“FREEDOM” ISN’T FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

“FREEDOM” ISN’T FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

Those who equate free­dom with irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty and heed­less self-indul­gence nei­ther under­stand nor deserve it. For what it’s worth, that’s my take on the so-called “Free­dom Con­voy” protest that began in Cana­da with the ral­ly­ing cry “Free­dom” and spawned copy­cats around the world. Here­with why…

Protest­ing, crit­i­ciz­ing, grous­ing about and even curs­ing gov­ern­ment poli­cies are sacred rights in a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety. That’s free­dom.
The “Free­dom Con­voy” pro­tes­tors choked the cen­ter of Ottawa, blocked vital bridges, incon­ve­nienced fel­low cit­i­zens and did hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars dam­age to the economies of Cana­da and the U.S. No snarling dogs, tear­gas or water can­nons were used to dis­perse them. Not a sin­gle head was bashed in by baton wield­ing police. No one was shot by police. That kind of restraint and respect for citizen’s rights only hap­pens in a coun­try where there’s free­dom — of expres­sion, thought and assembly.
In exchange, free­dom oblig­es respon­si­bil­i­ty, which would by any mea­sure of com­mon sense rule out chil­dren in the midst of a noisy and exhaust-filled protest (Ottawa police esti­mat­ed that there were about 100 minors in the 400 trucks parked in the city). Dit­to lug­ging cans of com­bustible fuel for trucks and heaters through city streets.
Dur­ing the first eleven days of the Ottawa protest, truck air horns blast­ed for up to 16 hours a day. What, pray tell, does that have to do with free­dom? How does it con­tribute in any way to sen­si­ble dis­cus­sion of an issue? How do the truck­ers and their sup­port­ers jus­ti­fy harass­ing peo­ple for wear­ing masks, which is a per­son­al right and free­dom that does not in any way inflict upon rights and free­dom of others?
As the ancient Greek philoso­pher Aris­to­tle put it: “Every man should be respon­si­ble to oth­ers, nor should any­one be allowed to do just as he pleas­es; for where absolute free­dom is allowed, there is noth­ing to restrain the evil which is inher­ent in every man.”

                               FREEDOM’S ENEMIES

 Shout­ing “how dare you” and forc­ing jour­nal­ists to flee a venue — as hap­pened when a TV reporter asked about weapons found at a protest — and then defend­ing the action, puts the truck protest lead­ers in fine com­pa­ny. At a meet­ing of right-wing White extrem­ists in South Africa many years ago, a man hissed skuim van die aarde” (Afrikaans for “scum of the earth”) in my ear as he shoved my cam­era crew and me towards the door. His idea of free­dom was apartheid.
Protest­ing in a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety does­n’t even require a legit­i­mate cause or con­sid­ered point of view, just the bare essen­tials: ban­ners, flags, mega­phones and slo­gans. Peo­ple who show up with guns and body armour have no place at a protest in a soci­ety where the bal­lot box pro­vides the means to object to and even remove politi­cians who pass laws you don’t like.

                            SCIENCE VERSUS PREFERENCE

Anti-vaxxers fre­quent­ly jus­ti­fy their stance as an objec­tion to hav­ing some­thing put into their body that they don’t think is safe, or may have side effects.  For their sake I hope the truck pro­tes­tors aren’t liv­ing on fast food. They might also want to read the mul­ti­tude of pos­si­ble side effects list­ed in tiny print on over-the-counter med­ica­tions as a defence against law suits.
Pro-vaxxers at least have sci­ence on their side. Accord­ing to the U.S. Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC): “Unvac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple are about six times more like­ly to test pos­i­tive than vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple, nine times more like­ly to be hos­pi­tal­ized, and 14 times more like­ly to die from COVID-relat­ed complications.”
Sim­i­lar fig­ures have been report­ed from every coun­try with high vac­ci­na­tion rates. With those sta­tis­tics, man­dat­ed vac­cines could arguably be con­sid­ered a case of good gov­er­nance, which is a basis of the Cana­di­an constitution.
So, here’s a pro­pos­al: grant the anti-vac­ci­na­tion, anti-mask pro­tes­tors their ver­sion of free­dom – pro­vid­ed they have the courage of their con­vic­tions. They should agree, in writ­ing, to eschew all treat­ment if they con­tract Covid.
As for the avowed QAnon believ­ers and pro­tes­tors wav­ing Con­fed­er­ate flags and signs in sup­port of Don­ald Trump, I sug­gest offer­ing them one-way tick­ets to any U.S. state of their choice where the MAGA crowd proliferate.
The way things are, or we believe they ought to be in Cana­da, was summed up in three lines of an edi­to­r­i­al in the St Cather­ines Stan­dard:
“Free­dom where an indi­vid­ual can act in ways that harm oth­ers has his­tor­i­cal­ly been anath­e­ma to civ­il soci­ety. Nev­er mind your indi­vid­ual hap­pi­ness. Do your duty to ben­e­fit soci­ety as a whole.”              

          COMMON SENSE, COMMON GOOD

Manda­to­ry seat belts, speed lim­its and any num­ber of oth­er laws could be con­sid­ered by some as vio­la­tions of indi­vid­ual free­dom. Whether they like them or not, truck­ers and pret­ty much every­one else with an iota of com­mon sense obeys them in the name of self-preser­va­tion and the com­mon good, however.
Those who think free­dom is exclu­sive­ly an indi­vid­ual right, that no one owes so much as a tinker’s dam to the rights and free­doms of any­one else, might take a les­son from a man who knows more about it than just about any­one in mod­ern history:
For to be free is not mere­ly to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the free­dom of others.
So said Nel­son Mandela.

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6 thoughts on ““FREEDOM” ISN’T FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

  1. Good rea­son­ing. I’ve often won­dered why, in the inter­est of pro­tect­ing the order­ly oper­a­tion of our hos­pi­tals, proof of vac­ci­na­tion wasn’t man­dat­ed for incom­ing patients!

    1. would this mean the unvac­ci­nat­ed would not be
      eli­gi­ble for hos­pi­tal treat­ment and admission?…
      maybe such a require­ment should apply to
      visitors…

  2. Re: Free­dom — per­fect­ly put Allen. I am con­vinced that we need to have the debate in Cana­da to sep­a­rate the right to protest — which I uphold as essen­tial in a democ­ra­cy — from the right to dis­rupt — which I think is an unfair impo­si­tion of one per­son­’s views on anoth­er. I would advo­cate that we cre­ate areas for legit­i­mate protest or air­ing of views — think Speak­ers Cor­ner in Lon­don — that are sep­a­rate from places where the protest will dis­rupt or even sus­pend the dai­ly lives of oth­ers who think dif­fer­ent­ly. Then peo­ple can protest to their hearts con­tent, shar­ing their views with all who agree or care to lis­ten, and police can be giv­en pow­ers to cur­tail activ­i­ties which neg­a­tive­ly affect oth­ers. That way it can nev­er be said that the free­dom to protest has been sti­fled. My ten cents!

  3. three words, inter­min­gled in today’s world, com­pli­cate the issue…
    my FREEDOM might be anoth­er man’s PROTEST…
    and my FREEDOM might mean STUPIDITY for
    others…
    if I’m free to mask or unmask am I claim­ing my
    actions as a call for free­dom or am I protesting
    against gov­ern­ment over­sight or am I just stupid?…
    are the truck­ers an example?…
    i am con­vinced, at least in my small portion
    of the states(heavily red), the ini­tial refusal to mask was a polit­i­cal deci­sion and rebellion…
    free­dom and protest are fine but when
    incor­rect­ly inter­twined every­one looks stupid…
    and I’m won­der­ing if as the st. cather­ines stan­dard writes “do your duty to benefit
    soci­ety as a whole” would that for­give the
    white slave own­ers whose own­er­ship of
    slave labor could be con­strued as benefiting
    the preva­lent soci­ety of amer­i­ca’a ear­ly days”?

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