By Thomas L. Knapp
The global establishment press has spilled metric tons of ink trying to paint Canada’s “freedom convoy” as a gaggle of racist pinheads holding up progress for the heck of it.
In reality, it looks like most of that protest’s participants and supporters are ordinary Canadians who have finally reached their breaking point with vaccine mandates and other attempts to condition their livelihoods on asking “how high?” every time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says “jump.”
The phenomenon seems to be catching.
As I write this, state governments across the US are racing to roll back the authoritarian restrictions they’ve spent the last two years imposing in the name of COVID-19.
Why? Because they want to do the right thing without being forced to admit they did the wrong things.
They’re scared witless at the prospect of having to back down when a bunch of truckers and supporters clog the same highways and streets the political class emptied by edict in 2020 and have since assumed “emergency” powers over.
Last week the US Department of Homeland Security warned that an American “copycat” protest might develop in time to inconvenience Super Bowl crowds in Los Angeles before motoring across the country to steal the spotlight (such as it will likely be) from President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union Address. Cue panic and retreat.
Abroad, the French and Belgian regimes are breaking out batons and tear gas in the forlorn hope of brazening it out versus “copycat” serf rebellions, as Queen Jacinta of New Zealand whines about “foreign” influence on a similar uprising against her iron rule.
Trudeau continues to channel Romania’s late Nicolae Ceausescu, invoking wartime “emergency powers” to preserve his de facto dictatorship — hopefully with less lethal results for both him and his fed up victims.
COVID-19 police statism looks like it’s on the defense in some places, in full retreat in others, and on the verge of total collapse everywhere.
Why? Because some truckers in Canada finally said “no more” and resolved to make it stick.
No single Boris Yeltsin or anonymous Chinese protester provides an iconic figure atop, or in front of, a tank. That’s probably for the best. It’s too easy these days to discredit a good cause by trawling through some supposedly “representative” individual’s old tweets.
In retrospect, the “freedom convoy” participants will be collectively due the thanks of several grateful nations. Honk if you love freedom.
Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
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