Edit: to the downvoters, I'm legitimately confused about why government control is generally seen as bad in the US, and why this case should be an exception.
Canadian, not American and we tend to have a much more government-friendly position. I view public ownership of natural monopolies as vitally important. Then private enterprise can fairly compete in a reasonably regulated way to deliver services via that publicly owned infrastructure (like food distribution). When private entities own the infrastructure they can hold the entire society hostage, which was exactly what happened with the Ambassador Bridge.
In the west it's the oil & gas sector (or forestry), in Central Canada its banking, service, and manufacturing.
The reality is we have very little "socialism" in Canada, and a whole lot of corporatism which has worn a liberal facade for its own survival. It dates back to colonial times, we just replaced the British colonial parasites with our own local ones.
If we had to decide who's worse, i give my vote (of being the worst) to the politicians.
People still commit all those crimes you say? Oh.
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_River is a total of 24 miles long, and both sides have been populated since at least 11,000 years ago. Good luck.
> And also a few miles to the north
Tell me you don't live here without saying it. What's an added 3 hours of commute one way? No big deal. Employers will be pleased.
City borders are often much smaller than city population areas. Population of the metropolitan areas on both sides of the Detroit River is over 5 million people.
Reading [1] which talks of frequent delays, it sounds inconvenient. It isn't really "efficient for an international border" compared to the Schengen area in the EU, or India-Nepal, Russia-Belarus, UK-Ireland etc. At those, there are no checks at all; so no need to stop.
In short, yes.
The toll system on the New York interstates is a dream compared to what we have here on things like the 407.
Even our much lauded "socialist" single payer healthcare system actually consists mostly of many private entities (doctors) billing the government. Public pays, private profits -- just has the advantage (vs the US) of cutting out the parasitical insurance companies in-between.
Telco sector (split into a 3 parasites, mainly), wine/beer/liquor (special distribution and retail privileges just for Andrew Peller and Vincorp in Ontario, no inter-provincial trade, monopoly private Beer Stores), the list goes on. And we're getting new ones, e.g. Shoppers Drug Mart exclusive contract for COVID vaccine deliveries. Moving Service Ontario facilities into Staples stores. Likely based on whoever attended Doug Ford's daughter's Stag & Doe, etc.
Been that way since the Hudson's Bay Company. The most "successful" way to do business in Canada is via regulatory capture.
Government planners have their own priorities, but it doesn’t mean it’s the only way. Waiting for central planners to make decisions as the ONLY way is always bad.
I don’t like it, but it’s pretty standard.
You can blame the public, as you always can do in a democracy, but the reality is that there's only a limited amount of attention and outrage available, so if people "don't care" about something, it's easy enough to postpone it indefinitely. Usually some sort of disaster eventually brings it to the forefront and then the issues are solved.
Many major infrastructure projects are this way - it's held up in court and other areas for decades, until a nearby bridge collapses, and then suddenly it's greenlit and moves forward.
Plenty of bad things used to be standard: slavery¹, doctors not washing hands between handling cadavers and assisting in births², radioactive children’s toys³, throwing feces out the window⁴. As a society we should aim to discontinue or change those standards to something better, but we can’t do it if we shrug our shoulders because something is already commonplace. That only makes the situation worse, as the industries which take advantage of that complacency and lack of information continue to thrive.
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
³ https://www.energy.gov/lm/articles/holiday-toy-shopping-duri...
³ Alright, not that one: https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/12/did-people-in-the-m...
I'm just so used to it at this point that this particular instance doesn't seem like a big deal compared to everything else.
These are all big deals and we should collectively and individually never allow ourselves to be pushed into apathy because it has become normalized.
Not even on the radar for me.
Whether something is 'standard' or not has no bearing on whether it is ethical, productive, makes economic sense and in general improves society or not.
If I ask the government for something unreasonable and they give it to me, you should blame the government and not me. I'm within my rights to ask for whatever I want.
Americans lost the battle for small government, but not the distrust.
This said, the Federalists also argued that a Bill of Rights wouldn't be necessary because good governments don't infringe the rights of the people and nothing in the Constitution allowed them to.
Turns out they were wildly optimistic, like every project/ideology that relies on a unbounded set of humans to be rational, forward-thinking, altruistic, unselfish, etc. for more than a day or three for success.
Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
The Federalists papers are just the opinions of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay (which is not to diminish them entirely, only to apply needed perspective). The powers were almost entirely with the states at that time, so the papers are mostly convincing the states to give that power up. It was the first step away from the small federal government of the founders.
First: note that the Articles of Confederation devolve all the powers of the governments to the States. It doesn't repudiate those powers, it just keeps the out of the federal government.
Second: the Constitution is a repudiation of the Articles of Confederation. It doesn't incorporate the principles of the Articles even implicitly.
So the best case for your argument is that the federal government is untrustworthy, but the governments of the several States are not. But you don't even get to that best case, because your evidence is refuted by our controlling founding document.
A lot of lobbying is done to get people to believe the government is bad at everything and that corporate rent seeking should be the defacto way a country is run. And lots of people dying from lack of affordable health care believe it.
> However neither Ontario nor Michigan wanted to finance a river crossing. Michigan automakers subsequently decided to take the initiative to connect the Midwest to central Canada. After they created a bridge company, the project got into trouble when a Toronto financier hired to sell its securities instead embezzled the money and ran off, before ultimately committing suicide in a prison cell after conviction for murdering a drugstore clerk. The bridge boosters turned to New Yorker Joseph A. Bower, a businessman who specialized in rescuing mismanaged companies. Bower succeeded in raising the necessary initial $12 million. "The only way things can be done today, is by private business," said Henry Ford, who backed the project.[15] The bridge was constructed with investment from Detroit business people incorporated as the Detroit International Bridge Corporation.
For example seaports (or at least LA and NYC) are broadly operated by government (or government owned) organizations. The St Lawrence seaway is operated by government or government owned organizations. US airports are generally operated by publicly owned organizations.
Maybe they shouldn't be.
Where are you taking this analogy?