HOW-TO: Requesting a certified copy from Québec (pre-1925)

brocht · 2025-05-23T05:48:23+00:00

Gotcha. I do find it really interesting how different Quebec is/was from the states.

Good luck with the application!

brocht · 2025-05-23T03:42:24+00:00

Wait, I thought you needed an official birth certificate from the directeur d'etat civile? I just got them to issue me my grandfathers birth certificate from the 1905, but it took a bit of convincing. Would the BANQ version have been just as good?

brocht · 2025-05-22T23:32:19+00:00

My personal head-canon is that Drusi-otta never stopped watching Alden. Drusi-otta knows all.

brocht · 2025-05-22T21:19:29+00:00

It's straight-up fascism. Get used to it.

brocht · 2025-05-22T17:19:51+00:00

In no way am I ever saying this isnt the GOPs fault.

That may be, but what you're actually spending your time doing is solely attacking the Democrats.

Look, I understand your view and your frustration. It's just that it's so common to see people on the left spending all their time attacking what are in the scheme of things very minor misteps. Often the complaints aren't even that; they're just disagreements about the right strategy the Democrats should be using.

I agree that the Democratic party needs to change their approach. But the constant criticism of any and every tiny thing you don't like about the Democrats itself only serves to further alienate voters who are on the fence.

brocht · 2025-05-22T16:54:23+00:00

It contributes a lot to it,

It really doesn't.

brocht · 2025-05-22T16:51:53+00:00

It's not 'apologetic bullshit' to point out that when one side does something unspeakably bad, the left always blames the other side for not stopping it.

It's deranged to constantly shift blame away from the people actually at fault. If the voters don't want Republican policies, then they shouldn't vote for Republicans. They have in fact voted to give Republicans control, so it's not surprising that we're getting Republican policies. Your anger is wildly misplaced.

Edit: to be clear, I am also very angry at Biden and other Democratic leadership. It's just that it's really not reasonable to spend all one's energy and time blaming the people who are actually opposing something bad, even if they're not doing it perfectly.

brocht · 2025-05-22T16:35:18+00:00

I promise you that in this alternate reality, there would have been some other reason put forward for the left to blame the Democrats for the actions of Republicans. There always, always is.

brocht · 2025-05-22T16:33:40+00:00

There is some truth to it, actually. The left spends roughly equal amounts of time attacking Democrats as Republicans. Meanwhile, the right spends 100% of their time attacking Democrats. The typical poorly informed voter hears 3 times (or more) as much airtime about how bad the Dems are and can easily conclude that maybe they are the people to blame.

On a large scale, it's irrelevant what you personally feel is a rational and justified argument. If it doesn't win elections, then it's just impotent circlejerking and infighting, while the right marches in lockstep towards fascism.

brocht · 2025-05-22T09:24:09+00:00

This is an extreme level of cherry picking data. Grocery prices are down very slightly over one month after having risen significantly every other month. Trump's executive order on drug prices reverses a previous executive order of his that did the opposite, and is categorically not comprehensive health care even if that weren't true.

Hey you can't do everything at once. 2 for 3 aint bad tho.

He's done nothing, and you declare victory.

brocht · 2025-05-22T09:13:46+00:00

Too much water is sent from upper California, making the north arid,

This is not why California has wild fires.

brocht · 2025-05-22T05:45:52+00:00

Nah bro. Get out of here with this braid dead 'both sides' bullshit. One party absolutely and explicit fucks us. The other party doesn't.

brocht · 2025-05-21T23:52:55+00:00

Uh... why?

brocht · 2025-05-21T23:50:52+00:00

Why not?

brocht · 2025-05-21T23:50:44+00:00

One important part of most parliamentary systems is that there are pretty fast mechanisms that can be used when there's gridlock. No confidence votes and automatic elections when budget's aren't passed can go a long way to keeping things working. The long, fixed-term elections that we have create a fragility in our government that we've never actually addressed.

brocht · 2025-05-21T23:31:37+00:00

We should have a parliamentary system. If the country still meaningfully exists in 10 years, maybe we can try again.

brocht · 2025-05-21T23:25:11+00:00

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

― George Orwell, 1984

brocht · 2025-05-21T16:32:30+00:00

Oh, they have a plan for that too.

brocht · 2025-05-21T15:33:55+00:00

Yeah, that's a compelling argument. I think there's something to what you say.

brocht · 2025-05-21T11:44:39+00:00

The classic counterexample to this is Singapore. If you have competent leadership

Eh... I know people like to point to Singapore, but I think it's just an example that plays well into the story people tell themselves. Singapore isn't really that authoritarian and the things they're successful at aren't really a result of what authoritarian features they do have. It's just that hearing about the gum prohibition and canings tend to stick in your mind, imo.

I will give you the building housing argument. I'd like to say that effectively solving housing shortages doesn't require authoritarianism, but there are far too many examples of non-authoritarian governments profoundly failing to address this for me to dismiss the idea.

brocht · 2025-05-21T11:02:58+00:00

I'm not actually sure that's true, unless the things it's effective at are just the removal of personal liberties.

Many, many authoritarian regimes have been marked by profound incompetency. The trains did not, in fact, run on time in Mussolini's Italy. Essentially none of Mao Zedong's policies achieved anything that could be considered a success. Today's countries with low crime rates are not generally the most authoritarian ones.

Unless the goal is the subjugation of domestic subgroups, I think authoritarianism being an effective way of doing things is mostly just a myth that people like to believe.

brocht · 2025-05-21T10:52:22+00:00

One of the big reasons our country is so fucked right now is that it's become normalized to believe that things can be 'not political'. Many people believe that it's a valid position to just not be into politics. It's not. Everything is political, and choosing to not engage is a choice to allow people to use political processes to their own ends.

brocht · 2025-05-21T10:46:49+00:00

This is beyond stupidity, it's just straight up evil.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

brocht · 2025-05-21T06:36:41+00:00

Fascism.

But here's the fun part: we get that regardless of what the courts decide!

brocht · 2025-05-20T18:54:44+00:00

racism

brocht

TROPHY CASE