A Tale of Two Cities

In Surrey, British Columbia, the mob rules. Laibar Singh, an admitted criminal hides behind the walls of a temple, confident that the authorities will not bring him – or his lawless defenders – to account. In Calgary, Alberta the state demands that Ezra Levant, a free-born citizen of the West provide them with an account of his thoughts and opinions and threatens to punish him if they deem them to be unacceptable. Two cities, two stories – but one tale. For some it is the best of times but or free men and women they are the worst of times.

The best of times: For race hustlers. For grievance pimps. For politicians dependent upon votes from ethnic blocs. For foreign fascists. For guilty white liberals. For the idle and the useless. For bureaucrats. For meddlers.

The worst of times: For the productive. For the righteous. For the spirited. For those who want this country to survive. For those who want our civilization to prosper.

This is a tale of how we lost our country. My Grandfather fought ’39-’45 to defend freedom and to uphold the rule of law. We – or more accurately those older than myself – have tossed it away. I shouldn’t dodge the blame myself. I’ve talked and voted, debated and donated – but that’s all. If I were half the man my Grandfather was, I’d take a flamethrower to this place.

What happened in Surrey – and what’s happening in Caledonia – is the most grotesque manifestation of how liberalism is a disease of civilization. In the past I have said that liberalism – and by that I mean left-liberalism as it is practiced in the West – is like AIDS. It does not, by itself, attack the body or kill the carrier. Instead, it destroys the ability of the infected person’s body to defend itself against other contagions – both mild and major. Thus do humans with AIDS die from colds. Thus do civilizations with liberalism find themselves dying from minor complaints.

We all know the story of Laibar Singh. He’s a criminal who entered this country illegally, who made an abusive refugee claim, and who was rejected. He was ordered deported from this country. After that happened, he suffered a stroke. Now his supporters make the absurd argument that we ought to let him stay now that he’s going to be an even-greater burden upon taxpayers and honest citizens. When the government rightly rejected this claim and sought to proceed with a removal already delayed for too long, a mob assembled at the airport and stopped the execution of the law. The authorities, rather than uphold the law, meekly accepted the will of the mob. We used to know how to handle such things. The phrase “read the riot act” passed into everyday speech for a reason. But, with other mobs howling over the accidental death of an out-of-control man, the government was hardly ready to use force to defend the law. Any threat of force would, in any case, not be terribly credible. The mob knows this. We don’t have the Indian Army of British India. They knew how to deal with mobs.

So, this man allowed to retreat behind the walls of a Surrey temple. When the authorities made another attempt to deport him, again they were obstructed by a mob – this time one howling about the supposed sanctity of their temple. The government, rather than offend the sensibilities of these people, backed down again – and seems disinclined to act further. Most people think that they’ll find some way of backing down. I agree – there’s not an Indira Gandhi among our leaders. Just like in Caledonia, they will opt for the path of ease rather than that of right. The mob wins – we lose.

When the government kow-tows to mobs, we no longer have a government to call our own. When our government does not defend us – and we fail to defend ourselves – we cease to be a nation and instead become little more than an accumulation of people warily sharing accommodations.

I wish I could say that the mere breakdown of the rule of law was all that we had to deal with.

It is not enough for some that our government has ceased to defend us. Now it is conspiring with petty grievance-mongers across the land to actually attack us.

Watching Ezra Levant’s breathtaking performance before the drone-like human rights bureaucrat, I was reminded of something that the journalist Michael White wrote about Labour’s campaign in the 1983 general election: there was something magnificently brave about it – but it was like the Battle of the Somme. This is a show trial – the result is all but pre-ordained and, even if it isn’t, the process is a punishment in and of itself.

What is his crime? His magazine published the Danish cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed – which were the subject of an international uproar in which Islamists committed many murders and other acts of violence. He is not accused of slander. He is not accused of inciting people to riot. He is not accused of anything more than telling truths which hurt the feelings of some random jackass.

Like Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant is on trial for telling the truth. They are being attacked for defending our civilization. Honest men – men prepared to risk to tell the truth – are the lynchpin of our defense and the disease is coming for them.

Mobs protect criminals from justice while truthful men are threatened for their honesty. That is Canada.

We are besieged. Our most sacred rights are under attack. Enemies wish to deprive us of our liberty – indeed, have already deprived us of many liberties by declaring certain thoughts to be proscribed and declaring arbitrary punishments for them. They attack our very lives by bowing to the rule of the mob, when the mob is made up of the right sort of people. Today the mobs want criminal aliens allowed to stay at my and your expense and want to seize out-of-the-way public lands. What of tomorrow, when they want other crimes excused and when they want other lands? Will we resist then, or will a public long-acclimatized to tyranny meekly accept their fate?

I am reminded of Robert Graves’ book, Claudius the God. In it the Emperor Claudius wishes to restore the ancient freedoms of the Roman people, only to find that a people long-accustomed to the monotony of dull tyranny are incapable of liberty. In keeping with the ambitions of Orwell’s Oceania, our governments and our cultural masters have left most of us unable to resist by depriving us of the ideas necessary for resistance and rebellion.

What is to be done? There are, perhaps, options open to us still. But, frankly, I don’t believe that most of you care enough to listen. Most people – even most so-called conservatives – are content enough to hold onto whatever they can for as long as they can as we slide into the abyss.

I am filled with despair. Whatever tactical victories we might achieve – we are losing the war. Anti-retroviral treatment might extend our lives by many years but the disease is still going to get us in the end unless we find a cure – or unless something else gets us first.