Comments by "Jack Haveman" (@JackHaveman52) on "ABS-CBN News" channel.

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  2.  @bernardjameswilson  He didn't just wake up and said "This country now sucks". This was a process that started about 30 years, or so, ago. Where, at one time, life was free and you could work and reap the rewards, more and more restrictions were placed on our lives. It became harder and harder to get good medical care, in spite of the advances in medicine. Laws and more laws became the norm. Insurance and government regulations became more and more intrusive. People expected more and more from the government and that meant more taxes and more laws. If you didn't live the change, you can't understand it. As an example. We live in a small town of 1800 people. We had 3 doctors and they were all available at any time of day. Now there's none. 7 service stations. Now there's 1. He operated a small farm and he did maintenance on his own equipment. Now it's impossible because it's all electronics and you could lose your warranty if you even tried to work on it. We had a landing at the back door, made of cement that replaced a wooden landing back in 1966. 7 years ago, his insurance company told him that he would no longer be covered if he didn't put a railing on it, so my brother and I did it. This rule was mandated by a government agency. We didn't lose our freedom to a marching army, like he saw from invading Nazis. Instead it was a slow encroachment of government controls, regulations and mandates and EVERY time it was an assault on his wallet and freedom. He's now 92 and it doesn't matter as much to him because he's at the end of his days but he's not blind, either. We're losing our freedoms, one law and regulation at a time and the slow relentless of it doesn't hit like tsunami. We're more like frogs in boiling water. I've seen it because I'm 70 years old. My daughter hasn't seen the change but she knows something is wrong. The way things are going, my grandchildren will never be able to afford their own homes. I feel so bad for their futures....even their present but the regulations keep coming, tying our hands in a tighter and tighter grip. They will never live the lives that my dad or even I've had. That freedom has slowly evaporated away. It isn't that we had it so good. It's that the good that we had is being lost and the ability to work hard that allowed to build good lives from nothing, has been taken away from those who have to live today.
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  14.  @vmusatov  Everything WASN'T easy, though. They had to work hard because they had nothing except the freedom to be able to make a plan for their future and then be able to follow up on it. It was all there for you but you had to work for it, not just the standard 40 hour week but 60 or 70 or even more. They were able to sacrifice and see the rewards before they were too old to enjoy it. That's all in the past. Ask someone to work overtime and most will refuse and they'll come up with all kinds of reasons why they can't. The entire culture has changed and our government uses it to take away our freedoms and most will gladly allow it in exchange for the promise of safety and security. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Ben Franklin Of course the Russians look back at Soviet times as the good old days. Their country has left communism and embraced Fascism, another branch of socialism which can be more brutal than what the Soviets gave them. At least the Soviets tried to provide everything for the people.....except freedom. Now, they still don't have freedom, they don't have a government that provides for them and they've been embroiled in one war after another on their own soil or in the old Soviet bloc countries. They have neither liberty OR safety and security, not like when they didn't have freedom but at least they had security or believed they had. This isn't about how good or bad the times are as it is about being free.
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  16.  @carsonchan5102  I just gave an example of the government destroying the dairy industry. My dad started his farm with nothing. The government mandated Milk Marketing Board ruined it with too many rules for the small farmer to survive. No young person, except a multimillionaire, could do what my dad did in the early fifties. The milk quota, which the amount that a farmer is allowed to produce, costs millions. Try to ship too much and you're monetarily penalised. Farmers pour their milk onto the ground to prevent that. Then they need to buy the land and equipment which is millions more. That's what killed the dairy farm dream. You can metaphorically water and fertilise that dream all you want, you will go bankrupt before you succeed. I know a young woman who is trying to start a small bakeshop. She rented a small store, did all kinds of renovations and installed the equipment needed to be a success. She's now sitting in limbo because the local and provincial government has so much red tape and she's not allowed to sell as much as a butter tart or she'd be fined and and will never get the licenses needed to start operations. She's been "watering and fertilising" until she's at the point of either drowning those metaphorical plants or scorching them with too much fertiliser. She may go under before she can even legally sell her first birthday cake. Your metaphor sounds great if you're left to do that job, but the government shackles you. The biggest hurdle is overcoming the roadblocks that the state sets in front of you.
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  21.  @maxpayne7419  Seat belts and helmets.....you're just being a jerk, now. This is now a country that, if you use the wrong pronouns, you could find yourself in big trouble. They make it up and YOU have to follow. We have the internet but now, our government, wants to control the content. Our esteemed PM, was worried that maybe the guys working on a pipeline might be too overly zealous towards young women in the small towns that they're working through. That this should be considered when deciding if such a project is worth the trauma for these young women. This isn't just in Canada. The farmers in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Ireland are now facing restrictions and land appropriations because it's said that farmers are a threat to the environment and our esteemed PM has implied that this might be a good idea. Home prices have sky rocketed and rents are insane....yet the PM wants to bring in MORE immigrants, which means home prices will keep going up, far beyond the capabilities of the young....but that's alright. You're GOT your little kingdom. Who cares about the people that have been here for generations. As far as I can see, you're just being a troll. You've not made any kind of case. All you've kept saying is that you're 55 and that everything is great. Do you know what? It is. But if you can't see that we're heading in the wrong direction, you're not seeing. When the young have no hope of owning their own home, things are wrong. If you can't see that, you are the proverbial ostrich.
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