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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