In the past 24 hours I’ve heard back from longtime personal friends from across Canada after email them Heather Heying’s recent editorial. Here’s an abridged version of the responses I received:
- An 80-something gentleman in Vancouver: “How can a protest be peaceful if it’s hurting the economy?”
- A 60-something grandmother in Calgary: “Please stop sending me anything more about the Freedom Protests.”
- A mid-50’s fellow in Sudbury: “I fear we’re on the opposite side of this issue. We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
- A late-50’s fellow in Toronto: “This has turned into a s***-show due to a weak government. Call in the military!”
To #3 I responded thusly:
I’ve always been in support of people peacefully protesting. Even if I was quadruple vaxxed, I would never, ever support coercing others to put something in their body that they didn’t want to. I would also never “Other” someone out of normal society for not agreeing with me.
You’re on the opposite side of these basic principles?
I truly am shocked that these people I know are taking the stances that they are mais c’est la vie. So do help me, dear readers: Imagine you’re part of a high-school debating club and you’re tasked with arguing on the side of Trudeau and against the truckers. What would your best arguments be?
“What would your best arguments be?”
How about: “You’re RACIST!!!!”
I was once told that you can’t argue a person out of a position that they were not argued into.
Don’t argue. It is a waste of time.
Clever. Thanks.
bverwey
I am so sick of being right without any one willing to take action against the very stupid cowardly Canadians who would sooner be slaves than freemen.
Indeed, and never forget that these compliant, servile Canadians looked the other way while great harm was done to vulnerable children. It’s hard not to hope that their myopia, stupidity, or malice doesn’t boomerang.
The way I first heard it, which maybe even more powerful, is…
You can’t reason a person out of a position that reason didn’t get them into in the first place.
“You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.”
— Jonathan Swift
How about calling them what they are “NAZIs”. There is no getting around the argument that anyone that would inject an experimental drug into an unwilling or underage person is nothing more or less than a NAZI! The argument that it is all for the COMMON GOOD is fundamentally fraught since there is no one that can define or judge what the common good is.
Not good at defending a point I don’t believe in. Haven’t come across any reasonable arguments against protests on Parliament Hill. However, here is how I would answer:
#1. He has a point. Border blockades are wrong-headed and come with the potential of a lot of bad optics. Protests in front of the Legislature and Parliament is totally reasonable and effective.
#2. Democracy is messy, debate is uncomfortable. If this many people are protesting and supporting the truckers, maybe it has struck a chord with the general population. You can’t convince everyone, nor should you try to hard when rebuffed. It only entrenches.
#3. Your response is dead on.
#4. Only oppressive regimes use the military against their own people. (especially against a peaceful protest). Read a little history. Also, the military defends the country, not the political class who happens to be in power.
I’m reminded of a old joke I once heard.
A farmer was trying to get his mule to do something. The critter turned out to be quite unresponsive, so the farmer whacked it between the eyes with a 2 x 4. The farmer’s buddy, who saw what happened, asked why he did that. “To get a mule to do anything,” the farmer said, “the first thing you have to do is to get its attention.”
The government, whether it’s federal or provincial, has stubbornly refused to listen, let alone respond, to our concerns. The trucker protest was, and still is, a way of getting the needed attention.
Prinz Dummkopf, being his naturally thin-skinned self, took it as a personal affront, something to be severely dealt with.
BA
And left the country to DAVOS TO receive the accolades he believes he so richly deserves.
He is a CRIMINAL richly deserved of a Charge of TREASON under the Queens Rules & Regulations (Military Law), given his standing as COMMANDER IN CHIEF.
ARREST this POS….!!!
Thankfully, he is not the Commander in Chief. That would be the Governor General.
trudeau simply doesn’t have the life skills and maturity to deal with this situation. he is literally unfit to be PM. A perfect puppet for the WEF.
Lefty, your approach is intellectual, these people are fearful and brainwashed. You must hit them in the face with reality. See my approach further don.
In reply to #1: Isn’t a general strike peaceful? It sure would hurt the economy.
AOC said that protests are supposed to make you uncomfortable. Therefore the Left must either denounce her or admit it has no argument against blockades.
“By heritage I’m PETulant.”
Not a great argument, but he’s run with it until now.
Perhaps simply restated, the tendency to autocracy is clearly genetic.
“Perhaps simply restated…”
I read that first as, “Perhaps simply retarded…”.
To #1: labour disputes resulting in strikes necessarily hurt the economy. Are all strikes therefore violent? Should we outlaw strikes?
To #3: it is clear by now that vaccines do little to prevent transmission of Covid 19. The argument people are now making is vaccine mandates are justifiable on the same grounds as seat belt laws, they serve a public interest by reducing health costs. Society also has an interest in producing more children – future tax payors and productive workers. Are you in favor of banning abortion and birth control in the service of promoting economic development and more tax revenue for the common good?
To #4: we have two ways out of this. We can drop vaccine mandates or we can bring in the army and shoot people who engage in civil disobedience. Which of those two solutions do you thing will lead to better health outcomes? If you don’t care you are a crypto-Fascist who just wants to stomp on people. Debate over.
I am justin trudeau,you are not. Go home. I have not the time nor the inclination to speak with you.
Game, set, match. LOL! Try that argument with your wife/girlfriend…
There are only two ways to win and argument with your wife/girlfriend. Unfortunately both of them don’t work.
Sadly Tooner slavery is not quite the same argument.
And on the rare occasion you do win, what do you do next………..usually uncharted territory!
I was just at our wine tasting group and had such a conversation. Fortunately we’ve been friends for years and can argue vociferously without creating animosity. I can’t think as JT thinks as I don’t think I harbour megalomaniacal tendencies.
In any event my debating partner is a petro-chemical engineer, well travelled having lived in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Because of the cultural corruption he has experienced, he is very sensitive to the ‘rule of law’ and the last two weeks have made him feel ashamed of the presence or use of the Canadian flag. He believes strongly in collective rights, while I’m the opposite. I have lost allegiance to what the flag has represented, until it began for me, to represent a new declaration of independence from big gov’t and a crei de coer of the rights of the individual.
We went through the whole masking business, when he brought up his 95 yr. old. father in law, whom must be protected at all costs and if that means mandatory masking, it was a small ask. I countered with the attendant social costs of ‘protecting’ his FIL, but I don’t think those costs really register with many.
His willingness to ‘protect me’ through mask use, should extend to my willingness to ‘protect him’ through mask mandates as eminently reasonable. I mentioned the CDA 15 min. exposure minimum and asking him why that, in conjunction with vaccination and his own masking was insufficient and he still felt threatened. He denied feeling threatened or afraid, but felt the measures were arguably beneficial.
We also talked about the vaccine and how it neither prevented transmission nor contagion and while doing so, we were sitting face to face, 30″ apart, unmasked, for a couple of hours while we enjoyed some nice, full-bodied wines. I think what it comes down to is perception. He knows me well and we like one another. Therefore I’m undoubtedly not a health threat to him, unlike all of those unknown, faceless bodies he walks by in the supermarket- unsure of whom is vaccinated or not vaccinated.
In the end it always ends up at “do the right thing” of the Collective Canadian who likes to follow the rules and not make waves. Just go along. Just get along. And listen to the CBC.
No Guff, collective rights are meaningless if the individuals rights and freedoms are not protected. If the individual is not free the collective is not free.
As a senior citizen, I am gratified to learn of this man’s protective concern for his 95 y.o. father-in-law. However, we have an entire younger generation who has been dehumanized, terrified and punished by mask-mandates. What are the long term ramifications of the vaccine? Where is the common good in all this?
As someone who resides in the US, I am reluctant to criticize other world leaders. Biden is currently crowing about his dead dog story. Good grief. But Canadians have every reason to feel ashamed. It appears that Trudeau slandered the protestors in order to justify a money-grab. Lies, doxing, and theft signify the jeopardy facing all North Americans at this moment in history — from the treachery at the top.
if you ever need help with your brainwashing, may I suggest you quit listeni ng to CBC and consider your Government might not be telling the truth.
People listen to CBC?
Who knew?
They’re not “occupiers” as they’ve not displaced anyone from their homes. But the Truckers ARE “disrupters” … and they are “inconveniencers”. They have changed several public spaces. I have been massively opposed to the repeated protests by both GLAAD and WWF unfurling banners across the GG Bridge and the Bay Bridge. Why? Because it blocks traffic and inconveniences thousands of commuters. Your Truckers are inconveniencing people … and embarrassing the majority of Canadians who love and adore their adorable PM. The whole thing is an embarrassing inconvenience. And so they MUST BE CRUSHED … the majority of Canadians, who embrace one-world one-government Rule, demand that The Truckers be CRUSHED and PUNISHED. Criminal! Criminal! Criminals!! Make them Payyyyyyyy!!! *spittle*
There. That’s what I imagine my enemies say. Yes, the left are now my sworn enemies. Not friends. Never, till they beg forgiveness for what they’ve done to our FREE Western Nations. Democracy is dead, if not on critical life support. The left MUST be fought and stopped. You’ve awoken the silent majority … now prepare for battle.
The majority of Canadians do not support one world government.
Trudeau has less than 21% support of eligible voters.
Jagmeet Singh will not be leader of the NDP in the near future as he is just another trust fund tyrant who thinks his shit doesn’t stink. The NDP will lose their base of support unless he is replaced.
Go truckers, changing politics, one liar at a time.
The problem is we are in an info war and the government has spent a couple of billion last year alone preparing. It doesn’t matter how many lies you expose they are to heavily invested to pivot. In fact if you simply point out the lie ,they generally rationalize and double down. They are a prisoners of irrational fear and believe the government is trying to save them. You may have some luck with satire,but in general presenting reasonable arguments contrary to their indoctrination will not be analyzed in a critical manner. It’s a train wreck happening right in front of them and all they want to do is close their eyes. I am having the same experience.
Exactly, Concerned. You cannot argue logically with these people. I haven’t studied them but maybe the use of cult deprogramming techniques.
I keep saying it: You can’t logic a Prog. They cannot be reasoned with because they are not reasonable beings. They do not possess a gram of logic in their entire system. If they did, this cluster fuck would never have started in the first place.
Robert
That is my exact take on religion, I find leftism is just an extension or catholicism, and quebec is a prime example of the out come of catholicism.
Spock’s line: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
It’s an old saying describing a practice and philosophy found in many societies present and past: Greece, Rome, Romania, North Korea, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany. The individual must serve and sacrifice for society. A tool of dictators!
Adam Smith answered this perverting and destructive idea with the observation, ““It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages”
The cold, profitable transaction defeats the seductive assertion.
The pursuit of the ideal of the greater good has always led to misery and impoverishment, but so many are always willing to give it another go.
I remember the Peter Warren Show in Winnipeg. Invariably you would get a caller who would say something like, “ You take the buggers out and you shoot ‘em! That’s how you solve the problem. “.
Brilliant, it’s so obvious.
Not a lot of internal reflection and mental rumination with some folks.
Kind of loses its attraction when the ‘you’ is at the wrong end of the gun. Context is important. 😉
I agree with you, but they don’t have to round you up and shoot you. At least at the start the Nazi’s and the Communist’s dirty deeds where done at night.
Now they exile the people that say no, in broad daylight and many but not all say good .
It’s the same in a sense at least you can see how it starts ,it’s just not bloody and direct yet.
Because many of those thinking it’s fine are cowards.
Wanting to be left alone, isn’t demanding people think like you, or have to live their life for you.
It means leave me be, leave kids be to live , learn and earn who they come to be.
Simple stuff in a life that gets complicated regardless, without the useful idiots.
I’ll leave you with this gem from a friend who’s close relation is a public school principal.
When the principal got his shot ….. he cried tears of joy.
I’ll leave it there, I don’t care about the tears …. it’s the underlying mind set.
Well, that’s a slogan for the consumption of the many because this is all about the needs of the few.
Gary
And that also applies to all religions, all of them.
The path to the afterlife is based upon the faith and actions of the individual in this world.
Religion plays its part, but using religious devotion as a weapon to attack one’s rivals or exert influence in secular matters are political methods.
“This is a Democracy…. therefore if the majority support a policy, it is fully justified.”
Like the massacre of 600,000 Tutsis in Rwanda.
Like the genocides carried out in Germany in the 40s.
Like slavery around the world.
You just have to hope that your opponent does not know the difference between Democracy and Mob Rule.
Argument 2.
“There was no other option”.
Again, you have to hope that your opponent does not know about countries like Sweden, or the UN-WHO Guidelines for Pandemics circa 2019.
“You just have to hope that your opponent does not know the difference between Democracy and Mob Rule.”
The difference? There is none unless a democracy has a founding set of political (as well as moral) principles that must include a bill of rights. The American Founding Fathers took morality for granted and, now that morality has been subordinated to expediency, even the noble American experiment is doomed to failure. Its democratic ideals have become corrupted. Now all it has is the mob and the mob uses force as its governing principle. No individual has the power the defeat the mob.
Have you ever dealt with a guy that has an IQ of 100? Stupid, right? Now remember that 50% of the population is stupider than that guy. And here is the problem with democracy and it is a left/right thing but it is not about ideology, my friend. It is about the Bell Curve. Those on the left side of the bell curve cannot outwit anyone so the only tool they have in their toolbox is a hammer.
Do not try to out muscle the mob – outwit them, if you are able. If you can’t then, well, as the philosopher Butch Cassidy said: I can’t help you, Sundance.
I have a lot of these sorts of friends too. A lot of them are good people – intelligent as well – but they’re resolutely blue pill. They watch the legacy media and they accept what they’re told. They refuse to give credence to facts that contravene the narrative to which they’ve committed themselves. Some almost seem to revel in their cognitive dissonance: the more obvious the contradiction, the less they’re willing to discuss it on the merits.
Some people are partisan hacks to the death. But for most, it’s actually not a political issue, per se. It’s that they’re inherently collectivists at their core. They would say they believe in the Charter and the rights it enshrines…. But then they would say that we all have a duty to one another to ‘do the right thing’ because ‘we’re all in this together.’ While they are surely disproportionately afraid of covid; on a deeper level they are burdened by a moral duty that compels them to mimic the in-group behaviour ‘for the greater good.’
For these people, it’s not a matter of bending the knee. There is no questioning the authorities or the Charter rights which have been erased. They conform willingly because they have sacrificed their impulse to think independently on the altar of Safety.
In short, they are godless wretches who believe compliance is the path to salvation. (“mandates are how we get our freedom back.”)
Because of all this, the argument against the truckers is that they’re being selfish. Pure and simple. Collectivists view those who insist on individual freedoms as selfish. More than that, they’re dangerous because they’re breaking The Rules which are keeping everyone else Safe. A stable, respectable democracy can’t tolerate people who are putting the rest of us in danger by selfishly breaking The Rules.
Hence, protesting for freedom IS insurrection.
Hence, they must be crushed.
Exactly. And why even in the first place debate with the mentally ill….that want to kill you?
Brad,a perfect analysis.
Brad
Godless?????, are you that lacking in self awareness. I get that shit in spades from the bible thumpers on FB. They are always preaching” we need to help each other”, to defend getting the Vax , and wearing useless masks.
Everything they complain about, hurts the economy, bad optics, increased violence, think of the children!! (Clutches pearls), divides the people etc etc is everything the government has done to the population over the past 2 years
You silly. That was all for our good!
Yes comrade! The beatings will continue until moral improves.
Canada has fallen.
“Canada has fallen.”
Yes. Yes, it has. Long ago, I might add.
However, many of my countrymen have not.
Fuck Trudeau!!!
Robert, leftism is a mental illness. There is no other explanation.
They have no critical thinking ability.
You are wasting your time. And I say this as someone who has spent the last 25 years trying to persuade those in my circle of family and friends.
There is nothing that Trudeau can do that will make these people change their minds, no atrocity he can commit.
This is what two years of gaslighting by the media, by the political class, and by so-called “experts” has accomplished.
I know a lot of otherwise rational people who can’t seem to come to terms with the reality that they have been conned. I don’t even want to bring it up anymore.
This is what I’ve come to call the “Boomer Problem” here in the states. Though I am one I really take no pride in them. Everything is their decision and nothing else is important. By dint of their numbers they have pushed their own selfish views for years. They literally can’t imagine a world without them and we cant move on because they refuse to retire or give up a position that justifies their own self importance.
Selfish. That’s what boomers are. All that matters and has ever mattered was them and they destroyed western civilization.
Fuck. You.
And the hat you’re wearing and the horse you rode in on.
DB:
UnMe’s mommy let him out of her basement and the twerp found xim/xer/xit’s way to a computer.
Then it should go back to surfing kiddie porn in the basement while the adults are having a conversation.
I can’t do the mental ju-jitsu to align with the stupidest, most arrogant and thin-skinned person to ever sit as PM to a once-great country. Not even as an academic exercise. I cannot concede anything to the most destructive and dangerous “leader” this country has ever seen. He owns the largest economic, social and moral declines ever seen by this country. He is a cancer to Canada and its people.
Were he to waste away with some particularly painful and long-lasting malady in the crummy socialized healthcare system he champions – sans morphine – I’d shed not a single tear.
I hope one day to be able to p1ss on his grave.
I have nothing else.
When Renee Levesque died and rested in state, I joined the line to see him, just to make sure he was dead. Now he was a reasonable opponent; Just In is not.
I wouldn’t cross the street to piss on him but I would walk a thousand miles to piss on his grave.
My bucket list includes a voyage east to do that to pere’s grave. If Tick Tock Trudles befalls some horrible malady before I go, his too.
FJT, Regrettably, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Begin by asking: Do you agree that the current medical apartheid system is a reasonable government policy to enforce vaccination?
They won’t like the wording but they’ll be introduced to a very negative reframing of the policy.
If they say yes, then ask where they draw the line for their own personal bodily autonomy:
– Would they accept a mandatory microchip to enable scanning for medical status? (efficiency)
– Should they be subject to mandatory organ donation? (The lives it could save).
– Mandatory gastric surgery to solve the obesity epidemic (and save the HC system)?
At some point they’ll say no, that would cross the line.
Then ask them to explain: if the government will cross the line for the unvaccinated, what’s so special about yours?
The objective is not to persuade them, but to persuade others listening.
To the ones who agree with mRNA mandates, would it start a fight to ask them their thoughts about mandatory suicide at age 70? To save us from the (mythical) over population problem.
The one who is 80 might stop and think as he is past the due date. The 60 year old might not like the question. The two in their 50’s might be ready to realise the 20 years to 70 go faster than expected.
Ain’t gonna work.
You’re trying to be rational with beings who are completely & entirely irrational. If all the facts & data that have come out over the course of the last 24 months haven’t convinced them, then, as noted above in BADR’s joke, you need a literal (not metaphorical) 2×4 to catch their attention.
It’s fun watching their heads explode.
Drop them as friends. Seriously they’re never going to change their mind so forget about them. They want to “other” people don’t to them. When this is done I won’t associate with masktard holdouts because I know they’ll be like your friends.
I can’t argue for the Turd’s position. He’s desperate and it’s showing.
I could argue for a maximum size of gov’t… a return to the level of taxation a few generations ago, an actually funded military.
I am purposefully ignoring about 13 replies at this point so that my comment is mine. I am looking forward to reading others’ opinions.
I’m not shocked at “dissenting” voices. People will disagree. The issue we have at hand right now is simply (if we can categorize it that way…) about BODLY AUTONOMY and the companion ethical issue of INFORMD CONSENT. The Canadian government, alongside a bought media (who was supposed to keep politicians [among many other categories!] bound to the truth…), made of a well-informed adult who decided to NOT receive the covid injections available in the US and Canada, a non-person. F@ck Trudeau.
You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.
“You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.”
Somebody arguing socialism with George Orwell used that line on him. He snarled in return, “Where’s the omelet?”
Send them Tucker’s monologue. Everything they need to know about their Government and Leader. From an American. Lol.
#1 Border blockades are a measured response. For many, whether truckers, nurses, doctors and first responders; the mandates were the end of their livelihoods. They spoke up and were ignored, or worse, maligned by the media. They were treated as sub-human, subject to defamation and mocking, even by the Prime Minister. There was no one to say, “you’re a Canadian; the Charter of Rights and Freedoms will guide me in seeing that you will not have to suffer this injustice.”
Then came the truckers. The Prime Minister reached out, not with an olive branch, but with insults and then hid to ignore the truckers for ten days. Hardy, cheering Canadians lined the roads along the truckers’ way, knowing they were their best hope for freedom.
The truckers have done us proud in Ottawa. They have been peaceful and positive. Their only goal from the start has been to have the vaccine mandates and passports removed. They have inspired countless other people in Canada and around the world who want the apartheid to end.
In 2019 I would have agreed it’s wrong to block bridges and cause financial loss to others. In 2022 I still believe that, but I see that people’s lives, rights and livelihoods are more important than car parts or veggies. If people can’t legally cross the border, how is it moral to say potatoes are more important?
As an aside, the government has blocked the border to pipelines for oil and gas exports. Is that any less a crime than blocking it for car parts or potatoes?
Amen.
Pre freedom convoy days the trucking industry was warning and then experiencing disruption, especially with fresh produce and livestock, due to the vaccine mandate reducing the already constrained pool of cross border truckers. Before that, the chatter around the industry was the younger generation of truckers didn’t want the long haul business. They wanted to be home in bed each night. The older drivers, eligible for retirement but still enjoying the open road, saw the government and society turn against their brother truckers on a dime. Amazing how these facts got forgotten when the FEW chose to push back against the narrative.
“Before that, the chatter around the industry was the younger generation of truckers didn’t want the long haul business.”
Wasn’t just chatter. That’s been a well known fact for at least 5 years. The current driver shortage didn’t just appear overnight. It’s been building up for some time.
Wonderful response!!!!
Walter
Well said!
The negative replies came from people who cannot wrap their heads around the fact that the MSM is lying on behalf of the government. They will get angry when you tell them the weapons at Coutts were not attached to the blockade. Tara Nelson said it was; therefore it is the truth. Do not try to tell them different. Like a kid who refuses to believe he was duped he will gather “evidence” to support that Santa Claus did so come down the chimney.
Like any the old saying. It is easier to do a guy up the ass than it is to convince him he was just screwed.
What this exercise did achieve. It exposed the elites, the parasites and the weak minded.
Kate,I am lazy, so,shut up. The government knows what is bestif they didn’t they would not be our betters Any one with a eighth on a brian would know that. No cam shafts. Arrr Zeds!
I suppose the only argument I could come up with is the idea of collateral damage. The protest is hurting ( well inconveniencing) innocent people. Not really a pro Trudeau argument. That being said, this argument could be used to shut down all protests, given the bar for “hurting” is set low enough.
I don’t know that this is a case for rational argument any more. The vaccine mandate for truckers makes no logical/ scientific sense, and generally speaking none is offered
We are talking grander themes here, or rather more base ones: fear, self righteousness, indifference to the suffering of others, hypocrisy and selfishness. You know, all those old enemies of rationality.
Not responding to you but to those making this argument, but the past two years have hurt innocent people. People who committed suicide are never coming back. Children are never getting their valuable years of learning back. People who couldn’t be with loved ones will never get those chances back. People who lost businesses will forever be set back financially. No one has even acknowledged their losses, much less admitted any culpability. And not only are those in Canada not getting any kind of apology, similar to the rest of us in the Western world, they’re expected to take more of the same. The elites in Ottowa are happy to destroy other’s lives, but when they face the slightest bit of inconvenience, they squeal like stuck pigs and demand that the rabble be removed.
My advice would be to not have these discussions with friends.
It’s a total waste of time and thereby creates friction with zero payoff.
Another tip I picked up from Kate: don’t send UNSOLICITED links to friends. Tell them that you have some info on a subject, include a brief precis, and casually suggest that you’d be happy to send it if it interests them. You could even give them a search string which will get them the piece. I recently told a friend that I have info about Pfizer efficacy rating fraud that shocked me and told him I could sent it to him if he was interested. He didn’t respond. No hard feelings.
“It’s a total waste of time and thereby creates friction with zero payoff.”
DINGDINGDINGDINGDING! We have a winnah!!!
I never bring it up. But I don’t sit quiet when they start ranting.
Sometimes just a condescending “u huh” is all that is needed to shut them up.
Kate, wait, that was my commie dog. But she is right about the cam shafts.
So easy.
Some animals are more equal that others.
Only Prime Ministers from Quebec are fit to RULE Canada.
Citizens not of the “New middle class” have no value,they shall slave on and shut up,as their intellectual superiors decide what is best for them.
The collective is always superior to the individual.
Crushing all individuals who disagree with the collective is how proper democracy works,as long as the right people are doing that crushing.
How dare you presume to argue with me?
I am Justine.
JR, That, “How dare you presume to argue with me? ….I am Justine.” Say it all!
On a personal note, I agree with the post above: I would drop them as friends. I am, admittedly an a-hole but I just cannot count as friends people who do not put much value in the rights of individuals.
I’ll drink to that.
I’d start by telling the over-50s that they’re going to have to start focusing less on retirement and more on safeguarding the inheritance of future generations.
How about this one: “my my, what a short term memory we have?”
Justin Trudeau@JustinTrudeauOfficiel du gouvernement – Canada
When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern -Harper in 2005
11:40 AM · May 23, 2012·Twitter for iPad
Ah, but that was said by Harper, the prime minister whose supreme evil Prinz Dummkopf has toiled these last years to forever erase.
I’m sorry but that is how effective locking people in their homes and bombarding them with fear is at controlling people. Anyway, let’s try:
#1: The government has been destroying the economy for two years with their policies.
#2. Have you liked the last two years; do you want to continue like that forever?
#3. I’m opposed to forced experiemental injections; you are for them?
#4. The past two years have been a shit-show. I want an end to it.
Expect lessons learned to be applied to global warming mandates.
I can’t believe that your parents, your aunts and uncles and their friends and acquaintances fought in the Second World War to try to stop us from achieving what our beloved PM has achieved in a few short years.
Your actions were fruitless.
As you know my PM has even stated in the press that his favourite form of government is the communist led government in China.
Now there are a great many people in Canada who never knew any connection with the world wars who are very happy to believe in the communist system. Also, thank you to our educators for their dedicated brain washing of the young minds full of mush.
As we like to call them “Useful Idiots”.
Made myself sick thinking I could pretend to like that SOB.
Their arguments hinge on the belief that the government knows best and therefore must be obeyed for the greater good.
There is much more to it, though, requiring several points exploring where their psyche resides.
Part of their life hinges on their lifetime of someone making the decision for them: teachers, employers, the rules, the government, and so on. I have met many who were incapable of deciding lest they make a wrong choice even when it was pointed out that no decision was a decision. It was the fear of making a wrong choice. They also blocked anyone else from choosing. A “higher” authority had to arrive and all productivity stopped.
They live in fear: fear of climate change, fear of Wuhan, fear of living outside the norm, fear that someone will upset their world. And, fear that their cherished beliefs might be proved wrong and force real change in their carefully structured lives.
You cannot reason with them.
Your heart is a one room hotel and you are the manager. You choose faith and trust God; or, you choose fear, anger and other negative emotions to run your life.
At least with God we know who wins.
How about this one: “Canada or North Korea?”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1488ff624479f85af429632cff92000dedf5ec833107c02cdfe7212126a7d329.jpg
“It’s an IQ test.”
Re bodily autonomy and how far Statists are willing to go.
When they keep saying “whatever it takes to take the stress off the ICUs” you can get them to go to absurd crazy levels. I asked one young nurse if she’d be willing to submit to a constant 24 hour I.V. drip bag of vacine hung on a stainless steel pole that she’d push around the rest of her life and she agreed she’d do it.
“Whatever it takes”
Ask them if this pandemic could be solved by murdering the unvaccinated would they do it?
They are 1940’s Germans that tore up floorboards at night, loaded or watched boxcars of people, smelled the ovens and dropped a dime on Anne Frank.
“…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
The Freedom Convoy protests are intended to show that a sizeable group of Canadians are very close to withdrawing their consent as a result of government overreach. They have not yet called for violence or the abolishment of the government. They are doing everything they can, short of actual violence, to dissuade their government from slipping irrevocably into tyranny. It is a stern warning.
Just had a nice chat with one of the bartenders coming off work tonight. She wasn’t working the first night but tonight she was.
The bar was so busy they had to call in extra help. They matched tonight alone the entire last week worth of sales. The cook couldn’t keep up with the orders. Amazing how one week can change things.
Most people do support free speech — for their own position.
It’s your position that often bothers them.
Shocking to find out there are a lot of stupid people in my country.
Not surprised in the least. I’ve been watching them vote for shit like this for decades.
Your friends sound to me like typical Communists or at the very least, Nihilists… they lack empathy and reason.
The comments suggest an attitude of petulance and of a petty annoyance, a self imposed moral detachment from the suffering of others.
Kinda scary really.
They are probably Peeair Turdhole, Bob Rae or Dalton Camp style Commies, the kind that live very pampered and privileged style lives preaching “tolerance” and “diversity” at every turn, but they also have an undying and uncritical almost cult like love for psychopathic mass murderers like Chairman Mao despite the fact he committed a mass genocide of his own people.
Its like peeair Turdhole said, and I’m paraphrasing somewhat… “ya gotta break a few eggs to make an omlette…” Peeair shrugged… systematic genocide of millions of citizens primarily because they disagree with the Government rulers and their warped ideology is a justifiable action to keep the peasants in line and the “Great Leap Forward” ( Great Reset) goose stepping ahead… any horror or lawless act committed by a vicious amoral communist Government is condoned, trivialized and dismissed by these very same people.
Juthtin Turdhole is a psychopath that hates Canadians and despises Canadians who disagree with him ( “why should we tolerate these people” ) … he is a brain damaged out of control tyrant declaring war on Canadians for simply disagreeing with his despotic rule… nothing could be more obvious… although not at all obvious to other psychopaths, nihilists and communists.
Some people just refuse to see because its inconvenient for them.
I remember the day Dalton Camp died. I laughed.
And then I felt a little guilty. But not much.
I remember the days when Peter Gzowski had his weekly round table discussing affairs on the Hill with guests representing each of the 3 main parties. Dalton Camp was always there to offer the “conservative” view. What a joke. Goes to show the CBC always was pathetically leftist.
Seam, You forgot narcissistic.
“Juthtin Turdhole is a psychopath that hates Canadians and despises Canadians who disagree with him”.
Justin Turdhole is a narcissistic psychopath that hates Canadians and despises Canadians who disagree with him.
FIFY
It would appear that we live in a madhouse now, where the left-leaning elites generally have lost their minds and decided to follow a set of policies that can only bring ruin and bankruptcy. The pandemic just exacerbates the situation, the response has been largely devoid of fundamental logic and asks people to do something on blind faith that a rational person would rightly refuse to do (take the injections without thought given to their long-term effects on both your immunity and the general integrity of your body). Now they want to impose this regime on younger and younger children. It rightly concerns the few of us who have not lost our minds.
So how to respond to a situation where the insane are running the asylum, and a guy with no moral compass has unlimited executive powers that he has been itching to use all his life (we know because he said so, he admires China of all places).
I think the only response that is going to work out in the long term is a spiritual response. We’ve seen that a physical response has limitations, the problem is that we’re only drawing on about 10-15 per cent of the population, that portion that has remained sane, and between us and the really crazy ruling classes, are masses and masses of unconcerned sheep going wherever the local sheepdog says to go.
In this twilight world up is down, east is west, and good is bad. There is an answer hiding in plain sight, this is clearly the end of days and we can expect the final answer to come from that direction. We have done what we can do, perhaps there is some potential in exploring concepts like western independence movements, but in each case, the problem just transfers from the national stage to the regional stage with pretty much the same set of variables. We could look across the border and consider where there are more factors that unite than divide, along some regional lines. We don’t have to surrender just because some spoiled brat brought up by narcissists says we must or else. The range of “or else” is not entirely in his domain.
Now in a functioning multi-party system, the Conservatives and probably also the NDP and Bloc would see advantages in opposing this over the top grab for absolute power. Each one of them would have different concerns about the precedent being set; no rank and file New Democrat used to supporting radical causes of the left should think for one second that this won’t set a precedent that applies to their security, the Liberals won’t be in power for ever. In fact, this should in any sensible country finish the Liberals, just as the election fraud in the U.S. should have finished the Democrats. They will hold on with the help of the three blind mice media and inertia, but by rights they should be in the ashcan of history already.
But given the widespread deception and belief in lying signs and wonders, I would say, hold on and pray. If you’re an atheist, ask yourself how it is some hermit living on a Greek island in the first century could have possibly written a word for word account of modern times with only the help of a couple of angels. Nostradamus didn’t even come close. I challenge you, if you don’t believe, read the Revelation especially chapters 13 and 14 and ask yourself, if not this, then what exactly?
Know your “enemy”, your friend.
Fear is one of our most base emotions that drives a lot of what we do or don’t do. Mix in some level of insecurity (and yes all sorts of other layers we all have) and we have the mess we are in as individual behaviour is upstream of culture, which is upstream of politics, and then society.
Kate (above) has the best approach to attempt change in the ceased minds around us. Clinical psychologists when treating people, us, with our layers of issues, don’t lecture, they ask questions. Having to answer a question, especially out loud (look up rubber duck debugging) triggers a thought process, a function, that creates a different way of seeing the issue presented. A self-driven introspection that no reading or lecturing can.
The ability to think like that, to see obvious black versus white facts has vaporized in so many due to a sort of flight fight response brought on by the at first glance threat of planet level extermination. We are heavy on the flight as the vast majority have not had to fear for really any thing in our benevolent, prosperous existence. With no Iron Curtain nukes to worry about for some two generations, what is our lived experience? Too many, these we speak of here, were out of training.
Instead, we get told to fear bogey men like an over the top, full of hot air Trump or other straw man entity. For two years pile in constant on the hour media reminders on all channels that we could die because somebody did die from CV, all at an overall mortality rate no different than past years. They have allowed themselves to be trained to fear the straw man called CV. They naturally focus their emotional energy on surviving this fear, and maybe still a lack of toilet paper, instead of seeing the bigger picture.
As much as I literally scream at the irrational stupid on so many fronts coming at me from this screen, I often stop and flex my empathetic side and feel sorry for them as what we are now as a society against history shows we are still immature.
We haven’t grown up and I would argue in another comment section, have actually become infantilized. We survivors must move on, at least emotionally as to rescue all of the others is impossible till good leadership shows up or some even bigger catastrophe comes along.
Robert, as maybe a Sun Tzu axiom may say somewhere, one needs good intelligence to know what your enemy is going to do. Call it a form of empathy. And curiosity on my part. Those people that you wrote with Heather’s essay. How many generations are they removed from say having parents that came from a communist country like my in-laws did? I haven’t heard one immigrant, save for some that have been spoiled here now for decades, not see what the issues are. Lived experience.
#1 Is the economy hurting any more right now than it has for the last 2 years? Has a single person in the private sector permanently lost their jobs in the last 2 weeks? (Remember, the businesses that are closed in Ottawa are due to government order not the protest) Did the rapid inflation that we are all worried about just start 2 weeks ago? If you can’t answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions then you’ve invalidated your own argument.
#2 Please stop sending me pictures of your ugly grandchildren. You may be as proud of them as I am of the truckers but I am just as disgusted by the little gargoyles as you are of the truckers.
#3 Agreed. Want to get a beer?
#4 I agree completely! Trudeau needs to be arrested. The army needs to do the job because the RCMP is compromised.
I can agree with many excellent points made here. I understand the futility of argument with frightened and unaware people. Some possible points (some of which are similar to others already stated above):
1 – if an economic impact is not considered a possible part of peaceful protest there would be no point in collective labor taking strike action.
2 – all things regarding the Freedom Protests are very important to me, but I will keep the discussion limited to my blog and with others willing to discuss it. If you bring this subject up, do not complain if I reciprocate.
3 – then we disagree, I firmly believe the Charter of Rights (and thus, freedom) has been seriously undermined and, by precedent, that those rights are in danger of permanent and lasting harm.
4 – I agree with you! This shit-show is the product of a weak government. The inappropriate use of force (military or police) or invoking the Emergencies Act without justification is proof of just how weak and ineffectual the government is. Weak leadership is frequently exemplified by the promise of or actual use of excessive measures.
Sure, here you go.
1. The truckers have not spent two years closing businesses, closing schools, forcing thousands into bankruptcy, or printing half a trillion dollars causing spiraling inflation and creating a debt bomb that will destroy our economy and that our grandchildren will still be repaying (not to mention kneecapping the energy industry in service to their global warming fantasy and larding Canadians with a ‘carbon tax’ that is magically supposed to stop it but that simply makes everything cost more and that only enriches the politicians). That was the government that did those things, and they have shown no signs of a willingness to stop doing these things. Tell me again who’s hurting the economy? And BTW, ‘non-violent’ means ‘without violence’, which is how the Freedom Convoy protestors have behaved.
2. Okay. Take care.
3. Fine, enjoy serfdom.
4. I agree with the first part of your statement, but the s***-show in question is the past two years of unnecessary lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates, and bankruptcies, topped off by unconstitutional policies that violate every Canadian’s Charter-guaranteed human rights – to which Trudeau has now added extreme powers to further violate our constitutional rights, including the property rights that are enshrined in the Canadian Bill of Rights. He is already using those powers to oppress his political opponents. As one wag has observed, we went from ‘a fringe minority’ to ‘a national emergency requiring war powers to address’ awfully quickly. To ‘weak’ I would add ‘stupid’ and ‘intransigent’ as both the federal and provincial governments have resisted tooth and nail all calls to revisit their patently ineffective and horribly destructive policies. As much as they claim that their recent wave of reversals had nothing to do with the protestors, it is obvious that they are lying; they would never have stepped back from their entrenched madness had not the protests forced them to do so.
As for calling in the military, what would you like the Army to do, there, Patton? The Army doesn’t have batons or pepper spray; they have assault rifles (real ones, not the civilian sporting rifles that Trudeau is confiscating from legal gun owners, but that’s another kettle of putrefying carp) and machine guns. And artillery. And tanks. You want the Army to shoot the protestors, who have committed no violence, and who have women and children among them? I look forward to cellphone camera footage that makes Tiananmen Square look like “a Whitsun Morris dance”. Or maybe you want them to tow the trucks away? Okay, with what? The only piece of equipment the Army has that even comes close to being able to tow a big rig is an Armoured Recovery Vehicle…which is a tank without a turret. You want to see tanks on the streets of Ottawa, do you? The Army has maybe a dozen of them, assuming they’re all running. They can’t drive them here, that’d put too much track mileage on them; they have to be flatbedded in (by – ahem – big rigs). Even once they’re here, they’re only equipped to tow other tanks and armoured vehicles; they don’t have the gear, and their crews don’t have the training, to try to tow a big rig – even supposing they have the horsepower and traction to do it. You see, armoured vehicle tracks don’t work at all well on frozen asphalt. I guarantee you that even if an ARV somehow manages to hook up to a big rig (maybe with a lot of heavy chains or something), it’ll just sit there spinning its tracks and spewing black smoke until it eventually breaks down. And remember, tank drivers can’t see out all that well; that’s why soldiers are trained to stay the hell away from them. You looking forward to seeing some Canadian civilians – maybe some kids – killed or horribly maimed by being run over by a tank driver who can’t see them, because they haven’t been trained to stay away from the tracks?
Maybe before beaking off about ‘bringing in the troops’ you should think about what you’re suggesting for five seconds, and then ask yourself if this is what you really want to see happen in Canada. If you can’t bring yourself to do that, then maybe you’re a psychopath. If that’s the case, you should run for the federal Liberals, you’ll fit right in.
+++1
What DN said
This is gold. Definitely the best response.
Ask vaxxers, if they needed a blood transfusion, whether they’d accept unvaxxed blood.
Then discuss how many additional jabs are necessary to re-qualify for restaurant access.
There is no point in arguing with them. For most people, rhetoric is far more effective in changing their minds than dialectic.