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Kaplan-Myrth was practically hysterical every time she spoke. It was very hard to disentangle her message from her delivery. What I managed to take away from her rants was that anyone who questioned the efficacy of boosters, or considered the costs of lockdown too high, is a far right nutjob. Yikes! I found it very telling that she did not want to come onto the programme to debate the topic if there was someone from the "other" side. How can one debate if only one side is represented??

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"But those who shout obscenities at Liberal politicians in public, or write vile emails to left-leaning journalists, are not without responsibility either."

While I agree with this, there is a chasm of difference that needs be addressed.

The left is screaming at everyone, and now threatening everyone... from their top positions of power and influence... that rejects absolutism of their leftist ideas and demands.... even as those ideas and demands are clearly flawed, destructive and absurd.

The right is, reluctantly and late to the game, screaming at the left for their demanded absolutism and evidence of abuses of power to force everyone else to accept the left dog food.

The right is willing to compromise. The left is not. The left is working from a position that without political dominance they lose their life meaning... it is like their clutch on power is their struggle for life. The right can see this and is starting to see that there is no easy solution except to turn up the heat in response.

The right is conservative. Conservatives in general are more calm, cool and collected. It is this tendency that seems to have contributed to the problems we have today. The left radicals used to be cute and tolerated. You can see the old Republican establishment still attempting to model this tolerance. It was okay that some people came with these absurd radical ideas... because we would debate them and maybe the needle DID need to move a bit. However, the GOP and moderates failed to recognize the radicals had taken control of the education system and started spreading a toxic mind virus to ALL the students... even at K-12. Trump and his supporters noted it along with the globalist corporatist destruction of American working prosperity... which for some inexplicable reason the radicals seem to also support even as they rage about the big corporations stealing all the resources and cash.

I think the correction happens if and when the left, especially the youth, wake up to the fact that their corporate-political establishment masters have fed them a raft of crap and they recognize the common goals they share with the American working class to stop the oligarchs and their political benefactors from continuing to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.

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"The right is willing to compromise. The left is not. ... You can see the old Republican establishment still attempting to model this tolerance. "

This is total nonsense. In the US, it began with the Trump-led lies about Obama's birthplace, and the Republicans refusing to compromise on anything, Mitch McConnell famously saying in 2008 that his only goal was to make sure Obama was not re-elected.

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Sure dude. That's were it all began. Did you even read the piece by Tara? Or do tend to skip to the comments to get your lefty uncontrolled emotions triggered?

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There are no winners here. But I think that's part of the problem. We all want to win. We don't just want to have our views heard, and maybe even acted upon by decision-makers, but we also want to annihilate the "other side." We now label ourselves according to our politics, and you must take a side. Now, people are afraid to express even tolerance for other views, for fear of being branded. The stakes are high, now, too. If you're publicly branded, you could lose your job, and thus your home and possibly family. I feel our PM has stoked these divisions with his hate-filled rhetoric, claiming virtue and morality. But there's nothing virtuous in his words, goading people into intolerance of those who don't share his views. His irresponsibility has monumental consequences. Tara, I think you're so right when you say that we've lost curiosity about the complicated reasons people have for their views, decisions and beliefs. We're all guilty of this, not just "them" -- whoever "they" may be. That curiosity could come from the top, and we'd all be better served, but ultimately we're all responsible.

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Decorum, manners and etiquette have been on the decline for some time. It shows up in numerous small ways, such as a customer service representative addressing a customer with whom they have never interacted by their first name, a gradual cheapening of the work place with increasing casual dress (and attitudes), people crossing at an intersection when they do not have the right of way, e-mails written with such abruptness and poor grammar as if they are angry missives from a poorly educated child, the airing of personal experiences in public that should remain private, the younger two generations' unearned sense of entitlement ad nauseum. This and much more form the underpinnings of how far too many people function that then gives rise to more vitriolic behavior.

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Oh god. Just seeing that person sitting there wearing a mask alone in a office is enough to boil my blood.

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The problem with you, Tara, is you make way too much common sense. Please keep on being a problem :)

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You are absolutely correct. This dissent into mean-spiritedness is becoming the norm. I wrote a brief essay about this back in June.... And it only seems to be getting worse and more widespread.

https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/is-vulgarity-our-new-normal

I'm not sure what the ultimate solution will be. However, whatever it is, courageous calls for civility from writers like you will be an important contribution.

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"We" don't have to do anything.

"We" are just fine with urbanites going mad.

"We" welcome secession.

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I notice now how many people call the possibility of the Conservatives heading the federal government the "destruction of democracy" and yet isn't majority rule a tenet of democracy? I'm confused by this reckoning.

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Blaming individuals for unseemly behaviour is like blaming someone for getting wet while taking a shower.

There's a broader, deeper more malevolent malaise at work--a set of inept governments dedicated to pitting citizens against each other.

I still tremble with anger at Ford for legislating police to stop and challenge citizens on Ontario streets and his knee-cappings of small business. Trudeau? The anger continues to build day after day. The clown show in India, disrespect of Wilson-Bould, Tam's unscience, the economic castration of western Canada, Quebec--his Canadian whore, frozen bank accounts and WE.

Yes, we must "pull back from the brink". But that brink is individually uncontrollable. We are simply responding to the puss-filled environment of inept politics. We need wholesale change in leadership at almost all levels. THEN, the brink become tenable.

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It really bugs me when the Pro-vaccers start using the well know and developed vaccines for Polio or Measels, etc. as rational for mandating the mRNA vaccines. There is no comparison to be made here. The Jabs have not even been approved and they, most likely, never will so they are officially not a vaccine. While the mRNA technology has been around for a while, to the best of my knowledge, there has only been one other attempt to use it is as a vaccine and it was roundly rejected. And the death toll associated with the Jabs, while Pro-vaccers say there's not a clear connection, it's not out of bounds to see a common causality from the thousands of reports worldwide that reported a Jab related death.

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Kaplan-Myrth may have had something of value to say...but it was lost in her shreiking, polarized and politically biased presentation. Can you imagine the shrill lecture she'd deliver were you to attend with an STD?

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Professor P.M. Forni held a presentation at UofT Faculty Architecture around 2003 on civility (he had i think recently written "Choosing Civility")...high vibe human being and a very charming book...

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