Tag: protest

Government Under Siege

“This city is under siege!”

“This is a threat to our democracy!”

“There’s a nationwide insurrection!”

“This is madness!”

This is not a recording from January 6th and, no, it’s not happening here in these United States. Look north. Those are the words of Ottawa’s Police Chief Peter Sloly.

Sloly was addressing what The Washington Post reports are “big rigs and other vehicles — emblazoned with signs blasting [Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau in obscene language and reading ‘Mandate Freedom,’” adding that an estimated “5,000 people and at least a thousand tractor-trailers and other vehicles clogged the streets of Ottawa over the weekend.”

“The situation at this point is completely out of control,” Ottawa’s mayor told a radio audience, “because the individuals with the protest are calling the shots.”

“It’s not a protest anymore,” argues Ontario Premier Doug Ford. “It’s become an occupation.”

Meanwhile, this anti-vax-mandate effort spurred by these truckers is spreading across the country, including “the blockade of an important U.S.-Canada border crossing” in Alberta.

I can certainly see how these government officials might feel they are under siege, with an occupying force impinging on their freedom to act as they wish. Not a good feeling at all.

But isn’t that the same feeling these truckers and others are experiencing? Aren’t they being occupied by a government that demands a measure of control over their bodies? Their very livelihoods? That is willing to block their ability to earn a living to gain that control?

Public officials might ask themselves how come so many people are so upset that it looks like an “insurrection.”*

And then consider their position as public servants, that they may be in the wrong. Not the protesters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The Post story mentioned only four arrests made so far in Ottawa, none for insurrection.

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crime and punishment ideological culture Regulating Protest

“He’s Got a Weapon!”

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.
—Voltaire

Our enemies are ridiculous. So why do they seem to be winning?

For today’s lesson, catch the pro-trans protests outside the offices of Netflix. Trans activists and a few of Netflix’s own trans employees were protesting the occasion of the online streaming giant’s “platforming” of comedian Dave Chappelle, whose latest special, The Closer, took a few digs at the huge influence that the tiny trans “community” has on American cultural and political life.

Chappelle referred to the way J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was treated online for defending biological women, declared himself a feminist on “Team TERF,” and talked about a trans friend of his who committed suicide after defending him online in a previous comedy special trans-fracas.

Did Chappelle say something untrue? Unfunny? Doesn’t matter. What he said, protesters proclaimed, was hurtful.

Each of us will judge all that in our own way. But we should be able to agree on one thing: the way the small protest mob treated one counter-protester was not truthful but very ridiculous.

Relevant details: a man attended the event holding aloft a sign saying “We Like Dave” on the obverse and “Jokes Are Funny” on the reverse.

A protester on the trans side of the divide tore up his sign, leaving him holding the naked stick, then shouting, “He’s got a weapon!” The crowd echoed, “He’s got a weapon!”

Activists these days often say “speech is violence” and “words are weapons.” Here, they violently rob a man of his speech and declare what’s left of his attempt a literal weapon. They think they are clever. But they are merely ridiculous.

Not funny like Dave Chappelle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment local leaders

Charges Dropped

Shannon Joy, arrest, School Board, Covid, protest

The best part of the story — not counting Shannon Joy’s pluck and defiance — is how promptly the prosecutor dropped the bogus charges of “criminal trespass” against her.

The Rochester mom and radio talk show host had been handcuffed while attending a Fairport school board meeting this August. Her dastardly deed consisted of wearing a mask wrong.

Joy figures that board members were sick and tired of her vocal criticism of their policies — she has a platform outside of board meetings — so, in collaboration with others, the board had staged her arrest with malice aforethought.

To supporters at the courthouse, Joy spoke of “bully tactics sometimes employed by school boards and superintendents who don’t want to hear from parents about their children’s education.”

The county’s policies about masks are less than uniform. PJMedia’s Megan Fox points out that in Monroe County and other nearby counties, people are not required to wear a mask “except in public schools, government buildings, and some doctors’ offices.”

Irony and hypocrisy were not eschewed by arresting officers. One cop teaming up to handcuff Shannon Joy was not wearing a mask. Another wore her own mask in the same under-the-chin fashion for which Joy was being hauled away. These officers did not, however, arrest themselves.

“How is this America?” Joy tweets above an arresting image of the arrest.

Well, it’s not the Mayberry America. It’s not the best America. But at least there was a refreshing return to common sense in her courtroom victory.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment international affairs Regulating Protest

Crackdowns For Lockdowns

Politicians and bureaucrats like some protests, fear others.

You can tell a lot about a protest movement and its actual agenda by how a government reacts. You can tell a lot about a government by how it instructs police to respond to different protests.

So we should probably take a careful look at anti-lockdown protests around the world, especially in Europe.

And how police are handling them.

Very violently.

Nils Melzer, Professor of International Law at the University of Glasgow and the current United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has “requested more information on an incident in which a female anti-lockdown protester in Berlin was grabbed by the throat and brutally thrown to the ground by riot police,” reports Paul Joseph Watson of Summit News.

The response to Melzer’s request was “overwhelming, with over a hundred reports of violence flooding in,” Watson summarizes, citing a report in Berliner Zeitung.

While examples of police brutality are viewable on Twitter, YouTube, and other social media, reportage in America seems muted, perhaps thanks to our lockstep pro-lockdown corporate media.

“Something fundamental is going wrong,” Melzer says. “In all regions of the world, the authorities are apparently increasingly viewing their own people as an enemy.”

There is no mystery. Lockdowns, mask mandates, and mandatory vaccinations amount to quite a holistic assault on personal liberty.

While protests that demand more power for the state, or that would increase the security of the ruling faction, get treated with kid gloves, protests directed against state power, or against a sitting regime — and especially against such a power grab — get cracked down upon.

It’s stands to reason, but not justice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom media and media people

No Culture, No Future

Actress Corinne Masiero, on stage at the César Awards — France’s version of the Oscars — shocked the nation by what she wore. And didn’t wear.

Invited to present an award for best costumes, Masiero started the night in an ultra-significant yellow vest emblazoned with the motto “No Culture, No Future.” But she came on stage wearing a bloodied donkey costume, then doffed it for a bloodied dress, and then removed that, too. On her naked front she had scribbled: “No Cultur, No Futur.” And on her back, but in French, “Give us back art, Jean.”

“Jean” being French Prime Minister Jean Castex.

While this is in the style of typical artsy antics, this was not just gratuitous. It was a protest. She wants theaters to open.

Unique — in the sense that it was by an artist protesting the anti-lockdown cause, in a dramatic way usually reserved for more lefty causes. But not at all unique — in being against the lockdowns. All around the world folks are protesting the shuttering of society.

But why go to such lengths on stage?

Well, I might advise against … still, I haven’t seen much previously on the news about those protests?

Major media apparently does not have time, space or desire to cover protests over harsh, extremist “mitigation” efforts that “lock down” commerce and normal human interaction.

LifeSiteNews, a “non-profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family,” had the best I found.

“The world demands its freedom back: Anti-lockdown protests sweep the globe,” runs its March 22 headline.

“I don’t think I’ll be invited next year,” Masiero said, walking off stage. “We’ll see.”

What we need to see is more coverage … in the news.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment Regulating Protest

Mostly Peaceful Protest?

Crimes committed yesterday at the capitol should be prosecuted.

Let’s make that the rule from now on, not the exception.

I’m not suggesting long prison terms for trespassing, smashing windows, small-scale vandalism. But we have a right (and almost a duty) to insist that people respect the lives and property of others, no exceptions.

That’s Civilization 101.

Last summer, I think the cavalier attitude displayed by many public officials (Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler comes to mind) — and media outlets — toward looting and riots, as well as intimidation and violence directed at innocent individuals sent the wrong signal to … bad people on all sides.

Mostly peaceful protest isn’t good enough.

As the dust settles, we will learn more and discuss further. Note that as I put this and myself to bed last night, Congress was back at work but not yet finished certifying the Electoral College results.

Speaking of doing one’s job, in yesterday’s chaos, I witnessed one policemen apply some finesse to protecting the capitol — by de-escalating the tense situation. The mob he confronted refused to heed his instruction to leave the capitol. As the officer retreated up the stairs, they were on his heels. To delay their advance and stop them from overtaking him, he would turn upon reaching each floor’s threshold and threaten them with his baton.

But he didn’t hit them. If would have been disastrous for him to do so, because even with a baton he was badly outmanned: mob against one.

Soon, however, he was able to get to reinforcements, who together appeared to block the insurgents.

A few moments of wise restraint. Too rare these days.

Not to mention some fancy footwork.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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