So, I let this go to crap for a while.
Many things have happened during the last several months
that deterred me from keeping up with my blog. Health issues, head being a bit
foggy from a bunch of tragedies, and a host of other things in life just made
me lose my motivation. Among them, I got sidetracked in my passion for all
things liberty by becoming too aware of many things Libertarian. The movement
still thrilled me; the Parties in their various formations, particularly in my
province of Ontario, not so much. I had started a blog post on that as well,
but it ended up in my huge “to be done later” heap, where it still sits.
But it’s funny how seemingly innocuous events and
conversations can reignite a passion within you.
I began my blog because I was disturbed by the complacency
shown by various friends who I respected regarding a clear lie told by the
Vancouver Police in conjunction with the city’s rather *special* mayor (http://truenorthstrongandfreeblog.blogspot.ca/2011/07/my-little-voice-and-why-i-needed-to-use.html).
Most of my friends, while not politically active and in various states of
political awareness, were all reasonably intelligent and educated. However,
rather than showing any kind of real anger at being part of a public duped once
again by branches of government that had been designed to be accountable to
them—a novel enough theory nowadays—my peers simply shrugged their collective
shoulders, and while expressing some small anger along the way, basically came
up with a unanimous “that’s government;
what do you expect?” One, in particular stood out to me: she basically told
me that the mayor didn’t really lie, he simply “bent the truth, which they all
(politicians) do."
I expected more. Hence, my blog was born.
Not coincidentally, the early days of the American election
were upon us. In its early days, I followed the American election with a
growing interest. After all, I owed much of my willingness to become
politically involved to Rep. Ron Paul (“Jumping
Into The Fray” http://www.libertarian.ca/newsletter-november-2011-edition/).
Issues regarding liberty and lack of government accountability had become
increasingly important to me as I realized how governments were gradually
infringing on them. But much more alarming to me wasn’t the actual loss of
freedom; more specifically, as my friend had stated in her summation of
government, it was that Canadians expected
nothing different from those who were, at least in theory, to be accountable to
them. Our apathy had made the words James Madison wrote over 100 years prior
prophetic: “There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the
people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by
violent and sudden usurpation.” I began looking for ways to educate both others
and myself with greater zeal. After going back to school, I joined Students For
Liberty Groups. I edited the Canadian Libertarian Newsletter, and joined the
Party, thinking that in doing so, I could be part of movements that would usher
in what Dr. Paul often has referred to as “the Revolution”—one of liberty and
freedom via education not one of violence and coercion.
I quickly became disillusioned however, with different
problems I saw within the Party, especially in my home province. This, coupled
with the above mentioned personal issues, caused me to gradually wean myself
away from writing, editing, and apart from personal conversations, promoting
much about freedom, or the state’s attempts to limit it. Compounding this of
course, were the events south of the border. It was obvious that Dr. Paul stood
no chance of getting his party’s nomination, let alone winning the American
election, and the only other sensible candidate, Gary Johnson, would get little
media coverage as the leader of the Libertarian Party in the US, despite being
a popular and very effective former Governor of New Mexico. While I was still
passionate about promoting causes of liberty personally, I could see no
effective vehicles for doing so on a larger scale. In retrospect, I suppose I
thought if I couldn’t be part of a movement that could change the world, I
didn’t want to try to participate at all.
Much like the Vancouver spying however, a small incident
would change that all.
During the final round of American presidential debates that
were wrongly confined to including only the Republican and Democrat nominees,
some Canadian friends began to promote Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. In
questioning them as to why this was, they were mostly evasive; in Canada, at
least amongst some of my friends, it appeared Obamamania hadn’t suffered the
demise it had south of the border. In response to this, I pointed out that
during Obama not only had he managed to accrue more debt than all other US
presidents combined, but the he had managed to increase casualties in the
Afghan conflict, while simultaneously violating the Constitution on several
levels.
One friend however, was a bit more forthcoming: she had told
me that her support for Obama was due to her concern for “women’s issues”—by
this I assume the ease with which a woman may get an abortion or purchase those
ultra-expensive birth control pills that Obama, with the help of the Georgetown
Law Sandra Fluke helped divert a potential crisis in—and “gay issues” (her
uncle I believe, being gay).
Setting aside for a moment my astonishment that any
reasonably intelligent person could assume either of these would be
issues—Romney was surely astute enough to understand that Roe v Wade isn’t
changing regardless of the strength of his Mormon faith, even if many
Republicans running along with him weren’t—and further, why anyone would
believe that a man who has flip-flopped at the whim of popular opinion on gay
marriage some four times—Obama—wouldn’t be inclined to do so again in the
future, her statement made me realize how brutally short-sighted, and
self-absorbed North Americans in particular were.
After quoting to her a plethora of statistics on how Obama’s
brutal mismanagement of the economy would affect not only current, but several future generations of Americans,
I then proceeded to quote to her statistics of casualties from not just the
ongoing, pointless Afghan struggle, but the slaughter of unknown numbers of
innocent civilians—including, I assume the women and gays she is so concerned
about, mixed in with liberal helpings of children—via drone operated strikes in
countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. My goal was not to encourage her
like Romney; quite the opposite: I had always maintained that a vote for one
might as well be a vote for the other; they are both empire-building
expansionists who will violate the Constitution as it suits them, expanding
both debt and casualties along the way. I had merely hoped that she would see
that either one is a poor choice, and expand her thoughts. It was a
mind-boggling exercise in futility; she assured me that she was passionate only
about the “human” issues she had pointed out.
What made the experience so surreal to me was not her blind
devotion to Obama, but rather her blind desensitization
to the suffering brought about by Obama to others in the world, and how her
world could be so limited. It was almost a form of narcissism. The point was
driven home to me even more vividly a few days later when I received a response
from a Facebook friend regarding something I wrote about Obama’s drone casualties.
The response was something along the lines of “I love you, but you DO know we
live in Canada, right?”
It is precisely this reason that I felt the need to start
writing again.
The friend who wrote this was born in Africa. He is
finishing a degree in law, and is intelligent beyond just “book smart.” And
yet, like my other friends in Vancouver, he has lowered his expectations of
those who are in theory accountable to him. Like my friend in Ottawa, unless
the issues are something he can concretely see to affect him, they are somewhat
abstract, almost to the point of irrelevance. In neither of these paradigms is
he anywhere near alone. Desensitization to injustice done by government both to
its citizens and those abroad has become the standard of Western thinking. Imperialism
is alive and well in the world, and it tragically has a very North American
flavour to it.
Against this grim backdrop however, much good went on during
the US elections. Several previously left-leaning, Democratic writers began to
take issue even to the point of condemnation with Obama for his horrible record
on civil liberties, noting his unconstitutional support of indefinite detention;
many others grew increasingly horrified with the rising global civilian
casualties due to unconstitutional wars abroad. On the other end of the
spectrum, even conservative American Christians began to see the futility of ongoing
drug prohibition, and some even adopted a more “live and let live” attitude toward
traditionally sensitive areas like gay marriage, rejecting state interference
in the bedrooms of the people.
However, as my friend pointed out, we live in Canada. And in
Canada, we still seem apathetic toward not only what goes on on a global scale,
but also, we remain indifferent to the machinations of our government to limit
our freedoms in our own backyards.
And maybe that’s why I needed to start writing again; it’s
time to shake off my own indifference.
