In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an “emergency” order, requiring the internment of all Japanese Americans. In light of everything happening under the cover of “emergencies”, the timing and alignment are ironic, considering that the anniversary of the above blatant violation of everything the US supposedly holds dear was less than 46 hours ago.
“COVID-19 is expected to hit the US around November or December 2019-don’t expect it to go away quickly.” (written in March of 2019-I had personally experienced a sudden drying up of ALL of my overseas jobs around October of 2018-this turned out to be the canary).
It wasn’t until March 2020 that it became a matter of useful political policy. The campaign to keep people at home was also advertised as a two-week campaign, a temporary easing of civil rights to “flatten the curve”. (In less than 2 years we have gone to “flatten the curve” to involuntary detaining non-vaccinated (THAT definition seems to keep changing!) in internment camps. For their own good, of course.
Anyone who’s ever read about governments and their emergency powers knows better than to believe the “two week” promise. In fact, there’s plenty of history that suggests we were in store for much more, and I laid that in the Liberty Loft.
Bailouts, inflation, stripped interest rates, wars, and fungible endless emergency powers – all were on the menu, and the world devoured them all.
According to a notice dated Friday, February 18th, President Biden extended the declaration of a national emergency made in March 2020, stating, “Covid-19 continues to pose a significant risk to public health and safety.”
In dealing with the trucker convoy, Justin Trudeau also used “temporary” emergency powers. This resulted in two things: the first was the freezing of bank accounts without a court order; and the second was the descent of police through the convoy.
A ban on banks providing “any financial or related services” to protesters will freeze accounts, leave money stranded, and cancel credit cards.
Convoy dismantlement ultimately resulted from this. Having no access to resources, they had to retreat. The future of this movement is uncertain. It is being suggested that a lawsuit will be filed. Nevertheless, details are still unknown as many of the leaders have just been released from prison.
What is really interesting is that Canada had already begun blocking the truckers, and threatening to fire them which would have created a shortage of goods transported anyway.
There was no intent to intervene in the protest by the Canadian Armed Forces. Peter Sloly, the police chief, was also forced to resign because he failed to arrest the members of the convoy. It’s never good to send in the military, especially when the protesters asked Justin Trudeau to have a real conversation, and all Trudeau could do was hide, name-call, and eventually attack.
A meme Musk tweeted conflating Justin Trudeau with Hitler drew a lot of criticism. Musk has since removed it. I find it to be a tired trope that generally boils down to: “everyone I don’t like is basically Hitler”. Invoking that name has, for the most part, lost its impact.
Another word that is getting a beat-down is “felony”. A felony is a crime; it implies violent criminality. This now includes someone who has something they shouldn’t have, or has had the nerve to question the government, or even someone who packages lobsters incorrectly.
A few others are “racist”, “sexist”, “Homophobe”, “transphobe”, “privilege’s”… you get the idea.
Labeling everyone that is annoying you as dissenters under an emergency act is certainly not kosher, but I think Trudeau crossed the line into making the trucker convoy a Canadian Waco, in which those of you the Gum’Ment does not approve of is surrounded by the government, and they are about to storm in. Guns blazing, most likely.
)They didn’t bomb them out as they walked up to the line. This is a very uniquely American phenomenon.)
Nevertheless, all government actions were similar: upping the ante when they didn’t get what they wanted, and fabricating legal arguments to justify the overreach. Pay attention; your rights and legal protections are there only so long as Uncle Government allows you to have them.
Ottawa did not use the massive firepower or military of Waco, but they did take retroactive measures against the protesters.
The Ottawa Police Chief,
If you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges. This investigation will go on for months to come.“
The Prime Minister changed the rules and is now charging those who broke the rules before the emergency act was passed with crimes. It would be like passing a law saying plastic bags are illegal, and then arresting everyone who used plastic bags in the past.
(Don’t laugh; this sort of retroactive changing of the laws was a major cause of the Savings and Loan crisis after COBRA passed in ‘86. All of a sudden good loans turned bad, and then the government raised mortal heck over the S&Ls making all of these “unacceptable” loans.)
Approximately $3.2 million CAD has been frozen in 76 accounts so far. Over 100 individuals have been arrested. More have been threatened with arrests and charges, including the owners of Iconic Cafe who fed truckers.
This should feel familiar; Germany would arrest anyone harboring the Jews, and even the good ol’ US was throwing people in jail if they “aided and abetted anyone of Japanese descent” when the concentration (excuse me, internment) camps got fired up.
A ripple effect has already occurred in the Commonwealth as a result of this movement. Protests have taken place in Wellington, New Zealand and Canberra. In Australia they sprouted as well, in solidarity with their distant Commonwealth cousins in Canada.
At what point do we cross over from emergency to normalcy? If nothing else, I think people need to figure that out and stick to it. I saw one post on social media saying: “Emergencies don’t last two years; wars do.”
There’s something deeply troubling about that.
Wars since World War 2 have happened under the guise of emergencies, humanitarian activity, or the obscure “overseas contingency operations”. They aren’t declared wars anymore.
One example was under Truman: he declared a state of emergency which lead to the Korean War. It never was called off… and next thing you know we’re in Vietnam.
States of emergencies are at the whim of the Executive. The powers allowed under those circumstances is decided (“powers” is a singular here) by Congress. In 1973 alone, 470 additional powers were enacted by congress to the President in times of crisis. While the National Emergencies Act was supposed to keep endless emergencies in check, the US still has active emergencies dating back to 1979.
An emergency is sudden, unexpected, and most importantly, temporary.
If one hears the word “emergency”, you think of your car breaking down, your house on fire, your wallet stolen, or that you broke your leg.
Once the immediate problem has been addressed, you can then begin the process of recovering back to where you were before the problem occurred.
What lessons can be drawn from this?
Well, at first glance I can see two: You can expect political “emergencies” to last quite a while. In fact, I doubt seriously that we are EVER going to return back to the way things were.
And here’s the big one: Pay attention to the other policies being quietly implemented under emergency measures.
Because I PROMISE you that a few have slipped under the limbo stick that we are not paying attention to.
