Distractions and Desecrations
A case study in news media biases with respect to the Canada Freedom Convoy.
If you're not privy to Canadian politics, you should know that an ongoing protest against the government COVID mandates has recently sparked up here, culminating in the longest convoy in recorded history. Previously, the record was held by one in Egypt, at ~7.5 km (4.6 miles). Rough estimates for the Freedom Convoy put it at almost ten times that number, or ~70 km (43 miles). Certain pundits are disputing its validity as record-breaking—fact-checking its Guinness status, for example—but when the disparity is a full order of magnitude, such scrutiny over details reads more as partisan sophistry rather than an earnest attempt at settling the score. That's an ongoing theme, however, and the subject of this article.
Though the news cycle has an amnesiac tendency, try to think back about nineteen months, when protests were taking place over the death of George Floyd.
Here's a quick reminder:
Maybe it's coming back to you. Either way, as with my previous article, let's use this as a case study. In a good faith attempt to keep my argument fair, I'm going to compare two articles written by the same person. This is only a small slice of the overall coverage on either event, but I hope that it will still be illuminating. Emphasis going forward is my own.
Hannah's article begins by quickly introducing the reader to the concept of infiltrators and outside agitators; Approximate synonyms of agent provocateur, should you encounter that terminology in the coming weeks. The eponymous "experts" also remind us that it isn't clear who is responsible, and argue that the conversations themselves are inappropriate, because they "distract" from the issues being protested. This latter sentiment echoes the article's headline, which is all that many will have read.
In fairness, the first point isn't unwarranted. When enough people congregate in one place, it is extremely difficult to tell exactly who was responsible for what, and various state governments do have a long history of actively sabotaging their detractors. An important factor to keep in mind, as we continue.
What's telling in this case, however, is that every mention of violence during the wake of the George Floyd protests—sufficiently prolific that it was impossible for the news media to ignore, had they any intent to—is immediately followed by a subsequent reminder that no one knows precisely who did what. Credentialed figureheads continue to tell us about how confusing it is to assign culpability, before later dissuading readers from even attempting to sort through the tangles.
Mention of Antifa, much less BLM, is explicitly contradicted by cited experts.
But then we get to this:
What happened to conversations about culpability distracting from the underlying issues? What happened to there not being enough information? Casual hypothesizing like this carries the right amount of plausible deniability when viewed in isolation—maybe some of the violence was caused by fascist infiltrators looking to spark a race war—but it's a different story when viewed holistically.
The typical labeling of fascist groups as "far right" is also frustrating, given the widespread propensity to equivocate them with libertarian and capitalist groups. It implies that communism is somehow the opposite of fascism, despite the two ideologies being so fundamentally similar. Two tyrants vying for power over the other does not prove that they carry opposite philosophies; They're both still tyrants.
Even when one of them goes by a misnomer like Friendly Puppy Brigade.
The juxtaposition here implies the highlighted statement is an affirmative answer to the preceding question. It is perhaps worth clearly noting, then: It is not.
Whether people are from out of state does not determine their underlying ideals. Contrary to nationalistic sentiment, worldviews don't magically conform to state-drawn boundaries. People from outside of Minnesota may be proponents of Antifa or BLM, just as people from inside may be fascist infiltrators or "apolitical" thieves.
Again, I implore the reader to look at this rhetoric in its totality, rather than as isolated statements. When protest-adjacent violence is mentioned, we're reminded about the lack of reliable information. Conversely, when outside agitators are mentioned, native population counts are cited. This is curated messaging. There is a subtext here, and it should be painfully obvious to anyone paying attention.
The article concludes thus: Determining whether the violence was perpetrated by the protesters or not—also note the consistent absence of this wording—is a distraction from their demands.
Regardless of whether or not you share this belief, that holding people accountable for theft and arson somehow "dilutes the conversation," keep these sentiments in mind as we move on to a more recent article:
I wonder if this, too, is a distraction. Any wagers?
The difference in tone is apparent before we even reach the first paragraph. There is absolutely no mention of infiltrators or outside agitators in the entire article, much less the opening lines. Instead, Hannah tells us about how Ottawa police are on the hunt in several criminal investigations, responding to threatening, illegal, and intimidating behavior.
Consider briefly that the words outrage, threat, criminal, intimidate, and illegal are all wholly absent from the preceding article about the George Floyd protests, while they're presented densely here—in addition to remarks about how monuments were defaced and desecrated during the protests. We'll get to that, though.
Additionally, take note of how many of these terms refer to how people allegedly feel, rather than clearly specified actions like looting or arson. One need not do anything in particular to be regarded as intimidating or threatening, especially to sympathizers of the regime or the policies under contention. Then there's the fact that law does not itself determine ethical conduct; So whether someone is doing something illegal means less than the nature of the breach itself. Tax-evasion is illegal, but morally sound, after all.
Frightening words, wanting for substance.
Just repeatedly quoting a specific curated section of the facts.
Nothing to see here, folks.
Isn't it fascinating, just how insidious and malign, traffic jams can be made to sound? High-risk situations. De-escalation. Challenges with demonstrators. Perhaps no one was arrested because there were simply no grounds for arrest, rather than it being a counterfactual result of management by state police. An easy consideration to miss, without the adjective "peaceful" consistently tacked on to any mention of the protesters in this instance.
Oh! Thank you, Ottawa police, for keeping us all safe from these threatening, outrageous, high-risk, and intimidating untouchables!
Speaking of untouchables...
Let's acknowledge, and set aside the absurdity in implying that a placard and flag constitute "desecration" or "defacement."
How is it that Jim Watson is able to mystically divine the political affiliations of those responsible for this destructive and irreversible blasphemy? You would think it somewhat difficult to attribute, from a photograph taken after the fact. Perhaps difficult enough to warrant an interjection about such things from an "expert," an "official," or even a previous article on similar subjects.
Of course not. This article isn't about the complexities or propriety of casting blame.
This article is about how the Ottawa police are diligently investigating the threatening criminals who have desecrated the image of our Canadian heroes! So brave. Maybe after they've finished "keeping the peace," they'll discover a unicorn lair, once ridden by the ancestors of the Trudeau family dynasty.
There's a subtle nuance here, but it is beyond the scope of this article. We'll talk about the relevant subtext and word-play in the future.
For now, you either see it, or you don't.
Another demonstration of magical clairvoyance from the bureaucratic class. Speaking frankly, I hold no high esteem for monuments to soldiers and war. Especially considering the fact that those conflicts so commemorated were not domestic, but foreign. There's a pervasive mythology surrounding the Canadian armed forces as simply humble peacekeepers, but the reality—again, beyond the scope of this article—is much more complicated and grim.
Even so, neither memorial was damaged.
The claim is that one was danced on, and the other urinated on. This doesn’t even amount to a symbolic gesture of destruction, as nothing was destroyed. Contrast this to those statues which were torn down in prior years, or the businesses vandalized, robbed, and burned. They're simply indignant about benign expressions of defiance, whether from earnest protesters or potential agent provocateurs.
They're upset because some people don't respect their cherished symbols and regalia, after they've tyrannized us in excess. For years. Centuries, if you count the status quo tyrannies which yet remain—as you should.
Here, at the end of our case study, it is imperative that I remind the reader: This is not an apples to apples comparison of events. What I'm outlining here is not even hypocrisy; It's so much worse. We are comparing peeing on a slab of "state-owned" concrete, with the burglary and arson of peaceful people's homes. Put this way, it should be painfully obvious which of these constitutes the more egregious offense.
You might forget that, seeing this firsthand response to each.
Take note of the one-sided hand-wringing of our "dear leaders," and the many communist journalists who play vanguard for them. In their mental framework, it is more offensive to loudly refuse an unwanted treatment than to actively oppress those who do so. Don't let their "public outrage" cloud your perception of reality.
Keep on truckin'.
This article is licensed under CC0. Why?
Unlike many of my peers in the libertarian space, I will not ask that you withhold your comments or curtail your speech. To the contrary, I recommend that you give your honest criticisms. While you're at it, write an angry letter to your local politician, ideally demanding that he quit and stop stealing people's stuff. Maybe honk the horn on your truck, when more liberty-minded crowds cheer for it.
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