Protesters migrate to crypto fundraising platform following GoFundMe ban
cointelegraph.com
cointelegraph.com
In a world of free speech, and more Importantly, freedom of movement, this is the kind of money you need. What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him?
They still escape with their lives. This was sufficient for people escaping scary regimes for centuries - they arrived at Ellis Island with nothing but a suitcase and still managed, or jumped a wall or snuck across a border with just the clothes on their back.
Unfortunately, escaping regimes is expensive. Many Americans today would not be able to pay this fee.
[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=QjA_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77&lpg=P...
Because many of those seem to start with "nothing but a suitcase and the clothes on their back".
just curious, are you grandstanding or have you (or even your close relatives) been through such a situation? with statements like this it can only be one or the other. also it does not have to be escaping a "scary regime". it can be escaping war for example
>>> This was sufficient for people escaping scary regimes for centuries
Clearly saving your life is sufficient reason to escape. Not optimal, but certainly enough reason.
Are you claiming you would rather you and your family die than lose your money?
Not at all, and I don't think the original person you responded to was either. I am just saying that there are times you would want to flee even if it means loosing your wealth. This should be obvious, but someone didn't get it.
>What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him?
The fact that people have found scary regimes enough reason to flee contradicts the point that there is no good reason to flee if you can't take your money. It can be a good idea to flee even if you can't take money, and even if you don't know the future.
I agree that the ability to take money makes that decision easier.
who said that there is no good reason to leave? i am saying that the realization of the fact that it is a good idea is usually seen in retrospect. it is a gamble. for example, right now it might be a good reason to leave ukraine, but great majority of people will stay, even if a war starts. i think you underestimate the gravity of the decision to leave your homeland
The original poster:
"What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him?"
Clearly there are a lot of valid reasons to leave even if you don't have your money (like gambling that leaving will save your life). People do it all the time. Someone said as much and you tried to refute them (perhaps not understanding their point).
> i am saying that the realization of the fact that it is a good idea is usually seen in retrospect.
Yes it is clearer in retrospect. That said, millions of people have left their homes before they died and lived because of this, so it is clearly possible to make a gamble without future knowledge and be right. Many have also moved and been wrong.
> i think you underestimate the gravity of the decision to leave your homeland
I don't think you can read my mind and I never said it was easy. Just that it is possible and people do it all the time. They make incredibly hard choices and sometimes are right and sometimes are wrong
i understood the 'it' in this sentance to be one's cash/funds. you seem to understand the 'it' as the act of fleeing. i think that is where out disagreement comes from
from there i responded to the following poster's claim that money is not a factor that influences people's decision to flee. i think this is flawed and suspect they are not talking from any experience
What if unstoppable digital cash makes it easier to setup a "scary regime" in the first place? Where do we escape to when every place is run by such people? How would we reign-in the power that such individuals would have?
My submission was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30270288
News: Protesters migrate to crypto fundraising platform following GoFundMe ban
The reason that the courts shut it down is that no one knows where the money is coming from, but it is very clear that a significant percentage of it is coming from outside the country.
A commercial vehicle isn’t speech. Money isn’t speech. If you want to wave a swastika flag around, go for it. If you want to use a 10 ton machine to disable infrastructure and threaten people, that’s not free speech.
Put another way: do we really want the ability for anyone anywhere to anonymously fund any political movement?
Yes.
Yes, we do, because the alternative, no matter how they may try to sugar-coat it, is the establishment choosing their opposition.
As an extension of that, look what western governments have funded covertly, and what it has wrought, especially since the start of the 20th century.
I really doubt that this will be limited to individuals donating to a populist cause (which to be clear, all three major parties, and a HUGE majority of Canadians don't support). I don't see that being the majority of it. I suspect that intelligence agencies, and corporate interests will be far more likely to be the ones that use the unlimited untraceable money to destabilize social systems.
Did you raise this issue during previous mass protest crowdfunding events or do you not like this protest in particular, but others can be okay?
If they want to stay in compliance with US law, that is absolutely something that cloudsourcing platforms need to solve. Foreign political donations are very much restricted in the US.
As for your second question, I think that ALL political causes need to have guardrails about who is funding them, and how they are allowed to disrupt critical infrastructure. Also your question is textbook bad faith what-aboutism
The U.S. Supreme Court took that position, in their famous Citizens United ruling: "The court held that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns" [0]
(I'm not the original poster)
Consider newspapers. They require money. If money doesn't equal speech, how can I print and distribute my newspaper without spending money? I don't see a system in which you can have free speech while restricting money related to speech
> which to be clear, all three major parties, and a HUGE majority of Canadians don't support
Unpopular speech is precisely the speech that needs to be defended. If its popular and everyone agrees with it, what's the point?
Is it free speech if a foreign political actor sponsors someone to blow an air horn outside your bedroom window for a week straight? Because that is literally what happened in Ottowa.
If that’s free speech, would you mind providing your address for free speech purposes?
I don't know what a "foreign political actor" means, but should a private individual be able to give money to anyone they want? Yes. Should the person receiving the money obey local laws? Yes. But this is more civil disobedience. Protesting is valid political speech.
Do I want that to happen in my back yard? Of course not. But that's not particularly useful. Perhaps I don't want bars on my block where I live, but that doesn't mean I have the right to make bars illegal. That's just silly
Further, you’re using a denunciation of the actions of government as an argument against the rights of the people to protest against it.
This debate would be a lot more productive and a lot less dangerous if you could stick to the actual disagreement at hand, which I think has something to do with vaccines, but I’m not sure anymore, rather than trying to build a case for rejection of all rights even marginally related to any form of opposition. And please understand that I have much less interest in the opposition rights than the unrelated collateral damage that any such restrictions would cause.
The government and media have powerful tools that can shape stories to the masses. Smart people like yourself can easily fall prey. If that's the only information allowed to be heard you may not be getting a 360 view. $And you want to give them total control?
Do we want only government supported movements?
Also known as civil disobedience.
I don't want them hurt. I just find it odd to contrast how they are treated vs how other protests are usually treated.
Would you rather they be burning buildings and assaulting federal buildings? As far as major protests go in the Western Hemisphere over the past few years...this one is about as tame as it gets.
If it isn’t right when one protest group does it, it doesn’t make it right for another to do it.
This is literally the rules we teach in kindergarten
This is a false equivalence - people honking their horns is not comparable to looting and burning down buildings.
The entire world has been watching closely for the entire protest.
you have a very different definition of non-violent than the majority of the planet.
Where does it say that and what does that mean? Overthrow is a violent usurpation of power. Getting a government to capitulate is not an overthrow.
In the US we had plenty people who during the previous administration made exaggerated claims about what they wanted to achieve as well. I didn't see Gofundme shut down donations or freeze funds.
It was on their website. Here's the link to the original https://canada-unity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Combined...? It called for the all elected representatives in disagreement to step down, and for the organizers of the protest to be installed as a ruling committee for the country until such time as they saw fit.
Here is a good quote showing the battiness of this document:
> The matter to be discussed and agreed upon is this; The Senate of Canada and the Governor General, combined referred to as the Federal Government are to uphold and enforce all Canadian and International Human Rights Laws that are clearly laid out in the MOU or “RESIGN their lawful positions of authority Immediately”.
> In the US we had plenty people who during the previous administration made exaggerated claims about what they wanted to achieve as well. I didn't see Gofundme shut down donations or freeze funds.
What aboutism.... I think that money is not free speech in those cases either. But they also weren't actively asking for the government to agree to all of their demands or else step down.
And that is what I mean by overthrow. Their explicit ask as quoted above was that all government reps do what they say or else resign, and that they be given a committee to rule the country.
Making demands of and petitioning the government is a basic right of the electorate in democratic governments.
You're using "overthrow" in a manner that isn't consistent with the definition - deliberately, I suspect.
They haven’t stormed parliament with guns. They have used force to inflict measurable economic damage and threatened tocontinue it until their demands were met, and are threatening to escalate and continue their economic damage.
As a side note: I don’t disagree with everything this group stands for. I think that if we are to have mandates, their should be explicit achievable goals tied to them. If they said border requirements will be lifted when the ICU availability rises above 5%, that makes sense to me.
What I don’t agree with is that anonymous money from abroad should be allowed to be used by political organizations, especially ones with explicit goals of regime change.
> They have used force to inflict measurable economic damage and threatened to continue it until their demands were met.
The "measurable economic damage" pales in comparison to the economic damage causes by draconian lockdown policies promogulated by western governments.
There is no force, so that leaves threats.
This is classic non-violent civil disobedience. You can say it is illegal - it is!. You can disagree with it - not all civil disobedience is good. Just don't conflate the threat of civil disobedience with a threat of violent revolution or overthrow.
Threats aren't inherently illegal or violent. You can threaten to not vote for a politician unless they approve your policy. You can threaten to not go to work unless they resign. Crossing over into non-violent civil disobedience, you can threaten to illegally sit in a bus seat or road until a policy changes. This is a world different than threatening to hurt someone unless you get what you want.
“… the Federal Government may violate and neglect all Canadian and International Human Rights Laws with no challenge or change to their appointed status.”
Please do not introduce your medical or legal opinion on any topic except whether the terms of this specific document, as applied to any other real or perceived injustice that you believe in, implies an earnest attempt to overthrow a legitimate functional democracy.
This is fake news that is not supported by your link.
>Federal Government are to uphold and enforce all Canadian and International Human Rights Laws that are clearly laid out in the MOU or “RESIGN their lawful positions of authority Immediately”.
What part of that is batty? They are demanding that the federal government change policy or resign. I can demand my governor support LGBTQ rights or resign. What is the difference. I can demand all I want and it doesn't cross to overthrow or revolution unless violence is involved.
>and that they be given a committee to rule the country.
This again is nonsense and unsupported. There is no ruling committee. The only committee mentioned has no powers whatsoever. The Only federal government requirement for the Committee is to appoint some people and share the schedule for lifting the bans with the Committee.
Got a source for that? I'll believe it when I see it. I have only been made aware of one car attack so far, and it was perpetrated by a left-wing individual against protesters.
https://nypost.com/2022/02/08/canada-trucker-protest-hit-and...
It literally took me less than a minute. The video is in the article. You can find other incidents if you bother to look.
As to the reply to this: if you are slowly and carefully crushed under the wheels of a truck. It doesn’t matter how slowly and carefully it happens. Having driven vehicles this big I can promise you that at the point the driver made contact he could no longer see the cyclist that he knew was in front of him. If the cyclist had tripped he would have only known about it when he felt the bump under his tires.
Regardless using a 10 ton machine to move people you disagree with is no way to go through life.
And then turn and castigate the person you are replying to with a dismissive "...if you bother to look."
Besides, what’s wrong with Vancouver?
He asked for proof. I provided validated proof from different sources with undeniable video showing exactly what he was castigating me about.
Like how western nations fund color revolutions and ideological shifts in countries where the majority of citizens are against such funding? Either accept that true liberal (free) democracy means foreign influence to the point of possibly destroying the democracy, or accept that both sides do it relentlessly in a game of power.