To the editor,
Sept. 1 should have been a happy day for me!
It’s Labour Day, and even more significant, the birth date of my twin daughters, who turned 41 on that day.
However, watching that gang of protesters besieging the Royal Inland Hospital and other places of healing did much to sour my mood.
Now, I have to pause and reflect for a moments. In the “good old days” I took part in some fairly heavy-duty demonstrations myself: Quebec City, the so-called riot at the Hyatt, the Malaspina blockade in Prince Rupert, to name a few. And I imagine what those on the opposite side, of what I and thousands of others, stood for — Quebec City especially.
One can imagine that we were heaped w3with all manner of epitaphs. It all depended on what side you were on.
With the exception of the Malaspina blockade, I’ve never any doubts about the rightness of our causes. But then what is the causes of those anti-mask, anti-vaccine demonstrators? Freedom of speech.
Well, a good idea, but you shouldn’t yell “fire” in a crowded movie theatre!
And as Noam Chomsky pointed out, everyone is for free speech. Stalin and Hilter were all for free speech, as long as you said what they wanted to hear.
So, “freedom” for what? Besides not getting vaccinated or wearing a mask? The COVID-19 virus could care less about “freedom.” It just wants a nice, warm, unmasked, unvaccinated body to nest in. Those great gatherings in Kamloops, Kelowna and Vancouver were the perfect “spreader events.” COVID couldn’t be happier!
Freedom. How does one define this elusive entity? Is it the freedom to harass health workers, to hold up ambulances and block hospital entrances? To drive at least one nurse to tears?
In many ways, Canadian freedom is beginning to resemble that south of the border. You know, where an ugly gang of protesters invaded the Capitol and people died. It shouldn’t happen here in the land of the maple leaf.
But then, it shouldn’t have in the United States. Something to think about, eh?
Dennis Peacock,
Clearwater, B.C.
newsroom@clearwatertimes.com
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