Canadian truckers are mad about government overreach. The Canadian Government – supported by Biden – hit them “like a ton of bricks” for peacefully protesting. They remain, despite a court order, at a northern border crossing. Hard truth? This is freedom in action.
How can a Canadian Prime Minister, shamelessly reinforced by the Biden White House, demonize peaceful acts of civil disobedience, akin to our First Amendment?
Fact: Canadian truckers in Ottawa have peacefully gathered, children in tow, to tell Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau they want a conversation, end to overreach, sick of mandates.
Fact: In response, they were vilified, stripped of protest rights, in some cases stripped of sustenance, unable to get a hearing for basic grievances. In 1979, thousands of American farmers on tractors filled Washington DC. That could happen again, as the idea is spreading.
Big question: How can free citizens be denied a basic right to seek remedy for grievance? How can they be foreclosed from saying their government overstepped, restrictions damaging lives?
How can a free person be so boldly disenfranchised? If in Canada, when will it happen here? And how – exactly – does this differ from leftist protests in 2020, which were all allowed? Is there a different standard for leftists and freedom-focused protests? Is that the new normal?
The Canadian Prime Minister lambasted these peaceful truckers, who set up “moon bounces” for kids and just want to talk on the vaccine mandate. The government declined, says the protest “has to stop,” is “an insult to truth,” and victimizes the nation. Really? See, e.g., Freedom Convoy: Trudeau calls trucker protest an ‘insult to truth.’
On the flip side, the freedom-focused truckers are not backing down. Despite a court order to disperse, they see themselves as a “freedom convoy.” One emblematically said, “We’re not caving in, we’re not moving, we’re not backing down.” Should they not be heard? See, e.g., ‘We’re not backing down’: Canadian truckers share message to Trudeau.
Said another: “Just know that every trucker out here, we’re willing to go to jail, we’re willing to lose our trucks,” when speaking with Fox News. Half of them have already suffered losses.
Meantime, the Biden Administration seems preoccupied by their own mandates, ready to back Trudeau, even working to help him break the freedom protest – not speaking to the core issue, extended, persistent, life-changing government overreach and the public reaction to it. See, e.g., Truckers convoy in US could disrupt Super Bowl, Joe Biden’s State of the Union, DHS memo says.
The real tragedy is front-and-center, getting little ink. Free people, whether they speak on social media, in their schools or town meetings, come by foot, on tractors or trucks, should be heard.
Freedom of speech – the ability to peacefully protest government overreach – is as fundamental to self-government as any right enshrined in our Bill of Rights, or parallel Canadian provisions. When governments push unconstitutional mandates, suppress, and fail to redress – rather than accommodating concerns and free speech – they tread a dangerous line. People see, and resist.
Today, that line is on the US-Canadian border, in truck cabs, on lips of freedom-loving citizens to our north. Tomorrow, it could be here. Listening to – and communicating with – those who respect freedom is what leaders should do, not default to increasingly indefensible mandates.