Posted on 02/18/2022 6:07:33 AM PST by Kaslin
I'm not really a protester, but I support the right to protest. I just tend not to show up at those events. I'm glad others do. I don't like crowds. I supported the protests of small business owners during COVID-19. I supported the George Floyd protests.
I do not support the violence, looting and rioting within protests. I condemned the violence at former President Donald Trump's inauguration. I condemned the violence during the George Floyd protests.
Too many people deploy situational ethics. When rioters stormed the Wisconsin State Capitol to stop the legislature in 2011, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the people who smashed the windows and stormed the building. Now she wants the people who did the same in the U.S. Capitol to go to prison. I wanted them all in jail.
When rioters burned down various cities in America, many of the talking heads in the press defended them. Now they're assailing the truckers of Canada for impeding the flow of traffic and commerce.
I think the truckers have every right to protest, but I don't see a difference between them blocking everything and the climate alarmists super-gluing themselves to the highway in Europe to stop the flow of traffic. I support all of their rights to protest. I do not support them obstructing others. I'm not a situational ethicist.
Instead of creating traffic jams, the truckers should stop driving and protest through their unwillingness to participate in commerce. Show how needed they are. Take themselves out of the flow of commerce and watch the flow of goods cease.
That said, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party was only supported by one-third of the public in the 2021 federal election in Canada. The Conservative Party actually got more votes. But because Canada has six parties represented in Parliament, the Liberal Party was able to build a coalition to keep power.
The parties ratified Trudeau's vaccine mandate during the course of COVID-19 restrictions, and Trudeau has the emotional stability of a toddler, unable to ever admit he is wrong or change course. Canadians get the prime minister they didn't vote for. Again, only a third of Canadians voted for his party, and he remains prime minister because of a coalition that might be fraying over his heavy-handed refusal to admit COVID-19 has changed and he can, too. Now, Trudeau is threatening to take the protesters' children and even their pets. He is freezing not just their bank accounts, but those of donors who support the truckers. More than one donor has been publicly harassed and the government has done nothing to protect those people.
This all makes me proud to be an American.
It makes me proud our Founding Fathers were smart enough not to create a central government with police and health care powers that could overwhelm the states. It makes me proud of our constitutional system with checks and balances. It makes me proud we have a 10th Amendment, a First Amendment and a Second Amendment. It makes me proud we are not a multiparty coalition style parliamentary system.
The Canadian system is a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy. The people have the rights given to them by their Parliament, and their prime minister intends to take a great many away.
It would not be possible in the United States.
So much policy in the United States, from health care policy to gun control, is viewed through the lens of what other nations do. But other nations do not have the horizontal and vertical federalism of the United States based on a Constitution in which limited enumerated powers -- not including the police, health care and education powers -- are ceded to a federal government. Other nations do not have a Second Amendment that conveys an individual right to gun ownership to citizens.
The American vaccine mandate for businesses got stopped by the United States Supreme Court. There is no court in Canada that can stop the prime minister.
Thank God I am an American. Our nation is not perfect. But it sure is better than every other nation, including Canada.
“I supported the George Floyd protests. “
No need to read this crap.
“It would not be possible in the United States”
Therein lies the lie.
It is happening in these United Stares, on a daily basis. The single thing we all can agree is that we call ourselves a Free Country. We are not; we have freedoms under attack on a daily basis. Younger Americans are more complacent than their parents, who are more complacent than our parents. We are in decline.
“I supported the George Floyd protests. “
But only the non-violent, non-confrontational ones, where everyone stayed at home on the couch watching the “bad” protests. /s
George Floyd DID kill himself. Fentanyl is not your friend.
The Boston Tea Party was an act of protest against the Tea Act of 1773. The Tea Act had been recently passed by the British Government. In response several hundred people got into small boats and rowed out to the British cargo ships which contained the tea. This took place at the Boston Harbor. Paul Revere was amongst them. They climbed aboard the ships (no doubt illegally) and dumped 90,000 pounds of tea into the harbor.
Maybe they didn’t like crowds either, like the author of this piece. Maybe they should have just stayed home and refused to buy tea. /sarcasm
Thank goodness they had the courage to do what they did.
I don’t think the author of this article sees what is going on in our own country. He thinks all is well ..... it’s not. He’s in denial.
Yeah, I had the same reaction.
Erickson once again proving he’s a gigantic @$$.
Well said!
The Author of this piece comes off as a bit of a self centered...dare I say...coward?
That’s where I stopped reading too.
No the author knows exactly what he is saying. He has an agenda which is to masquerade as a conservative but bake in progressive commie ideals to help slant true conservatives towards the left. He is a paid troll and assistant democrat RINO.
We get infested with posters just like him here on FreeRepubic especially around election time. Watch closely for them and point it out where ever you see it.
These people are really worse than the commies because you walk with them and they will take you right over a landmine on purpose.
Some people like Hannity are stupid enough to think we can be friends and that you look more enlightened if you engage them but just like they do to Hannity when he lets them on his show they regularly take advantage of his rather low comprehension and make him look like a dolt.
Beware. These people like Erickson know exactly what they are doing. They get paid handsomely to do it.
The author is a moral coward. His “solution” to authoritarian measures is to sit home and muse about how strict compliance will set you free. Because y’know, the authoritarians care sooooo much about what you think. .
A news flash for the author. State actors derive their power from obedience, not consent. While they appreciate your consent and in some cases will seek to obtain it, obedience is the bedrock of their power.
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