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TheEncogitationer wrote:
That’s a peculiar use of the word “investment.”

It isn’t.

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Autumn, They explicitly said they want their pet collective projects government-subsidized.

Public investment is a fairly ordinary practice, even in predominately capitalistic societies. The desire for specific public programs or policies doesn’t mean that the authors seek to abolish individualism nor that they blame it…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Uh, yeah, I’m literate. Are you?

I am, which is why I know much of your OP doesn’t line up with the actual article.

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Basically, these two assholes blame all of our problems, from the economic mess to crumbling cities to Culture War on Individualism and they basically want all of us taking a knee to the Collective in the name of “The Common Good Over The Individual Good.”

Are you sure you are literate?

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Autumn,

Nav Canada is a statutory corporation. I am pretty sure it doesn’t have competition. Also, of the fifteen directors on its board, three are elected by the federal government and two by unions. I don’t know that it’s a shining example of your ideal here.

I’m sure they only maintain their service contract with ai…

[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
And airlines experience delays because Air Traffic Control is Government-run, union-dominated, non-competitive, and unwilling to change technology.

By contrast, Canada and 60 other nations have fully or partially privately-ran Air Traffic Control systems with electronic flght strips and fully-IC microchip technology,…

[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
You are correct however that intellectual risk takers have advanced us, but riding around without a seatbelt or a helmet only advances the availability of organs for donation if the family allows.

The relationship between helmet and seatbelt laws to risk is also the inverse of the train scenario Enco proposed. Negative outcomes…[Read more]

[.]

I actually started a post largely agreeing with his position on the right to assume personal risk or harm. I don’t share his awkward (and seemingly self-contradicting) absolutism, but it so rare he and I agree on anything, I thought I’d say something. When I got to the bit about slavery I just sort of checked out. It’s on the level of absurdity of…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
It was about a draconian program to require vaccination. Zheesh, next thing you know, government mandated use of seatbelts will be considered “draconian”.

The major difference being seatbelt use actually is mandated for truckers while vaccines aren’t.

Davis wrote:
Rich, it would seem that when a government reacts to a long, highly disruptive protest at the gates of the democratic institutions, which in part was explicitly under the mission of “getting rid of a democratic government”…

That certainly was one of the oddities of the whole affair. It wasn’t clear what, exactly they wanted fro…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
You guys are missing the point. What was the protest about? It was about a draconian program to require vaccination.

In its infancy, it was about border policy. At the time, Canada and the US had similar policies regarding vaccination and quarantine requirements. For truckers crossing the border, this would make their job…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
@autumn You missed the part about blacklisting companies?

I didn’t miss it. It’s largely unintelligible. The federal government, at the time, wanted to cut off funds to the illegal blockade. This meant businesses and individuals who were funnelling money into the convoy had their assets temporarily frozen. The feds pressured banks,…[Read more]

The Canadian government didn’t seize bank accounts: it temporarily froze them (seizing, in this context, would mean that the government or government agencies took possession of the funds). This is after streets in front of Parliament had been blockaded for a full month. Money was being promised to the protestors so they could remain indefinitely.…[Read more]

That’s probably too big of a conversation. I don’t know when that audio clip was recorded, but it’s likely been in the neighbourhood of a couple of decades since. A lot has happened since then—enough to let us know that language does matter for quite a few reasons (though that doesn’t contradict Carlin here). While ‘PC’ changes aren’t always i…[Read more]