You seem to imply that I said/meant a lot of things that I didn't say. Let me make what I mean clear: You could very well argue that guilt-by-association can often be a poor judge. What you can't argue is that the association is very much real. These individuals are literally standing beside neo-nazis, so don't act like Trudeau is off base by calling it out. 

Did you know that Canada stole 10M$ in donations sent to the convoy via gofundme and gosendgo?

There has been a very real and serious human cost stemming not only from this goddamn virus, but also from the mitigation measures imposed to control it. I think getting a visual of that cost might help put matters more in perspective for you. Nevada lifted their indoor masking requirements the other day. Here's a glimpse of what the response looked like inside one school room in Las Vegas:



Look at all those divided opinions! Those are human beings too. I don't see how one can look at that and feel like the wrong decision was made here.

*sighs*

You know better than this. Both Trudeau and you are being more than a little disingenuous. What he, and you, are attempting to do is paint the many millions of Canadians and Quebecers who have supported this movement as literal fucking Nazis for opposing the indefinite continuation of Covid restrictions. It's retarded and you know it. It's even more retarded that you actually buy into Trudeau's suggestion that people like the Jewish descendants of Holocaust survivors, the grandchildren of WW2 veterans who died fighting the actual German Nazis during World War II, etc. etc. are Nazis because they're...the ones calling for more personal freedoms here and opposing the transformation of Canada into something very much akin to a police state.

You know why you have to do that? You know why you and the rest of the left have to idiotically resort to painting everyone who disagrees with you on anything as a neo-Nazi? Because you can't actually defend your positions on the merits.

I reciprocate your sighs.

First of all, I just want to say that the ableist slurs are entirely unnecessary. 

Beyond that, I find it funny that you complain about me being unable to defend my position on its merits while simultaneously ignoring virtually everything I said (yet still trying to stuff as many words into my mouth as you can fit). 

I very much agree that Trudeau's statement is fairly reductive and unhelpful, however, in the strictest sense of the word, it is accurate. To say someone is standing with Nazi's is not saying that they are Nazis. That is your own words and biases interpreting Trudeau objectively incorrectly.

In my opinion, there is very much a legitimate conversation to be had regarding the close ties between the convoy and the extremist actions, views and groups. There should be a point in which the whole thing becomes tainted, and refusing to even have that conversation, in my opinion, enables extremism. 

(I'm posting this as a separate topic from the U.S. Politics one because it includes elements of Canadian politics.)

The U.S. Republicans may not deserve to regain power, but the Democrats definitely deserve to lose it. They've lost my vote.

I mean let's take this sudden wave of blue states deciding to lift masking requirements. In just the last three days, California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Delaware (yep, President Biden's home state!), New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island have all suddenly announced at least some lifting of masking requirements, with even more likely on the way. Is it just a coincidence that this has happened all at once in the same week -- have blue state governors just discovered polling shifts or something -- or could it be that that bridge to Detroit from Canada is now being blocked by the Freedom Convoy and there's a certain desire on the part of the party currently governing our country (apparently save for the Biden Administration itself!) to, you know, do what's possible to end that situation as quickly as possible and avoid the phenom being fully replicated Stateside?

According to the Washington Post and every other mainstream media outlet out there, I'm supposed to be furious about this. I'm supposed to be terrified of the Canadian working class peacefully striking and honking horns for my right to FINALLY go face-naked in public months after getting my third shot for same virus well within the same year. They're terrorists! They're Nazis! They're disrupting normal life! *sighs* That's...just no. No they're not. This is why Biden is fucking 15 points underwater now in the average of national polls and still dropping. Or it's the latest reason anyway; the administration keeps supplying more. The fucking Freedom Convoy is the happiest news I've heard in years! I haven't been this happy with any one North American (or at this point North American-originated) social movement since the Women's March of 2017 and the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011. Thank God, man. Something had to give for this considerable Covid overreach to finally start winding down and coming to an end and I couldn't be happier with the results so far. I hope it continues and expands and fuck anyone who's against it! I'm absolutely miserable these days and the primary reasons are corona fatigue in general and the prohibition on going face-naked indoors months after getting my third shot for the same virus well within the same year and a full month after the relatively mild omicron surge (omicron now being the only relevant strain of the virus in the U.S.) peaked in particular. Nothing will get my previous conditions back -- nothing will make me an "essential worker" who deserves higher pay, tips, and words of respect and appreciation rather than an "unskilled" one again who who can suck it in people's minds. But maybe I can at least get to breathe normally while I'm otherwise miserable for a change in the foreseeable future!

The press can preach until they're blue in the face that only Republicans are dangerously authoritarian, but the public clearly feels otherwise and maybe the fact that they just...won't...let...go of their visceral need to control my everyday lifestyle decisions as a perfectly healthy and responsible 39-year-old working person under even the best of virus conditions unless and until faced with extreme financial prodding from my social class and an upcoming election season wherein the same will hold them accountable more directly sums up the essence of why.

Enough with Covid restrictions! Enough with this crackpot open borders experiment! Enough defunding the police and ending bail! Enough selling out our friends and allies abroad! Enough calling yourselves feminists while aggressively seeking new legal restrictions on the rights of women and calling those of us who protest misogynist slurs! Enough -- for God sakes, enough -- capitalizing the B in black, the B in brown, the W in white, reflecting the fact that the color of people's skin is the now the most important thing about them in your mind! And enough of the "respectable" press only ever quoting one side of any argument and constantly denigrating the unwashed masses for disagreeing with them on just about everything at this point! The return of Republicans might be a far from ideal answer, but it's the one that's available and Democrats, I'm sorry, have to be penalized for the living nightmare that has been the last year. I voted for someone as boring as Biden to get rid of Trump and all the thrilling "excitement" that came along with his presidency, get life back to normal, and then forget he was there for four years, forget about politics. More than a year later, I find that I have been unable to forget about politics or go back to leading a halfway normal life and that my cost of living this rather abnormal life is starting to exceed its value to me. I call that a failure.

I hate the whole modern world right now practically. I hate everything from Covid restrictions to social media in general to bitcoin and practically all news media but Fox News and just...want...life...to go back...to normal!! That's what people are going to vote for this November. Democrats can either be a part of that or they can lose their jobs like the rest of us. That's the reality of the matter. Sanity is chasing the Democratic Party. The question is how long they're willing to evade it and at what cost.

EDIT: There was a cheerier version of this post I started with that was pretty much just "YaY Freedom Convoy!", but this is how it wound up. Sorry. I'm basically just trying to say that I'm happy about the movement and its results already and angry about the way its been treated in most of the media.

I reciprocate your sighs.

First of all, I just want to say that the ableist slurs are entirely unnecessary. 

Beyond that, I find it funny that you complain about me being unable to defend my position on its merits while simultaneously ignoring virtually everything I said (yet still trying to stuff as many words into my mouth as you can fit). 

I very much agree that Trudeau's statement is fairly reductive and unhelpful, however, in the strictest sense of the word, it is accurate. To say someone is standing with Nazi's is not saying that they are Nazis. That is your own words and biases interpreting Trudeau objectively incorrectly.

In my opinion, there is very much a legitimate conversation to be had regarding the close ties between the convoy and the extremist actions, views and groups. There should be a point in which the whole thing becomes tainted, and refusing to even have that conversation, in my opinion, enables extremism.