[HN Gopher] Great thread on what's problematic with Canada's ant...
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Great thread on what's problematic with Canada's anti-protest
actions
Author : deyan
Score : 13 points
Date : 2022-02-18 20:19 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| ulrashida wrote:
| Given the author's command /41 to "always invert, invert, invert"
| does that, absent a financial emergency power, mean we should
| normalize allowing foreign money to bankroll people with semis to
| blockade cities under the flag of protest? That feels like
| something most citizens of a country would be against.
|
| Without the massive inflows of cash this protest would have been
| just as demonstrative, but not as crippling or injurious to the
| public.
| evilpotatoes wrote:
| The majority of donations are from Canadians.
| gruez wrote:
| >does that, absent a financial emergency power, mean we should
| normalize allowing foreign money to bankroll people with semis
| to blockade cities under the flag of protest?
|
| If you're against that, the reasonable reaction would be to
| block foreign transfers and/or freeze the portion of funds that
| came from foreign sources, not ban them from the financial
| system entirely. Imagine the government shutting down an
| opposition candidate's campaign entirely, because it received a
| little too much money from foreign donors.
| malermeister wrote:
| The core point made here is wrong.
|
| > 6/ Freedom of speech might require such activities like:
|
| > A website
|
| > A pamphlet
|
| > An advertisement
|
| > Paying a graphic designer
|
| > Travelling to a different location
|
| All of those _amplify_ your speech, but they 're not
| prerequisites for speech. You can speak without any of them - I'm
| doing it right now!
|
| Same for all the other various things mentioned in this thread.
| None of the things are requirements for the rights. You can
| worship and pray without a physical building, you can assemble
| without buying hot dogs etc etc.
|
| > All of which "cost money".
|
| This is the world that crypto folks _want_ , but it's not the
| reality (at least yet). You can do plenty of things without
| money, including exercising said rights. The problem is that they
| can't conceive that because their worldview is centered around
| trying to monetize everything and every interaction -
| interactions that don't involve money aren't valid to them.
| bhelkey wrote:
| > All of those amplify your speech, but they're not
| prerequisites for speech. You can speak without any of them -
| I'm doing it right now!
|
| What did you use to post this comment?
| exolymph wrote:
| Uh, no, your speech would be moot without the people who pay
| for the website allowing you to use it. You don't contribute
| financially because you are the product (an audience of
| engineers for YC companies to influence and recruit). Make no
| mistake, though, money is a crucial element of your ability to
| broadcast your thoughts here.
| salawat wrote:
| Change freedom of speech to "freedom to realistically effect
| change", and you'll ultimately end up at the point everyone is
| dancing around, but no one is willing to say out loud.
|
| Freedom of Speech everyone is all about. Freedom to be Heard is
| what everyone is in a tizzy about.
|
| You can't buy a printing press without... Money. You can't buy
| a computer without... Money You can't get an internet
| connection without... Money.
|
| You can't just pass this off as cryptobros being cryptobros.
|
| Canada is basically saying, no one shall be serviced whose
| capital is getting allocated to "this".
|
| And that is dangerous, especially when done unilaterally by the
| executive government. Call me an overly stiff contrarian if you
| want, but a spade is a spade, whether you want to call it
| something else. That people are busy playing these semantic
| games _should_ be reason for pause.
| malermeister wrote:
| What you're suggesting comes down to rich people having
| disproportionally more say.
|
| Taking money out of the equation democratizes speech and
| makes sure everyone has a say, not just the Peter Thiels that
| can buy printing presses.
| jevoten wrote:
| But taking money out of the equation for only some, and not
| others, takes us even further from democratization of
| speech.
| 8note wrote:
| Properly, the government needs to fund the publication of
| speech by every citizen, so anyone can spend as much as
| Peter Thiel can
| engineer_22 wrote:
| What good is "freedom of speech" if you can only talk to
| yourself?
| Teever wrote:
| Freedom is speech isn't the freedom to make people listen.
| tdhoot wrote:
| Great. You have the freedom to speak, as long as it's only
| in your head or into a corner where no one can ever hear
| you.
|
| Freedom of speech doesn't mean the freedom to make people
| listen, but the government can't make that choice for
| people.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| "make people listen"
|
| Like, coercion? As in, physically restrain someone so they
| must engage with my ideas?
| Teever wrote:
| No, we're talking about a situation in Ottawa where
| people are blaring their truck horns for hours at a time
| with a complete lack of regard for how the citizens of
| that city feel about it.
| malermeister wrote:
| You clearly listened to me. I didn't spend any money on that.
| Case in point.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| I'm afraid I don't understand your argument.
|
| Maybe it would be clearer if you told me what "freedom of
| speech" means to you .
| colburnmh wrote:
| You have the right to talk all you want. You don't have
| the right to force anyone to listen to you, nor to
| prevent others from pursuing their daily lives. Nor does
| freedom of speech imply that your speech is free from
| repercussions. The government (federal, state, or local)
| cannot prevent you from saying most things, or
| retaliating against you. But most everyone else can
| within the bounds of legality.
|
| Freedom of speech means you can stand on the corner and
| yell about the "undisputed benefits of cryptocurrencies".
| It also means me and a group of my friends can surround
| you and sing "Baby Shark" repeatedly at the top of our
| lungs, drowning out your message.
| malermeister wrote:
| Freedom of speech means freedom to speak. We're speaking
| freely right now, aren't we? And I didn't have to create
| a website or an ad or pay a graphic designer or any of
| the many things claimed in that Twitter thread.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Maybe you don't pay to use the internet, but I do.
|
| If the government froze my bank account so I couldn't pay
| my phone bill, I wouldn't be free to speak to you right
| now.
| lupire wrote:
| The meat starts at tweet #35!
|
| 35/ Canada has asked every single financial system provider from
| banks to credit card companies to investment firms to
| crowdfunding platforms to crypto companies to insurance companies
| to:
|
| - freeze the accounts - of anyone directly or "indirectly"
| supporting the protests
|
| 36/ Given the powers of the Emergency Act, there is no due
| process on these actions and no civil liability for this
| freezing.
| karmakaze wrote:
| anything that takes that long to make an argument seems to not
| have a specific point other than costing money and some hints at
| decentrLizied freedoms?
| gruez wrote:
| >anything that takes that long to make an argument seems to not
| have a specific point
|
| Is this what twitter has turned discourse into? If you haven't
| made your within one or two tweets your whole work is dismissed
| as "not have a specific point".
|
| Anyways the "point" of this article is that the government is
| punishing their enemies by locking them out of the financial
| system. This is bad because of how much we rely on the
| financial system for every day life, and that the action is
| being done without the usual due process (ie. right to a
| trial). You might be in favor of this action because the
| targets happen to be your enemies, but this could easily be
| flipped next time around.
| 8note wrote:
| I'm not clear that twitter is the right tool for the job.
| Perhaps writing a book or essay is proper.
|
| All the same, you should be able to fit your thesis and list
| your key arguments in a couple of sentences.
| gruez wrote:
| >All the same, you should be able to fit your thesis and
| list your key arguments in a couple of sentences.
|
| Well luckily OP posted a "tl;dr" at the end. I agree it'll
| be better if it was at the front, but posting tl;drs at the
| end seems to be pretty common for whatever reason.
| colburnmh wrote:
| Freedom also means the ability to live without having to suffer
| overbearing impacts from others. The blockade of Ottawa and the
| US/Canada border crossings are causing enormous economic impacts
| on both countries while in the midst of a global pandemic, rising
| inflation due to supply chain issues. Estimates of the financial
| impact of this "protest" are not definitive, but are likely in
| the billions of dollars and are affecting everyone in both
| countries.
|
| You have the right to protest and make your opinion heard. But at
| the point that you are actively preventing ~25% of the
| international trade between two countries while further
| increasing both inflation and supply chain issues, your "protest"
| looks more like economic terrorism. Especially when only a small
| minority of people actually care--let alone support--your
| position.
|
| To tie this back to the original thread: The author states "There
| are no other constitutional rights in substance without freedom
| to transact". But this protest is impacting other people's
| ability to transact. Therefore, by the same logic the author
| presents, this "protest" is impacting the freedoms of millions
| just because a couple of hundred people don't want to get
| vaccinated or get tested regularly.
|
| The requirement that people crossing the border be vaccinated or
| have taken quick and painless test to prove that they are not
| carrying a virus that has claimed more than 5M lives in the past
| two year is NOT tyranny: it's an minor inconvenience.
| gruez wrote:
| >Freedom also means the ability to live without having to
| suffer overbearing impacts from others.
|
| From TFA:
|
| >I don't actually have a view on the substance of the trucker
| protests and if Canada's COVID policies are good, bad or
| neutral.
|
| >I would further guess that the truckers are probably violating
| a variety of Canadian laws relating to how they can protest.
|
| >What would be a normal constitutional democracy political
| response to a problem like this is either:
|
| >a) let it play out if you think it is in good faith
|
| >or
|
| >b) encourage the local authorities to arrest them and try them
| in a court if you think it is not
|
| >Either is fine.
|
| >The right to assembly in Canada probably does not allow you to
| block the highway for days for everyone else.
|
| >I assume Canada still has police and courts so they could
| presumably arrest the highway blockers & take them to court
|
| In other words, he's not advocating that the protests should go
| on unimpeded (contrary to what you think). He's against the
| government punishing the protesters extra-judicially.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1494444624630403083.html
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(page generated 2022-02-18 23:02 UTC)