Freedom. (and Justice.)

 

Freedom. (and Justice.)

The year was 1974, and I asked people if they knew of a nice place I could take my girlfriend, now my wife, for a memorable dinner. It was to be a special time, and I was willing to spend a week of my wages. They told me of a great place on McLeod Trail. I made a reservation, and we got dressed and went. There was a bit of a lineup and I was behind a couple of First Nations people, perhaps entertainers. He had a three-quarters-length buckskin jacket decorated with beadworks and beautiful jet long black hair. The bouncer at the door stopped him, placing one arm across the door, and said, no hippies. The aboriginal man just turned around and he and his girl left. We were next. The bouncer looked at me and said, no blue jeans allowed. He pointed at a sign saying no shirt, no shoes, no service. I had a shirt and shoes and my blue jeans were new off the rack. We went somewhere else.

I came to Canada on a plane in 1967. I was a kid, and I was seated between two chain-smoking adults. Commercials about cigarette smoking said it makes you a man. I didn’t dare to feel bad about the smoke, but it was hard to breathe. A few years later I was smoking myself, a pipe. I liked people coming over saying how much they enjoyed the aroma, and my hero Albert Einstein used one.

A few years later, we were barred from smoking in most places and sat in “smoking sections” later sent outside and later told to stay a good distance from public doorways. No freedom.

I will not bore you with seatbelts laws, restrictions on firearms, drinking, and driving, or any of the other freedom restrictions. Even feeding stray cats or having hummingbird feeders are now illegal, and letting your chihuahua run in a park is a problem but, what the heck. We are the “free world” and China is the “oppressed people.” Our officials boycotted the Olympic games to show them who is boss. The Chinese said the Olympics are not about politics and invited the Russian president instead. We know that if we couldn’t beat Afghanistan in 20 years, we better not pick a fight with Russia and China and they know it too.

In my lifetime, China rose from a starving backward place exploited by western empires to the fastest growing economy in the world. They doubled their life expectancy, while ours is dropping, and their middle class has doubled in size in just a few years. Some people had to give up some “freedoms” but overall they are doing not so bad. We who have freedom ship them raw materials and buy from them goods and junk produced in “Our” factories over there. Their lack of freedom doesn’t prevent them from buying our best houses and resources. The crucial difference is that their billionaires are not holding up most of their money. If we compare their Uyghur population to our native population, we may be surprised.

Back to “freedom.” Yesterday I saw in Coleman a snowplow driving slowly with a banner saying “freedom.” The driver looked smug, searching for demonstrators to cheer for him. Considering that most of us here are older and many have some preexisting health conditions, I didn’t see cheering adoring crowds. We also don’t know how to get money from rich Fascists to destabilize our democracy. Unfortunately, our Premier was told another story and publically caved in.

Witnessing the fall of his Federal Party’s leader and the surrender of his neighbor east from here, he grabbed the stage, promising to remove restrictions from Alberta and force municipalities to do the same. This is a repeat of his “best summer ever” fiasco on steroids. Unfortunately, some of us will pay with our lives for his mistakes and all of us will pay economically. Well, he is worried about the few unvaccinated truckers blocking a highway and the uninformed farmers supporting them ready to fight.

In reality, this caving into minority misinformed groups that block major export routes to get their way is setting a dangerous precedence. It encourages people to break the law if they can gather a few friends and act. Wearing a mask in public or getting vaccinated hurt no one, but not getting feed for your livestock or losing full shipments of farm produce does.

Canadian soldiers fought, suffered, and died, so we Canadians will have “freedom.” Now demonstrators against measures to protect us from a health disaster are pissing and dancing on their graves. They are eating steaks and roasting pigs paid for by far-right unnamed “donors.” They bask in glory by the admiration of students who only want to party and don’t care about health care workers and other law-abiding essential workers.

At these hard times, we must do a critical assessment of the situation. We live in an older community and many have vulnerable relatives and loved ones. I am compromised. My neighbour has an older mother in long term and so it goes. If restrictions are removed and municipalities lose their “freedom” to make rules relevant to the area, some will be in ICU, others will die and nurses will quit. I know some who are seriously contemplating it. When we open up prematurely again, the few votes of loud far-right visionaries will not count for much.

I am against forced vaccination, but we were railroaded into the situation and I wish to stay alive. I don’t care about Trudeau, yet he is cornered now. The standoff must end before it ruins the country. Sadly, some hard-working good drivers will pay. They can tell the media that they are moving out to save the suffering Canadians, not the arrogant leader. They should take the vaccine and remain our heroes. There will be a Liberal leadership review some time and drivers don’t forget.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.