Say what you will about the practice of blocking streets – the left sowed the wind, they are reaping a whirlwind – but Big Left sure isn’t happy.
One of the great fault lines in American – really Western – politics is with the concept of “Freedom”.
The term means different things to different people.
To “the right”, broadly, it means freedom from government interference in one’s life. Coming from societies where the individual had worth only as a subject of a monarch, and whose human rights were (and, in most cases, are) still considered privileges bestowed by more or less benevolent sovereign (at best!), it’s understandable.
And as Western Civilization has gotten farther and farther from having to scrabble for the right to be secure in one’s home and to not be considered chattel for trade or barter by whatever gangster had managed to seize a sword from a watery bint, the concept of freedom has, at least among people we broadly call “the left”, rotted into the notion of “freedom from material want” and, increasingly, “freedom from social want”.
Which brings us to this op-ed in the Glob and Mail by one Gary Mason . It’s been the subject of absolutely cataclysmic, scathing mockery in the Western right for habitually garbling the meaning of “freedom” that most of us understand.
And mangle it, he does (emphasis added):
Freedom, of course, has not always been a concept usurped for selfish, malicious purposes. It’s been a rallying cry behind great triumphs such as the end of slavery and the civil rights movement. But others have believed freedom is about protecting property rights, even if that has to occur at the diminishment of democracy.
Those who are paying attention note that freedom to enjoy one’s property rights is freedom; without property rights, and the system of legal and social guarantees that make property rights possible, there is no prosperity; without prosperity, freedom is academic. Ponder great thoughts, or farm for your subsistence; pick one.
And he’s also right that it “diminishes democracy”; “Democracy” with a capital “D” is three people deciding who gets to keep the bag of cash they just found, by 2:1 margin, with the “1” out of luck.
Mason seems, beyond that, to think that to the protesters in Canada, and by extension the US, think “freedom” is a synonym for Trump.
Quite the opposite.
I’ll explain.
13 years ago, the Tea Party sprang from an earlier wave of public discontent, over the creeping nationalization of healthcare. The Tea Party minded its manners, cleaned up after itself, was friendly and utterly inclusive and had a place for everyone – whether educated, articulate and polished, or not – at the table.
And the establishment on both sides slandered it back into the shadows.
But that energy remained. And as society got more authoritarian – in Canada even moreso than in Obama’s US – it realized that the other side had made the rules; it was time to make them live by them.
Trump saw this, and capitalized on it. Pierre Poilievre, whom Big Left is currently trying to slander back into the underworld, is capitalizing on it. Ron DeSantis could easily capitalize on it.
You mock your opponents into submission? Trump did it better.
You want to block traffic? Hold our beer while we get our trucks.
The energy is there. The leaders that see it will change, but the energy never goes away.
Great post, Mitch.
The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable.
Activists take that discomfort w/ the status quo & advocate for concrete policy changes. Popular support often starts small & grows.
To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable… that’s the point.
AOC
From the professor’s site, regarding the cnn poll revealing 58% of people don’t like anything gropey joe has done:
“The finding, from a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS in January and February, highlights the entrenched politics driving the nation at the start of the midterm year, with little agreement across party lines on priorities for the government or how to handle the coronavirus pandemic.”
Comment from a co-blogger there:
See, the bad numbers aren’t really about Joe Biden. They’re about those crazy fringe people who can’t admit he’s gotten even one thing right.
No links cuz I think that gets modded
An Ottawa resident living in the midst of the protest goes where the mainstream media won’t:
https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night-with-the-untouchables/?fbclid=IwAR2XsXvjkRuxi6htEVAi9ysSBOkLa4giP0rIXGFmT3BgiNndvfUjlzsHlIM
Who is the Lech Walesa of the truckers?
Once again, our suddenly Canadian troll’s bull shit gets refuted. I’ll add this. Just left one of my customer’s truck repair facility. He works on big rigs. He reports that not only can they not get Rotella, but they can’t get grease, tires, wheels and some electronics are back ordered 16 months. So, these worthless elites that ignored the REAL terrorists with BLM and AntiFa, are calling out the ACTUAL peaceful protests, are just pissed because they have become irrelevant. Some of their encouragement for the police and military to move in, slash their tires, confiscate their fuel and firewood, arrest the drivers and ban them from driving again, prove how utterly stupid they are. Just like the gun grabbing and gloBULL warming advocates, they don’t have the balls to do anything themselves, they just want others to do it. That said, if Emery grew a pair and went to slash some trucker’s tires, I would buy that trucker’s fuel for a month, just to watch Emery get bitch slapped.
Somewhat related:
how the science changes:
Before the vaccine, science recognized natural immunity.
When the vaccines arrived, natural immunity became an unscientific right wing conspiracy.
When nearly everyone who took the vaccine caught COVID, natural immunity was reintegrated into science.
The CDC now says that loose-weave cloth masks offer the least protection from covid. But they cite no published research. What does “least” mean?
This is not anything even approaching science.
Also, and this is my hobby horse, the CDC does not say whether masks protect an infected person from spreading covid or a healthy person from getting the disease.
I don’t have covid. The CDC insists that I wear a mask but cannot explain why I should wear a mask.
This is distilled idiocy.
> One of the great fault lines in American – really Western – politics is with the concept of “Freedom”.
>The term means different things to different people.
That’s something Hayek discussed:
> What we have called the “British tradition” was made explicit mainly by
a group of Scottish moral philosophers led by David Hume, Adam Smith,
and Adam Ferguson, seconded by their English contemporaries Josiah Tucker,
Edmund Burke, and William Paley, and drawing largely on a tradition rooted
in the jurisprudence of the common law. Opposed to them was the tradition
of the French Enlightenment, deeply imbued with Cartesian rationalism:
the Encyclopedists and Rousseau, the Physiocrats and Condorcet, are the
best-known representatives. […]
> Though these two groups are now commonly lumped together as the ancestors
of modern liberalism, there is hardly a greater contrast imaginable than
that between their respective conceptions of the evolution and functioning
of a social order and the role played in it by liberty. The difference
is directly traceable to the predominance of an essentially empiricist
view of the world in England and a rationalist approach in France. The
main contrast in the practical conclusions to which these approaches led
has recently been well put, as follows: “One finds the essence of freedom
in spontaneity and the absence of coercion, the other believes it to be
realized only in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective
purpose”; and “one stands for organic, slow, half-conscious growth, the
other for doctrinaire deliberateness; one for trial and error procedure,
the other for an enforced solely valid pattern.” It is the second view,
as J.L. Talmon has shown in an important book from which this description
is taken, that has become the origin of totalitarian democracy.
> The sweeping success of the political doctrines that stem from the
French tradition is probably due to their great appeal to human pride and
ambition. But we must not forget that the political conclusions of the
two schools derive from different conceptions of how society works. In
this respect the British philosophers laid the foundations of a profound
and essentially valid theory, while the rationalist school was simply
and completely wrong.
> – F.A. Hayek, “The Constitution of Liberty”
When you understand that the right to possess property is the cornerstone of freedom and Democracy, you’ll understand what my recent divestments say about my confidence in the American experiment as we knew it.
“Might makes right” is much more than an aphorism; it’s a fact of nature.
The reprobates that animate Pedo Joe would deprive us of our freedom to sell our labor for profit unless we bend to their orders. Although millions of weaklings capitulated to their demands, they largely failed; this time.
The enemy reprobates waiting in the wings will have learned from the mistakes and successes made in the Dempanic campaign, and will build on them.
Eventually, as it always does, it will come to blood.
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Where was Little Castro’s outrage during “mostly peacefull™” protests and burning of churches based on what now proved to be a hoax and a lie? Protests are only “good” when they further the goals of the establishment. In the meantime:
FDA Rushes to Grant EUAs to Two More COVID Drugs With No Long-Term Safety or Efficacy Data, While Ignoring a Mountain of Evidence Supporting HCQ, Ivermectin
Money, Money, Money, Mooooney! Tar and feather heads of FDA, NIH, CIA, FBI, DOD, DOE and rest of the fucking alphabet soup unelected motherfuckers.
Two Amercas™. Fuck ’em all!
We are approaching peak progressive governance. We know this because life in America resembles a cross between A Clockwork Orange and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
DHS has proclaimed that Americans who spread what it calls “MDM” (Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation) are threats to the United States.
“Meanwhile, COVID-19 mitigation measures—particularly COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates—have been used by domestic violent extremists to justify violence since 2020 and could continue to inspire these extremists to target government, healthcare, and academic institutions that they associate with those measures.”
https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin-february-07-2022
The only example of violence cited in the bulletin is the attack on a Texas synagogue by an ISIS-inspired British national.
I am really glad the DHS people are ideological idiots, or we would be in real trouble.
Looks as if one Canadian protest is breaking up. Authorities threatened $100,000 fine and lifetime revocation of driver’s license for anyone engaged in peaceful protest against government policy. Truckers are leaving the Ambassador Bridge.
I don’t blame them. There’s a point where peaceful demonstration becomes pointless. Comply for now and regroup. Protest later, elsewhere. And make damned sure to vote in the next election.
At least they’ll have stories to tell their grandchildren. “Freedom? Yeah, I remember that. We used to have freedom to speak our minds, to peacefully protest. It was guaranteed by the Charter, eh? But then it was changed to Permission. We were only allowed to say things the government approved of and weren’t allowed to protest at all. Ah, well, you youngsters wouldn’t know anything about that. Those days are gone.”
Ontario has declared a State of Emergency. Does the SiTD Editorial Board still stand by its opinion that this is a nuisance protest necessary for the balance of ideas?
Democracies can and should give wide space for peaceful protests and demonstrations, but there is no reason for them to tolerate occupations, which carry very high costs for public institutions and the impacted local populations.
This protest in is, yet another example of clamoring for rights and freedoms but without responsibilities.
There really is a difference between right wing and left wing authoritarianism. In right wing authoritarianism, war is declared on the “other’. In left wing authoritarianism, war is declared by the state on its own citizens.
DHS has declared that spreading what it calls “misinformation” about covid mandates is a threat to the United States.
We know where this movie ends, don’t we?
The truckers have given us a beautiful example of Liberal hypocrisy. It’s a classic example of Alinsky’s 4th Rule – Make the Enemy Live Up to its Own Book of Rules.
When Black Lives Matter marched on the freeway blocking traffic to protect unjust government action, Liberals informed us that was protected speech. When the city declared a state of emergency but protestors burned down buildings killing a man trapped inside, Liberals inform us that’s a mostly peaceful protest.
Okay, so the protest rules have changed, I get it. The lesson learned is that blocking traffic is legitimate protest and government permission is not required. Naturally, being calm, orderly and rule-abiding citizens, when truck drivers wanted to protest unjust government action, they took to heart the lessons learned from St. George of Fentanyl. Block the streets. Ignore the government. True, they substituted bouncy houses for burned-out police stations but that’s probably a Canadian cultural quirk, it doesn’t change the principle.
And yet suddenly, Liberals are upset. Suddenly, Liberals want Law and Order. Suddenly, Liberals want Responsibility. Suddenly, Liberals want to send armed government agents to break up the protest, slash their tires, impound their trucks, revoke their driver’s licenses, send the protesters to prison and send their children to group homes.
It’s almost as if Liberals believe the rules go one way only, whichever way the Liberals want to go, and never the way Conservatives want to go. That’s not democracy. That’s not fairness. That’s tyranny. And as MP alluded above, the only solution to tyranny is revolution.
So what happens if citizens get fed up enough for revolution? The cops and military will follow orders, even unconstitutional and unconcionable orders, gleefully pulling a 78 year old man out of his car and beating him for honking his horn. Cops and troops will become part of the problem, not part of the solution.
The American revolutionaries fighting against the British could not win a stand-up battle so they didn’t try. They crossed a freezing river on Christmas Eve to kill the British troops as they slept. Modern revolutionaries around the globe don’t fight stand-up battles, they assassinate cops, judges and politicians in front of their families. They steal military ammo and weapons to ambush troops off duty. Those are the rules of asymmetrical warfare, in any era.
Ordinary American citizens never lived under those rules. But if Liberals insist the rules of protest have changed and only apply in one direction, then the rules of revolution begin to apply. Then protesters must begin to ask: Where do our cops live? Who’s in the National Guard? Where do their families live? Who has the keys and codes to the armory? What kind of security does the Attorney General have? His son have? His grandkids? What security does the electric power plant have? The gasoline refinery? The natural gas storage facility? What would it take to leave Minneapolis sitting cold and dark in the winter? We have trucks and tractors in Minnesota – how many tractors would you need to pull down a freeway overpass and how long would traffic be rerouted as they rebuild? What if it was a bridge over the river? Can we sink a barge in a narrow channel? Could we sit on the parking garage roof at the Mall of America and shoot down airliners? How can we make the ordinary masses suffer enough to demand the government back down?
These aren’t arcane, mysterious subjects, they’re the obvious and natural progression from free speech to repressed speech to punished speech to actions speaking louder than words. If some old schmuck lawyer can figure out this stuff, so can younger, more active people.
Liberals are playing a disasterously dangerous game. Do they even know it?
I know it’s probably too late to change anyone’s opinion, I want you to know something that I didn’t know until just a few minutes ago, the truckers are probably homophobic, trans-phobic, misogynists and racists. And! there was Nazi and racist imagery and a Confederate flag-waver.
C’mon, man. With that kind of information in hand, is it any wonder the truckers get armored vehicles, SWAT teams, and snipers?
Great comment, JD@8:42. You remarked that
It’s almost as if Liberals believe the rules go one way only, whichever way the Liberals want to go, and never the way Conservatives want to go.
The fault for this predicament belongs to Republicans. Sorry, it’s the truth. Republicans accepted it with only a foot-stomping protest and they continue to accept it. The bolsheviks can do anything they want when they’re in power and the Republicans, when they get in power, will conserve those bolshevik policies. See, that’s why they’re called Conservatives.
One needs to draw a distinction between “peaceful protests and demonstrations” and “occupations.” The former involves a temporary disruption of public order—but not safety—in order for different groups to make their voices heard and to build solidarity.
Occupations are a very different process and carry far higher costs. The goal is not only to convey a message and build solidarity, but to punish and impose one’s will on others. It is a form of violence. It is the tactic of a bully. It is to extract an ever higher costs on the “enemy” even while remaining peaceful.
This is not a peaceful protest as the SiTD Editorial Board argues. It is an organized and aggressive attempt to undermine the economy and government of Canada, financed largely by wealthy foreign individuals hostile to democracy. The complaint against vaccine mandates is just a pretext. Not least, the rights of local residents are violated. The government should and is in the process of putting an end to it.
^ FIFY, It is an organized and aggressive attempt by a homophobic, trans-phobic, misogynist, racist, and far right-wing to undermine the economy and government of Canada…
This is not a peaceful protest as the SiTD Editorial Board argues.
There is no SiTD Editorial Board. Mitch started this blog and it’s his. A few other writers have contributed over the years, but the next editorial board meeting will be the first.
The rest of your latest is the usual Through the Looking Glass sophistry. To paraphrase:
“When I use a word,’ Emery Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said [exasperated commenters everywhere], ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Emery Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
^ Some might call it “legitimate political discourse”.
^ whooooosh (the sound of Mr D’s Point flying by)
I’m trying to find past comments where the E’s made the 9:28 distinction. Temporary and non-violent = okay; prolonged or violent = not okay.
St. George riots, violent. BLM marchers on freeway pulling driver from vehicle to beat him, violent. Power fist statue in the middle of the intersection, prolonged. Seattle CHAZ autonomous zone, prolonged and violent. Can’t find any posts where the Es objected to them.
I found plenty of instances where the E’s deemed a temporary visit to the Capitol – where security guards held the doors open and visitors stayed between the velvet rope lines – was deemed the equivalent of Pearl Harbor.
Nope, not buying it. This is more of the “it’s okay when we do it but not when you do it” nonsense.
@ mr d wrote — “There is no SiTD Editorial Board”.
No sh*t Sherlock…..
^ Some might call it “legitimate political discourse”.
That ship sailed a long time ago, Sparky. Your principal role here is as a piñata for other commenters. Not sure what you get out of the deal, but live your best life, amigo.
It’s actually kind of fun to think about ways that a small group of activists could make life miserable for the rest of us. We live such First World lives that minor inconveniences seem like world-ending crises. Those might actually be easier for a few committed activists to cause than mobilizing a huge operation like the one in Canada.
Suppose the cops presently on trial for civil rights violations in St. Paul federal court are found Not Guilty. Suppose activists want to ensure the state court criminal trials return a different result. They send a letter to every TV station announcing they’re going to make Twin Cities life unliveable until justice is done.
A couple of activists with cutting torches sabotage the towers holding up the power line along I-94 running from Monticello to the Twin Cities, causing a brownout. Another drives a dump truck on I-35 during rush hour spreading gravel as he goes, causing hundreds of cracked windshields and maybe a traffic jam. Three more wear Camelback packs full of gasoline into the Mall of America, spray the clothing in three different department stores, and set them alight causing three separate fires and possibly an mall-wide evacuation. One parks on East 75th Street in Richfield shining a laser at airplanes coming in for landing on Runway 06. Another parks at the Pilot Travel Center on Hwy 52 across from the Pine Bend refinery and shoots holes in the tanker trucks as they head to the city for deliveries. The activists always leave before the cops arrive, but repeat later from different locations using different methods.
The same activists use social media to post several separate announcements claiming the first 1,000 customers will receive free food at all Popeye’s restaurants, or free concert tickets at First Ave, or free cell phones at all T-Mobile stores, and they let the crowds do the rest when they realize they’ve been duped. Then the activists head to locations in Hennepin, Washington, Ramsey, and Dakota Counties to make prank 911 calls on their burner phones.
No violence against individuals. Temporary inconveniences. Some minor property damage but it’s covered by insurance. All perfectly acceptable, according the the E’s 9:28 rules. Is this really where we want society to go?
90% of Canadian truckers are already vaccinated. So this protest is about 10% of one occupation in the nation’s entire workforce. Talk about tyranny of the minority.
The sun is shining and it’s time to “live my best life” on the Birkie Trail (north end to Bitch Hill and back for fun) BTW — a shout out to any SiTD x-country skiers that participated in the Pre-Birkie yesterday.
Pastor Artur Pawlowski placed in solitary confinement…. For holding his church open. You sure you want to be on this side, E?
Wait – is numerical strength now a factor in the legitimacy of protests? Did the rules just change again?
Man, it’s hard to keep up.
JD, when you got nothing else, you move the goalposts. Waaaaaaay over yonder….
The U.S. government stopped imports of Mexican avocado after cartels threatened an American inspector working in that country.
You can’t make this shit up. This should free up truckers for a Convoy here. Oh, and I am sure shortage of avocados will be blamed on AGW, just watch!
a shout out to any SiTD x-country skiers that participated in the Pre-Birkie yesterday.
No one that comments here participated on the “Pre-Birkie”, of has skied the “Birkie”, ever..But one pathological liar did in his head.
A good day for the rule of law in Canada.
“For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.”
-Benavides
A pertinent article about vaccination and the habit of applying disgust to people in the political body you do not like, by psychologist Norman Doidge:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/needle-points-vaccinations-chapter-two
It’s a bit deep, but even handed. It is not about “the current crisis,” specifically, but about the way we humans have used and continue to medical use science to justify hatred and cruelty to people we oppose politically.
Sometimes t get too far ahead.
Individual human beings are in danger from many things that they see,hear, small, taste, and ingest. A very large amount of our mind is dedicated to monitoring our digestion and breathing. People die when they get old and our internal systems fail. Before that, the danger to our survival comes from things trying to enter our bodies. A really large amount of our brain’s power is given over to monitoring what goes into our mouth and down our throat. There are biological and evolutionary reasons why our tongues are constantly exploring and examining the inside of our mouths.
Vaccination, therefore, obviously has a strong psychological component.
JD,
I can respond to your 8:42 post this way.
Some liberals a very aware the their party has crossed many lines. Two of my neighbors are lawyers; one in private practice and one in corporate. Both of them see the hypocrisy and are concerned about one of your main points; retaliation against judges, police and politicians. Although the left is playing both ends against the middle with law enforcement, they see the danger.
I also have family and friends in law enforcement. They’re all conservatives and they see it, too and are very concerned about it.
Call me an Islamophobe if you want, but the mosque on Old Cedar Avenue in Bloomington, has always been a little too close to both the MOA and MSP airport for my liking, both of which are within hand held rocket range.
This is not a peaceful protest as the SiTD Editorial Board argues
Perhaps, but the only “violence” anyone has shown me so far has been:
Fearless prediction: if any photos of “confederate flags” or “swastikas” ever do appear (anyone seen any?), they’ll be “shake and bakes” from the Liberal Party (like most of the racist paraphernalia that turned up at the Tea Party back in the day) or their affiliated non-profits.
a shout out to any SiTD x-country skiers that participated in the Pre-Birkie yesterday.
I haven’t skied since I moved here from ND, and was nowhere near a Birkie skier even then. But ‘grats.
Hey, this is convenient. Friday night there was a protest in Minneapolis. Let’s apply the E’s Protest Legitimacy Test to see if it’s an acceptable protest:
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/protesters-block-minneapolis-streets-friday-night-vandalism-in-uptown/
Block traffic but only temporarily = acceptable.
Broken windows = acceptable if covered by insurance
Vandalism = not covered by insurance, not acceptable
Tiny percentage of the local population involved = not acceptable.
Nope, this protest fails the test. It was NOT acceptable. These were not protesters, these were wreckers engaged in hooliganism hoping to overthrow the judicial system. They should have been arrested en masse, their vehicles impounded, their driver’s license suspended, their children placed in foster care.
if any photos of “confederate flags” or “swastikas” ever do appear (anyone seen any?)
Yes, look back at my comments, you’ll find I talked about them.