sailingbythelee @ sailingbythelee @lemmy.world

Posts

9

Comments

684

Joined

2 yr. ago

I'm not sure I understand you. Who is this "we" that can already afford to provide healthcare for the planet?

If you mean all the taxpayers in the world can afford to pay for all the health care of all the people in the world to a high standard, that just isn't true. Canada is a highly developed country with lots of resources to devote to modern health care, but much of the world is not like that. The need for health care FAR outstrips the supply. Even in Canada.

Second, we in Canada don't have any control over the health care policies of the rest of the world. If you are just musing about how the whole world should come together and prioritize medicine instead of bombs, well, sure, I guess most everyone would agree with that. But that's like wishing for world peace. It's not a realistic health care policy for Canada. As I said, and which you pointedly did not respond to, we can't freely open our health care system to the victims of America's dysfunctional health care system, not to mention the rest of the world. Sure, it would be great if Canada could heal the world, but we can't. It isn't about "fairness", it is about our ability to maintain a functioning system in a world we don't control.

Thirdly, the argument that ending military spending would significantly improve health care is a nice idea, but it is a red herring. Canada, and most Western nations, spend less than 2% of GDP on military. Ending military spending would help a little bit, but it wouldn't "solve" the problem of funding health care.

While I understand the sentiment, it is unrealistic and naive. Doctors and nurses get paid. Someone has to pay them, and while you may be personally happy to see the system cover the costs for one illegal undocumented immigrant, the supply of money and health care resources is not endless. Indeed, we already have a massive shortage of doctors in large parts of Canada. Obviously, our model of health care doesn't work if we allow non-taxpaying, non-citizens to have free treatment. Imagine, if you will, the millions of Americans that would flood our country if they could get free health care here.

Very true. The cost-of-living crisis is happening around the world. The main issue with Canada is, and always has been, that it is cold. That's why Canada is so under-populated. Of course, this also means that Canada will (probably) become more desirable as it warms and more southerly countries become unliveable due to climate change.

In addition, some immigrants have unrealistic expectations of Canada. A friend of mine originally from Nigeria has family back home that literally asked him to go to a bank machine, take out some money, and send it to them because they thought ATMs just gave out free money in Canada. His wife also doesn't like the fact that Canada is less socially stratified. Being a university graduate in Nigeria makes you a big man (or woman) and you can lord it over poorly-paid tradesmen and other lower classes. Whereas in Canada, there's a good chance that your plumber makes more money than you do!

When you stop empathizing with people, you've taken a step toward dehumanizing them. You aren't under any obligation to empathize, and goodness knows it is tiring. However, it is important to realize that once you stop empathizing, you are more likely to accept extreme solutions in a subconscious attempt to resolve your frustration.

That's true. The current Democratic party is the "establishment" now, and the Repubs have gone far right.

All extremism leads to hate, whether left, right, or center. They just hate different people. It goes without saying that there is plenty of hate on the right. But, historically, the "left" has included The Terror period of the French Revolution, the Cultural Revolution under Mao, the purging of the bourgeoisie during the Bolshevic Revolution, and the vast pogroms and genocidal famine in Ukraine under Stalin. Being on the left of the political spectrum does not immunize a person against hate.

Exactly. And if your ISP or cellular provider wants, or is forced, to gather information about your internet activities, they can almost certainly find a way. The cheap consumer-grade VPN services most of us use just prevent casual or automated observers from easily detecting your device's IP address. For most people that just want to torrent casually or use public wifi, it's enough.

Best response. Almost everyone alive has a net negative impact on the environment. Maybe that one Indian guy who planted a whole forest by himself gets a pass. We can try to be less negatively impactful depending on our inclinations, resources, and other interests and priorities. Some people may choose vegetarianism, some might buy an electric car or install some solar panels, some might organize politically for a new policy. Some might spend their altruism improving social conditions rather than focusing on the environment. But being ever so slightly less of a negative impact on the environment than your neighbour who has a slightly different set of priorities is hardly a reason to feel morally superior.

Yeah, I do understand that we, like the US, also have a Constitution. Do you? Our Constitution includes a Charter of Rights and Freedoms which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. You should look it up sometime. Here's a starting point from the Canadian Encyclopedia:

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/constitution

Edit: I should also say that protections against unreasonable search and seizure long predate the Canadian and US Constitutions and are derived from our countries' common lineage back to England. If you are ever confused about why Canada and US have many similar rights and freedoms, it is because both Canada and the US were British colonies before achieving independence.

Um, yeah, Canada has a Constitution and the Charter is a part of it:

The Constitution Act, 1982 gave Canada complete independence from Britain. Months of negotiations between the federal and provincial governments were held to determine how to “patriate” the country’s last British-held powers from Britain. The resulting Constitution Act, 1982 made several changes to Canada’s constitutional structure. The most important were the creation of an amending formula (the criteria that would have to be met to make future changes) and the addition of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/constitution

So, yeah, I am Canadian and laws in Canada can be unconstitutional. If you are curious about it our constitution, try finding basic information about it before condescending to teach someone else about it.

If there is no reason to suspect a crime, then this seems like unreasonable search and seizure, which is unconstitutional. It's like randomly searching people's homes to see if anything illegal is going on. Actually worse, it's like searching EVERYONE'S home.

Gluetun is the bomb. You don't realize how much automated tracking of the torrent-verse is out there until your VPN connection drops unexpectedly and your torrent client continues merrily downloading in the clear. Gluetun is a fantastic killswitch and has never failed me. All hail the developer.

It partly depends on whether you want to understand pre-9/11 "reasonable" conservatism or the more recent Tea Party and Trump conservative populism.

Ayn Rand expresses the fairy tale version of romantic, rugged individualism, which is pretty important to understanding modern right-wing politics, especially in North America. I think the main idea conservatives take from her work, directly or indirectly, is that progress is driven by individual work and achievement, and that any kind of forced wealth re-distribution (through social programs, for example) is effectively theft, and therefore immoral.

The modern populist right-wing movement was originally driven and disseminated by right-wing talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. So, listening to right-wing talk radio or podcasts is also a good window into the modern movement. It puts on full display the resentment felt by modern right-wingers.

If you would rather not experience right-wing media directly, but would rather read rational analysis about it, then one good choice is David Frumm. He is an old school Reagan/Bush conservative, and has lived through the transition of the Repubs to populism. He is very critical of Trumpism, like most people, but he comes from the perspective of a reasonable and well-informed conservative insider.

Fareed Zakaria has a new book called Age of Revolutions, which views modern conservative populism as a very significant political re-alignment with similarities to various revolutions of the past, both successful and unsuccessful. Fareed talks about the conditions that lead to populism. In that sense, he treats Trump's popularity as a symptom and outcome of specific underlying societal problems.

Don't go bothering Korean Jesus. He's busy with Korean shit.

I see this in my day job, too. When I'm in a charitable mood, I chalk it up to pandemic trauma. But more realistically, I think it is a real change in our society's ability and willingness to compromise and see the world through the eyes of others. People want what they want and they don't give a fuck who they have to roll over to get what they want. They treat getting what they want as a matter of principle.

The duck-duckling model would probably work okay on the highway, but not so well once you arrive in a town or city. You can't reliably get ten semis through a set of lights in traffic without getting split up. I guess they could have a depot outside of town where human drivers would meet the ducklings for the final leg of the journey.

The hard core peaceful hippies did become homeless, so they learned how to farm and live communally and sustainably. Some moved to Canada.

I know a guy who got one of those Russian "mail order" brides. They had a kid together and then she divorced him as soon as she became a citizen, leaving the kid with him. She married some other guy eventually and still sees the kid, but she doesn't pay child support. My friend comes from a traditional Asian culture and is significantly older than her. The sad thing is that he was shocked when she left, since they got along fine. I don't think it was a scam exactly. More of a transactional relationship and she no doubt felt that she held up her end of the bargain for a reasonable enough amount of time (about 5 years, if I recall) and gave my friend a child on top of the marriage.

The right to free speech is a limited right, not an absolute right to say anything anywhere. There are many limits on speech in every country.