Stephen Roney's Blog, page 97

Tracking Health Data

 

Internal passport, Nazi Germany, 1939

Some time ago, I noted that, by uncanny coincidence, the Trudeau government is taking just the steps a government would take if it intended to turn Canada into a totalitarian dictatorship. Control of the press. Seizure of guns. Freezing the assets of any opposition. Outlawing peaceful protest. Setting up a controlled opposition—the NDP. Restricting freedom of speech on the Internet: Bill C-11.  Restricting freedom of speech in the public square: the “hate laws.” Establishing a need for identity papers—the vaccination passes and the ArriveCan app. Trying to suppress and bring to heel pre-emptively those segments of the population least dependent on government and hardest for government to control: the transient truckers, the self-sufficient farmers.

The coincidence has now grown even more remarkable. Arrested in their attempt to impose an internal passport by the end of the pandemic emergency—although they tried to rush it into being just before the pandemic ended--the Trudeau government seems to be trying to impose one by other means. 

The Canadian health care system is in crisis; not just because of the pandemic, but because the federal government, years ago, limited their contributions. The premiers have been begging for help.

Now Trudeau has announced a package with $46.2 billion in new spending. However, “To access the enhanced CHT, provinces must first commit to improving how health data is ‘collected, shared, used and reported to Canadians to promote greater transparency on results, and to help manage public health emergencies.’"

That might sound harmless, but does it address a real problem? Do Canadians care about collecting accurate health data; is that the emergency? Or about getting prompt diagnosis, medicines and surgery? Is data collection where the additional money should go first?

Perhaps the provinces have been squandering their funding? If so, that can be as readily addressed by voters at the provincial as at the federal level. And the Canadian Constitution specifies that be handled at the provincial level.

But it does open the door to the federal government collecting and coordinating health data on all Canadians. It can be used as an excuse to reintroduce an internal passport. Keep tabs on you at all times to maintain your health data, sure; just like the vaccine passport. But also then your whereabouts at all times, your expressed political opinions, your bank and financial transactions, and, given present technology, much else.

Given the actions of the Trudeau government, it is urgent that we vote them out at the first chance. And obviously not in favour of the NDP. 

But will we get a chance? They now control the media, and are about to control the Internet, so that opposition parties will have trouble getting their message out. 

Ontario, and some other provinces, have begun to use voting machines. We must be vigilant that the federal government does not sneak them in at the federal level. Voting machines prevent citizen oversight and forensic examination. They are a blank cheque to rig any election.

If and when you hear that voting machines are coming in for federal election, you will know the jig is up.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Pacifism and the War in Ukraine

 

A number of commentators, both left and right, have taken the position that it is wrong for the US, or Canada, to be involved in the fighting in Ukraine.

This position is morally depraved. The worst of it is that it masquerades as a superior morality. It is the devil’s work.

There are snide, self-serving suggestions that Ukraine is corrupt, and its ruling elite has bribed the American leadership into giving support. Hunter Biden doesn’t help.

This is not plausible. They must then also have bribed Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Latvia, Morocco, Denmark, … over fifty countries who have sent material aid. If we are getting into bribery, Russia would be able to outspend Ukraine on that battlefield. And Putin, ex-KGB, would surely have thought of it.

First point: every man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. The people of Ukraine, or Russia, are just as much our brothers as those biologically linked to us. We share the same father. That they are separated from us by distance means nothing; considering that significant would be like supposing, if we close our eyes, the thing is not happening. 

Second point: the rights and wrongs of the situation are clear. Russia invaded Ukraine.

Whenever there is conflict, the default assumption needs to be that it is a fight of right against wrong. Nine times out of ten, there is no “misunderstanding” to be negotiated. Strife breaks out because someone without moral constraints thinks they can take something from someone whom they think is in a weaker position. This is not always so, but must be the default assumption. “A plague on both your houses” works in the case of a vendetta, but is usually moral sophistry. And it amounts to blaming the victim at the moment of his or her victimization. This is weasel morality.

Third point: in the face of evil, we are required to come to the defense of the victim. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.” This is inherent in the essential scenario: conflict occurs when someone stronger tries to take something from someone weaker. If no one intervenes, evil will always triumph.

Fourth point: Refusing to become involved, on the plea of “pacifism,” is simply cowardice. It is not even in one’s own long-term self-interest. If aggression succeeds, more aggression can be expected, and sooner or later you yourself will be the victim. 

And, as C.S. Lewis has explained, courage is the one essential virtue. Without it, none of the other virtues can exist. There is virtue only in something difficult or dangerous to do. In any other case, you are simply acting in immediate self-interest, or on a whim.

There is no moral ambiguity here.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Mindfulness

 

I came across an interesting passage in John Fowles’s book A Separate Peace. Gene, the protagonist, has deliberately but secretly made his best friend fall off a tree branch out of envy, shattering his leg. Now he is dealing with the guilt:

“I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where I was, even who I was.”

This may explain the common misconstrual of the Buddhist practice of “mindfulness” to mean emptying your mind of any thoughts, concentrating only on immediate sense perceptions. 

It is a form of escapism, that might take the place of alcohol or other drugs.

But it is accordingly not a way to confront your problems or to solve them. It is certainly not a way to deepen your spiritual life or improve your mental health.

A pre-raphaelite take on the Greek goddess of memory.

The actual Buddhist term we translate "mindfulness" is related to the word “remembering.” As we might say "keep in mind." It is filling your mind with thoughts. It is carefully examining the past.

We all need to do this. The guilty will resist it mightily, but they need to do it more than anyone.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Black History Month

 

Glooscap celebrates black history month

Friend Xerxes has written in praise of Black History Month, and suggests we should also have an Aboriginal History Month.

As a fan of history, I am not a fan of “black history month.”

Black history, or aboriginal history, has not been neglected in the past. There simply isn’t much of it.

History relies on written documents, as science relies on experimentation. That is why we call the time before the invention of writing “prehistoric.” If we are relying instead on oral traditions or personal recollections, that is folklore. If we are relying on physical artifacts, that is archaeology. Both no doubt interesting fields, but not history. History is traditionally studied in the public schools, and folklore and archaeology are not.

Because African American slaves were preliterate or illiterate, and the First Nations had no writing, they had no history until contact. After contact, what records we have are scanty, and mostly written by Europeans. Their accounts are inevitably superficial.

One might want to argue that folklore or archaeology ought to be taught in the schools, as well as history. Perhaps; but then you cannot argue that the folklore of these two groups has been ignored in comparison to that of other groups. Collections of Indian and African tales, songs and poems, have been popular for generations. You probably grew up, as I did, gentle reader, playing cowboys and Indians, camping in fake teepees, watching Western movies, reading tales of Glooscap or of Br’er Rabbit, listening to rock and roll, rhythm and blues, jazz, soul, blues and gospel.

If we are going to have a “black folklore month,” or “aboriginal folklore month,” this is giving preference to these two groups; and not because their folklore has been previously neglected. It is not “reverse discrimination.” It is just discrimination.

You might want to argue that, folklore aside, blacks and indigenous people deserve special consideration in general, on this and on everything, because their ancestors were poorly treated and underwent suffering. But then what about other groups in Canada or North America whose ancestors were treated as badly or worse, and in many cases more recently: the Jews, the gypsies, the Ukrainians, the Cambodians, the Irish, the Polish, the Chinese, the Armenians, the Koreans, and so forth?

Discrimination now cannot fix discrimination in the past. You cannot go back and change the past. The actual people discriminated against are almost all dead now, as are the people who discriminated against them. All you are doing is creating more discrimination and injustice, which in turn can never be compensated for.

There is value in knowing and understanding the sufferings of our ancestors. We ought to study slavery, the Holocaust, the Great Famine, the Holodomor, the Killing Fields, and the Highland Clearances, such conflicts as there were between European settlers and First Nations, in Canada and elsewhere, and so forth. But not just one or two, and ignore the others.

The reason we study history is to learn the lessons of the past. And this is certainly one. 

Because such events are past, they are, in theory, less influenced by current politics and vested interests. This is why we study history in the schools, and why we should. We thus see human decisions and their results writ large, and learn lessons about human psychology and behaviour. We can avoid the mistakes of our ancestors. Like discrimination. We are not supposed to repeat it.

For this reason, history is all about cause and effect. What were the causes of the First World War? Of the rise of Hitler? What were the effects of the Treaty of Versailles? Of the Danegeld? And so forth. Because if a certain course results in human suffering, we do not want to do it again.

In doing history, we must rely on the written evidence. The same issues of evidence pertain as might in a court trial: hearsay is too easily falsified and cannot be examined. 

This means history is mostly about socially important people; their decisions and the results of their decisions are those for which we have documentation. This may look like bias, but it is necessity.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

From Bad to Verse

 

Thousand-year-old yew tree,  Kelburn Castle, UK.

Recently, at a meeting of a local poetry society, I encountered the ultimate denial.

I innocently read a recent poem of mine that described the winter trees expressing various emotions, in the tradition of pathetic fallacy, and ending

But then, the winter willow

Broken by winds

Kneels as if in pity on the lesser rest of us,

Who do not live as long or stand as strong as trees.

We who do not last the winter.

Once everyone had read their poems, discussion was opened. Someone queried, “What did that last line mean?”

Is it not obvious, gentle reader? Read those last two lines. I think it is so obvious that her question was really a demand that it mean something else. I had stumbled upon the penultimate denial: of the inevitability of death.

Painful as it is to explain a poem, I explained. Winter is death. Trees are reborn in spring. We are not. 

“But trees don’t really die in winter,” another then piped up. “And pine trees don’t die in winter. Coniferous trees don’t die.”

Imagine that; someone at a poetry meeting not understanding metaphor. And only barely a metaphor at that: I might have responded that the only proof that trees do not die in winter is that they are born again the next spring. But we were getting into quibbles about semantics.

Of course she understood the metaphor. The problem was the subject: death, whenever encountered, must be denied to exist. That ought to work.

“Even if you take it literally, trees live longer than humans,” I responded.

“Sometimes,” she said. 

Almost always, if they are not cut down. Perhaps she had never thought of it—it would require, after all, thinking about death. Perhaps, as soon as the subject of death comes up, a hysterical “no” forms in her mind. Perhaps that is what was happening here. I had mentioned the unmentionable.

Another participant, from India, chipped in, “In India we believe in reincarnation; you are born again just like the trees are in spring.”

Someone else eagerly responded, “So it depends on your philosophy.”

No, it does not. You cannot simply wish things to be true. This is denial in its perfect form. 

Of course, reincarnation might be true. Not my business to write a Buddhist or a Hindu poem. Few in Canada would have understood.

But this person had not thought out the consequences of reincarnation either. 

There is nothing scary about death itself, if death is simply the loss of consciousness. Are we afraid to go to sleep? Are we worried about what is happening in Addis Ababa right now that we might not be conscious of?

People fear death because they are aware that the universe inclines toward justice, and the afterlife might bring retribution.

That is the real, ultimate denial: the denial of right and wrong, the denial of guilt.

Reincarnation is not infinitely extended life as you are. It is ruled by karma; your next life exacts punishment for this one. In fact, as I pointed out, in lands where reincarnation is assumed, the desired goal is “nirvana,” “cessation,” like the blowing out of a candle. You wish for final death. Breaking even is your best hope.

And that pretty much ended the conversation. Better to move on to other subjects, I guess. Like violence in the streets. What could cause it?

One of the participants, black, lamented the rising tide of violence in the city. But, she said, she had no solution. What was the solution?

The obvious solution would be more policing. But she had cited the recent murder of Tyre Nichols by police as one example of the violence. And this was fair enough. More policing may not be the solution.

Another participant—she who could not accept the death of trees in winter—immediately pitched in that the problem was mental illness. Yes; mental illness. More money for police, say, was a bad idea. We needed to put more resources into the treating of mental illness.

I chipped in that the new ingredient, causing the rise in violence, seemed to be the rise in drug use. New and more potent drugs had become available. Addicts need to steal to support their habit.

That comment, debatable as it was, was simply ignored. It dropped into the void of denial. She went back to lamenting the problem of mental illness. It had to be mental illness.

I held my tongue;  there was no point arguing with denial. But the problem with blaming violence on mental illness is first, that, statistically, the mentally ill as currently defined are no more likely to be violent or to commit crimes than the general public. This, remarkably, remains true even though we now actually define anyone who does violence or habitually commits crimes as mentally ill. “Antisocial behaviour disorder.” “Oppositional defiant disorder.” And so forth.

In other words, the “real” mentally ill, the depressed, manic, chronically anxious or schizophrenic, are probably far less likely to be violent than the general population. 

By claiming they are the source of all violence, we are scapegoating them. As if they didn’t already have enough problems, with suffering and with stigma.

Why? 

Because by doing so, we are able to deny the existence of human evil. Nobody is ever evil; if they do something evil, they must not know what they are doing. Hence, “insane.”

And we are not insane. So we cannot be guilty of evil, no matter what we do. Any guilty conscience to the contrary.

This is why attributing it to drug use, although it can be done, and the suggestion need not be reacted to violently, is much less acceptable. Despite the current insistence that “addiction is a disease,” drug use still does look somewhat intentional. There is a whiff of guilt about it.

No; better to claim it is the insane.

Speaking now of poetry, and art; for we are at a poetry meeting.

The rising tide of denial is surely why poetry and the arts are moribund in our time. Art and poetry cannot exist without speaking truth. That is their whole purpose.

The rising tide of denial is also the ultimate reason why drug use, and violence, is escalating. Those who deny are those most likely to become violent; and those most likely to resort to drugging themselves. To escape their guilt with attempted unconsciousness.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Canadian Leopard Spotted in Ukraine

 

Apparently Canada has been te first to actually deliver a Leopard tank to Ukraine.

Impressive speed.

Now if only they could do passports.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

As Others See Us

 

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!

Tuli Gabbard is no right-wing voice. She supported Bernie Sanders in 2016. Nor is "Rising" a rigtht-wing outlet.

This is how the rest of the world now sees Canada.

I like to think of us as the "Deep North."

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Chamber of Sober Second Thought

 

Senator Richards illustrates the possible value of an appointed senate, and what it is supposed to be: wiser heads unconnected with electoral politics, able to take the long view. Peter Hitchens is a strong proponent of this view.

The Senate probably saved us from the Emergency Act after a few days. It might save us from C-11.

Perhaps the thing to do is to keep the Senate more or less as it is, but have Senators appointed not by the Prime Minister, but by the members of the Order of Canada. Governors-General and Lieutenant Governors could be similarly selected—as David Johnston was under Stephen Harper. One great advantage of this approach is that it would require no changes to the constitution or even necessarily any legislation.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Yanks Are Coming! Man the Barricades!

 

I don’t think it’s a joke, and I don’t think it’s alarming.

If Canada were taken over by a totalitarian regime, say a Nazi or a Communist regime, I would want America to invade. What is more important, Canadian independence, or the lives and rights of Canadians?

Surely any sane person will say, the lives and rights of Canadians. Anything more is ugly nationalism.

There is no particular reason why Canada and the US are separate countries. It is only an accident of history.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

You Need to Know This

 

Something of a public service announcement.

Also shocking.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.