Zephyr
6hr ago
If I say that just like children, the senile, and the insane, the common masses don't know what's good for them, and that they need wiser heads ruling over them, what then?
Then I'll say who watches the watchers? Who keeps them from abusing their "wisdom" to benefit themselves, at the cost of those who cannot defend themselves? During COVID, our health minister issued shutdown orders that closed off many of the competitors to her winery, but mysteriously left her own business open. She was renowned as an expert, despite literally penning a pandemic preparedness plan that specifically recommended against lockdowns and masks (in fact, she testified as an expert witness on behalf of nurses previously who did not want to wear masks on shift).
The demand for "experts" far exceeds the supply.
Zephyr
12hr ago
Insurance companies, in general, tend to make more money when they don't have to pay out. They often make the worst day of your life even harder by looking for any excuse to not pay you. I got rear-ended at a stoplight a while ago; I took a picture of the car that hit me, including their license plate, as they sped away. When submitting the claim, I included the license plate number, the photo, and described the person driving the car as a "man between ages 20 - 50 with dark hair". My claim was denied because the license plate I reported belonged to a 70s model car (the car in the photo was obviously older) registered to a man in his 30s. Because it was a government monopoly (thanks, ICBC), I couldn't do anything about it, and had to pay the repair costs out of pocket. This was obviously infuriating, and the start of my character arc towards hating any and all governments.
With something like healthcare in the US, where the costs range from "all the money you'd make in a month" all the way up to "all the money you'd make in a lifetime", dealing with individuals who are determined to nickle and dime you over things your physician said you'd need in order to not be dead is something that boils the blood; like, it's more surprising to me that someone didn't do something sooner. I've also heard that Brian Thompson/UnitedHealthcare was particularly stingy; that may or may not be true, but it's probably a bit of a factor.
So from my perspective, it's not that every Indian is bad - but a lot of the bad things come from Indians.
For example, a highly publicized case (warning: CBC, little better than government propaganda) revealed that an Indian student had posted a video claiming that students could use food banks as a source of free food, rather than being for emergencies. Food banks are are very much a "high trust society" sort of thing - knowing that people who are supposed to be able to pay their own way are exploiting them is something that makes us not want to support food banks, and makes our society less high trust.
Indians are also known for being much more willing to cheat the rules, often to the detriment of their host country. For example, Navjeet Singh drove through a stop sign and killed a mother and her young daughter. Investigations suggested that he had falsified his driving record, and refused to see the police afterwards. This is not the only Indian who has killed behind the wheel. Indians are also well known for bringing their racial animus to our country.
We've also had an extremely disproportionate increase in Indians, relative to other nationalities. This means that Indians, specifically, are going to bear the brunt of our ire as immigration causes an increase in difficulties for our country (most notably, housing prices).
On a personal level; I was involved in hiring and firing at a tech company. One of the employees we hired was an Indian woman with (supposedly) over 10 years of experience. Despite numerous requests for her to do things that should be second nature to a programmer (like check in her code, etc.), she was unable to produce something that even compiled after around 4 weeks of work (despite her claiming that most of her experience was in react, and me checking in daily to see if she needed assistance, provide her with sample code, etc.). When I took over the project when we eventually fired her, it ended up being around 6 components and maybe 400 lines of code (counting CSS). The biggest problem with her was her willingness to just lie - she would assure me that things were going well, she'd show me demos that were ChatGPT'd together, but never got closer to being done, etc. The whole thing left a very sour taste in my mouth.
Edit: I do want to mention that I have worked with Indians who range from good to great too; the thing that I (and a lot of others) don't like is that there is definitely a subset (and a large enough one that we've encountered it in the wild) who are willing to lie and cheat to get ahead.
Zephyr
3d ago
So to steelman the case, this is very similar to the Charlie Kirk situation; no one specifically told anyone in particular to assassinate him, but there is definitely an air of "won't someone rid me of this turbulent priest" around.
There are objections to this; like, for example, it matters whether it's a private citizen of no particular standing or following vs a public figure, it matters how specific the call to action is, etc. - but it's at least not completely unreasonable as a rule of thumb.
That being said, I absolutely believe that if a white man had gone on a stabbing spree through a Muslim community, and a Muslim woman had posted something like "Throw all those right-winged white **** in jail, hell, shoot them all in the streets, see if I care", nothing would've happened at all.
Zephyr
6d ago
So in my defense, I actually did move to a nearby city around 30 minutes away; the places that I were looking at in my hometown were either incredibly outside my price range (think like, $700k+ for around the same square footage), or were "purpose built rentals" that had been re-appropriated for the market when BC banned AirBnBs (one of the places I toured was $550k, and consisted of a bedroom that was pretty much exactly big enough for a queen sized bed, a tiny living room/kitchen/entryway, and a single bathroom with only a shower - I think it was around 500 square feet).
My friend has a home further outside the cities - her commute down to the city was around 2 hours a day. Her home is bigger than mine, but to be fair, it's also more expensive (she's also working with two incomes, whereas I only have the one).
Zephyr
6d ago
But it shouldn't be a surprise, it's not about socialism or redistribution. It's about health insurance and their leadership specifically.
I actually don't think it's even about health insurance. One thing I think is fairly consistent is that in general, people (but especially young, unestablished people) tend to believe that the elites are basically taking advantage of their situation. The disagreement tends to come in as to what the solution would be, rather than that it's happening.
Someone like Luigi is considered to be a hero because he is striking back against the corrupt rule of the elites; both left and right tend to correctly note that a lot of our so-called elites are anything but, but are somehow paid ridiculously well and given huge amounts of public respect despite their complete incompetence.
In Canada, our MPs (members of parliament) are paid approximately $200,000 a year as a baseline salary, with ministers in charge of specific roles (like minister of justice, minister of public safety) getting more, and our prime minister making around $400,000 a year. This is in addition to a really really good pension plan (so good, in fact, that it is extremely credible that our last government only survived as long as it did due to its existence; basically, we had a liberal minority, but our "labour" party voted in lockstep with them even for things like forcing unionized workers back into the office because their leader's pension vested in late December; literally the week after it vested Singh agreed to bring down the government the next time an open vote occurred). Of our MPs, we have a large number that are considered to be worse than incompetent (Bill Blair, this charming lady, our PM's former babysitter). I'm not going to go over all the horrible businesses in Canada - but needless to say, we have a lot of those too. Loblaws is fairly famous for how price-gougey it is.
People want a change from the corrupt and shitty elites who seem to destroy value rather than create, but who are constantly failing upwards.
Zephyr
7d ago
To be fair, our former finance minister Christina Freeland refered to Canada’s woes as a “vibesession” too.
Zephyr
7d ago
This probably deserves a bit of explanation.
So an important thing to note is that Canada is a resource-intensive economy that refuses to actually exploit our resources; we're kind of dumb that way.
Way back (around 20+ years ago), Canada created a program called the "Temporary Foreign Workers" program, which was intended for seasonal agricultural workers. The thought was that our farmers could not necessarily make enough profit to bother growing their own fruit if they had to deal with pesky things like living wages and human rights, so Canada created a program that was designed for temporary people to show up, do some work, get paid better than they would be back in whatever country they hailed from, but way worse than a Canadian would be in the same position.
Our prime minister twice ago, Harper, decided to expand this program - basically, he upped the number of entries by a fairly large portion (I think it went from about 30000 a year to 60000, but these numbers are off the top of my head). We also started really getting into what would eventually become woke around this point, which culminated in electing a Trudeau in 2015.
A very important thing to note is that Trudeau, for us, is kind of like a Bush or a Kennedy for you Americans - he has a trust fund that is around 0.1% of the size of our entire GDP. The first Trudeau, Pierre, was a very controversial Prime Minister, as he spent like a drunken sailor and invoked the War Measures act after some Quebecois separatists abducted and murdered a MP.
Not wanting to be outdone by his father, Justin Trudeau immediately began spending money at an absolutely unprecedented rate; the amount of debt generated by every other Prime Minister, put together, is less than the amount of debt he generated over his term. He also appointed a large amount of judges who have been pushing a rather expansive view of human rights; namely, that everyone but Canadians are entitled to them. Combined, we ended up in a situation where Trudeau absolutely nuked our economy.
Rather than let the country fall into a recession, Trudeau came up with the bright idea of simply importing enough new voters potential generators of corporate value that the number would still go up. Roughly 20% of the population of the country arrived within the last 5 years. The judges, meanwhile, decided that if the imported workers were non-Canadian, obviously they deserved a full pathway to citizenship - and that even if a person came in as a student then declared himself a refugee when the student visa expired, he still needed to be given a lengthy chance to protest the issue.
Now, one problem with going from a country of 37.5 million to 43 million over such a short timeframe is that houses can physically not be built that fast; the immigrants we pulled in tend to be happier living 10 to a bedroom (not even exaggerating - look up Brampton some time), so a lot of old stock Canadians realized that they could make bank by leveraging their existing property into buying more, then renting it out for exorbitant prices. As a result, our housing costs went up by around 100% over the course of a decade, then did the same again over the next decade. When I graduated university, my friend bought a condo for $300k. That condo is now worth around $750k.
Zephyr
7d ago
My father bought a property at CAD $200k in 2000 (approximately $375k today at 2.5% annualized inflation) when he was my age. The property today is worth $2500k today, in actual numbers. It was a 5 bed 2 bath with an unfinished basement, and a backyard - so a very good place to raise a family of 5.
I bought a condo in a cheaper city this year for $500k. It is a 2 bed 2 bath with about 800sq feet of space, and I only got it because recent Airbnb regulations made it need to be sold in a hurry. It has no yard, and is in a much worse neighborhood than my father purchased.
The median private sector wage in Canada in 2000 was approximately $45k a year (approximately $83k a year today at 2.5% annualized inflation). The median private sector wage in Canada in 2025 is approximately $69k a year.
It's not a vibe-session. That's just what the government and economists claim so we don't mount their heads on pikes as a warning to others.
Zephyr
8d ago
Schrödinger's whites are the exception that proves the rule.
A different way of looking at this is that a lot of people don't want any disruptive people around that are making their lives worse, but can only positively identify those of another race as being let into the country against their wishes.
For example, around 30 minutes ago I had some person who was definitely on something harassing me as I grabbed breakfast. I do not want to deal with an addict alternating between begging me for money and telling me how she actually owns a large company anywhere near me when I'm hungover and just want to grab some food before my head explodes; however, she had a Canadian accent and was white, so for my purposes, she gets lumped into "disruptive homeless", and I quietly vote for whatever party tells me they'll lock them all up.
If she'd had an Indian accent and darker skin, it'd have been obvious she'd have been one of the 5 million or so TFW/students/whatever imported by Trudeau - so she'd have been lumped into "disruptive immigrant", and I'd quietly vote for whatever party tells me they'll kick them all out. This also applies to if the person had a German accent, or a British one, or whatever; I just don't want them harassing me in the street.
Zephyr
11d ago
taking my money (via taxes) and then acting like they're the generous ones for letting people like me live in the country (without a shred of self awareness) etc. etc.
This may be the single most ironic sentence I've ever seen. Nearly every single member of this forum pays taxes, whether they are a native or foreign member of their country. You paying taxes is not a favour - it's table stakes.
Zephyr
11d ago
I mean, the number of pardons that I would consider to be "the right number" within a presidency is 0. The point of the presidential pardon is to deal with cases in which there is no other recourse; the whole reason it is in the system at all is that even if all other parts of government are attempting to screw you over, you still have the option to plead to one democratically elected man, and convince him you deserve freedom.
The system you want is one where it is used as a run-around for the justice system; I claim that if it is so corrupt that you need the pardon to balance it out, it needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt.
Zephyr
12d ago
FWIW, I shared a room with my younger brother and sister until I was 12, and just my brother until I was 14. I honestly haven't thought about that since probably shortly after that - it's just not a big deal.
Zephyr
12d ago
I'd rather that they considered each case carefully that came to them, and only pardoned people who they believe deserve it, instead of those recommended by their staff. If the number of people pardoned gets to be so high that they can't remember them, then that's a sign that something is super broken with the way people are being convicted. The presidential pardon is supposed to be a tool of last resort.
Zephyr
13d ago
The 15th Amendment forbids disenfranchising people on account of race (and the 19th on account of sex)
And the 2nd claims that the people's right to bear arms may not be infringed, and the 1st states that Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech. Seems to me that the Amendments are simply words on an old sheet of paper if someone doesn't want to respect them.
Zephyr
13d ago
Couldn't those also be faked? Like, if you're willing to illegally usurp the president's power to pardon someone, I feel like faking meeting minutes is small potatoes.
Zephyr
13d ago
Thank you for your response; if I understand it correctly, it basically is:
- If he goes after pardons, the courts will
likelyalmost certainly strike it down; if they don't, super bad. - If he goes after legislation, it depends basically on whether he does it as a "this legislation is invalid" vs "we just don't care about enforcing this" - if its the former, super bad, if its the latter, there's precedent.
There's been a pretty wide array of counterexamples. I'm a big fan of The Saga Of Defense Distributed, because it culminated in the courts specifically accepting the argument that a previous court-recognized settlement wasn't worth the toilet paper it was written on, but see for example Bank Pause Letters for a space where I don't have a lot of sympathy for the victims, or this mess for just a wide variety of examples.
Thank you for the examples; I was thinking too narrowly (I was thinking specifically of the presidential pardon power), but I agree that Defense Distributed is basically the same.
Zephyr
13d ago
Maybe you don’t understand the issue here.
You are correct, I don't understand the issue here - thank you for the explanation. I was thinking here like Jill Biden, but I see now that wouldn't be terribly convincing.
Zephyr
13d ago
I think Nyb is talking about cases where it could be clearly demonstrated that the President was not involved in the approval process. Later saying he would have approved it anyways wouldn't cure that.
Thank you, that clears things up - I didn't realize there were any such cases.
Zephyr
13d ago
I think that's a tad too culture warry - I don't disagree that they'll retaliate, but I think it's a bad idea to lock into "yes my opponents are literally demons who eat babies and choose the maximum evil possible." I don't think Biden was the most awful president possible for the right - nor do I think he did the most possible harm to the right of any possible president. There is a lot of room to pick someone who is way more harmful and destructive - just look up here at Canada where our population increased by around 15% in 10 years almost exclusively from immigrants, and our housing costs literally doubled.
Zephyr
13d ago
And no, having Biden stating they were done on his order now doesn't cure the issue; he would have had to have said so during his term.
Sorry, can you explain more about this? I thought that the issue at hand was that we didn't know whether Biden had approved the autopen usage, whether his staff had used it and he had later approved it, or whether his staff had used it without his knowledge? I would've thought that he could say now "Oh yeah, I had definitely approved that" and then it counts as approved (as we can't really tell the difference between him approving before or after).
The rest of what you said makes sense to me - so even though he claims the executive orders are invalid, it doesn't actually matter because in all likelihood he can just cancel them anyways using his current presidential authority.
Zephyr
13d ago
So this feels like a bit of an escalation to me. My attempt at an analysis, from someone who is not American:
- There has been some - let's say "controversy" - over how aware Biden was, especially in the last few months of his presidency. Especially in the last few days, Biden issued a large number of pardons, including to his son. These pardons were often wide reaching, and not super specific (I believe at least one of them was for "any crimes committed" during the period of 2014-2024, but I'm going off of memory here). There is some evidence that the Autopen may have been used by his staff without his direct involvement, but no conclusive evidence on any specific pardon.
- Trump is definitely pushing the boundary a bit; from what I recall, the presidential pardon was originally intended to be the "justice of last resort" - as in, if all else failed, you could go to the president to plead your case, and he could pardon you to keep you free. Trump is trying to stay within the letter of the law by claiming that the president had nothing to do with a number of proclamations issued by his office, so they aren't actually "presidential" pardons.
- In theory, Biden, or an authorized spokesperson for him, could outright state that all pardons/executive orders were done on his behest; this would immediately stop the specific gambit that Trump is trying to pull. I think Trump is banking on Biden either being in too much cognitive decline, or being extremely bitter about the democratic party abandoning him, to do this in most of the cases (for example, I think if Trump went after Hunter Biden, then Biden would act; I'm not certain if he'd just claim he signed for Hunter (thereby implicated all the other pardons) or if he'd do a universal "yes, I did these all," so I don't know if it would be a good idea to push on this point).
Overall, I feel like this is kind of a misplay from Trump - I think that it guarantees that the next Democrat administration will do the same to his executive orders and pardons. I worry that this will lead to each administration basically cancelling everything that the previous one did, which I worry will lead to more power being entrenched in the permanent bureaucracy (as the administration's actions will all be seen to be impermanent, so the bureaucracy will just ignore orders they don't like). Some will argue that is the current state of affairs, and I don't necessarily disagree; the worry is that it would prevent another Trump-like figure from actually making changes.
I also think that this is one of those actions that does lend a bit of credence to the accusations that Trump is acting like a fascist. To be absolutely clear: I think there is no actual informational value in almost all accusations against Trump of any sort; I think that almost everyone who accuses him of anything has started from the position of "Trump bad" and used that to justify any and all accusations against him. That being said - this feels like the sort of action that will kick off another escalation cycle. One thing that I've noticed about a lot of US political escalations is that they often start with an action that is fully legal, but against form; the other party then does something that is mostly-legal, which the first party then uses to claim that the first party has completely abandoned the rule of law. I am right-wing biased (I lean libertarian, but that's a "more libertarian than we are now", as opposed to an "absolute libertarian") - but even with that, I can't think of an equivalent on the left to this.
So, for the American commentators - should I be concerned about this? Is this just Trump saying shit, is there a left wing equivalent I missed, is there some form of precedent that excuses it? Did I miss something major in my interpretation of it? Is this just not a big deal at all?
Zephyr
15d ago
The loser of a knife fight bleeds out in the parking lot; the winner bleeds out in the ambulance.
Climate change is another one, perhaps elite consensus is right and its happening, and its man made, very few elites seem bothered by the question
Very few elites also seem to be, you know, changing their ways in any way that indicates that they believe in it. Wasn't the recent US Government shutdown ended by making it so that private airplanes couldn't land at a specific airport? I'm going to suggest that anyone using a private airplane does not particularly give a shit about the environment in any way that is non-performative.
"They took er jobs" and "They are eating the dogs" are not factual assertions, they are distillations of vibes.
"They took er jobs" is obviously true. The jobs they didn't take are those of the elites, so it's a simple disagreement about who's jobs they are taking.
Now, not to don too much of a leftist hat here, but this is what they mean when they claim that there is no war except for class war - the interests of a business are not the interests of a politician are not the interests of a white-collar worker are not the interests of someone in the trades. Our "elites" are not focusing on the slogans, and hence misunderstanding - they're living in a completely different reality.
You'd be surprised - and it is as good if not better than the fantasy of it.
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