At least for me …you, on the other hand, will likely have a much higher threshold.
Anyway, I was reading this weekend an article by George Jonas, arguably one of the best feature writers in newspaper – along with Rex Murphy and not to be confused with Canada’s best pundit writer Andrew Coyne.
That was a mouthful, but I urge you to never pass up an opportunity to read articles by any of those three.
Now back to Jonas and his weekend article entitled ‘Canada, a police state? No, but heading that way’.
The essence of his article is that our Freedoms and Rights are in decline especially with the West’s obsession with phobias on sexism, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia. Ours are entrenched in the Canadian Charter of 1982 and supported by an activist Court and misguided Human Rights Commissions.
It is political correctness gone wild.
The old rights from the 18th Century and before, in English Common Law, have been replaced – the right to Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Religion and so on.
And although I have spoken out against this trend in many a previous Blog, the way Jonas sets this out in such stark terms, caught my attention.
To be more precise, up to this point I have considered the old rights to be coexisting with the new charter rights and Jonas has convinced me I was wrong. Rather the new rights are replacing the old.
In other words, rather that Freedom of Religion, Speech etc. we are moving into a Politically Correct World where there is no room for the old.
That was my Eureka moment.
In any clashes between the old and the new, the new now wins out.
Clergy are told what say and are fined if they don’t. Human Rights Panels do the same to those who once had the right to say what was on their minds.
It used to be you could say what you wanted as long as you did not call ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre or try to incite violence or death to others.
We are now well beyond that.
There is an answer dear reader and that is to drop the Phobias and return to the real Freedoms but I despair of that happening. Good people who have tried have been cut down and marginalized. We have lost sight of what truly makes us great in the world and in what truly matters.
Many of us are quite happy in our comfortable pews or should I now say, shopping mall food fairs.
The greatest Freedom we once claimed to have is the Freedom of Speech and yet it is the most abused – you need look no further than to two of our major Federal Parties – both the NDP and now the Liberals prohibit Pro Life members from belonging to their parties despite the fact that 60% plus of Canadians want some restrictions placed on abortion.
And this despite Canada being the only Civilized Country that does not have limitations to protect its innocents.
But even if a minority of Canadians wanted to see some restrictions in place, in a free, fair, and open democracy, there would be a place for them to speak.
I could have used other examples but the abortion one seemed apt given Young Trudeau’s recent dictate on the subject.
But let’s look at another – even more recent example of how our freedoms have been diminished and that pertains to the Little Guy in the White House proclaiming this week, at the opening of the Twin Towers Museum, that “nothing can break us up …nothing can change who we are as Americans’'.
I cannot fault him for this statement and indeed if I had to make the same speech, I would have said much the same as he did.
But we would be wrong since as of 9/11 much did change for Americans and since then, America has no longer been the same.
They and the rest of the free world have been placed in a security bubble; our communications monitored, and our lives placed under a microscope.
Recent accounts state that there are 35 or so National Organizations in the US alone dedicated to fighting terrorism and imposing security on a post 9/11 frightened society. Large events have become security night mares as has travel – especially air travel. And they (we) have given up our freedoms willingly in the face of this security onslaught.
America is not the same, we in the West are no longer the same, and as George Jonas so aptly points out, we in society are slowly but surely “drifting into a police state”.
And our politicians, elites and special interest groups are leading the way.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
