Rob Ford's Toronto

[Torontovibe]

"I don't mind two-tier health care." So says the drunken, crackheaded millionaire wastrel.

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/408594590547996672

Seems to me that little statement might be worth a bit of discussion all by itself.

Ford pretends to care about the little guy but nothing could be further from the truth. If he thinks talking about privatizing healthcare is going to win him votes, he is sadly mistaken.

 

[TOperson]

Ford pretends to care about the little guy but nothing could be further from the truth. If he thinks talking about privatizing healthcare is going to win him votes, he is sadly mistaken.

It will win him votes with some people - the same ones who think he saved them a billion dollars.

 

[rndhd]

Ford pretends to care about the little guy but nothing could be further from the truth. If he thinks talking about privatizing healthcare is going to win him votes, he is sadly mistaken.

Actually, I think he really does care to some extent. The problems is that he probably also thinks that he's actually helping the little guy, but he's not.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Actually, I think he really does care to some extent. The problems is that he probably also thinks that he's actually helping the little guy, but he's not.

He can afford to pay for stitches at $500 each from his own wallet. The little guy can't, so OHIP is a great help, even if he has to wait. See link.

 

[TonyV]

What an ironic moment this is. Nelson Mandela, a true leader, a person who has moved mountains, has passed away. We have Rob Ford to talk about, and what a dirtbag and weasel Ford really is. Ford has disgraced his office, Toronto, and Canada. We must get past this and move on to worthwhile things. May a truly inspired candidate step up to the mayoral campaign.

 

[TinyTiny]

This is a fascinating article that brings to mind the Ford Bros and their adoring nation. Limited self-awareness = inflated sense of self-worth.

 

[TonyV]

Good news from Twitter:

Darren Moore ‏@DarrenMooreD22 1h
I find it astonishing that @TorontoPolice is the same force that arrested over 1000 people at G20 but can't arrest 1 mayor for crack use.

Toronto Police ‏@TorontoPolice 1h
@DarrenMooreD22 charges are laid where evidence exists. If evidence doesn't exist police cannot lay charges. Investigation is ongoing ^sm
Retweeted by Edward Keenan

https://twitter.com/thekeenanwire

Well that Darren Moore makes such a good point.

 

[soimelk]

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but in reading over the latest un-redactions, I find myself wondering about the person who tipped off David Price about the location of the crack video. On page 28, it says (via Towhey) that Price received two phone calls telling him about the possible location of the video. The caller "didn't have an African-sounding accent".

So, if we believe what Price told Towhey and confirmed in his interview with the police, someone contacted him anonymously and tipped him off about the video. Why? Why did they call anyone and why did they call Price specifically? Reading over the ITO, it sounds like it was common knowledge in the neighbourhood that Lisi was looking for the video, so why not call him Lisi?

Let's assume that the reason for calling Price was because the caller wanted to help Rob Ford get the video and do it without involving the police for whatever reason. There are three groups of people who might have known where the video was - people involved with the video, family/associates of people involved with the video, and the police who were tapping the phones of the people involved with the video. To which group did the mystery caller belong?

This is an important line of questioning that you've detailed. I'm inclined to believe the caller was from the police looking to discretely help Ford smother the video. Project Traveller was run out of Etobicoke precincts through the local chain of command. A Ford ally privy to the locations of the video makers could have called Price thinking his role was that of a fixer for the Mayor. While I've heard Price is known as "the muffler", in regards to his job using social media, email and phone calls to try to intimidate Ford opponents, it looks like his job description was never that of a Lisi-esque foot soldier, as has been hypothesized on this board. Once he was passed the information about the video, rather than run it to Ford, he went to Towhey, who then engaged the police.

 

[Electrify]

The 2 tier health care remark is classic Ford at work. Now he'll say he supports privatization and people paying their own way because the public system is too expensive, and then he'll also say that he supports a public system for the common folks. Depends on who asks and what answer is most convenient at the time.

The frustrating thing about America's right wing is that even this is considered "ultra leftist marxist socialism." The Tea Party and Republicans don't want any change to the status quo. They don't want their hard earned tax dollars going to pay for some lazy slob who cannot afford insurance. If they have a preexisting condition then it is their fault for not taking better care of their health.

This ignores the fact that their insurance premiums go to pay for people who didn't take "better care of their health," assuming the company didn't just cancel their service. That and many of these "personal responsibility" folks have been fed so much propaganda that they could never fathom that their health could take a turn for the worse and quickly find themselves bankrupt due to medical costs.

It is a bit of a shame that so many Americans just think of him as a junkie and don't realize his political stance. Hearing one of the most conservative politicians in Canada champion a two tiered system might wake them up to Obamacare.

 

[Coltaine79]

Peepers, who complains about an echo chamber, is his own. He's the one who refuses to consider other arguments. Hell, he refuses to consider facts. So refuting his statements is more about the casual observer to this board who might see his Senior UT Member status as significant and believe some of the shite he peddles.

When Peepers is confronted with contradictory evidence, he simply does with the Ford Brothers do -- ignore ignore ignore! At least until his blood starts boiling. I managed to get that to happen by suggesting he should be banned for trolling. THAT got him to respond, not unlike how Rob Ford responds only when given certain stimuli.

Even if *I* had gotten a ban for that altercation, it would have been worth it, as it showed EVERYONE on this forum the level of integrity we can expect from the UT member "Peepers".

 

[rndhd]

The frustrating thing about America's right wing is that even this is considered "ultra leftist marxist socialism." The Tea Party and Republicans don't want any change to the status quo. They don't want their hard earned tax dollars going to pay for some lazy slob who cannot afford insurance. If they have a preexisting condition then it is their fault for not taking better care of their health.

This ignores the fact that their insurance premiums go to pay for people who didn't take "better care of their health," assuming the company didn't just cancel their service. That and many of these "personal responsibility" folks have been fed so much propaganda that they could never fathom that their health could take a turn for the worse and quickly find themselves bankrupt due to medical costs.

It is a bit of a shame that so many Americans just think of him as a junkie and don't realize his political stance. Hearing one of the most conservative politicians in Canada champion a two tiered system might wake them up to Obamacare.

Actually, they are just knee-jerking and fear-mongering because it's Obama. Obamacare is fundamentally a Republican/conservative idea (supported by a consrvative think-tank, endorsed by Bob Dole as a Presidential candidate, and implemented by Mitt Romney as a Governor) because it forces people to be personally responsible for their health insurance and uses the private sector. This is as opposed to people freeloading on the system or a public insurer. But because it's officially Obama behind it now of course they have to pretend that it's literally the worst thing in US history. And when called out on that, they modify their accusation to make it literally the worst thing in US history aside from slavery. And they convince millions of that. it is crazy.

 

[soimelk]

OK, I know I said I'd never post here again, but whatever, I'm a troll, and as a Ford supporter, obviously a liar and so on.

Peepers - The reason people on here bristle at differing opinions is because, by-and-large, the users on Urban Toronto don't want to discuss these issues on any level. It took me a while to figure it out, but this thread essentially is supposed to be an echo chamber. Most of the posters here want an echo chamber. Its for (a) getting updates from MetroMan and (b) gossip/jokes/unsubstantiated rumors.

That's why if you do try to actually discuss an issue, it will be ignored by the vast majority of users on here. I don't know about your experience, but I realized after a while that every time I posted something sensible, it would be ignored, whereas if I posted an attack on someone else or defense of my character, it would be responded to by user after user. This thread actively discourages discussing issues of any kind. I think you'll see that you get a much better batting ratio in terms of response from posting unintelligent and/or abrasive comments, which is why I eventually ceased posting. It came to the point where I was just arguing with people, and it will come to that point for you too.

This is also why anyone who disagrees with the general consensus is (a) a troll, (b) a covert operative (in my case, I was David Price, but you're supposedly Joe Warmington), and (c) a despicable bad person. Literally the exact same stuff was said about me. There's a large contingent on here that actually tries to shut down not just dissenting opinion but any interesting discussion whatsoever, and I think you've probably realized that there are a lot of people here that would rather gossip about whether Ford is the mastermind behind an underage sex ring than actually discuss policy-related issues of any kind.

Unfortunately, I really don't know what is a good place to discuss these issues, but its not here. Honestly, as sad as it sounds, Reddit has more people that are open to actually discussing these issues in-depth and with differing viewpoints.

My experience with you and Peepers has been that you rarely acknowledge the substance of rebuttals which refute your arguments. As for issues, plenty of people discuss issues on this board. They do so by defending opinions using facts and insights, and others support, or refute those opinions with facts and insights of their own. People get upset when people who post controversial opinions avoid taking ownership of those opinions by defending them from the numerous criticism which other board members post. This is what trolls do. They avoid defending the substance of their arguments by either ignoring rebuttals, or interpreting those rebuttals as some sort of attack on freedom of expression.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Is it just me or does Madiba's second long walk to freedom remind you of what unfortunate people we call leaders in this country?

 

[CowboyLogic]

My experience with you and Peepers has been that you rarely acknowledge the substance of rebuttals which refute your arguments. As for issues, plenty of people discuss issues on this board. They do so by defending opinions using facts and insights, and others support, or refute those opinions with facts and insights of their own. People get upset when people who post controversial opinions avoid taking ownership of those opinions by defending them from the numerous criticism which other board members post. This is what trolls do. They avoid defending the substance of their arguments by either ignoring rebuttals, or interpreting those rebuttals as some sort of attack on freedom of expression.

This is just not true. When I did post on here, I made a point to (a) respond to and acknowledge as many responses to me as I could, and (b) admit when I was wrong and seek clarification when I was unsure of something. This got me accused of being boring, long-winded (which I was, but when I didn't respond to every specific point, I was accused of ignoring others, so it was lose-lose) and of using false modesty. Interestingly enough, none of this stopped people from simultaneously accusing me of being a troll.

If you support Ford, you get accused of being a troll on here almost no matter what. In fact, I've noticed that the only Ford supporters on here who don't get accused of being trolls seem to be the ones who post idiotic stuff verging on parody, which is probably because these posters fit into some's idea of "Ford Nayshun".

I couldn't disagree with you more about this board. There is very little in the way of facts, insights or substantial discussions happening here. The user base is obviously comprised of intelligent, educated and well-spoken people, but there is very little substantial discussion. There is a lot of mud-slinging, a lot of unsubstantiated gossip, a lot of echoing back the same opinion, a lot of updates from MetroMan and some straight-up conspiracy-theory level stuff (i.e. Ford murdered Anthony Smith, I'm David Price, Peepers is Joe Warmington, Ford is running a child-sex ring with the Don Bosco football team). There's nothing wrong with any of this, but you can't turn around and pretend like this is anything other than an echo chamber.

 

[Bennett000]

I can never understand why so many people on here bristle at reading viewpoints that are different from their own. I thought airing differing opinions was the whole purpose of a discussion board like this? If everyone agreed with each other on here this would become an echo chamber and that would be very boring.

Peepers, I disagree with a lot of what you write, but I do not think you're a troll. You do go on tangents about the police, and Ontario Liberals, and you do seem to ignore facts sometimes. However you're far from the only person on this thread who strays from topic, and you're usually on topic. Also, I can't think of any time you've ever resorted to ad hominem.

Beyond that you do have insight in some of your postings, and you bring information to the table that others do not. You also seem genuinely interested in contributing to this thread, and I believe you do it in good faith, even though sometimes it does seem like you're trolling. I can't imagine that's easy given your worldview being so different from most people here.

I can't speak for others, but I know why I bristle at some of your posts. It's not because your viewpoint is different, it's because you repeat Fordian talking points that are patently false, and/or irrelevant. An example of the former would be suggesting that Ford immediately owned up to his Floridian DUI, and an example of the latter would be the "unelected" nonsense.

I also agree with your echo chamber remarks, many people here seem more than happy to create their own filter bubbles.

If anyone has somehow forgotten what a real Ford troll reads like head over to their Facebook pages, #topoli, the comments section of a newspaper, or dig up a Forgotten post and take it seriously. I think it's pretty impressive that in the last fifteen hundred pages there haven't been more posts from real Ford trolls. We've even been lucky enough to see a few posters stop supporting Ford.