Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 1570
Respect and free speech
2/24/2022 at 12:41 PM
I'm triple vaxxed. I support the health mandates because I believe the measures have been required to prevent deaths and ICU overload(also leading to deaths). I am disappointed to see how many falsehoods and mistaken beliefs are being proclaimed by the convoy crowd. I'm horrified by some of the elements that have fashioned themselves as leaders within the convoy movement.
I'm also horrified that it feels necessary to lay out 'Team' allegiances to have any hope of reaching through to people with my concerns.
The divisions in our country are one of the greatest challenges we are facing today. How we handle them matters.
The current government and CBC appear willing to at least pay lip service towards bridging divisions impacting First Nations and minorities. When protests over land disputes led to blockades, tolerance, patience and reaching out were the first moves of the government. After seeking court injunctions though the illegal blockades were removed, but efforts at dialogue continued. During Canada Day protests Trudeau went to speak with protestors in person. When farmers in India started their own convoy barracading multiple border crossings, Trudeau proclaimed his unwavering support for the right to protest. During the George Floyd protests, Trudeau was not swayed by the violent fringes and again showed support for the protestors.
I would hope agreement could be found that most of these actions, imperfect as they may be, served to help bridge divisions.
The challenge though is not how we treat the people we have common cause with, but how we treat those with whom we disagree. I don't think it's a big stretch in the absence of an opinion poll to observe that none of the protest groups mentioned above are primarily conservative party voters. Obviously, the world I think we should strive for is one where a protest consisting primarily of conservative voters would be treated similarly. I can say with certainty, an awful lot of western Canada right now doesn't feel like that same treatment is happening. That also matters.
What I see, is a CBC media and Trudeau led government(and 'Team' of like minded Canadians) all willing to look past the bad elements in protests when they can get behind the message. The fringe elements are recognized as such, dismissed, and efforts are made to look at the concerns of the larger body. It looks like that willingness though only applies when the message is agreeable.
For example, while churches burned last summer, Trudeau and CBC(and teammates) were willing to look past the acts of arson and vandalism, and place emphasis on healing the hurts fueling the anger while urging more productive action. People were willing to see that the few misguided folks burning churches, didn't negate the legitimate hurt and concerns so many others had.
The Nazi flag and vandalism seen early in the convoy, deserve every bit as much condemnation as the burning of a church. Importantly, FN leaders spoke up to condemn those burnings, but so too leaders in the convoy condemned the swastikas and vandalism. Are people willing though to still see past those misguided folks? Trudeau, his party, and the CBC all tripped over themselves using it to dismiss the legitimacy of the entire protest.
Whenever someone is impolite enough to broach that little bit though, the 'team' must point out the dangerous extremist elements of the convoy protestors. There's plenty of things folks there have said to point to, and there's even guns and weapons seized from convoy members in the blockade in Alberta. That might settle things even.
Except while the 'Team' was eagerly pointing that out, on Feb. 17, a Coastal Gaslink site was attacked by a mob wielding axes who chased off security and workers and proceeded to cause millions of dollars in damages before fleeing. An RCMP officer was injured in the pursuit. The CBC now made sure to note this was an 'alleged' incident and that there wasn't any known connection to the ongoing multi-year protest and blockade efforts against that same project. Despite the RCMP having an officer injured and their pursuit halted by a burning blockade on the road.
It's awfully hard to look at the Liberal government statements to the respective protest groups, and the CBC coverage, and not get the impression that how much dissent is 'acceptable' depends on the message as much as on the actions.
Maybe the convoy and it's supporters really are just a crowd of racist, neo-nazi, monsters wanting to over throw Canada and seize the government for themselves. Maybe enough of them are, we can just lump in everyone else as 'no better' because they are willing to go along with monsters. Maybe nobody outside of the crowds in the convoy hold any sympathy for the jobs and businesses lost to covid measures. Then we can simply continue to belittle, insult and dismiss them. After all, if that doesn't convince them to disperse, we can always just invoke emergency measures and remove them by force. If these things are all true about them, they deserve what they get.
Some of us though doubt all those things are true. If they are all neo-nazi, racists, why is there really only 2 isolated shots recirculated with swastikas on them. Why are those photos all from near the start of the protests, similarly to the vandalism of monuments. Curious that a crowd so vile, weeded out those actions relatively efficiently. Convenient too that everything wrapped up as peacefully as it did. Credit of course to the police officers. Though, I still can't shake the nagging feeling that no matter how skilled a police force may be, removing a crowd as large, and vile as we posited earlier with so little violence seems far fetched. Oh, and I know for certain that many people across the country indeed do disagree how far measures should go before the harm is greater than the disease.
I'd like to suggest, perhaps some of the same compassion and understanding extended to other protestors should be extended here as well. Hypocrisy is one reason. The stronger one though, is the danger of curing the convoy disease with ridicule and force of arms. If they aren't all the vile fringe minority claimed, the cure might be worse than the disease.
After all, that hypocrisy feeds deep into everyone feeling a bit of western alienation. Fueling that seems to be a Trudeau family tradition, but that doesn't make it good for our nation. A tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny.