Rush to the border, but which one? Having recently moved from one oppressive state to a freer one (south of your border), we’re concerned as to how long this freedom will last. Used to think we were old enough to escape all that is heading our way, but it’s all happening at “warp” speed. I’ve feared it for a long time - perhaps I read too many dystopian novels growing up. In the mid 2000s I looked at Australia as a place to escape! Dodged that bullet! Covid proved “they’ll” do anything and showed them how easily they could. (As Berenson says, “there is a they”.) I don’t have any answers and with so many still sleep walking I fear we are doomed. I really fear the coming months before our elections. “They” are not going to relinquish power and will do anything to keep it. ANYTHING.
Sorry Trish, there is no escape by changing geographies. I own a boat which is fairly small and quite old but it has trans-oceanic range and I did a study to see where I might go if things got too bad at home. I thought originally of your country, and the Antipodes, good homes for self-reliant independent-minded people. Wrong! I concluded there is nowhere. The more I look the more sure I am that the Global Oppression is just that: global. It's really the most scary thing because in previous oppressions there was always somewhere to go, somewhere to re-group and re-equip, a safe haven from which a counter attack could be launched. In World War v2.0 it was my country, the UK, the USA, and the Commonwealth which were the havens. In story books the good guys usually win because they can find a safe haven. Think of District 13 in the Hunger Games trilogy. But Orwell shows us in 1984 that a global oppression can extend its tentacles everywhere. If anyone doubts that Orwell's book is being used as an instruction manual they are not paying attention. My view is that we have to stand and fight where we are, even if we end up imprisoned, emasculated, and gagged. Running isn't going to work this time.
2000 years ago that statement was made by a guy named Jesus. By that standard, we are in trouble. Where does this end? A global war of everyone against everyone. Free Speech is important, but so is politeness & manors. If I disagree with someone, it is incumbent on me to express my disagreement politely and not say anything that I cannot take back later. That means that I need to avoid smearing or demeaning the people I do not agree with, so that continued dialog can happen.
Our leaders have forgotten this, and fail to be diplomatic in any way. They escalate to the extreme out of the gate, and then are surprised that the people they just smeared are angry. At which point they want to censor the people they just smeared. How can this end other than badly?
I never thought I would see this in my life time. I am not on Twitter as I have far to much reading and learning to catch up on and although it has been an unprecedented time, I must say it has been educational, at least for me. I have not always agreed with everything that you say Trish but that is what free speech is all about. Regardless of our differences on some subjects, I will stand by your right to say what you believe to be true on this day and any day. It’s the corner stone of freedom and with out free speech we will falter and regress into victimhood that we see is so prevalent in the progressive movement today. It thrives on vengeance and demonization and I see a very dark world enveloping Canada completely. This is due in part to those still watching the Corporate Media and who believe their propaganda to be factual. I find it is impossible to get through to them which is why we are in this situation in the first place. Many are still sound asleep. To be honest Trish this is but the beginning and I believe a financial collapse will be coming soon and is the very reason for the silencing. We have to be able to communicate openly in order to survive this and I am unsure how we can accomplish that with this new bill. We are in grave danger.
Thanks, this is excellent writing about the awful situation we find ourselves in, particularly here in Canada. Freedom of speech is the bedrock of democracy and Western civilization, a right we are born with and which it is criminal for our so called leaders to impede in any way. The primary point of this freedom is for people to be able to openly discuss whether the rich and powerful people are committing crimes and if so, how should they be held accountable. Let's be clear, this is the freedom to discuss removing illegitimate government from power. How can you tell if a government is illegitimate? If they are restricting basic human rights like freedom of speech. Our government is illegitimate. Our so called leaders are criminals of the highest order, mass murderers who will stop at nothing in their insatiable lust for power. While it may well be that we will be able to wake up enough people with our writing and our memes and our direct contact and so on that we will be able to arrest and jail these heinous criminals, make no mistake, we are already long past the point where violence against them is justifiable. I post that hoping and praying for a peaceful resolution, but they are already unleashing horrific violence against us, it's all just hidden. Only a few of the Germans knew of the gas chambers, the concentration camps were to cope with the typhus epidemic and the bodies just reinforced the fear of disease to the point where people turned on their neighbours and family. It's the same basic plan but far more sophisticated...
That video of Dr. Weinstein surrounded is sickening. Why are these students at an institution of higher learning at all? Do they want to broaden their minds? Doesn't appear to be the case.
This hate speech bill is making me feel like I am suffocating. The nightmare continues. I feel for my daughter and other young people. There is no future for them in Trudeau's post-national state. Where do we go?
We all have watched, every election, that by the time the polls close in Ontario the result has been decided. The rest of the country just determines how much opposition there will be to the government chosen by Montreal, Ottawa, and southern Ontario.
If all the progressives in the population centers that keep installing this regime agree that speech is violence, and that this legislation will protect their pet minorities from bad words, how do we protect free speech?
We need to repeal hate speech laws. All of them. We need to shut down the human rights tribunals. All of them.
While reading this post I thought about the “ Divergent “ series of movies . This seems to be where we are going ..into dystopia. So yes choose your company and your modes of communication carefully. I have no doubt Virani’s work will be done by left biased AI searching the internet and conversations that fits the tag of speech crime. The divergent battle must and will continue amongst the truly free or yes we will have Orwell’s “ boot on a human face- forever “.
Concerning Civil Disobedience, what I am going to say refers only to that issue and I am not taking sides in any disputes here.
Civil Disobedience in the UK is in a worrying place. Protesters during the lockdowns were treated very harshly by the police who have also been responsible for multiple instances of heavy-handed dealings with the public on other maters, but who have given an impression of being unwilling (or they may just be unable) to control very large and regular marches ostensibly supporting the Palestine cause but extending to demands for the annihilation of Israel, and including instances where the October 7th attack was extolled. In other words there is a sense here, among some people, that policing of protests and other forms of civil disobedience is biased. That's not an allegation I make lightly. I make it with greater conviction when it comes to the courts which are handing down judgements which makes me fear that a significant percentage of the judiciary is not impartial. In fact it's worse than that, I don't want to flood you with links but this article is very relevant even though it discusses much wider questions than the control of civil disobedience. It's behind a paywall but I've been naughty and put it on my site for 48 hours: https://tinyurl.com/ynchavk9
In a nutshell, I think your statement that people who participate in civil disobedience must indeed expect to go to prison here in the UK - if they act in support of the "wrong" causes. And if Assange's treatment is any guide the conditions they face will be inhumane and prejudicial to their sanity.
So far as the financing of independent journalism is concerned I don't really know what the answer is. I suspect that Substack is the best model available. But, sadly, I think those of us who care about the issues of personal freedom (I call it Individual Autonomy) and who worry about the way the world is going are a minority. I say that because a very clever and wealthy woman I knew, who built up a large business from nothing, said to me once: 'If you want to know what people really care about, look at where they spend their money'.
We in the West have been trained by our educational systems, media and government to obey authority. In order is save and protect our rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of self defense etc., we must refuse to comply with any unjust law or “mandate”. I believe people are waking up and the push to criminalize speech in Canada, Ireland, France and elsewhere, indicates “they” are desperate. They cannot control the flow of information. The truth is seeping into the mainstream. Vaccination rates are way down. The evil machine has tentacles in everything and it’s obvious they have a plan. But the more they push, the more people wake up. Thankfully there are great journalists like you who articulate the issues and bring thousand’s together into a community. I support you 100%.
Thank you for writing this thought-provoking piece Trish. At one point while I was reading, a line from George Orwell’s 1984 came to mind:
“It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another.”
I am aghast at the direction this country is headed. In my opinion, we are being led by a group of cognitively ill individuals.
Our Government, in the guise of maintaining public morality and order regularly censors content that conveys dissent against it. Individuals and news outlets manage to transform a single-threaded story into a convoluted web of self-contradiction and falsehood.
Not only am I concerned about the ramifications of the OHA, I am also concerned that the absence of censorship does not guarantee a more democratic society. In a world of expansive digital surveillance, there is ongoing potential for new threats.
Attempting to achieve a balance between access to useful online information that can be applied and evaluated freely by consumers, with the restriction of material that has little positive application or harmful application seems futile. So where does this leave us? Does humanity require a standard to be set for news and other content on the internet to repair bridges and restore broken relationships?
Who exists that is “good” enough to regulate us? Certainly not our government. The regulator would have to be a group with objective goals and moral uprightness. Does such a group exist?
What I am sure of is without freedom, innovation and progress will come to a standstill, leading to the demise of Canadian society.
Washington state just passed a $2000 bounty for anyone turning in a “hate crime” via a new hotline. Imagine all the Karen’s phoning their neighbors in for their definition of offensive behavior. I may move to China.
There are no words for my feelings on reading along with this, agreeing wholeheartedly, feeling there's another eloquent ally out there .... and coming to your total and complete submission to the "woke", left-progressive "narrative", the unprecedented Blood Libel that is "genocide in Gaza". I couldn't read any further. For a proud ally of Israel and the Jewish people, it's like Germany 1933, finding out your trusted friend is just another Nazi. Today's self-deluded, self-aggrandizing, self-obsessed left-progressives have a term for those who aren't anti-Israel enough: "progressive except for Palestine". In the pro-free speech world, "anti-woke except for Israel" is the Jew-blaming BS otherwise smart people fool themselves with. You don't think critically at all, when it comes to Israel - if you did, you'd be quoting Honest Reporting and MEMRI.
I'm a free speech absolutist myself. I've never trusted "anti-hate crimes" legislation, certainly couldn't trust Trudeau and his army of ideologues and careerists, consider the new bill as evil as you do. But many of my Jewish, pro-Israel friends do support it, and of course I understand their reasoning. Antisemitism has been SOARING since the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, on Oct. 7. And since Israel's entirely legitimate response, virtually the entire world has joined in - not least the most corrupt, anti-Jewish global NGOs like the UN, virtually every news source, many politicians (especially the self-proclaimed progressive), all the universities, etc. etc. etc.). Jews are being targeted worldwide because Israel is defending itself against a region that has been turned into a region-wide war machine. Gaza is (again) unprecedented in the history of war: a polity and its entire population and infrastructure, back by billions from terror states, dedicated to the genocidal annihilation of the Jewish people worldwide. You are brilliant, and also blind as fvck. Tragic.
Props to CJ Hopkins who figured out Elon's duplicity earlier and with more writerly flair than anyone. He is the best and pays a price for it.
https://cjhopkins.substack.com/p/the-musktown-massacre
Rush to the border, but which one? Having recently moved from one oppressive state to a freer one (south of your border), we’re concerned as to how long this freedom will last. Used to think we were old enough to escape all that is heading our way, but it’s all happening at “warp” speed. I’ve feared it for a long time - perhaps I read too many dystopian novels growing up. In the mid 2000s I looked at Australia as a place to escape! Dodged that bullet! Covid proved “they’ll” do anything and showed them how easily they could. (As Berenson says, “there is a they”.) I don’t have any answers and with so many still sleep walking I fear we are doomed. I really fear the coming months before our elections. “They” are not going to relinquish power and will do anything to keep it. ANYTHING.
Sorry Trish, there is no escape by changing geographies. I own a boat which is fairly small and quite old but it has trans-oceanic range and I did a study to see where I might go if things got too bad at home. I thought originally of your country, and the Antipodes, good homes for self-reliant independent-minded people. Wrong! I concluded there is nowhere. The more I look the more sure I am that the Global Oppression is just that: global. It's really the most scary thing because in previous oppressions there was always somewhere to go, somewhere to re-group and re-equip, a safe haven from which a counter attack could be launched. In World War v2.0 it was my country, the UK, the USA, and the Commonwealth which were the havens. In story books the good guys usually win because they can find a safe haven. Think of District 13 in the Hunger Games trilogy. But Orwell shows us in 1984 that a global oppression can extend its tentacles everywhere. If anyone doubts that Orwell's book is being used as an instruction manual they are not paying attention. My view is that we have to stand and fight where we are, even if we end up imprisoned, emasculated, and gagged. Running isn't going to work this time.
As you judge, so shall you be judged.
2000 years ago that statement was made by a guy named Jesus. By that standard, we are in trouble. Where does this end? A global war of everyone against everyone. Free Speech is important, but so is politeness & manors. If I disagree with someone, it is incumbent on me to express my disagreement politely and not say anything that I cannot take back later. That means that I need to avoid smearing or demeaning the people I do not agree with, so that continued dialog can happen.
Our leaders have forgotten this, and fail to be diplomatic in any way. They escalate to the extreme out of the gate, and then are surprised that the people they just smeared are angry. At which point they want to censor the people they just smeared. How can this end other than badly?
I never thought I would see this in my life time. I am not on Twitter as I have far to much reading and learning to catch up on and although it has been an unprecedented time, I must say it has been educational, at least for me. I have not always agreed with everything that you say Trish but that is what free speech is all about. Regardless of our differences on some subjects, I will stand by your right to say what you believe to be true on this day and any day. It’s the corner stone of freedom and with out free speech we will falter and regress into victimhood that we see is so prevalent in the progressive movement today. It thrives on vengeance and demonization and I see a very dark world enveloping Canada completely. This is due in part to those still watching the Corporate Media and who believe their propaganda to be factual. I find it is impossible to get through to them which is why we are in this situation in the first place. Many are still sound asleep. To be honest Trish this is but the beginning and I believe a financial collapse will be coming soon and is the very reason for the silencing. We have to be able to communicate openly in order to survive this and I am unsure how we can accomplish that with this new bill. We are in grave danger.
Thanks, this is excellent writing about the awful situation we find ourselves in, particularly here in Canada. Freedom of speech is the bedrock of democracy and Western civilization, a right we are born with and which it is criminal for our so called leaders to impede in any way. The primary point of this freedom is for people to be able to openly discuss whether the rich and powerful people are committing crimes and if so, how should they be held accountable. Let's be clear, this is the freedom to discuss removing illegitimate government from power. How can you tell if a government is illegitimate? If they are restricting basic human rights like freedom of speech. Our government is illegitimate. Our so called leaders are criminals of the highest order, mass murderers who will stop at nothing in their insatiable lust for power. While it may well be that we will be able to wake up enough people with our writing and our memes and our direct contact and so on that we will be able to arrest and jail these heinous criminals, make no mistake, we are already long past the point where violence against them is justifiable. I post that hoping and praying for a peaceful resolution, but they are already unleashing horrific violence against us, it's all just hidden. Only a few of the Germans knew of the gas chambers, the concentration camps were to cope with the typhus epidemic and the bodies just reinforced the fear of disease to the point where people turned on their neighbours and family. It's the same basic plan but far more sophisticated...
JCCF is circulating a petition against this harmful Act:
https://www.jccf.ca/petitions/
That video of Dr. Weinstein surrounded is sickening. Why are these students at an institution of higher learning at all? Do they want to broaden their minds? Doesn't appear to be the case.
This hate speech bill is making me feel like I am suffocating. The nightmare continues. I feel for my daughter and other young people. There is no future for them in Trudeau's post-national state. Where do we go?
Can we vote our way out of this?
We all have watched, every election, that by the time the polls close in Ontario the result has been decided. The rest of the country just determines how much opposition there will be to the government chosen by Montreal, Ottawa, and southern Ontario.
If all the progressives in the population centers that keep installing this regime agree that speech is violence, and that this legislation will protect their pet minorities from bad words, how do we protect free speech?
We need to repeal hate speech laws. All of them. We need to shut down the human rights tribunals. All of them.
While reading this post I thought about the “ Divergent “ series of movies . This seems to be where we are going ..into dystopia. So yes choose your company and your modes of communication carefully. I have no doubt Virani’s work will be done by left biased AI searching the internet and conversations that fits the tag of speech crime. The divergent battle must and will continue amongst the truly free or yes we will have Orwell’s “ boot on a human face- forever “.
I'm in the UK and as you probably know we have our own "Online safety" legislation, although not quite as bad as what is proposed for Canada.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/10
Concerning Civil Disobedience, what I am going to say refers only to that issue and I am not taking sides in any disputes here.
Civil Disobedience in the UK is in a worrying place. Protesters during the lockdowns were treated very harshly by the police who have also been responsible for multiple instances of heavy-handed dealings with the public on other maters, but who have given an impression of being unwilling (or they may just be unable) to control very large and regular marches ostensibly supporting the Palestine cause but extending to demands for the annihilation of Israel, and including instances where the October 7th attack was extolled. In other words there is a sense here, among some people, that policing of protests and other forms of civil disobedience is biased. That's not an allegation I make lightly. I make it with greater conviction when it comes to the courts which are handing down judgements which makes me fear that a significant percentage of the judiciary is not impartial. In fact it's worse than that, I don't want to flood you with links but this article is very relevant even though it discusses much wider questions than the control of civil disobedience. It's behind a paywall but I've been naughty and put it on my site for 48 hours: https://tinyurl.com/ynchavk9
In a nutshell, I think your statement that people who participate in civil disobedience must indeed expect to go to prison here in the UK - if they act in support of the "wrong" causes. And if Assange's treatment is any guide the conditions they face will be inhumane and prejudicial to their sanity.
So far as the financing of independent journalism is concerned I don't really know what the answer is. I suspect that Substack is the best model available. But, sadly, I think those of us who care about the issues of personal freedom (I call it Individual Autonomy) and who worry about the way the world is going are a minority. I say that because a very clever and wealthy woman I knew, who built up a large business from nothing, said to me once: 'If you want to know what people really care about, look at where they spend their money'.
Trish,
We in the West have been trained by our educational systems, media and government to obey authority. In order is save and protect our rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of self defense etc., we must refuse to comply with any unjust law or “mandate”. I believe people are waking up and the push to criminalize speech in Canada, Ireland, France and elsewhere, indicates “they” are desperate. They cannot control the flow of information. The truth is seeping into the mainstream. Vaccination rates are way down. The evil machine has tentacles in everything and it’s obvious they have a plan. But the more they push, the more people wake up. Thankfully there are great journalists like you who articulate the issues and bring thousand’s together into a community. I support you 100%.
Thank you for writing this thought-provoking piece Trish. At one point while I was reading, a line from George Orwell’s 1984 came to mind:
“It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another.”
I am aghast at the direction this country is headed. In my opinion, we are being led by a group of cognitively ill individuals.
Our Government, in the guise of maintaining public morality and order regularly censors content that conveys dissent against it. Individuals and news outlets manage to transform a single-threaded story into a convoluted web of self-contradiction and falsehood.
Not only am I concerned about the ramifications of the OHA, I am also concerned that the absence of censorship does not guarantee a more democratic society. In a world of expansive digital surveillance, there is ongoing potential for new threats.
Attempting to achieve a balance between access to useful online information that can be applied and evaluated freely by consumers, with the restriction of material that has little positive application or harmful application seems futile. So where does this leave us? Does humanity require a standard to be set for news and other content on the internet to repair bridges and restore broken relationships?
Who exists that is “good” enough to regulate us? Certainly not our government. The regulator would have to be a group with objective goals and moral uprightness. Does such a group exist?
What I am sure of is without freedom, innovation and progress will come to a standstill, leading to the demise of Canadian society.
Washington state just passed a $2000 bounty for anyone turning in a “hate crime” via a new hotline. Imagine all the Karen’s phoning their neighbors in for their definition of offensive behavior. I may move to China.
I love your quote “I feel like I woke up one day and everyone had gone crazy.” SO TRUE!
There are no words for my feelings on reading along with this, agreeing wholeheartedly, feeling there's another eloquent ally out there .... and coming to your total and complete submission to the "woke", left-progressive "narrative", the unprecedented Blood Libel that is "genocide in Gaza". I couldn't read any further. For a proud ally of Israel and the Jewish people, it's like Germany 1933, finding out your trusted friend is just another Nazi. Today's self-deluded, self-aggrandizing, self-obsessed left-progressives have a term for those who aren't anti-Israel enough: "progressive except for Palestine". In the pro-free speech world, "anti-woke except for Israel" is the Jew-blaming BS otherwise smart people fool themselves with. You don't think critically at all, when it comes to Israel - if you did, you'd be quoting Honest Reporting and MEMRI.
I'm a free speech absolutist myself. I've never trusted "anti-hate crimes" legislation, certainly couldn't trust Trudeau and his army of ideologues and careerists, consider the new bill as evil as you do. But many of my Jewish, pro-Israel friends do support it, and of course I understand their reasoning. Antisemitism has been SOARING since the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, on Oct. 7. And since Israel's entirely legitimate response, virtually the entire world has joined in - not least the most corrupt, anti-Jewish global NGOs like the UN, virtually every news source, many politicians (especially the self-proclaimed progressive), all the universities, etc. etc. etc.). Jews are being targeted worldwide because Israel is defending itself against a region that has been turned into a region-wide war machine. Gaza is (again) unprecedented in the history of war: a polity and its entire population and infrastructure, back by billions from terror states, dedicated to the genocidal annihilation of the Jewish people worldwide. You are brilliant, and also blind as fvck. Tragic.