Thoughts haven’t changed too much, If what we’re hearing is true (big if) Then at the last minute the Americans took what was a bad deal and made it absolutely horrible. And carney did the right thing and walked away. I think that’s what pretty much all of the premier’s work and the polls suggest you won’t suffer for it. In the end though it was the only real choice we had. We can’t give away our sovereignty

But the challenge now is going to be whether or not he has a plan to fight the war he just picked to fight the war he just picked. He should have been preparing for this for over a year knowing that it was always a possibility but he really didn’t do much to prepare us like curb spending or the like.

Trump is getting his ass kicked and I ran because he picked a war without realizing or thinking about how he was going to get a win and an exit. If we don’t have a plan the same thing will happen to us

I would hope he has a plan to put as much pressure on trump as possible. I would spend hundreds of millions if I were him in adverts similar to what Ontario did and her ass trump across America before the primaries. I would be very specific about which products I tariffed and I would probably focus on export tariffs. Things like energy and potash etc are going to hurt them the most and drive their inflation up which will embarrass the hell out of trump

If he just sits there and doesn’t do anything besides put a few tariffs in place we’re going to get slaughtered. The Americans can outwait us

That seems like a very odd rumour :) i’m not even sure how one 'humps a couch" (and i’m just fine with keeping it that way btw)

LOL couch humper? Where does that come from?

Well if that’s the strategy they’re going to run the clock straight into the ground at the straight into the ground at this point. We have been losing on all fronts and although we don’t know the details of this deal yet it’s not sounding terribly promising

We can’t afford to go two years of a bad deal in the hopes that somebody will get in next time that will give us a better deal. I would remind you that it’s usually the democrats that are being anti-canadian trade and the unions that push for that kind of stuff. There’s no reason to believe that a democrat administration would be any nicer about it if the deals are already in place. And no guarantee it won’t be JD Vance or somebody who wins the next election

We are losing this trade war. Final deal is as bad as they’re suggesting then carney will have failed utterly and completely in his promise to handle trump and trump will have won. We can only hope that is better than they’re making it out

We don’t know the details of the deal yet but it certainly doesn’t sound like we won much.

““And the whole point of this is to change Canada’s behaviour,” Vance said. “Which they, you know, not entirely, but they’ve certainly shifted in a Trumpian direction.””

Well that doesn’t sound good

I appreciate you sending yourself portraits, it’s always nice to have a visual of who I’m talking to. Won’t lie, wasn’t surprised

Neither side justifies murder. You’re just altering your definition of murder to allow for it to cover that. Both sides agree that an unlawful killing is wrong, both sides also agree but there are some circumstances when unfortunately is necessary to kill another person but that’s not the same as murder.

For example some people do say that Obama killing Bin Laden was murder. But I think that most people would define it is an act of defense of the nation. It’s not like he didn’t do anything or that he could be arrested and brought to court

And yes it is getting to the point where we no longer live in a free and just society. Which is a major problem. But worse it divides the people to the point where it’s no longer possible to get back to a free and just society. Which is an even bigger problem

And yes I can’t argue with you, that is what we’re seeing today. America is fracturing into smaller groups who become tribal and defend their interests rather than have open and intelligent conversations looking for common ground

Perhaps it’s inevitable. I mean every major empire eventually falls and very frequently if you look at it the declines that we’re seeing today mirror many of the declines of empires of the past. People breaking into factions, no common sense of right or wrong, no common ground for discussions.

I guess we’ll see where we go from here

You mean by saying facts and truth and that everybody should respect everybody? Yes people who Believe that people should be respected are absolutely the worst, ask any Nazi 🙄🙄

You’re acting like gender acceptance is a binary thing. Either you accept all of it or none of it. Sorry but that’s not the real world.

In the real world people can say that they support the right and transgender people to exist and live their lives happily and freely and still not agree with them being allowed in women’s sports. That is a perfectly valid argument to make whether you agree with that argument or not. And it doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t believe in transgender or gender diversity you just means that there are elements of it but they have issues with that conflict with the rights of other people

Sorry but you’re just 100% wrong and you’re letting your bias and hatred guide your thinking. And that’s what’s creating the backlash against transgenderism. Your style of intolerance and absolutism eliminates the possibility of having an intelligent and respectful conversation about the issues. And that’s not healthy

And look at your hate-filled response. “I would ask you to talk about what you mean but i’ve already decided to hate you and ANYTHING you could possibly say”. What the hell is that? Is that really the person you want to be?

When you absolutely force people to agree with you 100% or insist that they are scum that need to be eliminated which is what you’ve done here then the majority of people are going to choose that they’re not scum and don’t want to be eliminated and if it’s US versus them then it’s the trans that have to go

And that’s what we’re seeing play out now and it’s absolutely unnecessary and ridiculous. You’re spreading hatred being like that. Don’t do it.

Then considering your being intolerant i don’t have to respect or care about you right? And if gender advocates are intolerant of anyone then it’s fine for me to be intolerant of gender diversity right?

Sigh.

Every body has to be tolerant of everybody kiddo. That’s the only way it works. You don’t have to LIKE the person or their thoughts but you do have to be tolerant.

What we DON’T tolerate is violations of people’s rights. It’s okay for you to decide that you think that white CIS people are scum. But if you go around treating them like scum and violating the rights then there’s a problem.

If there is no tolerance for intolerance then there is no tolerance. Eventually everything becomes intolerance

Sorry to break it to you

No, I’m not saying anything remotely close to that and you’re completely making that up because you can’t address the point. Pointing out the two sets of rights conflict doesn’t mean that one side does or doesn’t support the other

And yes you absolutely have a right not to like gender diversity. That is absolutely every person’s right. You have the absolute god-given right not to like anything, you don’t have to like puppies if you don’t want to. Who told you you didn’t have the right to decide what you do and don’t like?

But we’re not discussing what people like. We’re discussing people’s rights. And rights are not absolute. And if someone’s gender rights conflict with someone else’s rights to something then there’s going to have to be a solution that minimizes the impact of BOTH parties rights and that’s jus the way it is.

And stop making up fake arguments just cuz you can’t deal with the actual argument

That’s arguably true from one point of view and I can see why you’re saying that. I guess what I’m saying is I feel like it should be more ubiquitous to both right and left thinking. For example both right and the left generally speaking can agree that murder is bad even if we don’t agree on what we should do with murderers. Some things are outside of the realm of left and right.

I think is a society we should come to an agreement that certain extremism whether it’s left or right is horrible and wrong. And there was a time when that was a generally accepted belief. “I disagree with what you say but defend to the death your right to say it”. etc etc.

When I was a younger person there was a great deal more belief in the idea that repressing speech or repressing people or groups or any sort of authoritarian Behavior be it on the right or the left was unacceptable and would like to see that pervasively agreed on by both sides of the spectrum again.

The Hallmark of a free and successful society is its ability to be tolerant of multiple and often conflicting ideology and still find a way to work together on those things we agree on.

You’re replacing to be “I can’t think of a logical counter argument therefore I’m going to create an argument he didn’t make and fight against that”.

Can you point to anywhere that I said people have a right to deny a group of people public existence"? No? I never said that? Well how interesting 😂

And I wonder if you would extend that same line of thinking to Nazis or cultures that believed in slavery.

What I said was that it is common for people’s rights to conflict. This is the so-called can’t shout fire in a theater concept, although that specific example is a bad one and has been disproven.

In other words Someone’s right to free speech does not eradicate someone else’s right to safety. So when that happens we have to look at solutions that create the least amount of offense to people’s rights.

You seem to be struggling with this concept. You seem to be claiming that One group’s rights are absolute and any other rights must be ignored or else people have been denied the right to exist or something.

Sorry buddy but you’re the one who’s spouting nonsense that doesn’t exist in the real world.

Of course I’ve had personal experience of it, but to base my statement on one person’s soul experience would probably not be very valuable. However on a larger scale we can certainly see it in action as well. And you can follow the progression as people become less and less tolerant in the light of more and more radical demands.

One person’s experience is always interesting but the broader picture certainly is what is important

It is a problem with the left and arguably society in general that we are slower to acknowledge the dangers and horrors of left wing extremism then we are with right wing. Some estimates put Stallings killings at around 20 million. Left Wing radicalism has killed more people the right-wing radicalism

I don’t even know if it’s about forming a center, I think we should try and be promoting the idea that there is no difference between right-wing or left-wing radicalism and that all radicalism should be regarded in the same light.

It’s my opinion that the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow. You can argue that it’s not a fact, but I wouldn’t be betting any money against it 😉 Does that make me arrogant?

Truth is rarely absolute. If you think that it’s not true or if you think that additional contacts or information is necessary then by all means present your case.

There’s always two sides. Nothing is ever black and white. Acceptance does not mean Every element of the demand must be addressed unquestioningly. Nor does questioning elements of their demands represent a lack of acceptance to their existence.

I absolutely would say the shit about the civil rights movement. In fact I do. For example people demanding reparations for black americans to make up for slavery that happened generations ago is not something I believe in. That doesn’t mean I am claiming slaves didn’t exist or that black people don’t have issues today or that there shouldn’t be actions that address those issues.

Waving around the term human rights issue doesn’t change anything. It is common for human rights to conflict. When one person’s rights butt up against somebody else’s rights Then generally speaking a conversation is had to look at solutions that minimize the impact of both people. It is absolutely not the case and it is extremely repressive to simply pretend that one group’s rights don’t exist in order to favor another group’s rights and that’s just simple logic.

So pretending that nobody else has a valid opinion and should shut up is the kind of thing that has led to this blowback where people are saying “If it’s a question of one set of rights or the other and there’s no compromise then I would rather it be my rights that exist and not theirs”. That is not a good way to proceed.

This probably won’t be popular but it is true nonetheless.

What has happened is that people, on the both the right and the left, bring up legitimate concerns with regards to gender diversity issues. They’re concerned that we might be going overboard with preferential hiring, they have concerns about men and women’s showers and the like, and while there are often answers and discussions to be had around these issues even if you don’t agree with them they are legitimate

But instead of treating them like legitimate issues and engaging with people that have these concerns unfortunately the transgender advocate community and many on the left have lashed out and basically called anybody who has questions about any of this transphobic scum who need to be locked up and should be disposed of and silence and any other nasty names they can think of.

This tends to polarize these positions and people start feeling attacked and they tend to move into the anti-transgender camp. A child is banned from a school just for saying he believes there’s two genders 100 parents out there start thinking the things have gone too far and if they see a chance they’ll oppose this

Then you wind up with two sides. And there’s never any discussion between two sides, it’s just us versus them and them versus us.

And once that takes hold it’s really hard to beat. Unfortunately transgender rights issues got handled very poorly in the last six or seven years and now there’s growing opposition that’s not being driven by rational concerns but rather tribalism

The problem is that these groups prey on people who get scared because they see muslim protests where people are calling for the destruction of canada and the like and the gov’t really does nothing. These groups pitch the idea that “the gov’t is selling you out to these people and you’re next whitey”.

Right now there is a very strong feeling of division, where people perceive that the Muslims are out to get people or the Jews are out to get people or the left is out to get people etc etc and the government really allows this kind of thing to happen to an excessive amount. We saw a couple hundred churches burnt over the last few years in Canada and the government basically remains silent. They’ve done nothing substantial to fight anti-Semitism, and they’ve done little to rain in the true extremists amongst the generally peaceful Muslim Community.

I fear this gets worse before it gets better