“Taking Back Our Streets”

Ottawa police are punks and thugs, enforcing the demands of punks and thugs. Full disclosure: I grew up in that town, and never had a single unpleasant run-in with the police. But then, I never publicly objected to being tyrannically bullied by the federal government either. If I had, then I’m sure the Ottawa police would have treated me more or less as they are treating the trucker protesters today: inhumanely, dictatorially, and generally like flyswatters treat flies.

The interim police chief, Steve Bell, sets the tone:

Police “continue to push forward to take control of our streets,” he said, adding: “We will work day and night until this is completed.”

“Push forward to take control of our streets.” Whose streets? The police’s streets? 

“Work day and night until this is completed.” The “this” in that promise presumably refers to the “taking back” of “our streets” from protesters as well as the sending of a general message to any other Canadians with a mind to express dissent or disapproval of government overreach, the message being: “We will criminalize you. We will treat your civil disobedience as grounds for stealing your property, damaging your livelihoods, freezing your bank accounts. We will enforce the will of the state against your dissent, and there will be no discussion or compromise, no humanity or attempt to preserve your dignity. Your wishes will be ignored and your individual rights obliterated to the extent required to silence you.”

Ottawa police made their first move to end the occupation [“occupation”? — is this an article about Russians in Crimea?] late Thursday with the arrest of two key protest leaders. They also sealed off much of the downtown area to outsiders to prevent them from coming to the aid of the protesters. [Right, wouldn’t want ordinary Canadians to feel that they could come to the aid of fellow citizens being bullied by the Trudeau Cops, now would we?]

The [enactment of the Emergencies Act by the Trudeau government] enabled law enforcement authorities to compel tow truck companies to assist. Ottawa police said earlier that they couldn’t find tow truck drivers willing to help because they either sympathized with the movement or feared retaliation. [Emphasis added.]

The police have been granted the “emergency” power — during this very conspicuous non-emergency — to force private business operators to “assist” in removing, and in some cases damaging, the vehicles of protesters, whether those private operators wish to abet this police state thuggery or not. In short, if you have a tow truck and live in Canada, you may now be ordered by the government to use physical force upon a fellow Canadian citizen, even if in fact you happen to sympathize with that citizen’s position.

Hence:

Tow truck operators — wearing neon-green ski masks, with their companies’ decals taped over on their trucks to conceal their identities — arrived under police escort and started removing the hundreds of big rigs, campers and other vehicles parked shoulder-to-shoulder near Parliament. Police smashed through the door of at least one RV camper before hauling it away.

Again, these masked and concealed tow truck operators were, at least in some cases, working under police command against their will. 

Anyone who has previously wondered why I choose to use the category “Communist Canada” on this website is welcome to try answering that question for himself today. Oh, and by the way, the Emergencies Act, which gives the government thoroughly dictatorial powers and has therefore never been used before (since this law replaced its predecessor law, which was invoked by Justin Trudeau’s father), was supposed to be debated in Parliament on Friday, but Trudeau cancelled the debate, precisely so that his thugs could “take back our streets” before the law being employed, and its appropriateness to the situation, had been fully discussed and defended against opposing views in the House of Commons on live television.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how to destroy a civilized society:

Turn private citizens against one another by compulsion, so that they come to view one another as natural enemies rather than as natural equals; demonize and marginalize those who dare to speak out against excessive government power, rather than fostering discussion and cooler heads; create a de facto class war by portraying dissenters as uneducated hicks, racists, and extremists until you prod them either into more extreme behavior or into skulking back home in humiliation and pent-up fury against the “elites” who (as they somewhat justifiably feel) have beaten them down publicly; normalize the violation of the basic property rights and freedom of association of dissenting voices and anyone supportive of them, until this practice — which would be appropriate, if at all, only during a major national security crisis — comes to seem no more than standard police procedure for dealing with civil disobedience or public protests.

Repeat the above steps as necessary, until any stains of civility, mutual respect, and the understanding that government-enforced unanimity is not the goal but rather the antithesis of liberal democracy, are fully removed from the fabric of society.

As for my own opinions about the protesters and their “Freedom Convoy,” I have previously addressed that here. But there is nothing like a snobbish fop of a dictator to make an understandable but somewhat poorly conceived protest look innocent and defensible. Such is the land that used to be Canada.


Canada Goes Limp

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