remind you next time to have an appropriate serving.
I've had relatives come into the country from different countries many times, with no issues. They had to quarantine, one of them with us, but they were never denied entry, and even that is getting dropped progressively.
Jesus Christ, you can't just leave your S3 bucket open, guys. There are lots of warnings from Amazon before you end up doing that, and it's so easy to not do (pre-signed URLs if you really need a URL).
I guess it's rather interesting to see the reactions from the media and HN comments. Sort of reflects the relative politics:
- Patreon leak. Media didn't go download everyone's data and threaten to get info. HN blamed Patreon.
- GiveSendGo (a terrible name imho). Media downloads the data and threatens to get info. HN blames the hacker.
I think I'm going to choose consistency here. I hate these data breach guys, but it's sort of like I hate mosquitos. If I could cleanse the Earth of them I would, but I can't. So I accept they are just a natural constraint. But if your hotel has mosquitos I'm going to blame your hotel.
This 'hack' is dealing with amateurish security. If you're in a controversial place you've got to do better. GiveSendGo has a lot of work to do (unless this was something weird this specific campaign did). And their security position on this was terrible: https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/08/ottawa-trucker-freedom-con...
> TechCrunch contacted GiveSendGo co-founder Jacob Wells with details of the exposed bucket on Tuesday. The bucket was secured a short time later, but Wells did not respond to our questions, including if GiveSendGo planned on informing about the security lapse those whose information was exposed.
Patreon is a bay area startup with loads of VC funding. Their engineering team is well paid and people hold them to a higher standard.
GiveSendGo has amateurish security because it's an amateurish company.
Think of it this way. Patreon's security failure made bay area techies look bad because it turned out that you couldn't just hire a bunch of them and expect things to go well. GiveSendGo's security failure makes bay area techies look bad because it turns out cloud security isn't as easy as they'd like to think.
Also taking down small sites that provide services to the out group of the bay area is unacceptable in a democracy. It invites legislative reprisal.
The lack of effective policing is what's most disappointing to me. The Ottawa police have completely failed to enforce any boundaries. This further erodes public trust in the police and public safety in general. In that sense the protestors are winning.
What is effective policing meant to look like in circumstances like this?
This is an unarguably large amount of people practicing civil disobedience. How many police does Ottawa have on hand to deal with it?
All the tactics I can think of to truly control a crowd this size are rather…harsh (lines of riot police and water cannons etc). So if you don’t take that option you’re left with tactical deployment of officers.
Seems like a hard problem to get right. Just because they’re not perfect doesn’t mean they’re not effective.
The fact that they’re seizing weapons caches before any particularly heinous outbreaks of violence makes me think they’re prioritising their resources somewhat effectively?
There are less people engaging in highly disruptive actions such as in the blockade of the border pass or in honking at night than police officers.
The tactics are pretty simple. You order dispersal for disruptive people. If they refuse, you calmly walk towards and past them as a group in riot gear. If they engage in violence, you act in minimal self defence, and if they refuse to move, you continue, slowly pushing them forwards.
If people stay stuck in their trucks or cars, you give them a warning their car is being impounded. If they don't leave by then, you tow it to the side and give a hefty fine, with or without them inside.
It's not a hard problem at all. I've been on the receiving end multiple times. It's only when you start throwing tear gas for no reason or beating up people for fun - which police often does to other groups - that you have unprovoked issues.
As it stands municipal police has done exactly nothing. They haven't even given fines.
The ones seizing weapon caches are the RCMP, under federal jurisdiction. They've recently been allowed to take over the duties of municipal officers because so many of them refuse to do anything.
The response from Toronto police seemed highly effective. The response from Ottawa police was selfies and gaslighting, which ultimately resulted in the police chief resigning.
Police will not attack their own citizens. Sometimes it happens...shocker. Usually when the government is out of line with the sentiment of the people.
So now they will try to send in the RCMP to the dirty work.
This is a tactic often used by dictators.
Send in out of town people to suppress the locals.
I'm confused, is only the truckers convoy data available or was all of GiveSendGo's database compromised? GiveSendGo hosts fundraising campaigns for the full constellation of alt-right, Proud Boy, J6, etc groups that don't get hosted by GoFundMe.
As a fully vaccinated person who thinks that people who disagree with me should have rights, and who values freedom more than wealth, I'm proud that my name is on that list.
As a fully vaccinated person who understands that the point of every law in a democratic society is for the benefit of everybody (including myself) at the expense of my own liberty, I am proud that my name is not on that list.
When you increase community immunity, you can reduce a pandemic to an endemic (a disease that causes only a few hospitalizations each year and doesn't threaten rationing care). This means businesses can open up, people can remove masks, and everything can go back to normal. People's livelihoods will no longer be at stake. My freedom to choose whether to vaccinate might be restricted, but I benefit overall.
When you implement laws against burning fields and barbecuing on days with poor air circulation, you let everybody breathe easier without masks and without suffering breathing problems. My freedom to barbecue might be restricted, but I benefit overall.
> the point of every law in a democratic society is for the benefit of everybody
provably false.
So are you saying that my parents and grandparents, who went on strike and participated in worker unions, were wrong, and that they should have accepted labour laws as they were back then, since those laws were conceived in a democratic society hence they were fair by definition?
> When you increase community immunity
we already have that, in many advanced economies, including Australia where I live, we are now at 80-90% vaccination rates, which is what the WHO identified as a goal; we will never reach 100% even if we were living in a techno-dictatorship, because some people can't be vaccinated for medical reasons. As a vaccinated person, you have to be aware that when you go to a public place not everyone around you is vaccinated, this can't be changed regardless of what happens to the truckers.
> barbecuing on days with poor air circulation,
preventing someone from having a barbie on a certain day vs. firing someone from their job - not exactly two comparable situations
> So are you saying that my parents and grandparents, who went on strike and participated in worker unions, were wrong, and that they should have accepted labour laws as they were back then, since those laws were conceived in a democratic society hence they were fair by definition?
No, I'm saying that democracies choose the laws to benefit the people who live in them, as opposed to dictatorships. Sometimes, the people in the democracies aren't smart enough to choose laws that benefit them (like the US states that made laws against vaccine mandates and had predictable healthcare rationing as a result), but that doesn't change the purpose of the democracy or its laws.
> we already have that, in many advanced economies
And those advanced economies are free to open up. Denmark already has. Canada, whether by having too low a vaccination rate or too little healthcare, is not among them. Hence, the need for mandates to get there.
> preventing someone from having a barbie on a certain day vs. firing someone from their job - not exactly two comparable situations
You're comparing a law with a punishment for breaking a law, which is a nonsensical comparison, as you apparently agree, but why make it? The key comparison is whether both laws are beneficial, and they are.
I'm not, "loosing your job" is not a punishment, it's an effect of the mandate. The punishment would be being fined or going to jail for still driving a truck despite the mandate.
8.4M in donations plus another 0.57M going to GSG (not a bad racket eh?) over 92k rows. I'm using the word rows intentionally here because I can't make any claim about the number of actual individuals.
Thank you for all this great data! So the "big" donors (>=5k) are something like 4%. Truely does seem fairly grassroots-ish, assuming no shenanigans with the records people thing.
If you believe the donation display names in the file, you'd think this was all an inside job by Mayor Jim Watson, police chief Peter Sloly, Hunter Biden, Kamala Harris, etc. etc. ;)
The comments are.. special. Lots of Christian religious stuff which makes sense given the site's background. As someone who is very much not religious, this makes me just as uncomfortable.
From another comment it looks like the IP addresses are not accurate. Otherwise, it would have been interesting to see if many small donations were coming from the same IP.
Reading this thread demonstrate to me why we (as a society, no matter where you're living) can't live together as we've been doing anymore. The ideas are colliding in too many areas and all of them look like a rat trap.
Something hostile in human behavior we are unable to remove is deeply rotten and who knows how we can fix it. This are sad (but non desperate) times to live.
>> Reading this thread demonstrate to me why we (as a society, no matter where you're living) can't live together as we've been doing anymore. The ideas are colliding in too many areas and all of them look like a rat trap. Something hostile in human behavior we are unable to remove is deeply rotten and who knows how we can fix it. This are sad (but non desperate) times to live.
> I don't think much has changed, what has changed is we now have the Internet and technology, enabling the ideas and information to be heard.
It's not just that. The internet and technology also allow an unprecedented levels of disconnection, dehumanization, and "filter bubble"-ing.
IRL interaction put breaks on a lot things that online interaction has now removed.
I’m somewhat hopeful. For me getting out of the media bubble was actually super easy once you just do it and now I feel like I have a more accurate view of the world and a lot less stress. If people stop overdosing on CNN and Fox and Facebook then after the withdrawals I think everyone will feel just better and clearer. Now how do we make everyone stop doing that? No idea.
Wikipedia current events is my “news” source now and I couldn’t be happier
It is all pushed by digital ad revenue. Conflict is extremely profitable. As long as socials and infotainment (it's not news) companies make more selling conflict and outrage, that is all we'll get. They will amplify anything for more dollars. When is the last time you saw a headline that wasn't click-bait? Everyone is so busy hating their neighbor they miss the oligarchy printing money.
Governmental centralization control has grown steadily since the start of the 20th century. Control and micromanagement of human behavior and thought, especially in big cities, has grown beyond what humans are capable of tolerating
Publishing the already publicly available data isn't doxxing yet.
This is necessary information the public needs to see to start estimating how much of that money is coming from foreign donors so we can question why and deal with it accordingly.
Didn't seem necessary when it was the Hunter laptop, or the Ashley diary, or the DNC emails.
Those things were ignored in the MSM as "illegally obtained" and "disinformation" and banned from discussion on social sites "due to hacking".
But this civilian donor list is "necessary information" and the media is licking their chops wanting to broadcast it for their brown shirt goons. Disgusting.
I'm eager to see passwords leaks as well as all the other personal info leaks for the last decade be exposed then. Remember the Desjardins leak a few years ago? Is that OK?
I fail to see why a leak is considered "public information" to you or why specifically it's ok for this case but not equifax, desjardins and all the others.
Comments I've read say the file has over 100k names, postal codes, and email addresses of people who have donated. Now, they've likely been radicalized by being doxed, and they can find each other both online, and by postal code.
By releasing this data, these hackers have provided probably the most valuable organizing, fundraising, and sales pipeline list for conservative causes and businesses ever created in the country, and it is that quality of forethought that I think makes this a Canadian state backed operation. The wisdom behind this was truly exemplary.
PAT KING: Pat King is a far-right protester who has said in videos posted to social media that there may be future plans to target politicians' homes and that "the only way that this is going to be solved is with bullets." He has called for the arrest of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly.
King has gained attention online for a video posted to Twitter in which he decries the "depopulation" of white people, as well as another video posted in 2019 in which he makes racist remarks about Jewish, Muslim, and Chinese people.
I genuinely wonder how many of the people protesting actually know who this person is or what he believes (if the parent comment even accurately represents him--I really have no idea). Reminds me of how people would criticize BLM protests on the basis that some people in the BLM org had ties to communism--a very weak criticism considering how many better criticisms existed and how few of the protesters had related views. The parent comment seems like a similarly weak indictment of the protesters.
King is literally a founding convoy organizer who calls the shots and has a massive following and influence on the convoy members. His videos get 100's of thousands of views and he influenced the convoy 'manifesto' that they created to try to overthrow the government. Your comment shows you have done zero research into the matter. He's a vocal white supremacist who believes Islam has taken over the government to kill white bloodlines. You can find many videos of him saying this to be broadcast to his following.
I don't doubt he's crazy, I do doubt his crazier views represent those of protesters more broadly. But in whichever case, the administration could take the wind out of his sails by yielding--no need to organize under King if the goal is accomplished. If the government didn't take an authoritarian stance in the first place, King would be marginal.
You think pointing out that there’s far-right extremists managing this whole show is a “weak indictment” when one of the stated goals of said protest is to overturn a democratically elected government?
It's a strong indictment to the extent that this person actually "runs the show" and his views about race represent the majority of protesters' views. Which is to say "yes, it's a weak indictment".
Idk. At best you are defending the idea that the majority of protestors are pawns in someone else’s game, no? Just because someone doesn’t know they’re being used doesn’t mean they aren’t being used …
If that's the case then you're screwed either way because Trudeau's racism is thoroughly documented. :) But thankfully (much to the chagrin of the media and others) these protests have centered narrowly around the bodily autonomy issue rather than unsavory race views, and the likelihood of the protests transforming into racial protests is small. Further still, the establishment could completely take the wind out of the alleged protest leaders' sails by acquiescing (no need to organize under these guys if the need to organize goes away altogether).
If you think Trudeau wearing blackface (also bad, obvs) is comparable to the occupation of the capital of Canada, I wish you well — we really have nothing to discuss here.
"Overnight, demonstrators exhibited extremely disruptive and unlawful behaviour, which presented risks to public safety and unacceptable distress for Ottawa residents," said police.
Oof. That's how the police characterized "illegal fireworks, loud music and horn honking". In fairness to you, your quote from the police was at the tippy top of your article and mine was multiple paragraphs later.
Well, if I'm being charitable, that's exactly the question mark here.
There are reports of intimidation and other bad behaviour, but there are also a whole bunch of other people just enjoying the party atmosphere. I think both narratives can be true. To be clear, some of the honking has been going on 18+ hours a day, which is bad, but there are suggestions of worse things under the surface. This happened a couple weeks ago, for instance:
My probably subjective impression is that wandering around this protest is a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure. There's friendly folks, but there are troublemakers around too, and unfortunately the troublemakers seem to be more senior in the planning process ...
I think your standard for “peaceful protest” seems unreasonable. How many large scale protests have there been which had zero reports of “bad behavior”? Can you name any protest in the last 5 years whose scale was comparable to these protests which had no reports of bad behavior?
1) This is pretty severe by Canadian standards (we don’t have the same kind of protest culture the US does), but more importantly,
2) If nobody was driving their trucks up to Parliament Hill (and if the demands the protestors were initially making weren’t as wild — although obviously there’s room to disagree, as we have here, regarding how serious they are), then I would agree. The mandates and COVID itself have definitely caused a lot of disruption and it’s our right to peacefully protest what the govt does. But the moment you bring commercial vehicles into the mix you are not, imo, a protestor anymore. Especially when you have prominent voices in the US egging it on, sending them money, etc. For what it’s worth I think the blockades on the border are at least as bad if not worse than what’s going on in Ottawa.
I confess to being not overly sympathetic to protest culture generally, but I believe a free society must tolerate protests. However, I think what’s happening now has moved somewhat beyond what we should tolerate.
> This is pretty severe by Canadian standards (we don’t have the same kind of protest culture the US does), but more importantly,
Fair enough. Prior to BLM the US protest culture was much milder as well. :/
> However, I think what’s happening now has moved somewhat beyond what we should tolerate.
I can empathize with the frustration of traffic and noise disruption, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to set the precedent of giving the PM the power to suppress his own critics peacefully protesting.
i have a 4 year old daughter in ontario who has never seen her friends faces or her teacher's face. she eats outside even when it's -20. as of today, no end in sight for these rules. why? it's shameful. im surprised the civil unrest in canada isnt worse.
My children in Ontario public schools eat inside -- always have. Strangely, when they eat, they even take off their masks and see the faces of their classmates. Even more strange, they see their classmates faces even with masks on, just a smaller portion of their faces.
Today is quite cold, so they're not having outdoor recess at all. They're staying inside. Eating inside. Maybe your school district has different policies?
May I highlight this is your _very_ first comment on this website. Why did you suddenly decide to make an account and post your first comment here? Do you work in technology?
Because some people don't feel safe in the software industry to make comments under a username tied to their public identity when it comes to Covid (or other polarizing stuff).
I've been on this website for about a decade, but this account I use now is only 10 months old.
The only article I could find about "kids eating outside in the cold" is this one, which clarifies that "no, we won't be sending kids outside in the cold"[1]. If you can find one, let me know. I am a parent in Ontario and I've not heard a single anecdote about this from anyone.
Regarding "as of today, there is no end in sight for these rules": there has been a plan in place for months outlining the key dates when mandates will be relaxed. Just hours before OPs comment, the Ontario government announced they will be accelerating that schedule by 4 days, and the vaccine passport will be retired in just 2 weeks.[2]
Your comments re: new accounts are fair, but given the above I don't believe there is any truth to OPs comment, so I personally believe the account is intentionally created to spread FUD about the pandemic response in Canada and to create sympathy towards the convoy and its arguments.
My comment or question was more rhetorical. There is a nigh-zero chance that the comment-OP responds to any of my questions or posts any more comments. I leave it to the reader to extrapolate why that is the case.
The powers-to-be, civil and military, had great "business" going because of the quarantine by pillaging most of the funds the government provided for the city supplies (as the normal trade and supply was broken by the quarantine) while population was starving. The military doctors responsible for the quarantine received pay several folds higher than their usual pay. To maintain the supposed epidemic, ie. to generate sufficient number of deaths which were all chalked to plague even though in reality there weren't any plague cases, they for example forced people to sit in the sea in winter supposedly for public hygiene purposes, and naturally the malnourished population was getting ill and died in numbers. Anybody who showed any signs of any illness would be put into total quarantine into a hospital building with especially bad conditions which all but guaranteed the death.
Yeah, I have 5 nieces and nephews and friends with kids that live and around Hamilton. Tell me what they're going through that's insane.
Don't just drop comments like this without backing up your assertions, because it's false. Is it ideal for the kids right now? Fuck no. None of us want this. But to sell the narrative that there's a whole class of parents/teachers/administrators who are not trying their goddamned hardest to make this as easy on kids as possible, while stradling the line of what's responsible during a pandemic, is just belittling all of the effort being done for no discernable purpose at all.
My oldest kid been going to in-class school since September 2020 [1]. Maskless since October 2021. She missed, in a year and a half, a total of two or three weeks of school. This is a blessing that my kid has received.
NB for people outside Ontario: this is very likely a made-up untrue story. If parent commenter provides some details substantiating this unusual circumstance, I apologize in advance.
What school district? This is nothing like what I've seen in the Toronto schools which tend to be more cautious due to population density here.
I'm willing to believe this isn't a made up story, but am interested in details as this is very different from what I've heard or seen in Ontario.
Also why can't your child see their friend's faces outside of school? This is all quite confusing.
Unless there's some crazy school board out there, there's no way they have kids eating outside when it's -20. Most school boards won't even have outdoor recess on days like that.
I have 11 nieces and nephews in 5 different school boards in Ontario, and not one of them has these restrictions. They eat indoors, they can take their masks off at lunch, and during gym class. Their teachers regularly post videos for students to watch, with their masks off, so that they can have that level of interaction with their students.
We still do play dates with kids too. And birthday parties, where we can opt to go maskless if everyone is tested and comfortable with it.
Comments like this will get you banned here, no matter how right you are or feel you are, or how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you'd please review the site guidelines and stick to the rules when posting to HN, we'd appreciate it. Your comment would be completely fine—and considerably more persuasive—without those beginning and end bits.
Thank you. Schoolboard don't risk lawsuit from freezing children. Parent post is pure misinformation from brand new account with, quite honestly, the most eyerolling 'Canadian' name someone thought of.
I don't live in Ontario and don't have kids, so I don't have any personal experience. This section of Joël Lightbound speech stood out to me though. It is regarding the apparent quarantine measures in Quebec. I can't substantiate it, so maybe it is completely sensationalized.
>In Quebec in January 22, we've locked up kids aged 6 to 10 years old for up to ten days in windowless rooms. Kids who tested negative, who had no symptoms, who came in contact though, with someone who had the virus.
It's a one of, a seriously screwed up one, but it's not the normal quarantine procedure. I have a lot of respect for Lightbound but his speech was a lot of measure dropping with no context and no alternative proposed. I do respect that we need to be united more though.
No, this isn't the normal procedure. Kids aged under 12 only have to quarantine for 5 days unless they test positive and have no symptoms, this is to happen at home, not at school, and only if it was a very close contact.
It may have been an emergency where parents for some reason refuse to stay home with their kids and no alternative had been set up yet; but it absolutely is not the protocol.
I don't live in Quebec or have any knowledge of what is happening in that province, but this either sounds like there are mitigating situations that we're not aware of for this reaction, or an overreach by some board/school.
In Ontario, we were asked to isolate at home if there was any close contact with COVID at school and use remote learning if it was available for your class.
You mean where your support for a controversial political movement would be irrevocably public? If this list had leaked Bitcoin addresses, the next thing you'd see would be a report of everything else those addresses had been used for.
True, but its much harder to dox this number of people if all you have is a big list of Bitcoin addresses. It requires significantly more work, plus it's also harder to stop the disbursement of funds like what happened with the Canadian government freezing bank accounts and transactions with this campaign.
> True, but its much harder to dox this number of people if all you have is a big list of Bitcoin addresses.
This is also true of any other mechanism: if this was just a list of credit card transaction IDs, it'd be hard to do much with it as well. The problem is when you combine those with other metadata and it seems highly unlikely that anyone would spontaneously stop collecting that information.
Sort of true, but also credit card numbers are useless without the PII metadata. If you're storing credit card info like this then you pretty much have to store the sensitive stuff that can be used to dox people alongside it. The metadata isn't a requirement in the Bitcoin case. In fact, the way that bitcoin works, you wouldn't even end up with a centralized list like this of all the donors to get leaked in the first place. Some interested journalist or activist would have to go and manually compile it by looking at all the transactions themselves.
Do you think they would not otherwise store names if they weren't accepting credit card donations? If they were using Bitcoin, I'd bet that the only difference might be the lack of a billing address — it seems exceedingly unlikely that the crowdsourcing site or people running the campaign weren't planning to be able to contact their supporters and in many cases they need that for accounting or tax purposes, too.
The equivalent of a list of bitcoin addresses would be a list of credit card numbers, which this is not. This is closer to a list of names on an exchange like coinbase than a list of wallet addresses.
if I want to make an anonymous donation I can send BTC to any big player that consolidates outgoing transfers from their hot wallets and you won't have a chance in hell of knowing who sent it.
of course you can't move millions or illegal monoey like that (you can't use it like a tumbler) because it would be traceable if coinbase or whoever get subpoenaed
but you on this case you would be safe from persecution from supporting some political activism that gets ppl frothing in the mouth and want to make other ppl lose their jobs.
That's like saying you could give cash to someone else and then there won't be a link. We know that most people, even fairly committed users, do not have perfect opsec and cut corners for convenience. If you're proposing something for general use, you need to make your plans about what's safe for the median user rather than the 99th percentile.
Bitcoin or other crypto would just be the payment mechanism, alongside any other option like CC, paypal, bank transfer, etc. The donation platform could still collect any other data as part of the user profile.
Sure, they could choose not to collect or retain that data for crypto, but they could do the same with other payment mechanisms as well. Crypto wouldn't confer much more in the way of anonymity benefits above and beyond what a donation platform could provide right now if they wanted to.
It's a service that provides a convenient form of aggregation. It's not impossible to do things without one, but doing ad hoc peer-to-peer donations from a large number of donors to a large number of recipients in a very short amount of time is pretty difficult without some type of infrastructure to facilitate it. It doesn't have to be a general purpose donation platform, but whatever it is will have the same privacy factors I referenced already: independently of whether it accepts crypto, it will have to decide if/what user data to retain.
I'm not at-all familiar with Canadian law, but receiving money from foreign donors for political activity is often illegal. These funding platforms would probably need you to disclose who you are even if you gave bitcoin.
As a Canadian I humbly request Americans stay out of our politics, particularly when it comes to influencing them via monetary donations. Get your own house in order, don't encourage wannabe insurrectionists who had a manifesto to take over the government in blatantly undemocratic ways.
That is ironic coming from a Canadian. Just recently, a lot of money poured in from Canada to support the farmer protest in India. Here is one example: https://www.gofundme.com/f/donatetofarmers
PS: Not that I support the current Canadian protests.
As an Indian, this double standard was the most amusing thing for me in all these. When farmers in India protested, Canadian PM himself supported them (probably because he wanted the Sikh community votes?).
Indian government only used police officers with batons and were sometimes chased away by the protesters.
As a matter of principle I agree with you, however there is also a large Indian diaspora in Canada and it's quite possible most of that money was donated by Indians; it doesn't make a lot of sense for a Canadian living in the US to donate the money from a US account though.
Especially since some of these protestors are rumored to have backing of Khalistani separatists who have blown up an Air India flight in the past killing 329 people.
While I have not donated anything to this cause, as an American I fundamentally reject your humble request.
The reality is that while in this moment you are against it, the second a protest is in your favor, I'm willing to bet you will turn a blind eye. Nearly all international charities are a form of foreign influence whether you agree with them or not, and your politicians are the ones happy to allow these charities to operate within your nation.
If I support a cause within Canada and truly wish it the best, then I will donate to it, just like everyone else in the world already is. I do not support hypocrisy.
The U.S.A., and previously Great Britain, has always had an enormous political and economic influence on Canada, for better or for worse. Today we are being noticed in the U.S.A. because we're struggling. Having worked and traveled internationally for many years it is my opinion that at most times we, as a sovereign nation, rarely even occur to American minds. Such is life, and I'm okay with it.
It's not actually being a paywall - it's behind a login wall - but they don't ask for money (or a credit card) and seem to actually mean unlimited access.
The forces that promote Divide-and-Conquer tactics are absolutely dependent on otherwise normal people, suddenly feeling justified with wishing death upon their neighbors.
It’s not known for exactly how long the bucket was left exposed, but a text file left behind by an unnamed security researcher, dated September 2018, warned that the bucket was “not properly configured” which can have “dangerous security implications.”
So... this has been a known problem since 2018. Time to stop tilting at windmills.
If it's all theater, then it's worth pointing out the A/C/M times of files are easy to fake. A competent intruder can feather filesystem times and modify logs to point investigators toward the wrong conclusion.
> the timing of this seems to point to state sponsored hacking, no?
No.
The hack was obviously politically motivated, beyond that, nothing here points towards it being state sponsored. Non-state actors are equally motivated by the timing.
The idea that the Canadian government hacked GiveSendGo is also frankly ridiculous. Our government just isn't that lawless, and they could almost certainly get this data via legal means.
Both recent and historical evidence does not really support this claim. It is very very very easy to find many examples of governments breaking the law for their own benefit.
I don’t think it was the Canadian government either, but your logic does not seem good.
Both the words "our government" (i.e. the current canadian government), and "that" are doing work. Neither examples of random governments committing significant crimes, nor of the Canadian government committing less significantly corrupt crimes, contradict the premise.
There is ample evidence of the Canadian government breaking the law for their own benefit and there is ample evidence for these occurrences being “significant”.
And that’s not even taking into account that once trust is broken there are likely many more instances that aren’t known.
So by "significant" I'm excluding nonsense like this [1] where the government comes up with a creative (incorrect) interpretation of the law, and things like "a few rogue members of the government break the law" (e.g. [2]).
Neither of those would explain a government entity hacking this website to leak this data in an attempt to benefit the government.
I can't produce evidence that there isn't a history of actions like this, since my evidence really is just the lack of evidence. Thus I'd ask you to produce the "ample evidence" you claim exists.
One relevant example of the Canadian gov breaking the law and lying about it until they were caught was the 2007 Security and Prosperity Partnership protests in Montebello Quebec. In that case the government used agent provocateurs (provoking agents) who were dressed as protesters while initiating violence to paint the protesters in a bad light. The linked Wikipedia article lists several other examples. [0]
That said, I don't think the state was the responsible party for this attack.
> It is very very very easy to find many examples of governments breaking the law for their own benefit.
The current premier's father had feds planting explosive in people’s mailboxes [0] and tried to pin it on some political group he didn’t like back in the 70’s. Talk about a coincidence.
imo our government is probably lawless enough, but I doubt that it is competent enough to pull something off like that. The CSIS pays bad wages, their employees are mostly there for the cushy 9 to 5.
So incompetent they couldn't access an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket that was known to be insecure for some time? It sounds to me like GiveSendGo is simply incompetent with respect to security and some unskilled "hacker" took advantage of their incompetence.
It could be state sponsored hacking, but I think it's more likely to be don't by someone who got annoyed by the protests.
If I had trucks honking in front of my window, I'd do whatever I could to get them to fuck off as well. No need for the state to get involved if you just piss off enough random people.
Sweden's economy actually dropped harder than ours in Canada. The government was really generous, and while many especially in hospitality are worse off, few were truly devastated.
None of which are the supposed leaders of the manifestation, truckers, which actually did pretty well through all this - ask me why.
You know the reason why things aren't back to normal has little to do with mandates and a lot to do with the fact that, mandate or not, there was a deadly virus hanging around for two years and that's gonna change social behavior anyway?
Don't forget that 2 years of stress, angst, fear, new rules, normal hate of rules, etc. will make almost anyone stressed out and angry no matter how much they believe in the purpose behind it all, or how important it is.
Which when it's society wide, makes society stressed out and angry.
Stressed out and angry people do dumb and counter productive things. Sometimes even to the point of severe self harm.
Society when it is stressed out and angry tends to fragment and be less cohesive. Sometimes even to the point of severe self harm.
Wondering which side (or which sides there are, or why there even are 'sides') is doing the MOST dumb and counter productive thing is mostly part of the problem, not actually a solution, in the same way as a tired angry person trying to figure out who to yell at/blame, instead of getting some sleep or whatever.
Society wide, we need to do some serious self-care and calming the hell down - which would be nice, but good luck. So I expect we'll get a lot more fighting.
I live in a place where you can shit on restrictions all you want. Things aren't back to normal because people are still careful on how much they socialize and what the risk profile is. Things aren't back to normal because people have moved away from offices and it turns out a lot of people like that just fine, meaning a lot of old businesses have shut down, new businesses have opened up, and habits have changed.
The old world isn't coming back, ever. The world has changed. Even post-pandemic (which we are still far from over) I'm just gonna be more conscious about spending time in very closed spaces for extended time. The uncompromising are gonna sit a few things out even more. Also something like 0.5% of the population died and a few percentage points have ongoing long-COVID.
It's almost assuredly not done by someone who was directly 'annoyed' by the protests, that's a relatively small area, and hackers with skills are not that common.
The protests are an ideological touchstone, there are surely a lot of hackers in this world keen on 'exposing terrible people' (in their purview) and my money is on just some random 'hacker'.
I'm doubtful that it would be a government action, because those secrets are hard to keep and if it was leaked, the current political situation would collapse immediately. Trudeau & Co. would be gone for good. The details wouldn't really matter that much. I mean, he survived Blackface but he won't survive that kind of scandal.
That said, I'm pretty sure there was a de-facto systematic collusion between gov. offisials and GoFundMe etc. to shut down funding. The gov. can show GFM 'police reports' etc. and that can be used as a basis for cancellation. This is a bit problematic because all protests of a certain size have 'unlawful activity' and as soon as something is on the books, it's hard to put in context. This gives systems like GFM (or Apple, or Google or Amazon or VISA) the legitimate 'cover' to do kind of whatever.
I don't support the truckers, I see their TikTok's and they are rather uninformed antivaxxers, however, I kind of have to accept their right to protest.
Protesters in Portland literally took city blocks by force, threatened violence with serious weapons, two people died, there was tons of avoidable crime, police and rescue not allowed to enter etc. and they didn't seem to get quite the disdain that the truckers are, rather the press kind of just seemed to 'avoid them'. I understand every situation is different ... but still.
Truckers are dug in in Ottawa and Police are wary of confrontation, there's hints that the rank and file of Ott Police and RCMP are a bit sympathetic, and the Tow Trucker drivers are as well and don't want to face blowback. There is 'just enough empathy' among the Canadian public that it could 'tip in their favour' if we saw the firehoses or CS gas break out. It's definitely a very delicate political situation.
But in the end - Occam's Razor: some guy did this and leaked it, that's that.
> That's a relatively small area, and hackers with skills are not that common.
It is not some high end zero day they discovered. It is just a misconfigured s3 bucket. There are tools out there which scan for this kind of thing without any code required.
While some level of technical expertise is required, most developers could something like this if sufficiently motivated
>I'm pretty sure there was a de-facto systematic collusion between gov. offisials and GoFundMe etc. to shut down funding
No need to collude or conspire when everyone is already happy with each other's actions and everyone knows what the others want and which actions will step on their toes and which will be neutral or build good will.
Real collusion/conspiracy where there is actual communication between big actors like these is vanishingly rare. Behavior like "we set out price same as our competition's because why undercut each other" is dirt common.
I doubt someone who lived that close to the honking had the ability and chutzpah to do this.
After seeing how angry people got over Joe Rogan, I absolutely think there are militantly progressive people who are more concerned with the content of speech than the chilling effect of limiting free speech who would do this. Which isn't to say I agree with the Ottawa protesters or bridge blockaders; I think both went well outside the bounds of free speech.
This weekend a bunch of counter protesters went out and blocked a street in Ottawa to prevent new convoy protestors from entering the downtown core.[1]
I think if the ire of your neighbors has risen to the point that they'll go out and sit in -20C weather all day to stop you, it's not unlikely that someone would spend an afternoon poking at your website.
So is somebody physically blocking a bridge with a giant truck and refusing to move it less militant than somebody pulling their music off Spotify and writing a letter explaining their choice?
Why did you use the term “militant” to describe the side that is not using military tactics.
This is the standard right-wing strategy. Speak of your opponent exactly as you deserve to be spoken about. As long as you do it first, it makes accusing you of what you're actually doing less impactful, and sows doubt.
Basically, they know that one side is militaristic, and the other is not, but they side with the militaristic side ideologically, so they reflexively demonize their opponents with terms that better describe themselves, Knowing it's a bad look intentionally distancing themselves from the reality of what they stand for.
Yes. Disrupting supply chains is a thing militaries do. Regardless if they used guns or not. Militaries would love to win all conflicts with as few guns as possible. So if they could blockade a country with no guns at all, that would be ideal.
The point being made is that pulling one's music from Spotify is a personal choice about stuff you control.
Blocking bridges is forcing others who may not even be involved in your conflict to suffer the consequences of it. This is generally considered "a dick move".
Shutting down routes in and out of a city for such a selfish, delusional cause is well beyond what any rational person would call "civil disobedience". There is no basis for allowing the intentional permanent disruption of public resources and services to fight for a cause. You can't just filibuster society by sabotaging infrastructure like this.
With self-driving tech being a present reality, these truckers are just giving everyone a reason to automate them out of their jobs. A robot can't throw a tantrum, join a gang, and terrorize your city.
Why wouldn't they? I've heard they're all over city cores and you wouldn't think a socially inept tech worker or teenager in a toronto tower would get annoyed enough on a pure noise basis to do something like this?
I'd think it's far more likely that GiveSendGo doesn't have the most sophisticated and well maintained tech stack and an exploit was easily found by hacktivists engaging in defacement and doxxing.
Not only was this S3 public for reading but sounds like you could create & update as well since 2018. It contained "50 gigabytes of files, including passports and driver licenses".
Per the Tech Crunch article:
> It’s not known for exactly how long the bucket was left exposed, but a text file left behind by an unnamed security researcher, dated September 2018, warned that the bucket was “not properly configured” which can have “dangerous security implications.”
An open S3 bucket is a huge red flag that this feels state manufactured. Most people aligned with this protest probably possess the technical chops to know to do better.
Foreign support to this movement is not exactly a secret. They were waiving Trump flags, confederate flags and lots of MAGA signs were seen among the protesters. Also the movement has been publicized on Fox News and by famous right-wing people in the US, that's just normal that it would eventually lead to a lot of people in the US deciding to start donating. The simplest explanation is more likely than the conspiracy that the Canadian government had time to make up fake donations from the US.
This is a bit removed from your point about foreign support, but the flag thing appears to have been exaggerated for political purposes. The Confederate flag guy was shunned by the protestors and stood out like a sore thumb to begin with: https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1487834109678395392. (I'm not endorsing that Twitter account - it's the only link I know of to the video, and the video is interesting.)
It has also been commonly reported that the protestors are Nazis carrying Nazi flags, but this reporting is also excessively politicized. Here's a first-person account giving a completely different picture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtN4VqBeCMg#t=6932.
There are hundreds of hours of livestreams on youtube showing the protests. Anyone can dip in at random and get a sense. That's how I ran across that last link of the guy talking about the swastika flag. From the livestreams it seems clear that this is an authentic and peaceful working class protest, not some far right "insurrection" (a word that has also been chosen for political reasons). The most fascinating aspect of this event is what it reveals about the class divide in Canada, and the West in general, since each country has its own version of this right now.
> From the livestreams it seems clear that this is an authentic and peaceful working class protest
I would question the "working class" bit. Most of us on HN are office workers, who don't get out much, so we tend to assume anyone who works outdoors, including driving a truck, must be working class. But remember that every trucker participating in this protest has a truck to participate in: they are either owner-operators, or participating on behalf of trucking firm. Owner-operators are petite bourgeoisie; owners of firms are capitalists. Neither are working class, in an economic sense.
Really, when we office drones say the truckers are working class, what we actually mean is that they are rednecks. They come from rural areas, they probably don't watch the same TV shows as us, and perhaps they don't even drink speciality coffee. But you can be a redneck petit bourgeois, or a redneck capitalist!
> From the livestreams it seems clear that this is an authentic and peaceful working class protest, not some sort of far right "insurrection" (a word that has also been chosen for political reasons). The most fascinating aspect of this event is what it reveals about the class divide in Canada, or the West in general, since each country has its own version of this right now.
This is actually quite disingenuous. All it tells you is the general comportment of what people are doing around those livestreaming (who are almost all clearly marked).
What you aren't seeing or being exposed to in this way are the countless complaints of harassment, death threats, and rape threats the people living in this area are facing on a routine basis, even when the person being threatened was trying to help the protestors.[1][2][3][4]
As I've mentioned in other places, there's a lot of protests in Ottawa. It's the nation's capital and it's often a symbolic target if nothing else. Ottawa's citizens are familiar with protestors. This is a whole different ballgame.
In terms of it being working class, I think that's also a disingenuous label. As you can see in this walk through of the stopped convoy, there's VERY FEW actual big rigs participating, and the people here are largely driving recent pickups.[5] These are not put-out truckers, these are anti-vax/anti-mandate people from across the spectrum, and not a lot of them.
Was there any actual violence? If not then it was peaceful. Merely being armed certainly increases the capacity for violence, but it’s not violence in and of itself.
I’m not familiar with Canadian law on the subject, so I don’t know if possession of the items in question is unlawful or if there was some other cause for the arrests.
I think it's not the worst thing in the world for there to be visual elements inspired by the 2nd Amendment. If nothing else, it puts pressure on the government and shows that many free thinkers have solidarity with Canadians.
In Canadian terms it's politically one of the most foolish things you could do. There's little constituency for 2nd Amendment style gun rights in Canada, so they'd be sawing off the limb they're sitting on. And that's apart from whether they broke the law, which would also be politically foolish since it undermines their argument of civil disobedience. I don't know anything about the facts of this case though.
The point is that many other countries should adopt rights similar to the 2nd Amendment, because it has been proven to increase civil liberties with very few downsides. Canadians who refuse to do so are more likely to be trampled by big government.
planting a 'nazi/white nationalist' in protests and then having the media focus on it seems like such a obvious tactic now that it is making me question every time this kind of thing occurs.
For example, remember the recent election in Virginia where there was a ton of media retweets of a picture of a handful of 'white supremacists' in front of the tour bus for the Republican candidate. The media made a huge deal about it and the reporter who was on the scene made all kinds of absurd tweets about things she 'overheard' them say. However it didn't take long before people found pictures of the 'White Supremacists' working for the Democrat candidates campaign. One was even driving the tour bus!
That was a almost absurdy poorly executed attempt at a political smear but it really opened my eyes to how easy it is to insert bad actors into an event - especially when you have a complicit media.
How are the complicit media organized? Is there a secret WhatsApp thread going on between the hundreds of media organizations? Who runs the organization? How do they keep it a secret?
It existed, allowed the media to work together on how to represent certain issues, it stopped existing and there is a new version that replaced it? What did I miss?
I assume you are talking about Klein's statement regarding Tucker?
Honestly the odds that was a fed are pretty high. The father had feds planting explosive in people’s mailboxes [0] and tried to pin it on some political group he didn’t like back in the 70’s. Feds were forced to confessed when one got busted doing it, quite literally red-handed.
No, but if a bunch of people flying Peurto Rican flags swarm the Texas legislature it's probably reasonable to assume that there is a degree of support from people in Puerto Rico/outside of texas.
I think that most people mean "foreign" as foreign government (such as CCP) support, not just support from middle-class Americans (and Europeans) who identify with the protests and happen to be foreigners.
And while it could be that foreign governments have donated with false identities over GSG, it is more likely that they would send in people to figure out who is really capable of moving things, and contact them with cash, tips, and resources.
(I am not commenting on the envoy, as so far have only seen it in news outlets [such as CNN & NYT on the left and Fox on the right] who have not earned my trust - so I do not know what is really happening.)
As a Canadian I absolutely count donations from foreigners in the US and Europe as foreign money and absolutely think that that should be illegal (though I have no clue as to what the current legal status of that is).
Commenting only on the flags themselves and not the protest or the hack:
Canada is not part of the USA.
Trump was a President of the USA not Canada; the Confederacy was made from the bits of the USA furthest away from Canada; and while a literal interpretation of the word “America” in the initialism “Make America Great Again” would refer to the entire continent, it is usually understood as specifically just the USA and not Canada (and definitely not Mexico or Cuba let alone the rest).
Flags are widely used as a symbol of identity. Could be an (excuse the term, I can think of none other that fits) false flag, but there’s a reason why that term exists.
Honnestly, there's a lot more people moving from Canada to the US than the reverse. Maybe there's a desire to embrace the American way (of course, the state media won't touch it!).
When hiring, we get a ton of resumes from Canada to transfer to the US but the reverse almost never happens.
I’ve just looked up the numbers, about 810k Canadian-born people in the USA (2017) and 377k US-born people in Canada (2016).
Adjusting for population sizes (USA has ~9 times the population), a random Canadian is about 4 times more likely to go south than a random American is to go north.
But there’s a reason I was focusing on just the symbolism, and that’s that I know how limited my knowledge is in this instance.
The protest is super unpopular in canada. It could just as easily be a random canadian citizen who is pissed about the protest and wants to prove that the protest is not grass roots but foreign meddling.
The polls I've seen had ~half of Canadians sympathetic to the protests [1], and about 20% strongly supporting. It's completely true that it could be one highly motivated individual, but that has nothing to do with your first assertion (which is a mixed truth at best). I think that the government's claim (echoed by many media outlets) that this is purely a fringe movement has added fuel to the fire.
The polls roughly match. About 1 in 4 support the goals and methods, 1 in 4 support the goals but not the methods, and 2 in 4 don't support the goals or methods
24% of 18-34 and 34-55 support the truckers and what they are doing
27%/26% support them but not the way they are doing it
49%/50% think they are completely wrong and need to be stopped regardless
There's no real difference between young and middle age, although over 55s skew significantly to "stop them". Not much difference on income, but educational attainment shows significant skew, with university educated far less likely to support the truckers
> An Ipsos poll published Thursday and conducted exclusively for Global News showed that nearly 46 per cent of Canadians say they “may not agree with everything” the trucker convoy says or does, but the frustration of protesters is “legitimate and worthy” of sympathy.
I don't think your statement is at odds with gp's. A legitimate concern doesn't make it popular.
However, the greater issue is a lack of organization and so nothing (very little) is going to get done (much like with BLM).
The best thing ruin collective disputes is to add more noise and discourse so that the original cause is lost in the shuffle and the majority just sit back and shrug. "I can get behind solving one problem at a time, but when they're shouting for 20, I can't be bothered to care."
Had the parent post said merely “unpopular”, I’d probably agree. However “super unpopular” to me feels aligned with the government message that this is a tiny fringe minority, which quite frankly, is dishonest.
Re: getting things done, so far it seems counter-productive in the sense that now the government doesn’t want to seem “weak” and relax restrictions, even though it’s what reasonable governments are doing at this point. I’m not going to put this at the feet of the organizers (whoever they are); it simply deepens my already deep disappointment with the Canadian government since thats a political move.
They have an NGO, some directors and a lawsuit they are working on for constitutional challenge against the mandate by one of the Constitution drafters.
There's sympathy shown in the polls (Canadians are a sympathetic people!) but the polling shows a pretty clear super majority of people that want the protesters to go home (Canadians don't like disorder).
The protest is super unpopular among certain politicians, certain state sponsored media, and certain supporters of those politicians and media. However, there are a very large number who support ending all lockdowns and mandates immediately - as evidenced by their ability to raise money, repeatedly, as well as by the physical presence of so many supporters across the globe.
That said, I agree this is most likely the work of an individual. For all its usefulness in raising money, GSG has probably never been subjected to a real-world pentest by a highly motivated attacker. Not to mention the legions of attackers one would expect from such a polarising subject. This was unfortunate but entirely predictable.
Unpopular with wealthier people who are inconvenienced, very popular amongst what the media like to call 'populists' - ie the people who deliver the rich people's chattels
Maru polls show very little difference between income levels. Of all the different demographics, the one with the most support for the goals and means of the truckers is Alberta residents, where about 1 in 3 support them and their means, and 1 in 2 don't support them at all
It's all down to how a poll accurately frames a question:
Do people like restrictions? No, nobody likes restrictions.
Do people like restrictions that save lives? Still don't 'like' them but believe sacrifice is necessary for the greater good.
Do I support people's right to protest? Yes, but...
You can't honk all night
Block major infrastructure for days
Desecrate war monuments
Flood 911 with fake calls
To play devil's advocate, and provide another (intentionally) biased framing:
Do people want to continue with restrictions that have pushed the opioid epidemic to a new high [1]. Pushed mental health in youth to 'completely unsustainable' levels [2]. Stolen normal development/socialization from children & young adults using restrictions that were not always clearly evidence based [3]. And, all this considering the current outlook of the virus is far more positive than it once was.
The Angus Reid poll phrased their question like this, for anyone interested:
>It's time to end restrictions and let people self-isolate if they're at risk.
Or even more specifically: Do I like restrictions? No. Do I want restrictions to end? Yes. Do I want all restrictions to end now? No. Do I want any restrictions to end now? Maybe.
>Do I support people's right to protest? Yes, but... You can't honk all night Block major infrastructure for days Desecrate war monuments Flood 911 with fake calls
I suspect how much people support "people's right to protest" is directly proportional to how much they support The Cause. If they don't support The Cause, they want protesters to be as out of the way as possible (ie. "free speech zones"). If they do support The Cause, anything up to and including violence/vandalism is justified, because a few causalities would be canceled out by all the positive effects that The Cause would bring.
That's about what I expected — nothing warranting “very popular”, and most of the gap shown is going to come down to what percentage of even people who do want some or all public health measures suspended approve of doing so outside of the democratic process.
The claim can be proven or disproven with elections.
But I think that Trudeau would win rather easily pitted against this extremist, apparently foreign funded fringe.
Even Canada's conservatives don't want to be associated with them anymore.
Conservatives are tabling a motion for a vote on removal of restrictions today.
They’ve just performatively asked truckers to leave, so that they can always point to that later in their election campaign. Why would they want them to leave?they don’t.
I'm not a conservative mind you, but if your goal is to eventually get elected, you probably want to win on topics that will actually gain you votes vs. those that take them away.
This is a wedge issue, and as such they're casting their votes to alienate a huge (likely majority) of voters away from your platform before the leader has even been selected.
Secondly, this protest has been a huge news vacuum attracting non-stop coverage. This is bad for a party that needs to drum up any support for a leadership race to carry them more seats in the next election. By the time this plays out, the conservatives could be half way through their election and most Canadians may not even know the candidates.
We all know that elected officials rarely get elected based on what they've actually done. They get elected by parroting the empty promises their party bosses tell them too.
Plus, politicians who do vote against their constituents' wishes can run in a district that's more friendly to that vote.
Given the unfair media coverage, is it any wonder?
There seems to be, including in your own post, a lot of ad hominem attacks ("one person had a confederate flag! some people in the US support the cause too! this means it's totally evil") rather than addressing the human rights the protestors are fighting for, and it's a shame. But it's no surprise given the opposite media coverage for the opposite type of protest (violent riots) two summers ago.
Also, "the state" seems to tacitly support the protests. Others have rightly pointed out, that had this been a left-wing protest, "the state" response would have been brutal and decisive. So it's kind of hard to see why they'd do it this way rather than taking a much more direct approach.
I have no doubts that the true culprits for this hack will be found and the punishment will be orders of magnitude worse than anything the truckers will receive.
>had this been a left-wing protest, "the state" response would have been brutal and decisive
Recent history does not support this view.
When left-wing railway blockades shut down the entire CN rail network, there was no "brutal and decisive" response. It took the better part of a year to resolve, and the OPP didn't enforce the court ordered injunction CN got, and the Liberal government was meeting frequently with the protestors.
Even though many Anglo left-wing groups are sympathetic to, and act in solidarity with the First Nations, is it accurate to label indigenous protesters as left-wing protesters? How united was the left when the Mohawks stood in the way of Quebecois nationalism? Perhaps it is imprecise to conflate incipient nationalist groups within Canada with "left-wing."
Are there non-authoritarians that want jab mandates so badly that they will hack websites to doxx innocent protestors? Could be, I haven't met any (thankfully)
Plenty of people may not want jab mandates, may not be authoritarians, but are in earshot/irritation reach of the protests. And considering how badly the information was secured, pretty much anyone who knows anything about an S3 bucket seems like they could have done it. Not even really hacking.
Supporting vax mandates doesn't make someone part of the "state". Plenty of people that are not part of the government support mandates.
You're also assuming that support for mandates would be the only motive: While less likely than mandate support, someone may simply have been very angry that their life had been turned to chaos & misery by the protestors.
> the timing of this seems to point to state sponsored hacking, no?
what does hack timing have to do with the state? I don't follow your logic at all. I would never make that connection. It's just an insecure website and server, anyone can run their testing suite and have gotten the same info. Why rationalize incompetence with state sponsored?
I'm really about to sell some Q branded coffee mugs to everyone with an email address in this leak, so fckin gullible.
There's plenty of techies in Ottawa with the means, motives and opportunities to perform this action. People over there are quite annoyed at the truckers, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's someone related who's annoyed at the whole situation. No need for state sponsorship to find poorly secured data.
wouldn't take state sponsored hacking to do this to most startups, probably just a few people using open source tools to look for basic stuff
people love to dunk on companies in situations like this but probably 95% of startups would get hacked like this if the MSM put a bunch of attention on them and made them a target. Even huge companies get pwned due to basic security issues
The gov't doesn't need to crack in this case. They shut down the funds through the courts. These "donation" sites (gofundme/givesendgo) are going to be scrutinized much more closely from this point forward.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken.
If you are not mistaken, email your evidence to the mods. You can't post like this because it trashes the site and, unfortunately, almost all such posts are by people who turn out to have been mistaken or can't reliably show that that they weren't.
You are not mistaken. Check my reply to an account (created 1hr after OP post) with one comment here. Comment was self contradictory and has misinformation.
If it walks, talks, and looks like a duck...
Political posts should require accounts older than X to comment, imho
If you dig into the bowels of any protest or movement, I'm sure you'll find shady funding somewhere. I mean OLPC was probably funded in part by Epstein money if you look into it hard enough.
Honestly your post looks like a fraudulent/troll post as you have only posted once. Professing to be a very concerned covid citizen and then saying how peaceful this protest is.
It has significant impacts so far: Shutdown the largest trade border, cache of guns found in Coutts protest, local downtown core of Ottawa closed, $800,000 per day to the police services to manage it, harassment of people on the street, white nationalist flags and other imagery, attempted arson for an apartment building.
Also it isn't some friendly truckers who are just fed up - this is an organized protest by two fringe politicians from Alberta who planned to use the wedge issue to get traction for their party. Most truckers (90%) are vaccinated and working currently - this is a vocal minority raised combined with a non-truckers right wing nationalists jumping on the protest train.
> this is an organized protest by two fringe politicians from Alberta who planned to use the wedge issue to get traction for their party.
Source? Evidence?
(I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong - I don't follow Alberta politics. I'm just saying, I've never heard anything of this, so throw me some breadcrumbs here...)
Tamara Lich is Maverick Party BJ Dichter is Peoples Party. A lot of this is grievance politics imported from the US and Canada West - and definitely some from Ontario. Maybe its breadcrumbs ...
Here's the coles notes on the key people behind this protest:
So far and only because they didn't have strategies in place to deal with events, which they will ultimately frame as a 'insurrection', make examples of people, shame and doxx them as a dark warning to others to to try this in future
What do you mean, they don't have strategies? Billy clubs, steel toe boots, rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas on day 1. Haul the truckers out of their cabs, flanked by SWAT troopers with assault weapons. Drag 'em out by their hair. They've got tons of practice doing that already. Why did the police wait for an injunction this time? Why did it take weeks to secure that injunction?
Quite a few of the goon quad types you describe are more interested in their personal freedom than beating people up it seems based on watching the Glasnost-esque live feeds from Ottawa etc
This has been quite a problem for the ruling classes
The police are highly Conservative. When "the people" represent points to the left of the government, the police state is activated. When "the people" represent points to the right of the government, it's policing by consent. It's not always a problem for the ruling class. Folks on the right complain about being persecuted, seemingly oblivious to how they've supported the persecution of their political enemies throughout history. It's a bit tedious.
And, for what it's worth, I support the rights of the truckers to protest. When they're blocking highways, it's civil disobedience, and they're subject to arrest. I just wish other protesters were treated so well.
The Government did nothing when the Natives blocked the rail links causing harm to CN/CP and Canadians across the country. Your attempt to obfuscate the facts makes you unqualified to comment and you should refrain from participating in this conversation.
It's also dark that people respond to being governed by someone they didn't vote for by blockading their country's economy. And that this action is funded by people in other countries who never had a vote in the first place.
> And that this action is funded by people in other countries who never had a vote in the first place.
I am somewhat puzzled by this take. Consider how much people donate to people in other countries that they've never met and in which they've never voted. Consider how much people donate to content creators that they want to support (youtube, substack, etc.). Consider that there are currently several fundraisers on GoFundMe for the people of Ukraine, who are afraid of an invasion — also, presumably, from people from other countries. Why are the donations to the truckers by the people who are sympathetic to their cause any darker?
I am a Canadian and my government has allowed someone we did not vote in to shutdown our economy and restrict me. If the government can do that, we the citizens can do it.
My province has increased covid rules and keeps pushing opening up for vaccinated down the road. While everywhere else is easing off. We can't even go to a gym to work out and our hospitals are way under normal capacity.
I am not pro outsiders funding our citizens to do these things but at this point I'll take the help I can get.
Alternately, yet another right wing "alternative" site had poor security practices and got exploited. They had S3 buckets full of customer data sitting open for some time, and they stayed accessible days after it was widely known.
Time and again these sites have demonstrated their disdain for security, and it bites them yet again. Anyone making the jump to conspiracy or state sponsored hacking is making quite a logical leap, imo.
Exactly. Just like GoDaddy and Twitch had poor security with everything that they stored on their servers from PII and source code getting breached and leaked by hackers right? [0] [1] I'm sure everyone was happy with that hackivism and those guys should have gotten their security right the first time. /s
Can't wait for someone else to say, 'Security is so hard' but also cheer on hackers that breach sites they don't like.
I don't think whataboutism is productive. Nor did I "cheer on" anything: It sucks when people are exploited by incompetent actors.
We've repeatedly watched as "the mainstream restricts us so we'll do our own thing" sites are built with absolutely rudimentary security faults. They're rushed, have a very eager and non-discretionary userbase that is chomping at the bit. They usually have compromised motivations.
And then they fall. It has become sadly predictable.
Except that this isn't 'whataboutism' since I already agreed with what you said, that GiveSendGo definitely had poor security whilst also not supporting or justifying with hacktivists, criminals or script-kiddies attacking anyone's site.
> Nor did I "cheer on" anything:
Never directly accused you for cheering: I'm only predicting the obvious.
If one is supporting hackers breaching other peoples websites they don't like, whilst defending another with that phrase which applies to everyone as an excuse for it, then you would fall under that category.
> And then they fall. It has become sadly predictable.
Yes, it's very predictable. Unfortunately it can happen to anyone. Whether if you are big like GoDaddy or small like GiveSendGo. These hackers are not on anyone's side.
Notorious? And the best source for this is a 52-year-old article from a student newspaper in the US, with no listed author or sourcing?
The linked article also reveals that the separatists in question were kidnapping multiple people at the time. This seems like ample reason to arrest a bunch of them.
I mean if you are Canadian or Québécois, there is no denying that Trudeau father is famous for having invoqued martial law in Quebec. This is something everyone from Quebec knows and the merit of this measure has been debated and discussed for decades in various movies, books, news articles.
I don't know why you are debating the source, this seems irrelevant.
I'm not Canadian and the reason I asked for a better source is not at all irrelevant. Those who are not Canadian might want a higher-quality source to learn about the topic in question. It is, obviously completely irrelevant whether "everyone in Quebec knows" this. Most users here, to put it rather mildly, are not from Quebec.
The question isn't about arresting them. Nobody disagrees that the FLQ activists who committed violence should have been arrested. They even murdered a provincial cabinet minister.
What is disputed is whether putting the entire country under martial law, canceling all civil liberties and sending the army into the streets, as Trudeau did, was an appropriate response.
It's impossible to discuss this objectively at the moment, because everyone will simply line up with whatever position supports their side in the current contro, but I think it's safe to say that up until this moment the majority view (certainly among the educated class) has been that this was an authoritarian excess and a bad precedent, and that the criminal justice system would have sufficed to deal with the threat.
It is one of the most famous episodes in Canadian history, and remains debated, so the word notorious is accurate.
> sending the army into the streets, as Trudeau did, was an appropriate response.
the army part was the premier of quebec not trudeau. Policing is a provincial responsibility. Having the armty come in was a provincial call that was unrelated to the war measures act.
The word "notorious" is appropriate for those who think Pierre Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act was wrong. And that is a widespread (but far from universal) opinion among Canadians. Note that one reason for invoking the War Measures Act was that it allowed for the arrest of people for whom there was no good evidence of criminal conduct.
Canada also has no vaccine passport. Vaccine passports are decided by provinces and every provinces is free to choose criteria of their choice for the passport or if they want a passport at all. Not every provinces have a vaccine passport anymore.
Maybe soon, but not yet. Hospitals are still stretched, mostly by unvaccinated patients. If provincial passports included covid recovered, many people who haven't yet gotten infected would have an incentive to get infected.
From the article you linked:
> For one, the new report was based on data only through November, before the U.S. booster campaign really took off. It also looked at data during the Delta wave and does not account for the surging Omicron variant.
The study doesn't take other variants into account. This is important because later findings reflect the unvaccinated would have immunity from just the one variant and not all of them uniformly. The language would have to be "recovered from all COVID variants" and the protesters have absolutely no interest in health or science.
> the unvaccinated would have immunity from just the one variant and not all of them uniformly
And "the vaccinated" have immunity from just one protein, from one variant, which is even lower.
If anything recovered people have better immunity, not worse.
The best strategy right now is to get vaccinated, and also get Omicron - then you have the best of both worlds, without the risk. But someone who took the risk, and recovered, is perfectly safe.
Even worse, it's immunity to a spike that hasn't been around for years now. The vaccines were developed for the 2019 strain. The idea that people who got it and recovered two months ago have less immunity than a vaccinated person is based mostly on statistical biases in the way public health agencies measure effectiveness, that can create the appearance of (temporary) effectiveness in water.
That article is misleading, because it's comparing hazard rates of people who have had COVID before and were unvaccinated versus people who didn't have COVID before and were vaccinated. Best case scenario are people who are vaccinated and had COVID. Worst off are people are not vaccinated and hadn't had COVID.
I've seen this claim elsewhere and it's frustrating because people just read the headline and regurgitate this nonsense. So much for "doing your own research".
I guess that's what counts as hacktivism these days. Doxxing working class people and their supporters.
It's nice to see the left and right's true colors here and how easily they pulled back the veil of opposition to reveal their true contempt for the lower classes and the real class war underpinning everything.
These last two years, I have seen so much scary authoritarianism from well-meaning people using their own moral righteousness as all the justification they need for oppression. I fear things will get worse before they get better.
Please don't take HN threads in the direction of generic ideological flamewar. It makes the discussion much more predictable and repetitive, and usually much nastier. We're trying to avoid all that here, and you can make your substantive points without it.
This is anything but generic ideological flamewar here, dang. I'm clearly slamming both "tribes" for their tribalism here.
More importantly, I'm someone deeply involved with the kinds of people that would have been able to perform this kind of hack and would do so for political reasons. I am directly calling their behavior awful.
I'm explicitly condemning the doxxing of ordinary people for their political activity and frankly am shocked that you would even suggest that to be against the rules or even controversial.
To pick out this comment when people upthread are calling what amounts to a party in downtown Ottawa an insurrection and an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government is pretty gross.
I'm not picking out or singling out anybody's comments or any dogs in any of these fights. I'm trying to neutrally apply the site guidelines in a bog-standard way. Alas, that involves making mistakes—quite a few of them, because the quantity of material posted here doesn't allow for a close reading of everything, or even a quick reading of everything (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
Nevertheless we need to try to prevent this place from being engulfed in flames, since that's (a) the default internet outcome and (b) everything HN is not supposed to be for.
One of many ways everyone can contribute to this effort is by resisting the reflex to assume that the moderators are secretly privileging the side you don't like. That's a common illusion (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...) but it makes things worse.
It's because I called this all out for what it is and the moderation here has the thinnest veneer of fairness. A few very high profile posters get away with absolute murder on this board (especially in the form of personal attacks) because they pass the SV ideological purity test, but the rest of us have to keep our opinions to ourselves.
I'd like to see links to the personal attacks you claim we're tacitly ok with. I can only think of one user who I carve out occasional exceptions for (for reasons other than you'd expect, and not someone very-high-profile). Other than that, I'm pretty confident in saying: no, we don't do that.
All this has zero to do with "SV ideological purity tests". If you follow the moderation here, you should know that we have no such "tests" and couldn't care less about "purity". Unfortunately, one consequence of that is that everyone with strong ideological passions ends up accusing us of being enforcers for the side they don't like. It's clearly a cognitive bias and probably hard-wired in all of us: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
Honestly fair. I had to cool off for a while and I will walk it back. First of all I don't know you and second of all I know that you do try hard from previous conversations that we've had.
While I do think a certain one or two users have gotten a pass before, honestly it was a couple of years ago at this point and probably not worth considering today.
I wouldn't say that I have a particular side here, but I do see one unfortunate (to me) point of view dominating all conversations and that's not even something that's localized to HN. People bring their tendencies to bully online and drown out and attack their peers (i mean, just look at this thread) and in professional life this is also very real and the consequences are nasty. You can't moderate everything at the end of the day though, so no fault to you.
What does worry me is that there seems to be a growing sentiment on this board (as in life) that doxxing of ordinary people is okay even though this is a crowd that not only should know better but needs to be held to a higher standard because of our access to and skill with such data. It's simply not challenged enough, but that's also not your job either.
Thomas Ptacek and Don Hopkins are two examples of very high-profile users who routinely post guidelines-breaking comments without being downvoted, flagged, or chastised by mods.
Even if you were to concede that, you'd probably counter that you can't read all the comments. And, of course, that is so. But that is beside the point that I have made many times before: the community's bias allows such users (and those who espouse certain views) to break the guidelines without penalty, while heavily penalizing others and those with contrary views.
Every time I see you tell someone that moderator bias is an illusion, I can't help but think that you are talking past each other, because the elephant in the room (which I have rarely seen you even acknowledge) is the extreme bias in the community's downvoting and flagging behavior, which naturally results in the official moderation actions being biased toward what is flagged, which amounts to a de facto official moderation bias. (If a community only calls the police when certain groups of people break the law, the police's actions will naturally be biased toward enforcing against those groups of people, because they aren't omniscient.)
There are certain topics and certain people that do not get moderated fairly and HN itself has certain biases that are encouraged or have opposition to them discouraged. If you know what they are, you know what they are.
Bringing up HN's (often subtle but often not-so) bias against average poor people gets heavily moderated here.
I give dang credit versus other moderators elsewhere who are explicitly biased and don't give a fuck how you feel about it.
Here's what should be an obvious one: any time I see communism criticized, the comment gets downvoted, and often flagged. Even comments written by people who lived in communist states, offering first-hand accounts, without breaking any HN guidelines, get downvoted and flagged.
In the same threads, "conservatives" and "conservatism" and Republicans and "liberty" are freely condemned, mocked, and accused of all sorts of evil behaviors and intent, without even being downvoted, much less flagged.
This happens regularly, any time these topics come up in a popular thread. So it's hard for me to understand how you could be unaware of this de facto community bias.
> Here's what should be an obvious one: any time I see communism criticized
The active ingredient here is the phrase "I see". What you're seeing feels obvious to you because you feel strongly on the topic. People who feel differently have very different "obvious" perceptions. (Edit: like here, which was just posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30351063.) These perceptions are entirely predictable from the passions of the perceiver, and I do mean entirely—it is probably the single most consistent phenomenon I've observed on HN.
Because these perceptions are predictable from the passions of the perceiver, it follows that they don't tell us anything about the community. They only tell us something about you—namely, which position you personally favor or disfavor, and how strongly. That's why other users perceive the opposite bias to what you perceive. Their passions are producing their perception the same way that yours are—they just happen to have opposite passions. Consider these gems:
There are reams of this stuff, coming from all ideological tribes. Same community, incompatible perceptions—why? Because they're not actually incompatible. They only appear so if you take them as objective claims about the community. As expressions of the preferences of the perceiver, they're not only compatible, they're isomorphic. Whatever mechanism is producing these nearly-identical comments, it can't be "political skew on Hacker News", because the claims are coming from all factions.
Usually at this point someone objects, "so you're just claiming that HN is perfectly neutral in every way? the community has no biases of any kind?" No, that doesn't follow. I'm only saying that comments like yours and the 3 I just linked to don't contain any signal about this, because the feeling of bias tells us nothing about the actual statistical and demographic situation. (Well, it tells us that HN produces enough data points for everybody to run across some that rub them the wrong way. But that's not enough information to conclude anything about HN as a whole.)
It's incredible how deeply these feelings go and how convincing they are, so the mechanism is probably hard-wired into all of us. My hypothesis, which I call the notice-dislike bias (a terrible name), goes like this: because painful experiences make a deeper impression than pleasurable ones, we're all more likely to notice the data points that bring up dislike/disagree reactions in us (i.e. give us pain) than we are to notice the kind that we like/agree with (i.e. give us pleasure). Not only that but we weight the painful ones much more heavily. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
This leads to false feelings of generality (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), in which people are convinced that the community (and usually the moderators too) are overwhelmingly stacked against their particular views (for example, your view that communism is bad). It's easy to see that these generalities are false, because the opposite side has exactly the same feeling—they just perceive the bias the other way around, like the other 3 I linked to.
Usually at this point someone objects, "You haven't proven anything—just because somebody else has a wrong perception, it doesn't follow that mine is". Yes, a perception of this type may happen to correspond to the real situation, but only by accident—like a wrong solution to a math exercise that ends up at the right answer, but is still incorrect. What matters is how the answer is derived. The perceptions we're talking about are derived from the perceiver's internal pleasure/pain experience, and that mechanism is not capable of assessing reality accurately. Essentially, we are all projecting the inverse of our own preferences onto the outside world, and then feeling surrounded by hostility.
Normally I don't offer a verdict on particular claims about this, but I feel pretty confident in saying that there is no pro-communist bias on HN. The comments that you see getting downvoted are, in many cases, downvoted because they're breaking the HN guidelines. Any comment that makes grandiose, repetitive ideological claims is already breaking the site guidelines, and when people go after each other about communism (or any other $classic-ideological-flavor) they're nearly always doing that. I have to ask commenters to stop doing this all the time on HN—not because I'm a secret communist or secret-anything-else, but because these discussions are not interesting in HN's sense of the word. We want curious conversation here, and people bashing their $other-side with well-worn talking points (be it "communism killed x-hundred-million people!" or anything else of that nature), they're not having curious conversation.
I am talking about written and video statements made by organizers, not individual protesters.
> conveniently fully masked agitators
I shouldn't even bother responding to this kind of disingenuous bait. Of course it's all a massive psyop false flag conspiracy to smear the good names of working class Canadians in it for the good fight, right.
I don't mean to pile on, having just responded to you in another thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30337439), but your comments on this topic are standing out as breaking the HN guidelines, and we need you to stop. Not only does this sort of flamewar contribute to destroying this place, it's not in anyone's real interest—including your own. I understand why emotions are super high on this topic, and legitimately so—but commenters here need to follow the site guidelines no matter how high their emotions are. Indeed, that's pretty much the only condition under which most of these guidelines are even needed in the first place: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Per dang's nice request, let's open this up a bit and talk about why this is happening. It's now acceptable (and even lauded in the comments of this post) to doxx people with the wrong opinion. What changed to make otherwise reasonable people approve of this course of action? I want to know what societal switch flipped.
I've seen it posited that it's due to the pseudo-anonymity of the internet, but that doesn't seem to fully explain it. Something has fundamentally changed to allow this level of dehumanization towards the "others".
> Something has fundamentally changed to allow this level of dehumanization towards the "others".
Nothing has changed in the level of dehumanization. It's clearly a very human failing that has played out in history time and again. The only reason it feels more prevalent, is because we've turned it inward toward what used to be a more cohesive group. So we can ask why we're breaking apart, but there's no mystery about why we dehumanize the "others" -- we always have.
At the same time, we may ask why American society seems to be more ideologically polarized now than at various times in recent decades. If the root cause is natural human failing, what is the second-level cause? Could it be that American society has been under a form of ideological siege and sabotage for many years, that is now coming to fruition?
For example, it's documented that, as far back as the early 20th century, the USSR funded programs to demoralize American society through means as seemingly innocuous as making public art and architecture uglier. As well, Marcuse's "long march through the institutions" has now had 50 years to take effect, and polls have shown that American academia is much less ideologically diverse than in past decades, now being nearly entirely formed of those who vote for one party.
There are elements of history that seem like weather, coming and going in cycles, but there are also parties taking active roles to effect certain ends, and we would be wise to be aware of their influence.
we slaughtered religion, so people need some fountain of self-righteousness to drink from. The nebulous "Consensus" we're supposed to hold holy now is thin and unsatisfying gruel so more fevered flavor is needed to mask the essential blandness.
we used to be able to say "you're wrong about $X, but we can still work together on $Y in agreement." That's unfashionable now. We demand inhuman purity from our idols, de-idolizing them or de-historizing their imperfections as necessary to the dictates of the moment. We expect ideological harmony from our peers, or at the very least meek acceptance of our views without any backtalk. You can think differently, as long as you're quiet about it. and don't let anyone see evidence of your deviance.
Not everyone can work from home on their MacBook while wearing PJs. Let's be honest, the people who are part of this protest do not represent the socio-economic interests of those who make up HN. It really boils down to elitism.
HN is mad that the working class is advocating for themselves and not busy delivering our Amazon packages and making us lattes.
This read [1] is pretty interesting in regards to the increase in support for authoritarianism that you are seeing. It could just be yet another evolutionary quirk that doesn't work in the modern age.
Perhaps all the development into algorithms that make people click on things, when people click on things they are outraged about is a contributing factor to this if there is a link between perceived moral division and support for authoritarianism.
Yes, it's very idealistic to think 'hacktivists' would take the upper ground here in what is already a very dirty fight.
I mean you have 61% of donors not even being Canadians. They're funding a movement that shut down a major commerce corridor into the US, directly affecting the US economy.
To say this is about the 'working class' is naive. I mean you think Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, was tweeting support of it because he loves the working class?
To be fair, the US has roughly 10x the population of Canada. So any support from the US is going to appear outsized unless interpreted on a per-capita basis.
- 90 percent of Canada's truckers are vaccinated, so why are you using working class as a substitute for protestor, then using that to call this class warfare?
- Don't you think working class people will care most about this list? The people with the most time to scour lists and make angry tweets probably most likely aren't UHNW individuals...
- Don't you see the irony is claiming authoritarianism has landed under the guise of morality, then assigning morality based on party orientation? Somehow painting the right as working class victims, and the left as upper class aggressors?
> then assigning morality based on party orientation? Somehow painting the right as working class victims, and the left as upper class aggressors?
Actually you read that into that based on your own biases. I was deliberate _not_ to do this specifically. The establishment media and government mouthpieces, both left and right, have demonized the shit out of this protest and painted them as nazis, terrorists or any other fear word they can get away with.
Truly independent journalists have been painting a very different picture by doing the things that traditional media won't do: long form interviews with protestors and ordinary Ottawans.
I stated from the beginning that this is a class issue and not a left/right one. You in your very first reply said "being objective here" and then went on some screed about how this is obviously left wing vs right wing politics.
Then I stated that if you look at the only actual interviews being done with these people and hear them in their own words they say that this is not a left wing vs right wing thing here and you say that I'm commenting in bad faith.
Not anywhere did I tell you to refer to Fox News as a source for content. You picked that source entirely on your own to suit your argument. As myself and others have mentioned in the thread, the only long form interviews being done with these people are being done by independent journalists on youtube.
> I stated from the beginning that this is a class issue and not a left/right one.
And you are blatantly wrong. You omitted mentioning left/right when talking about a conservative protest, that does not change the fact it's a conservative protest.
You're certainly free to keep floundering about this but it won't change the simple reality:
Freedom Convoy is a largely conservative protest, as it is largely speaking to conservative talking points.
-
That doesn't mean every person there is a conservative, it does not mean being against vaccine mandates makes you a conservative, it simply means the people most represented by the tenants of the convoy are conservatives.
You are commenting in bad faith because either you don't know enough about this subject to realize it's a right-oriented movement... or you're aware of this but intentionally trying to bury that fact to force a pretty unrelated diatribe.
> Not anywhere did I tell you to refer to Fox News as a source for content
You tried to blame my source of news for a take not at all tied to news articles, which was ridiculous.
To humor you I chose one that was opposite of the ones you mentioned, the source of news does not change the reality that this is a conservative movement.
I'm pretty sure OP is explicitly NOT assigning/painting left and right, but rather saying with the "pulled back the veil of opposition" comment that left vs right is an illusion/artifice, and the struggle is actually upper vs lower class.
I'm confused, aren't the protestors and their entire cause very openly right leaning?
Or am I getting browbeaten for making the connection the specific working class are in fact right leaning...
OP didn't write their comment in a vacuum. Can we not pretend that we're unable to apply context, like a massive conservative movement sparked by conservative anti vaxx sentiment.
Patronizing sign offs like "Okay, buddy" are surely a sign of a strong argument.
As are showing off facts that are completely baseless.
For example, sounds like you confused the numbers for vaccination from the CTA about all truckers? Since the certainly no rigorous numbers specific to the protestors...
The CTA is the largest organization of truckers and yet...
“CTA believes such actions — especially those that interfere with public safety — are not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed.”
-
Kudos though, you totally pulled a fast one on dang acting like this was "about both sides"
Unfortunately you've slowly started to leak out the vitriol very closely associated with one side of these protests...
According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, 90% of truckers are.
Also your wording is very confusing
"only 10% of truckers".
You realize it's not anywhere near 10% of truckers actively involved right? That it's a much lower number, with estimates putting them at most hundreds to a few thousand out of hundreds of thousands of truckers total
Isn’t this freedom? The right to donate and the right to know who did? Aren’t these donations considered speech (US centric)?
Or it only distasteful when your speech and opinion is public? I support very robust free speech perspectives and freedom of speech rights, but there are also consequences for our speech (and the protections, in the US at least, are from your government only).
I don’t endorse illegal activities, ever, full stop. I speak only of the results.
Don’t speak or support what you’d be embarrassed to see successfully attributed to you on the front page of a newspaper. Everyone’s opsec streak runs out eventually, and anonymity should have bounds once you’re influencing the public sphere (politics, in this case).
(all of my political donations are public in FEC filings, even those I’m not required to disclose)
Only in the case where the subject in question is pushing public policy to hurt homosexuals while secretly being one themselves. Public figures are held to a higher standard of accountability, and a loss of some privacy is expected depending on how far your life dips into public policy and influence. The purpose in this case would be to expose the malicious hypocrisy.
You’re Average Joe or Jane? Of course not, not under any circumstances. Their bedroom is their business only. I can’t stress this enough.
> People have a right to privacy. Stealing private information is the opposite of freedom.
Higher level, to demand anonymity when pushing resourced ($$$) speech in a democracy is attempting to subvert the political system while avoiding recourse for bad faith intent and/or actions (my observations from a systems analyst perspective).
It sounds like you're saying the "ends justify the means".
Perhaps its not embarrassment that makes people want privacy, but fear of retribution. Consider someone living during the McCarthy era in the US. Speaking up could be career ending, and in the long run, if things had progressed to a more authoritarian regime, life threatening.
As one of the earlier posters said, I think many people see a slide into authoritarianism on both sides of the political spectrum. And it strikes me, that not being able to have secrets or privacy supports authoritarianism more than furthering democracy.
One of the four pillars of ethical journalism is minimizing harm. Knowing if there are big and powerful donors may be important to surface, but outing your neighbors has no journalistic upside. It's all about tribe vs tribe at that point. If you publish this and target the mob at ordinary people, you deserve to be forced out of the profession, in my opinion.
For all you know, this was $state_actor_invested_in_western_chaos, so don't be ridiculous. How you derive the "true colors" of "the left and right" from the fact that someone decided this is an exploit worth investing in, seems to be beyond my understanding?
edit: fascinating, this comment received positive votes and then went straight to -3 within seconds.
Less than hour before the equivalent of Marshall Law is declared here in Canada and my civil rights are taken away. What should I do in my last hour of freedom?
No, it's not the equivalent to martial law. Every civil law still applies, parliament and the courts are still operating normally with their full powers. It's closer to sending the national guard.
They can put you in prison, and take your car and seize your life savings and property for protesting them, or for giving money for protestors that lost the means to support themselves. Not sure what you're talking about...they decide what is an illegal protest. They will even force tow truck companies to force them to tow protestors vehicles.
And Trudeau just admitted he used American companies to tow Canadian vehicles. Literally used aid from a foreign nation to break up protests in his own country. Presumably with the help of the Michigan governor.
No, they can't do that for protesting or giving people money. They can freeze accounts temporarily, that's true, they can't take your money.
They can take your car if you block the road and refuse to remove it, yes. That's called getting impounded, and it happens everyday.
They can fine you or imprison you for a blockade, yes. That's always been the law.
And yes, they can force companies to provide services during an emergency, this is also Canadian law.
I don't see how hiring a foreign company to provide a service in exchange for money is "foreign aid". I'm pretty sure he didn't ask any governor for permission, because he doesn't need to, it's perfectly normal for the federal government to hire companies from across the border.
Is this harsh? Sure. Is it martial law? No, not at all. In fact, the military isn't even getting deployed, it's all the RCMP.
You keep giving them the benefit of the doubt, without any logical reason to. They have taken more and more rights away and used divisive strategies to do it at every step.
We are going onto the third year of emergency measures. The government's response to people protesting their emergency measures is to double down with even more emergency measures. The Truck drivers that are currently protesting did so because their ability to feed their family was taken away from them.
These are middle aged men with families, with no easily transferable skills. Yesterday was the truck drivers, next day might be you. Don't wake up one day when the boot is crushing your balls. At least be honest with yourself, and make a line beyond which you will not retreat.
For now, I will give them the benefit of the doubt, because they didn't use the law to even a fraction of its extent - they really could have done so much worse.
The truck drivers still have their ability to make ends meet. They can either take in-Canada jobs which will pay a bit less but still provide a living above and beyond the average salary, or they can take a jab and work internationally. When I had to get vaccinated to cross borders, no one went and blockaded anything, because that's a completely reasonable and normal thing to expect. I don't understand why I should care that they have to do the same.
And as we're entering the third year of emergency measures, all provinces are already scaling them back. I agree that some measures were excessive and useless; I also think that earlier on many emergency measures were lifted too early.
I don't have any sympathy for them or their goals of ending all health measures and, for some, deposing the governments. I don't think that asking for vaccinations to engage in cross-border activities is even remotely unreasonable - and I've had to comply by such rules many times. I know because of working with people in the industry for years that there's plenty of work to go around inside this country for them if they really don't want to take the vaccine, albeit with a pay cut that still allows them to provide for their families.
All in all, it's perfectly fine. They aren't victims of any real opression. If they were, I'd support them, I might even put up with some of their methods. As it stands, I don't think they're justified in blocking critical infrastructure or blaring train horns in residential neighborhood.
They haven't taken any rights away they hadn't already. I'm sorry, but I already have to live with the risk of tear gas, agents provocateurs, rubber bullets, broken bones, and getting closed-in by police for hours if I ever want to protest tuition hikes or imperialism. I don't see how their treatment by Trudeau whose being infinitely gentler for much more disruptive behaviour infringes anymore rights that are already being infringed on by police for any other protest.
I have made my line long ago and I'm perfectly honest with myself.
The unions of long haul truckers came out against the protest. 99% of them are there, on the road, doing their job. 90% of them are vaccinated, just like the rest of us.
The truckers that have their own truck to bring there and block infrastructure are the privileged few who manage to be owners-operators. They represent the working man and woman about as well as the average IT contractor - and they're almost certainly even wealthier on average.
As one of the donors included in this hack, I am not entirely sure what they're out to accomplish.
Despite eye-rolling media mischaracterizations of these truckers as you-know-whats, it's a run of the mill workers strike. It has also been extremely peaceful and frankly comical at times. (We can contrast this with the "fiery yet mostly peaceful protests" of 2020 that negatively affected working class neighborhoods and how that was endorsed as an exercise in contrast. CHAZ, CHOP, etc.)
These workers and people who have to work in meatspace have had their lives impeded for two years now, but because white collar, work-at-home employees are mildly inconvenienced for a week, they're advocating police action against them and calling it an insurrection.
I'm proud to endorse this honkery, and I do not mind if it inconveniences some bureaucrats, as my neighborhood in Austin had police helicopters circling overhead for a week, cars set on fire, many buildings along 6th entirely destroyed, all while employees at my company enjoyed and supported the carnage financially.
If you're going to attack "media mischaracterizations" let's be truthful.
> but because white collar, work-at-home employees are mildly inconvenienced for a week, they're advocating police action against them and calling it an insurrection.
"Mildly inconvenienced" is an interesting term for shutting down a border crossing that handles $350 million in trade per day.
"Mildly inconvenienced" is an interesting term for residents having to put up with medically unsafe volumes of horn honking all throughout the nights. Some had brought train horns and were blaring those.
We're "calling it an insurrection" because that is a stated objective of the organizers, to overthrow the elected government of Canada. The fact that this is being encouraged and funded in large part by Americans is frankly, while unsurprising, an overtly hostile act being done to an ally.
The definition of an insurrection is "a violent uprising against an authority or government." Where is the violence? I'm seeing people dancing and enjoying themselves. So much joy. It's like a big festival. People are helping each other and coming together. I see families and food banks being filled, trash cleaned up. Please post videos of all the violence. Btw, you can see an endless feed of the types of events I've described on Youtube. The only violent act I saw was a confirmed antifa member running over civilians.
Exactly! The media portrayal of the events is so incongruous when you actually watch the videos and see the pictures of the protestors. The headlines do not match what these people are actually doing at all. They are playing hockey in the streets, walking around waving flags with "freedom" on them. Yes they're noisy, but that's what protests are all about right? Making noise to be heard.
Because the majority of media in Canada is funded by the government under the guise of protecting home grown talent and such. It’s heavily subsidized and has all sorts of benefits at taxpayers largesse in order to survive the competition from the US.
Without that regulatory backing, it would be dead under a year.
What do you mean? You realize even private media receives massive subsidies in Canada? And that those subsidies are usually promised at election time meaning there is a clear incentive to not cross the party that promises the most money (vs let's say a party that promises to slash support for the media). Even provincial government are starting to provide massive amount of cash to "support our journalism"
Just about every man, woman, child, dog, or organization in the country receives government subsidies for one thing or another.
What percentage of their budget is 'massive', and what conditions do they have to meet to receive them? Is shilling for the whigs one of them? Who determines that they've shilled enough? Do you have a source? One that's not a tabloid op-ed?
I don't think your take on what 'media ran by the government' matches what media in countries where it is actually ran by the government looks like.
I don't believe there has been a level of violence that has been concerning or comparable to other protests. There has been the usual behaviour you see in these protests, including harassment of people wearing masks, healthcare workers, businesses, etc. A small amount of riot-associated behaviour like breaking windows of businesses. It has largely been peaceful.
Overt violence isn't necessary to the definition of insurrection. Here are some other definitions I found:
- "an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government"
- "a usually violent attempt to take control of a government"
2. if violence isn't necessary for an "insurrection", and "revolting against civil authority or an established government" suffices, does that mean rosa parks or MLK are insurrectionists?
Insurrection (?), n.:
1. A rising against civil or political authority, or the established government; open and active opposition to the execution of law in a city or state.
“It is found that this city of old time hath made insurrection against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made therein.”
Ezra iv. 19.
2. A rising in mass to oppose an enemy. [Obs.]
Syn. -- Insurrection, Sedition, Revolt, Rebellion, Mutiny. Sedition is the raising of commotion in a state, as by conspiracy, without aiming at open violence against the laws. Insurrection is a rising of individuals to prevent the execution of law by force of arms. Revolt is a casting off the authority of a government, with a view to put it down by force, or to substitute one ruler for another. Rebellion is an extended insurrection and revolt. Mutiny is an insurrection on a small scale, as a mutiny of a regiment, or of a ship's crew.
Requiring an acknowledgement of a government's legitimacy seems like a bad thing. Ultimately I think "insurrection" is just being thrown around far too freely.
> We're "calling it an insurrection" because that is a stated objective of the organizers, to overthrow the elected government of Canada.
I'm liberal, but the far left jumping to call protests an act of "insurrection" makes me want to warn you that this is an extreme characterization that will only further polarize us. We have to stop this nonsense.
It's like when those on the far left call for an end of free speech. The pendulum has swung completely for these folks. It's not a good idea to perpetuate or associate with these leanings.
Protests on both sides, while kept nonviolent, are a good and healthy mechanism to diffuse pent up anger, air grievances, and open new channels of dialogue.
Because that's not reality. No democracy is going to be overthrown. It's an extreme characterization, and it's wearing down our ability to fight the actual important battles [1].
You can say that there are radical elements within the protest that are anti-Canadian, white supremacist, etc., but to throw around the term insurrection so lightly and characterize the whole movement that way draws very harsh lines that are hard to walk back. I guarantee that you'll find friends and allies on both sides of most issues, yet we're worked up to the point that we're ready to start jailing one another.
The far left are crying wolf way too loudly and often, and it's going to bite come election time. The moderates are not going to listen anymore.
[1] Surveillance and freedom of speech, EARN IT Act, algorithmic manipulation, etc.
"Far left"? I'm a conservative. Most normal conservatives are vigorously against these protests, for exactly the same reason that we were against railway blockades, and against violence and mayhem that occurred under the umbrella of BLM protests. I am simply in awe that so many of the same people that were viciously against BLM protests are supporters of this protest.
Regardless, the literal stated goal of the organizers of this convoy was that the convoy would not leave until the government resign en masse and that the governor general basically decree this protest group the government. That is a textbook insurrection. This memorandum was replaced on February 8th because it was so fantastically treasonous that as it gained wider attention it became unpalatable.
So yes, when people say insurrection, they are absolutely correct. It isn't the "far left" pointing out that fact.
Just as it isn't the "far left" who point out that two of the primary organizers are a long time white supremacist, and the other is a literal separatist who has long petitioned that Western Canada should join the US.
My point is you can't call this an insurrection without shifting the Overton window.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any appreciable number of people are actually trying to overthrow Canada.
We're polarizing everything to the point we can't focus on the topics that matter. We'll forget about this in a matter of years, yet our ears and minds will be deafened.
I see it as wanton hyperbole. Demanding members of the government resign does not an insurrection make. Especially if you sincerely think they have abused their powers and have infringed on human rights.
Me and my brother watched the Super Bowl last night, me rooting for he Rams and him for the Bengals. We saw the same play happen live, resulting in the Bengals getting a penalty for holding and the Rams being awarded free yards.
He saw it as "fucked up" and I saw it as "just".
When the Rams were called for a penalty, the roles were reversed and I felt like the refs were in the pocket of the Bengals for calling such a stupid penalty.
---
All that to say: when _my_ team does stuff, it's okay. When _their_ team does stuff, it's bad. This is the same line of reasoning that is being played out with the above hypocrisy.
The logical case against the legitimacy of BLM protests is primarily predicated on evidence. Specifically, that while police brutality is definitely a problem in the US, there's no evidence that it disproportionately impacts people of color. When you look at the actual data, it seems that police like to brutalize and kill innocent suspects in a relatively colorblind manner. There are even a few outlier studies that suggest police actually show greater restraint with black suspects, although those studies do have some methodological issues.
It's effectively one of those "reals before feels" situations for those of us who prefer to view politics through a lens of actual data rather than baseless emotion.
Nobody batted an eye when Daniel Shaver's murderer was cleared. The protests should have been explicitly anti-police-brutality, not race-baiting nonsense.
It arises when supporting a group is all that matters, and one's "values" morph and twist into whatever is optimal to support the tribe at any given moment. It yields a lot of meaningless words.
This happens all over the political spectrum. It happens in technology discussions. It happens in, as another post said, sports commentary.
Because many on the right (and center and left) are naive enough to think that left-leaning groups/entity protests getting "mostly peaceful" positive coverage during the height of lockdowns in 2020 was actually an unbiased shift of norms, and not just media partisanship.
You're ignoring what I wrote entirely. We're not calling it an insurrection because it's a protest. We're calling it an insurrection because it's a protest with the express stated goal of overthrowing the democratically elected government.
The Wikipedia article is probably your best bet for a summary of factual information at this point.
> One of the main organizers behind the convoy, Canada Unity (CU), acknowledged that they had planned to submit their signed "memorandum of understanding" (MoU) to the Senate of Canada and Governor General Mary Simon, described in the MoU as the "SCGGC". The MoU which was signed by James and Sandra Bauder and Martin Brodmann, was posted on the Canada Unity website in mid-December 2021 and publicly available until its February 8 retraction. (...) CTV cited Bauder saying that he hoped the signed MoU would convince Elections Canada to trigger an election, which is not constitutionally possible. In this pseudolegal document, CU called on the "SCGGC" to cease all vaccine mandates, reemploy all employees terminated due to vaccination status, and rescind all fines imposed for non-compliance with public health orders. If this failed, the MoU called on the "SCGGC" to dissolve the government, and name members of the CU to form a Canadian Citizens Committee (CCC), which is beyond the constitutional powers of either the Governor General or the Senate.
It is indeed stated, I did not know that, thanks for the reference. I don't think it's serious though. By the same measure Extinction Rebellion would be considered an insurrection. I kinda remember BLM stating demands that included a separatist black country in the south. Hardly constitutional.
I think the threat would have to be serious to count as an insurrection, as in an actual credible plan to carry it out to fruition.
Otherwise every crackpot would be guilty of insurrection.
So in other words, overthrowing the government isn't their goal. Their goal is:
"CU called on the SCGGC to cease all vaccine mandates, reemploy all employees terminated due to vaccination status, and rescind all fines imposed for non-compliance with public health orders"
The stuff about dissolving the government is what they want if those other things aren't done.
They were calling on the "SCGGC" to do those things, i.e. they were calling on unelected bodies to bypass the elected House (which, by the way, is currently a minority government and therefore is being held up with opposition support).
Prove to me this effort is centralized and not some loon with zero say-so that a broadcast company quoted in a video to incense people and increase engagement. This is a protest with loads of people, and however much you want to distillate them into a caricature, they're ultimately acting independently and can withdraw their support. That is to say, because some few individuals may have said some extreme thing, doesn't mean that the whole condone that message or the intention.
Just like not everyone in a protest is black block.
Canada Unity is one of the co-organizers of this event.[1]
This is what their "Memorandum of Understanding" stated one month ago[2] (January 13):
ARTICLE 1. SCOPE of ACCORD
Canada Unity (CU) offers this “Memorandum” to the Senate of Canada and the Governor General of Canada, the highest authorities representing the Federal Government (SCGGC) as “The Government of Canada”. Acceptance by endorsement of this “Memorandum” and its valuable considerations, will solidify our mutual accord as further detailed in the understanding.
ARTICLE 2. OBLIGATION and COOPERATION
The appointed “Entities” agree to work together in the true spirit of partnership to ensure there is a united, visible, and responsive leadership of the “Initiative” and to demonstrate fair practice according to the Canadian Constitution, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Privacy Act and as further described in Article 3.d. of this “Memorandum” administrative and managerial commitment to the
“Initiative”.
ARTICLE 3. MANDATE
a. CU & SCGGC agree to form a committee, called the Citizens of Canada Committee (CCC).
b. SCGGC undertakes and appoints authorized (CCC) representatives.
c. CU undertakes and appoints authorized (CCC) representatives.
d. CU & SCGGC adopts and adheres to The Government of Canada’s agreements on transparency in matters related to the Canadian Federal Referendum Act, Canadian Constitution, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, Canadian Human Rights Act, Canadian Bill of Rights, National Security Act 2017, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, Tri Council Policy Statement, National and International Human Rights Declarations and such Regulations et al, the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki all as provided by law, and not only limited to latest additions, addendums and revisions; and to be precise including laws, regulations and declarations prior to SARS-CoV-2, and any subsequent variations of SARS-CoV-2.
e. SCGGC will effective as of midnight on this ___, day of ___________, 2021 instruct all levels of the Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal governments to immediately cease and desist all unconstitutional human rights, discriminatory and segregated actions, and not limited to, immediately instruct all levels of the Federal, Provincial, Territorial and Municipal governments to not only stop, but furthermore waive all SARS-CoV-2 (and not limited to SARS-CoV-2 subsequent variations) fines that have been issued and imposed upon its citizens, institutions, and private enterprises.
f. SCGGC will effective as of midnight on this ___, day of ___________, 2021, instruct all levels of the Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal governments to re-instate all employees in all branches of governments and, not limited to promote the same to the private industry and
institutional sectors employees with full lawful employment rights prior to the wrongful and unlawful dismissals that stem from the SARS-CoV-2 (and not limited to SARS-CoV-2 subsequent variations) vaccine passport mandates.
g. SCGGC will effective as of midnight on this ___, day of ___________, 2021, issue a cease-and-desist order abolishing all Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal Vaccine Passport requirements, Vaccine discriminatory regulations, initiatives, and mandates in regard to SARS-CoV-2 (and not limited to SARS-CoV-2 subsequent variations).
h. Further, SCGGC will effective as of midnight on this ___, day of ___________, 2021, issue a cease-and-desist order to the respected Honorable Members of the Government of Canada with the consequent instructions to further instruct the Premiers of the Provinces and Territories, the
Mayors of the respected Municipalities and, the respected Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal Medical Officers to stop all such unlawful activities pursuant to ARTICLE 3. MANDATE section d. of this “Memorandum.”
i. Canada is a lawful member of the Helsinki Declaration to name one but not limited to additional Canadian and International Human Rights Laws and Regulations et al and therefore enacts its duty and responsibility to make any and all laws and regulations available to its citizens; further, to enforce and uphold such laws, regulations, and declaration(s) on behalf of its Citizens of Canada.
j. By signing this “Memorandum”, CU will immediately stop “Operation Bear Hug Ottawa”, demonstration / convoy and Federal Referendum activities and will strive to work with all groups and entities et al to bring this country together in unity.
k. CU & SCGGC agree to have the CCC committee formed within 10 days of acceptance and signing of this “Memorandum”.
l. CU & SCGGC agree to have a final “signed” and publicly released agreement in place within “no later than 90 days” of acceptance and signing of this “Memorandum”.
m. CU & SCGGC agree to only release jointly approved media / press statements on a daily basis during the time schedule specified in ARTICLE 3. MANDATE section paragraph k. and l.
n. SCGGC will immediately make available all schedules as described in ARTICLE 3. MANDATE section paragraph d. available to the CCC committee.
(Document continues)
Effectively they want to appoint a governing body to this committee and usurp the governance of the duly elected MPs of the government, effectively dissolving it, and then end all federal and provincially-imposed imposed mandates. The problem is, the Federal government cannot force provinces to end mandates.
They have since withdrawn this memorandum specifically because they found out their movement was not as popular as they believed.[3]
This is not convincing, source 1 reads like a hit piece, and ultimately only lists 12 people with zero authority out of thousands of other participants. Organizers have questionable sway in any case. Everything else is an aside, except for source 3, which indicates to me that it was probably a product of internal pressure. I came to that conclusion independently, and upon looking:
"It has come to the attention of Canada Unity that the Memorandum Of Understanding (herein referred to as MOU) does not reflect the spirit and intent of the Freedom Convoy Movement 2022"
I'm not sure how familiar you are with HackerNews but this sort of trite dismissive reply is usually considered in exceptionally poor taste around here.
If you are rejecting those sources, please provide any sourcing of your own to demonstrate the information I've provided is wrong in some way.
You might be unconvinced but your return argument lacks substantiation beyond handwaving.
Every political compass direction has these elements. They're fringe.
This issue is about dialogue with constituents. Meanwhile there are dozens of more pressing matters that actually deserve serious attention. Ukraine, EARN IT (US for now, but it'll go global), etc.
>"Mildly inconvenienced" is an interesting term for shutting down a border crossing that handles $350 million in trade per day.
One lane of the bridge was open and the Detroit tunnel had absolutely no blockade. This is a mild inconvenience. Protests are inconvenient to be sure. If the media you consume portrayed this as if there was no traffic at all between detroit and windsor... time for you to look to new media. I am curious where you have gotten this idea? CBC? Some other 'government accredited media'?
>"Mildly inconvenienced" is an interesting term for residents having to put up with medically unsafe volumes of horn honking all throughout the nights. Some had brought train horns and were blaring those.
Ottawa has a population of 1 million and their downtown area will always have honking. Like you know... every other downtown area of a large capital city. Calling this 'medically unsafe' is quite a stretch. Our homes are quite insulated here in Canada given the cold. The same insulation reduces road noise a lot. If you cant sleep because of road noise downtown... move because that happens year round.
>We're "calling it an insurrection" because that is a stated objective of the organizers, to overthrow the elected government of Canada. The fact that this is being encouraged and funded in large part by Americans is frankly, while unsurprising, an overtly hostile act being done to an ally.
No, that's just not in touch with reality at all. Parking large trucks on roads and having a peaceful protest is not an insurrection. There was absolutely no 'otherthrow the elected government of canada' that's a complete fantasy. They haven't once entered buildings or drawn weapons against anyone or anything.
I highly recommend you consume different media because you are not even in the ballpark here.
Since you donated money to them, you probably would like to know that the manifesto of the organizers who setup the GoFundMe and started the convoy explicitly wanted the Governor General and Senate to meet with the organizers and form a committee to replace the federal government. [1] They only recently stepped back from the manifesto a few days ago. [2]
>Since you donated money to them, you probably would like to know that the manifesto of the organizers who setup the GoFundMe and started the convoy explicitly wanted the Governor General and Senate to meet with the organizers and form a committee to replace the federal government. [1] They only recently stepped back from the manifesto a few days ago. [2]
I never donated to them for the record. I wouldn't even join some solidarity thing.
The first link doesnt load any audio for some reason. So i dunno there.
The second link being from a 'government accredited media' org basically just says this MOU was withdrawn. Never provides a sentence of the MOU of what it says. Though they say:
>The group had been accused by some of using the document to try to legitimize an attempt to seize power from the federal government.
Yes well, the group was also called white supremacists, so lets just look at the real deal.
>By having the Senateof Canadaand theGovernorGeneralof Canadasign this MOU into action, they agree to immediately cease anddesist all unconstitutional, discriminatoryand segregating actionsand human rightsviolations.It calls for animmediate instruction toall levels of the Federal, Provincial, Territorialand Municipal governments to not only stop but furthermore waive all SARS-CoV-2 (and not limited to SARS-CoV-2 subsequent variations)fines that have been issued and imposed upon its citizens, institutions, and private enterprises.Further, to immediately re-instate all employees in all branches ofall levels ofgovernments and not limited to promote the same to the private industry and institutional sectors employees with full lawful employment rights prior to wrongful and unlawful dismissals.Lastly it instructsall levels of government and private Sector that the Illegal use of a Vaccine Passportto cease anddesistimmediately
OK, I can certainly see where some people are coming from, but absolutely don't agree with the conclusion they are trying to seize power. In fact no reading or interpretation of that has them asking for power. They are asking for the GG to simply restore our rights. Which is absolutely something we have in Canada that may seem abnormal to say the USA.
No doubt why the national post doesn't actually copy and paste any of this. This is entirely what the Monarch and GG is supposed to be for. Hurts me to say because I think we should cut all ties to the British monarchy and move toward a republic. Coming back to context of my comments. The use of our monarchy being used as if to be an insurrection is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Our monarchy is still our monarchy. If our monarch decides something, we must abide and that's not insurrection.
> Ottawa has a population of 1 million and their downtown area will always have honking. Like you know... every other downtown area of a large capital city. Calling this 'medically unsafe' is quite a stretch. Our homes are quite insulated here in Canada given the cold. The same insulation reduces road noise a lot. If you cant sleep because of road noise downtown... move because that happens year round.
I've had honking in Downtown Vancouver from a group supporting the convoy and it certainly does not resemble the usual city noise. If it was horrible for the couple hours I experienced then it must have been hell for those Ottawa citizens when it went on for days.
>I've had honking in Downtown Vancouver from a group supporting the convoy and it certainly does not resemble the usual city noise. If it was horrible for the couple hours I experienced then it must have been hell for those Ottawa citizens when it went on for days.
Would you say this honking in vancouver was 'medically unsafe'?
am Ottawan, live about 6 blocks from 2 of the main blocked roads (parliament and kent street) noise is not bad for me, headphones block it out completely. Theyve stopped honking for the last 5 days too fwiw.
"hell" is an overstatement for something that can easily be ignored with earplugs/headphones.
construction work is certainly worse when its nearby as. it penetrates buildings better and often produces noise for longer periods of time. Though for people living less then 1 block the first 2 weekend days were probably irritating.
>"Mildly inconvenienced" is an interesting term for residents having to put up with medically unsafe volumes of horn honking all throughout the nights. Some had brought train horns and were blaring those.
I think "loud but mostly peaceful protests" is an apt description.
This is a serious claim, and one that I have not seen coming from the protesters (they want an end to the Covid mandates, from what I can tell) . Can you please provide the source for your allegation?
> One of the main organizers behind the convoy, Canada Unity (CU), acknowledged that they had planned to submit their signed "memorandum of understanding" (MoU) to the Senate of Canada and Governor General Mary Simon, described in the MoU as the "SCGGC". The MoU which was signed by James and Sandra Bauder and Martin Brodmann, was posted on the Canada Unity website in mid-December 2021 and publicly available until its February 8 retraction. Bauder, whose name is at the top of a CTV News' list of "major players" in the convoy, is the founder of Canada Unity. CTV cited Bauder saying that he hoped the signed MoU would convince Elections Canada to trigger an election, which is not constitutionally possible. In this pseudolegal document, CU called on the "SCGGC" to cease all vaccine mandates, reemploy all employees terminated due to vaccination status, and rescind all fines imposed for non-compliance with public health orders. If this failed, the MoU called on the "SCGGC" to dissolve the government, and name members of the CU to form a Canadian Citizens Committee (CCC), which is beyond the constitutional powers of either the Governor General or the Senate.
Well it's a matter of interpretation. You can call it just fundamental misunderstanding of the Canadian constitution, or an attempt to overthrow the government, but either way having the GG, Senate, or Elections Canada force an election while the government enjoys the confidence of the house would be a coup. I'm fine with giving the protesters the benefit of the doubt and just agreeing that they don't understand how the electoral process works in Canada.
It depends whom you petition. If you petition the House to call an early election, that's part of our normal democracy. If you petition the army to remove the government, that's attempting a coup.
In this case the MoU was not petitioning the House to call an early election, it was petitioning the Senate and Governor General to call an early election, who do not have the legal authority to call an election while the government has the confidence of the House.
And whether it's conditional on your demands being met is irrelevant. You can't hold a gun to someone's head and tell them to do something, and then say "well I was only going to fire if they didn't do it". The problem is in the threat, not the ask.
I just read the MoU (https://web.archive.org/web/20220122173201/https://canada-un...). It is a ridiculous document, suggesting that CU and the central government will form a joint committee to set Covid policy together. But nowhere in the document do I see anything about calling an election, dissolving the government, or being beyond any constitutional powers. The Wikipedia quote upthread does not seem like an accurate summary of the MoU.
Obviously it takes some suspension of disbelief to take anything in that document seriously, but it suggests that the Senate and Governor General (both unelected) make up the new "Government of Canada", with no mention of the House (elected). It's pretty clear that the intention of the "offer" is to remove the duly elected government from the picture in the mistaken belief that the Senate and GG are of higher authority to the House.
As far as the petition for an early election goes, I agree I can't find it in the MoU. Perhaps it was reading between the lines and combining statements made outside the MoU with what was found within.
No idea why this is being downvoted. This is the PROBLEM, people. Many Canadians support removing mandates but very few of us support removing the government through extra-legal mumbo-jumbo. We just had an election in Canada a few months ago and mandates were very much an issue that was debated and discussed.
Not an insurrection. Not trying to overthrow the government. Not illegal to send money to people you like or across borders. Not an overtly hostile act. Truckers have rights too.
If these people are an 'insurrection' then BLM protests during which 25++ people died, was 'seditions rebellion'. [1]
The 'truckers convoy' is completely within the normal framework or populist protest, this is not new, it's common. Farmers used to bring in their tractors to do this.
The people at the border were moved. The people in Ottawa are concentrated downtown, mostly not near housing, and I believe the honking has ben curtailed.
They are now camping out and dancing to The Macarena.
In Portland, an entire section of the city was taken over by armed bandits threatening violence, not letting Police or emergency services in, two people died, people's rights were very seriously curtailed. Now that was a hard problem to solve.
At this point we just have a bunch of angry people in trucks downtown, that's mostly it.
It will eventually peter out and they will go home ...
Some of us remember the “mostly peaceful” characterization by CNN of the protests in Kenosha.
We also remember the blockade of the rail in Canada.
We’re also not impressed by the pleas by inconvenienced government bureaucrats who couldn't be bothered to investigate the arson of 40 places of worship in Canada.
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. You can't post like this here. Moreover, it's not in your interests to post like this here, because all it does is discredit the position you're arguing for—a bad trade for a little momentary venting.
Medically unsafe volumes claim has not been substantiated with any real evidence, and quite frankly absolutely false at first glance because the driver located right next to the horn would have permanently ringing ears by now.
There is however evidence of many false claims, later walked back, just like the assault at the shelter, which as it turns out, was: 1) verbal assault 2) did not involve anyone from the convoy. Conveniently that claim
was spread by a charity mostly funded by the City of Ottawa (10mil), of which 9 mil goes to salaries and only 450k to groceries and 850k to programs.
Disgusting.
As for the residents of ottawa, living in the nation capital, and not expecting boisterous protests is plain privledge and entitlement. That’s what you see in the mirror every morning: privilege and entitlement.
Calling a strike an insurrection is an insult to millions in Canada who have fled actual wars. It’s also an insult to every socialist that supports the right of workers to organize and strike, that you want to now shutdown with martial law.
Disgusting.
Oh, truckers can find another job if they don’t like the jab? So you can move to another city too.
Just like the jab, nobody forces you to live in Ottawa, it was YOUR. CHOICE.
Please don't cross into the flamewar style like this. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. You can make your substantive points without that.
Edit: you've been doing this in other threads too (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30333616). Could you please not? Here's an old line from PG, which I love, that expresses what we actually want here: Comments should be written in the spirit of colleagues cooperating in good faith to figure out the truth about something, not politicians trying to ridicule and misrepresent the other side.
BLM protestors were routinely arrested, beaten and teargassed on live TV for everyone to watch.
Donating directly to a mob causing havoc thousands of miles away from you because you're annoyed that your coworkers did the same is why this country and frankly the western world is so entirely broken. This is a wonderful example of the politics of spite in action. Making the world a better place has gone out the window, it's simply about making the world a worse place for people you don't like
Harassing people wearing masks and minding their own business and stealing from foodbanks because restaurants refuse to serve protestors isn't exactly peaceful.
Where does this end? Is it ok for me to pay homeless people to stand outside your house with a rifle and scream at your house all night?
I don't want to get political here, that's not my intention but this even was 100% peaceful protestors who just happened to be somewhere the President wanted to go were gassed for no reason.
I'm a class traitor frankly. My whole family works in jobs like this that have been impacted. One of my old co-founders was a 24 big-rig truck mechanic and his dad is being put out of business by the California CARB restrictions.
But aside from the specifics, I find it odd that people are decrying cross-national donations of money to causes. Were similar complaints made about CA->US donations in 2020? How about national disasters? I don't need a reason to give charitably to causes I care about in the world, and a supposedly cosmopolitan populace wondering about transnational giving seems contradictory to me.
These protests are a disruption specific to the internal affairs of Canada. The U.S. has long had a dominant power relationship with the rest of the continent. The way that Americans have imposed their views on both sides of this internal conflict is both patronizing and deleterious to the self-determination of the Canadian people. It would be as suspect if one was to donate to the Shining Path, the Contras, the Medellín Cartel, or any other faction.
Agreed. The xinjiang intern- uhh... vocational education and training centers are an issue that that's specific to the internal affairs of China. The U.S. has long had a dominant power relationship with the rest of the world. The way that Americans have imposed their views on both sides of this internal conflict is both patronizing and deleterious to the self-determination of the Chinese people. It would be as suspect if one was to donate to the Shining Path, the Contras, the Medellín Cartel, or any other faction.
1. I'm not sure how you got the impression that I implied china was located in the americans. My comment was specifically worded to not imply that.
2. Does america's influence on the world not exist? Why does your original claim of "Americans have imposed their views on both sides of this internal conflict is both patronizing and deleterious to the self-determination of the Canadian people" only apply if it's on the same continent? Is it better to impose your views on people half way across the world?
America has long had a unique influence over the rest of the Americas while it did not on the rest of the world until very relatively in the postwar period. It also has not had a hegemonic influence on nations such as China, unlike it has had over Canada and most of the American continent. Historically, the United States had a relatively weak presence in China, while the European powers and Japan have had a far stronger hand there. Therefore the analogy to China is false, unless you were to claim that it was part of the Americas, which given the flagrant inaccuracy of your statement seemed to imply that it was made in earnest.
>America has long had a unique influence over the rest of the Americas while it did not on the rest of the world until very relatively in the postwar period.
So influencing canada is bad because they were doing it since 1776, but influencing china is fine because they only did it starting in 1945?
>Historically, the United States had a relatively weak presence in China, while the European powers and Japan have had a far stronger hand there.
Do you also think "european powers" should stay out of genocides in africa, because of their outsized influence in the past?
>Therefore the analogy to China is false, unless you were to claim that it was part of the Americas, which given the flagrant inaccuracy of your statement seemed to imply that it was made in earnest.
You failed to state the justification, so I was forced to guess.
> So influencing canada is bad because they were doing it since 1776, but influencing china is fine because they only did it starting in 1945?
The U.S. didn't even influence China until the normalization of relations under Nixon, in 1972. Furthermore, the relation was always less unequal between the two, than it was and is between the U.S. and other countries in the Americas.
> Do you also think "european powers" should stay out of genocides in africa, because of their outsized influence in the past?
European powers have historically been very bad at handling African genocides. Even as recently as the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, France initially supported the government of the Génocidaires, and did not aid the victimized Tutsis. Given Europe's awful track record in this area, it is impossible to say how constructive intervention could be.
> You failed to state the justification, so I was forced to guess.
I apologize for underrating your grasp of geography.
BLM is based in the United States, so that reference would not make sense unless you are talking about funding crossing state lines.
> It's a Canada policy, but is specific to crossing the border from the US.
Up until the blockade of the border, it was an internal matter entirely, but you are correct here. If the border situation escalates, then the OAS needs to get involved to mediate a ceasefire and ensure that free and fair elections can take place.
It's a matter of sovereignty who you let in and under what conditions. There are some treaty specifics, but as far as Americans are involved, it's those treaties, and you're free to renegotiate them
if we're gonna start playing by the "if it has nothing to do with your country then keep out of it" rule then it's a great idea to establish this now before the 2024 US elections, ideally before the upcoming midterms as well.
I'm fine with this development as long as we all agree to play by the same rules and remain consistent.
If these protests become an issue for American national security and strategic geopolitical interest then yes NATO should make preparations as in other flashpoints but for now the situation has not yet escalated to such a degree. The U.S. did not intervene during the coup attempt against Erdogan in Turkey in 2016 either.
my post had nothing to do with official government actions or interventions but with the rights of citizens of different countries to sympathize with and donate money to causes outside of their own country. we allowed our cities to burn and lives to be lost to violent summer protests that were funded in part by citizens of other countries. if the general sentiment is that we should not allow this any more, that would be fine with me, but only if such actions are applied equally and unilaterally.
as far as I am aware, no lives have been lost nor businesses destroyed during the current events in Canada.
Your comment evoked the current Ukraine crisis. What do the midterm or general elections in the United States have to do with American citizens sympathizing with and donating money to causes in other countries? That is not an issue that is on the ballot. At least foreign policy is something that is germane to those elections. This is a complete non sequitur.
> At least foreign policy is something that is germane to those elections.
> What do the midterm or general elections in the United States have to do with American citizens sympathizing with and donating money to causes in other countries? That is not an issue that is on the ballot.
why are you quoting yourself to explain how "[my] comment evoked the current Ukraine crisis"? I think we're talking past each other, you really want to connect things to Ukraine and I don't, so I apologize for taking your time.
No apologies necessary, thank you. My point is that you bringing up upcoming elections in the U.S. in the context of discussing the appropriateness of American citizens funding campaigns abroad is a total non sequitur, as it is not a campaign issue. Something such as the Ukraine crisis, in contrast, might actually be a campaign issue, in keeping with your '"if it has nothing to do with your country then keep out of it" rule' reference.
"Ninety percent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US" I think in many ways, geographically and culturally, they're closer to Americans than they are to each other. Not that Canadians see it that way.
Not OP (and this shouldn't be considered an endorsement of their donation/views), but it's similar to how someone in Nantucket might've donated to groups protesting police in Minneapolis in summer 2020. It's a cause you believe in and you want those fighting for it to keep going, and you may also want that fight to influence others local to you to get more vocal.
So you think it's acceptable for citizens in one country to fund political movements in other countries? Would you feel the same way about oligarchs in Russia or China funding political organizations in the US?
>So you think it's acceptable for citizens in one country to fund political movements in other countries? Would you feel the same way about oligarchs in Russia or China funding political organizations in the US?
Please don't be so quick to put words into other's mouths and then go after them for something they never said.
Someone asked why another user might want to donate to political causes in another country. I responded, clarified I wasn't OP, then - and this is key - further clarified that my post "shouldn't be considered an endorsement of their donation/views", and then simply posited why someone might want to. See how I said that you shouldn't see my comment as an endorsement of their donation?
Discussing why someone might want to do something is different from arguing whether or not it is right to do so. At no point have I engaged in the latter. They can be lumped into the same conversation, but I haven't done that in this comment chain.
I didn't say you endorsed OPs views. You said that this was the same as someone in one part of the US funding political action in another part of the US. Apocryphon noted that Canada is a sovereign country and not part of the US. You replied that this didn't change the point of your original post. This implied that you don't see a distinction between funding political activity within your own country and funding political activity in another country and is independent of the OPs political stance.
OP is a citizen in one country who donated to a political movement in another country. In discussing the "why" of that, you asked me:
>So you think it's acceptable for citizens in one country to fund political movements in other countries?
That's exactly what OP did. The manner in which you phrase your question, along with your follow up question that assumed my answer to the former would be, "Yes", strongly implies I have endorsed OP's views.
>You said that this was the same as someone in one part of the US funding political action in another part of the US. Apocryphon noted that Canada is a sovereign country and not part of the US. You replied that this didn't change the point of your original post. This implied that you don't see a distinction between funding political activity within your own country and funding political activity in another country and is independent of the OPs political stance.
One part of the US funding political action in another US state; someone in Brazil funding political action in India; someone on the moon funding political action on Venus. The point is that $PERSON1 from $REGION1 may feel that $POLITICALMOVEMENT in $REGION2 holds a lot of views that $PERSON1 strongly believes in, and as such they want to donate to them. This is backed up by OP's response confirming shared views. That's what was asked - why donate to another country? - and all I did was given a reason why, named locales be damned.
Now, I can grant that state-to-state and country-to-country are different things. That said, for the sake of a quick example pulled out of my ass, it worked; you're just unable to see the forest for the trees.
A blockade of the border is a matter of international concern, the occupation of Ottawa is not unless the stability of the regime is in question, which would be of interest to the State Department.
This is normal. The Greek and Spanish civil wars received support from other nations and individuals, up to and including volunteers to fight. Orwell, a Brit, fought in the Spanish Civil War. Homage to Catalonia, good book.
Come on. None other than Justin Trudeau vocally supported the middlemen blocking highways in India against the farming reforms that Indian government passed in parliament. Some self introspection please.
Yeah I found it to be tone deaf when my supposedly progressive software eng colleagues would share videos of lockdown protestors on IG saying F you idiots, as they work their cushy job. A lot of these people were protesting because they want to work, and not be dependent on government handouts.
The truckers were given TWO YEARS to get the jab and they refused to. They only need the jab if they are going into the United States and returning. They can do trucking within Canada without a jab. Also, the United States has imposed a similar mandate on truckers entering the US but I don't see the convoy protest that. 90% of truckers are vaccinated BTW.
What to fear? Some lunatic calling an employer and citing Trudeau to say the donor supports homophobe racists. Its happened with other leaked lists.
Another problem is that, if the Canadian government tightens the screws, the donation might be deemed material support for crime. BS, but I wouldn't trust the Canadian judiciary.
It's not just a run of the mill worker's strike, though, it's tactically ingenious- they were able to put huge pressure on people very quickly without ever needing to get violent or aggressive. Good for them.
Yeah they failed massively at that. There were a few hundred trucks out of around 300,000, and they got denounced by their own unions. Basically the only thing they will do is inconvenience the government who doesn't want to look bad by removing them forcefully.
I thought these protests were negatively affecting working class neighborhoods as well by honking horns during the night? I’m not holding a strong opinion on the subject but it’s kind of silly bias to compare this to blm with your phrasing.
Blacks have been through much much worse for hundreds of years, so the truckers going through troubling times for 2 years doesn’t really justify the comparison.
No person protesting during the BLM riots had "gone through much worse for hundreds of years." The truckers had personally experienced the thing they are protesting against (or would be affected by it going forward).
I can’t tell if this comment is implying African Americans have not experienced racism or negative systemic impacts in their own lifetime.
Or is this just pedantry that an individual can’t live for hundreds of years, and ignoring the actual point of if your parents are uneducated dirt poor then you will likely be uneducated dirt poor. Which is what I’m talking about.
Pedantically, are you suggesting that the people protesting were part of the clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccines? If not, then they were given—at most—a year and, more likely, 9–10 months. I also covered that they "would be affected by it going forward."
(I'm not even going to broach the subject of "innocuous jab" at this date. A year ago, that may have been uncontroversial.)
> I thought these protests were negatively affecting working class neighborhoods as well by honking horns during the night?
Truckers aren't burning down neighborhoods or looting small business right now. Yet a good chunk of Americans had no problem with all that US 2 years ago, in the middle of a freaking pandemic. But honking is now where people draw the line?
> Blacks have been through much much worse for hundreds of years, so the truckers going through troubling times for 2 years doesn’t really justify the comparison.
How is truckers struggles any less valid than any other? cause the people demonstrating are white or something?
> How is truckers struggles any less valid than any other?
Far be it from me to downplay the plight of others but it's a vaccine. Literally takes 10 minutes. Every baby in Canada receives a bunch of vaccines on a regular schedule. Many (all?) provinces have laws that state children must be vaccinated before attending school. This is nothing new. Transportation employees that cannot be vaccinated for COVID due to medical contraindication can have a medical exemption.
The truckers see vaccine passports as an oppressive government action, and people getting killed by police officers as no big deal. The BLM protesters see police killings as an oppressive government action, and vaccine passports as no big deal. See the issue here? We as a society need standards for behavior that don't just boil down to "if you think it's justified then you can do whatever you want".
Er, you don't know truckers think people getting killed by police officers is "no big deal". That appears to be something you just made up right now, as there's no obvious way you could possibly know that for sure. Or do you have some specific evidence, like a poll of the truckers on what they thought of BLM last year?
>Er, you don't know truckers think people getting killed by police officers is "no big deal".
I agree that "no big deal" was an overstep, but the argument works fine with "is justified"/"is not justified".
>Or do you have some specific evidence, like a poll of the truckers on what they thought of BLM last year?
Unfortunately not, but based on this poll[1] and demographic factors of truckers (ie. less likely to be college educated, more likely to be republican), it seems pretty reasonable to conclude that most truckers oppose BLM.
If you wanna bring up race, the US and CA black populations have lower rates of vaccination. The truckers want mandates withdrawn. Regardless of their intentions, they're doing a public good which will lend itself to the black population.
> Blacks have been through much much worse for hundreds of years, so the truckers going through troubling times for 2 years doesn’t really justify the comparison.
There’s no way you can objectively back this up. Not to mention you’re saying because some dead people had worse conditions it’s ok to make conditions for the living bad. That type of logic only applies to groups you dislike.
Umm objectively there was slavery and segregation from before the us existed until <70 years ago, which is hundreds of years
I couldn’t follow the logic on the second point, but current generation African Americans were negatively impacted by their great grandparents being slaves - it’s like generational wealth but the opposite.
And where is that lost millions in donations that was supposed to go towards their causes, exactly?
I'm mean first we have those defending hundreds of millions of damage to businesses including black-owned ones and now we have ones defending fraudsters unable to file their financial reports and instead go off with millions worth of donations unaccounted for.
Sounds like a very successful scam executed by the founders to fool lots of people driven by emotion and outrage.
Considering that you live in Austin how do you know the exact nature of the protests? Have you visited? Or is this what you read/saw in media?
It's also interesting how you contrast this to the BLM protests. I'm not sure how long a BLM protest would have been allowed to block a major traffic artery worth the 100s of million $ per day?
>arson, vandalism, and looting between May 26 and June 8 were tabulated to have caused $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, surpassing the record set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
"$1-2 billion" from the George Floyd protests is between $70 million and $140 million a day, for 14 days. So that data might help you triangulate an answer to your question of "how long."
I don't mind if it inconvenience the government, but they have severely impacted residential neighbourhoods as well. Others in the movement have blocked commercial traffic across the border, putting people jobs at risk.
Ironically, I think these higher pressure activities will back fire. They could probably find a lot of support for easing restrictions, but destroying people's homes and jobs is not going to make or keep friends.
As you are from Austin, you clearly have no idea that this is just more than bureaucrats but actual people live there. Many and have had to move out of their house as they couldn't sleep. This is honking all nights but also intimidating business owners, people walking by with a mask, verbal harassment, etc. This is all documented.
The people in those protests are also anti-vaxers, while 90% of the population is vaccinated, so they don't represent the working class. The Qanon "Queen of Canada" and all their crazies are there, harassing health care workers. This is very much the 1% of crazies, the working class is extremely irritated by having their health care workers being harassed.
Yeah, well the establishment journalists are doing everything they can to cover for Trudeau. Meanwhile if you really want to be informed you can find tons of livestreams on Youtube from every angle of the protest in Ottawa, 1988 Watchman is good. I've been watching for over a week now and I've seen people helping and feeding each other. Filling the food banks, food banks are declining food donations now. Cleaning the streets. People dancing and singing, kids playing hockey in the streets. It's a big festival and a lot of people are showing up to celebrate and come together. It's inspiring in a time when people are so divided to see joyful people having fun.
By spending much of your comment denigrating other protests (presumably on issues that you care less about), you are doing exactly what you claim to be condemning. Try advocating for the specific laudable goals of your own cause rather than putting others down.
Considering that donations to the truckers were being turned down because the truckers were forming an "occupation", while individuals in the previous occupations (including the aforementioned CHOP and CHAZ) had received funds off the same platform... The composition seems relevant. Especially with all the name calling (that the truckers are forming an insurrection) being done by the same people who either stayed silent on, or actively supported Antifa as they shot explosives into occupied government buildings.
The truckers are on strike. Not really any different than any other worker strike, which socialists would normally fall over themselves supporting. The thing is, it seems, they cannot abide people going on strike against what they view as unjust government action.
GiveSendGo appears to be a Christian crowdfunding platform. Maybe it's nuanced but I am unable to see a Christian connection to the mask mandates or whatever the truckers are protesting.
Might be a good idea to learn what they are protesting, before trying to draw connections between what they are protesting and other things like religion.
It's more about vaccine mandates, but yeah mask mandate (all mandates) in general.
Including specifically for the truckers recent laws that effectively boil down to: either you get vaccinated, and show proof of it, or you lose your job.
It's especially ironic when they argue "their body their choice" w.r.t. vaccines. Then when asked about abortion only the most rational ones will see the parallel.
- Health care workers in Ottawa had to be advised not too wear work wear in the streets to avoid harassment and assault.
- The Canadian Trucking Alliance have stated that between 85 and 90 per cent of truckers are already vaccinated.
- 65% of Canadians think the Freedom Convoy represents a small minority of selfish Canadians. (Leger poll)
- Hate groups spotted among the protesters include the Soldiers of Odin, Three Percenters and followers of the Soltrean hypothesis. I'm sure there are some very fine people among them as well.
- Prominent among the organizers are advocates of the "white genocide" theory.
What do they want? Do we know? Is there a document we can point to, that we know expresses the grievances of the protesters? Of a majority of protesters? Of their supporters?
>As one of the donors included in this hack, I am not entirely sure what they're out to accomplish.
No different than any other cancel culture etc.
>Despite eye-rolling media mischaracterizations of these truckers as you-know-whats, it's a run of the mill workers strike.
This is very important I learnt this weekend. Not to be glossed over.
Trudeau himself attacked the convoy as fringe minority, racists, sexists, and white supremacists. The 'government accredited' media was very fast to show the nazi flag and confederate flags. Conveniently very expensive professional camera gear right there to take pictures.
So what gives? Well what happened? Antivaxxers are unemployed? But who are the antivaxxers? ~50% of black canadians are unwilling to get vaccinated. ~25% of arabic and indian canadians are unwilling. When the average is ~85%. It means whites are above 85%. I didn't know this.
It means Trudeau and the 'government accredited' media who rushed out this narrative that they are white supremacists in fact knew they were disproportionally harming not-whites. That to label this convoy as white supremacist might discourage not-whites from joining. This 1 nazi flag has to be a journalist because the convoy is certainly not white supremacist.
At what point does the 'government accredited' media who pushed this white supremacist narrative get labelled government propaganda?
