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Philip O'Reilly's avatar

Thanks Chris!

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Jen Garner's avatar

Thank you! I really enjoyed this.

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Philip O'Reilly's avatar

Glad you liked it Jen. Hope you come on over to my Substack, I may have written some other articles you'll like.

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Jen Garner's avatar

Done! Thank you!

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cyberwyrd's avatar

Hey, Black Flag, from this fellow (ex)Vancouverite, now a Sunshine Coaster. My ideological development is somewhat similar to yours, but a bit more extreme in my younger days. Would it be worthwhile to develop a forum for our fellow Maple-leaf wearers. with the specific intention of exploring options that don’t come down the chute with ideological labels already applied?

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Philip O'Reilly's avatar

Interesting idea. You mean something other than Substack? What do you have in mind?

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cyberwyrd's avatar

First off, let me apologize for being so long in getting back to you (serious illness in family). Now on to the meat of the issue.

1) Canadians only, to build connection with each other. After that, maybe proposals—what should we do about health care? How do we want it to be? Immigration policy? Defence? Ask for proposals in each area, with the focus on the results we want. No personal attacks, raking over the past, polemical point-scoring—there are enough venues for that already.

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Chris's avatar

Beautiful, neighbor! "Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the handmaiden of truth." (From Robert T. Weston's short essay/poem/quote.)

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Samantha's avatar

As I recall, my suggestion of "secret tourists" as opposed to "illegals" was not very well-received that day...

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Philip O'Reilly's avatar

I remember that! I was trying to remember exactly what you said but all I could remember was that is was a funny comment.

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BigOinSeattle's avatar

Thanks brother. I notice some bad spending habits among a certain class of whites and while J. Taylor's comments still make my skin crawl I would call out the ubiquity of tattoos among the poor, which are very expensive and how tf you gonna complain about bills if you doing that stuff? Still not much waste compared to the blacks and the Hispanics and they're my people, hurts me to see them do this.

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Philip O'Reilly's avatar

Poor spending habits and bad choices are universal habits as far as I know.

Thanks for reading and for the comment.

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BigOinSeattle's avatar

You bet. What I meant was that blacks and Hispanics are more often on welfare etc and more destructive pathologies. I remember reading that a study in New York City on welfare recipients observed that many spent a quarter of their income on cigarettes. That’s with very punitive tobacco taxes but still….

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Dean's avatar

Very well written. Thanks.

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Philip O'Reilly's avatar

Thanks Dean! I appreciate the compliment.

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working rich's avatar

Great stuff. Keep it up.

I, too, think that slavery was “ bad.” but did the rent farmers in Ireland in the pre-famine days have it any better? Starvation was not unusual before the famine.

Does anyone admit that “ freeing “ the slaves on the death of the slaveholders meant that the slaves were on their own? No longer to be fed, housed, and cared for? Uneducated with menial trade skills to make a living when they owned no land?

The failure of the reconstruction and the failure of dealing with the slaves’ lack of trade, work habits, and now ebonics has led to the mess we face today. Most of our cities are in ruins because no one want to live near them.

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Philip O'Reilly's avatar

Thank you!

Yes, it's a complicated topic. Ideology over evidence is not the approach to take if understanding is the goal.

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