liberals trying to understand equality: “what do you mean we need to give only to the poor? it’s only equal if we give the same amount to the rich!”

That comes from a fatal and corrupted understanding of what equality is.

Equality represents equal opportunity:

• A young adult who is wealthy has the intergenerational resources to pay for university, pay for their own housing, pay for essentially everything without having to work a single job.
• A young adult who is poor and has no resources should, in order to apply true equality, be provided with said education, housing, food and other resources as deemed necessary to put them into the same level of opportunity as the wealthy one.

See how that equality of opportunity works? It’s not opening up a spot at that university for the poor, but ensuring that they have just as equal of an opportunity to apply, learn, and succeed as the wealthy. And without constantly worrying about things the wealthy - by virtue of their wealth - don’t have to worry about.

And honestly, this equality doesn’t end at application acceptance. It should really go all the way way back to birth, with the disadvantaged family getting UBI, psychological parent’s counselling, parental guidance, healthy school district funding, affordable housing, and a lot more. Because systemic inequality is generations in the making, anything applied to only the current generation is a band-aid approach to a broken leg problem.

But I digress.

you need only ask yourself for what reason men-only groups exclude women and for what reason women-only groups exclude men to understand why protecting and elevating women’s groups and dismantling misogynistic institutions are both valid

Yes, that’s called anti-male gender bigotry, and there is just no other way to spin that.

Why do men want men’s only gyms? Not to oppress women, that’s for sure. Because, to beg the question: WHAT WOMEN?? There are no women at that gym to be oppressed.

There are far more women’s only gyms than men’s only gyms - women should go there. That’s what those gyms are there for - to allow women a place to exercise without men.

And conversely, men want to go to a men’s only gym to get away from the distraction of women.

Seriously - stand in front of a men’s only gym, and interview the men going there. A significant number will cite a variation of this as their primary reason for switching.

They want the camaraderie of men in a place without distractions. They don’t want the gym thots doing thirst traps on Instagram. They don’t want to be interrupted in the middle of a set by some woman fondling their buttocks (I’ve actually seen this happen, with zero repercussion only because it was a guy who was the “victim”). They don’t want to deal with unjustified accusations of harassment and other assumed slights. They just want to work out in peace.

And if they cannot work out in peace, why should women?

As in, why call it “equality”, when it is most clearly nothing of the sort?

I think the entire equity debate is confusing many of the inputs for outputs - which they are not. They are inputs, and are therefore equality-based, not equity based.

Take, for example, the old meme:

This meme is actually entirely wrong.

In the above meme, the left panel is an example of inequality. because the opportunity provided - the ability to see the game - is unequally provided across the three spectators. There is no equality of opportunity here, no equal ability to see the game due to the differing heights of the viewers despite the addition of boxes for all three.

It is the right panel which is the ideal example of equality - the ability to see the game. Here all three spectators have anny individual deficiencies that they cannot control and cannot overcome without outside help - their heights - made irrelevant by the equalizing effect of the boxes. All three heads are brought to equal and sufficient height for them to achieve equal opportunities to view the game.

Equity doesn’t even factor in here, because the enjoyment of the game is impossible to force across all spectators. To force equal outcomes - equal enjoyment of the game - would be monstrously inhuman and downright evil.

The issue isn’t safe spaces. I mean, in the context you used, you are entirely correct - society in general is largely a safe space for white men.

The issue here is actually men’s-only spaces. And it is in that context that the anti-male bigotry comes boiling out of the societal woodwork under the weaponized mantra of “misogyny”.

As in, women can have all the women’s-only spaces they want or need, because to force them open to both genders is “misogyny”. And honestly, I am willing to let them have that olive branch.

However, they then turn around and demand that all men’s-only spaces be opened up to women, because to keep them men’s-only is also, somehow, “misogyny”.

Sorry, but that’s not how that works. That isn’t how any of that works.

The single most effective tool for determining if bigotry exists is to change the terms in contention, and see if things read identically to before, or oppositely to before.

If the two examples read wildly differently from each other, then congrats - you found a bigoted pattern.

So when you hear about men’s only gyms being cracked open for women to attend, consider how wildly different it would read if it was a women’s only gym being forced to admit men. That sure reads wildly differently, doesn’t it? That’s because there is deep bigotry in having the former being forced through while the latter is being defended against.

And honestly… if true equality in treating everyone with the exact same rules is “misogynistic”, why call it equality in the first place? Just call it for what it truly is: anti-male gender bigotry.

Downvoted you for this stunning example of cultivated ignorance:

I think their claim is nonsense, grossly exaggerated at best.

One only needs to look at the scouts of America to see this in play.

Boy Scouts were sued to open their ranks to girls. That suit won, forcing them to open their org to girls.

Girl Scouts were then sued for the flip example - to open their ranks to boys. The suit was almost immediately thrown out for “misogyny”.

After that “victory”, the then-head of the Girl Scouts admitted in private and off the record that she would rather destroy the org in its entirety - essentially razing it to the ground and permanently locking up the name “Girl Scouts” from being used by anyone else - before admitting a single boy.

Now, because they have both boys and girls, the Boy Scouts have tried to drop “boy” from the name, to be called only “Scouts”. This precipitated another lawsuit from the Girl Scouts in that dropping that part of the name will only accelerate their own membership decline.

You literally cannot make this sh*t up.

Men’s-only spaces across the country, like private gyms, are being attacked from all sides on the claim that their very existence is “misogynistic”, and yet service-identical women’s-only spaces in the same city are immune from those same “rules” under the claim that any attempt to apply those same rules to them is also “misogynistic”.

One of the best ways to uncover bigotry is to flip the term in contention and see if it reads any different after that from before. If it does, you’ve found a bigoted pattern in play.

True equality reads identically regardless of how the term in contention is flipped.

Edit:

I have zero issue with women’s only spaces. They are needed. But FFS you cannot eat your cake, and have it, too.

Real equality can only be achieved by applying the same rules equally. If women are to be allowed to have their own women’s-only spaces, men must also be allowed to have their own men’s-only spaces.

Hence the term, equality. Because if things aren’t equal, why even use that word? You might as well call it for what it truly is - anti-male gender bigotry.

Learn how to snipe at distance. We cannot beat them with force, but we can bleed them dry from a million separate cuts.

The only good fascist is a dead fascist.

Elby: a politician with the balls to call a spade a spade.

It’s why I voted for him.

I like RustDesk. If you’re worried about connectivity, you can even run your own relay server.

Then volume is the tactic we need to work with.

Keep in mind that if we were to cancel the entire order of 88 F-35 aircraft, and use that money on Gripens, we would be able to purchase about 420 of them from Europe. That is before any cost savings of building them domestically, this is full sticker price.

Then also consider that quality of tools has never won a war: quantity has.

WWII - on both fronts - has demonstrated this superbly. Sure the Tiger was an exceptional tank, and was virtually unbeatable by a Sherman. The Germans knew how to build a quality machine that was years ahead of anything that America could put out. In fact, it took about 8 Sherman tanks - operating in concert - to take out a German Tiger; distracting it until a shot could be taken against one of its vanishingly rare vulnerable spots at exceedingly close range. And the number of combat-ready Shermans by the end of that skirmish was usually 1 or 0.

But when America had manufacturing capacity to pump out Shermans by the tens of thousands, it didn’t take very long before 10, 20, or even more Shermans started trundling over the ridgeline for every Tiger the Germans fielded.

At that point, despite the clear technological superiority of the Tiger, it was simply overwhelmed.

Almost every modern combat has had numbers win. Not quality, numbers. Especially among tech-similar forces. And the Gripen is the closest available aircraft to the F-35 in tech; certainly closer than the Sherman and Tiger were.

I know what he’s talking about: not against American pilots, but as make-believe American pilots.

Which is a good idea, but not perfect: American pilots will have noticeably different behaviours and tactics, and even personality types that are (generally) not found up here. While training against other Canadians in an F-35 is great, it’s not as good as training against Americans in an F-35.

But that’s the trick - how do we get America, using F-35 aircraft, to help us to train up our Gripen pilots?

And when our original order of 88 or so F-35 planes could, if completely cancelled and on a per-dollar basis, buy 420 Gripens straight from Europe, how do we get America to unknowingly train up so many Gripen pilots?

A phyrric victory is one where the costs have exceeded the benefits that have accrued through victory.

Make no mistake, we would never be able to win in a modern conflict against America. Even if we dropped the entire original order of 80 F-35 aircraft, and used that money to buy 420 Gripen straight from Europe (ignoring domestic production and the lack of skilled fighter pilots, here), we would still lose any kind of air superiority push by America.

But (again, assuming sufficient well-trained pilots) we would definitely f**k up America’s ability to project air superiority by a massive amount. I would even call it a strategic disembowelling of America’s air power.

Just like hunting boar with a spear, the hunter risks the boar being so enraged that, despite being lethally wounded, it still force-impales itself the rest of the way up the spear to get at and kill the hunter.

The point of the Gripen isn’t to win against America. That is impossible.

The point of the Gripen is to have the majority or entirety of the Canadian Air Force beyond America’s ability to remotely restrict operations or shut down completely, such that the pain of any invasion dramatically exceeds any rewards and could even be a lasting semi-lethal blow to their domestic air capabilities as a whole.

But officials and experts stress a U.S. operation is unlikely, and the scenarios are conceptual

Sooooo… officials and experts are too terrified or too stupid to face reality.

We need to build an effective insurgent network, now, and not after the invasion has happened.

For many places, it’s operational inertia. If you’ve had a hosting account at the same place since 1998, you’re bound to still have username/password access to services like FTP even though other (and better) options exist.

And then there is the issue of sole control. Many greybeards like myself still run traditional username/password auth on services because,

1. We have whitelisted our IP address, and if dynamic, keep that whitelist updated
2. That outside of said whitelisting, the service is a quasi-honeypot meant to protect the machine as a whole. Any connection made from outside the address space of my ISP, by anyone else, is by default considered malicious, and is banned instantly as a precaution. They don’t even get the opportunity to attempt a login; merely connecting to said service is sufficient evidence of hostile intent.

So while my setup is not ideal, it is ideal for myself. if I had anyone else as co-admin, or even clients, things would get stupidly complicated very quickly. But since it’s just me…

Fighting the US force gun vs. gun is just silly

Yes, and? Force vs force is stupid. No military could win in a toe-to-toe conflict with America.

But running a guerrilla insurgency without weapons? That’s even worse than stupid. You might as well explicitly line up to be shot.

Now, the efficient method is to pick up the tools and supplies that they drop. But you gotta make them drop shit in the first place, and then you’re limited to what they drop.

My 86-yo father is in the opening innings of dementia, and even he is successfully reading the writing on the wall. And this, despite a 5th grade education and a lifetime of blue collar work.

He’s currently trying to financially coerce my nephew to move back out of Alberta, as in his mind the agriculture and oil sands of that province will be one of Trump’s first objectives. I really can’t disagree with that analysis.

Hell, his side of the family came within a hair’s breadth of ending up in a Nazi concentration camp, so he’s always had a dim view of authoritarianism. About the only way he’s ever leaned in that direction is when politicians followed through with everything they said they were going to do. Such as Pierre Trudeau – he hated the guy with a passion, but deeply respected how he always did pretty much exactly what he said he was going to do. No lies, no bait-and-switch, just an exceedingly honest (albeit arrogant) politician.

For those who are good at smuggling, also consider the non-Canadian (non-gibbled) variant of the FN P90:

• This is a bullpup semi automatic that works exceptionally well in the urban environment.
• The short barrel variety can be equally as mobile inside of structures as a sawed-off shotgun, if not more so. Plus, far less telegraphing of your presence (muzzle precession) as you go around corners compared to non-bullpup long guns.
• Each of its 3 magazines can hold 50 rounds, and two magazines can be stored inside the shoulder stock.
• The brass is ejected straight downwards, and the grip is totally ambidextrous, which means it can be handed off between righties and lefties with zero mods needed. No hot brass to the face simply because the prior user was differently-handed.
• The UN ammo that is standard for it has limited range, which means it is less likely to have secondary down range casualties, yet still comes in a wide variety of slug types including body-armour-piercing.

If you want to see this weapon in use, pick up any season of Stargate SG1.

Downside is that the ammo isn’t cheap. In fact, it’s stupidly expensive. But the P90 is also used by many U.S. divisions such as the Secret Service, so the ammo can be “acquired”.

Which is why we call them conservatives instead of progressives. Everything they do is in the name of fighting material improvements in favour of benefitting their Parasite-Class donors.

Okay, maybe I’ve been reading too many historical accounts as of late, but the title by itself sounded like a military action meant to round up the Cree in order to violently/forcibly intern/confine them back onto their reservation.

Yes, I’ve read the article. It’s the phrasing of the TITLE that gave me such pause the moment I first saw it.

Instead, last year, a bombshell research paper authored by several Canadian neurologists and neuroscientists concluded that there was in fact no mystery disease, and that the patients had all likely suffered from previously known neurological, medical, or psychiatric conditions. The New Brunswick cluster was, one of the paper’s authors told the BBC, a “house of cards”.

500+ patients, all in one highly geographically-constrained area, makes this conclusion as suspicious as a fleet of black Ford Excursions, all filled with men in black suits, saying “nothing is going on here, carry on.”

TL;DR: BULLSHIT.

I wish Canada had a politically-independent research arm that could look into any possible subject, free of interference and with the authority of a national police force, only staffed with highly-accredited experts from every field. They would have a mandate to follow political and economic corruption and harms to the environment and peoples of Canada without censure or blowback, with the only requirement being full transparency and accountability. And with payroll bonuses being drawn from fines and other financial judgements such that they are as incentivized as possible to go after the biggest fish, first.

Now granted, the existence of this agency could very well mean the end of many political careers, as well as that of most any conservative political party. But that would be one of the small but important ways we reinforce democracy for the people, instead of letting the Parasite Class call all the shots.

Edit: just realized that most conservatives would violently push back against any open and fully transparent fact-finding organization that was a crown-funded research arm. Because it’s fact-finding, so therefore it’s intolerable.

75 years ago there were such few restaurants that margins were decent and owners could pay their staff well. A mid-range restaurant could have chefs and even servers earn decent wages.

Now there are 100× more restaurants per capita than there were back then, and margins are razor-thin and staff are being paid peanuts.

Perhaps. But F-Droid in particular has some pretty serious issues that cannot just be hand-waved away.