What do people want freedom from?
By Lethbridge Herald on February 18, 2022.
Editor:
The protesters keep yelling that they want freedom. My question is “Freedom from what, or to do what?” They live in the freest country in the world. They are free to go pretty much where ever they wish. They have free universal health care.
They are free to accept or reject the vaccine that could save their life if they are infected with one or more of the variants of COVID-19.They can fish, camp and ski and enjoy the most beautiful scenery in the world.
I do not believe they have the freedom to disrupt the order of the entire country for an empty selfish idea.
Freedom comes with responsibility. Being peeved because of a mandate that is designed to protect the masses is not a reason to disrupt the functioning of an entire country. Enough, Enough, Enough!
Joan Haig
Lethbridge
8-7
My senior friends and I have been asking the same question. How many are high on drugs and what if one of these lunatics had used those guns on the crowds? Vegas 2017 all over again.
Now the stupid Reformers who thought it smart to praise them are bashing Trudeau for making certain people were safe. They don’t like to see their heroes arrested.
“Freedom without society destroys the lexicon by which freedom is made democratic, paired with social consciousness, and nested in political equality. Freedom without society is a pure instrument of power, shorn of concern for others, the world, or the future” – Wendy Brown
“Free, stupid, manipulable, absorbed by if not addicted to trivial stimuli and gratifications, the subject of repressive desublimation in advanced capitalist society is not just libidinally unbound, released to enjoy more pleasure, but released from more general expectations of social conscience and social comprehension.” – Wendy Brown
Wendy Brown is remarkably astute. Who is she?
She writes good, critical works on neoliberalism, and she’s my hero:)
I can see why.
The commodification of democracy by neo-liberalism from Wendy Brown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMMJ9HqzRcE
Thanks for the link.
this one reads like it is more about wendy and her infatuation with lexicon and syllables than it is about trying to share insight.
few among the many are opposing society: they are simply standing for the fact we each own our body; we each have the right to determine what we take or do not take, without laws and mandates that limit or force choice what one chooses to take or not take.
Sure, just stay away from the rest of us, that’s all.
how stupidly frightened are you? or, is it just that you are wary of the “science” you pretend to believe in. you know, the “science” that said the vaxes were almost perfect with one dose…we know how that “science” has played out. you are vaxed, and still are afraid of a virus that only takes down an nth of the people it infects. still fearful despite the “science” that tells you numerous doses of the vaxes protects you. why not just stay home, and get yourself a bubble suit for when you do go out, rather than support the trampling of rights and freedoms? all that sicko animal torture your fearful mind supports, and yet still so fearful you support animal torture and totalitarian and autocratic govt.
Thank you Joan, well said! Many started off on their way to Ottawa for a peaceful respectful protest and as they crossed the country radicals began joining. I do not know the background of the original organizer, but believe it was Christian backed.
Many do not have legal trucks, with not mufflers, but oversized straight pipe stacks and illegal lights. I am all for a peaceful, legal protest and will fight for that myself, but the basis for the protest and the acts committed are unacceptable. I have protested, legally and we won our protests by following the rules and the laws, lobbying governments and bringing in the media, who were showed both sides of the story, which was fair!
This is not a protest, but an insurrection and if anyone following the discussions in the House of Commons yesterday, over 50% funded by US groups, many of which also funded the Capitol Hill insurrection a year ago! they also would have heard of the fear of MP’s going to work, who were even pelted by fecal matter one day. The verbal abuse/threats by protesters against those that live and work downtown, the threats even of sexual abuse, along with the large group that went into the mall without masks at the start intimidating shoppers and threatening staff and security. These are thugs/criminals/scum that need to be shown you cannot use a big truck to intimidate and blockade cities and borders with impunity!
Billionaires are even involved, thinking they own the world and so it is okay to manipulate people to get their ways in countries, as we saw in the attacks on our oil and gas industry, where investigations couldn’t prove it, but there were admissions by some FN communities in the beginnings of getting duffle bags of cash to protest in BC. I don’t trust anyone anymore and when you people like Trump and Elon Musk involved, I say beware!
The longer these protests last, the more nutcases they attract, but from the start the radical, right wing groups have been involved.
This isn’t about freedom, it is an excuse to wreak havoc and strenghten their cause for the white supremists and militant groups who have been increasing their ranks in Canada.
These groups have made their way into every area of society, including police/fire-EMS/military, although the numbers are still small.
Society has know too much freedom in the past 70 years after WWII and have had it so good they forgot how to appreciate it!
Ironic, that in a free country you have these sheep, these nutcases fighting for freedom, while Ukraine faces invasion by Russia!
An example must be set for these radicals so we never have to face these illegal actions again.
I have been in war torn countries and know what freedom is and always have appreciated the true freedom we enjoy and had no problem with the mandates that are here to protect all of us so we don’t lose loved ones and we can end it as rapidly as possible.
I rarely do support Trudeau, in fact I look forward to him being voted out next election, but the invoking the Emergencies Act was the right thing to do!
Have you not realized that Trudeau and/or the Liberals being voted out next election would mean that conservatives were in charge with their ongoing contradiction of being a political party that is anti-government trying to get INTO government so they will have the power to destroy it. That’s what this whole “freedom convoy” is about. How have you not connected the dots on the psycho right wing yet?
Well said. You can bet if these Reformers ever got into power we could kiss our Public Health Care System good buy. While they help their rich friends steal our oil and tax wealth they have been promoting a privatized health care and education system for years. You would have to be a damn fool not to be able to figure it out. The lawyers, accountants, oilmen, bankers and former MLAs from the Lougheed era certainly were from what they told me.
Lawyers and doctors have made it clear ,over the years , that nothing will financial destroy us seniors faster than an American Style Health Care System and my American relatives would certainly agree. It’s the number one cause of bankruptcies in the states.
I dare say, Mr. Pargeter, that neo-liberalism is not acting in the best interests vis a vis the common good regardless of partisanship. For example, crony capitalism is as much alive with the Liberal Party of Canada as it is elsewhere. In this regard, then, one is forced to ask, how does this serve the common good? Sadly, the Harper years provided thoughtful Canadians with numerous good reasons for resisting the CPC which has now shifted several degrees to the right yet again I, for one, will never forgot Harper’s, “You won’t recognize Canada when I get through with it.” At the same time, however, one can not just gloss over the unkept campaign promises made by Justin Trudeau, for example. We live in troubled times – all the more reason for applying sober critical thought as events unfold. In addition, I would argue that this same analysis is required from time to time as it relates to one’s personal political bias. There is too much at stake if one fails to do so.
imo – here, i see you at your best. hear, hear!
they want freedom from the increasing creep of the state, and the creep that the state has become. they want freedom over their body: the understand that the rights of one end at the body of another. they understand that a person has no right to impose their choices and preferences upon the body of another. they understand that when the govt can mandate what a person must take (or ingest lol) we each no longer have ownership over our body. what we then end up with is a tenancy of sorts around our body – we own it only when the govt does not exercise its control.
“We have fallen into the most extreme version of freedom as a right to essentially commit social assault, do what you want and to attack and tear at society. This is a freedom understood as your individual right to do whatever you want no matter who it kills, no matter who it hurts, no matter who’s profiting at whose expense. This is not democratic freedom. It is radically detached from the common good. This is a freedom against democracy and against the public good. This represents a disparagement of the very idea of society.” – Wendy Brown
this is an extreme rendering. it does not at all apply to one’s right to exercise ownership over their body; however, it does apply to govt mandates and all those that believe the state gets to coerce and force a person to take something that goes against their belief and conscience.
the quote does apply, roughly as much, to some individuals as it does to many around the notion of “majority society” as it does to certain behaviours of our govts over at least the past 40 years. an example of the latter was harper – who showed us time and again how teetering and weak are our checks and balances, and often behaved as a dictator – with what, 38% of the pop vote – than as a leader of a free state.
Last election Trudeau only received 31% of the popular vote however due to the huge disparity of MP seats of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, that was enough to give them an electoral win. Recently it has now been revealed that 205,000 votes were not even counted. It is even more interesting that only now do we even find out. “We are deeply sorry for any elector who was unable to vote on election day,” said Susan Torosian, executive policy director for Elections Canada. Who knows how that election would have gone given these votes were counted? Canada now is under authoritarian rule by a minority government with an incompetent, corrupt, scandal ridden PM at the wheel. Elections Canada: 205,000 mail-in ballots were not counted | Toronto Sun Election a Photo Finish with Conservatives (32%) and Liberals (31%) Neck and Neck | Ipsos
Dakota blathered: “Canada now is under authoritarian rule by a minority government …”
Elections:
1997 Liberal 39%
2000 Liberal 40%
2004 Liberal 37%
2006 Conservatives 36%
2008 Conservatives 38%
2011 Conservatives 40%
2015 Liberal 40%
2019 Liberal 33%
2021 Liberal 33%
https://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/1867-present.html
does not your data in fact substantiate dakota’s claim that there is something rather wrong with our present electoral system? there have been some “majority” govts among those outcomes that came with only a minority of the popular votes cast. how do you see that as democracy or as a reflection of a healthy, representative system?
indeed, our system is hardly democratic, and it is broken and corrupt.
Nice:)