The Decline of Canada

All around us are the signs of a nation failing. Ever increasing lines for health services. Along with increasing use of doctor provided euthanasia to effectively reduce the stress on the healthcare system. Our governments continually outspend their revenues, by substantially growing margins and we cheer them on to more.

We accept rhetoric and promise as true policy rewarding the lack of achievement with greater political power. Instead of policies that grow our wealth we grow our population with people who will take advantage of us. We are told that eternal forces are influencing our elections and then align ourselves with those same nations.

We are teaching our children that effort no longer matters. It is difficult to show your child the benefits of hard work when all the jobs a high schooler would normally apply for are taken by the waves of new immigrants. That we do not really know what to do with you so go to university for next to no cost and get a degree of no import to enter the job market at some point truly unskilled to manage. Oh and then find yourself some 400 sq/ft rental for an exhorbinent cost instead of living in your parents basement.

Heaven forbid your child finds a partner and then wants to build a life with their own home. The government creates a plan so they can purchase a home by raiding their pensions then watch as home prices dramatically decline and investment income skyrockets. Except these couples now in their thirties will not catch the wave of rising investments. That money is lost in their houses.

All of this is frightening for certain. And this list could be grown exponentially without much difficulty. But an article in this mornings Globe and Mail titled ‘What to do when you’re living next door to a fascist state,’ chills me to the bone.

The author is a department chair at the University of Toronto. Certainly someone who should know better than to start a discussion with a bald assertion. None the less the article begins with the statement that the United States is now a fascist state. As if his vaunted status as an academian makes this a statement of fact with no supporting evidence. Not even an effort to define what a fascist state is. Just the idea that I am an intellectual god and this is my pronouncement, no argument necessary or allowed.

So this is bad enough, yet it gets worse. This manifestation of intelligentsia derides those of us who dare challenge this calling us naive. That only he can see what is really going on here. We the simple, are just the uniformed masses awaiting in awe for his wisdom. One could think this enough of an affront yet there is more.

The ‘National Newspaper’ the Globe and Mail published this article with the authors credentials prior to his pronouncements. As if to say, here you simmering simpleton of a reader, you no longer have to think, here is a brilliant head of a department at a prestigious university, who has writes plenty on a subject so of course we will publish this and you will take the information as fact. We will not question nor will you. This just is.

At least this is posted under the banner of opinion. I guess that makes it alright. Except there is no countering opinion. No balancing article to allow the reader to decide which arguments are more reasonable. Which position aligns with their observed status of the world. The article tells us that his knowledge is particularly focussed on how fascists rewrite history to control the future. Its true, he wrote a book on it.

This is the most intellectually ingenue article I think I have ever read. Surpassing the nonsense that Heather Cox Richardson passes off as scholarly interpretation of current political events because, you know, she is real smart, she is a history professor.

What the actual fuck.

Our academic ‘leaders’ are being published disseminating unsupported opinion as rigorous intellectual discussion. Our newspapers are foisting this on the unsuspecting masses who will buy into it because it is in the Globe and the author, well look at his credentials, oh bot this must be true. This article goes even further than suggesting that the executive branch of the US has befallen to fascism, yep, they were voted there by an eye opened populace that knows what they were voting for. That the majority of the US population is now fascist.

At the risk of having folks question my scholastic ability to write, what the actual fuck, again. Here is what is purported to be Canada’s national newspaper publishing an article without critique saying the people of the United States, are fascists. They will give themselves cover by saying that this is only an opinion piece. That these opinions do not reflect those of the editorial board or the newspaper. A convenient cover.

To tie this back to the subject, where is the outrage or at least any form of discussion? I am going to post this Globe piece with a question regarding observed issues with it. I am of the opinion observation there will be little to no concern. It will be accepted as fact by most. And here is where the decline exists. Gone it seems is our ability to think critically. We now read or hear things from trusted sources and simply accept. This will only hasten the decline as we seem to no longer be able to question what is being told to us as fact.

Maybe this has always been the case. But in the age prior to social media I think a reasonable level of scepticism still existed. That it has gone is our national challenge.