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It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from g

It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. How many more examples do we need before the opposite is assumed?

josephg 5y ago
Eh. With 7.8 billion people on this planet, there is so much going on that you can find examples to support any narrative. Want examples to show governments tend toward corruption? Easy. Want examples showing governments working well? Sure! Examples showing citizens exercising power? Yep. Examples showing citizens being crushed under the heel of their government? We have that too! Black people being killed by police? Sure! White people being killed by police? That happens too! How about police getting attacked by civilians? Google has you covered. > How many more examples do we need If you go looking for examples to support your narrative, you'll always find them. We need data and analysis. And no, the plural of anecdote isn't data.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  Don't forget: The plural of anecdote is data http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data/ http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-i...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ghostpepper 5y ago
I feel like if this actually happened to any one of the protestors, that person would be all over social media publicizing this. So far, to my knowledge, that has not happened.
- cced 5y ago
  Unless of course they were banned for spreading false or misleading information.
beardedetim 5y ago
Where else should we go to but the official information? I agree it's not great and as faulty as humans so where can I find information about these things that is great and not faulty?
adriand 5y ago
> It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. Shouldn't we be talking about what actually happened, though, instead of buying into a false narrative that is being intentionally pushed by people with an agenda? I agree that freezing the bank account of a student in Halifax because they made a small donation to the convoy protest would be an abuse of power. But since that's not what happened, despite the fact that various people with a beef with Canada/Trudeau/liberals/etc. are claiming it did, what exactly are we debating here? We know that, after a period of weeks and after economic losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the government has gone after the principal people organizing and financing the blockades and occupations. They have used force and arrested some of them. They have frozen the accounts of others. We can argue about whether or not those actions constitute "egregious human rights violations", because then we're arguing about actual facts and actual decisions, not strawmen.
- throwaway_fbfh 5y ago
  We are arguing that government is lying as it has done over and over and 1000 * over and that it did freeze accounts of random donors. Maybe they call them influencers lol because they have a IM account and 100 followers
  - ladallada 5y ago
    It's hard to argue without proofs. We can argue so many things when we go the route of conspiracy. The Canadian government isn't known to have lied over and over a thousand times over as far as I know. Yes the government has had scandals, here's a list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_in_Canada https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_i... So I won't say they can't, but I also like OP think arguing in these hypothetical is a waste of energy. We could argue that the process needs to be transparent, make the list public for example. In fact, maybe it is, might be one of these: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/sanctions/listed_persons-personnes_inscrites.aspx https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... I also feel logically, I don't see a motivate, small donors would only be cause for political complications. Logically it would make sense for them to restrict it to the people actually blocking roads with their trucks and to big donors financing large sums of money.

josephg 5y ago

Eh. With 7.8 billion people on this planet, there is so much going on that you can find examples to support any narrative. Want examples to show governments tend toward corruption? Easy. Want examples showing governments working well? Sure! Examples showing citizens exercising power? Yep. Examples showing citizens being crushed under the heel of their government? We have that too! Black people being killed by police? Sure! White people being killed by police? That happens too! How about police getting attacked by civilians? Google has you covered. > How many more examples do we need If you go looking for examples to support your narrative, you'll always find them. We need data and analysis. And no, the plural of anecdote isn't data.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
Don't forget: The plural of anecdote is data http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data/ http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-i...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ghostpepper 5y ago

I feel like if this actually happened to any one of the protestors, that person would be all over social media publicizing this. So far, to my knowledge, that has not happened.

cced 5y ago
Unless of course they were banned for spreading false or misleading information.

beardedetim 5y ago

Where else should we go to but the official information? I agree it's not great and as faulty as humans so where can I find information about these things that is great and not faulty?

adriand 5y ago

> It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. Shouldn't we be talking about what actually happened, though, instead of buying into a false narrative that is being intentionally pushed by people with an agenda? I agree that freezing the bank account of a student in Halifax because they made a small donation to the convoy protest would be an abuse of power. But since that's not what happened, despite the fact that various people with a beef with Canada/Trudeau/liberals/etc. are claiming it did, what exactly are we debating here? We know that, after a period of weeks and after economic losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the government has gone after the principal people organizing and financing the blockades and occupations. They have used force and arrested some of them. They have frozen the accounts of others. We can argue about whether or not those actions constitute "egregious human rights violations", because then we're arguing about actual facts and actual decisions, not strawmen.

throwaway_fbfh 5y ago
We are arguing that government is lying as it has done over and over and 1000 * over and that it did freeze accounts of random donors. Maybe they call them influencers lol because they have a IM account and 100 followers
- ladallada 5y ago
  It's hard to argue without proofs. We can argue so many things when we go the route of conspiracy. The Canadian government isn't known to have lied over and over a thousand times over as far as I know. Yes the government has had scandals, here's a list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_in_Canada https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_i... So I won't say they can't, but I also like OP think arguing in these hypothetical is a waste of energy. We could argue that the process needs to be transparent, make the list public for example. In fact, maybe it is, might be one of these: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/sanctions/listed_persons-personnes_inscrites.aspx https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... I also feel logically, I don't see a motivate, small donors would only be cause for political complications. Logically it would make sense for them to restrict it to the people actually blocking roads with their trucks and to big donors financing large sums of money.