For better or worse [almost certainly worse... -ed] the Wuhan Flu is going to bifurcate society for the near future. I'm not 100% sure this will have the same impact as a 9/11, but it's certainly not going to be nothing.
So what to make, then, of this recent story?
TORONTO – The federal government has given up its fight against court rulings that effectively outlawed placements in solitary confinement lasting longer than 15 days.Long-term segregation is cruel and unusual punishment when it comes to prisoners. When it comes to innocent free citizens, it's apparently just fine and dandy.
In a notice to the Supreme Court of Canada on Tuesday, the government said it was discontinuing its attempt to appeal a ruling from Ontario’s top court that found long-term segregation to be cruel and unusual punishment.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which pushed the case, called Ottawa’s decision a belated good day for justice.
“It is just disappointing that it was so long coming,” said association lawyer Michael Rosenberg. “Far too many suffered needlessly before the country turned a corner.”
In its ruling in March last year, the Ontario Court of Appeal said placing prisoners deemed a risk to themselves or others in segregation for more than 15 days amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and was therefore unconstitutional. The court gave correctional authorities 15 days to end the practice.
We had no problem subjecting Canadian travellers to 14-day quarantines even when they returned from countries without COVID cases. So was that the difference? A single day? I understand that there's a bit of a difference between the conditions in a solitary cell versus a home, but we already have prisoners in conditions far worse than people under house arrest, so the difference isn't really that vast. It's not surprising that the far-left Rat Bastard 2.0 federal government isn't interested in keeping prisons unpleasant and kowtowing to a fake human rights organization†, but it's still disappointing. After all, when people in Michigan make the same argument about Shelter-in-Place orders the Canadian intelligentStasi can't wait to jump all over them. Funny how these types like to treat prisoners better than citizens. Is it because prisoners are rarely all that white?
It's worth noting, similarly, one of the anonymous comments to Chris Selley's Ottawa Citizen article about the strange before-and-after priorities of the government:
Makes too much sense! Just two months ago, we were all supporting #BellLetsTalk day and stressing the importance of mental health in our community, and saying that it matters to the health of society, just as physical health is. Obviously the virus is a terrible, awful thing. But how do we measure a new case of chronic anxiety or depression because of the measures in place compared to a mild case of the disease? What are anxiety attacks and panic attacks compared to coughs and fevers? Should we consider a suicide related to the measures a case of the disease? Even if there were underlying causes of mental health, just as many cases of coronavirus had underlying physical health issues? Obviously, physical distancing is a huge, overriding tool to use. But let's make sure that we take steps to ensure the best result, with the fewest number of mental and physical health related deaths possible. Using these ideas- allowing for solemn exercise and recreation during the coronavirus- saves lives too.Now I defer to nobody in my disregard for #BellLetsTalk, basically a political campaign to normalize the sick sodomitic relationships that are the leading
† And yes, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is a fake human rights scam. After all, they recently installed anti-gun activist Michael Bryant as Executive Director.
Finally, and try not to be surprised by this, nobody is interested in asking "why are prisoners going into solitary in the first place"? That the answer is "these people are all scum even by scum standards and are being pushed for causing significant harm to others" doesn't fit the narrative so it's abandoned. The big driver for this "confinement = bad" legislative/legal/media push is the death of "poor" Ashley Smith, who killed herself during a 1,000 day stint in solitary confinement in Kitchener at age 19. Why was she in prison in the first place? Oh, just fourteen different cases by age 15. Sure none of them were particularly sinister, but the problem was once she was interred in the first place. She also constantly was trying to commit suicide: let Ashley Smith out of prison and she'd be dead before the ink would be dry on her discharge papers. Bad cases make bad law, and changing how we discipline prisoners because of one pathetic psychopath is the epitome of that characterization.
To tie it all back to the Wuhan Flu, why should we care if Ashley Smith died in custody on her 151st suicide attempt, and why should we change how we administer prisons because of it? Similarly, if 70% of virus deaths are people with less than 6 months left to live (as Martok was telling me when we did a Monday evening Whyte Ave beerwalk, I couldn't find a link to verify this) why are we devoting trillions of dollars in lost value to the real human beings on this planet earth in an attempt to save them?
