{"id":80896,"date":"2022-02-14T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=80896"},"modified":"2022-02-13T09:26:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T15:26:02","slug":"alinski-for-we-but-not-for-thee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=80896","title":{"rendered":"Alinski For We, But Not For Thee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Last week on social media (and, maybe, althought I can&#8217;t remember, in this space), I pointed out this excellent thread by Ezra Levant &#8211; one of the most cogent commentators on civil liberty in Canada and, in many ways, the US &#8211; for some interesting insights on the effect the Canadian trucker&#8217;s strike is having on both sides of the border. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The whole thread, like most everything Levant writes, is worth a close read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">1. I think I know how this trucker rebellion is going to end. Hear me out. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FPgKEyxus3\">https:\/\/t.co\/FPgKEyxus3<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Ezra Levant \ud83c\udf41\ud83d\ude9b (@ezralevant) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ezralevant\/status\/1491582230216548357?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 10, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A commentator who, to be fair, is lately doing a pretty fair Bill Gleason impression, replied to me saying &#8220;I remember when conservatives said blocking bridges was a bad thing&#8221; &#8211; as if I&#8217;m excusing something with the truckers that I condemned with BLM blocking freeways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was, of course, an ignorant take at best, and a dishonest one at worst (and I&#8217;m leaning toward dishonest);  your protest, like any other free speech, has no right to harm others, and blocking freeways <em>does <\/em>in fact harm others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But my criticism, then as now, was not of the legitimacy or turpitude of the protesters &#8211; there are plenty of people covering that turf &#8211; but of the local and regional governments in both cases.   Local government in Minneapolis and Saint Paul enabled BLM to take over streets and freeways, passively (pointedly ignoring applicable laws) and actively (opening routes and managing not just freeway traffic, but <em>protester <\/em>traffic, in some cases pointing out foot routes onto the freeways).  I pointed out, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=54579\">from experience<\/a>,  that a pro-life or 2nd Amendment group going out on the freeway would have gotten a very different official reception&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;as, indeed, have the truckers, who have turned Big Left&#8217;s methods against Big Left, and are <a href=\"https:\/\/amgreatness.com\/2022\/02\/12\/oligarchys-response-to-the-freedom-convoy-bodes-ill-for-them\/\">getting Big Left&#8217;s exposed inner <em>id <\/em>out there on display<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>As I write, Canadian police, many dressed in military garb and supported by armored vehicles and snipers(!), are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/live-news\/canadian-trucker-protesters-bridge\">moving in to enforce several court orders<\/a> and demands of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and others that the \u201cFreedom Convoy\u201d of Canadian truckers stop blocking the Ambassador Bridge, the major artery between the United States and Canada, and disperse. Some of the protestors are leaving while many others are <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aginnt\/status\/1492597981589037057?s=20&amp;t=4JArvMggsCTakU778GYKhQ\">standing their ground<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>My point &#8211; which apparently still eludes the commenter noted above &#8211; is that representative democracy can not survive when there are one set of laws for the political &#8220;haves&#8221; and one for the &#8220;Have nots&#8221;. ere we <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Which, when it comes to political speech in general, is exactly where we are today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More later. <\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week on social media (and, maybe, althought I can&#8217;t remember, in this space), I pointed out this excellent thread by Ezra Levant &#8211; one of the most cogent commentators on civil liberty in Canada and, in many ways, the US &#8211; for some interesting insights on the effect the Canadian trucker&#8217;s strike is having [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80900,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80896\/revisions\/80900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}