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Given that existing pipelines are already overcommitted or at capacity and carry not much more than a tenth, and given that America is mostly the only option fo

Given that existing pipelines are already overcommitted or at capacity and carry not much more than a tenth, and given that America is mostly the only option for refining the heavy sour tarry crap they pull out of the athabasca sands, this doesn't matter much. This is what came up during trump's threats about tariffing oil. They basically would have had to eat the cost unlike most of the other tariffs trump has proposed. Regardless, let's say two places have very different values and ideas about how they want to live and what goals to pursue. What the hell gives one place the right, particularly when it consistently votes down the desired values of the other, to prevent it from leaving and going its own way? Self-determination as a principle isn't magically restricted to national borders only. That would be a ridiculous assertion.

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
> What the hell gives one place the right, particularly when it consistently votes down the desired values of the other, to prevent it from leaving and going its own way? Self-determination as a principle isn't magically restricted to national borders only. That would be a ridiculous assertion. How granular does this asserted right go? Should Edmonton be able to secede from Alberta? Can I run outside and put up a flag on my front lawn?
- landl0rd 1y ago
  It goes pretty granular. I don't really like secession in concept, in this case it's a manifestation that governments like to steal more power than they absolutely must hold at that level instead of leaving it at lower ones. This gives someone in BC a hell of a lot too much influence on how someone in Alberta lives and vice-versa when really not much besides border, military, and treaties/diplomacy needs to be handled nationally. Things should be made as local as possible. I would prefer municipal or neighborhood-level decision making for a lot of things because it's actually really hard to scale democracy well and because the losing minority grows as you make decisions at higher levels. There are practical limits to this principle, very hard for a landlocked city to secede, but at least in principle it seems morally correct if not practically possible. But I struggle to see how someone can conceivably oppose colonialism and also oppose secession.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    Is it actually morally correct? Philosophically, this ends up with the ideal government being every single person determining their own rules, doesn't it? The ideal state of things would be to reject democracy and move to libertarianism? I'd argue that such a society does not function, and having a functional society is also a moral good. On a more practical note, the Alberta government is currently actively meddling in municipal politics and policies, so in the currently discussed application it seems more of a "I want to have a government that's as large as possible that I can still have power over".
    - landl0rd 1y ago
      No, it's fine for governments to fix externalities. I just believe they should do it at low levels. I don't support Alberta meddling in local politics. I don't support the US federal or state governments doing this. If cities or neighborhoods want to come together and say "we want a blue community in this red state" or vice versa that's a just form of self-governance. I actually believe this is how we make democracy work better. It has scale problems but remains the least-bad form of government so we should work to design systems that make it function well. Letting people self-assort to live with others with their values under rules that reflect those within reason is good.
      - digitalPhonix 1y ago
        How do you address issues where tragedy of the commons comes into play? Every individual neighbourhood/smallest unit of government would (rightly) pick the best option for themselves. Having a large representative base is the easiest way to prevent that.
        landl0rd 1y ago
        Can you give me examples of situations like this? I am perfectly fine with something like the clean air and water acts (in principle if not implementation). Obviously people in an upstream town aren't allowed to dump pollution in the river to save money.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >How granular does this asserted right go? Should Edmonton be able to secede from Alberta? Yes >Can I run outside and put up a flag on my front lawn? Yes, but the overhead burden of running a municipality even if it only has a population of 1 would likely quickly make you reconsider
  - landl0rd 1y ago
    Well-put thank you. I think the end state that makes this not a slippery slope is that there are certain practicalities that make some responsibilities impractical beyond a certain scale. Where it is correct in its maximalist form though is that we should relegate the most possible freedom to the individual. I hope more people can embrace this way of thinking. It's not really partisan. If anything it lets people operate more democratically where voices and engagement mean more. It lets people live how they want in communities with shared values. It lets us run many different policy experiments across many different places to develop better policies.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
Tiktaalik 1y ago
On the second point it should be noted that the awful FPTP system creates the regional distortions that make it appear that the regions are more divided than they really are. One looks on the map and it seems like Alberta is near uniform blue but that's because of FPTP. The reality is that ~64% voted one way and a sizeable amount of Alberta voted in opposition. If we fixed our voting system to be more truly representative I think some of these divisions would go away.
- senderista 1y ago
  See also: California
fatbird 1y ago
When Quebec held a referendum in 1995 on separation (not secession), the Cree nation in northern Quebec held its own referendum on what to do if Quebec separates, and voted 96% to separate from Quebec and remain in Canada. The Parti Québécois, the provincial gov't of Quebec at the time, sputtered "Quebec is not divisible!" which created a lot of awkwardness around the whole question of Quebec leaving Canada.

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago

> What the hell gives one place the right, particularly when it consistently votes down the desired values of the other, to prevent it from leaving and going its own way? Self-determination as a principle isn't magically restricted to national borders only. That would be a ridiculous assertion. How granular does this asserted right go? Should Edmonton be able to secede from Alberta? Can I run outside and put up a flag on my front lawn?

landl0rd 1y ago
It goes pretty granular. I don't really like secession in concept, in this case it's a manifestation that governments like to steal more power than they absolutely must hold at that level instead of leaving it at lower ones. This gives someone in BC a hell of a lot too much influence on how someone in Alberta lives and vice-versa when really not much besides border, military, and treaties/diplomacy needs to be handled nationally. Things should be made as local as possible. I would prefer municipal or neighborhood-level decision making for a lot of things because it's actually really hard to scale democracy well and because the losing minority grows as you make decisions at higher levels. There are practical limits to this principle, very hard for a landlocked city to secede, but at least in principle it seems morally correct if not practically possible. But I struggle to see how someone can conceivably oppose colonialism and also oppose secession.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  Is it actually morally correct? Philosophically, this ends up with the ideal government being every single person determining their own rules, doesn't it? The ideal state of things would be to reject democracy and move to libertarianism? I'd argue that such a society does not function, and having a functional society is also a moral good. On a more practical note, the Alberta government is currently actively meddling in municipal politics and policies, so in the currently discussed application it seems more of a "I want to have a government that's as large as possible that I can still have power over".
  - landl0rd 1y ago
    No, it's fine for governments to fix externalities. I just believe they should do it at low levels. I don't support Alberta meddling in local politics. I don't support the US federal or state governments doing this. If cities or neighborhoods want to come together and say "we want a blue community in this red state" or vice versa that's a just form of self-governance. I actually believe this is how we make democracy work better. It has scale problems but remains the least-bad form of government so we should work to design systems that make it function well. Letting people self-assort to live with others with their values under rules that reflect those within reason is good.
    - digitalPhonix 1y ago
      How do you address issues where tragedy of the commons comes into play? Every individual neighbourhood/smallest unit of government would (rightly) pick the best option for themselves. Having a large representative base is the easiest way to prevent that.
      - landl0rd 1y ago
        Can you give me examples of situations like this? I am perfectly fine with something like the clean air and water acts (in principle if not implementation). Obviously people in an upstream town aren't allowed to dump pollution in the river to save money.
potato3732842 1y ago
>How granular does this asserted right go? Should Edmonton be able to secede from Alberta? Yes >Can I run outside and put up a flag on my front lawn? Yes, but the overhead burden of running a municipality even if it only has a population of 1 would likely quickly make you reconsider
- landl0rd 1y ago
  Well-put thank you. I think the end state that makes this not a slippery slope is that there are certain practicalities that make some responsibilities impractical beyond a certain scale. Where it is correct in its maximalist form though is that we should relegate the most possible freedom to the individual. I hope more people can embrace this way of thinking. It's not really partisan. If anything it lets people operate more democratically where voices and engagement mean more. It lets people live how they want in communities with shared values. It lets us run many different policy experiments across many different places to develop better policies.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

Tiktaalik 1y ago

On the second point it should be noted that the awful FPTP system creates the regional distortions that make it appear that the regions are more divided than they really are. One looks on the map and it seems like Alberta is near uniform blue but that's because of FPTP. The reality is that ~64% voted one way and a sizeable amount of Alberta voted in opposition. If we fixed our voting system to be more truly representative I think some of these divisions would go away.

senderista 1y ago
See also: California

fatbird 1y ago

When Quebec held a referendum in 1995 on separation (not secession), the Cree nation in northern Quebec held its own referendum on what to do if Quebec separates, and voted 96% to separate from Quebec and remain in Canada. The Parti Québécois, the provincial gov't of Quebec at the time, sputtered "Quebec is not divisible!" which created a lot of awkwardness around the whole question of Quebec leaving Canada.