For the record, I'll state that I'm quite thankful for the teachers we have here in rural Manitoba - we have a fair number of really good ones. But if you think that means we as parents can just sit back and let stuff happen and expect it all to turn out alright, you have never been more wrong.
The Million March for Children 2024 just happened again last week. And you can read below what happened just a few days later. One of the reasons for that march was precisely because of garbage like this. These schools in the Toronto area and Ottawa area are a big part of the reason parents all over the country are suspicious of their schools. And seeing as these are the schools that literally surround our federal seat of power, I'm a little tired of people acting as though parents have no reason to be skeptical in this country.
Every teacher and administrator who was involved in this fiasco should be fired immediately. And parents need to do much more than they have been doing to make their voices heard.
Ontario's Minister of Education has apparently had enough:
“School boards must also ensure they respect intellectual diversity and open dialogue of staff, designed to create school environments that advance freedom of expression, respect for our differences, and the safety of every child from every walk of life,” Lecce said.
‘Hate’ might be a strong word, but anybody marching or joining this kind of ‘movement’ should be very aware that you’ll be marching alongside actual proper neo-nazis, white nationalists, christian nationalists, conservative muslims, you know… all those wonderful people who are very much motivated by hate. That has to make you wonder. At the heart of it, this movement is about intolerance. It’s about denying the existence or dignity of an entire group of people. That could be considered a hateful cause. The white nationalists marching with you certainly think so.
I think it's more than a little bit ignorant to say that Christians and Muslims are "very much motivated by hate". I know many of these people and none of them fit your description at all. Not only that, but this is a prime example of the intolerance of the left these days. I suppose that statement should then probably apply to every other religion that is not sponsored by the state as well.
I would never say that ‘Christians and Muslims are motivated by hate’. I said ‘Christian nationalists’ and ‘conservative Muslims’. I’m talking about fundamentalists. There’s a big difference. Just as a thought, which side of this culture war issue do you think ISIS and the Taliban would be on? Would they be on the same side as the white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the proud boys? The answer is yes, and yet you’re telling me that’s the ‘tolerant’ side?
There’s always an interesting debate over how much we should tolerate intolerance? Is it okay to punch a fascist? Anifa says it’s not just okay, it’s a duty. I’m inclined to agree. My grandfather spent his late teens and early twenties in the islands of the Pacific literally trying to kill Japanese people. That was a pretty intolerant thing to do from one perspective, but it was also the right thing to do.
No, I’m not comparing your anti trans movement to imperial Japan, but you are aligning yourself with some truly abhorrent people pushing some abhorrent ideology and, from what I saw, considerable restraint was shown by the counter protesters at these demonstrations.
So *maybe* there were some questionable people involved in the march. I don't know. It's not like the idea of parents wanting to know what what's going on with their kids is that terribly foreign a concept. There were definitely some crazies who were opposing it. Are you prepared to give up your ideals because someone you perceive as "evil" happens to share some of them? The point is, just because some raunchy people happen to hold a certain opinion, that doesn't necessarily make that opinion wrong.
Along with this march, there were also a bunch of counter-protesters. Undoubtedly there were several forms of authoritarians on that side, including a group of Marxists shouting, "Who's kids? OUR KIDS! Who's schools? OUR SCHOOLS!"
You can see those guys at 10:35 in the following video.
Maybe you like the idea of Marxism. Whatever, it's a free country, but history hasn't exactly been kind to those guys, has it? Still, their presence didn't stop other more reasonable people from joining them.
Again, I know a lot of people who, while not physically present at this march, were totally in favour of it, and I can guarantee you that the number of questionable individuals marching was a small minority of the total. Unless you have actual proof that it wasn't.
I don’t think everyone who came out to support the march is a ‘fascist’. I wouldn’t even say they’re bad people on the whole. I believe there are two ways that a person becomes a right-winger/conservative: you’re either a terrible person, or you’re simply misguided. The vast majority fit in the latter camp. I have plenty of close friends who would agree completely with your stance, and they are genuinely wonderful people. They are simply misguided.
My point was that there are people who believe the western world needs to be cleansed of non-white immigrants, and that countries like mine should be ethno-states exclusively for anglo christians. There are people who believe a woman is the property of a man and if she were to disgrace her father/husband by being ‘immodest’, then he should beat her. These are evil fascists. You might think it’s a coincidence that these kinds of people also support the anti-trans agenda. I don’t think it's a coincidence. The anti-trans movement is a movement of intolerance, not fundamentally different from anti-immigrant, anti-gay, etc.
Again, you're conflating what these people are asking for with an "anti-trans agenda". It's not that, anymore than advocating for not reading the Bible in school is an "anti-christian agenda".
Guilt by association is a logical fallacy and it's irrelevant because the issues you mentioned aren't what this is about.
That’s a fair point. Blanketing everyone with the “anti-trans” label might be hyperbole on my part. I like to at least try keep my comments civil and productive, unlike Symon here LOL
BUT I think it’s false to equate pushing a religion with encouraging openness and acceptance of non-traditional genders. Religion is a choice, and the entire point of religion is to indoctrinate people into making certain choices. Not so with gender.
Well yes, of course I like the idea of Marxism, I think anyone who understands what Marxism is ‘likes the idea’ of it.
You know who was a big fan of Marx? Abraham Lincoln, they were mutual admirers and each inspired the others’ work. Abolishing slavery is about the most Marxist thing anyone’s ever done. For some reason, the reactionary right loves to use ‘Marxist’ as a slur. I guess because it has ‘x’ in it, so it sounds scary?
Is this going to be another one of those conversations where you tell me that the Marxists were just doing Marxism wrong? And that if we could just do it today, we'd do a much better job?
The only reason the "reactionary right" isn't into Marx is because of the tens of millions of people who died under communist regimes using Marxist ideas. Otherwise, I'm sure it's a great system...
Well, yes actually. Marxism is the economic theory whereby the workers own the product of their labor. If you’re self-employed, you’re practicing Marxism. If you’re an employee who sells your time as wage labor to a corporation who harvests profits for shareholders who do nothing and produce nothing in a system where state violence enforces the will and interests of that corporation and large portion of the population are essentially coerced into said wage labor by the very economic conditions it produces, then you’re practicing capitalism. Marx considered wage labor to be one (small) step up from slavery, and asked why, if we can democratize government, can’t we democratize the corporation? What aren’t the workers the shareholders? Why can’t we move beyond this feudal system?
Marxism has very little to do with state communism and authoritarianism that I presume you’re referring to, and if we’re going to talk about death tolls, capitalism wins that one by a hundred miles.
Marxism has nothing to do with gender, sexuality or anything like that. The guy lived in 19th century Russia, I’d say his views on gender would be a lot more conservative than yours haha.
Yes it is the same message, but the difference here is that one side is representing the parents of the children, while the other side is representing a sketchy political ideology that is directly or indirectly responsible for tens of millions of deaths worldwide.
Sadly, it seems like the Marxists may indeed be the ones currently running our schools, but they certainly do not own our kids.
That’s quite a bold claim to say ‘the parents’ were on the ‘million march’ side, while the counter-protests were 'not parents’. I’m sure there were plenty of parents and non-parents on both sides.
At this point you've lost all credibility as a decent human being Ken. You're such a partisan you can't condemn obvious hate speech when you see it because you believe it might weaken your position. You put your ideology before the human beings it negatively affects, the same core charge you make of "woke leftists". Congratulations, contrarian! You've become the very thing you profess to hate haha
My point, Symon, is that it doesn't really matter if there are nefarious forces on both sides or not. Every single protest that's ever happened likely has some people who are there for the wrong reasons. Do you think this invalidates the purpose? From my understanding (and yes, it is just MY understanding) this protest was not organized by a group of fascist, racist, haters.
That isn't what the march organizers said. According to their site, the goal of the movement is to get 'sexually explicit' materials and 'gender ideology' removed from schools (with no specifics provided). They didn't say they're 'tired of all the intolerance'.
That's right. That is the goal of the march, but on a much broader scale, it's this lack of intolerance that is motivating people to actually do something about it.
How does one ‘remove gender ideology’ from the classroom? When I was in school, we called our male teachers ‘Sir’ and the female teachers ‘Miss’. What now? They’re all just ‘Teacher’ ? ‘Techerperson?’ They have to wear some kind of non-gender specific jumpsuit ?
That's a great question, Ned. Thankfully someone has already come up with "Mx." (pronounced "miks". Undoubtedly there are teachers who prefer that to Mr. or Mrs. This has been around for a while so I'm quite sure there are many more options by now.
But this isn't really what we're talking about, is it?
You're incapable of ever acknowledging you might be wrong it would seem. This is a sign of narcissism and intellectual dishonesty. You aren't here for legitimate conversation, you're here to bludgeon your audience with the same poorly constructed ideas found in your "writing"
I have no idea what we're talking about, to be honest. From what I gather, if a biological female uses the term 'Miss.' and wears a dress, that's NOT 'gender ideology', but if a biological male does that, then it IS 'gender ideology'. Not sure how that makes sense or whose job it is to check everyone's genitalia to make sure nobody's practicing 'gender ideology'
For the record, I'll state that I'm quite thankful for the teachers we have here in rural Manitoba - we have a fair number of really good ones. But if you think that means we as parents can just sit back and let stuff happen and expect it all to turn out alright, you have never been more wrong.
The Million March for Children 2024 just happened again last week. And you can read below what happened just a few days later. One of the reasons for that march was precisely because of garbage like this. These schools in the Toronto area and Ottawa area are a big part of the reason parents all over the country are suspicious of their schools. And seeing as these are the schools that literally surround our federal seat of power, I'm a little tired of people acting as though parents have no reason to be skeptical in this country.
Every teacher and administrator who was involved in this fiasco should be fired immediately. And parents need to do much more than they have been doing to make their voices heard.
https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/students-attending-protest-told-to-wear-blue-to-mark-them-as-colonizers
Ontario's Minister of Education has apparently had enough:
“School boards must also ensure they respect intellectual diversity and open dialogue of staff, designed to create school environments that advance freedom of expression, respect for our differences, and the safety of every child from every walk of life,” Lecce said.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lecce-looks-to-put-controls-on-speakers-at-ontario-schools
‘Hate’ might be a strong word, but anybody marching or joining this kind of ‘movement’ should be very aware that you’ll be marching alongside actual proper neo-nazis, white nationalists, christian nationalists, conservative muslims, you know… all those wonderful people who are very much motivated by hate. That has to make you wonder. At the heart of it, this movement is about intolerance. It’s about denying the existence or dignity of an entire group of people. That could be considered a hateful cause. The white nationalists marching with you certainly think so.
I think it's more than a little bit ignorant to say that Christians and Muslims are "very much motivated by hate". I know many of these people and none of them fit your description at all. Not only that, but this is a prime example of the intolerance of the left these days. I suppose that statement should then probably apply to every other religion that is not sponsored by the state as well.
This is doublespeak.
I would never say that ‘Christians and Muslims are motivated by hate’. I said ‘Christian nationalists’ and ‘conservative Muslims’. I’m talking about fundamentalists. There’s a big difference. Just as a thought, which side of this culture war issue do you think ISIS and the Taliban would be on? Would they be on the same side as the white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the proud boys? The answer is yes, and yet you’re telling me that’s the ‘tolerant’ side?
There’s always an interesting debate over how much we should tolerate intolerance? Is it okay to punch a fascist? Anifa says it’s not just okay, it’s a duty. I’m inclined to agree. My grandfather spent his late teens and early twenties in the islands of the Pacific literally trying to kill Japanese people. That was a pretty intolerant thing to do from one perspective, but it was also the right thing to do.
No, I’m not comparing your anti trans movement to imperial Japan, but you are aligning yourself with some truly abhorrent people pushing some abhorrent ideology and, from what I saw, considerable restraint was shown by the counter protesters at these demonstrations.
So *maybe* there were some questionable people involved in the march. I don't know. It's not like the idea of parents wanting to know what what's going on with their kids is that terribly foreign a concept. There were definitely some crazies who were opposing it. Are you prepared to give up your ideals because someone you perceive as "evil" happens to share some of them? The point is, just because some raunchy people happen to hold a certain opinion, that doesn't necessarily make that opinion wrong.
Along with this march, there were also a bunch of counter-protesters. Undoubtedly there were several forms of authoritarians on that side, including a group of Marxists shouting, "Who's kids? OUR KIDS! Who's schools? OUR SCHOOLS!"
You can see those guys at 10:35 in the following video.
https://youtu.be/GiV7pJeWMB8?si=y3S_4lgpje0dpgaA
Maybe you like the idea of Marxism. Whatever, it's a free country, but history hasn't exactly been kind to those guys, has it? Still, their presence didn't stop other more reasonable people from joining them.
Again, I know a lot of people who, while not physically present at this march, were totally in favour of it, and I can guarantee you that the number of questionable individuals marching was a small minority of the total. Unless you have actual proof that it wasn't.
I think that YouTube link is the wrong video.
I don’t think everyone who came out to support the march is a ‘fascist’. I wouldn’t even say they’re bad people on the whole. I believe there are two ways that a person becomes a right-winger/conservative: you’re either a terrible person, or you’re simply misguided. The vast majority fit in the latter camp. I have plenty of close friends who would agree completely with your stance, and they are genuinely wonderful people. They are simply misguided.
My point was that there are people who believe the western world needs to be cleansed of non-white immigrants, and that countries like mine should be ethno-states exclusively for anglo christians. There are people who believe a woman is the property of a man and if she were to disgrace her father/husband by being ‘immodest’, then he should beat her. These are evil fascists. You might think it’s a coincidence that these kinds of people also support the anti-trans agenda. I don’t think it's a coincidence. The anti-trans movement is a movement of intolerance, not fundamentally different from anti-immigrant, anti-gay, etc.
Again, you're conflating what these people are asking for with an "anti-trans agenda". It's not that, anymore than advocating for not reading the Bible in school is an "anti-christian agenda".
Guilt by association is a logical fallacy and it's irrelevant because the issues you mentioned aren't what this is about.
That’s a fair point. Blanketing everyone with the “anti-trans” label might be hyperbole on my part. I like to at least try keep my comments civil and productive, unlike Symon here LOL
BUT I think it’s false to equate pushing a religion with encouraging openness and acceptance of non-traditional genders. Religion is a choice, and the entire point of religion is to indoctrinate people into making certain choices. Not so with gender.
Well yes, of course I like the idea of Marxism, I think anyone who understands what Marxism is ‘likes the idea’ of it.
You know who was a big fan of Marx? Abraham Lincoln, they were mutual admirers and each inspired the others’ work. Abolishing slavery is about the most Marxist thing anyone’s ever done. For some reason, the reactionary right loves to use ‘Marxist’ as a slur. I guess because it has ‘x’ in it, so it sounds scary?
Is this going to be another one of those conversations where you tell me that the Marxists were just doing Marxism wrong? And that if we could just do it today, we'd do a much better job?
The only reason the "reactionary right" isn't into Marx is because of the tens of millions of people who died under communist regimes using Marxist ideas. Otherwise, I'm sure it's a great system...
Well, yes actually. Marxism is the economic theory whereby the workers own the product of their labor. If you’re self-employed, you’re practicing Marxism. If you’re an employee who sells your time as wage labor to a corporation who harvests profits for shareholders who do nothing and produce nothing in a system where state violence enforces the will and interests of that corporation and large portion of the population are essentially coerced into said wage labor by the very economic conditions it produces, then you’re practicing capitalism. Marx considered wage labor to be one (small) step up from slavery, and asked why, if we can democratize government, can’t we democratize the corporation? What aren’t the workers the shareholders? Why can’t we move beyond this feudal system?
Marxism has very little to do with state communism and authoritarianism that I presume you’re referring to, and if we’re going to talk about death tolls, capitalism wins that one by a hundred miles.
Marxism has nothing to do with gender, sexuality or anything like that. The guy lived in 19th century Russia, I’d say his views on gender would be a lot more conservative than yours haha.
A group of ‘Marxists’ shouting "Who's kids? OUR KIDS! Who's schools? OUR SCHOOLS!" ??
But isn’t that exactly what the Million March people are saying? Isn’t it the exact same message?
Yes it is the same message, but the difference here is that one side is representing the parents of the children, while the other side is representing a sketchy political ideology that is directly or indirectly responsible for tens of millions of deaths worldwide.
Sadly, it seems like the Marxists may indeed be the ones currently running our schools, but they certainly do not own our kids.
That’s quite a bold claim to say ‘the parents’ were on the ‘million march’ side, while the counter-protests were 'not parents’. I’m sure there were plenty of parents and non-parents on both sides.
"*maybe*"
At this point you've lost all credibility as a decent human being Ken. You're such a partisan you can't condemn obvious hate speech when you see it because you believe it might weaken your position. You put your ideology before the human beings it negatively affects, the same core charge you make of "woke leftists". Congratulations, contrarian! You've become the very thing you profess to hate haha
My point, Symon, is that it doesn't really matter if there are nefarious forces on both sides or not. Every single protest that's ever happened likely has some people who are there for the wrong reasons. Do you think this invalidates the purpose? From my understanding (and yes, it is just MY understanding) this protest was not organized by a group of fascist, racist, haters.
Smart move: double down.
Really, I see way more intolerance coming from the other side of this issue. Without a doubt. This is precisely what people here are so tired of.
That isn't what the march organizers said. According to their site, the goal of the movement is to get 'sexually explicit' materials and 'gender ideology' removed from schools (with no specifics provided). They didn't say they're 'tired of all the intolerance'.
That's right. That is the goal of the march, but on a much broader scale, it's this lack of intolerance that is motivating people to actually do something about it.
How does one ‘remove gender ideology’ from the classroom? When I was in school, we called our male teachers ‘Sir’ and the female teachers ‘Miss’. What now? They’re all just ‘Teacher’ ? ‘Techerperson?’ They have to wear some kind of non-gender specific jumpsuit ?
That's a great question, Ned. Thankfully someone has already come up with "Mx." (pronounced "miks". Undoubtedly there are teachers who prefer that to Mr. or Mrs. This has been around for a while so I'm quite sure there are many more options by now.
But this isn't really what we're talking about, is it?
You're incapable of ever acknowledging you might be wrong it would seem. This is a sign of narcissism and intellectual dishonesty. You aren't here for legitimate conversation, you're here to bludgeon your audience with the same poorly constructed ideas found in your "writing"
I have no idea what we're talking about, to be honest. From what I gather, if a biological female uses the term 'Miss.' and wears a dress, that's NOT 'gender ideology', but if a biological male does that, then it IS 'gender ideology'. Not sure how that makes sense or whose job it is to check everyone's genitalia to make sure nobody's practicing 'gender ideology'