Ottawa has lost control of itself
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The few that are loudly complaining about the protest appear to believe we should never speak up no matter how badly the government and our fellow citizens treat us. And instead of actually engaging with the subject of the protest - intrusive mandates and documentation requests - they would rather either complain about petty things like honking, or somehow imagine the government has lost control of the country because some truckers parked downtown for a few days. In any case, I think the freaking out by a select few we've seen over this is so ridiculous that it hopefully supports the trucker's case in the minds of normal people here
If you agree that the government has that responsibility, then the government needs to maintain its rule over the commons, which has clearly been lost in downtown Ottawa.
Also, the demonstrators have been there for over a week, lacking a permit for their demonstration, often honking all night long and keeping awake the people who live nearby. There have been numerous reports of assaults by demonstrators because the victims had the audacity to wear a mask while walking in the vicinity of the demonstration.
Personally, for the vast majority (hoping) that only care about the vaccine mandate I don't care one bit. But for the nazi and confederate flag waving people, my frustration is against the law much more than the people, why is it unlawful to grant them their wish and meet them with violence if the government is unwilling to arrest and punish them for it. Nazism is not protected speech, it is worse than the classic example of "shouting fire in a crowd" it is promoting and seeding hatred and violence in hopes of genocide! The only acceptable Nazi is a dead Nazi. 50 million people didn't die so we can forget.
Even if a few undesirables do show up to the protest, it's squarely about mandates, despite what the people complaining might want you to believe. At least imagine that it's possible to simply have had enough of the covid restrictions, without having some additional "extremist" agenda.
Also, it's a pretty serious accusation to call someone a Nazi...
Maybe you should protest
>If a BLM protester waves a Nazi flag or whatever the opposite is that wishes death to some group of people, treat them the same and punish them or legalize violent response against them. Why do I have to stand silent and watch while others plot and promote genocide?
Because, as long as they keep their repugnance to themselves, it ain't your problem or anyone elses. They can screech and holler all they want, and as long as they only do that, any civilized person will roll their eyes and go on about their day.
>Only if violence against nazis is legalized.
You know, the Nazi's actually did that. Are you sure that you want to go down that path? Beware that you not become that which you so detest.
>I don't believe in annoying people to make a change.
You actually do, you just haven't come across something that hits close enough to home yet.
>What has been given can be taken away. But what you take after convincing others or by force, you can keep so long as reason or strength is on your side.
An appeal to might makes right? Rights are something granted by the tolerance of the authorities? How positively authoritarian of you. Humorously, you also share that aspect of political thinking with them.
You can't claim the moral high ground if you're just going to turn around and repeat the people in question's mistakes. Hell, you can't even reasonably sit here endorsing violence against them without raising the same eyebrows they are!
Don't bloody cave to the baser instincts. People need a shining example of what not to be, and they're it. Don't let them drag you down to their level. Once they do, they've spent a much greater degree of their time at that level of idiocy, and I assure you, they'll beat you at it.
People have the right to protest, and yes, any good protest draws out the kooks too. Just ignore it. Remember: life goes in mysterious ways, and God forbid one day you might be on the receiving end of someone else feeling the same way about you that you do them.
Be the better person.
B.S.! You will get locked up for threatening violence against someone. It's not mere repugnance. I find all racial supremacists repugnant and will roll my eyes and move on like you said. Except when their belief involves genocide, they explicity wish death and violence to entire groups of people. You are saying let's wait until they start killing! How did that work out for Jews in Poland or hutu's in Rwanda. When they start killing it will be too late. If someone believes mass shooting is good and will further their agenda, they will also get locked up
> An appeal to might makes right?
No, I did not say that. But rights are not optional. I agree with and prefer reasoning. But if does not work,and the only option is violence or beg until they get annoyed and accept your rights, I will not beg. I will do everything including violence to secure my rights. I will beg for things I want and most things I need and will not resort to violence. But rights are for others to respect not for the holder of them to beg and plead for. By definition rights are not optional. Let me give you an example: I have the right to not get killed unless found guilty of a crime, therefore when someone attempts to kill me, I will respond in violence if there is no way to reason with them. Or if death is extreme, how about: I have the right to freely move unless suffering punishment for a crime. Therefore, if a person holds me captive I will take the least violent way to free myself including damaging their property, their body or at worst take their life.
Rights are not things we think we have to have. They are things we agree as a society that the holder of them can excercise them without interference. So when a a group of people are plotting to commit genocide, It is within the bounds of the excercising of a right to life for the targets and implementation if their fellow citizens' and government's responsibility to stop them. Starting with asking nicely, then detaining them as punishment for a reasonable amount of time and if that is not an adequate deterrent or the government is not willing to excercise their duty and citizens are not able to subdue and detain the genocide plotters, violence is the only remaining resort.
If there are peaceful means to end and remove Nazism and genocide proclaiming people from society, let us discuss them. Else, they can stop waving those flags and making threatening speeches or absent government intervention responsible citizens and potential targets of their violence must respond.
> People have the right to protest, and yes, any good protest draws out the kooks too. Just ignore it.
Yes, as i said repeatedly. I have no problem against protesters but against people who wave Nazi and confederate flags. The fact that they joined someone else protest is relevant only because we don't know how many of them there are that hold such views, is it two guys? Then arrest them. Is it a hundred? Then call in the armed forces before we have a mass casuality event or worse! Do you recall what Sydney rioters did or melbourne in good ol australia? How do we know they won't hunt and killl people after a while? That's why my anger is at the government not the Nazis (more like containing and eradicating a disease carrier than anger towards them).
> one day you might be on the receiving end of someone else feeling the same way about you that you do them
If I start waving Nazi flags or calling for genocide in public. Please let me meet my fate as well.
> Be the better person.
You as well. Your fellow citizens are in danger and there are groups organizing and uniting in rebellion to your elected government. Apathy eye-rolling is not the right answer. We have a responsibility to mitigate threats against the rights and well being of our fellow citizens and against our legitimate governments. We must learn from history. When someone says they want to harm others, believe them and respond or make sure your government responds. This isn't a racist uncle who doesn't like blacks, these are Nazis.
Oh goodness.
I don't support the protests or their aims, but remember that there were a hell of a lot of protesters in CHOP and BLM in general carrying and displaying Marxist and Soviet iconongraphy. Making the whole BLM movement answer for the 80 million dead Chinese peasants and Kulaks would be pretty stupid. Do you really expect BLM to be policing their ranks like that? If you cut them a break for a few ignorant fools in their protests, why is this any different?
Don't be crazy. This whole situation is bad enough what with the break-down in law and order without hysterically shouting about Nazism.
If a BLM protester waves a Nazi flag or whatever the opposite is that wishes death to some group of people, treat them the same and punish them or legalize violent response against them. Why do I have to stand silent and watch while others plot and promote genocide?
Which reporters are you talking about? The only reporter I know of who ever got dismembered was Jamal Khashoggi, and he had nothing whatsoever to do with BLM.
I meant lost eye (eye is a member).
Are we talking about the people who fought a revolutionary war against the monarchy of the Russian Empire, eventually murdering the Tsar's family, wife and kids included? Then proceeded to stoke violent class warfare and political purges throughout Soviet territory, including the Holodomor in Ukraine. All the while funding communist revolt in other countries across the Far East and Europe. Those guys right?
Genocide aside, the Nazi takeover of Wiemar Germany was almost completely on the level comparatively. But both regimes racked up massive body counts, and both did so with intention.
> … BLM …
Ah yes, the whatabout
Communists, Nazis, Confederates, "professional" looters, anarchists, weird conspiracies like the birds are drones, the earth/Finland/New Zealand don't exist, the list could go on for hours... Grab a photo at the correct time and bang, you have successfully "destroyed" or defaced a movement.
Things like demonstrations at every big city, roads closed with barricades, public transport frequency reductions, even shops, offices and factories halting for a day or two.
Ottawa is well under control (for now). The Ottawa or Canadian governments can evacuate the city whenever they want. They have three ways, negotiation, accepting what the movement wants or repression (which would hit Canada's reputation quite badly).
Truck horns have been blaring 24/7 for 9 days in a residential area.
The people or the media?
2. Even worse than both are dozens of mostly preventable deaths per day in Ontario alone.
https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/servi...
At 100db, 24 minutes of exposure within 24 hours is considered damaging to hearing. At 120dB, it's basically instantaneous damage to hearing. And lot of them have been doing that to harass residents.
If I walk down the street, jab something in someone's ear and damage their hearing, I'd be rightfully charge with assault (probably with a weapon). How is this any different?
This city is well versed in protest, even protests that could shutdown Wellington st, right in front of the hill. It's naive, at the very minimum, to even let these vehicles park right up the hill and blare their horns day and night.
If you think this is just a minor inconvenience, come to downtown and stand next to one of these trucks when the air horn goes off.
And getting your ear drums ruined is no happy thing. Which is why it is crazy silencers are illegal.
:)
“It’s OK if angry white men do it, because they are politically aligned with you, but it’s not OK if Indigenous people peacefully protect their own rights,” Indigenous lawyer and professor Pam Palmater told APTN News
I mean how much better can it get? A peaceful protest by a portion of the population that feels wronged? Government for the people and all that
It is far from peaceful.
In the days when we still had a reliable press with actual reporters on the ground, we'd know more. Nowadays it comes down to one side displaying five people with a confederate flag and the other side displaying five people with a placard calling the truckers "stupid inbreds" (Trudeau won't complain about the latter).
-- poignant summary of the thread by one of its participants
You could just, y'know, drop the mandates and whatnot.
I suppose it isn’t surprising at all that the same people that refuse to pay such low table stakes also show complete disdain for others by turning their protest into a 24/7 cacophony of 120dB horns blaring and racist signage.
In any case, I agree in principle that limited resources of healthcare in hospitals should be spent wisely and fairly, e.g. in case of overload, put very old, or obviously bad lifestyle people on the backburner. Also, COVID is not the only health problem and postponing all surgeries/cancer treatments because of many COVID cases does not seem right. This is not a simple topic though.
Hard disagree. The vaccines do not prevent transmission. There is no justification for asking people to get injected something if it is not for protecting the society from an infected individual. If mandates are about protecting individuals, then there need to be many more mandates: against smoking, unhealthy eating, unprotected sex, risky sport, stress and many more things that potentially lower people's lifespans or healthspans. I hope it is clear that this would overstep boundaries and would only be enforceable with dystopian surveillance.
The free, almost painless vaccination could also be a free almost painless tattoo with a personalized QR code a few years down the road in order to make people easier to identify for enforcement of health mandates.
Vaccines are mandated in order to prevent the spread of the disease. If the vaccines do not do that job, then mandates are unethical, because they undermine bodily autonomy, while giving a false sense of security.
Yes.
Exactly
Because the measures we have in place are working. Saying the measures are not needed because they are working exactly as intended is...odd.
Citation needed
Were they, for example, in the early uncontained outbreaks in Italy?
Does "exponential growth" mean anything to you?
For the vaccine mandates, absoutely, because the vaccines are now mostly ineffective against transmission of the virus. There is no good justification for these mandates.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cdc-director-covid-...
For comparison - the Czech Supreme Administrative Court just ruled (and ended vax passports for shopping):
> “The measure cannot aim to indirectly force citizens to be vaccinated. This would make voluntary vaccination mandatory through an emergency vaccination measure, as unvaccinated people would have no choice but to be vaccinated if they wanted to live normally,” said NSS Judge Petr Mikeš
https://praguemorning.cz/czech-government-cannot-indirectly-...
Mask mandate make sense in some situations, because they are more effective at preventing transmission, but these need to be phased out at some point too.
Problem solved.
Except people have now learned they can stand up to “the man” in charge and win. Which might be why they’d let the insanity continue.
Indeed truckers are solitary and not in a risk group, so Trudeau is playing a game of chicken (pun intended, since he's hiding) instead of just lifting all mandates like several European countries.
In the U.S., reversing the COVID policies seems to be prepared gradually by priming public opinion via the usual outlets (NYT, WaPo, etc.). It is aided by the Ukraine and ISIS strike diversions.
Perhaps Trudeau wants to ride this one out until the U.S. Democrats are lifting all restrictions.
None of this, unfortunately, is surprising.
Imagine how proud Pierre "just watch me" Trudeau must be, looking down on his son be so afraid of saying the wrong thing or hurting someone's feelings, that he is paralyzed into ineffectiveness.
Just do something, anything, and stand up for yourself. Just make sure you do it with the best interest of the nation in mind and the support will follow.
I don't love or hate any particular leader, but I definitely respect the ones that make confident choices in times of need.
Non-Canadians may not know that Justin Trudeau went into hiding because of the Ottawa protests. Seriously.
4chan is, as usual, on the case, and found Trudeau in Luskville, Quebec. <https://np.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/sj88d9/a_story_of_wea...>
> When asked in the House of Commons to produce data linking truckers to COVID-19 infections in Canada, neither the minister of health Jean-Yves Duclos nor the chief public health officer Theresa Tam were able to do so.[34]
Maybe not for limiting transmission but not filling up hospitals with the unvaccinated + infected is a valid public health initiative.