Comrade, thanks for your attempt at anti-Polievre clickbait, which is now easential since Cdn media aren't doing their job to report a potential future PM. Victimhood distracted from the point that Polievre is flailing to stay in front of his base. I hope MSM will take time to examine his support of Danielle Smith's anti-trans policies.
Victimless! Really? For many people, their car is the most expensive item they own if they don't own a home. Not everyone lives in a walkable neighbourhood. It is how they get to work, their kids to school and daycare, their groceries. It's not doubt a ton of paperwork and dealings with insurance. How dare you be so insensitive. We once had a bike stolen out of the garage and felt violated - who in our quiet neighbourhood just decided to grab a bike.
Car thefts are financing organized crime and raising our insurance rates. Your "all time low stats" are made up.
Like Israel, there is so much that can be said about Poilievre and our shitty media, no need to make shit up.
Your kind does more harm to progressive causes than the right wing nutjobs do.
You live in a highly bike-able, walkable neighbourhood/city that allows you to easily commute without a car. You get that that's enormous privilege, right?
No, my argument is that you're pulling information about where i live out of your ass. Luckily, we have a new system of e-bikes and people have flocked to them.
Wow, that was a piss poor justification for the trauma that thousands of Canadians are going through right now when their cars get stolen. You are basically justifying crime. We're not talking about people stealing a loaf of bread or even a steak. We're talking about organized crime financing drug dealers and terrorism - and NO, I do not mean Hamas, which is a resistance group.
You are privileged, entitled, ignorant, and insufferable.
When my motorcycle was stolen I had a massive problem getting to medical appointments. And I could not afford the deductible and the replacement cost despite it being insured. It also took nearly four months resolve the insurance claim.
And I was lucky to have insurance for theft. Most low income vehicle owners don’t have theft insurance because they can’t afford it. And their vehicle is likely the most expensive and valuable thing they own. Their livelihood depends on it. People are living desperately on the financial edge of a knife.
You are oblivious to the impact of crime because you can afford to be a victim of theft. So much so that you don’t even feel victimized, merely inconvenienced.
Thank you for making such a bold and thought provoking argument. I started thinking through several responses, but I kept realizing I was missing your point. Ultimately, I still respectfully disagree.
1) I'd say if a crime is victimless, then it isn't really a crime. To adjust your analogy, I would say what if your upstairs neighbor decided to flood your apartment out of spite (maybe they disagreed with your politics)? Your analogy was an accident, not a crime.
2) Accepting your premise that a victim is one who is negatively changed forever after, I'd still say car theft still has victims. Insurance rates factor in crime rates (at least that's how car insurance works in the U.S). So after a car is stolen, an entire postal code will feel a negative impact, and in aggregate this will hurt people. Then there are things that are harder to measure, like overall community trust, feelings of safety. At the lower end of the same spectrum, I'd compare it to someone littering in my neighborhood - I'm not physically hurt, I'm not scarred, but my community is disrespected and a tiny bit worse off.
3) In passing, you dismiss people being concerned about individual freedom which makes no sense to me. If government policy threatens our individual rights or civil liberties, is that not negatively and permanently (till the next revolution?) affecting all of us? I am not here to argue about vaccines, I just to make the point that our rights and liberties absolutely should be defended.
I agree though that politicians manipulate feelings of victim hood. I am not arguing for Conservatives (or Republicans) or any other political faction.
I left out the part of the story where the damage did happen because of upstairs negligence :)
I don't think the insurance argument holds up if car thefts right now are at a historic low. Though you ask a different question: if a community is worse off, isn't that a problem? I think there that, yes, that is a problem. Which is why I don't think trying to limit car thefts is a bad thing.
The very premise that your ignorant opinion merely triggered “men” makes me suspect you are just another social media grifter trying to cash in on the attention this kind of framing brings.
Both women and men thought your opinion was ridiculous.
You demonstrate an astonishing level of entitlement and ignorance.
First, you had insurance that would cover your flooding.
Most renters and low income homeowners do not have insurance that would cover this flooding and if they did they would have high deductibles.
Even if the flooding was an “act of God” we still call those impacted “victims”.
Second, flooding is not a crime. The perpetrator had no “agency” in choosing to flood your home. So your comparison is asinine.
Third, many people cannot afford auto theft insurance. Nearly all who have authority insurance have deductibles. So all lose money, some lose the entire value of their car.
Fourth, insurance rates have been going up 20-25% every few years for auto theft coverage. All paying these higher premiums are victims as a consequences of theft.
Fifth, if you believe someone has a right to the “fruits” of their labor. When someone takes a financial hit as a result of theft they are literally having many hours of their labor stolen from them.
You say insurance will pay for it or you will get a new car. What if your stolen car is an old beater and you only have liability insurance? And if it is recovered, you have to pay to get it out of impound, and pay for any repairs needed?
Good lord. I know Max embarrassed you but this is getting a little desperate. It’s not victimless just because “eventually” you might get your car back or insurance might cover the cost of a new purchase. Might.
It’s also about the inconvenience, the wasted time, and the fear.
Going “lol must be nice owning a garage” or presuming all car owners are monocle-wearing elites is simple ignorance.
Distraction really works. Much of the conversation around your article is about how victimizing a car theft really is. To me the key points are: Poilievre and Conservatives lie, lie, lie; the media doesn’t just “go along”, it participates in and promotes the lie; and we will get longer jail sentences at great expense to the taxpayer rather than make a bunch of capitalist, profiteers put anti-theft devices in vehicles.
This was thought provoking for sure. And your personal definition of a victim is extremely restrictive and lacks nuance. I have felt less permanently changed by having a close family friend put his hand down my pants when I was 12 than by having a car stolen in 2021 - I think it’s important to still count myself as a victim of childhood sexual assault. And I doubt there are many who would disagree with that. I also feel that despite the cumulative impact over the course of my life being lower, the sexual assault was the worse crime and the worse violation.
And with vehicle theft, the impact can be next to nothing, like the truck that was returned twice, or it can devastating for a low income family that relies on that vehicle to be able to get groceries, get to and from work, and get their kids to school. Low rent areas tend to not be close to any of these needs. And having an old but reliable car can be life changing and make life affordable. Insurance often does not pay out enough to buy a vehicle that is as reliable as the one that was stolen.
For someone who has a new vehicle and replaces it every couple of years, theft is an inconvenience. Either they get the vehicle back and insurance pays for repairs, or insurance pays out the new value of the vehicle and they get a better vehicle than what was stolen.
But if you are lower income, having a reliable vehicle that’s needed to make a living stolen and totalled like I had has a long term impact. You can’t just go get a brand new replacement. You have to take a lot of time finding a replacement that isn’t going to break you financially right after you buy it. That takes time where you are also having to pay additional transportation costs you can’t afford. When you do replace the vehicle with the best option you can find in your price range, hopefully it doesn’t break right away. Chances are high that it will not be as reliable as the one you lost, and those costs add up and impact you for years.
For me, it wasn’t the car being stolen that impacted me so deeply. Someone could have stolen it for a joyride and left it on the side of the road in roughly the same condition, and I would have been fine with it. I was honestly not even particularly upset at first. It was the vehicle being totalled and having to replace it with something less reliable and more expensive to run or risk endangering my employment that really hurt. It was the lost time and money every time something on the replacement broke and I had to fix it, knowing that would not have happened on the stolen car.
This is a class issue more than anything. A lot of discourse focuses on upper middle class and above “victims”, and I agree with you that the impact on them is not enough to make a big deal out of. But the impact on lower classes is significantly larger and does have lasting impacts - maybe not lifelong, but years long at least. Dismissing all vehicle theft as a victimless crime is out of touch, to say the least.
All that said, I completely agree with your take on the political motivations and lack of journalistic integrity which is fuelling most of the current commentary. And I strongly appreciate you bringing actual statistics to the discussion - they’re badly needed and generally neglected in modern day journalism, particularly from mainstream outlets.
Comrade, thanks for your attempt at anti-Polievre clickbait, which is now easential since Cdn media aren't doing their job to report a potential future PM. Victimhood distracted from the point that Polievre is flailing to stay in front of his base. I hope MSM will take time to examine his support of Danielle Smith's anti-trans policies.
Victimless! Really? For many people, their car is the most expensive item they own if they don't own a home. Not everyone lives in a walkable neighbourhood. It is how they get to work, their kids to school and daycare, their groceries. It's not doubt a ton of paperwork and dealings with insurance. How dare you be so insensitive. We once had a bike stolen out of the garage and felt violated - who in our quiet neighbourhood just decided to grab a bike.
Car thefts are financing organized crime and raising our insurance rates. Your "all time low stats" are made up.
Like Israel, there is so much that can be said about Poilievre and our shitty media, no need to make shit up.
Your kind does more harm to progressive causes than the right wing nutjobs do.
Well, I have already explained the insurance part of it. And the expense part of it too.
I'm sorry that you felt violated when your bike was stolen. Is it cool owning a garage? I never had the privilege.
You live in a highly bike-able, walkable neighbourhood/city that allows you to easily commute without a car. You get that that's enormous privilege, right?
Is a 80m - 120m cliff highly bikable? I mean, I can do it but most can't.
Yes Nora you're very special.
So your argument now is:
It's actually very very difficult to commute by bike, but you do it because you're a hero?
No, my argument is that you're pulling information about where i live out of your ass. Luckily, we have a new system of e-bikes and people have flocked to them.
No, I'm pulling it from your city's newspaper:
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-among-canadas-most-bikeable-cities-heat-maps-show-most-bike-friendly-parts-of-city#:~:text=Montreal%20is%20third%20most%20bikeable,Canadian%20and%2010%20U.S.%20cities.
Wow, that was a piss poor justification for the trauma that thousands of Canadians are going through right now when their cars get stolen. You are basically justifying crime. We're not talking about people stealing a loaf of bread or even a steak. We're talking about organized crime financing drug dealers and terrorism - and NO, I do not mean Hamas, which is a resistance group.
If people live with long term trauma, my argument is that they are victims. I say that directly.
I really don't understand the hostility.
You are privileged, entitled, ignorant, and insufferable.
When my motorcycle was stolen I had a massive problem getting to medical appointments. And I could not afford the deductible and the replacement cost despite it being insured. It also took nearly four months resolve the insurance claim.
And I was lucky to have insurance for theft. Most low income vehicle owners don’t have theft insurance because they can’t afford it. And their vehicle is likely the most expensive and valuable thing they own. Their livelihood depends on it. People are living desperately on the financial edge of a knife.
You are oblivious to the impact of crime because you can afford to be a victim of theft. So much so that you don’t even feel victimized, merely inconvenienced.
Thank you for making such a bold and thought provoking argument. I started thinking through several responses, but I kept realizing I was missing your point. Ultimately, I still respectfully disagree.
1) I'd say if a crime is victimless, then it isn't really a crime. To adjust your analogy, I would say what if your upstairs neighbor decided to flood your apartment out of spite (maybe they disagreed with your politics)? Your analogy was an accident, not a crime.
2) Accepting your premise that a victim is one who is negatively changed forever after, I'd still say car theft still has victims. Insurance rates factor in crime rates (at least that's how car insurance works in the U.S). So after a car is stolen, an entire postal code will feel a negative impact, and in aggregate this will hurt people. Then there are things that are harder to measure, like overall community trust, feelings of safety. At the lower end of the same spectrum, I'd compare it to someone littering in my neighborhood - I'm not physically hurt, I'm not scarred, but my community is disrespected and a tiny bit worse off.
3) In passing, you dismiss people being concerned about individual freedom which makes no sense to me. If government policy threatens our individual rights or civil liberties, is that not negatively and permanently (till the next revolution?) affecting all of us? I am not here to argue about vaccines, I just to make the point that our rights and liberties absolutely should be defended.
I agree though that politicians manipulate feelings of victim hood. I am not arguing for Conservatives (or Republicans) or any other political faction.
I left out the part of the story where the damage did happen because of upstairs negligence :)
I don't think the insurance argument holds up if car thefts right now are at a historic low. Though you ask a different question: if a community is worse off, isn't that a problem? I think there that, yes, that is a problem. Which is why I don't think trying to limit car thefts is a bad thing.
The very premise that your ignorant opinion merely triggered “men” makes me suspect you are just another social media grifter trying to cash in on the attention this kind of framing brings.
Both women and men thought your opinion was ridiculous.
You demonstrate an astonishing level of entitlement and ignorance.
First, you had insurance that would cover your flooding.
Most renters and low income homeowners do not have insurance that would cover this flooding and if they did they would have high deductibles.
Even if the flooding was an “act of God” we still call those impacted “victims”.
Second, flooding is not a crime. The perpetrator had no “agency” in choosing to flood your home. So your comparison is asinine.
Third, many people cannot afford auto theft insurance. Nearly all who have authority insurance have deductibles. So all lose money, some lose the entire value of their car.
Fourth, insurance rates have been going up 20-25% every few years for auto theft coverage. All paying these higher premiums are victims as a consequences of theft.
Fifth, if you believe someone has a right to the “fruits” of their labor. When someone takes a financial hit as a result of theft they are literally having many hours of their labor stolen from them.
You say insurance will pay for it or you will get a new car. What if your stolen car is an old beater and you only have liability insurance? And if it is recovered, you have to pay to get it out of impound, and pay for any repairs needed?
I know better than to argue over cars with someone whose name stars with car.
Good lord. I know Max embarrassed you but this is getting a little desperate. It’s not victimless just because “eventually” you might get your car back or insurance might cover the cost of a new purchase. Might.
It’s also about the inconvenience, the wasted time, and the fear.
Going “lol must be nice owning a garage” or presuming all car owners are monocle-wearing elites is simple ignorance.
What is Max?
Distraction really works. Much of the conversation around your article is about how victimizing a car theft really is. To me the key points are: Poilievre and Conservatives lie, lie, lie; the media doesn’t just “go along”, it participates in and promotes the lie; and we will get longer jail sentences at great expense to the taxpayer rather than make a bunch of capitalist, profiteers put anti-theft devices in vehicles.
This was thought provoking for sure. And your personal definition of a victim is extremely restrictive and lacks nuance. I have felt less permanently changed by having a close family friend put his hand down my pants when I was 12 than by having a car stolen in 2021 - I think it’s important to still count myself as a victim of childhood sexual assault. And I doubt there are many who would disagree with that. I also feel that despite the cumulative impact over the course of my life being lower, the sexual assault was the worse crime and the worse violation.
And with vehicle theft, the impact can be next to nothing, like the truck that was returned twice, or it can devastating for a low income family that relies on that vehicle to be able to get groceries, get to and from work, and get their kids to school. Low rent areas tend to not be close to any of these needs. And having an old but reliable car can be life changing and make life affordable. Insurance often does not pay out enough to buy a vehicle that is as reliable as the one that was stolen.
For someone who has a new vehicle and replaces it every couple of years, theft is an inconvenience. Either they get the vehicle back and insurance pays for repairs, or insurance pays out the new value of the vehicle and they get a better vehicle than what was stolen.
But if you are lower income, having a reliable vehicle that’s needed to make a living stolen and totalled like I had has a long term impact. You can’t just go get a brand new replacement. You have to take a lot of time finding a replacement that isn’t going to break you financially right after you buy it. That takes time where you are also having to pay additional transportation costs you can’t afford. When you do replace the vehicle with the best option you can find in your price range, hopefully it doesn’t break right away. Chances are high that it will not be as reliable as the one you lost, and those costs add up and impact you for years.
For me, it wasn’t the car being stolen that impacted me so deeply. Someone could have stolen it for a joyride and left it on the side of the road in roughly the same condition, and I would have been fine with it. I was honestly not even particularly upset at first. It was the vehicle being totalled and having to replace it with something less reliable and more expensive to run or risk endangering my employment that really hurt. It was the lost time and money every time something on the replacement broke and I had to fix it, knowing that would not have happened on the stolen car.
This is a class issue more than anything. A lot of discourse focuses on upper middle class and above “victims”, and I agree with you that the impact on them is not enough to make a big deal out of. But the impact on lower classes is significantly larger and does have lasting impacts - maybe not lifelong, but years long at least. Dismissing all vehicle theft as a victimless crime is out of touch, to say the least.
All that said, I completely agree with your take on the political motivations and lack of journalistic integrity which is fuelling most of the current commentary. And I strongly appreciate you bringing actual statistics to the discussion - they’re badly needed and generally neglected in modern day journalism, particularly from mainstream outlets.