“If you can persuade people of absurdities you can get them to commit atrocities.” This wisdom dates back to Francois-Marie Arouet writing under the pen name Voltaire.
Under a constant barrage of fear mongering statements by Canadian political leaders most Canadians now believe unvaccinated Canadians should be deprived of personal freedoms and even punished for refusing medical treatment for a disease they have not contracted. A Nanos survey found most Canadians in favor of refusing medical treatment for unvaccinated Canadians. Lorrie Goldstein writing for the Sun asked whether this divisive attitude will be extended to denying cancer care to smokers or heart attack care to the overweight.
After 2 years of this pandemic, the infection rate found in testing millions of Canadians has typically been less than 2% and those infected to date comprise less than 5% of Canada’s population of 35 million.. Stated another way, at any point in time 98% of Canadians don’t have the disease, possibly less since the testing has not been random but has focused on people with symptoms or in high risk areas. Of those who do contract the virus, over 98% recover. The tragedy the attack on the unvaccinated is attempting to avoid can be no more than extending the lives of 2% of 2% of the 1.5 million unvaccinated persons or about 600 persons. I say extending the lives since death is a certainty at some point. The larger population of vaccinated persons totaling some 10 million will see about 60,000 breakthrough infections at an infection rate of .006% and about 1,200 deaths if the fatality rate is also 2%, as appears to be the case based on the data so far. That outcome cannot and will not be altered by vaccine mandates or vaccine passports.
The attack on the unvaccinated is a disgraceful departure from the Canadian values I grew up with. Now that we know the vaccinated can become infected and can infect others, picking on the unvaccinated comes down to choosing someone to blame for the fear people feel despite the low risks of infection generally. It is politically attractive to blame someone and municipal, Provincial and Federal leaders are piling on.
At no time in Canadian history has there been a more overt example of a divisive set of policies that go right to the heart of the freedoms we used to cherish and are now being tossed into the wastebasket of expediency in the vain hope that by vaccinating everyone we will bring this pandemic to an end and that anyone who chooses not to be vaccinated is a threat.
That is absurd. The pandemic seems destined to continue for years to come now that fully one quarter of those found to be infected in recent days have been “fully vaccinated” and with their “vaccine passports” clutched in their hands are free to travel, eat in restaurants, go the gymnasium, attend ball games, and infect as many others as they wish should they be carrying the virus while the vast majority of the unvaccinated who neither have nor are carrying the virus are banned from civil society and even threatened or punished. Simple antigen testing could identify those who actually carry the virus, but these low cost tests are not being widely used since our leaders prefer to use a broadsword than a scalpel.
Eric Arthur Blair, writing under the name George Orwell to keep from being identified as the author of his classic books, saw this as the eventual outcome of government - a desire to control every aspect of human existence and to enforce compliance with whatever directives those in power decided were for the “public good” without debate or question. His prescience in writing “1984” in 1949 followed the rise of Hitler in Europe and Lenin and Stalin in Russia, and he correctly foresaw much of the world we live in today where our every move is tracked by computers we carry in our pockets. His metaphor for future society was a boot on a man’s neck.
In an earlier article, I pointed out why the attack on the unvaccinated was unwarranted. That article not only elicited some useful discussion but also some attacks on me personally. I don’t respond well to attacks.
COVID is not the only fear being used to divide Canadians. Our government leaders of every stripe have come to believe the flawed theory of anthropogenic global warming has merit despite its inconsistency with the laws of physics, and enforced draconian measures on our energy industry, imposed a carbon tax, and spent billions of taxpayer money on pet projects they describe as “green”. Kathleen Wynne, while Premier of Ontario, promoted so-called “renewables” to replace fossil fuels in a costly and ineffective parade of ill-thought-through moves that had no impact on climate but more than doubled the cost of electricity in the Province.
World leaders are also using climate change as a wedge issue to divide voters, promoting the concept of Net Zero, a silly and destructive program based on the nonsensical belief man can alter nature. Their motivation appears to be the installation of a post-national global socialist new world order if you believe their public embrace of they call “the great reset”. In an earlier article, I pointed out why Net Zero was more dangerous than CO2. The predictable outcome was not the avoidance of “global warming” but rather a global energy crisis that will see many suffer shortages and everyone suffer high costs.
Like the 1919 pandemic, SARS, MERS, H1N1, HIV-AIDS and a host of other infectious diseases, the frenzy of ineffective and costly policies will pass and life will go on but Canada will be left with enduring damage to our commitment to civil liberties and Canadians will have come to accept government control over our medical records, a new lack of privacy, government edicts regarding travel and assembly, and restrictions on our former right to peaceful protests as acceptable forms of legislation. That is a step towards an authoritarian socialist regime where individual freedom is suppressed in favor of state control.
At this point, Canada’s Constitution, Charter of Rights, Human Rights Code and Privacy laws are in tatters and unlikely to survive. As a student of history, I see the parallels to the rise of tyrants in China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Peru, Nicaragua and a host of African nations as following the same path Canada is now on. Promote fear, divide the population into warring factions, make citizens dependent on government, and increase government control over everyday life.
Unless Canadians stand up for freedom, democracy has already failed and history will record the past two years as when the failure took place.