GoFundMe seizes funds of Canadian trucker convoy

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1493704292317999106

Fox News - So Stupid It Hurts.

[T'Chenka]

Gonna copy-paste my post from the Canada thread in International Discussion:

Cenk and John on the The Young Turks made a great point today talking about this stuff. Regardless of if a protest is left wing or right wing or libertarian or whatever it is, the point of the protest is to get national attention and get everybody focused on the injustice and then hopefully that can change minds which can lead to pressure for political action. The example given was MLK's walk to Selma and the police riding on horses and sending dogs to attack them. The problem is, sometimes you successfully protest and successfully get everybody paying attention and talking about the injustice, and it turns out, 50% (or more / a lot more ) of the country just doesn't agree with what you're fighting for and isn't interested in changing anything the protestors want changed. Which is what's happened in Canada after maybe 1.5 weeks, maybe 2 weeks.

So then you have to ask... how long is it appropriate for the occupation to continue? You made your point, everybody had their had your chance at change, so when should they go home? Most reasonable people would say "keep going forever" isn't appropriate, but it's hard to say exactly how long is too long. A lot of Canadians think it's been too long in this specific case. Cenk said he's interested in having an open good-faith dialogue with right wingers about how long they would say is appropriate for some protest to go on, but then points out that it's very hard to have good-faith discussions with Republicans about these kinds of things. Which is generally true.

[Santander]

Gonna copy-paste my post from the Canada thread in International Discussion:

Cenk and John on the The Young Turks made a great point today talking about this stuff. Regardless of if a protest is left wing or right wing or libertarian or whatever it is, the point of the protest is to get national attention and get everybody focused on the injustice and then hopefully that can change minds which can lead to pressure for political action. The example given was MLK's walk to Selma and the police riding on horses and sending dogs to attack them. The problem is, sometimes you successfully protest and successfully get everybody paying attention and talking about the injustice, and it turns out, 50% (or more / a lot more ) of the country just doesn't agree with what you're fighting for and isn't interested in changing anything the protestors want changed. Which is what's happened in Canada after maybe 1.5 weeks, maybe 2 weeks.

So then you have to ask... how long is it appropriate for the occupation to continue? You made your point, everybody had their had your chance at change, so when should they go home? Most reasonable people would say "keep going forever" isn't appropriate, but it's hard to say exactly how long is too long. A lot of Canadians think it's been too long in this specific case. Cenk said he's interested in having an open good-faith dialogue with right wingers about how long they would say is appropriate for some protest to go on, but then points out that it's very hard to have good-faith discussions with Republicans about these kinds of things. Which is generally true.

Imagine unironically watching Cenk Uygur in 2022.

[T'Chenka]

Gonna copy-paste my post from the Canada thread in International Discussion:

Cenk and John on the The Young Turks made a great point today talking about this stuff. Regardless of if a protest is left wing or right wing or libertarian or whatever it is, the point of the protest is to get national attention and get everybody focused on the injustice and then hopefully that can change minds which can lead to pressure for political action. The example given was MLK's walk to Selma and the police riding on horses and sending dogs to attack them. The problem is, sometimes you successfully protest and successfully get everybody paying attention and talking about the injustice, and it turns out, 50% (or more / a lot more ) of the country just doesn't agree with what you're fighting for and isn't interested in changing anything the protestors want changed. Which is what's happened in Canada after maybe 1.5 weeks, maybe 2 weeks.

So then you have to ask... how long is it appropriate for the occupation to continue? You made your point, everybody had their had your chance at change, so when should they go home? Most reasonable people would say "keep going forever" isn't appropriate, but it's hard to say exactly how long is too long. A lot of Canadians think it's been too long in this specific case. Cenk said he's interested in having an open good-faith dialogue with right wingers about how long they would say is appropriate for some protest to go on, but then points out that it's very hard to have good-faith discussions with Republicans about these kinds of things. Which is generally true.

Imagine unironically watching Cenk Uygur in 2022.

Any constructive criticism of the substance, or...?

[Dr. MB]

This is straight up theft regardless of your opinions on the truck convoy.

[Yoda]

This is straight up theft regardless of your opinions on the truck convoy.

Maybe....but the damage they are doing (or did) to the supply chain, forcing some factories to temporarily close (and therefore affecting workers' incomes) could logically be called theft, and on a much bigger scale. At this point those who aren't in prison should be thanking their lucky stars and forgetting about the donations. I've seen some of the pictures of the weaponry that was seized by the Mounties and holy sh**t. This was no peaceful protest.

[GeorgiaModerate]

This is straight up theft regardless of your opinions on the truck convoy.

I think you're way behind on the posts in this thread.  GoFundMe returned all the funds to the donors.

[7,052,770]

Gonna copy-paste my post from the Canada thread in International Discussion:

Cenk and John on the The Young Turks made a great point today talking about this stuff. Regardless of if a protest is left wing or right wing or libertarian or whatever it is, the point of the protest is to get national attention and get everybody focused on the injustice and then hopefully that can change minds which can lead to pressure for political action. The example given was MLK's walk to Selma and the police riding on horses and sending dogs to attack them. The problem is, sometimes you successfully protest and successfully get everybody paying attention and talking about the injustice, and it turns out, 50% (or more / a lot more ) of the country just doesn't agree with what you're fighting for and isn't interested in changing anything the protestors want changed. Which is what's happened in Canada after maybe 1.5 weeks, maybe 2 weeks.

So then you have to ask... how long is it appropriate for the occupation to continue? You made your point, everybody had their had your chance at change, so when should they go home? Most reasonable people would say "keep going forever" isn't appropriate, but it's hard to say exactly how long is too long. A lot of Canadians think it's been too long in this specific case. Cenk said he's interested in having an open good-faith dialogue with right wingers about how long they would say is appropriate for some protest to go on, but then points out that it's very hard to have good-faith discussions with Republicans about these kinds of things. Which is generally true.

Imagine unironically watching Cenk Uygur in 2022.

He's actually a lot better now than he's been in the past.

[dead0man]

courts say govt was wrong to shut down the protest

A federal judge earlier on Tuesday said the Liberal government's use of the Emergencies Act to clear the "Freedom Convoy" demonstrations that paralyzed the national capital in 2022 was unreasonable and violated Charter rights.

"I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires," Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley wrote in the Tuesday decision, using the Latin for acting "beyond one's powers."

good news, hopefully future Canadian govts won't be so heavy handed

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I wonder what residents of Ottawa who couldn't sleep well because the truckers' practically ceaseless honking and occupation would feel about this court's lack of regard for their public peace.

[dead0man]

I wonder what residents of Ottawa who couldn't sleep well because the truckers' practically ceaseless honking and occupation would feel about this court's lack of regard for their public peace.

so you think loud, ceaseless protests should be banned?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I wonder what residents of Ottawa who couldn't sleep well because the truckers' practically ceaseless honking and occupation would feel about this court's lack of regard for their public peace.

so you think loud, ceaseless protests should be banned?

Well the exact answer depends on circumstances and time and place. But the truckers had been harassing the locals, abused the right to protest, and disturbed the public peace.
JT was generally restrained in fact. He could have acted sooner yet he showed sterling patience. Unfortunately they didn't take the hint and misbehaved. Seizing money was probably rather unjustified. But the Emergency Act exists for a reason. And the truckers had long overstayed their welcome.

There's no such thing as an unrestrained right to protest. Not for environmentalists, and not for truckers either.

[T'Chenka]

I wonder what residents of Ottawa who couldn't sleep well because the truckers' practically ceaseless honking and occupation would feel about this court's lack of regard for their public peace.

so you think loud, ceaseless protests should be banned?

It wasn't just a protest, it was an occupation that went on and on and on and there was other lawlessness going on as well in the city as a result. Residents of the city had to deal with rude aggressive people, loud people in the middle of the night, hordes of anti-maskers and mall employees lost their ability to make income temporarily.  As I said way back when several posts up in this thread, the entire nation got to see what these people had to say and what their grievances were, and ultimately the majority of people didn't agree with them or think the changes being advocated for should be made. Then, the occupiers / protestors continued to occupy and continued to protest, and for some time, they were not planning to stop their occupation any time soon.

That isn't a tenable situation long-term for the city of Ottawa, the province of Ontario or the federal government. Something, at some point, needed to be done. I think most reasonable people would agree with that. If you want to discuss what specifically was appropriate or inappropriate to do, or criticize how Trudeau went about doing it, I think that's perfectly reasonable. I do not however think it is reasonable to advocate (retroactively) for an endless occupation of Ottawa by far right wing extremists who the majority of Canadians disagreed with, and to say that nothing should have been done about it.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

This thread reads very differently in the wake of the pro-Hamas faction using the same tactics.

[Person Man]

This thread reads very differently in the wake of the pro-Hamas faction using the same tactics.

It’s obvious that both the new New Left and the new New Right are not really compatible with the a way of life and social contract that the rest of us would want or could even survive.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

There is also an interesting juxtaposition with the kind of mainstream right wing media on this. I don't look for the kind of mainstream right wing media, but I get them in my MSN due to having a Windows computer.

The National Post at least (I don't know about the Globe and Mail which actually has a much larger circulation and is the actual mainstream conservative media) has cheered this ruling as an advance for 'individual rights.'

Only a week or so before this ruling though, The Supreme Court in British Columbia (which actually isn't the highest court in British Columbia, the B.C Court of Appeal is) struck down a new B.C law that had banned illicit drug users from consuming in public (the law hadn't actually come into effect before it was struck down.)

There were howls of outrage from the National Post and other right wing gasbags (although I agree with them on this) of 'what about the rights of the average person?'

Apparently, to these right wing gasbags, only the terrorist occupiers had rights in Ottawa during that Canadian embarrassment, but when it comes to these other situations, the court needs to balance rights between the individual and the community.