However things might look to a certain apocalyptic caste of mind, Canada did not recently take major steps toward tyranny. The measures enacted under the rubric of the Emergencies Act of 1988—including censorship, bank freezes, asset seizures, arrests for unspecified crimes, pre-trial detention, denial of bail for peaceful protesters—these things might appear tyrannical to a paranoid. But remember the honking! And the blocked streets. The inconvenience. The lost revenue as businesses weren’t able to operate at peak efficiency. As all good conservatives know, GDP is the one true metric of human flourishing and societal health.
Some Americans may look north and worry, but they should be reassured. That can and will never happen here…and it isn’t even that bad up there. Order must be maintained, after all. No one has a right to block the streets or disrupt traffic. What might have happened had the trucks prevented emergency vehicles from getting to the scene of some crime or accident? Granted, that didn’t happen, but it might have. Pointing out the fact that the protesters would likely have just moved—one Canadian police chief called them the most cooperative and reasonable protesters he’d ever encountered—well, that’s excusing insurrection.
Read Full Article »