A number of media articles over the past couple of weeks have me wondering about how quickly liberty and freedom can be lost, even here in Canada. Various levels of government have been legislating changes that can be perceived as quite Totalitarian in nature (i.e. a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life whenever necessary).
First, we see increasing secrecy and closed-door decision-making regarding government actions and reactions. While this is never a good sign in a democracy, in one particular arena the government is giving itself the ‘legal authority’ to engage in ‘investigative hearings’ behind closed doors; and, any citizen that refuses to comply with this ‘authority’ faces imposed conditions on their ‘freedom’ or incarceration. In addition, any citizen can be charged if they attempt to leave the country to engage in ‘terrorist’ activities (however these might be defined). This latter provision is reminiscent of pre-crime arrests in Philip K. Dick’s novel and Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, where citizens are arrested for even thinking about committing a crime.
The government’s ideology around the issue of terrorism has been succinctly presented by one of its backbenchers, Pierre Poilievre, who on CBC’s Power and Politics stated that “…the root cause of terrorism is terrorists…”. In an attempt to highlight the different leadership styles of his party and one of the opposition parties, where he explained that his party was one of action while the other politicians were busy ‘committing sociology’ (statement by our Prime Minister when an opposition party leader suggested that Canadians need to understand the root cause of terrorism to help eliminate it). Basically, the government’s perspective is that it is evil people and their evil leaders that give rise to terrorism. There is little insight by such ideologues that it is, as Congressman Dr. Ron Paul argues in his book, The Revolution, interventionist foreign policies that see ‘our’ armed forces intervening, often quite violently, in other sovereign nations. He goes on to highlight, quite compellingly, that if we were to follow noninterventionist policies that do not create more chaos, uncertainty, and very often, death in these occupied foreign lands, then we would not see ‘terrorists’ carrying out acts of violence within our borders. The ‘blowback’ we are witnessing is a logical consequence of a people under the thumb of our intrusion into their lands.
Second, we see an increasing trend to silence opposition. Most recently, we in Canada are witnessing this in the form of restrictive policies for scientists. Eminent and world-renowned scientist David Suzuki sums up the conundrum as follows:
First, as a Canadian I can tell you it isn’t quite what this article makes out… First, the close door sessions are with a number of climate scientists, who have demonstrated a lack of ideological bias. Most of the people to,date have been ranting warmists, and/or greentards.
Second, Davy Suck-zuki is a hypocritical environmentalist, who’s entire history has been making doom and gloomy predictions, then using them to fundraise for his personal foundation.
The same foundation that 1, was proven, to be prepared to sell activism, for substantial fees and lie or mislead to accomplish those goals. 2, sell their activist network to Saudi and American enviromental lobby groups to stop oil development in Canada. The protest for hire was so blatant, that the Suzuki foundation lost its status as a charitable organization.. Essentially they are a lobby group for hire..