Having been born and raised in Canada, I understood several important things about the blessing that was mine. Growing up in a western democratic country, an oft repeated phrase… especially when differences were noted… was, “It’s a free country.” Indeed it was. I was aware that those precious freedoms came at a great price, and that they should never be taken for granted. It was also stressed that those freedoms must be protected, and would sometimes have to be defended, but in all cases we must, “Stand on guard for thee.”
Also, I was very aware that actions have consequences and further, we were not doing anyone any favours should we attempt to protect or shield individuals from those consequences. Mercy might however, sometimes mitigate the outcome. More on this as this essay unfolds.
Over the years, it has made me very sad to see the attacks against, and gradual demise of, those very things that made my country great. Slowly at first, and then with ever increasing speed the attacks have been relentless. Looking at our friends to the south… the USA is also undergoing those very same attacks and with some very similar results. There is also varying amounts of decay and decline as one looks towards other western countries. Some parts of Europe, in my opinion, are already largely a “basket case.” Is this all by accident or by design?
One of the strongest arguments for the promotion of western societal values has been the success of those nations that function as (truly) free and democratic societies. Our Judeo-Christian values, freedoms, AND civic responsibilities, coupled with strong national identities and interests has led to the successes enjoyed by such countries. Those, whose goal is to destroy and supplant successful western democratic nations, would first have to engineer their failure by destroying all that had made them successful and desirable. Succeed in doing that, and you just might then get enough support to implement a globalist agenda of some sort. Of course if such an agenda were going to succeed, it could not appear to be an attack… it would have to be made to appear as something desirable, humanitarian… progressive even. Sounds paranoid, you say? Well, let’s just stop and consider a few things.
Here in (no particular order) are just a few areas which have been under a sustained and growing attack:
1. Borders - Recent events all point at the push to eliminate sovereign borders. This would include the huge influx of illegal immigrants overrunning national boundaries, the rise in “sanctuary” cities, states or territories, and the active resistance (sponsored by the political left) toward border enforcement. This is most evident when we see a number of left-wing organizations funding, and actively subverting existing laws, while pushing toward so called, “open societies.” Sadly, while borders still can be found on maps, in a number of cases they have become incredibly weak.
2. National Identity – Along with attempts to eliminate national borders, there has also been a determined effort to deny, destroy or eradicate the history, cultural norms and symbols that are all part of a national and cultural identity. Indeed, the disastrous policies of official-multiculturalism have wreaked havoc on the cultural identities of a number of western countries. Such policy (always a darling of the “progressive” elites) is finally facing much deserved push-back and rejection… one can only hope the damage is not yet irreversible.
Indeed, following the 2015 election in Canada, Justin Trudeau proudly proclaimed Canada to be the world’s first “post-national country.” He then added, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” It seemed that the damaging Trudeau-regime ideals, begun by his father decades earlier, had finally been realized.
In an article titled, “For Canada Day : Repeal of 1952 Immigration Act, Multiculturalism, and End of European Canada,” Ricardo Duchesne, Professor of Sociology, UNB and author of “The Uniqueness of Western Civilization,” writes (in part) the following:
“Today, the mainstream media and the academic world take great pleasure in labelling our immigration policy prior to 1967 as “racist and exclusionary”. But this is a cultural Marxist assessment of Canadian perceptions, their culture and ethnicity. Canadians then were part of a Western world committed and strongly attached to the idea that every individual citizen of Canada should be treated equally under the law without discrimination based on race, national origin, or religion. They were not racist, but merely ethnocentric, that is, a people with a natural and normal preference for their own ethnic traditions. Ethnic groups throughout the world exhibit a preference for their own culture and a disposition to judge other cultures by the standards of their own religion and customs. But today in the Western world, ethnocentrism is looked down upon as an attitude that contravenes the “universal brotherhood of humanity” to be manifested in Western multiethnic and multicultural societies. As diverse ethnic groups come into contact with one another, inside Western countries, our liberal elites bow to the importance of “understanding” other cultures and overcoming one’s ethnic prejudices. Europeans still exhibiting strong attachments (to their age-old cultures) are said to be bogged down by “irrational fears”…
…How, then, did European Canadians come to accept the idea that it is racist and xenophobic to exhibit preference for one’s own ethnicity and heritage, while believing, at the same time, that every non-European ethnic group has a right to preserve its own culture inside Canada? How did Canadians come to believe that their identity can be proudly captured in answers to such banal Macleans questions as “How many rooms does your house have per person?” There is no space here to address these questions. Suffice it to respond — to those who claim that multiculturalism was in origins and essence a “quintessentially Canadian” idea and policy — that the relentless promotion of diversity and mass immigration, despite some variations, has been a Western-wide phenomenon since the 1960s. The American President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Immigration Act of 1965, which led to a tremendous surge in immigration from Mexico and Asia in the decades that followed. Eight years later the “White Australia Policy” came to an end, resulting in a massive influx of ethnocentric Asians.”
The article concludes with:
“The multiculturalists are the ones who have infused politics with an intolerant ideology in which anyone proud of his European heritage and refusing to join the multiculti choruses is despised as a xenophobic outsider. The irony of creating a “universal humanity” is that it has required the dehumanization of the British people, or any particular European group, wishing to retain its identity. Multiculturalists advocate in-group favoritism for immigrants and cultural Marxists, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, out-group hate for those Canadians who love their European heritage. They have demonized the European founding peoples of Canada as an out-group, an enemy of “humanity”, to be eradicated for the sake of non-European “diversity” and the creation of a new species inside Canada and the West. Their position runs counter to the natural, healthy and rational ethnocentric prejudices of humans. It also runs counter to the actual ethnic diversity of the peoples of the earth. Why would the Japanese, Koreans, and Pakistanis want their countries to look like “diverse” Toronto?
Let us defend European ethnocentrism in the name of human nature and the true diversity of the peoples of the planet.”
Quoting from a National Post article titled, “Trudeau's experiment with multiculturalism has been a failure” author George Jonas writes in part:
“In the 1960s, inspired by the spirit of the times, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his merry band of sorcerer’s apprentices, embarked on what seemed to them a jolly social experiment. It entailed altering this country’s ethno-cultural makeup, along with its institutions and ethos.”
“Canada’s brave new progressive-liberal-socialist mandarins devised on a three-step program to revamp the country culturally and demographically. It involved (a) reducing immigration from “traditional’ (read: West European) sources; (b) increasing it from non-traditional sources, and (c) dismantling Conservative Prime Minister (till 1963) John Diefenbaker’s ideal society of unhyphenated Canadians and replacing it with Trudeaucratic Liberalism’s ideal of a multicultural Canada.”
In the mean time, those wanting to hold to their traditions, national identity and culture, are being subjected to slander, ridicule and socialist style bullying tactics. Liberalized definitions of words like “racism” are being liberally used to taunt the more conservative amongst us. All the while, the left-wing generated hostility, against those of us they choose to label as xenophobic, continue to be encouraged.
3. History - “In war, truth is the first casualty.” ― Aeschylus
Whether or not you believe or like it, our society is embroiled in a culture war. The stakes are high. If you’ve read the article thus far, you are aware of what I’m referring to. Our past, the successes and struggles of our western societies are being targeted as a part of that war. To remove symbols of the past, to rewrite our history and to recast and demonize the accomplishments of those who have preceded us has been a consistent goal of the Liberal Progressives. They realise that if we can hold on to those successes and celebrate our past, their larger goal of undermining and supplanting our western democracies becomes that much harder (if not impossible) to achieve. If they can succeed in destroying our history – and with it, our roots and identity – they can perhaps move us toward their ultimate goal of a global socialist state.
4. Family – The basic building blocks of any society and indeed one of its greatest strengths is the strength and well-being of the individual family unit. A strong family unit that is teaching and passing on the history and values of society, contributes to the growth and health of that society. Destroy the family unit, and the society of which it is a part, begins to crumble. There is no question that in the west, the basic family unit has been under constant attack.
Divorce has been made far too easy to obtain. People are free to walk away from their “long-term” commitment for no other reason than they no longer wish to be married. This means there is far less motivation to do the hard work required to make marriage work. To this point, I am not questioning divorce for cause (such as abuse or adultery etc) but specifically the “no-fault,”divorce… just walk away from your spouse ‘cause you fell out of love… that has become so prevalent.
Subsequent to the significant weakening of the marriage contract, we’ve seen a sustained push for redefining marriage away from the traditional meaning that has served humanity for thousands of years. This, along with attacks on both masculine and feminine role models, plus attacks against human gender and what that means, has left many of the children of today with poor or missing role models, an unstable/uncertain home life, and great confusion about who and what they are. Taking on those missing parts and role models then becomes the perfectly created situation into which the state steps. Until recently, such roles and teachings would have been rightly fulfilled within a stable family unit. Just recently, the former Liberal government in Ontario happily declared their role within the school system as that of “co-parent.” And they have shown a readiness to take on that role aggressively as they undermine, and supplant the rightful role of parents.
5. Basic Freedoms - The rights and freedoms we’ve enjoyed for so long are being whittled away at an increasing rate as they come under an almost daily attack. Special attention is paid to eliminating the individual right to express ourselves, our opinions and to speak freely. As well, our right to defend ourselves and our basic god-given rights to guard our person and property against all others (including our own government if necessary) is under constant threat and challenge by the political left.
6. Economy – Any country can be brought to the point of collapse if the economy can be made to fail. The chaos that results from a failing economy lends itself to the imposition of autocratic forceful control and the crackdown on individual freedom; all in the name of restoring order. Western economies have been placed under tremendous pressures; many of them self-imposed. We’ve seen decades of liberal policies building larger and larger debt loads, rising taxes, and failing promises. All this is done as a kind of left-wing ideal where the state ultimately is set to become the one who will take care of us all in a kind of cradle to grave utopia. This, of course, has led to social programs and entitlements that consume more and more of the country’s ability to pay. Add to this, the ever increasing mound of bureaucratic red-tape and government oversight; couple that with government literally giving away money it does not have and you have the basis of choking out any chance of recovery.
As if these pressures are not already enough to destabilize any economy, add to this attack on the economy, the already mentioned open borders and the accompanying mass of illegal immigration. When you do, couple all that with a motivated and financed effort to overwhelm the country’s social and legal systems (all financed by left-wing special-interest groups) and the destruction is near complete. Now to complete the destruction, throw in an unproven unscientific carbon reduction protocol, couple it with a global wealth redistribution plan, and the failure seems guaranteed.
7. Churches – Many of the principles contributing to the successes of western democracies have their roots in their Judaeo-Christian foundation. Much of what has made these cultures desirable and attractive also have the same Judaeo-Christian beginnings. The peaceful coexistence of church and state has seen nations free and prosperous. Today, those same Judaeo-Christian principles and ideals, once seen as a part of the churches role, are being attacked and restricted as the state seeks first to regulate and then to assume control.
8. Schools – I’ve already mentioned schools, as the education system seeks to take on a co-parenting role in the raising of our children. I think it needs to be stressed that academics, which was once upon a time determined by social contract and understanding, was the schools primary role. It seems this is no longer the case. Schools were known as the places where children went to learn the so-called “3 R’s” and they were never intended to parent children. Learning right from wrong, ethics and morality, how to become a responsible person and a good citizen, cultural celebrations and norms… were among all the issues that were the responsibility of parents in a stable and loving family.
Of course now schools, at the granting of the progressive state, have taken over many of those roles. Parents often have no idea what their children are being taught. Sadly, little of it seems to be of an academic value (as witnessed by abysmal math, reading and writing skills). In some cases the parents are being told they do not even have the right to know exactly what their child is being taught…particularly when it comes to state-decided morality issues. With early and long-term indoctrination, the state has the ability to train up a generation of people who will carry forth the global-socialist ideals that the left seems so determined to realize.
I’ve presented just eight short examples of why I think there is a larger agenda driving the chaos and discord we see in our society today. I recognize that each could be debated at a much greater length and what I presented is just the barest of summaries for each point. It is my desire that in presenting these points of view, thought and possibly further discussion will be stimulated. As they used to say on a very popular television show, “The truth is out there.”
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