[I very much hope my readers take the challenge here seriously and start posing this question to lockdown supporters. It would be very interesting to know how they would respond. Would the realization that there is apparently nothing the government can do in the name of slowing the bat flu that would be too far in their estimation finally cause them to snap to about how dangerous that way of thinking is?Enjoy,Gerry T. Neal]
Rod Dreher is a writer who blogs at the website of The American Conservative, the magazine founded by Pat Buchanan, Taki Theodoracopulos and Scott McConnell in 2002 to oppose the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration and more specifically the drive for war in Iraq from the right. Dreher is also the author of such books as Crunchy Cons (2006), How Dante Can Save Your Life (2015), The Benedict Option (2017), and most recently, Live Not By Lies which was released earlier this year. The last title mentioned warns small-o orthodox Christians – Dreher, who was raised Protestant, became a Roman Catholic and is now Eastern Orthodox with a large-O – about the coming “soft totalitarianism” to which wokeness, the more militant successor to political correctness, is leading the Western world. Note that there are many who would generally agree with Dreher’s assessment of wokeness but suggest that a past tense would be more appropriate than a future one.
Earlier this year, Dreher posted a piece entitled “Your Woke Breaking Point” at his blog. He began with an excerpt from an article by Megan McArdle at the Washington Post about how Donald Trump’s predictions of four years ago as to how the attacks on Confederate monuments would lead to attacks on monuments to the American republic’s founders, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were coming true. McArdle, in her editorial, referenced Dreher’s “Law of Merited Impossibility” which has been stated several different ways, the best known being “It will never happen, and when it does you bigots will deserve it”. The law satirizes, without exaggerating in the least, the paradox of the typical progressive response to conservative warnings about the direction in which left-wing causes seem to be heading, before and after the predictions are fulfilled. It is likely to end up being Dreher’s single most significant and lasting contribution to political discourse. McArdle’s article referencing it was an uncharacteristic moment of liberal self-criticism, in which she discussed the progressive side’s seeming inability to restrain its radicals and apply the brakes when they are going too far and too fast.
Dreher used the excerpt from McArdle’s article to introduce a challenge that he borrowed from mathematician James A. Lindsay. Lindsay had tweeted on the 24th of June:
Talking with a brilliant friend last night keyed me into an important idea: everybody has a Woke breaking point, a point where they can’t deny any longer the fact that it’s a totalitarian nightmare. Encourage your sympathetic friends to start naming what theirs would be.
Dreher re-posted Lindsay’s tweet and several follow-up tweets, the first of which went:
Whose statue has to come down? Seriously, whose is the last straw? Who has to get cancelled? Fired? Doxxed? Destroyed? Beaten up? Killed? Does it take a lynching? Does it take destroying the thing YOU love? Your family? Your kids? Your job? Your hobby? What is it? What’s too far?
It is an excellent question and one that we would do well to pose to any liberals of our acquaintance. What do the Social Justice Warriors – the BLM, Antifa and MeToo# types — have to do before you will admit that they have gone too far?
There is a very similar question that I would suggest we start posing to people. Or perhaps it is the same question asked in a different context.
This question I would pose to all those people who think that all the public health orders, all the restrictions imposed to control the spread of the Wuhan bat flu, are necessary and especially to those who think that even more restrictions are called for. I will note, obiter dictum, that Rod Dreher himself was certainly one of these back in the spring. Whether he still is or not I am unaware because he has written far less on that subject in recent months than in March, April and May.
The question is simply this – what is your Bat Flu Breaking Point?
Let us clarify the matter with some follow up questions.
What do our public health officials have to do for you to agree that they have gone too far? What line do they have to cross? What freedom do they have to take away? How much imposed loneliness, isolation, and misery is too much? How many small businesses have to be destroyed? How many people have to lose their jobs? How many people have to be driven to suicide, drunkenness and substance abuse? At what point is keeping us safe no longer worth the price we are being forced to pay for it?
Would curtailing to the point of eliminating our basic freedoms of association, assembly and religion be going too far?
Would telling people that they have to close the small businesses that has been in their families and served their local communities for generations and which they have been struggling to keep afloat for years right in the busiest shopping time of the year, the period that they rely upon to make enough to balance their books, be crossing the line?
Would fining people thousands of dollars for acts that are not only not mala in se but are rather clearly bona in se although forbidden by some petty health order be one step too many in the direction of totalitarianism?
Would opening a snitch line and encouraging people to rat out their family, friends and neighbours be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?
Would establishing a special police force – a Gestapo, Cheka/NKVD, or Stasi so to speak – for enforcing public health orders be the limit of what is tolerable?
Everything I have mentioned so far has already been done here in Manitoba and, indeed, in most if not all of the other provinces of the Dominion of Canada. For the many who support all of these measures and say they are “necessary” it is difficult to imagine what further step could possibly be taken that would finally have these people saying that it is too much.
Would it take forcing everybody to have foreign substances, including modified RNA, injected into their bodies upon penalty of not being allowed to work, buy groceries, or go anywhere if they refuse?
Would even telling everyone that they must pledge their allegiance to Satan by having 666 tattooed on their right hand or forehead in order to stop the spread of COVID-19 finally be enough to do it?
Free Speech But not for Those Who Question the New Secular Religion of “holocaust” –Top German jurist explains why ‘holocaust deniers’ of any age must be punished — With Commentary by Carolyn Yaeger
Published by carolyn on Thu, 2020-12-10 00:48
Lüge und Wahrheit
(Lie and Truth)
A column by Thomas Fischer
Thomas Fischer, born in 1953, is a noted German jurist of the 2nd Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice. Fischer is the presiding judge of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. His annual commentary on the Penal Code, “Beck’s Short Commentaries,” is considered the Bible of German Criminal Law. He is a honorary professor at the University of Würzburg lecturing on criminal law, criminal trial law and the sociology of law. In 2017, he was selected for that year’s European Press Prize shortlist.Through his weekly column “Fischer im Recht” on ZEIT ONLINE, Thomas Fischer has become a familiar name to a broad nationwide audience.
EXCEPT THAT HE DOESN’T explain it. His long-winded commentary is long on empty rhetoric, short on compelling reason. I decided to post this opinion piece “Lie and Truth” that was published recently by Spiegel to give you a chance to see for yourself the haphazard discourse that passes for the voice of wisdom in German constitutional law. This man is a disgrace, not only because he is grossly obese (which makes it hard to even look at him), but because he is politically motivated and not above resorting to lies and baseless insults against his fellow Germans, whose legitimate questions he cannot honestly answer. See for yourself. Note that I have added a few of my own comments in red. -cy
Anyone who publicly or in an assembly approves, denies or trivializes an act committed under the rule of National Socialism in the manner described in § 6 para. 1 of the International Criminal Code in a manner likely to disturb the public peace, either publicly or in an assembly, shall be punished by imprisonment for up to five years or by a fine.
[CY – To understand this, I found Article 6 of the Int. Criminal Code, which reads:
Article 6: Individual Criminal Responsibility
1. A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime referred to in Articles 2 to 4 of the present Statute, shall be individually responsible for the crime.]
__________________________
Many call that which is subsequently punished [under § 130] an “Auschwitz lie. Those who commit one of the acts, that is, approve, deny, or trivialize the Holocaust, on the other hand, call it an “Auschwitz lie” to claim that the Holocaust took place on the generally known [substitute ‘believed’] scale. The reasonable argue with the mad, the truthtellers with the liars, about the right to the word “lie.” Of course, no one can win this fight on the battlefield of counter-arguments, which makes both sides all the more bitter the more important the word fetishes with which they throw at each other are to them.
There is not the slightest doubt that the earth is a sphere and not a tray, that it orbits around the sun and not the sun around Venus, that stones fall down because masses have gravity, and that in and by the leading state of the NSDAP tens of millions of people have been murdered for reasons that were called “racial” and are now called “racist,” because this word is somehow better and truer, since on the one hand there are no human “races” at all, but on the other hand the racists are called that way because they claim it, mostly connected with the courageous thesis that they themselves belong to the better, more beautiful, and in any case somehow more valuable “race” by lucky providence. [Did you follow that long sentence? Try again if necessary. He’s making a false analogy between ‘flat-earthers’ and ‘racists.’ There is no connection.] That, one may think, is then nevertheless stupid; one must decide. Purely humanly seen, it is understandable and touching, and not really surprising, that one’s own sand castle seems to one as the most beautiful, one’s own nose as the most delicate, and one’s own stupidity as the most significant. Of course, the fun ends when one draws the conclusion that one is in league with nature and the spirit of the world when one smashes other people’s noses. [As you will notice as you read on, he takes cheap swipes and uses insults very liberally, in place of any kind of valid point.]
What the truth is, the whole, real, immovable, and by what one can recognize it, is a quite old question. It is a part of human nature, although it deals with it only in passing. Dogs, cats and monkeys do not fight over the truth, because everything is reality to them and memory is only one form of it. Humans long for it when they walk on dream paths. But we have to live with the brain that we have and with the environment that we are. The truth is, once we leave aside the very great sources of truth, all of them located in the beyond or in concepts, which have been invented over the millennia and which are all characterized by the fact that theyrenounce any reality outside of themselves,a common, socially related reconstruction of reality influenced by evaluations, symbols and prognoses.It depends on them when more than one person is present, that is, practically always with the exception of the state of “delusions”. He never tells us what the truth is. This last appears to be gobbledygook to me. Try as I might, I can’t make sense of it.
Because this is so, truth is of such great importance for well-being. One could say: It is completely indifferent whether the Thirty Years’ War has taken place or whether the Elbe flows between Dresden and Hamburg even when we are sleeping or standing on the Rhine. Truth about the past is existentially important because it is an understanding of the present (reality).
Punishment and truth
I mention all this to give you the idea that prosecuting for denial of the obvious truth is a problematic matter. Here we go – truth is not defined, instead it is “obvious.” Criminal law has, after all, historically worked its way from the outside to the inside, so to speak: From the control of external behavior ever closer to the control of internal self-control and thinking. Since 500 years ago, God as the only instance of truth was shifted from the real world to a transcendent beyond. The rational control of reality was taken over by everyone in the world of absolutism [being] allowed to be happy in his own way, as long as he took care of it inwardly and adhered to the 19,000 paragraphs of the General Prussian Land Law outwardly. Nowadays we see it differently: we want the citizen to guide himself morally, so criminal law also has its sights set on his thoughts and feelings the “Gesinnung” [attitude] is worth a lot to us, and anyone who shoots at a person with a wooden toy gun because he mistakenly believes it to be real will be put in prison for life for attempted murder. Is this not nuts? How do you prove what he believes? How can you punish an attitude?
In addition, however, what constitutes freedom and makes human development possible has to assert itself. Optimized mind control leads, as has been proven many times, to blatantly dysfunctional societies, no matter under which “ideological,” irrational beliefs. So it depends – once again – on a balance between conflicting conditions, circumstances, tendencies and possibilities: as much as possible alignment by controlling a common “truth” on the one hand – and on the other hand as much freedom as possible for truth-expanding realities. Such a balance requires the form and these binding concepts of oneself. Somewhat easier: one must find forms of balance.
If one looks around in the world of criminal law, one finds many legal systems in which truth is acted [?] as a high object of protection, especially gladly the truth about the greatness of one’s own state history, about the tremendous victories of the respective leaders and the wickedness of all its opponents, about the quasi-historical necessity of rule as it is and will be forever. One can believe that or not. Some feel secure in such forms, especially when they are not among the lowest, but have even more contemptible ones among them.
In states that are called liberal constitutional states, it is more complicated, but much more pleasant: one may think what one wants, but in addition to the rules of external conduct, one must understand halfway the construction itself and pay attention to the functioning of social truth-finding. In Germany, the pure doctrine of truthfulness is not enforced by the Bundeswehr, but by rule-based public communication. This is the reason why the Federal Constitutional Court describes the basic right of freedom of opinion as “absolutely constitutive”.
Therefore it is actually rather remote that one protects “the truth” criminally and pursues the spreading of lies as attack on the truth. If this were to be taken literally, it would be the very opposite of what is “absolutely constitutive.” However: The spreading of panic by public threat of attacks is punishable even if the threat is not meant seriously (see § 126 StGB); the spreading of contents with glorification of inhuman cruelty is also punishable if the victims depicted are only “human-like” (see § 131 StGB), and everyone has a right, protected by criminal law, to have slander (incorrect factual claims) that do not violate their reputation and destroy their existence, spread (see §§ 186, 187 StGB). The truth about the past is thus protected to the extent that it is the basis of present life. Exactly. In order to prevent political National Socialism from reappearing, they must lie about it and criminalize it (the past) to “protect” the future. If two sections of the population claim that it is the “truth” that different gods have ordered them to destroy each other, one must not protect the truth but prevent civil war. One way to do this would be to prohibit the public dissemination of the aforementioned feeble-minded “truths”. Now truths that don’t protect their version of public peace become “feeble-minded truths.”
§ 130 – “Incitement of the people” – protects in the end, of course, body, life, existence of humans. This protection is, however, shifted forward here, because conditions are to be prevented in which it can no longer be guaranteed by the general rules (for example, prohibition of manslaughter and bodily injury). Hate against groups of the population, calls for violence, threats to security are, as history has shown a thousand times, dangerous acts. “Incitement of the people” is a so-called abstract crime of danger, which punishes attacks on the so-called public peace, i.e. a state in which the form of compensation is based on rules and not on violence and arbitrariness.
This brings us to the denial of the Holocaust, which is a variant of the crime of sedition. Of course, one can say: Whether any fools “believe” that the Holocaust of National Socialism did not take place is completely indifferent. For the world and for the truth this is no more significant than the view of some others that the world is ruled by aliens or was founded by Martians. These latter opinions would not be insignificant, however, if their followers were to call for the earth to be prepared for the return of the masters from space and, until then, for the slaughter of the elites or the burning of all forests. In other words: The truth about the Holocaust is not the core, but the medium of public peace, which § 130 paragraph 3 StGB wants to protect. This is all utter nonsense.
So much for the background of the penal provision. It does not change anything about the fact that § 130 Abs. 3 StGB is also a completely normal criminal provision: One must, in order to be punished, [word missing?] the objective (action) and the subjective (resolution) facts of the case. And what the intent of “denial” is, is not self-evident and also not indisputable. Very important.
Some people say: intent to deny already exists when the perpetrator knows that he denies something. Others – the “prevailing opinion” – say that premeditation presupposes that the perpetrator knows that his view of past reality contradicts the view of everyone else. Still others – for example, the columnist in his StGB commentary – say: Denial in the sense of § 130 (3) presupposes that the perpetrator knows or accepts that his assertion contradicts reality, i.e., is untrue. (Only) this latter view leads to the problem that people who do not know this are in a state of so-called “error of fact”, i.e. they cannot be punished (see § 16 para. 1 StGB). This is not a practically relevant problem because 99 percent of the “deniers” of course know full well that the Holocaust really took place, but feign their “disbelief” because they actually approve (or even would like to repeat) the genocide. Shockingly untrue!! Indefensible attitude from a judge, an unsupported assumption and CHEAP SHOT that has never been fairly demonstrated in any courtroom! That such persons can be punished according to § 130 is self-evident. Then one could, under certain circumstances, leave the few idiots who really believe that the earth is a piece of paper in their sad delusion alone. It is obvious that this is not quite so simple: How do you want to distinguish the real from the delusional liars?
Punishment and symbol
This brings us to Mrs. Haverbeck and comrades, including Mr. Horst Mahler or the (probably: former) fiancée and defense attorney of the same [Sylvia Stolz], who used their pleas to announce the death penalty to the judges. What death penalty? There are simply such people, and in their shadow quite a number of them, who hide around with half-baked swollen sympathies and ostensibly agnostic excuses: they only deny secretly and among their own kind. Unwarranted insult toward Haverbeck, Mahler and Stolz; more hate from the respected judge.
The decisive point here, too, is probably that the perpetrators are not concerned with “the truth” as scientific reality: they do not spend their lives researching whether Caesar really spoke with Brutus when he murdered him, or whether Cleopatra used to bathe in milk or champagne before meeting Antonius. Her [referring to Frau Haverbeck] center of truth is hyperexcited at only one point: Holocaust or non-Holocaust? Were there six million or perhaps only 5.8 million murdered? This alone shows that it is not about numbers, but about principle: the allegedly wrong view of the general public is for these persuaders of conviction proof and symbol of the alleged “wrong” opinion about National Socialism, which they consider to be a great thing by and large. The fight for the alleged truth is thus a fight not for past reality, but for the social and political future. Agitation against the alleged lie about Auschwitz is in reality agitation against Jews, Sinti and Roma, foreigners.
There is no reason not to punish perpetrators of conviction. To have any “conviction” is allowed, pleasant or not, and first of all a private matter. But he who “by conviction” murders, humiliates, hurts other people, must be made clear the boundary between mine and his actions. But they can’t prove the necessary extent of the murder, humiliation and hurt. It’s an arbitary claim and number. At the same time the sanctioning must show the others – that is, all – that this limit exists and that it must be observed. This too is “symbolic”. One could take the view that perpetrators like Ms. Haverbeck should not be offered further stages of self-representation in court through criminal prosecution. I think that would be too cheap an argument, on the edge of convenience. After all, criminal trials and main hearings do not have the task of protecting the public from becoming aware of crimes. Even those who, as accused, announce that they will make physical attacks during the trial will not be released, but rather tied up. Admittedly, one must not do the same with notorious agitators. In exceptional cases, however, they can be excluded, otherwise one must and can bear the gossip. As long as there is still a spark of legal defense underneath, one must listen and give the accused a chance. Nothing more. This applies equally to Haverbecks, holy warriors and other human happiness seekers.
Punishment and age
Should (very) old people be prosecuted and punished, even imprisoned? This is a question that is repeatedly asked in public, but surprisingly hardly ever in the case of jealousy killers, child rapists or terrorists. But especially with old Nazi criminals who lived “blamelessly” in hiding for 70 years and who were dragged out of the hiding places of their memories at the end of their lives. One might ask whether old people in wheelchairs are still the right addressees of the messages of criminal law. Counter question: Why not?
That applies in any case to such offenders who are still criminally active even at an advanced age. Anyone who, at the age of 92 and full of zest for action, strides from one sedition to the next will probably still be sprightly enough to bear responsibility for it. An 85-year-old man, who notoriously abuses children sexually, will not be able to argue, with any prospect of success, that at his age a criminal trial is no longer worthwhile; it would be better to let it go. Always equating holocaust revisionists with sexual abusers of children! They are not similar in any way.
It may be different when it concerns deeds that are a whole human life behind. Murder and genocide do not come under the statute of limitations: that is how it is, and that is what the majority of the population obviously wants. Hardly anyone complains that it is possible to solve 50-year-old sexual murders with the help of DNA analysis: “cold cases” are considered a very special treat for the daily horror. When the love of justice and the statute of limitations is so great, one should not exclude the ramp of Auschwitz, of all places.
There are limits to the ability to negotiate and to execute. But they are very wide: not because German criminal law is so merciless and inhuman, but because the well-being of prisoners is quite well taken care of, at least in physical terms. There are many old people living in prison today, many are chronically ill, quite a few die there from cancer, cardiovascular diseases, Aids. There are departments for old prisoners, prison hospitals and, if necessary, the possibility of external medical care. One should think about the penal system as a whole, without doubt. But the majority of citizens obviously do not want that at all. To open a media-public department for “mercy” instead would seem to me to make little sense and be extremely unfair. One could think of a few prisoners who perhaps deserved mercy more than highly active hate mongers. This is how he pretends he sees Ursula, as a hate monger rather than as a constitutionally protected German citizen. This allows him to stay in his judicial comfort zone. As a rule, one cannot choose whether one dies of lung cancer. Whether one simply keeps one’s mouth shut, yes.
____________________
So there is the legal answer to all who question the Dictate of eternal German guilt for the Holocaust: Shut up or we’ll shut you up.
BREAKING: @hudsonsbay is taking the @fordnation government to court over their lockdown of retail in Toronto and Peel calling the government’s measures “unreasonable and unfair.” Company says they have been left with no choice but to go to court.
Last year, an op-ed appeared in the Vancouver Sun titled “Ethnic diversity harms a country’s social trust, economic well-being, argues professor.”
The author of the piece, Mount Royal University geography instructor Mark Hecht, reviewed current research on the issue of ethnic diversity and social trust, and posited that immigration policy should be informed by norms of cultural compatibility and cohesion.
You probably never got the chance to read the original article – it was only live for a matter of hours, after all.
Activists and journalists immediately took to social media to accuse Hecht, the Vancouver Sun, and Postmedia (the Sun’s parent company) of bigotry, hate and white supremacy. The editor-in-chief of the Vancouver Sun apologized for running Hecht’s article, and the article was quickly pulled from their website.
Most of the criticism directed toward the op-ed was filled with name-calling and hyperbolic accusations, while few critics refuted Hecht’s claims, which he himself admitted were controversial.
Mount Royal University publicly defended Hecht’s freedom of expression, but quietly cancelled the “Sustainable Europe” field school he was set to teach the following semester.
Hecht then moved to Victoria, BC, and in February 2020 he applied to join the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Naval Reserves.
“I liked the idea of serving my country, and the camaraderie of the armed forces,” Hecht told True North. “I’ve also always been attracted to water and ships, which is why I applied to the Navy.”
Over the next few months, Hecht completed “four-fifths” of the recruitment process: he met with a recruiter, passed his aptitude and physical fitness tests and completed his medical examination. The last task on Hecht’s checklist was a written exam specific to the Public Affairs Officer position, which he was encouraged to pursue by a Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) recruiter.
But in late October, Hecht received a letter in the mail that told him, “at this time, your application to the Naval Reserves will be ceased. In light of an article that you published in 2019, it was deemed that the views you expressed do not reflect the Canadian Armed Forces policy on Discrimination, Harassment, and Professional Conduct.”
The letter went on to say that the CAF forbids verbal and written statements that “promote discrimination or harassment on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination, as defined in the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA).”
The letter Mark Hecht received from Commander Cameron Miller dated October 20, 2020.
“Nothing I said in the op-ed goes against the Canadian Human Rights Act,” Hecht counters. He points out that much of the article was a rehashing of existing social science research and data.
Hecht was “quite looking forward” to working with the Naval Reserves: “I was getting excited about it…I had invested a lot of time and energy, such as making sure I was fit as a 50-year old, because you’re going up against 18-year olds.”
“I was let down.”
True North reached out to the CAF and asked which line(s) from Hecht’s op-ed promote discrimination and harassment.
“The CAF is committed to increasing diversity and being an inclusive organization where diverse perspectives are welcomed and valued,” Captain Mathieu Dufour replied in a statement. “Mr. Hecht’s op-ed presents and supports an argument for a society with less ‘diversity, tolerance and inclusivity.’ By doing so, Mr. Hecht demonstrates opposition to the values and policies of the CAF.”
“The policies and direction that govern the conduct expectation of CAF members are incongruent with Mr. Hecht’s publically [sic] shared personal belief that diversity weakens Canada.”
Again, no one is refuting the facts and research findings that Hecht presents in his article: he discussed studies on Muslim integration in Denmark; a paper on diversity and economic growth written by a Harvard economist; and sociological research about self-segregation, ethnic enclaves and social trust.
Apparently, discussing this research in the public realm and challenging the de facto state religion of diversity and inclusion renders you unemployable in Canada.
Hecht is now seeking legal representation to take the CAF to court.
“There seems to be a real issue with freedom of opinion,” says Hecht.
“A lot of people are afraid to speak their minds these days. It’s a threat to our democracy.”
“Systemic Racism” in Canada Against Europeans & Christians: — Freedom of Worship in Canada but Not for Christians
The following video tells the story of a church in Manitoba that was shut down and fined for holding a drive in service. Notice the police presence.
In the video below, we see a prayer service held at Jaame Masjid, Scarborough, Ontario on Dec 4, 2020, a lineup of congregants waiting to enter the mosque. There is no police presence to monitor how many were in the mosque. Prayer service commenced as per usual. Keep in mind, the GTA is under lockdown at the present time.
Let’s also not forget the acquiescence of our government to the request of the public call to prayer for mosques during the first lockdown. You can read about that here:
Canada has as one of it’s core principles freedom of religion and freedom to worship, similar to the First Ammendment in the United States. This is a freedom most Canadians treasure.
In the time of pandemic, things change, and that is understandable. Governments try to adjust to circumstances, and sometimes things don’t go as people expect.
Places of worship are restricted, along with other public venues, and some feel the division is unfair. Be that as it may, the restrictions are in place, and people are free to protest this. (another freedom that government is very selective of who they allow to protest unimpeded)
In April of this year, a church in Aylmer, Ontario was also threatened with fines for holding a drive in service.
We are not necessarily agreeing with those who choose to defy lockdown, nor are we advocating this practice. What we disagree with is the double standard when it comes to freedom of worship during the pandemic. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no news stories of police presence at a mosque for defying lockdown orders.
Our government seems to be very selective in who they decide to fine.
On Saturday, I was at Calgary City Hall to cover the weekly “March For Freedom” rally, where several thousand people showed up to protest Calgary’s coronavirus restrictions imposed by their tyrannical Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
Little did they know, it wouldn’t take long for Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to follow Nenshi’s lead. On Tuesday, Kenney announced province-wide gathering limits and business closures in our already economically battered province.
Protesters met at Calgary’s City Hall before marching through the city’s downtown core, then reconvening back at the plaza for speeches. The protest was technically illegal, but those in attendance were undeterred — despite Calgary police sending out $1,200 fines to those in attendance last week.
Click here to watch my full report and find out why these brave Canadians risked getting a fine to go to the protest. Alberta was the last bastion of freedom in this country until Premier Kenney caved to political pressure and betrayed Albertans with the same copy-cat policies devastating every other province in the country. If this is happening here in Alberta, what hope is left for the rest of Canada?
City looks at bolstering COVID-19 penalties amid weekly protests
[Apparently anti-free speech voices like Councillor Druh Farrell want more repression against freedom fighters trying to exercise their Charter right of freedom of assembly.]
Coun. Farrell said anti-COVID-19 restriction protesters have been ‘intimidating’ nearby businesses, and asked if limits would be placed on the illegal weekly demonstrations at city hall that have attracted several hundred peopleAuthor of the article:Bill KaufmannPublishing date:Dec 08, 2020 • Last Updated 1 day ago • 3 minute read
Hundreds of anti-mask protestors rally outside city hall in Calgary on Saturday, Nov. 21, 2020. PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOWICHUK/POSTMEDIA
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Calgary city council voted Monday to consider increasing fines and to review its mask bylaw, which made wearing masks in public indoor places mandatory as of last Aug. 1.
The review includes the possibility of raising the current $50 fine, an amount Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said is insufficient.
“Those measures we put in two weeks ago look to be insufficient in bending the (infection) curve,” said Hinshaw.
Also Monday, Coun. Druh Farrell said anti-COVID-19 restriction protesters have been “intimidating” nearby businesses, and asked if limits would be placed on the illegal weekly demonstrations at city hall that have attracted several hundred people.
“I’ve been getting reports from businesses and some of the residents who live in the area that participants in these protests are going into shops, disrupting (them), in order to intimidate customers as well as staff,” Farrell told council.
Calling the demonstrations “plague-spreaders,” Farrell said the behaviour is harming businesses along Stephen Avenue which anti-restriction activists use as a marching route.
“This is happening frequently. Is there a plan to limit the protests and the damage they cause?” she said, adding she’d prefer a short, sharp so-called circuit breaker business lockdown to smother the virus.
Anti-mask protest at Calgary city hall on Saturday, Nov. 28, 2020. Jim Wells/Postmedia
A city bylaw official said peace officers were monitoring the latest protest — as they have in the past — and tickets for those violating a provincial health order, limiting outdoor gatherings to no more than 10 people, are being prepared.
“We have a number of investigations pending from this week’s demonstrations and we anticipate laying more charges,” said Richard Hinse, director of Calgary Community Standards.
“If (businesses) feel threatened, we can get officers there to assist them.”
There will now be more bylaw personnel to do just that, as the city announced Monday its Level 2 Community Peace Officers have been given clearance by the province to enforce public health orders.
“This change means there are now more than 100 peace officers working alongside Calgary Police Service to support the City’s pandemic response in situations where individuals are in blatant violation of the Public Health Act and bylaws,” said Ryan Pleckaitis, Chief Bylaw Officer, Calgary Community Standards.
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Peace officers on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOWICHUK/POSTMEDIA
The protesters contend city and provincial mask-wearing mandates and restrictions on gatherings and business operations violate civil liberties and harm livelihoods. Many of them also allege the impact of COVID-19 — which has led to hospitalizations in Alberta more than tripling in the past month — is vastly exaggerated and that measures to quell it are more damaging than the virus.
The legal group Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has filed a constitutional challenge to the pandemic restrictions in Alberta and several other provinces.
Its lawyers have said they’ll work to overturn those tickets, which have included penalties of $50 and $1,200 and have been handed out to at least six participants from a Nov. 28 demonstration.
Nenshi, however, condemned the demonstrations as dangerous, while the city and province grapple to contain the virus.
“You have every right to be an idiot but you don’t have the right to crash shopkeepers, scare away people from their stores at this time of year and to expose your children,” he said.
More protests by Walk for Freedom and other like-minded groups are planned for next Saturday.
ATTEND THE HUGE END THE LOCKDOWN RALLY IN KELOWNA, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12 — NOON TO 3:00
Hi everyone. Attached is all the info you need for this coming Saturday Dec. 12th, Kelowna MEGA Rally and Sunday Dec. 13 informative Zoom call on the Common Law Solution, providing us with the lawful basis for refusing to comply with these unlawful Orders.
Let’s make sure that this Saturday’s rally sends a strong message to Bonnie Henry and Farnworth that we oppose their insane lockdowns, restrictions and useless masks Orders, and we will not comply!! Our Constitution supersedes all Orders from these two officials. Nothing more need be said.
