A quick comment on the Canadian truckers
A mostly positive post
I’m doing my part here:
I was happy with the engagement I got on that reply. If you’re curious, and unsurprisingly, not a single reply I’ve received to that tweet actually defends, in a literal way, what Trudeau says when it comes to abortion. What they say, and really all they can say, is something like “but abortion doesn’t harm anyone”. (I’ve also gotten a few “why are you talking about abortion like it’s the 1970s?” and of course, “you’re stupid”.) We could write a bit here about how such a comment from Trudeau really comes out of an older Left that cared about making liberal appeals and was conscious of the fact that it would sometimes be out of power. The modern “right side of history” Left by contrast believes it will be in power forever and is quite comfortable with just permitting/mandating things it likes and banning things it doesn’t like. And they like abortion, and that is the only honest distinction they have left to make.
About the truckers though
I’ve been late here in commenting on the trucker protests. This is, as others have said, a movement of working class people, immediately against vaccine mandates but more generally dismayed with the fact that their lives no longer feel like their own, who decided to #resist the state in some civil rights protests that have been remarkably peaceful, positive, and patriotic. And the modern Left, which still tells stories about itself that should’ve made it favor these protests for half a dozen different reasons, instead had dreams of violent police action (uh… anti-defund-the-police now, please) putting an end to it all.
Oh modern Left, what have you become.
I thought I’d say something today though because of news that Trudeau is going to invoke, for the first time ever, the Canadian federal “Emergencies Act”. Haven’t we seen this script play out in 50 different television shows and movies? And in those shows and movies, aren’t the people invoking the emergency powers always the bad guys? If 1990s sci-fi is your thing (“but David, you’re the only one”), my mind went to a Babylon 5 episode in which Earth Gov invokes the “Rush Act”… which gives the state unlimited powers to put down a worker revolt. Hello.
Some positive things, though
Various good things have come out of this moment already, though, and they are worth saying. Perhaps most importantly, independent media has done a stupendous job with the protests, and we may hope that is a sign of things to come. Bari Weiss, publishing the work of some others, had a widely shared humanizing piece on some of the truckers in Ottawa. And Rebel News out of Canada continues to impress because they are so nimble and everywhere. Although the United States has plenty of conservative commentary, we relatively lack good people who will just hop in a car and go there right now and get in the thick of it and show you what is happening (without the bias of legacy media).
Two, the protestors themselves have kept things so positive that you have Canadian state media worried that they’re giving things like “the Canadian flag”, which they all keep waving, and words like “freedom”, a bad name! If that is what your opponents are fretting about I think you’ve done well. Everyone sees the contrast between what is happening now and the often violent protests (including in my own city where many windows were smashed) of 2020.
Three… should we say it is a financially apocalyptic moment? People sent GoFundMe some $10 million to help the truckers which were then refunded or frozen. Tiny alternative GiveSendGo no doubt saw a great chance for some good publicity and said “fine, we’ll do it then” and raised, and I was surprised people kept donating after what happened with GoFundMe, some $9 million all over again… and then got hacked for it. But what may or may not be prophetic for the future, TallyCoin has seen 22.1 bitcoin (BTC) in donations for the truckers (pushing $1 million USD equivalent) from 5500 people. I don’t know what that will mean for the future, but I do find that interesting. That ain’t nothin’.
And four… governments are on notice. People are waking up. You can’t actually push people forever and get away with it. Perhaps the giant (the citizenry) is still slowly awaking and finding that it is strong.
But let us remember that civilization is fragile, yes?
It’s just fifteen days to flatten the curve. 100 days of masking, that’s all we’re asking for. Vaccine passports are a conspiracy theory. The vaccines are never going to be made mandatory.
This could be a post of its own, only it would be difficult to know where to even begin. Most of the rules the truckers are protesting don’t make sense anyway. Border controls of any sort make no sense once a disease is already widespread on the internal side of the border - it obviously doesn’t matter a whit if a trucker brings another COVID case into the US or Canada (which, of course, they could still do even if vaccinated). There is a whole country mostly vaccine passport free just south of Canada and it has been fine… with the added comment that restaurants are doing better in those cities that do NOT have such requirements, as various Canadian commentators claim that if the passports go away the vaccinated… er, yes, the vaccinated… will now be too scared to go out to eat.
It should be the easiest thing in the world for any good leader to say “OK, we’re done with all these rules, if they ever made sense they don’t anymore”.
Apparently, at least in 2022 (because I do think our technological environment has exacerbated and accelerated many things), it’s a very short distance now from a public health response to beating people in the streets for the health. State rules that get started for one reason, in remarkably short order, devolve into a power struggle just for the sake of showing that I have power over you, with the reason we started fighting in the first place now almost forgotten (at least by the people ordering and cheering on the beating). There are many lessons for our wiser descendants to learn and heed from the last two years.
A side note on Givesendgo. The site now says: "We are currently offline for maintenance and server upgrades. We are continuing to improve our platform to ensure it will be the best fundraising platform on the internet. Thank you for your patience and support. Please check back later."
I guess they were a little naive, and are responding to the hack by upgrading security.
Very well said. I always look forward to your thoughts. Please keep writing!