8 Comments
Feb 20, 2022·edited Feb 20, 2022

There's some really dumb stuff in here. Since Adam is anything but stupid, I can only suppose that those parts have been inserted so as to avoid stepping close to any UMC liberal discourse boundaries. Please don't do that. I subscribe because I think of you as someone willing to go where the evidence leads you.

The specific stuff I'm talking about is the repeated contention that the truckers cannot represent a "working class rebellion" because...they aren't endorsed by Canadian unions? No one familiar with how Anglosphere unions have become enfeebled subsidiaries of mainstream liberal parties, with almost no influence from the private sector masses, and how the main labor action has moved to wildcat strikes, could take this contention seriously. Repeated assurances to the reader that, oh no, the trucker actions can't represent mass unrest of any form that anyone could possibly perceive as legitimate, and perish the thought that they have any relationship whatsoever to your hazy positive sentiments about 20th century labor unrest, is the kind of political bias that is endemic in the media and I come here to avoid. Just don't deliver a value judgement if you don't want to actually engage with the issue.

Also, it's truly weird to write a long essay on the physical challenge of dealing with trucks and not even mention the new innovation in state control that is being used here, the cancellation of financial accounts for participants in popular unrest. The ability to entirely remove the ability to financially transact for masses of individuals with the push of a button is entirely new and not analogous to any previous situation of popular unrest.

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He didn’t say that. At all. The main point isn’t truck drivers are protesting: great majority of truck drivers, unionized or not, corporate or independent aren’t and are quite upset. Main point is “comparatively few of those protesting are professional truck drivers”. But those few are weaponizing truck drivers category for a false narrative exactly as the former US President (and his groupies both striking me not exactly the tough hard workers types) portrayed their red hat slogan as the workers party, the only one.

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I hope the protesters don't represent the working class, because what they really represent is aggressive stupidity. They invoked the equivalent of the nuclear option for a hodgepodge of vague, conflicting goals, most of which were impossible to achieve. The demand that COVID restrictions be lifted doesn't add up because the restrictions were already in the process of being lifted when the protest began, and the protest actually inhibited businesses from getting back on their feet. Several provinces announced that restrictions were being lifted during the protest, but that wasn't enough to make the protesters abandon their bouncy castles and go home. They want Trudeau's government to resign? Ya, like that's going to happen! Maybe we have to rethink what democracy means and publish it in large print for the semi-literate -- it can't mean that special interest groups have the right to bully their way into power without resistance from the standing government.

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Given David Frum's egregious interpretation of the truth around Iraq, I'm not sure why he he would be treated as anything within several parsecs of the concept reliable source on the constitution of a glass of water let alone the class makeup of a Canadian protest. Perhaps in some universes there exists the ability to fold spacetime so violently with lies that the mendacities themselves are able distort the fabric of reality into a new truth and where Frum would be a seer, but I suspect that's not the version of causality we live in.

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In other words a truck can be mord like a weapon than an expression of free speech

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Even though I find contention with some points, ie. they are labour by definition whether they are unionized or not, I enjoyed reading this.

More essays(or a read list) on public goods, difficulty in creating and sustaining it would be greatly appreciated. I think this topic, which is the backbone of the modern society, is suspiciously absent.

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90 % of truckers may be vaccinated, but what fraction got the jab under duress? Volunteers may still be a majority, but depth of emotion is with the opposition. Nobody is willing to give up their livelihood in support of vaccine mandates.

Videos of police brutality and the obvious failure of mandated vaccines to stop the virus are a bad look. Canada is 80% vaccinated, but COVID-19 is raging as strongly as ever.

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Thank you for rolling this out so thoroughly.My knee-jerk reaction to initial media coverage was”Whoa….that’s not supposed to happen in Canada!”

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