Canada 2026 is officially a global economic zone with no defined culture or border.
The border is defined even if crossings aren't strongly enforced. For example, a drawing of a circle has a border even though it has no immigration enforcement. And it's theoretically possible for a country to have open borders even if there are severe economic reprecussions.
The US should annex Canada without violence
How do you propose they accomplish this? This seems like a decision Canada would have to make as much as the US.
should the Jews face criticism over this
Which Jews? All of them? Just the ones in the media? I think what you're really criticizing is certain media personalities and politicians, some of whom aren't even Jewish, and your post does not do a clear job of specifying which of them you're talking about.
if the Jews are able to help the US successfully annex all of Canada
This is really vague. What counts as "the Jews" helping? Any country with Jews? Some Jewish soldiers?
The Jews that run the media
I'm sure there are scummy media people who happen to be Jews, but why let scummy gentiles in the media off the hook? Plenty of non Jews do the things you're criticizing, so it seems inefficient to arbitrarily limit your criticism. Honestly, reading your post I'm confused why any of these give a reason to single out Jews, as you haven't even said they do any of this disproportionately.
Are you being intentionally obtuse?
Not intentionally, no. But if I'm wrong, I'm open to being corrected.
The problem isn't taxation, but that taxpayer funds are being used to (effectively) increase profits for a private company - an entity that may or may not pay taxes. As I see it, this is very clearly a manipulation of the system.
This isn't some strategic workaround, it's companies negotiating for the best labor price they can get as they've always done. Presumably the government takes that into account when they design public assistance; how could they not? For whatever reason, the government organized things this way.
And as I said, the companies are likely reducing the burden on taxpayers by employing people rather than doing nothing. If I pay a dude five dollars and the government gives him five dollars, did I steal five dollars from taxpayers? If the answer is no, then it seems to me irrelevant whether the money I gave him was in exchange for something.
Employment is a mutually beneficial arrangement.
So, not theft. The point of the woodchipper/fireplace analogy is that just because a situation is mutually beneficial as opposed to totally charitable, does not make it theft, since it's benefiting the employee, not harming them. It could be theft if the contract was nonconsensual, but as you said, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.
It is shorting the employee and stealing from the public coffers to maximize profit.
It's the government taxing people to pay the employee, so if anything the government are the ones stealing? (I think taxation is justified, but it's weird to blame the company for a law they didn't create.) And if the company wasn't hiring the employee at all, the employee could be receiving unemployment, so they could be reducing the total tax burden.
Not sure where this logic ends either. If the government subsidizes a company and they pass some portion of these savings onto the consumer, am I personally robbing taxpayers by buying from the company and benefiting from the subsidy? That's kind of what companies hiring employees are doing when the employees receive government assistance, ignoring that they'd still be receiving assistance in a counterfactual world.
Why do those things make it theft? It seems contradictory to me that paying someone a low wage could be worse than not paying them at all. If those people were just...unemployed, then they'd be worse off and using more public assistance, so the employment contract is in their interest and the interest of the taxpayers. I'm not sure why offering an employment contract suddenly introduces additional obligations for the employer beyond those described in the contract.
Does helping someone a little bit introduce the obligation to help them more? If you give a homeless guy $5, but he still needs public assistance to survive, did you harm him? The difference is that you don't benefit from offering free money while the company benefits from profit, but now we're back to a scenario where an employer throwing surplus value into a woodchipper somehow seems more benevolent than if they hadn't wasted it (since destroying it prevents them from benefiting).
Again, the value critique seems predicated on the contract itself being immoral, since if right of contract exists then it's fine to benefit from surplus value, as long as the laborer signed a contract. For it to be theft you have to either ignore the contract or argue why it's invalid.
Since when is profit theft?!
I don't think it is, but it's a pretty common socialist viewpoint. Not sure there are any socialists on this forum, though, so there might not have been a point posting this here.
Some people would say that it is, but there are a number of things that make me find this belief a bit unlikely. I generally support right of contract, which I think gets lost a lot in this discussion due to the existence of exploitative contracts, but I don't think exceptions disprove the rule. I'm willing to concede contracts as theft in the cases of deception or force, but other than that I'll defend right of contract.
Child labor falls under deception if the kids are too young to grasp the implications of the contract. So does taking advantage of insane people or paying someone to cut their arm off, since anyone who agrees to that is probably insane. Force includes blackmail or threatening to violate other rights/harm people if they don't sign the contract. Refusing to give someone something you owe them or access to a common resource unless they sign a contract is a rights violation, but the rights violation is failure to pay a debt or stealing a common resource, which is separate from the contract itself. I think some people would argue employment is deceptive since the employees don't realize it's a bad deal, but given that it's usually a better deal than unemployment, I don't think this is usually true.
So that leaves every other contract, and non-deceptive, non-forceful contracts are enough for a lot of people to generate a lot of profit.
The criticism here seems a bit inconsistent, or at least like the people saying profit is theft aren't remembering the criticism they're actually making. No one to my knowledge is arguing that employers are actually making employees worse off compared to not employing them, just that they aren't helping them as much as they could. If your choices are a low wage or starvation, then giving you the low wage is a better deal than starving, so it is providing something that you value. The employer is offering the employee a choice between a low wage and starvation, but isn't everyone else just offering the employee solely the choice of starvation by not offering them a job at all? At least the employer is doing something that benefits the employee, even if for selfish reasons. And it could be said that everyone else is failing to help for similar selfish reasons, yet they aren't stealing by failing to help.
If a charity set up a food bank in a poor place and people had to walk a long way to get to the food bank, the charity is offering people a choice between starvation and hard labor, but we don't say the charity is violating people's rights. The difference is that the employer benefits, but what if the charity benefits through good PR leading to better opportunities for the founders? And what if the employer didn't benefit? If an employer hired someone and then shoveled all of their own surplus value into a fireplace, that seems pretty wasteful, but now they seem indistinguishable from the charity. So if anything, employment seems as justified as charity is, just less wasteful.
I think the distinction between coercion and employment is whether you're adding options or taking them away. You can make offering anything sound bad if it's "a choice between having only x and previous bad situation" even if x is a handout with no strings attached. If I offered someone $5 a day for doing nothing, you could say I'm forcing them to choose between poverty and starvation, even though all I did was do them a favor. So since arguing along those lines seems fraught, I'd say removing options through force can be theft but offering new options isn't theft unless deception is involved. Not to mention that different people could be in different situations. If I offer Bob and Ann each $20 to do a task, and Bob is in danger of starving without the job, am I stealing from Bob and not Ann? Even though I'm making the same offer to both? If contracts are theft because of alternatives, it seems like an employer would be robbing someone by not learning about their personal situation, even if they have nothing to do with said personal situation.
If two people want to team up to do something, I'm not sure we can say the surplus value belongs to anyone unless we agree on a contract. Even if one person is doing the physical labor, surely they need consent to use the planning/design from the other person, and that kind of necessitates some agreement beforehand. Complex ideas and management may be intangible contributions, but ownership is an intangible concept in the first place, so why couldn't something intangible belong to someone? It comes from the brain, which seems like it's even more representative of "you" than the body you use to perform labor. So some contribution to a company via planning seems like a claim on some amount of the profits, and without a contract it seems very unintuitive to say physical labor, or some specific laborers, have 100% of a claim on the profits. The contract isn't really redistributing ownership, there's just no specified claim on ownership without the contract.
I also find it hard to believe employers are offering zero value if different companies perform vastly differently. If one company goes bankrupt, does it mean they got all the lazy employees? Seems a lot like a management failure, which implies the management at the other companies are doing something right.
I mean that kind of proves my point, no?
The current reality is that pro-life ideology is trending down.
On a long term view, I don't think it is. Infanticide used to be common, now it's not. Forced abortions are no longer popular. So even if more people are pro-choice, more people are also pro-life. ("Pro-death" used to take up a large slice of the pie, but it's been significantly declining.) Looking at the past few years or few decades I think will get caught up in short-term fluctuations and isn't really measuring a long term tend.
If this weren't the case, then humans would still accept slavery as moral or that the sun circles the Earth.
I mean, an argument could be made that slavery isn't economically sustainable anymore, so people who reject it will be more successful/have more kids, etc. but I do agree with the broader point that there are other factors at play.
Pro-life is trending down.
Depends on how long the time frame is we're looking at. I suspect that with artificial wombs, fewer people will see abortion as necessary, which might be enough to make an anti-abortion coalition dominant. Some people would still support abortion on principle, but I think they'll be a minority. That said, I think that both pro-life and pro-choice views have trended up, since in ancient times you had views like "husbands should be allowed to force their wives to get abortions" or support for infanticide. Today people either prioritize autonomy or the life of the child, but for a long time people didn't really care about either.
High fertility is not a guarantee of ideological dominance.
There's definitely a correlation though between what parents believe and what their kids believe. I agree that it's not the only factor though.
Why do Rs need to ditch Trump?
I mean they didn't when they had the chance, like, before the election.
Trump was elected. Big difference.
The difference is Dems ditched Platner but Republicans didn't ditch Trump. That's a point for Democrats, not Republicans.
My parents were Pro-choice and conservative
Did you mean to say pro-life and conservative? Or are they just conservative on other issues?
Fair enough. Maybe we could also have votes on AI in forum posts.
Did you not think it was adequately addressed in this survey? What additional questions would you want to see people surveyed on?
It's been a year since we held the first survey on the CoC, and per the vote results that means the next survey will be sent out this month. We could just put the same questions on the survey, but if no one is interested in changing or clarifying a rule, it would just be a waste. That's why we'd like you to comment below with any issues you want to see on the Code of Conduct survey. I'll try to be as comprehensive as possible and include everything posted. If an issue was voted on previously and no one asks to see it in the next survey, we'll just stick with the existing rule.
For context, the mods currently aim to base enforcement decisions on the following resources:
3) Referendum to resolve a few disputes among the mods
The wiki is meant to be a summary of the survey, so survey results are the "source of truth" so to speak. I don't think mods have ever overruled survey results yet, but in edge cases not addressed we will try to apply the spirit of the law based on what vote results on similar issues look like.
SkepticalOne wrote:
I'm just saying it would be effective at reducing the number of abortions.
I'm not convinced of that, and I not sure why you are.
See the comments I made earlier where I broke down my reasoning. You said abortion is a need but I'm not sure how that really addressed my points; some women will be averse to breaking the law and so bans will deter them. I doubt there would be as many women who only get abortions because they are illegal, so it's a net reduction even if it's a small one.
Most instances of people getting pulled over are for traffic violations that don't involve hitting someone.
Abortion is a symptom of many things - ignorance, lack of contraception, inability to provide, etc. Under certain circumstances, it is a mercy or a necessity - maternal mortality, fetal abnormality, etc.
That's a debate worth having, but I was responding to your statement that bans do not decrease the number of abortions. If you don't think abortions are inherently bad then I get why you wouldn't support a ban, I'm just saying it would be effective at reducing the number of abortions.
They pull you over for a traffic violation and you seem drunk.
I don't think you can call him an anomaly when he's been the dominant force of the republican party for the past decade.
He's a pretty significant anomaly but when I say that about him I'm looking over like the past few decades. One decade is only a few terms. So if we're judging the Republican party by the dude with the most influence inside it then yeah his craziness dominates. But things that work for Trump don't always work for other Republicans.
No one talks about Ken Paxton whose flaws are objectively orders of magnitudes worse.
I see a good chunk of people talking about Paxton and he's on the verge of handing a seat in Texas of all places to the Democrats. Not sure he's objectively worse but I also haven't looked into him deeply, so he could be.
With republicans it's baked in so no one cares.
Trump's approval rating steeply declined and it looks like Republicans will get punished in the midterms. Not sure how you can say no one cares. I think Trump's personality tends to hurt him in general elections, the hate for Trump is "baked in" sure but it's still significant.
I think the disconnect with the "baked in" thing is that Dems will be punished for being rude or something and ask why isn't Trump punished for that. Well he was and a lot of people have always hated him for it giving him a hard ceiling. Trump continues to be rude and those people continue to hate him, but Dems are used to that now so it seems like he's not being punished even though he's one of the most hated politicians in America. Platner started out without too many moderates hating him, so he fell from a higher place and it looks like he's being punished more because the shift is more recent (and because the DNC has more influence in switching out candidates and he's running for a smaller position).
I don't really disagree with what you're saying, I just take issue when people talk about this as something to merely observe rather than a fundamental flaw in American politics that should be called out anywhere it resides.
I agree it's a pretty big flaw, I just don't think it's as simple as Republicans always being held to lower standards and Dems to higher ones. Trump is a bit of an anomaly. Other Republicans have tried and failed to replicate him.
People get abortions in spite of bans.
I agree that some people do that (we agree there are a significant number who get them anyway). My point is that if some portion of them decide not to get an abortion because it's illegal, then the total number is still reduced. I'm not claiming 100% efficacy, just more than zero.
It seems like you agree with OP, unless youre arguing bans weren't pretty much in full effect in 2023?
I think people probably anticipated additional bans. So some people who were planning to get abortions anyway did it earlier. But other people planning to get abortions or who were on the fence likely decided it wasn't worth the increased effort. So the total long term number of abortions would be lower.
In Northern Europe, the restrictiveness of abortion laws explains 72% of the variation in the abortion ratio (the percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion).
It is unclear what this is supposed to mean ir how it is relevant.
It's in reference to abortion restrictions decreasing abortions, specifically controlling by region.
Pregnant women before Roe vs. Wade had dramatically lower abortion rates.
Dramatically lower *legal* abortion rates. Meanwhile, legal abortions were dramatically increased:
The survey was just looking at abortions in general controlling for certain factors, not just legal or illegal.
Of the low-income women in that study who said they had had an abortion, eight in 10 (77%) said that they had attempted a self-induced procedure, with only 2% saying that a physician had been involved in any way."
Legal abortions decreased and illegal abortions increased, I'm not disputing that. I think the overall effect is reduction though since the people getting illegal abortions would have gotten legal ones anyway, and illegal abortions are less appealing than legal ones. Unless you're saying no one would be adverse to breaking the law, then that deterrent would need to be offset somehow by some chunk of people getting abortions specifically due to them being illegal. Which seems pretty unlikely.
When Bulgaria liberalized its abortion laws, the abortion rate increased by a factor of over 30.
Explicitly temporary
Maybe it decreased later on due to other factors, but it sounds like the stricter laws had been capping it.
The data also show shows drastic increases in non-ban states. For instance, in 2023 illinois had a 71% increase compared to 2020. Virginia had a 77% increase. North Carolina 44%. New Mexico had a 256% increase. The increases are generally due to travel across states lines.
So it sounds like these are people who would have gotten abortions anyway, not people getting abortions just because of the ban?
I mean a few states tried literacy tests but I think universal suffrage is the better way to go.
Your example is a short term effect right after bans were anticipated to go into effect and people could easily go to other states for abortions. That's not really representative, and it indicates people got abortions they were planning to get anyway in anticipation of bans making them harder to get long term. In Northern Europe, the restrictiveness of abortion laws explains 72% of the variation in the abortion ratio (the percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion). Pregnant women before Roe vs. Wade had dramatically lower abortion rates. States with legal abortion before Roe had reduced birth rates; in fact, legalizing abortion had a higher impact on pregnancy rates than contraception. Abortion rates by state of residence show that states with heavier abortion restrictions have lower abortion rates, even when accounting for women who cross state lines.
When policies are studied in isolation, these effects become much more pronounced. When Bulgaria liberalized its abortion laws, the abortion rate increased by a factor of over 30. Furthermore, abortion is measurably reduced, not simply “driven underground.” Restricting abortion in Bulgaria, when controlling for other factors, increased fertility rates by 12%.
If we just take your stat at face value, it's implying banning abortion in general makes people want it more, but how exactly does that work? Even "ineffective" bans on like alcohol and drugs tend to reduce the thing being banned. They just have trade offs.
I agree that other policies also reduce abortion though; it's not mutually exclusive.
Trump's impeachments were beyond justifiable, any public official with an ounce of integrity would have voted to impeach and convict. They only appear political to people who are ignorant or just don't care.
Fair or not, each party only gets so many words to make their case to the average voter. Trump has managed to succeed at that in a way that Dems and even other Republicans have failed. Again, a populist won't get as far with Dems due to DNC control. If a voter only has surface level attacks to go on, then the media attacking Trump a lot makes charges not seem as credible. In an ideal world every voter would investigate all the charges themselves, but that's a pipe dream. Point is, I think scandals stick to Trump less but it's unique to Trump and sometimes the inner circle he protects. I think other Republicans are often held to higher standards than Dems, media was pretty harsh on Romney and Kavanaugh for example. And Clinton got a pass for his sleazy behavior. I think the media spent a lot of it's credibility attacking earlier Republicans and so with Trump more people tuned them out.
There is no point at which it makes sense to hold one side to a higher standard when they are both competing fort the same job. You can accuse one side of hypocrisy when they fail to live up to their espoused standards, but that's a different thing.
Then its a matter of judgment. If one side says default to believing accusers and then they get accused it shows that their mantras aren't necessarily feasible. Or that they're not willing to have consistent standards. And in the age of Trump bad judgment isn't a disqualifier by any means, I'm just saying why in theory this makes sense as a basis for doubting their qualifications more on the margin.
I say this confidently because when a republican is accused the party bends over backwards to deny it no matter how likely it is to be true. Trump is the perfect example of this.
I won't deny Trump's supporters hold him to very low standards, but as I said low standards have not been universally true of Republicans nor high standards of Democrats. Dems stuck with Biden, Republicans ditched Herman Cain. Trump is able to attack Republicans within his own party for much less than he did. Obviously Trump is an issue and the biggest one in the room since he's the President right now, but I don't think Republicans being held to zero standards is really universally true.
And that's all before we get to any of the evidence and testimony of his 26 accusers
Cause Trump built his brand on saying Dems and the mainstream media were out to get him, and Dems made it very clear they wanted to impeach him. Which makes the charges seem politically motivated. I think they could be both politically motivated and true, but it makes things a bit fuzzier. If someone thinks the charges are just a political tool, then 100 charges don't look worse for Trump than 2 charges, in fact they support that narrative.
Cuz it's not banned. It's on state level, meaning that even if person is in state where abortion is illegal, person can just travel to state where it's legal.
That's what I mean. The state bans aren't effective. And I don't think Republicans will ban it nationwide unfortunately.
So republican ideas are better surplus of population.
I care about reducing murder though, not about increasing the population.
