A belated comment. It really is strange and horrible to see how far and how fast especially the English speaking countries have turned towards the kind of policies that look to Orwell's 1984 as a how-to-guide. In my naïveté, as someone who spent formative years in the US and who have long admired the civilizational contributions of the English, from the Magna Carta and onwards, I must confess to have harboured far more faith in the resilience against authoritarian tendencies of the British and her former imperial progeny (to which I will include the United States) than has shown to be warranted.
Had you asked me back in say, the 90s, I would NOT have had Canada on my Fascist bingo card. Nor New Zealand (whose Covid response was insane) or Australia (ditto) or the many myriad ways in which the British themselves have cheerfully thrown any pretence of respect for individual rights out the window.
For some reason, the toxic identity politics that obscure US academics took from France and polished into weapons grade radioactive civilizational acid, have arguably been the most impressively successful idea based export since Marxism (and by historical standards, its contagion has been much much faster). And for reasons I do not understand, this rot has found amazingly fertile ground in the English speaking countries. Not that the rest of the European continent has proved immune, but at least here there is some residual instinctive opposition to the most insane ideas.
The US as a creedal nation might be suspected to be somewhat susceptible to idea corruption in a way that a traditional cultural and ethnic European nation state would not be, since in the latter case the national ties are emotional to a higher (or deeper) degree and thus in theory somewhat resistant to an ideology whose effective main message is that your country and your culture is evil and should be abolished. (this nonsense can find purchase with a section of highly educated idiots in Western Europe but is unlikely to convince ordinary people in those countries).
But I remain astounded and appalled. And I do not understand why Trudeau is not hounded out of office in disgrace.
A belated comment. It really is strange and horrible to see how far and how fast especially the English speaking countries have turned towards the kind of policies that look to Orwell's 1984 as a how-to-guide. In my naïveté, as someone who spent formative years in the US and who have long admired the civilizational contributions of the English, from the Magna Carta and onwards, I must confess to have harboured far more faith in the resilience against authoritarian tendencies of the British and her former imperial progeny (to which I will include the United States) than has shown to be warranted.
Had you asked me back in say, the 90s, I would NOT have had Canada on my Fascist bingo card. Nor New Zealand (whose Covid response was insane) or Australia (ditto) or the many myriad ways in which the British themselves have cheerfully thrown any pretence of respect for individual rights out the window.
For some reason, the toxic identity politics that obscure US academics took from France and polished into weapons grade radioactive civilizational acid, have arguably been the most impressively successful idea based export since Marxism (and by historical standards, its contagion has been much much faster). And for reasons I do not understand, this rot has found amazingly fertile ground in the English speaking countries. Not that the rest of the European continent has proved immune, but at least here there is some residual instinctive opposition to the most insane ideas.
The US as a creedal nation might be suspected to be somewhat susceptible to idea corruption in a way that a traditional cultural and ethnic European nation state would not be, since in the latter case the national ties are emotional to a higher (or deeper) degree and thus in theory somewhat resistant to an ideology whose effective main message is that your country and your culture is evil and should be abolished. (this nonsense can find purchase with a section of highly educated idiots in Western Europe but is unlikely to convince ordinary people in those countries).
But I remain astounded and appalled. And I do not understand why Trudeau is not hounded out of office in disgrace.