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Bold prediction - in 5 years' time, maybe a bit less, the truckers's protest will be seen as a brave act of civil disobedience by the VAST majority of Canadians. It will be seen as a moment of unity akin to all those Team Canada hockey victories vs. the Soviet Union. Further, if Trudeau uses brute force, it will sink the Liberal Party for a decade. Lastly, if Doug Ford doesn't back down, and ANY major party opposes the mandates, the Ontario PCs are cooked in the next election. Some of this may happen a lot sooner, but I'm being conservative.

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I generally agree. It seems likely that history will report that the convoy was the push that was needed for a lot of people to openly express how fed up they have become at being told "how to think about COVID" by political institutions

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Thanks. Watch Donald Plett's speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIZO3OhqCUY

He's no Demosthenes, but it's full of sober common sense. He relates it back to the October Crisis of 1970, which as he says, is now seen as an overreach by Pierre Trudeau, leading to the election of a Quebec separatist government. Justin's evocation of the Emergency Act might well restoke Quebec nationalism, has already put fuel on the fire of Western resentment, and made Singh and the NDP look like fools. They were played - with two elections in the last 2.5 years, their coffers are no doubt empty, and they're down to around 14-15% in the polls, so the jobs of their 25 MPs are on the line. Now they HAVE to support whatever measures Trudeau puts forward for the next year or two, or risk losing their jobs since their supporters - and I was one once upon a time - feel betrayed by them. Tommy Douglas is shaking his head with disgust.

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The bottom line is we all (and never more necessary than in the U.S.) must remind our elected officials and in no uncertain terms, that THEY WORK FOR US!!! We all have rights and now is the time to use those rights to set these people straight!

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Canadians have gotten too comfortable with socialists - such as Trudeau.

The government is NOT your doctor so do your research and make your own health decisions.

Tyrannical lock-downs have been shown to be ineffective as reported in credible studies around the world. This is not about health - the Socialists are transforming into communists under their global agenda. Stop this before its too late. If you let communism in, you will have to shoot your way out.

We pray for Canada - from South Africa.

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Income inequality is a huge and complex issue and needs a full public airing. However...many people are simply too distracted by the ascension of the far left to focus on such things. My personal concern has been animal welfare. I normally make most of my charitable contributions to animal welfare organizations, but lately I've been channeling my donations to constitutional watchdog organizations like the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which is representing Brian Peckford in his suit against the government for its Charter violations.

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Feb 12, 2022·edited Feb 12, 2022

John - I think that the intersectional pro-lockdowns Left (not the whole Left) is like a giant ideological vaccuum-cleaner since approx. 2016 - it sucks up every issue into a huge gas bag called "identity politics." Trudeau's tweet about Parliament passing that motion about racism etc. etc. early in the trucker protest shows how this works - just throw out the meat of identarianism to distract the rational watchdog of the mind (I stole that from McLuhan). It's like an opera singer who sings only three or four notes. Modern politics should be like the Queen of the Night's aria in "The Magic Flute": lots of notes, some hard to hit.

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That’s bang-on, Doug. More are more people are slowly awakening to that realization. But it’s going to take more time. There are still too many people on the left who haven’t noticed the outrageous bait-and-switch from traditional liberalism to wokeism.

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Feb 12, 2022·edited Feb 12, 2022

I would see your bid and raise - more and more young people think that intersectionality IS liberalism, and are confused when anyone proposes something closer to Locke's, Mill's, or even Pierre Trudeau's liberalism. That's the real problem - showing moderates and the left (speaking broadly) that there was, once upon a time in a galaxy far away (i.e. North America in 2010), another form of liberalism that promised unity and fairness, as opposed to division and censorship.

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Amen.

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“I happened to notice that the Communist Party of Canada has come out against the truckers. Which seems pretty remarkable. What are we to make of that?”

If that seems pretty remarkable to you or most anyone, then we have a long hard road ahead of us still. Communist’s embrace of totalitarianism is fundamental to their philosophy and should be common knowledge to any adult.

When I was a young man earning my BS in Chemistry, I used to walk pass the philosophy building on campus with an arrogant, dismissive scoff. I would tell myself that chemistry, along with the other STEM subjects, is where one finds the serious students— the ones destined to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser I see that philosophy, all along, was the subject upon which civilizations are founded and upon which they will either prosper or fail. Accordingly, I would encourage everyone to study the subject of philosophy, even belatedly, as I have. Only then will you understand *why* it’s not surprising that communists, fascists, socialists, or collectivists in general oppose freedom and embrace all manner of state power under the guidance of their philosopher kings who always know better than thou as to what is good for society.

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Brilliant observation. quite right...

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On a semi-related (pun intended) note, I was pleasantly surprised to see the NYT OpEd come out in favor of allowing the trucker protests to continue. I’m starting the clock to see how long it takes them to backtrack on that or push out the staff responsible for the article.

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Feb 12, 2022·edited Feb 12, 2022

Well, they've already forced out their best reporter, Bari Weiss, so I wouldn't hold your breath about them returning to classical liberalism.

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Not sure if you have mentioned it in other notes but a good addition to the list of books would be Robert Kennedy Jr.'s book "The Real Dr. Fauci". The content is shocking and should scare everyone who reads it. Sadly, too few people are reading and most of those who do aren't reading anything but fiction.

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“ What’s misinformation today is often fact tomorrow.” Never has this been more true. The term has been so overused to slander opponents that it has lost all meaning.

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"What does this moment mean for the Canadian left?"

Ha Ha Ha. The Canadian left. Ha Ha Ha. Communists Against Truckers (CAT). The Pregnant male. Ha Ha Ha. RATM sponsored by Capitol One. War is peace. Ha Ha Ha. Tara you are worth your weight in bitcoin!!!

https://www.weforum.org/people/jagmeet-singh

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What astounding hypocrisy in that description of what Singh stands for. I am disgusted with him.

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quite recently we agreed that everyone has a right to an opinion - and this is what has changed. however silly an opinion is, let that person be. Real problems begin when we start attacking each other about trivialities on different opinions.

Some people believe their opinions are so important that 'measures' must be taken to force people to change their opinions and comply with their own idea.

some examples of of where opinions have run completely out of control :

Whether carbon is warming the earth OR is it just the basis of life itself ?

Whether to get a flu shot OR to avoid it because 'there is no cure for flu' anyway

Socialism is OK VS socialism is just the start of communism

The left have weaponized opinions - and fallen into the vilifying, attacking and imposing all kinds of penalties against people who do not share their opinions.

The right has, so far, restrained themselves. If the right were to adopt similar attitudes to those who force them against their beliefs and opinions we would see huge escalation of hostilities.

The question is : How do we get the left to restrain themselves from carrying out their increasingly crazy schemes and manipulations aimed at bullying people into a corner ?

Where there is massive disagreement with any of these 'measures' - such as the covid mandates, either the left must soften their approach and accept that not everyone will ever agree. To try and force this through will not end well.

I am amazed that the left has imposed a toxic experimental drug onto everyone - the arrogance is beyond belief.

I am more amazed that people who see their children being hurt and killed unnecessarily, simply for the left to impose their opinions, have not yet resorted to stronger defensive measures. That says a lot about the goodness of the right, but I fear it can be pushed too far and could spark much more serious consequences for both sides.

Let's get back to reason & tolerating different ideas.

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But why do you blame this intolerance all on the left? Surely it cuts across political lines. Oh, I understand the whole left “woke” mindset and the damage it is wreaking in terms of societal divisiveness. I once considered myself left-wing politically but no longer when I see what’s happening because of woke ideologies. But the answer is not to swing right-wing. There have been so-called “left-wing”

and “right-wing” governments throughout our history, and yet here we are! Buying into this political polarization only perpetuates it. Another way forward is required. I don’t know what it is yet on a society level, but it’s something deeper than and well beyond simplistic and divisive political ideologies.

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Not going to abstract your way out of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O78v_GhEtgk

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Enjoyed the Swedish article by Malcolm Kyuyune, thanks Tara. The comments are interesting to read as well. Our truckers' protest has created so much traction (pun intended) around the world. Great to see. Makes it easier to stomach the atrocities of our governments.

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Wow Tara. Awesome research and great post. You really are superb.

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Thank you for providing interesting and informative content.

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I bet Dr. Vinay Prasad of Stanford--hematologist, oncologist, epidemiologist--would speak with you about masks. He's read and written a lot about this.

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Also worth reading is The New Class War by Michael LInd. He nails exactly what's going on in Ottawa and elsewhere in his discussion of the loss of democratic pluralism to technocratic neoliberalism. It's a short book with lots of insight into how the majority of us increasingly hold the short end of the stick when it comest to economic security and the right to engage meaningfully in our political system.

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Thanks for the suggestion!

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Look forward to the sequel, The North: Trudeau and its Afterlives

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Haha! Brilliant... :)

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Things are getting scary here in Canada and I'm worried about where we're headed.

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"A single person who stops lying can bring down a tyranny." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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For sure, the claims of people are collapsing. In fact, I've pointed out that several articles that are coming out lately are things that "conspiracy theorists" were maligned for suggesting sometimes weeks ago, often times months or years ago.

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deletedFeb 14, 2022·edited Feb 14, 2022
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You're right and I've believed that since the beginning. My only concern is how much damage is going to be done in the process. It could go in a seriously bad direction.

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deletedFeb 14, 2022·edited Feb 14, 2022
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Yeah, since the beginning of the CoVid issue, I've been telling people this is how it's going to end, through social unrest. There really was no other way to end it. In fact, I predicted many of the things that have happened simply by looking downstream of what would happen.

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