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As I'm just a lowly computer technician, no I do not get to choose who gets rights. That is typically the domain of judges, lawmakers, and more fundamentally th

As I'm just a lowly computer technician, no I do not get to choose who gets rights. That is typically the domain of judges, lawmakers, and more fundamentally the founders of nations. Preventing goods from crossing an international border is called a blockade. In most jurisdictions, this is regarded as a crime and is generally done to harm an economy. Crimes are often punished. Some aren't (like wage theft, not since 1955), but a lot are. Interfering with a country's ability to trade with another country, as well as publicly threatening to kill law enforcement officers, is quite a serious offence. I am not certain left-leaning government should not punish crimes, as it's generally seen as a good idea to ensure that activity that disrupts life or liberty of others doesn't happen, and judiciary measures are a part of that. I guess we COULD try an idea in which people are trusted not to do harm, that could be an interesting experiment.

mardifoufs 2y ago
That's absolutely not what a blockade is. Again, by your logic, everyone that was part of the Oka Crisis should've been treated as a foreign enemy or a traitor, and prosecuted as such. I mean, they were armed and wanted indépendance. Yet that's not how it works when you are talking about Canadian citizens. The exact same logic can also be used to prosecute the people who protested the pipelines in British Columbia. They were literally blocking the construction of a pipeline that was being built literally for international trade. It's just an insanely dangerous logic, one that can be very conveniently used only against people who usually disagree with you politically. Like your entire comment reads as a huge far right power fantasy. Oh and by the way, judges can't do anything w.r.t emergency powers. That's what's so dangerous about them. They remove almost every check and balances.
- toasteros 2y ago
  I guess you're right. A blockade, by definition, is to "render [something] unsuitable for passage". They often have the impact of disallowing goods, people, aid etc from crossing a border (especially when a blockader says "I am blockading to prevent the passage of goods"), but I take your point. In the UK recently, protesters who blocked major roads to make a point about fossil fuels were imprisoned due to the fact that they were disrupting infrastructure. One elderly protestor has even had to be put back in prison because a medical issue prevented her from being able to wear an ankle tag. Blocking infrastructure IS generally something that gets punished. But again sometimes it isn't. Quite recently, a protest in London (UK) lead to major roads being blocked with tractors and other agricultural equipment. These protestors have not been charged. Intent seems to matter. The Coutts and Ottawa guys were blocking infrastructure in protest at being asked to keep a virus under control; the oil protestors in the UK were blocking infrastructure to demonstrate that oil is maybe not great; the agricultural protestors were blockading infrastructure to demonstrate that paying inheritance tax is bad. Maybe it's not about rights but more about demonstrations that correspond to popularly held positions? I'm not sure. It's something I think about a lot.
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    I mean don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree that they should have been arrested. I can't think of a single reason why they shouldn't have been. You can't blockade an international border without expecting to be arrested. The issue wasn't that they were arrested or even charged of anything. The issue is that the government deliberately used the emergency act (which is basically a nuclear bomb) where they could've simply... arrested them. There was no emergency, there was no widespread unrest or any event that was leading to a loss of control. They could've absolutely just arrested everyone, using force if necessary, and moved on. The protestors weren't even armed, they could've just used anti riot police like they always due. As you said yourself, the UK protestors were arrested without using the equivalent of martial law. So my point isn't that the protestors were innocent, it's that Trudeau's government clearly used the emergency powers act as a way to send a message, and to show that you won't just get arrested but also stripped of your rights completely. Which is to me absolutely abhorrent, and that's coming from someone who actually volunteered for Trudeau's campaign back in 2015 and the election after that one.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      The protesters at the border could and were arrested without invoking the Emergencies act. The border is under Federal jurisdiction and the laws broken were Federal. The Emergencies act was invoked to evict the occupiers from Ottawa. They were breaking municipal and provincial laws and on land where the province and city had jurisdiction. The Ottawa city government, the Ottawa police chief and the province were all incompetent and failed to arrest and evict.
      - jl6 2y ago
        Surely there were options like appointing a new police chief which they could have gone to first rather than going straight to emergency powers and suspension of rights?
        bryanlarsen 2y ago
        They did replace the police chief, but we'd have also needed to replace the mayor and premier, both of which take more time.
itsoktocry 2y ago
>I'm just a lowly computer technician Comfortably working remotely, like I was, right? That might explain why you can't sympathize with people who lost their jobs or businesses due to COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates. I also think the protest was over the top, but it pales in comparison to what COVID did to people.
- toasteros 2y ago
  No, I worked retail during the pandemic and now work on-site. I do not sympathise with people who refuse vaccination because I had to serve them when they were at their worst.

mardifoufs 2y ago

That's absolutely not what a blockade is. Again, by your logic, everyone that was part of the Oka Crisis should've been treated as a foreign enemy or a traitor, and prosecuted as such. I mean, they were armed and wanted indépendance. Yet that's not how it works when you are talking about Canadian citizens. The exact same logic can also be used to prosecute the people who protested the pipelines in British Columbia. They were literally blocking the construction of a pipeline that was being built literally for international trade. It's just an insanely dangerous logic, one that can be very conveniently used only against people who usually disagree with you politically. Like your entire comment reads as a huge far right power fantasy. Oh and by the way, judges can't do anything w.r.t emergency powers. That's what's so dangerous about them. They remove almost every check and balances.

toasteros 2y ago
I guess you're right. A blockade, by definition, is to "render [something] unsuitable for passage". They often have the impact of disallowing goods, people, aid etc from crossing a border (especially when a blockader says "I am blockading to prevent the passage of goods"), but I take your point. In the UK recently, protesters who blocked major roads to make a point about fossil fuels were imprisoned due to the fact that they were disrupting infrastructure. One elderly protestor has even had to be put back in prison because a medical issue prevented her from being able to wear an ankle tag. Blocking infrastructure IS generally something that gets punished. But again sometimes it isn't. Quite recently, a protest in London (UK) lead to major roads being blocked with tractors and other agricultural equipment. These protestors have not been charged. Intent seems to matter. The Coutts and Ottawa guys were blocking infrastructure in protest at being asked to keep a virus under control; the oil protestors in the UK were blocking infrastructure to demonstrate that oil is maybe not great; the agricultural protestors were blockading infrastructure to demonstrate that paying inheritance tax is bad. Maybe it's not about rights but more about demonstrations that correspond to popularly held positions? I'm not sure. It's something I think about a lot.
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  I mean don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree that they should have been arrested. I can't think of a single reason why they shouldn't have been. You can't blockade an international border without expecting to be arrested. The issue wasn't that they were arrested or even charged of anything. The issue is that the government deliberately used the emergency act (which is basically a nuclear bomb) where they could've simply... arrested them. There was no emergency, there was no widespread unrest or any event that was leading to a loss of control. They could've absolutely just arrested everyone, using force if necessary, and moved on. The protestors weren't even armed, they could've just used anti riot police like they always due. As you said yourself, the UK protestors were arrested without using the equivalent of martial law. So my point isn't that the protestors were innocent, it's that Trudeau's government clearly used the emergency powers act as a way to send a message, and to show that you won't just get arrested but also stripped of your rights completely. Which is to me absolutely abhorrent, and that's coming from someone who actually volunteered for Trudeau's campaign back in 2015 and the election after that one.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    The protesters at the border could and were arrested without invoking the Emergencies act. The border is under Federal jurisdiction and the laws broken were Federal. The Emergencies act was invoked to evict the occupiers from Ottawa. They were breaking municipal and provincial laws and on land where the province and city had jurisdiction. The Ottawa city government, the Ottawa police chief and the province were all incompetent and failed to arrest and evict.
    - jl6 2y ago
      Surely there were options like appointing a new police chief which they could have gone to first rather than going straight to emergency powers and suspension of rights?
      - bryanlarsen 2y ago
        They did replace the police chief, but we'd have also needed to replace the mayor and premier, both of which take more time.

itsoktocry 2y ago

>I'm just a lowly computer technician Comfortably working remotely, like I was, right? That might explain why you can't sympathize with people who lost their jobs or businesses due to COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates. I also think the protest was over the top, but it pales in comparison to what COVID did to people.

toasteros 2y ago
No, I worked retail during the pandemic and now work on-site. I do not sympathise with people who refuse vaccination because I had to serve them when they were at their worst.