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Canada is, on the whole, much more tolerant of socially justified restrictions like this than the US. NS is a small province with limited resources. If a fire

Canada is, on the whole, much more tolerant of socially justified restrictions like this than the US. NS is a small province with limited resources. If a fire starts, it will become large fast, under current conditions. If that happens they will have to bring in resources from other provinces, if they aren’t already busy (they almost certainly are). Park and land closures due to fire risk have existed for far longer than since March 2020. This isn’t normalization of authoritarianism. This is just what a more pro-socially oriented culture than the US looks like.

SilverElfin 1y ago
Reframing a violation of individual rights as good for society is literally how all authoritarianism is justified. But it still is authoritarianism. More practically, if someone is careless enough to violate the law by lighting a fire, then this type of ban is not going to change much. Like misplaced gun control laws, it really only affects responsible law abiding citizens, and denies them their rights as individuals and taxpayers.
- thunderfork 1y ago
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- dghlsakjg 1y ago
  > Reframing a violation of individual rights as good for society is literally how all authoritarianism is justified. Almost every individual right is balanced against the good of society. My right to free speech is not absolute, and most of the limitations in place are for the good of society. My right to not have my house entered by government agents without a warrant is not absolute, and the restrictions in place are for the good of society. Telling people to stay out of the woods during the 2nd worst fire season (so far!) on record is not authoritarianism, it is a reasonable temporary restriction in a country where 40% of wildfires are caused by people in the woods. Restricting civil liberties during times of crisis is incredibly common across states that are not at all authoritarian, and those that very much are. > More practically, if someone is careless enough to violate the law by lighting a fire, then this type of ban is not going to change much. There are a lot of ways to start fires. e.g. Many are started by the catalytic converter or another hot car part coming in contact with dry brush. There have been many fires started by the sparks of a train wheel operating normally. Human caused fires don't have to be careless, it can just be random shitty chance. What asking people to stay out of the woods does is lower the chance of those random occurrences, while it also frees up patrol resources to focus on those non-law abiding forest users who you say are the problem. Double win! > Like misplaced gun control laws, it really only affects responsible law abiding citizens, and denies them their rights as individuals and taxpayers. Canada doesn't have a right to gun ownership. It is a privilege that is earned at the individual level and can be revoked. Nor does Canada have a right to enter Crown Land. Nor does paying taxes have anything to do with your individual rights. That sentence is great at getting emotions up, but it doesn't have any argumentative value for people who place any value in reality and logic.
  - SilverElfin 1y ago
    > Telling people to stay out of the woods during the 2nd worst fire season (so far!) on record is not authoritarianism, it is a reasonable temporary restriction in a country where 40% of wildfires are caused by people in the woods. As I already said, those who break laws will keep breaking laws. All this does is take away from the rights of individuals to use public land. The only benefit that is left then, is to normalize authoritarianism. Those who go to the woods and light fires unsafely will keep doing it. > e.g. Many are started by the catalytic converter or another hot car part coming in contact with dry brush. Evidence and data? Cars regularly go off-roading in brush and don’t start fires. If you’re saying it is incredibly rare and due to some faulty car part, then I don’t think that deserves regulation. That’s not the “40% of wildfires” you referenced as justification for this action. To make this more obvious - lightning can also start wildfires and they’ll keep happening at some low rate. Why would you try to eliminate one in a billion rarities through broad violations of liberties? > Restricting civil liberties during times of crisis is incredibly common across states that are not at all authoritarian Restricting civil liberties shows they’re authoritarian. You’re avoiding using this label, but to me it is accurate and deserved. The entire point of civil liberties is that they CANNOT be restricted under any circumstance. After all, the notion of a ‘crisis’ is itself open to abuse. > That sentence is great at getting emotions up, but it doesn't have any argumentative value for people who place any value in reality and logic. The way your list of things that you feel are not rights reads to me, is “Canada has no rights, and therefore your arguments that people have rights is false”. It doesn’t seem convincing to me, and I suspect it doesn’t to others. I think we need to start with the idea that humans have rights by default - before the authoritarianism of governments or the majority take those rights away. I also don’t like the idea of “Crown Land”, which is a way of legitimizing authoritarian culture, the idea that publicly owned things are not owed to the public but are instead held by “the Crown”.
    - dghlsakjg 1y ago
      It seems we are just going to fundamentally disagree on the position that rights can be restricted in the name of a healthy society. You think that rational actions that restrict your rights during an emergency are unacceptable and a slippery slope to authoritarianism. I understand your viewpoint, and even agree in certain cases, I just disagree that temporary restrictions on land use passed by fairly elected representatives using normal government processes lead to authoritarianism. No one is acting outside of the authority vested in them by the people. If we think they shouldn't have that power, this specific action can be challenged at the ballot box, in the courts, or in the legislature. That is hardly authoritarianism by any definition. As I stated before, my belief (backed by centuries of examples, philosophy and legal precedent) is that individual rights are almost always in tension with a functioning society. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, in the same way that your right to play in the woods ends at our collective ability to control wildfires during record setting danger. If you or anyone causes a fire through recklessness or, as I amply demonstrate below, completely normal human activity like driving a car, there is a good chance that you will do more damage than you could hope to pay for in your entire life. When your right to go for a walk in the woods comes with an appreciable chance of destroying an entire town, it is totally reasonable that the townspeople want you to, pretty please, postpone your walk until it rains. > Evidence and data? Cars regularly go off-roading in brush and don’t start fires. If you’re saying it is incredibly rare and due to some faulty car part, then I don’t think that deserves regulation. That’s not the “40% of wildfires” you referenced as justification for this action. To make this more obvious - lightning can also start wildfires and they’ll keep happening at some low rate. Why would you try to eliminate one in a billion rarities through broad violations of liberties Vehicles go off-roading in the bush and regularly start wildfires. The fact that they sometimes don't doesn't prove anything. You are dangerously wrong here. I took it as so well-known a fact that I didn't think I needed this: Off-road motorcycles and ATVs are sold from the factory with legally required wildfire prevention equipment for this reason. Getting caught removing your spark arrestor is grounds for a massive fine. Here's a fire from this year started by an off-road motorcycle https://www.squamishchief.com/local-news/update-dirt-bike-may-have-sparked-small-brush-fire-in-squamish-10954264 https://www.squamishchief.com/local-news/update-dirt-bike-ma... Cars caused wildfires are incredibly common. So common that most wildfire departments have pages warning people of steps that they can take to help prevent them. Here is one of a litany of pages I was able to find with the search phrase "car caused wildfire" https://azdot.gov/blog-article/preventing-vehicle-caused-wildfires-everyones-responsibility https://azdot.gov/blog-article/preventing-vehicle-caused-wil.... Bonus: that one cites several fires that were caused by cars. Here is a specific fire caused by a car that caused over a billion dollars of damage including eight people burned to death and 1k homes destroyed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carr_Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carr_Fire. Here is a car caused fire in BC. The reckless rascals who caused it? The RCMP underwater search team got a flat tire responding to a missing swimmer. Bonus: that town completely burned in 2021 and the most likely cause of that fire? Sparks from a malfunctioning train wheel. Lightning might not strike twice, but in this case vehicle caused fires have. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fire-lytton-rcmp-1.7576347 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fire-lytton-... They are INCREDIBLY common, and more to the point, have no correlation with whether or not you are being reckless. They are demonstrably not '1 in a billion'. They are on the order of 1 in a hundred at the low end. An order of magnitude higher than that by many estimates: Calfire estimates 10 percent of human caused fires originate from vehicles. We can't stop lightning, but we can stop the 40% of wildfires in Canada that are human caused. Some wildfires are caused by people doing illegal things like campfires in a fire restriction, but a surprising amount of them are caused by people doing totally normal things. Here's someone that caused a wildfire by mowing their lawn: https://kmph.com/news/local/french-fire-cause-improper-lawn-mower-use-908-acres-burned-3-homes-lost-in-mariposa https://kmph.com/news/local/french-fire-cause-improper-lawn-... Simply put, when conditions are like this, it is so stupidly easy to accidentally start a fire, that restricting people from the woods really does appreciably decrease risk. > The way your list of things that you feel are not rights reads to me, is “Canada has no rights, and therefore your arguments that people have rights is false”. I didn't say that Canadians don't have rights. I said that you are claiming that there are certain specific rights for Canadians, when in fact, that is not true. It is very easy to prove that Canadians do not have a right to own guns, hell, even the American "right" to guns is severely limited (Felons? Artillery? Many modifications like short barrelled shotguns?). It is also very easy to prove that Canadians do not have a right to unrestricted access to publicly owned land, or is the "no vehicles" gate at my nearest park put up by a dictator?

SilverElfin 1y ago

Reframing a violation of individual rights as good for society is literally how all authoritarianism is justified. But it still is authoritarianism. More practically, if someone is careless enough to violate the law by lighting a fire, then this type of ban is not going to change much. Like misplaced gun control laws, it really only affects responsible law abiding citizens, and denies them their rights as individuals and taxpayers.

thunderfork 1y ago
[dead]
dghlsakjg 1y ago
> Reframing a violation of individual rights as good for society is literally how all authoritarianism is justified. Almost every individual right is balanced against the good of society. My right to free speech is not absolute, and most of the limitations in place are for the good of society. My right to not have my house entered by government agents without a warrant is not absolute, and the restrictions in place are for the good of society. Telling people to stay out of the woods during the 2nd worst fire season (so far!) on record is not authoritarianism, it is a reasonable temporary restriction in a country where 40% of wildfires are caused by people in the woods. Restricting civil liberties during times of crisis is incredibly common across states that are not at all authoritarian, and those that very much are. > More practically, if someone is careless enough to violate the law by lighting a fire, then this type of ban is not going to change much. There are a lot of ways to start fires. e.g. Many are started by the catalytic converter or another hot car part coming in contact with dry brush. There have been many fires started by the sparks of a train wheel operating normally. Human caused fires don't have to be careless, it can just be random shitty chance. What asking people to stay out of the woods does is lower the chance of those random occurrences, while it also frees up patrol resources to focus on those non-law abiding forest users who you say are the problem. Double win! > Like misplaced gun control laws, it really only affects responsible law abiding citizens, and denies them their rights as individuals and taxpayers. Canada doesn't have a right to gun ownership. It is a privilege that is earned at the individual level and can be revoked. Nor does Canada have a right to enter Crown Land. Nor does paying taxes have anything to do with your individual rights. That sentence is great at getting emotions up, but it doesn't have any argumentative value for people who place any value in reality and logic.
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  > Telling people to stay out of the woods during the 2nd worst fire season (so far!) on record is not authoritarianism, it is a reasonable temporary restriction in a country where 40% of wildfires are caused by people in the woods. As I already said, those who break laws will keep breaking laws. All this does is take away from the rights of individuals to use public land. The only benefit that is left then, is to normalize authoritarianism. Those who go to the woods and light fires unsafely will keep doing it. > e.g. Many are started by the catalytic converter or another hot car part coming in contact with dry brush. Evidence and data? Cars regularly go off-roading in brush and don’t start fires. If you’re saying it is incredibly rare and due to some faulty car part, then I don’t think that deserves regulation. That’s not the “40% of wildfires” you referenced as justification for this action. To make this more obvious - lightning can also start wildfires and they’ll keep happening at some low rate. Why would you try to eliminate one in a billion rarities through broad violations of liberties? > Restricting civil liberties during times of crisis is incredibly common across states that are not at all authoritarian Restricting civil liberties shows they’re authoritarian. You’re avoiding using this label, but to me it is accurate and deserved. The entire point of civil liberties is that they CANNOT be restricted under any circumstance. After all, the notion of a ‘crisis’ is itself open to abuse. > That sentence is great at getting emotions up, but it doesn't have any argumentative value for people who place any value in reality and logic. The way your list of things that you feel are not rights reads to me, is “Canada has no rights, and therefore your arguments that people have rights is false”. It doesn’t seem convincing to me, and I suspect it doesn’t to others. I think we need to start with the idea that humans have rights by default - before the authoritarianism of governments or the majority take those rights away. I also don’t like the idea of “Crown Land”, which is a way of legitimizing authoritarian culture, the idea that publicly owned things are not owed to the public but are instead held by “the Crown”.
  - dghlsakjg 1y ago
    It seems we are just going to fundamentally disagree on the position that rights can be restricted in the name of a healthy society. You think that rational actions that restrict your rights during an emergency are unacceptable and a slippery slope to authoritarianism. I understand your viewpoint, and even agree in certain cases, I just disagree that temporary restrictions on land use passed by fairly elected representatives using normal government processes lead to authoritarianism. No one is acting outside of the authority vested in them by the people. If we think they shouldn't have that power, this specific action can be challenged at the ballot box, in the courts, or in the legislature. That is hardly authoritarianism by any definition. As I stated before, my belief (backed by centuries of examples, philosophy and legal precedent) is that individual rights are almost always in tension with a functioning society. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, in the same way that your right to play in the woods ends at our collective ability to control wildfires during record setting danger. If you or anyone causes a fire through recklessness or, as I amply demonstrate below, completely normal human activity like driving a car, there is a good chance that you will do more damage than you could hope to pay for in your entire life. When your right to go for a walk in the woods comes with an appreciable chance of destroying an entire town, it is totally reasonable that the townspeople want you to, pretty please, postpone your walk until it rains. > Evidence and data? Cars regularly go off-roading in brush and don’t start fires. If you’re saying it is incredibly rare and due to some faulty car part, then I don’t think that deserves regulation. That’s not the “40% of wildfires” you referenced as justification for this action. To make this more obvious - lightning can also start wildfires and they’ll keep happening at some low rate. Why would you try to eliminate one in a billion rarities through broad violations of liberties Vehicles go off-roading in the bush and regularly start wildfires. The fact that they sometimes don't doesn't prove anything. You are dangerously wrong here. I took it as so well-known a fact that I didn't think I needed this: Off-road motorcycles and ATVs are sold from the factory with legally required wildfire prevention equipment for this reason. Getting caught removing your spark arrestor is grounds for a massive fine. Here's a fire from this year started by an off-road motorcycle https://www.squamishchief.com/local-news/update-dirt-bike-may-have-sparked-small-brush-fire-in-squamish-10954264 https://www.squamishchief.com/local-news/update-dirt-bike-ma... Cars caused wildfires are incredibly common. So common that most wildfire departments have pages warning people of steps that they can take to help prevent them. Here is one of a litany of pages I was able to find with the search phrase "car caused wildfire" https://azdot.gov/blog-article/preventing-vehicle-caused-wildfires-everyones-responsibility https://azdot.gov/blog-article/preventing-vehicle-caused-wil.... Bonus: that one cites several fires that were caused by cars. Here is a specific fire caused by a car that caused over a billion dollars of damage including eight people burned to death and 1k homes destroyed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carr_Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carr_Fire. Here is a car caused fire in BC. The reckless rascals who caused it? The RCMP underwater search team got a flat tire responding to a missing swimmer. Bonus: that town completely burned in 2021 and the most likely cause of that fire? Sparks from a malfunctioning train wheel. Lightning might not strike twice, but in this case vehicle caused fires have. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fire-lytton-rcmp-1.7576347 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fire-lytton-... They are INCREDIBLY common, and more to the point, have no correlation with whether or not you are being reckless. They are demonstrably not '1 in a billion'. They are on the order of 1 in a hundred at the low end. An order of magnitude higher than that by many estimates: Calfire estimates 10 percent of human caused fires originate from vehicles. We can't stop lightning, but we can stop the 40% of wildfires in Canada that are human caused. Some wildfires are caused by people doing illegal things like campfires in a fire restriction, but a surprising amount of them are caused by people doing totally normal things. Here's someone that caused a wildfire by mowing their lawn: https://kmph.com/news/local/french-fire-cause-improper-lawn-mower-use-908-acres-burned-3-homes-lost-in-mariposa https://kmph.com/news/local/french-fire-cause-improper-lawn-... Simply put, when conditions are like this, it is so stupidly easy to accidentally start a fire, that restricting people from the woods really does appreciably decrease risk. > The way your list of things that you feel are not rights reads to me, is “Canada has no rights, and therefore your arguments that people have rights is false”. I didn't say that Canadians don't have rights. I said that you are claiming that there are certain specific rights for Canadians, when in fact, that is not true. It is very easy to prove that Canadians do not have a right to own guns, hell, even the American "right" to guns is severely limited (Felons? Artillery? Many modifications like short barrelled shotguns?). It is also very easy to prove that Canadians do not have a right to unrestricted access to publicly owned land, or is the "no vehicles" gate at my nearest park put up by a dictator?