If for any reason you cannot find the paperback version of Playing the Indian Card at your favourite bookstore or online retailer, please ask them to carry it. Protest and picket the store entrance if necessary.
"I am Canadian, and freedom is my nationality." -- Laurier
The current Sean Feucht controversy—an American pastor-performer being harassed and prevented from performing in Canada, even in a church—underlines the sad reality that Canada is not longer a free country. Canadians demonstrably do not any longer have freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, equal treatment before the law, property rights, freedom of conscience, the right to have a nation, or even right to life.
To be fair, neither any longer do Britain or France.
I have lived in Saudi Arabia. The atmosphere of oppression, of having to mind what you say, of government intrusion into your life, is stronger now in Canada than in Saudi Arabia even at the height of its autocracy.
It is shocking how casually Canadians, and Britons, and the French, have accepted this, even voted for it, even demanded it. I grew up imagining everyone believed in human rights. And France and Britain were among the cradles of liberty. Hyde Park Corner, the Oxford Union, Magna Carta, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and all that. It is more than sobering to see how gauze-thin the commitment ever was.'
At least, pushing back against errant government, earning eternal honour, we do still have the United States. This is a recent phenomenon even there; under Biden, the US was going the same way as Canada and Europe, even in some ways leading the charge.
This gives hope that a similar turn may come in Canada. But time is running out. Canada just voted in a Liberal government once again, probably for four years. Britain is in a similar situation, and France has banned the leader of their opposition from running.
I have felt since 2022 that the brutal suppression of the Freedom Convoy, which is ongoing with the prosecution of Tamara Lich and Chris Barbour, made Western separation, or at least Alberta separation, inevitable.
The federal government cannot or will not make a new trade deal with the US. They are insisting on preserving supply management, and this is something the US, reasonably enough, will not accept. It has also been torpedoing trade deals with the UK, perhaps others. The feds dare not negotiate this away, because the system is too popular in Quebec.
So everyone else is making deals with the US to get lower tariffs, and Canada can’t make a deal. Alberta energy is the one bargaining chip Canada might have had, and it is gone.
Canada may not last another four years. Not to mention the effects of mass immigration, which look about to erase Britain and France too.
That being so, and liberty and human rights being vastly more important than any petty tribal loyalties, the most I can say is that I would not oppose an American invasion. At worst, there is little left to lose.
Back at the close of the 19th century, Wilfred Laurier said “Canada is free, and freedom is its nationality.”
It follows that, if Canada loses its freedom, there is no more reason for Canada.
This is perhaps the most compelling argument for Canada to join the US. It is clear that the Canadian Constitution has not protected our freedoms. Justin Trudeau’s government has been able to trample them, and nothing seemed to be there to stop him. It is exceptionally difficult to legally amend the Canadian Constitution; we are stuck with it. The simplest thing, then, might be to join the USA. Many Canadians now crave the protections the US Constitution seems able to protect.
Here is a simple non-violent way for Trump to annex Canada: offer any native-born Canadian citizens automatic citizenship on moving to the States, on the revocation of their Canadian citizenship. Many would take him up on the offer; especially the youngest, most ambitious, and most qualified. Canada would be left impoverished, and the US enriched. More so if he also applied the threatened 25% tariffs. The remnants would probably soon enough beg to be admitted.
Fireworks from the Detroit-Windsor Freedom Festival
It is perhaps time, on this Dominion Day and Independence Day weekend, freedom’s birthday, to express some gratitude: God is still in his heaven, and the world is not just getting worse. Most notably, we have had several great US Supreme Court rulings as birthday presents, ending systemic racial discrimination in college admissions, restoring freedom of conscience, and killing Biden’s plan to rob from the poor and give to the rich on student loans.
I see much angst online among leftist friends. One points out, incorrectly, that all the judges who opposed the overturning of affirmative action were members of minorities, and those who voted to overturn were from the racial majority. (Kagan is not more obviously a member of a minority than Amy Coney Barret; or Ketanji Brown Jackson than Clarence Thomas). As if, even if true, this showed the ruling was racist. But on the other hand, one would equally expect people who got their positions through racial preferences to support racial preferences. It is racist to suppose that only “white” people can be racist.
But even on the left, something may be happening. RFK Jr. is a beam of sanity appearing unexpectedly on the left horizon. And he is pulling good poll numbers.
In crazy leftist Canada, the deep North, Pierre Poilievre is drawing huge crowds, reminiscent of Trudeaumania generations ago. New Brunswick’s premier is following Alberta’s, it seems, in swerving right.
Things are grim in France—the French police, now a force 45,000 strong, are calling it civil war. Terrible for the moment; but this may kill the delusion of multiculturalism in Europe and across the developed West. It may end the thoughtless “diversity is our strength” mantra.
Diversity is only half of the formula; unity is the other. E pluribus unum. A shared culture is the goal.
Speaking of which, Muslims in North America are protesting against sexual and critical theory indoctrination in the schools, joining with Christian parents. The leftist divide and control multiculturalism idea looks about to fall apart.
The Bud Light boycott has awakened the silent majority that they can do something. And it has awakened the large corporations to the risk of pushing leftist politics. We can see corporations backing away: the NHL, Starbucks.
The Trudeau government’s plan to force web services to pay for linking to Canadian news sites seems to be backfiring on them nicely. They are refusing, as a result, to link to any of the government’s subsidized news sites.
The tide of totalitarianism may still be high, but I think that it has turned.
We are accustomed to say we are in a culture war. But what are the two sides? It is not two warring cultures. One side seems in favour of culture, the other opposed.
Why would anyone be opposed to culture?
The answer is simple: those who seek power oppose culture; cultural norms are a restraint on power. See the Cultural Revolution in China, the French Reign of Terror, or the Cambodian Killing Fields.
So the real battle in the “culture war” is the bullies against the decent common folk. In political terms, say authoritarian government against liberty; but, culturally, it is broader than that. As broad as good against evil; the scribes and Pharisees against those Jesus identified as his own in the Beatitudes.
The bullies see the new technologies as the ideal opportunity for Big Brother—level control. They are pushing for constant oversight, censorship, and control as hard as they can. I have long believed, on the other hand, that the natural consequences of improved communications technology, and technology as a whole, favour over the longer term liberty against the bullies. It is harder for a small group of bullies to control and compel people who can communicate and organize among themselves. Indeed, I suspect that much of the current woke drive to authoritarianism is more a fear reaction to cats escaping bags.
What we currently call “woke” culture is the vanguard of the authoritarian bullying impulse. Consider the things it demands. One is now compelled to say that a man is a woman: the overlords demand the right to dictate reality itself. This is eerily parallel to O’Brien, in 1984, demanding Winston Smith admit that he sees three fingers when O’Brien holds up only two. What could be more complete control than a godlike control over reality itself? This is why bullies gaslight.
Language has long been under their control: “politically correct” is what Orwell called “newspeak.” It has gotten so far as the compulsory use of new pronouns. Or, in Canada, face a prison term.
The right to life has been negated by abortion, and now at warp speed in Canada by euthanasia.
Freedom of conscience, is increasingly denied. Expressing any of the major world religions’ teachings on homosexuality is now illegal. This is not because anyone cares much about homosexual sex or the supposed rights of homosexuals. It is an excuse to suppress religion. Religion, with its ethical restrictions, is the main constraint on bullies everywhere, and they always hate it. They will, at the same time, thoroughly infiltrate it, as did the Biblical Pharisees, for the same reason Saudi Arabia, China, and Afghanistan insist on always having seats on the UN Commission on Human Rights: to co-opt and subvert them. Let God actually appear, and they will try to kill him.
But mere subversion is not enough. They will also attack frontally. The Catholic Church will be condemned and suppressed, and churches will be burned down with no one held accountable, on the grounds that Catholicism is homophobic; at the same time that a huge proportion of the Catholic clergy are revealed to be active homosexuals, a “velvet mafia.”
The issue is not homosexuality. It is getting rid of morality.
Although the night seems dark, and no place left to turn, there are signs of impending dawn. I anticipated dawn for this spring, and I believe the morning star is here.
Styxenhammer notices an interesting recent shift: previously, when an aggressively woke movie got a low audience score on a site like Rotten Tomatoes, it got a high critics’ score. See the all-female remake of Ghostbusters. The scribes were closing ranks against the common people, who were condemned as misogynists, homophobes, racists, “white supremacists,” “Christian nationalists,” deplorables. However, the recent Queen Cleopatra series, which tries to gaslight the public to accept against all historical evidence that Cleopatra was black, is scoring almost as badly with both the critics and the viewers. Latest tally: 15% among critics, 3% with the audience.
This suggests the scribes and Pharisees, not all of whom are themselves bullies, some of whom are honest working stiffs who have been bullied into line, or suckered into line or have been going along to get along, like Joseph of Arimathea, are beginning to break ranks. The same thing happened with the nobility in the French Revolution, and it was a crucial moment.
In the meantime, the general public is also increasingly fed up with this stuff; there is much less of the cap-doffing syndrome and deference to authority than there was a couple of years ago. The woke movies and series are now consistently bombing at the box office: The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan and Wendy, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the latest Star Wars bumpf. Literally, the public isn’t buying it any more.
Polls show that the main issue in the minds of Republicans in the US is now the battle against “wokeness.” Above the economy, above inflation, above government corruption (which is number two), above immigration, above national security.
Somebody has indeed woke; but not as advertised. As with most calculated lies, the term “woke” was always the opposite of the truth.
The bullies always have one great advantage: while they are single-mindedly bent on the acquisition and exercise of power, the average person just wants to either help their neighbour, or be left alone, and assumes the same good will of everyone else. So for some time, the bully can run wild and jackbooted without resistance—in fact, with the help and cooperation of those seeking peace at any price.
As a result, we have seen the rise of “woke” corporations. Their actions seem superficially mad; they are supposed to be making money for their shareholders, not pushing a political agenda. And, generally, the political agenda they push is against the interests and sentiments of their customers. In the case of media platforms, Facebook, YouTube and the like, their profitability depends on being the platform everyone needs to be on to engage in the public discourse. Yet they are banning users, increasingly driving the to other platforms or networks to suppress the public discourse. How can this make business sense?
It actually does. They have learned that if they fall afoul of the demands of the bullies, their business will suffer. There will be demands for boycotts, for divestment, for bans on advertising with them, for freezing their assets, silencing them on social media, and so forth. Disney learned this when they made the villain in The Lion King, Scar, appear to be gay.
If they appease the bullies, they avoid this.
As the demands of the bullies grow and grow.
On the other hand, they face little or no downside for this appeasement—because their other customers generally just want to buy a needed product, and do not care much whether a man dresses in women’s clothes, say, or has sex with another man, or whether it was a man or a woman who invented beer.
But the bullies have now overplayed their hand. This was inevitable; when you crave power above all, sooner or later you get drunk on it. They went too far with the pandemic lockdowns, vaccine mandates, suppression of news, defamations, false prosecutions, fake hate crimes, drag shows for children, pornographic children’s books in school libraries, and endless cries of “wolf.” The bullying has gotten too directly threatening for the passive and amoral general public. Now they rise up.
The Bud Light boycott looks like a watershed. The customers showed they now care enough about the woke bullying to do something about it. And they have discovered their power. At last, corporations must calculate on paying a price for appeasing bullies. The woke corporate complex may collapse quickly.
As for the woke political complex, Trump is currently running away with the Republican nomination: up 42 points over his nearest competitor, the highly credible Ron DeSantis. If that trend continues, he will enter the general election with a strong party united behind him.
Why the Trump surge? Because he has the right enemies. He is being legally persecuted, indicted and prosecuted. This establishes his bone fides as the hero of the common man against the corrupt elite. If the bad guys hate him so, he can be trusted.
The Democratic nomination is being contested by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also has anti-establishment credibility as an anti-vaccination activist. And he is surging in the polls against a sitting president. The usual Democratic backroom chicanery will probably keep him from the nomination; but he will probably weaken Biden in the primaries, encourage others to come out against the establishment “narrative,” and possibly tempt the dark powers to overreach in order to stop him.
In Canada, we now have the rhetorically magnificent Pierre Poilievre. He has apparently decided to make the war on woke a central issue. No doubt he is reading polls, and sees the same surge in concern over wokeness as in the US. I recently saw a clip of Erin O’Toole, and remembered how luck we are to have Poilievre.
Things will never be as they ought to be, until the clouds part and Jesus comes trailing glory. But I have hopes that in two years, with Trump in power, a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, an originality majority on the Supreme Court, Poilievre presiding over a Conservative government in Canada, and the woke advertising blockade and the regime of censorship on social media broken, the cultural atmosphere will feel quite different.
The recent decision by Justice Rouleau that the Trudeau government was justified in declaring the Emergency Act to end the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa last year demonstrates that the corruption of democracy in government extends to the judiciary.
But this is not news. The Canadian courts, and the Canadian Supreme Court, have been partisan for decades, and have been eagerly legislating from the bench. There is an obvious flaw in the system: judges being appointed by the Prime Minister, they are political appointees. They are beholden to the government.
Once, we relied on professional ethics to overcome this: in effect, the old code of chivalry. There was a gentleman’s agreement binding on the powerful not to abuse their power, and to protect the weak. It was the strength and durability of this code of chivalry, not found elsewhere, that allowed Europe to outpace the rest of the world from 1500 on. It seems that it was strongest in Britain, and Britain did best of all. It was all, ultimately, founded on Christianity: the premise that all men were brothers, and so had intrinsic dignity; that government was not the supreme authority; and that, on Christ’s example, he who would lead must be servant to all.
“Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.’”
It is also this code of gentlemanly conduct that allows democracy to function. Without it, as in the Third World, those in power would hunt down and imprison or kill those out of power. We would simply shoot those we disagree with politically. We would not bother with Marquess of Queensbury rules.
And this code of chivalry has broken down. It is breaking down everywhere in the Christian world, but perhaps fastest in Canada, which has now gained a reputation for being especially “progressive.”
Beginning I think, with the rejection of “conventional morality” for the sake of more sexual pleasure in the 1950s. Then feminism rejecting the chivalric code of courtship. That slipped down the toboggan run to everyone doing as seemed advantageous to themselves, and feeling morally justified in it. You have power—why not use it?
After all, as Hitler argued in Mein Kampf, if anyone else had the power, they would use it against you.
All of which has now put the full stop and the hand brake on freedom and democracy in Canada. Freedom may return—although it is not evident how—but it no longer exists when the government can arrest anyone or freeze their assets if they feel threatened; and without recourse. It seems likely it will get worse now, perhaps much worse, before it gets better.
The one bright light is the convoy itself. If the government and judiciary cannot be expected to act honourably, the members and leadership of the convoy acted throughout with remarkable decency, public spirit, and restraint. They were a spontaneous model of what Canada is supposed to be: a community of peace, order, and good government.
How can it be, then, that the elites are depraved, while ordinary people are still moral and decent? At least a large part of the problem, surely, along with the inevitable temptations of power, has to be with our system of education. For this means that, the more formal education a Canadian has, these days, the less moral and tolerant he is. Our education system is doing the opposite of what an education system is for: creating good people and good citizens.
Because instead of instilling morality, our current system mocks it and demands transgression.
Providentially, then, our education system is in any case technologically obsolete. For that matter, any kind of ruling elite, corrupt or not, is probably technologically obsolete. Everyone can in principle now study online as and when needed. They can have their choice of instructors.
And with expert systems, “experts” will find it harder to obfuscate and maintain a monopoly on information.
We are all endowed by our creator, say the US Declaration of Independence, with inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Have you ever wondered why there are three items in that list, and not two? Doesn’t liberty mean liberty to pursue happiness? Was Jefferson only padding his list?
No; we misunderstand what liberty means. Liberty means, and meant to the founders, liberty to obey one’s conscience. The right to act as a moral being, exercising our free will, without which we have no chance at salvation. Genesis tells us this is the reason we are here. This is why the first words of the first amendment to the Constitution are “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” After life itself, this is the most essential right.
This has been lost in recent years, as our devotion to religion has waned. Now we think liberty means doing whatever we want to do.
But liberty does not imply the right to pornography, for example, or gay sex, or alcohol, or recreational drugs, or abortion. Which is why, until recent years, no legislature or court thought there was a problem with laws against them. For nobody feels obliged by their conscience to make or view pornography, or to have sex with someone to whom they are not married, or get drunk, or to abort their child. All are only pursuing pleasure. Religious liberty also need not extend to any faith that does not impose demands on one’s conscience: it does not require respect in law for atheists, or satanists, or pagans who worship their gods only out of fear or hope for favour. Nobody until recently thought it did.
These can, on the other hand, be understood to be covered by “pursuit of happiness.” Although until recently, courts and legislatures have not taken this right seriously. Pursuit of happiness indeed seems to imply one has a right to anything that in your own opinion makes you feel good, so long as it does not harm your neighbour.
The classic source for the idea of these inalienable human rights, although they have earlier antecedents in the Christian tradition, is John Locke. But his triad was “life, liberty, and possession of property.” Jefferson and his committee changed the third right. I think Locke’s formulation makes better sense.
For one thing, protection of property from theft is in practical terms one of the primary reasons to institute government among men. One does not need government to pursue happiness. Property ownership is also essential to a functioning democracy. It can allow for self-sufficiency, and so one can, if necessary, stand up to government in a crisis.
Perhaps more importantly, one can never achieve happiness by pursuing it. That leads too many down a primrose path to addictions and ennui and ruin; we are seeing this more and more today. Simply having this so famously in the Declaration may have misguided many.
Serpenza and C-Milk, two guys who spent years on the ground in China, and who married Chinese wives, are both assuring us that, no matter how dire the economic situation in China is looking, Xi and the CCP are not going to lose power.
I have long assumed that they would. It seems the general rule that, once the GDP per person hits about the $10,000 US per annum range, authoritarian nations transition to democracy. A self-sufficient middle class develops the strength to stand up to overly intrusive government at about this point.
Serpenza and C-Milk argue that, with new technology, this is no longer true. China is able to track everyone minute by minute through their smartphones and surveillance cameras. They have crushed all points of possible opposition. It is 1984 and Big Brother.
This is doubly alarming, because the Canadian government seems to be reproducing, step by step, the Chinese model. Control over the media, including social media. A crackdown on truckers and farmers, the sectors of the population most able to function independent of government. Freezing bank accounts and criminalizing protest. Imposing electronic surveillance with ArriveCan.
One marvels at how they dare do some of the things they are doing. Don’t they fear an eventual backlash from the voters?
Maybe not. Maybe soon there will be no more real votes or voters.
The same process seems to be moving along smarlty in Europe and the US as well.
I still think C-Milk and Serpenza are wrong, and that they will fail. While the new technology can be used to vastly expand government and corporate control, it also puts a computer and a communications hub in everyone’s palm. On balance, I think the stream of new information will outpace the government’s ability to control it. Thanks also to the “weaponized autism” of the nerds. The increase in authoritarianism is exactly because the bullies feel they are losing control.
I say the whole criminal enterprise collapses, and soon. I suspect China first. All it really takes is for some well-positioned military unit to refuse orders to fire on a crowd.
At a minimum, anyone who, up until the start of the pandemic, still basically trusted government, now looks foolish.
JJ MacCullough is more or less suggesting that Canada be annexed by the USA.
It is not an unreasonable desire—especially given the current rapidly eroding state of freedom in Canada. We ordinary Canadians might soon welcome the sight of American soldiers in our streets.
There never has been a very strong argument for Canada being a separate country. There is little cultural difference between English Canada and the USA. So little that the average Canadian could chat with the average Midwesterner for some time without detecting they are from different countries. If attacked, Canada could not by itself defend its vast land area. We depend on American support for defense. Unification would cement it; remaining independent is freeloading. We may not be able to afford such freeloading much longer, with the rising power of China. And Canadians pay a premium in standard of living and career opportunities for not being fully part of the big US market.
The best argument against annexation is that the Americans don’t want us. Amalgamation with Canada would presumably mean ten more US States, each with two senators, and they would probably all be Democrats. That’s not going to fly with Republicans. For the same reason, Puerto Rico is not admitted to statehood, although they have voted for it. New states have usually joined in pairs, one likely to lean left, one likely to lean right.
And there is more positive reason for Canadian independence. It is a protection for our freedoms. If the government in one place goes bad, the border is near, and assimilation is easy. This was helpful to escaped slaves before the US Civil War; then to Jefferson Davis after it. It was helpful to young Americans during the Vietnam War. It was helpful to William Lyon Mackenzie and the Canadian patriotes after the failure of the rebellions of 1837, and to Riel after the Red River rebellion. We seem to need it now.
Perhaps the best of both worlds would be simply making crossing the border easier. How about mutual automatic right of residence for citizens of either country?
While a porous southern border might be a problem for the US, this open border is not going to cause a flood of either economic migrants or wards of the state. Levels of prosperity and government services are comparable in both countries.
Such a mutual automatic right of residence used to exist between Canada and the UK, and worked well. It currently exists between Australia and New Zealand.
It would be certain to make both countries more prosperous.
Dutch farmers are protesting, a protest that seems to be spreading across Europe. The Dutch government—and other European governments, in principle—are forcing farmers to cut their herds, due to the possible effect of cows on global warming. This makes many family farms uneconomical; family farming is always on a tight margin. In Europe, this can mean losing a farm that has been in the family not just for generations, but for centuries.
Given that global warming is a clear and present danger—a debatable claim—it still seems odd to press for this just now. Experts are warning we are on the verge of a general food shortage and possible famine, due to existing supply chain problems and the war in Ukraine. Why now?
It also seems unlikely that the main cause of global warming is European family farms. Are there really more cows in Europe now than a hundred, or five hundred, years ago? If so, might the projected decline in the European population solve the problem without such measures?
This is eerily reminiscent of the Canadian government’s insistence, recently, that all truckers had to be vaccinated against COVID. Even though ninety percent already were; even though they came in contact with virtually nobody in their jobs; even though we were facing severe supply chain disruptions.
Why are governments taking such radical actions that seem to be against the public interest?
It is not because of global warming, and it is not because of COVID; because different governments are appealing to different supposed emergencies. There has to be an ulterior motive. One they do not want to admit to.
Thomas Jefferson, inventor of liberal democracy, maintained that a liberal democracy, in order to survive, required independent freeholders—family farmers. If governments became oppressive, only independent freeholders had the resources to resist. Only they were not beholden to the system, surviving paycheck to paycheck. If necessary in order to organize opposition, they could survive for a time off the grid, outside the system, feeding themselves and their families.
Add to them truckers; if one jurisdiction becomes oppressive, truckers can move with their livelihood elsewhere, even if necessary living in their truck. This continues in a way the tradition of the open west; a tradition of migration that may also historically have ensured American freedom.
If governments are in open confrontation with these two groups, it means government wants to shut this option down. It means their intent is to terminate our ability to resist or change our government.
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