Anyone who says otherwise is booted.

100% yes-men there

I don’t doubt for one second that he believes this.

I am not saying that Israel and the IDF have not used human shields. They absolutely do and you’re 100% correct to condemn this. And I join you in this condemnation.

What am also saying is that people should stop lying in order to defend Hamas. Because you can condemn the govt of Israel without doing that. And the condemnation is more compelling when it’s not accompanied with lies of convenience.

Your comment here being a good example of how that’s done properly. Everything you said is true and it paints a damning picture that is impossible to argue against.

Agreed, it’s a lone voice in independent journalism. Which is why the CPC wants to crush it.

Speaking of obvious falsehoods, I’m going to ask you to provide a single verifiable report of Hamas using human shields from anyone not directly tied to the Israeli state.

The part of your question that I bolder here shows that you’re well aware that as I stated, Hamas uses human shields frequently. You just think that’s it’s justifiable, and you’re free to do that.

But don’t say it doesn’t happen. It happens every day.

The only people using human shields are the IDF

This is unquestionably false.

You can make an extremely compelling argument about the horrors that the govt of Israel and the IDF are doing without resorting to obvious falsehoods made in defence of Hamas.

I’m not saying we need to adopt some “all sides bad” enlightened centrism bullshit. If you want to focus only on the atrocities of the govt of Israel because that’s your passion: go for it. Call them out for what they are.

But please don’t defend Hamas or pretend they aren’t also committing atrocities. They do use human shields, constantly. And the atrocities done by Hamas do not take away from the absolute horrors of what the government of Israel is actively committing.

When these falsehoods emerge, it makes the argument against Israel appear delusional and undercuts your implied objective. And it’s not necessary! There is so much widespread harm that we can point to, we don’t need spread falsehoods for that.

For sure! We all live in these same bubbles to various extents.

I believe that the 51st state threats were a wake up call to many Canadians to the reality of what’s going on. That we couldn’t just coast in our bubbles and hope everything would be okay.

This is what happens when people live in bubbles.

The maple maga don’t interact with any Liberals because their toxicity has pushed them away. They don’t get news or media from any sources that don’t tell them what they want to hear.

In the bubble they have created, they don’t hear many voices opposing their worldview and the few that do get through are shut down cold.

Time will tell if PP will stoke those flames after the election like his American president and hero did.

There is sufficient evidence to decisively conclude that no, it won’t work. It will result it severe crowding of jails based on inconsequential crimes. Period.

We need a story to handle repeat offenders. They aren’t wrong to say that the current approach isn’t working great. But they are massively wrong about the solution, and are again showing the dangers of having an incompetent populist run a major party.

This is bad policy.

You’re correct that approval voting still has some mechanisms of strategic voting.

The point I was trying to make there is that the objective of “strategic voting” is to accomplish a least-objectionable outcome. And approval voting enables the same objective in a simple and straightforward way.

However you’re correct that it’s absolutely not the only way to accomplish this. And it’s not even the best way to accomplish this objective; as you suggest STV handles this aspect better.

I don’t believe you can assign that quote to me. Because you’re correct, MMR retains this.

My point wasn’t that PR sucks or is worse in every way, but that it’s one reason I prefer approval voting over systems which don’t have that. I prefer MMR and STV with local representation over implementations of PR that didn’t.

It’s hard to get nuance across in text sometimes. The point I was trying to make is that Approval voting fits my preferences best, but I’d happily support most any system that delivers a replacement to FPTP. Because getting A solution is more important than getting *my favourite solution *

There was a nascent calexit movement when I lived there but it had the stink of a Russian psyops campaign. This stifled a lot of interest in the issue of any existed in the first place.

I agree with your analysis 100%

Even if the absence of a strong “buy Canadian” mindset I think people would reward an alternative to the retail landscape of today.

People over-focus on Costco’s pricing and under-focus on how they provide a good customer experience. They don’t play the retail games of boosting prices and then cutting them for a “sale”. They promote generic otc medication instead of only pushing expensive brands. They have good quality products, not cheap crap that looks good but doesn’t or doesn’t last.

So yeah it could be a great outlet for quality Canadian products but I also still want quality imports from our allies in Europe and Mexico and Asia and beyond. HBC could be that, if I had a billion dollars that’s what I would do.

I’m pretty sure there are a LOT of voices for American states to disentangle themselves from the USA

When I lived in the US (left in 2018), there was zero appetite amongst politically active people to change this. If these feelings do exist now I’d expect them to be in their infancy.

Would love to have someone show me counter-indications though.

This was a really fun interview, and a neat insight into Carney as a person.

The pauses will not stop the rest of the world from moving away from reliance on the US. Not just in Canada but Europe and Asia and Mexico and others too.

This instability and recklessness and irrationality is terrible for businesses. And noting you can say can change the fact that US voters selected these asshats twice. America cannot be relied up, they are fucking cooked.

The rest of the world will work together, without them.

I think there’s a lot of room in the market right now to leverage the HBC name and locations to implement a Costco-like retail experience but with a Canadian focus.

Best of luck to this endeavour

I’ll elaborate a bit on why I like approval voting.

First of all it’s simple, and easy to understand how it works and how the votes are tabulated.

Second, it still preserves the idea of having local representatives. Much like the FPTP system we have now this would force participation in all areas.

Third, it could mean a reduction in negative politics. Because each voter is not zero sum, there is less of a priority of shutting an opposing candidate down. I’m sure it wouldn’t mean the end of negative politics but I believe it would be lessened.

Fourth, it causes the voters to think about each candidate. Not just a team sport where my team is orange and your team is red, but each voter representing the individual mosaic that are their own preferences.

Lastly, I believe this would push the outcomes to the least-objectionable candidates. Going with “least objectionable” is the prevailing strategy of “strategic voting”, and it avoids a scenario such as in the current Nanaimo federal election where the CPC is poised to win despite being the most opposed.

Edit:

Also to reiterate my main point… fuck all those words I just said — if we need to get PR or STV or whatever else I’m on board.

The time has come to just implement this. I don’t prefer PR and instead desire an approval voting system, but folks like me have to be ok not getting what we want.

The outline that this article presents is correct. Citizens assembly, no referendum, just do it. Eby just needs to either not balk and implement it regardless of how it affects his party, or ignore it and push through an alternative system instead. No Trudeau-like dithering, no bizarrely complicated referendums with obscene thresholds. The next BC election should be some new system.

2024 should provide the clarity that this needs to happen now. Too many of the right showed a lack of attention or concern to the barbaric candidates the bc conservatives put up, and just voted because it was the other team. It needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.

Hilbert later went on to accuse the NDP of unhelpful “virtue signalling.”

As opposed to her lack-of-virtue signalling?

These maga turds need to be called out for being worse at spouting drivel to signal their base, than the very people they criticize.