> lawfully acquired guns are routinelly used in crimes.
They are literally almost never used in crime. So “routinely” is false. In fact, I would guess that 99.9% of lawfully acquired guns in America are only ever used in lawful ways.
> Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy
Democracy is not being dismantled. If you’re an American citizen, you still have the right to vote however you want. You can still say what you want and publish what you want. You can protest if you are doing so in legal ways.
If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy. Now you can actually share ideas freely and not get your content or account banned. And the elimination of wasteful spending of taxpayer money on political nonprofits is also helping democracy by not having the government bias politics through this loophole.
Plus the worry now is executive actively harming companies and opposition. Retaliating against companies, against law enforcement, breaking laws while doing both, attacking press and stomping on people's rights. Not some kind of flimsy complaint your account was banned after you harassed several people.
It absolutely depends on the type of crime. Domestic murders most often happen with 'legal' guns north and south of the border.
Other crimes, specifically 'aggravated' crimes that involve a weapon however lean the other way where guns are mostly 'illegal' in some way (stolen, smuggled, person doesn't have the right to have due to criminal record or otherwise depending on state/country).
Both domestic and aggravated crimes happen enough that you can justify the use of 'routinely' in both cases. Its ALSO completely true that most legally acquired guns are only ever used legally.
>Democracy is not being dismantled.
- Legal visa holders being deported for criticizing the government
- Foreign nationals invited to conferences in the US denied at the border for criticizing the government
- Government officials stating they will go against legal/judicial orders
- Executive over-reach specifically to remove checks and balances and ensure what remains of government agencies and its staff are loyal to the person, not the president or the country.
- Violating multiple laws, overstepping the bounds of the executive office specifically designed to protect democracy and assuming powers of the legislative and judicial branches
- Attacking Judges for implementing the law/doing their jobs as part of the above
- Professionally and personally threatening members of the legislative branch, state governors and others if they oppose the acts of the President.
Democracy and what democratic protections you have is absolutely being dismantled right in front of you.
>If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy.
I just logged back into facebook after a few years haitus. The majority of what was on there was provably false / fake. Its worse than it ever has been. This is SUCH a benefit to democracy (hint, its not).
While I will agree there has been overreach on censorship, the pendulum swing the other way on top of the enshittification of the internet and the introduction of AI means the average citizen is now less informed and more propagandized than ever. Add in the failings of the US education system and the abysmal literacy rate...
An educated and informed population is bedrock of democracy, checks and balances are its framework. The US foundation has crumbled and its buildings are on fire.
For me LLMs have basically removed any need to visit search engines. I was already not using Google due to how bad its interface had become, but I feel like LLMs at least are more efficient as an interface even if they’re still looking at the same blogspam or unresolved forum posts. My anecdotal experience though, is that I get better answers from LLMs, perhaps because I am able to give them really detailed prompts that seem to improve the answers based how specific I get. Generic search engines don’t seem to do that, in my experience.
> The US is the only country that has ever invaded us.
Who is “us”? Surely we need to acknowledge that Europeans invaded Canada in the first place? The “us” that can make claims about having been invaded likely is just the indigenous people of that land. Of course, this applies to America as well. I do wonder what causes all of us to view a certain set of borders as the “correct” one. I also do the same thing.
> Yes, we're taking it seriously. It wasn't some one-off tweet.
As for whether Trump’s language about 51st state or whatever is a troll: I think it’s partially that. It’s really more about calling attention to the future of Canada and whether it makes more sense for it to be a part of the US than linger on its own. I don’t think it literally means annexing it through force but more like asking whether it’s mutually good for Canada to also be among the “United States” - just as you could ask that question of whether it should be in the EU.
Trump’s aggressive way of stating this has succeeded in one sense, which is drawing attention to the idea. It has backfired in another sense, which is that it is highly disrespectful and maybe has turned Canadians off that possibility entirely. Or worse, it may permanently push Canada into the arms of China or the EU. So I do agree that it is partially a troll but still destructive.
> Surely we need to acknowledge that Europeans invaded Canada in the first place?
No. Europeans (and others) "invaded" North America. The sovereign country called "Canada" didn't exist until the mid-1800s. Even the name didn't appear on maps until the mid-1500s and the indigenous peoples who lived in North America at the time certainly didn't consider themselves a part of a unified nation by that name.
> I do wonder what causes all of us to view a certain set of borders as the “correct” one.
Yeah. It's all such a mess, and if anything the European colonists (French and British) in what became Canada -- while murderous and genocidal to the first nations -- were strategically "softer" on them than their American counterparts who were openly officially genocidal.
e.g. When the treaty of Ghent was signed ending the War of 1812, the chief (and really only) "victory" for the Americans was the fact that the British gave up defending/supporting the indigenous people in the midwest who had (under Tecumseh and with the support of the British to some degree) fought off American settlers. And so the Americans were free to go in and massacre and wipe out the remaining pockets of indigenous resistance in the Americas.
& Iroquois/Mohawk under Brant fled north to Canada, where the British granted them land along the Grand River valley here in Ontario.
I actually share general skepticism about the US-Canada border and the structure of the Canadian state generally. But I also have deep skepticism of the US project generally.
I think northeastern US states have more in common with us than their own southern states. I think the Canadian political class -- both conservative and liberal -- are really parasitical awful people overall, and our own business community are oligopoly-trending douches with a penchant for using regulatory capture to screw their own citizens. I think Quebec could as easily be its own nation, in a north american federation and that the structure of much of the Canadian state is arbitrary.
But I think you've touched on something, which is that Trump has poisoned all discourse. I like many others have turned rabidly nationalist in the last few months.
In any case there's a reason why Canada exists. It's not some accident of history or just some retrograde unenlightened loyalists who liked the monarchy. Many of our ancestors saw aspects of dysfunction and injustice in the way the US was taking shape, and chose Canada as an (imperfect) alternative. And that there is an "alternate path" for governance in North America is in fact I think the precise thing that actually enrages people like Trump.
As for the "who is us?" and the invasion comment, my point is only that there is actually a long-running "meme" inside American politics since the very foundation of the US that objects to the existence of Canada at all, and included the assimilation of Canada in a large Manifest Destiny project. It's usually been a fringe position, but it has at times become amplified. E.g. under McKinley there was similar talk as what Trump is mouthing now, and of course during 1812, etc. It's "out there", but it's consistently present.
And that's the reason Canadians take this annexation talk seriously.
I see it as something similar to some of the motives driving Putin with Ukraine. All the rhetoric about "NATO at our doorstep" is just a smokescreen for what the real fear is -- he cannot countenance an alternative Russian/Ukrainian speaking polity, culturally-partially-contiguous with Russia to exist on his doorstep if it is a liberal democracy, outside of his sphere of (corrupt) control, and not subject to his kleptocracy. Because it would be an internal threat. The cost of grinding Ukraine into the ground is worth it to him if it means maintaining strict control at home.
What Trump is doing is like a kid's colouring book version of the same thing. It's crude jingoism to shore up his own base with bullshit about Canada and whatever, to build legitimacy based on jingoistic nationalism, and to try to undermine and destroy a liberal / centrist gov't on his doorstep. And, consistent with his "drill baby drill" mantra, it's also an attempt to stop climate change initiatives, to free US capital in Alberta from Canadian regulation, and to maintain/extend American control over our resource sector.
There are lots of Canadians who have felt under attack from within their own country. The ruling regimes of Canada have over time implemented certain policies and ideological values that are a deviation from what was in place before. Not everyone shares those new values, and they feel like the real principles and political culture of Canada has been broken. They’re rather have change, and they see that in America’s rejection of progressive politics. What I’m saying is, to them, it’s not an invasion but a return to normal from a different kind of invasion. I don’t know if it is fringe or not - just explaining the perspective.
Culturally "left" wing and especially socially liberal policies are incredibly popular in Canada, enough so that there's enough of a block of an electorate that holds those opinions that two whole political parties can exist along the continuum and still one manages to hold majority power.
And our Conservatives have suffered electorally drastically when they've strayed too far into culture wars and socially conservative territory. If they're sick of being out of power, they should properly learn that lesson.
TLDR the "new values" you speak about are actually incredibly mainstream and not any kind of imposition from some radical regime.
Likewise with environmental issues. The Albertan oil industry is very vocal, and very powerful, but still the majority has strong concern about climate change enough that the plurality of voters are very much in favour of regulation of that sector -- even in Alberta -- much to the chagrin of the ruling political "regime" there.
> Culturally "left" wing and especially socially liberal policies are incredibly popular in Canada
I can see that being true for certain policies and topics. But what about at a more basic level? What do you think of Canada’s shift towards restricting or punishing speech on controversial topics, and giving agencies that regulatory power? Or the tactic of using the financial system to punish protesters? Or significantly reducing firearm rights? To me these seem like not just everyday policy changes but a rethink of basic Canadian law, and it does seem radical relative to what Canada was like not too long ago. I can see why many Canadians who support a more freedom oriented Canada would want to reject the new Canadian regimes or support being part of America, because it would give them back rights or culture or whatever they thought they had.
PS: it sounds like you live in Canada but are more progressive in your politics. I would be curious to have your opinion from that perspective but also hear what you think the strongest argument for the other side might be.
Frankly it feels to me like you and I aren't going to have many reference points in common. We're unlikely to share ideological / philosophical presuppositions and I gave up arguing with right-libertarians years ago. Ok but here comes my rant.
FWIW, I'm not in my mind a "progressive", I don't believe in progress. I'm not a "liberal" of any kind. I'm a socialist. And so I don't speak for liberals or what they might do.
And so re: guns I'm personally not in favour of firearms regulation the way the liberals have gone about it. I also grew up and live rural. So my perspective, again, isn't urban-liberal-gun-control.
Also the left-wing social democratic party here, the NDP, historically always had a much more moderate gun control policy than the Liberals, and I've supported that. Though this has shifted in the last decade.
But I also see the gun debate in the US as preposterous. Frankly the 2nd amendment as interpreted by the right in the US looks like idiocy to me and likely has its origins in the need/desire to suppress slave revolts, and reflects the US's explicitly slave-holding racist history.
In any case, you also sound like you're repeating things as facts you've found in right-libertarian forums. You're declaring things as trends or policies or tendencies which are at best situational related to things that happened during COVID. Or you have a thing about the way people talk about trans stuff, I dunno. And you're presenting this stuff from a certain rights-fundamentalist POV which I wouldn't agree with.
For one, I haven't seen any shift in Canada on "punishing speech" on "controversial" topics. I am aware that people like Jordan Peterson have spread misinformation on this topic, claiming persecution when there usually isn't any. It's also not worth my time to get down into the weeds with people like that to try to disprove every single of their claims.
But western democracies outside of the US have tended to interpret the concept of freedom of speech in a different manner than the US, and I think it's naive to expect a country with a British parliamentarian tradition to frame things like the US has.
"Freedom-oriented" is pretty coded, frankly. I don't recognize libertarians as "freedom oriented" -- I see them as market fundamentalists who will take the hard boot of corporate authority as legitimate while gutting shared governance. And they're also ridiculously naive -- I don't see a hard line between state and private ... they're one in the same authoritarian structure and the capitalist "free" market creates the repressive state to support itself, so imagining one without the other is incoherent and irrational. It's not "freedom oriented" at all.
We live in a commonwealth. In a shared society. And in that society if people park on my street for three weeks hitting their horn day and night, threatening people with assault, blocking ambulances and firetrucks... I want governance to intervene to fix this.
What do you expect to happen?
If people arrive in your capital city trying to overthrow a democratically elected government? That being their stated aim, and they refuse to leave til said government is "gone"... And then you see that they are receiving funding from foreign governments, corporations, and extremist organizations. You're still going to call them protesters? You still think freezing accounts is an unreasonable move? Did you object to the freezing of accounts of ISIS sympathisers and the like during the "war on terror"?
Nevermind that these people, what they experienced, is a fraction of the repression that left wing protesters got after a single evening of protest during the G20 in Toronto years ago. Because in Ottawa, the "convoy" protesters -- led by far right radicals -- had the sympathy of the police.
Look, as someone who comes from the radical left I can tell you now... the US government is far more draconian in suppression of protest and dissent than the Canadian state ever has been. It has a history of repression far more drastic going back since before the cold war.
It's just that so-called "freedom oriented" people aren't used to feeling the blunt edge of that. Because their politics fundamentally conforms to the authoritarian structure of actually-existing capitalism.
I will end this by pointing out that it's a cliche about Canada, for 150 years, that our motto is "Peace, Order, and Good Government" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace%2C_order%2C_and_good_gov...). Which differs starkly from how US has framed rights, historically around e.g. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness", etc. This is just the commonwealth tradition.
There's nothing new about this outlook, which conservatives and liberals in Canada shared for decades. In fact, it has historically been Liberals who chipped away at the stricter and more uptight interpretations of this motto. So, no I don't actually see a degradation in the rights structure of Canadian democracy. Just more of the same.
If the EU applies the regulations as the group mentioned in the article alleges, it would mean no LLM based tools can be legal in the EU. And then the EU will wonder why they’re lacking entrepreneurs or whatever, without connecting the dots. I hope they instead revise the GDPR.
It seems completely reasonable that if an organisation is going to use personal identifying information that they are responsible for correcting it when necessary. It's not good enough to just throw your hands up and claim that you can't alter it.
Maybe LLMs need to be not be fed tons of real life information if they are then going to produce non-correctable lies about real people. Something like an anonymising filter may be needed.
Regardless of whether the content is offensive or not, I find the idea of a government agency policing this to be unacceptable. Violating free speech principles for content that might be objectifying is just weird moral policing.
Some of what Trump cut is problematic - like research relating to climate or certain medical research. But other research like those relating to DEI or gender were ideological and wasteful. Europe may end up attracting a lot of researchers who were performing the more activist research caught up in these political battles. If so, I doubt it’ll make much difference in terms of useful research produced in the US versus Europe.
I do wonder how they’ll fund this though. European countries aren’t exactly wealthy enough (nor is the US) to spend money on enormous new research programs. How will they decide how much funding to redirect away from other government agencies to this? How will they decide which researchers and which areas to fund and which to reject?
Speaking of which, what happened to the United Health / Change Healthcare breach last year? They claimed it affected 100 million people (https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/24/unitedhealth-change-health...) but the number has been revised even higher since then.
But somehow there’s no news coverage, no outrage, and no consequences for this. Half of America had their medical records stolen due to a lack of two factor authentication, and no one is in jail for it.
They are literally almost never used in crime. So “routinely” is false. In fact, I would guess that 99.9% of lawfully acquired guns in America are only ever used in lawful ways.
> Case in point, republicans support president dismantling democracy
Democracy is not being dismantled. If you’re an American citizen, you still have the right to vote however you want. You can still say what you want and publish what you want. You can protest if you are doing so in legal ways.
If anything, the end of massive censorship in social media, like was seen in the last 10-15 years, is helping democracy. Now you can actually share ideas freely and not get your content or account banned. And the elimination of wasteful spending of taxpayer money on political nonprofits is also helping democracy by not having the government bias politics through this loophole.