The global establishment press has spilled metric tons of ink trying to paint Canada’s “freedom convoy” as a gaggle of racist pinheads holding up progress for the heck of it.

In reality, it looks like most of that protest’s participants and supporters are ordinary Canadians who have finally reached their breaking point with vaccine mandates and other attempts to condition their livelihoods on asking “how high?” every time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says “jump.”

The phenomenon seems to be catching.

As I write this, state governments across the US are racing to roll back the authoritarian restrictions they’ve spent the last two years imposing in the name of COVID-19.

Why? Because they want to do the right thing without being forced to admit they did the wrong things.

They’re scared witless at the prospect of having to back down when a bunch of truckers and supporters clog the same highways and streets the political class emptied by edict in 2020 and have since assumed “emergency” powers over.

Last week the US Department of Homeland Security warned that an American “copycat” protest might develop in time to inconvenience Super Bowl crowds in Los Angeles before motoring across the country to steal the spotlight (such as it will likely be) from President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union Address. Cue panic and retreat.

Abroad, the French and Belgian regimes are breaking out batons and tear gas in the forlorn hope of brazening it out versus  “copycat” serf rebellions, as Queen Jacinta of New Zealand whines about “foreign” influence on a similar uprising against her iron rule.

Trudeau continues to channel Romania’s late Nicolae Ceausescu, invoking wartime “emergency powers” to preserve his de facto dictatorship — hopefully with less lethal results for both him and his  fed up victims.

COVID-19 police statism looks like it’s on the defense in some places, in full retreat in others, and on the verge of total collapse everywhere.

Why? Because some truckers in Canada finally said “no more” and resolved to make it stick.

No single Boris Yeltsin or anonymous Chinese protester provides an iconic figure atop, or in front of, a tank. That’s probably for the best. It’s too easy these days to discredit a good cause by trawling through some supposedly “representative” individual’s old tweets.

In retrospect, the “freedom convoy” participants will be collectively due the thanks of several grateful nations. Honk if you love freedom.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

On February 10, the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee advanced the EARN IT (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) Act, setting it up for possible adoption as a free-standing bill or, more likely, as a last-minute sneak amendment to one of Congress’s periodic so-called “must pass” legislative packages.

An earlier version of EARN IT fortunately failed to pass in 2020 after civil liberties groups brought heavy public pressure to bear against it.  It’s time go break out the torches and pitchforks again.

EARN IT is a one-two punch against freedom and privacy that would effectively destroy the Internet we’ve come to know and love (and, yes, hate) over the last 30 years.

This pernicious and unconstitutional bill would both mandate Internet censorship by platforms on behalf of government  and de facto illegalize “end to end” encryption, while pretending to do neither.

First, EARN IT would mandate Internet censorship by removing “Section 230” liability protections for platforms, with respect to content generated by those platforms’ users, not the platforms themselves, if the content involved is “Child Sex Abuse Material.” This would effectively require platforms to scan all user-generated content in advance to protect themselves.

Second, while EARN IT does not specifically outlaw “end to end” encryption, the bill’s lead sponsor, US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) has made it clear that inability to scan content because it’s encrypted is not a “get-out-of-jail-free card” with respect to liability. In other words, don’t allow content you can’t scan, because you’re potentially liable for it whether you can scan it or not.

What could possibly go wrong?

What’s the over-under on how long it would take for Congress to decide that other content types — for example, “extremist” content, defined as any political content they dislike — should be scanned for and banned as well?

EARN IT’s supporters present it as a useful and necessary tool to combat child sexual abuse.  It’s no such thing.

Child sex predators don’t need large Internet platforms or “end to end encrypted” apps. They already have their own Dark Web hangouts and off-the-shelf encryption software. EARN IT would have little if any effect on them. They’re not its target. You are.

The politicians behind EARN IT hate your privacy and your freedom to speak as you please.  They’re  using child sex victims as cheap props to justify, and expand, their power to run your life.

What should we do with EARN IT?  BURN IT.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Every ten years, based on the results of the decennial US census,  state legislatures redraw their US House districts. Some states gain seats, some lose seats, still others go through internal population shifts that require reorganization.

On February 7, the US Supreme Court “froze” a lower court ruling invalidating Alabama’s new district map, allowing its use while it hears  a suit over the map’s details.

The plaintiffs’ argument, as reported by CNN, is that the new map “dilutes” the power of black voters because it includes only one, rather than two, districts where black voters comprise a majority and therefore “have the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.”

Alabama’s majority-white, majority-Republican legislators seem to assume that black voters will only support black — and probably Democratic — candidates. They’re trying to shove as many black voters as possible into one overwhelmingly black /Democratic district and scatter the rest across majority white/Republican districts.

The plaintiffs seem to assume not only that black voters WILL act according to that same formula, but that they SHOULD do so, and that the lines should be redrawn to create two black/Democratic districts.

Both sets of assumptions are openly and shamefully racist. They’re based on the idea that the only thing that matters — the only thing that can POSSIBLY matter — when it comes to voting, party affiliation, and political representation is skin color.

If voters want to vote based on race, they will do so whether I like it or not. But gerrymandering congressional districts specifically to give weight and power to that practice and produce outcomes based on it, is classic Jim Crow “separate but equal” segregationism.

If we’re going to continue tolerating political government (someday we’ll undo that poor decision, I hope) and aspire to a “representative democracy,” districting for that representation should take no more account of skin tone than it does of sex/gender, profession, hobbies, or tastes in music.

One way to desegregate congressional districting might be to eliminate districts altogether and just elect all US Representatives “at large” state-wide.

Another might be to use an algorithm that starts at one corner of a state and works toward the opposite corner, drawing  rational, contiguous districts of equal population as it goes, and taking no account of racial or other demographic elements.

There might be other solutions, but gerrymandering to create “whites only” / “blacks only” voting booths in ANY proportion isn’t one of them.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY