I don't get it. It appears that Canadians are mad as hell and we are tearing ourselves apart over serious divisions within our society or at least that's what we are told.
I am not so sure.
I was not sure what to make out of the "Freedom Convoy" and occupation of Ottawa and the related outbreaks of disobedience elsewhere. My initial thoughts was that they were a bunch of low information, conspiracy nut-jobs who were being funded by right wing outlets in both Canada and the US...they were pawns for a larger political game. And they bought it hook, line and sinker. 90% of truckers are vaccinated and the USA has the same requirements so I was not exactly sure what the issue was.
These truckers had their freedom...to not have the vaccine, and they didn't. So what's the issue? They seem to forget with their precious rights, comes responsibilities and consequences. They could have done like 84.8% (and counting) of all eligible Canadians being fully vaccinated (https://covid19tracker.ca/vaccinationtracker.html) but they chose not to, for either ideological reasons or because of the Dunning-Krueger Effect, having earned their medical degree on YouTube and Facebook.
The truckers seemed to imply that Government mandates were dividing Canadians. The facts don't bear that out. As stated above, almost 85% of all eligible Canadians are fully vaccinated and the vast majority of Canadians support the government measured put in place. So tell me again, where are Canadians are divided? It would appear that the 15% believe that somehow they represent the majority of us. They do not, And it's time to stop giving this bozo-eruption prone group anymore airtime.
We have this unfortunate idea of "2 sides" so deeply ingrained into us, we often feel that we have to give the other side oxygen and their time on the soapbox, even if their views are empirically false. On many topics, like established science, there aren't 2 sides, and the fact that 2 people disagree doesn't mean that that the 2 arguments are equally valid and have to be both treated with merit.
I believe that the majority of Canadians are on side, more or less, with how things have been handled during Covid. Were government perfect? No but tell me anyone could have done better in the situation? And if you say you could have, you are delusional. I keep hearing about the mental health of our children and how the restrictions are causing irreparable harm to those kids. Hmmm. Are we raising kids to be so not resilient that they can't cope with adversity? Need I remind these parents, children from past generations faced world wars, genocides, famine and starvation, violent coups, pandemics, without the assistance of modern science. I would suggest these things were far worse than Covid and somehow they survived, Your precious snowflake will as well...if YOU give them the tools to thrive and be resilient. I could go on and I hope you get where I am going with this.
Now the mental health of those people we should be worried about is that of those Canadians the anti-vax crowd wants to see warehoused so they can continue on with their lives through a global pandemic. We all know these people - the elderly (parents), immunocompromised and other vulnerable Canadians. This whole thing has been about themselves all along. The "respectful" debate and being respectful of other opinions was a façade. It was to hide their mindset that people will have to die to ensure their "freedoms" are maintained through the pandemic. That's what it was really about for this crowd.
But I do believe we are tearing ourselves apart in the west fighting over identity politics, worrying about gender neutral bathrooms and gender pronouns and embracing anti-intellectualism. While we are so occupied with the banal and quite frankly, stupid, China and Russia are building fusion reactors, space stations and developing ungodly other technologies. The west is in decline and we are seeing the end of history, unfold under our eyes.
Through all this, the anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers and the Karens, were trying to have respectful conversations with those of us who they deemed sheep. They were looking after my rights, after all. But fear not, I have agency and don't need you people protecting my rights. My rights are just fine. Oh, as an aside, being asked to wear a mask, a minor annoyance, is not an assault on your freedoms. Its asking you to be respectful to your fellow human beings and do your part to keep people safe.
I have stayed mostly silent over this past year as I feel that debating these people only given them fuel for their fire. It is my thinking that why would I debate something when there is really nothing to debate? It's like debating that the earth is flat. Why would anyone engage with that when we know for fact the earth is round and have provided it centuries ago. I know I am not going to change minds and they will not change mine, so there is no point to engage.
Now the truckers have gone home..probably because the taps have been turned off. Will this have a lasting impact on our political climate? Who knows. While the pain dries on this, we now have to deal with Russia and the Ukraine. I wonder how how being bombed affects mental health?
