wampus

@wampus@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Should visitors to a country (tourist / visa-holders / people staying temporarily) have the right to criticize the government? When should an immigrant have the right to criticize the government?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Lots of people seem to think it’s either or, and it really shouldn’t be, in my view. (I’ll note I’m canadian, since it seems to matter to some these days).

  The argument that foreigners shouldn’t be allowed to protest is to me somewhat valid, but with a bunch of reservations. Peaceful protests, publishing op eds, (obviously) University papers, online posts, and other ‘regular’ forms of expression I’m totally in agreement that they should be allowed to express themselves/participate.

  But we’ve also seen cases in Canada where our immigration levels got so high, that we literally had CCP organized protests in favour of a detained Chinese CCP Billionaire, as well as the tearing down of “peaceful protests”/awareness things in regards to HongKong and the crack down the CCP did there. We’ve seen large, organized groups of Indian students – their messages of “go get free food” being amplified by foreign controlled social media – draining our food banks dry, the loss of that social support helping to fuel class conflicts and increased animosity towards Indian people as a demographic. We’ve seen ‘protests’ leveraged by foreign powers to sow discontent and animosity intentionally, and/or to control the narrative around news stories.

  And that’s really no surprise: one of the stated methodologies of authoritarian regimes, for attacking democracies, is to basically sow civil unrest through the amplification of contested issues/topics. They’ll amplify/fund controversial right-wing and left-wing viewpoints in order to cause internal conflict. They’ll hype up race conflicts. Like how the majority of people are totally fine saying both “Hamas is bad” and “Israel’s genocidal actions in gaza are bad”, but somehow it’s always framed as just a 2 sided thing where you’re on one side or the other, is great for authoritarians: why fight a democracy, when you can make it fight itself. If we’re accepting Students/people from authoritarian regimes, we have to be realistic in acknowledging many of these people will share the regimes beliefs, and will be actively working against our governments / peoples. They aren’t the stereotypical refugee seeking a better/freer life, but rather people with malicious intentions and a desire to disrupt.

  So I’m fine with such people having visas and non-permanent citizenship revoked if the person’s involved in criminal activity (violent protests), and/or if they’re a primary organizer/instigator/funder of such things, or (as was the case with some ‘student’ groups in Canada) they’re actively coordinating their protests with foreign embassies/agents. I’d also be in favour of increased scrutiny of people from such regions when it comes to long term stays / partial immigration (where they don’t renounce their former non-democratic country). Lots of countries also expect singular citizenship, I see no particular issue with western democracies at least requiring that their citizens not support/be registered citizens of authoritarian dictatorships. If you want to live in an egalitarian/democratic country, you shouldn’t be supportive of authoritarian autocracies/dictatorships.

  And again, similar to the note about ‘one side or the other’, in terms of free speech, most folks generally recognise that there are some reasonable restrictions / repercussions involved with it. Hate speech, explicitly calling for the killing of some group of people or what have you, clearly not a ‘right’ for most sane people – at least, not one that wouldn’t come with consequences. In the same way that the left is fine boycotting Musk for his Nazi salutes (he’s free to express himself as a Nazi, and other people are free to take issue with that / not support him because of it), foreigners explicitly challenging the existing norms of society should be prepared for potential consequences if they do so in a manner deemed inappropriate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Doctor Who' Star Varada Sethu Fires Back at 'Woke' Critics: 'It Means We’re Doing the Right Thing'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So the argument is what, that the white people who had a ‘role model’ for their kids shouldn’t be annoyed that the industry is removing that role model, because race shouldn’t matter. But also that race representation matters, and that it’s important for other races to have representation by taking over the roles of those figures.

  It doesn’t upset me, it just doesn’t make sense to me. Like I accept that parents want to have positive role models that ‘look like’ their kids, as it helps kids development. So it makes sense that minority groups want to see themselves represented as such in media, and that they’d celebrate established characters being swapped over to be their race/gender. However, that same line of thinking explains why white people are annoyed that their kids are ‘losing’ role models that ‘look like them’. If you assert that ‘race matters’ (and I accept that it does for kids), then it seems reasonable to be annoyed that those characters are being ‘taken away’ for practically the same reason that it seems reasonable for minority groups to be happy to see themselves represented. If race representation matters for the character and kids having positive role models, than its arguably worse to disenfranchise the larger group of kids.

  I mean, we’re busy watching young guys flock to alpha dumbass influencer bros, in part because there are fewer and fewer positive role models for them to look up to.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Doctor Who' Star Varada Sethu Fires Back at 'Woke' Critics: 'It Means We’re Doing the Right Thing'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Scarlet Johansen as the Major in Ghost in the Shell Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One in Dr Strange Controversy around characters like Iron Fist etc

  Asian fictional characters often get white washed. Results in protests from minority groups who feel they’re being denied representation in their own culture’s created artwork, and roles in movies/shows – just like how replacing caucasian fictional characters results in protests from groups who feel they’re having their cultural representation in media suppressed by minority interests. But whatever man. Guess those dont count.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Doctor Who' Star Varada Sethu Fires Back at 'Woke' Critics: 'It Means We’re Doing the Right Thing'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The people who cheer for the replacement of historically caucasian roles with minority actors, are the same people who protest the replacement of historically minority roles with caucasian actors. And they wonder why there’s push back.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ICE Returns All Migrants From Guantánamo to Stateside Facilities⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Maybe the US should like… return Guantanamo to Cuba, since as far as I know Cuba never agreed to the US setting it up on occupied land. The US just cuts cheques to pretend they’re paying, but Cuba ain’t accepting. The states even blocks trade with Cuba, so it seems really implausible that Cuba’s cool with the US having a torture site in their back yard.

  It’s like the cops surround your house to prevent you from leaving / talking to your neighbours. Then they sometimes just break in and rape your wife, then leave $5 on the nightstand and claim she was a prostitute. Plus waterboarding.