Right to Life

we are now going to buy weaker nukes because of destroying a rural area of caterama, the nuke is located underground and it exploded so thats why the poor rural place of caterama has been destroyed, reporters said that the nuke was placed by enemy rebels of caterama, those rebels come from my enemy country, well the name of that country is idk, i know that it comes from the region called 'brasilistian' and i dont know why did he send rebels to our country, because of that i build a boarder between caterama and brasilistian, i dont need help. i can handle this! -Caterama

The Gallant Old Republic wrote:

I agree aspects of the police/court behavior there seems heavy-handed and ridiculous. I would, however, like a bit more context about what law he was violating, why he alone was arrested, and the justification for both before I make a quick judgment (Not the Bee isn't great for that). Assault weapons would be ridiculous over use of force, for example, but the actual video of the second arrest seems like very normal police business with no weapons and general civility. The Herald article makes a point, for example, of attacking Jason Kenney (as does the video on Not the Bee). I don't know him personally, but he's about as conservative/"small government" a politician can get in Canada and he is a fellow member of my church (so, to my knowledge, a God-fearing man and someone who would very much respect the need to attend church, which our bishop has stressed much stronger than most). Obviously police action and government aren't equivalent, so I would want to know what he thinks of this.

'Assault weapons' with the scare quotes was more my needling Canada's gun laws than anything-the cops just had entirely basic semiautomatic pistols, typical police sidearms, but in Canada those are classified as assault weapons and illegal for civilian ownership because a standard-capacity pistol magazine is criminalized as a 'high-capacity' magazine. They were not rolling in with military equipment or anything, but according to Justin Trudeau's standard, they were carrying 'weapons of war.'

My understanding of the situation is that the primary issue was the violation of capacity limits (set at 15 people, though they are now starting to slowly loosen that after re-tightening it just last month) though I believe the church was also not enforcing masking, he had an injunction pre-emptively issued against him and went ahead with the service anyways, I imagine it's primarily a matter of practicality to just target the pastor rather than trying to haul off an entire congregation, in some other crackdowns on churches they have charged others as well. He was most certainly in violation of the COVID rules, he does not deny that either, it is openly a civil disobedience matter.

Horatius Cocles wrote:

The first link is desperately trying to sensationalize the second article for clicks. The readout of the second article is much more balanced. The whole fracas over this is because he's a pastor and we're dealing with a church. If the setting was anywhere else, this would not be such a big deal. The events essentially go like this:

1) Many fellow citizens complain about the public behavior of Person A.

2) Person A refuses to stop said behavior despite complaints from the public that his actions put them at risk

3) In light of refusal, Person A is served with an order which he still refuses to obey

4) Person A is apprehended after he's done with his service

Why should the laws not apply to Person A simply because he's a pastor? It's not like he can claim ignorance of the laws in effect. He knew the laws an deliberately broke them on multiple occasions, which gave rise to public complaints. Neither article referred to the actual Calgary restrictions specifically, which a simple Google search brought up: https://www.alberta.ca/enhanced-public-health-measures.aspx

Here's what it says about places of worship:

Click to show...

Mandatory – Effective June 10

Provincewide restriction

Indoor faith service attendance is limited to 1/3 of fire code occupancy.
Outdoor faith service attendance is limited to 150 people.

Additional safety measures

Virtual, online or drive-in services where people do not have to leave their vehicles are recommended.
Mandatory physical distancing between households must be maintained.
Mask use is mandatory for indoor services:
faith leaders and other speakers can remove their masks while speaking if there is a distance of 2 metres and must be put on again once finished speaking
performers must wear masks at all times
Group performance activities, such as choir singing and playing music, are permitted if they are normal worship practices and not for the purpose of entertainment.
In-person faith group meetings and other religious gatherings are:
not permitted in private homes while these measures are in effect
permitted when conducted at a place of worship as long as physical distancing and public health measures are followed

Furthermore, also in effect starting June 10, Alberta is entering Stage 2 re-opening, so restrictions are lessening anyway and will continue until stage 3.

I don't disagree that it's sensationalized, but I do not think it really even needs to be just based on the basic facts of the matter, but for that sequence of events-that is frankly something I would consider to be a fundamentally illiberal construction. Even if people in the community were legitimately complaining about events that at most had a very indirect effect on them (it's not as if they were marching through neighborhoods), the general construction of rights is that they are designed to protect unpopular activity, not popular-no one needs freedom to do something that everyone is already fine with, they need it to do what other people would oppose. Public complaint is really not sufficient grounds for legal action, and in the age of 'speech is violence' I would be especially concerned by a precedent like this that could presumably be deployed just as easily against a church that 'put people at risk' by teaching Biblical views on marriage and sex. To use a historical example, you could go through the exact same series of steps in the Jim Crow south with members of the community complaining that a black man getting a milkshake at the counter was putting people at risk and justify police action off of both that and the laws of the time.

I am also not sure how much of this was grassroots complaints of legitimate fear by local people who presumably would not even be attending these gatherings versus ideological and political snitching. The city councillor for the ward the church is in who had been pushing the government to crack down on it had this lovely and not-at-all-concerning quote on the matter: “It’s a tightening of the screws and we’ll start to see some behaviour modification.”

The Gallant Old Republic wrote:

Also: a reminder to everyone watching the RMB that there is a poll posted, please participate!

I'm sure that everyone will be completely shocked by my opinion on the matter...

can we invite johnny and theo

Only da Best wrote:

can we invite johnny and theo

hewwo new nation :)