I have watched with worried fascination this weekend hours of live feeds from Ottawa-Canada, where Canadian Government forces are evidently acting on the orders of their repulsive and cowardly Prime Minister by forcibly dispersing a large group of peaceful protesters from Canada’s Capitol city.
The protestors, mostly truckers and related professions, have clear and unambiguous goals. They want an end to vaccine passport policies which force them to ingest a substance into their bodies in order to continue making a living. This same policy does NOT apply to dozens of other professions in Canada—most notably, most government jobs. Like police officers.
Justin Trudeau has secured his legacy as human filth by not bothering to merely oppose the truckers. No. He has also actively dehumanized them. He has called them every filthy name in the book while avoid having to sully his sterling reputation by actually, you know, talking with Canadian citizens with whom he disagrees. His ire is not constrained to the protestors. He brought his petulant name-calling to the floor of the House of Commons last week when he chided a representative who supported the Convoy by assuring the Jewish lawmaker that by supporting the convoy she was also supporting “Swastikas” and “Nazis.” That’s because a few bad flags had been seen amongst the tens of thousands of people. Seriously, he said that.
Evidently being progressive human excrement involves a lot of “blood libel” accusations against Jewish people. Trudeau is the one I truly hope suffers from all this. The same preening weenie who literally took a knee and prostrated himself before protestors he liked in the summer of 2020, immediately morphed into the totalitarian monster he is when the protestors’ views were at odds with his. Trudeau is a horrible human being and I wish him nothing but perpetual discomfort.
I won’t get into detail on what’s going on during the removal. You can see for yourselves. And yes, history has examples of FAR more egregious abuses of police power. But those happen in OTHER places. Not in a Democracy. Not in Canada…Our neighbors. Sharers of the longest undefended border in the history of humankind. These are supposed to be our cool cousins to the north. The ones who are pretty much like us in most other respects. This, literally, hits close to home. This is not happening in some far-away nation whose name ends in “Stan.” This is the place that brought us Wayne Gretzky, not where police use half-ton horses to trample over elderly women using a walker.
This has also been a case study in situational ethics. A quick glance of the Ottawa Police Department’s social media accounts will produce an interesting sight. Users with rainbow flag avatars and bios with copious hashtagged phrases like “resistance” and “BLM” are uniformly praising police like I would cheer for the Virginia Tech Hokies. A quick check of their timelines reveals a sharply different approach to police activities during the post George Floyd riots of 2020. Conversely, more than a few accounts with the thin blue line badge featured prominently are having the same reaction to police that I would have to someone (other than me) urinating off of my deck.
There is another angle to this that has me thinking—always a dangerous thing. The progressive left in the US is fond of using nations like Canada as a model for their proposed policies here in the states. They point to a government that provides most every basic need for every man woman and child as an aspirational goal. Of course, Canada provides much MORE than that, but let’s keep it simple. They also point to nations like Australia and New Zealand as sterling examples of letting Government be society’s main benefactor while STILL maintaining democracy. I hope the events this weekend in Canada and the MANY events the past two years from the Governments of Australia and New Zealand in going completely bonkers while forcefully implementing draconian COVID policies disabuses us of any notion that their citizens are, in any meaningful way, “free.”
My stock answer for years to those who promote Democratic Socialism has been my belief that there are geographic and mathematical factors that make similar policies harder to implement here in the states. But there is a less-quantifiable belief that is much stronger. That is my belief that a people who have everything provided for them will become (whether they realize it or not) slaves to the debt. They will be indebted to the Government for their basic well-being.
In antebellum years the US Government offered lots of incentives for people to settle in what is now the upper Midwest. (Ohio/Michigan/Indiana/etc.). You will recall the “forty acres and a mule” policy. When the Civil War came and President Lincoln sent out a call for volunteers, they got an inordinate positive response from people in this section who owed their land and most of their well-being to the Government. They were more than glad to answer the call.
At the same time, there was NO government assistance for those who settled lands west of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio. These were the original frontiersmen, largely self-made and distrustful of government. When the Confederate States of America sent out a similar call for volunteers, they get very little response from Louisiana/Arkansas/etc. Their government had done nothing for them, so they felt no compulsion to answer the call.
When you grow up in a world where the Government is the main (and possibly, only) benefactor then it is quite natural that you will support them no matter what. That is, quite literally, the hand that feeds you. You will overlook a LOT of atrocities so long as you are not the target—and so long as the Government check clears.
You will even support Government officials who have promised to freeze financial assets of people caught participating in a peaceful protest. They have promised to contact their employers. On Sunday, six cops showed up at a downtown café who had fed the truckers. They forced them to and threatened to break down their doors if they did not comply. If someone can tell me what using Tony Soprano-style intimidation techniques to force a cafe to close has to do with removing a convoy I would love to hear it. Actually, no. I would not. Your attempt at justification would likely infuriate me.
This is absolutely unacceptable. If you are arrested for murder in Canada, authorities will not dox your employer or seize your bank accounts. In this respect, peaceful protestors are being treated far worse than murder suspects. But don’t worry. They live in a “democracy,” right?
As for the police officers involved in this removal, I think I have already made myself clear elsewhere. You are making a choice. Choose wisely. People will NOT forget. Ever.
Several great people have made variations of this quote…MLK is the most cited, but the origin is less important than the message. Here is a paraphrase:
“Our character is not determined by how we behave in times of comfort. It is determined by how be behave in times of DIScomfort…of crises.”
In times of comfort, Canada (and most other left-leaning democracies) seem to provide adequate services to their population with few issues. But in times of crises, they spectacularly flunk the test. That is the norm, not the exception. It is one of the many reasons I will try to fight efforts to turn OUR great experiment in Constitutional Republicanism into a quasi-slave state where it is impossible to see the distinction between the State and the Individual.
Chuck's Common Sense 