I cannot understand how people I have respected and thought of as friends can possibly take sides with the people now being arrested in Ottawa and pushed out of the residential neighbourhoods they’ve been occupying for the last three weeks.
By now it has to be obvious that this was never about “freedom” so much as the right to do whatever they want with absolutely no regard for anyone else and no consequence. Well I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit. We all have to accept limits on what we do in order to make society function. I’m free to drive a car, as long as I have a valid licence, but I’m not free to blow through red lights without stopping.
It would be easy, albeit time-consuming, to catalogue all the obnoxious things they’ve done and all the ways they’ve made residents’ lives hell,* but … swastikas? You’re making common cause with Nazis? Because that’s what you call people who display swastikas. That’s not an insult, it’s a fact.
There are things about Ottawa that can legitimately be debated, but this isn’t one of them.
*I shouldn’t have to say it, of course, but it’s not just Nazis (as if that’s not bad enough). If you support the #FluTruxKlan, you’re also giving a nod to:
- shaking down soup kitchens and forcibly taking meals intended for homeless people
- dancing, parking, and pissing on the War Memorial and the tomb of the Unknown Soldier
- assaulting people for wearing masks
- harassing local businesses and their staff
- rape threats
- prowling in gangs looking for fights
- blocking off residential streets with huge trucks and blowing their horns 24/7
- building illegal structures in the red zone and using them to store propane, diesel fuel, and gasoline
- trying to set fire to an apartment building
- shitting on the doorstep of a house displaying a Pride flag
- stockpiling weapons and plotting to kill cops
- using kids as human shields
- maintaining a constant flow of homophobia, transphobia, racism, anti-semitism, Islamophobia, white entitlement, and white supremacy, among other noxious topics
- throwing rocks at ambulances and screaming racial slurs at the attendants
- jamming the Ottawa 911 call centre. (“I still can’t figure out in which parallel universe this is a reasonable form of protest. It is more consistent with warfare tactics than protest.” h/t Roger LaCasse)
Seriously, these are the worst people in the world.
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