HAS YOUR CREDIT UNION OR BANK TRIED TO GAG YOU?



HAS YOUR CREDIT UNION OR BANK TRIED TO GAG YOU?


Donna trusted her financial institution with her money. But it didn’t like her ideology and froze her account, Now she can’t fund her organization or retrieve her money from her account. Welcome to the world of Woke financial institutions.

Donna Murphy learned her lesson. The hard way, She learned that the financial institution she trusted (Paypal) was on a political mission, and that it would break every rule to pursue it.

Donna’s problem was that she too was on a political mission, and she had constructed an organization and a website to promote it, as is her constitutional right. It was a project that required funding, and she naturally assumed that the reputedly “trustworthy” institution she dealt with would enable her to do so.

Trouble was, it so happened that Donna’s cause and the cause of her financial institution were in flat contradiction. Succinctly put, Donna is a patriot. A Canadian nationalist dedicated to the preservation of Canada’s natural and ethno-cultural heritage.

In contrast, her financial institution ( Paypal) was committed to globalism. Say no more.

As one might have expected, one fine day Donna woke up to find that Paypal was not fulfilling its contractual obligations. It was not collecting donations—and she couldn’t find out why. She even tried to get answers from Paypal’s HQ in Omaha. No dice. They stonewalled her for months. Worse than that, they even denied her access to her account.

Finally, a Canadian PayPal representative shamelessly admitted to Donna that she had been censored and punished for her “unacceptable” views”) which ran counter to the stated core values of PAYPAL and its terms and conditions. According to the Paypal rep, Paypal opposes the promotion of “hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory”. The policy even stipulates that PayPal will fine violators $2,500 US for each infraction, debited from their account. No appeal.

Perhaps Donna should have seen it coming but she didn’t. She didn’t realize that zealous corporations with a social justice/open borders agenda were armed with algorithms to track down “thought criminals”, with the objective of de-platforming those customers, a circumstance that is happening with increasing regularity across North America as well as in Europe.

 The important issue is this : Who determines what is “hateful” or “discriminatory”, or what constitutes “harmful misinformation?” PayPal of course. In other words, PayPal has appointed itself the arbiter of what is the acceptable use of funds that it keeps in its accounts.

PayPal’s actions were almost as crippling as they were designed to be. As even PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel confessed, “If online forms of your money are frozen, that’s like destroying other people economically and limiting their ability to exercise their political voice.”

The legal director of the digital rights group “Electronic Frontier Foundation”, Corynne McSherry, concurred. “If businesses get removed during fundraising months, it could put them at risk of losing huge sums of money.” No kidding. Ask Peter Brimelow, the editor of the online magazine “VDare” which was the victim of Paypal. Or scads of other editors of “heretical” online publications.

A disinterested observer with a rudimentary grasp of ethics should easily understand that the arbitrary termination of a client’s service without explanation and the simultaneous theft of thousands of dollars of his money for subjectively perceived ‘hate’ speech is not only Orwellian, but outrageous. Donna Murphy wanted a payment service. But instead she got Big Brother : A politically extremist and activist platform posing as a business. Donna was dumfounded.
Why was a payment service concerned about her speech ? She would rather they forget about her political orientation, as she theirs, and that they focus on providing the service they were commissioned to provide.

But it became apparent that PayPal was just one example, a trailblazer or template perhaps, of some 200 service providers who feel obliged to provide public political commentary about issues like “social justice”, “affirmative action”, “employment equity, trans “rights” and climate change. These pretenders see it as their mandate to not only manage your money, but to manage your beliefs—and their expression.

Everyone is completely at the mercy of payment service providers, financial institutions and corporations that want to play politics and virtue-signal. Blatant political partisanship and ideological persecution is able to seek refuge in the Trojan horse of “corporate” and social “responsibility”. Their behaviour offers solid testimony on behalf of the observation that governments have outsourced censorship to transnational corporations who are able to do an end run around U.S. First Amendment Rights or the sacred right to free speech and expression which once enjoyed an inviolable status in nations like Canada or the UK.

Lest we think that Donna’s fate was exceptional or exclusive to “heretics” like her , and that law abiding citizens need not be worried, it would be best to consider the path we are taking, and to look at the horror of China’s Social Credit system and the leverage that a Central Bank Digital Currency regime would have over basics such as what we purchase, what services we can access , what we can or cannot say.

The future is here. We need to ask ourselves urgent questions. If our financial accounts can be instantly frozen or drained, if our public comments can be summarily punished by financial reprisals, if words and ideas that were recently acceptable can suddenly be deemed unacceptable by a ruling clique gone mad, if a nurse in British Columbia can be suspended or fired for daring to say that men cannot have babies, if an organization like Gays Against Grooming can be de-platformed for condemning the sexual abuse, indoctrination and medicalization of children, if the Free Speech Union of the UK can be denied payment services for questioning the efficacy of anti-Covid measures, can you feel certain that you will not be the next on the chopping block?

The fact is, you have skin in this game. You may have mainstream views. Views that are currently mainstream. But the tide can turn quickly in this crazy political climate, and you might find yourself on the outside looking in.
A lot of people worked hard and suffered greatly to secure our rights and freedoms, but it seems that too many of us of younger generations are willing to squander those rights and freedoms. We must not let this happen. We must find a way to stop the contagion of censorship in its track, both on the political and commercial level. We cannot allow the PayPal model to spread. We cannot permit Canada’s large banks and credit unions like Van City, with assets over $28 billion, to cancel customers and rob their funds with impunity. We cannot entrust our money to activist financial organizations who feel little compunction about stealing it at the first opportune moment. We cannot sit silent while the elite establishes a Central Bank Digital Currency that can be programmed by the issuer to restrict how the currency is used by the receiver from the get-go.

Naked discrimination and the destruction of lives for the purpose of quelling ideologies that differ from those of financial institutions is intrinsic to this system. This is not a far-fetched scenario. The totalitarian impulse is alive and well in Canada, as we saw so plainly when Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act last year, and when he composed Bill C-ll, the Bill to enable online censorship. If significant measures are not enacted to prevent financial institutions and corrupt politicians from imposing their political views on us, then what happened to Donna Murphy and what happened to the leading spokesmen of Canada’s Freedom Convoy will be common place.
Act now. Speak out. And vote with your dollars. Find alternatives .
Or help build them.
Take Canada back, while there is still time.
Tim Murray January 2, 2023.

All Aboard with Transgender Ideology


All Aboard with Transgender Ideology

RAINBOW FLAG

 BC Ferries—steering a course set by the transgender lobby and its political agents

On Thursday night I attended a Campbell River meeting of the Freedom Defence Council, a growing grass roots made-in-Vancouver Island group of some 200 social conservatives.. The meeting was intense, informative and geared for action. The discussion moved from the broader picture—the demolition of our Christian heritage and culture and the war on free speech —to the immediate threat posed by the aggressively imperialistic transgender lobby, insatiable in its appetite for more public spaces to occupy.

Specifically, it was about the alarming imposition of LGTBQ posters and banners and flags on city owned facilities, and the implementation of a trans-friendly curriculum in schools.  To give you a measure of these conquests,   on Pride Day, the public library even hosted a Drag Queen Folk Tales event for children! Lesbian sex toys were  on full display at a nearby waterside public park—with  children in close proximity! Dolls are apparently passé. Dildos are the rage now.

The conclusion is inescapable.  Children are being sexualized with few ‘safe’ spaces to find refuge.  One powerful lobby group has claimed the public space.  Their message:  Move over or go home—and shut up.  The media and the politicians are on our side and the BC Human Rights Tribunal stands behind us.

Hmm.  This sounds pretty alarmist. Are things really that bad? Are the barbarians really at the gates, or inside them?  The answer came soon.

When I took the returning ferry to Quadra Island, I noticed that the ship was flying the rainbow Pride flag,  17 days after Pride Day! This is on  a taxpayer subsidised ship! Which made me think that it would be appropriate if the BC Ferries Corp. was renamed the” BC Fairies Corp”.  Should that change transpire, I may one day feel compelled to do something I would never have dreamed of doing.  I may have to run to catch a fairy. But I will be damned if I’m ever made to ride one! I’d rather swim.

If the BC Ferries Corp was indeed to become the BC Fairies Corp maybe the CEO should be replaced in favour of a Rear Admiral, eg. Svend Robinson. After all, every vessel in the fleet can unload at either end, although docking can be problematic at times.   Since most ships are referred to as “she”, as in “there she blows”, it is certain that this sexist practice will be soon come to an end when our progressive provincial NDP-Green government realizes that the fate of the nation depends on its immediate termination.  Every ship must eventually be referred to using a non-binary pronoun, or maybe a traditional pronoun with a gay male connotation, as in “there he blows”.

 Perhaps BC Fairies vessels could be gender fluid. They could leave one terminal as a ‘she’, and arrive at the destination terminal as a ‘he’, depending on the fluctuating mood of the non-binary captain who was hired to meet the new quota targets. “ The Queen of New Westminster” could leave the Tsawassen terminal at 11 am and be received 90 minutes later in Swartz Bay as “The King of New Westminster”.  Alternatively, the vessel could simply be called the “Drag Queen of New Westminster”, a venue for reading Queer Folk Tales to children with or without parental approval or supervision. Tsawassen-to-Swartz Bay and back could then become a world class trans-portation route.

 If the vessel should collide with another, take on water and begin to sink, the “women and children first” protocol would have to be changed to a “gender dysphoric children and gender fluid mothers first” rule. Biological male passengers eager to claim a seat on a lifeboat would not need to offer proof that they are actually women–they need only declare that they presently ‘identify’ as a woman. Any ship officer or crew who would challenge such an assertion would be subject to immediate dismissal and a BC Human Rights complaint adjudicated by political hacks.  To hammer that point home, vessels would be re-christened to honour the contributions of trans activists who have contributed so much to our progressive and tolerant society, especially in the area of free speech. How does “MTV Morgane Oger” sound? It would be designated as the Mother Ship of the fleet, but It wouldn’t need a wide berth owing to the fact that it can’t give birth.

Seriously, as one speaker at the meeting said, “Things are moving so fast that if we don’t soon get off our butts, organize and ACT now, it will be game over….for one thing, we need the ability to call upon a quick response group to counteract Antifa and LGBT bully groups who show up to shout us down…..of those in our congregations who feel as strongly as we do, many feel too intimidated to stand up to them……as a result, our children are being abducted by this evil cult, made ever more powerful by the ardent support it receives from local council, the provincial government, and the local media…. (words to that effect).

The issue here is not just about free speech, but the flagrant transgression of the formerly respected boundary between ideology and state.  The former is the privilege of the elected custodians of the state, and the latter is, or should be, a neutral instrument employed impartially for the benefit of all taxpayers regardless of their political orientation.  In an authentically democratic nation, civil servants, public sector employees and the institutions they work in should be politically neutral.  In Canada, neither the RCMP, nor a City Hall, nor a public school, nor a public library, nor a publicly subsidized ferry—to cite a few examples—should dare display a political message that promotes a given ideology no matter how many citizens there are who may ascribe to it.  That’s basic Canadian Civics 101.

But in the emerging soft totalitarian society, the Party that controls the state, feels little compunction in using public resources to propagate a partisan line and commandeering  state property for use as a platform for that same purpose.  In this case, they frame their shameless display of rainbow flags and posters as an acknowledgement and celebration of the ‘diversity’ that exists in our society. But they celebrate cultural or sexual ‘diversity’  to the utter neglect of the ideological diversity that is as much a reality in the community as anything else.  The Left is keen on the diversity of people, but not on the diversity of ideas.  They are all for “inclusion”, but their inclusion is not inclusive of ideas and views they detest.

 They assume that all taxpayers are on the same page. They pretend that Christians and social conservatives do not exist, or if they do, are too marginal and too out of sync with the times to warrant consideration. In their eyes, conservative thought or expression is an atavism that needs to be suppressed, silenced and ignored, until its aged proponents  pass into the dustbin of history. The implication is clear.  Bigots pay taxes, but they do not deserve representation—or an audience for that matter. Consequently, our entreaties and LTEs are ignored.

 Soon, it seems, the rainbow flag will be a permanent feature of every flag pole every day of every week in the calendar. The most worrisome part of this story is, as a few speakers pointed out, the active dissidents are predominantly male, white and over 60, and the pastors are too timid and ostrich-like to lead them or rally younger parishioners to the cause.  They choose to ignore the fact that if the bullies continue to have their way,  ten years hence their churches may be on life support. If that.  The window is rapidly closing and having feasted on blood,  the sharks are circling ever closer. We need the younger generation to step up and pick up the torch. That was the consensus.

Tim Murray

I Have a Right to Hear ‘Hate’ Speech

I Have a Right to Hear ‘Hate’ Speech

Wouldn’t it be nice if the police spent their time policing what people do rather than policing what they say?

Don’t get me wrong. I hate ISIS. And I think anyone—especially a Canadian-born guy—who converts to Islam and Islamism, is an idiot. BUT. The arrest of Aaron Driver for merely twitting support for ISIS is both ridiculous and outrageous. As I understand it, the police have prohibited him from twitting or owning a computer (!!!!!!) Shouldn’t this ring alarm bells for us? What if the government one day designates the Swedish Democrats, or UKIP, or PEGIDA as ‘hate’ groups, and passes a law that stipulates that anyone in Canada who declares support for such organizations be apprehended, held for two weeks, electronically monitored and deprived of communicating over the Internet? I don’t think that scenario is far-fetched. In fact, I see it coming just over the horizon.

If we truly support freedom of expression in this country, we must support freedom of expression for those whose ideas we abhor. Freedom of speech means nothing if it is only to apply to ideas which we approve of. Authorities have the right and the obligation to monitor those who they believe are capable of committing terrorist acts, but I don’t believe they have a right to intercede simply because someone declares his support for terrorists and ‘enemies of the state’.

There is much talk today about youth being “radicalized” by what they read on the Internet. But oddly, little mention is made of youth being radicalized in the ‘One Party’ classrooms of Indoctrination University, where they fed a diet of cultural relativism and anti-Western Leftist propaganda. And there is an abundance of websites that echo that dogma too. Some of them even heap praise upon murderers like Che Guevera. If you are a ruthless killer in the service of “anti-colonialism” you are on the side of the angels.

Can disturbed and alienated individuals be “inspired” to commit acts of violence by what they read? Of course they can. Two of them were “inspired” by reading Catcher in the Rye. Two of them were “inspired” by the Turner Diaries.  Many,  like Charles Manson,  were “inspired” by rock lyrics. At least a hundred thousand Muslims are “inspired” by the Koran to do unspeakable things. Dylan Roof was apparently “inspired” by what he read on some ‘White Nationalist” websites.  Some people could even be “inspired” by what they read in the Yellow Pages or on a milk carton.

Every book or speech or website has the potential to inspire angry individuals on the edge to do anything.  Does that mean that government should be empowered to ban everything? How far along that road are we going to go? If some speech is to be banned and others not, what objective criteria can be found to determine what is over the line? Who gets to determine what is unacceptable? For ‘Progressives’ the answer is clear: Progressives. The possibility that one day the tables could be turned on them is beyond their comprehension.

I am not prepared to grant any government or any agency of the government the right to decide what is hateful and what is not. If the state  has the power to do that, then I am as vulnerable as is any fellow traveller of any cause the government deems unacceptable or dangerous. If this sounds like I am an ‘absolutist’ on this issue, I am not. Obviously there is a difference between voicing support for the actions of violent people, and inciting people to commit violent acts. Even the First Amendment makes allowance for some restrictions on speech. But that is not an open door for the kind of censorship, harassment, intimidation, punishment and persecution we are seeing now, particularly on the Canadian side of the border—and in many European states as well—Sweden and the UK being the best examples. Aaron Driver is not a terrorist or intent on becoming one. He is just a fool. And fools have a constitutional right to be fools.

But this is really not about Aaron Driver’s rights. It is about mine. I have a right to read ‘hate’ literature. I have a right to hear ‘hate’ speech. I have that right because any citizen in an authentic democracy has a right to make up his own mind about whether a given speech is meritorious or nonsensical. If citizens are not to be entrusted with that right, if their judgment is not to be trusted, then why are they given the right to vote? Why bother with elections? Why have a democracy? And why fund universities and college campuses who presently strangle the free exchange of ideas with Orwellian speech codes?

And by the way, the emotional state of a speaker is irrelevant. I don’t care whether a speaker is motivated by hate, love, infatuation envy, greed or any of the deadly sins. I don’t care if he or she is a nasty ‘bigot’ of bad character or Mother Theresa.  What matters to me is the content of his speech and its veracity. It’s God’s job to judge character. My job is to judge ideas.

I  heard what Mr. Driver’s has had to say about ISIL, as did millions of other TV viewers. I don’t think that any government agency or police force should be authorized to prevent other Canadians from hearing it too. It is as simple as that.

Read this extract from CBC News Manitoba:

Jeff Gindin, who has been a defence lawyer for more than four decades, calls the case unusual. He says it is contrary to all basic principles of criminal law. “So far there’s no real law that I’m aware of that when you think someone might commit an offence that you would then have the right to arrest them prior to that,” said Gindin, who is not representing Driver, but is following the case out of interest.

Using social media for evidence is becoming more common, he said.

“Normally, you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt to charge someone with an offence. Here you have to have some reason to suspect that they may be contributing in some way to terrorist activity,” Gindin said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-isis-supporter-aaron-driver-to-stay-in-custody-for-2-more-weeks-1.3105716

Take note of what I have underlined. Be careful about what you say on social media. You are not living in a free country anymore.

PS According to CBC News, Driver grew up in London, Ontario. That doesn’t surprise me. London seems to be the epicentre of far-left lunacy. And the University of Western Ontario  must have a lot to do with that. The NDP MP for London-Fanshawe, boomer bimbo Irene Mathyssen, went through the UWO conveyor belt and as could have been predicted, emerged as a mindless moron.  I recall a friend of mine locking horns with her some 7 years ago, and her pathetic pathological altruism was evident. When she was reminded that Canada has the highest per capita immigration intake in the world, her biggest beef was that the government was not processing immigrant applications fast enough!

However, even a brainless bimbo has the right to utter nonsense. But the likes of Mathyssen  and her political collaborators have no right to deny people who do not share her perspective the right to publically contest it on a level playing field. She and people of her ilk have no right to impose a trendy ‘progressive’ version of sharia-like speech constraints on the infidels of the ‘far right’.  She is as much or more an enemy of democracy as Aaron Driver.

Tim Murray

June 26, 2015

— “Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose… Do what you will, but speak out always. Beshunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don’t be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time” John Jay Chapman – 1900 “Candour before tact, honesty before diplomacy.” Tim Murray – 2006