This is a great way to prove the point of the concept. As a moderate, I could choose to say, "No, fuck you. You're indoctrinating kids to think they have a severe mental illness and that the only cure is hormone therapy and reconstructive surgery! I won't be civil with you!"
You don't compromise with people you agree with. You compromise with people you disagree with. The minute you think compromise is out the door, that's when we might as well duke this out in the streets, because that is the only option you are leaving your opponents. I'd prefer compromise.
It's easy to believe you have nothing in common with your political rivals. Especially when all you see reported are the opinions of the worst of the worst. Fortunate, we have a lot more in common than not. All it takes is for both sides to sit down and start talking in good faith. That's how Daryl Davis, a black man, deradicalized over 200 KKK members. If you think you have less in common with the average conservative than a black man with the KKK, you're mistaken.
Stop focusing on the news and soundbites from politicians who are trying to rile up their base. Stop focusing on what angry people say online when they are anonymous. Sit down, in person, with someone who holds beliefs you disagree with, and have a genuine conversation. Don't listen to them waiting to disagree, listen to them with the goal of understanding why they believe what they believe, and humanizing them. That's how you live together in a country full of people with different opinions and beliefs. That's how you get concessions and get people to understand you in return. You talk with them, not at them.
Maybe I'm just a piece of shit, but I'm really tired of seeing so much money being spent outside of Canada, and to try to put women to work regardless of their individual preferences. I think women should be able to work, don't get me wrong. But my wife wants to be a stay at home mom. She can't afford to be. A big contributor to this reality is that the doubling of the labor force has been an enormous factor in stagnating wages. We went from mothers being able to raise their kids, and families being able to be financially stable on a single income, to the state subsidizing daycare so someone else can raise your kid while you provide labor.
Another issue I have here is the concern about tuberculosis rates. This is a huge can of worms, but the reserve system doesn't work. I understand why it exists. I think the goals are understandable. But you can't choose to live separately from Canadian society and then complain that we don't provide you with good enough homes and healthcare. We all trade cultural cohesion to be a part of Canadian society. In return, we get better access to important resources and technology.
If you want Canadian healthcare and good housing, assimilate, get a job, live in a reasonably sized population center, and you'll have those things. You don't have to live in Toronto or Vancouver, but you do need to participate in the system that creates that value in the first place. You can't just stay on your reserve, spending all your money on alcohol and drugs, and expect necessities to be provided to you based on white guilt. And yes, this is what life is like on a lot of reserves. They live in horrendous conditions. That's why TB is so prevalent.
I am empathetic to the fact that these people are born into a world that is not stacked to help them succeed. I don't think we help them by trying to enable the existence of reserves. One of my close colleagues came from one of these reserves, and she always says the best decision she ever made was to come to a city, get educated, and start a career. The rest of her family are back on the reserve, and they're all alcoholics. Whereas she lives in a small town, has a house and car, and still gets to celebrate her culture with other indigenous people who live here.
We provide the most benefit to the most people by consolidating resources, not by reinforcing the fantasy that we can live in tiny communities on the fringe of society and still get all the benefits of modern society. Live together, or suffer alone.
I'm always amazed at how rarely the "go to uni and get a good job" angle is brought up in relation to our failing foundational industries in the west. We've been incentivizing people to focus on "escaping" the working class, rather than trying to find ways to make those jobs more appealing.
I work in healthcare. Treating student practitioners badly is the norm in a ton of places in this field. 60 hour work weeks are normalized, and wanting a good work-life balance gets you ostracized.
The worst part is that I had to compete to get into this job that treats me badly. My program only takes the top 20 applicants out of hundreds per year. The schooling is brutal, with midterm or final exams 2-3 times a week. This is possible because you are blowing through courses consecutively rather than in a semesterized system. Once you get to practical placement, you are treated like the workplace bitch, and you're expected to do 2-3x the work of a paid worker for free. Actually, you're paying tuition to be there, so it's even worse.
Don't get me wrong, some of the brutality is necessary. The rapid pace of learning makes it hard to forget anything. It's a great way to pack knowledge into the brain. But I would never recommend my program to anyone. It was a horrible experience overall. My job is pretty great minus the ridiculous hours, so I'm glad I went. But if I could go back and tell my younger self to do something else, I would.
Your reaction is why I think left and right as political descriptors are extremely lacking. The above opinions are shared by many right wingers. The right to bear arms has largely been fought for by right wingers who have been called conspiracy theorists for thinking that the government may need to be overthrown some day.
Everyone should be ready and able to overthrow their leaders. The fear of the citizenry is one of the most powerful motivators to keep politicians from devolving into the corrupt sycophants we have now. They need to learn to be afraid of us again.
Did you actually do your research on that "deworming drug"? It's been used to treat a hell of a lot more than parasites. That is just its most common use.
This has always been funny to me as someone who actually works in healthcare and regularly reads scientific studies. Of all the things you could choose to hate Trump over, the example you give is one that plenty of people in the scientific community considered to be a treatment avenue worth researching.
Damn, the media propaganda machine is effective. Trump could run into a burning building to save a litter of puppies and they'd still find a way to make everyone hate the guy. It's impressive.
They probably would have just called you names instead of openly engaging with your ideas. That's the norm in my experience. I sometimes wonder why I bother posting at all.
Then again, I do get some traction, and some representation of ideas outside the common narratives is better than none. But it does seem like if you aren't in lockstep with the popular narratives, you get a cascade of downvotes just for entertaining unpopular ideas.
People don't want you to think for yourself. They just want you to parrot their beliefs back to them and give them affirmation.
Who isn't fascist/racist in the eyes of the left? You can be a moderate libertarian with a couple of populist beliefs and they'll throw those labels at you.
Shit, if all conservatives had that nice an ass I wouldn't mind listening to their opinions.
We should be afraid of China. China is a superpower that doesn't believe in our way of life. That doesn't mean we should be afraid of Chinese Canadians, but we should still be wary. China is absolutely invested in swaying our political environment to their favor, and they're willing to promote their interests by using migrants.
It's an unfortunate reality that Chinese Canadians who are just going about their lives will see some collateral damage from our reactions to China's meddling. We need to minimize this collateral as much as possible, but we are under genuine threat.
One thing we need to keep in mind is that Caucasian politicians can be bought just as easily, if not more so, as installing Chinese assets in our institutions.
@PortableHotpocket
@lemmy.ca