Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC

[Kirkhill]

So, in an age of mass travel, and migration, how do you propose a nation actually do that?

It was a lot easier when crossing the oceans took a month, and the people coming were all from the same cultural backgrounds.

I agree. Absolutely it is harder.

But have you noticed how fast information moves around the world? And how quickly it influences events?
That is where the war is being fought. And has to be won.
Our enemies know this.

We have to fight back with equally compelling stories and ignore those that would dismiss all such efforts as propaganda. Propaganda is just a word like any other. It is a means of propagating information, information that supports a particular belief or cause.

In an adversarial world, even moreso than in the court room, it is necessary that the defence be argued as forcefully and competently, with verve and skill, as the complaint.

....

We have an advantage that our enemies hate. People want to live in our countries. They want to leave their countries. We just have to tell people how we got here. It wasn't luck. It wasn't crime. It wasn't Satan and it wasn't God. It was hard choices and a lot of mistakes.

We need to get Hollywood back on side.

 

[Eaglelord17]

The biggest issue is you miss the 150+ years of different history.
There hasn't been a significant war fought in North American since the Civil War down here (1812 wasn't a significant war in the sense of conflicts of the era).

Spanish American war was more recent.

 

[Jarnhamar]

'We will get an even better deal,' Carney says after Oval Office meeting with Trump​

We’re not just getting a better deal, we’re getting the best deal anyone’s ever seen. People are talking about it! It’s going to be legendary.

 

[Remius]

'We will get an even better deal,' Carney says after Oval Office meeting with Trump​

We’re not just getting a better deal, we’re getting the best deal anyone’s ever seen. People are talking about it! It’s going to be legendary.

I think people need to get away from thinking that things will go back to what it may have been and accept that we will be living in a new world reality.

The key is how to position ourselves in that context. And that may mean not being in the best position with the US in comparison to what it was but rather be in the best position in the new reality of that relationship.

 

[brihard]

Without doxxing who you work with, do you find police recruiting is getting quality people joining? Like in terms of fitness, mental health, and the right mindset?

Generally yes. You’re never gonna bat a thousand, and the profession has become somewhat attractive to the younger generation, but by and large we have good people coming through the door, particularly by the time training weeds a few out. Some make it through, experience the realities of the job (or just have some really bad luck with some bad calls) and decide it’s not for them. But most stick it out and do fine and are never the subject of a misconduct matter or otherwise abjectly fail.

Some plugs make it through, but find me a job on the scale of policing where that’s never the case.

 

[Kirkhill]

The biggest issue is you miss the 150+ years of different history.
There hasn't been a significant war fought in North American since the Civil War down here (1812 wasn't a significant war in the sense of conflicts of the era).

Europeans have been fighting on that continent pretty much non stop, if not in their homes, then a neighbors... Even when WW2 ended, there where various terrorist and larger armed conflicts into the 70's, the breakup of the USSR may have curbed great power conflict - but the late 80's and early 90's also brought the breakup of Yugoslavia.

As a result Europeans are conditioned to accept a certain degree of infringement in their freedoms, and while Canadian's aren't as belligerent about freedoms are we are down here, there is no groundswell of support to adopt European like security apparatuses.
Some European countries have had some more pragmatic views of firearm ownership and training - but not out of a sense of freedom, solely as a defense against the USSR/Russian Federation (and the wannabe USSR2.0).

While I would argue that PET and his spawn have tried to crush gun rights (now mostly below European levels - only Britain (and Australia) has managed to crush that outright, and limit other Canadian Freedoms, they only partially have succeeded in removing the general desire of Canadians not be slaves to their governments.

Heck the CAF couldn't even save the DCRA and Civilian Marksmanship, and the Cadet Corps was watered down with no military weapon training. So before you are able to focus on a new security apparatus, you should probably focus on resuscitation of those that previously flourished.

And that is precisely what I am arguing. A resurrection of that regulated militia that is at the heart of the modern liberal experiment. A militia whose myths begin with tales of peasants with bows and arrows defeating that very Gendarmerie that I cited. The Gendarmerie of aristocrats in armour on horseback financed in support of the autocrat and employed to suppress the peasantry.

That myth is what inspired generations of Englishmen and still terrifies the European elite. Nothing they fear more than loss of control to an armed and motivated, and well regulated, mob.

The southern European has a different relation to authority than the northern counterpart. it is the Thing that divides them.

 

[Kirkhill]

I think people need to get away from thinking that things will go back to what it may have been and accept that we will be living in a new world reality.

The key is how to position ourselves in that context. And that may mean not being in the best position with the US in comparison to what it was but rather be in the best position in the new reality of that relationship.

Is that what people thought they were buying when they hired their new agent?

 

[Remius]

Is that what people thought they were buying when they hired their new agent?

He pretty much said it throughout the campaign.

 

[Kirkhill]

So what does a civil society do when one armed group of people exercising their agency butts up against another armed group of people exercising their agency? Let them duke it out? To take sides would seem to interfere with at least part of the proletariat exercising their agency.

Still thinking about this. A great question.

I think I have another part to the answer. Perhaps the better part.

Send their representatives to Parliament.
Have them divide into those that support the government and those that oppose the government.
Have them leave their swords outside but keep them two swords lengths apart, just in case.
Supply them with an adjudicator to keep order.
Supply the adjudicator with a servant with a mace to keep the unruly in line.

That is how you keep the warring in line.

A key element is that both sides are seen as legitimate.
The solutions are agreed by both sides as equally valid.
And worth trying.
And reversible if they fail.

There are no absolutes. And nothing is permanent.

 

[Haggis]

Generally yes. You’re never gonna bat a thousand, and the profession has become somewhat attractive to the younger generation, but by and large we have good people coming through the door, particularly by the time training weeds a few out. Some make it through, experience the realities of the job (or just have some really bad luck with some bad calls) and decide it’s not for them. But most stick it out and do fine and are never the subject of a misconduct matter or otherwise abjectly fail.

Some plugs make it through, but find me a job on the scale of policing where that’s never the case.

Agreed. Teaching at our national training centre and then working with those same officers in the field shows me we're still getting good quality candidates for the most part and graduating a good product for the front line. However, as Brihard noted, some decide the job isn't for them and for some, we decide for them. I'm still amazed at the diverse prior employment backgrounds that decide that law enforcement is what they really wanted to do and, in some cases, how well they actually do at the job.

 

[PrairieFella]

Violence is natural part of the human experience/condition. While it needs to be controlled, it shouldn't always be denied. Like my Grade 7 teacher used to say 'sometimes you have to let them fight'.

That is frankly a very stupid idea. The whole idea of government is that it has a monopoly on violence. Anything else os anarchy.

 

[Kirkhill]

That is frankly a very stupid idea. The whole idea of government is that it has a monopoly on violence. Anything else os anarchy.

Which woman has that monopoly?
Or other person?

That is where things fall apart. In this place the only arbitrators available to us are people like us. And nobody is inherently better than the other.