It's About Independence...4 short stories

The basis of Libertarian thought is that the individual should be as free from government and societal interference as possible. In other words, as independent as possible.

The following 4 stories all touch on this theme:

Story 1. A few days ago, the Toronto - Ottawa Via Train caught fire near Richmond just a few miles outside of Ottawa. To be precise, the engine caught fire.

All the passengers were evacuated by the Via personnel without incident. And yet, you should have heard the clamour.

From some of the comments made, you would have thought these passengers went through a living hell. Rather than thank the Via crew for handling the situation so well, all they received were complaints.

I would have thought the incident would have given them something of interest to tell their grandchildren.

But the most bizarre aspect of this was a complaint that not all the directions to pax were given in French albeit it was acknowledged that most were and indeed most of Via staff are Francophone. So here we have an emergency with the staff acting as best they can and everyone gets disembarked safely and the issue of Official Languages gets raised. Can you believe it?

Well our Czar at the Official Languages Commission can and does and has announced that he will be launching an investigation. Makes you want to throw-up.

Bottomline here - the tendency for our citizens to blame others rather than thank their lucky stars that serious injury did not befall them.

Story 2. Today's edition of the National Post announces that a woman in Chicago is suing the local zoo because she slipped and fell due t0 water laying beside the Atlantic bottlenose dolphins aqarium. Imagine!! In her claim she alleges the zoo was negligent because they "recklessly and wilfully trained and encouraged the dolphins to throw water as the spectators..". Sounds pretty serious? In fact that is why spectators go to see the dolphins.

This is just another case where the blame is wrongly placed on others.

Story3. A little different and again in today's Post. The Greyhound Bus Line was fined $1,500 in British Columbia for "forcing passengers to ride for 16 hours in an unheated bus" with temperatures ranging between "-26 and -30 degrees". It does not say whether the passengers in this case sued Greyhound but I would certainly understand it if they did. Here they were trapped on board and deliberately abused. A modest suit would seem to be in order especially given the small fine levied against the bus company.

In this case 'the other party' (i.e. Greyhound) rightly deserves the criticism.

Story 4. This one incenses me the most. A young mother - 25, left her baby in the car a couple of days ago for a few minutes while she bought something in a drug store. Unfortunately it was during the recent heat wave and a passer-by noticed the baby and removed her from the car. The story came to light and all hell broke out. Call-in radio and the local papers were inundated with citizens calling for the young mother's head. Jail was too good for her - at a minimum she should lose her child to Child Welfare.

Child Welfare did investigate the case and quickly concluded the mother was a good mother who had made a bad mistake.

That should have been the end of it, but not so. Two very serious criminal charges have now been laid against her for failing to provide the necessaries of life to her infant daughter. I suspect these charges resulted more from the local society's hue and cry rather than from the incident itself.

I think if these righteous citizens examined themselves for a minute they would see that a little human kindness toward the mother would not be out of the order. We all make mistakes and it is always easier to point at others for their mistakes then it is to recognize our own.

It brings to my mind the words of Jesus - whomsoever is without sin, should cast the first stone.

Enough said.


"Galagher"