| Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s Powerful Advice for a Broken Canada |
| The past few weeks have been a ‘wild ride’. We witnessed media hype over supposed UFO sightings and shootdowns, media silence on catastrophic train derailments, and obfuscation from those in positions of leadership, including on the topic of foreign interference in our elections. That was rounded out yesterday when an ostensibly neutral commission, ignoring glaring evidence, brought in the anticipated ruling of ‘no harm, no foul’ regarding the invoking of the Emergencies Act. As if these were not enough, a parliamentary committee decided that killing citizens with taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be limited to adults, the Canadian government wants to help end minors’ lives as well. One of the baseline thresholds for a civilized democracy is the protection of her weak and innocent. Apparently not the case in Canada, circa 2023. In the face of crumbling foundations, Canada needs grounded leaders able to foresee pitfalls, discern lies and recognize true danger, and who continue to walk with steadfast resolve through the emergent chaos. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, the courageously principled author and dissident, was asked to address Harvard in 1978 after he was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974. We’ve heard much about rights and freedoms this past year (I’ve said plenty myself), but freedom is not an end in itself. I recommend you read the entire address, but the excerpt below was highly prescient, piercing to the core of our current national crisis: |
| “In early democracies, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding one thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual be granted boundless freedom with no purpose, simply for the satisfaction of his whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were eroded everywhere in the West; a total emancipation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. The West has finally achieved the rights of man, and even to excess, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades, the legalistic selfishness of the Western approach to the world has reached its peak and the world has found itself in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the celebrated technological achievements of progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the twentieth century’s moral poverty, which no one could have imagined even as late as the nineteenth century.” |
| Our loss of a collective moral rudder has the good ship Canada drifting toward rocky shores. It’s why we’ve focused lately on the work to be done closer to home, daily; connecting locally for support and spiritual grounding; being the best spouse, friend, or parent we can; raising children grounded in truth, aware of a danger-filled world, but who’ve been taught resilience and courage; speaking the truth, in love, even when it sacrifices our peace, reputation or career. If the past weeks confirmed one thing, it’s that hope is not found in political leaders (or those waiting in the wings), lawyers, commissions or similar. They can be peripheral means to various ends, but more often than not, they’re making things worse, and rapidly so. As Jordan Peterson said recently “I don’t see how we could be stupider here in the West if we actually took courses in stupidity and tried as hard as we could. We seem to be doing everything we can to break everything as rapidly as possible”. Don’t sell yourselves short on your ability to discern right from wrong, smart from stupid, and to act in ways that greatly impact your spheres of influence. We may desire freedom, but without taking on the immense responsibility it requires, we simply join the race for a version that is little more than self-centered hedonism. That responsibility may mean boldly speaking truth in the face of lies. Other times, it may require refusing to comply when compelled by an authority to act in ways harmful to those around us or which violate our conscience. Heed that conscience. Be the steadfast, calm leaders our nation so desperately needs. Greg “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 |
Tag Archives: Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Declare Your Courage — Superb Action Plan for Freedom Fighters from Free to Fly Canada
Declare Your Courage
Central pillars of our liberal democracies are eroding. We are losing free speech and bodily autonomy. Group-think and cancel culture are rising while the electronic surveillance state controls much of life. As if these weren’t enough, those in positions of authority seem committed to undermining ready access to food, travel and human contact. Most believe we’re powerless. Why?
Many who fled oppressive regimes for the once appealing democratic West can answer: We forget history. We falsely believe we can defeat authoritarianism while maintaining creature comforts, illusions of safety and our societal status. We believe ‘going along’ will bridge an inconvenient season of crazed policy, when in reality we cling to twigs of reputation, ease and illusory security while facing a tsunami of totalitarian control that risks the destruction of our freedom.
There is only one way to arrest this trend. Men and women must courageously and publicly take unrelenting positions against it. We must refuse to assent to the lies dismantling our societies, tearing away our freedoms, and removing our power as free beings.
We are not powerless when standing together, aligning ourselves on the common, fortified ground of integrity, truth, courage and self-sacrifice.
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, in a 1974 article Live Not by Lies, penned these words in a call to corporate courage: “We need not be the first to set out on this path, Ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands—they will not cope, they will be unable to touch us. If we will grow to tens of thousands—we will not recognize our country!”
#declareyourcourage
Declaration
I declare all that follows, calling out as a lie the societal claim that change is impossible. It begins with me:
- I will not speak, sign, write, or repeat in any forum or on any platform, anything that is not, as far as I know, the truth;
- I will, where opportunity presents, and in spite of the cost, speak out against lies;
- I will stand alone if need be, knowing that freedom is “the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.” (Pericles)
- I will not repeat nor support radically progressive, popularized ideological mantras. I will walk out of state, corporate or privately enforced indoctrinations on the same;
- I will not acquiesce to the state’s violation of my God-given freedoms of speech, worship, conscience and bodily autonomy;
- I will persevere in the face of threats to livelihood, status or reputation, in spite of the pain or my own self-doubt;
- I will, where opportunity presents, support with my words, actions and finances, those similarly convicted of this need for a relentless commitment to truth, freedom and conscience.
All this I undertake, knowing I may suffer loss of the fragile constructs of social status, comfort and ‘safety’. I am willing to do so, in exchange for the far superior and lasting bedrock of truth upon which our futures and freedom (and that of our children) must be grounded.
