Tag: Justin Trudeau

bookmark_borderThere is no right to “feel safe”

Posted on by Marissa

“Canadians have the right to feel safe in their homes, in their schools, and in their places of worship. With handgun violence increasing across Canada, it is our duty to take urgent action to remove these daily weapons from our communities. Today, we’re keeping more guns out of our communities, and keeping our kids safe.”

These words by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are despicable and disturbing on many levels.

Most importantly, neither Canadians, nor any people for that matter, have the right to “feel safe” anywhere. Safety is not a right; liberty is. What that means is that people have the right to do anything they want, as long as it does not directly harm anyone else. People have a right not to be harmed; this is what restricts the things that others are allowed to do. People do not, however, have a right to feel safe. This is because the things that some people require in order to feel safe would actually require violation of the rights of others. For example, say that a person, in order to feel safe, requires their environment to be made gun-free and/or restrictions to be imposed on the ownership or possessions of guns by others. Achieving these conditions would require other people to be harmed by having their freedom to own and possess guns taken away. People do not have a right to anything that would violate the rights of others. Therefore, people do not have a right to feel safe.

Trudeau also errs when he claims that he has a “duty to take urgent action.” Actually, because the action taken by Trudeau violates people’s rights, Trudeau does not even have the right to take this action, let alone the duty.

Additionally, Trudeau errs in citing the increase in handgun violence across Canada as a reason for violating people’s rights. The conditions that exist in a particular place, or at a particular time, actually have nothing to do with which policies governments should implement. This is because the sole purpose of government policies should be to specify which rights people have, and to punish people who violate the rights of others. The moral principle that I explained above, which determines the rights that people have, is universal and objective and does not change based on what conditions happen to exist in a particular place or time. Therefore, government policies with regard to guns should have nothing to do with the amount of gun violence that happens to exist in the country. The only policy that any government should have with regard to guns is a policy stating that people have a fundamental right to gun ownership and possession. People’s rights are not dependent on living in a country that happens to have low gun violence rates.

Also, why is Trudeau bragging about “keeping more guns out of our communities”? Why is this considered good? Guns are morally neutral. Having lots of guns in a community is in no way a worse state of affairs than having few guns in a community, so this statement does not make sense.

Plus, why does Trudeau specifically mention “keeping our kids safe”? What does a person’s age have to do with the importance of keeping that person safe? Apparently, the safety of adults does not matter to Trudeau.

Trudeau needs to place less emphasis on “communities” and more emphasis on individuals. He needs to place less value on safety and more value on liberty. Trudeau needs to stop his morally bankrupt and illogical behavior that has inflicted enormous harm and punishment on innocent people. He needs to stop obsessing about “kids” and “safety” and “communities” and start actually respecting people’s fundamental rights.

bookmark_borderThe immorality of the Canadian government

Posted on by Marissa

It shouldn’t even need to be stated that the actions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Canadian government in response to the Freedom Convoy are morally wrong. Trudeau recently requested, and the Canadian Parliament granted him, emergency powers, which give him the ability, among other things, to freeze citizens’ bank accounts and seize their funds.

I am on the email list of the Campaign for Liberty, and they (correctly) wrote in a recent email: “This has shocking implications for free speech. In an instant, Canada went from a nation that honors free speech to a nation where the government can seize citizens’ property, savings, and livelihood for even donating to an effort whose viewpoints fall outside the accepted norm… We are talking about the government taking everything from working-class families – just for supporting free speech. The chilling effect it will have is obvious – and that’s the point.”

The Canadian government’s actions do indeed violate the fundamental right to freedom of speech. For people to be punished with financial destruction for the “crime” of political dissent is despicable. But that is not the worst thing about these actions. The situation becomes even more morally problematic when one considers the fact that the protesters being targeted by these brutal measures are not just any protesters. They are particularly honorable and brave protesters, and their cause is as worthy and morally right as any cause that can be imagined. For these protesters are demonstrating against government policies that force people to undergo medical procedures against their will.

It is entirely correct to condemn the seizing of people’s money for expressing viewpoints that fall outside the accepted norm. But the even bigger problem is the fact that the viewpoints in question fall outside the accepted norm in the first place. In a morally decent society, everyone would be in agreement that the government should not force people to undergo medical procedures. In a morally decent society, the viewpoints of the Freedom Convoy and its supporters would be within the accepted norm, not outside it. In a morally decent society, support for vaccine mandates would be outside the accepted norm, and those who advocate for medical procedures to be forced on their fellow citizens would be the ones facing the possibility of having their bank accounts frozen and assets seized. 

The atrocities happening in Canada are immoral because of their chilling effect on free speech, but they are even more immoral because of the content of the speech that is being suppressed. The members of the Freedom Convoy are standing up for people’s rights to make their own medical decisions. Speech in support of this cause is exactly what the world desperately needs more of, and protests and demonstrations in support of this cause should be unanimously supported. Punishing people for expressing their views is unquestionably wrong, but punishing people for expressing these views is even more wrong. No viewpoint is less deserving of punishment, less deserving of suppression, and less deserving of being chilled, than opposition to vaccine mandates.

The fact that we live in a world where support for forced medical procedures is the accepted norm is beyond disturbing. The actions of Trudeau and the Canadian Parliament are horrific not only because they are an assault on freedom of speech in general, but also because they are an assault specifically on people who are standing up for bodily autonomy and medical freedom.

bookmark_borderJustin Trudeau’s totalitarianism should not be tolerated

Posted on by Marissa

I saw the following quote by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on social media recently and found it extremely disturbing. Below, I will explain why.

First of all, Trudeau claims that people who oppose forcing everyone to get the Covid vaccine “don’t believe in science or progress.” This makes no sense. A person’s stance on vaccine mandates has nothing to do with science; it has to do with morality. Even if the science showed Covid vaccines to be 100% effective and 100% risk-free (which it does not), it wouldn’t be okay to require people to get them, because requiring people to get medical procedures is always wrong. Opposing vaccine mandates does not indicate that a person does not believe in science; it indicates that the person (unlike Trudeau, apparently) believes in moral right and wrong. As for progress, Trudeau might be correct in claiming that vaccine mandate opponents don’t believe in progress. But given the way the world has been trending over the past two years, opposing progress is not a bad thing, but a good thing! The world is moving towards totalitarianism, and further progress down this path should be opposed by all morally decent people.

Second, Trudeau claims that people who oppose forcing everyone to get the Covid vaccine are “very often misogynistic and racist.” This claim is completely unsupported by logic or evidence. The question of whether or not people should be required to get the Covid vaccine has nothing to do with gender or race; therefore people who oppose vaccine mandates are no more likely to be misogynistic or racist than people who support vaccine mandates.

Third, contrary to Trudeau’s claims, neither he nor the Canadian people as a whole gets to make a choice about whether or not to “tolerate these people.” People have a fundamental right to make their own medical decisions; therefore everyone has a moral obligation to tolerate people who make different medical decisions than they do. If by “these people,” Trudeau means not only people who opt against the vaccine, but people who philosophically oppose vaccine mandates, then his statement is even more objectionable. Opposing vaccine mandates is the morally correct stance; therefore everyone is obligated not only to tolerate people with this stance, but to support them and agree with them! For someone with a morally wrong point of view to ask whether or not he should “tolerate” people with the morally right point of view is preposterous.

The real question is whether people should tolerate those who, like Trudeau, believe that it is okay to force people to undergo medical procedures. I suggest that the answer should be no. 

bookmark_borderJustin Trudeau’s totalitarianism

Posted on by Marissa

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently gave a disturbing speech justifying his decision to implement vaccine passport systems. Here’s an excerpt (via Turning Point USA):

“We’re paying for the provincial vaccine passports to make sure that when someone comes into a restaurant, they’ll know they won’t be sitting beside a table of people who are unvaccinated. When you go into a gym, when you go to a movie theater, you need to know that if you’ve done the right things, you get to be safe, you get to be rewarded, for having done the right things. That’s what it’s all about. And those people who still hesitate, who still resist, well, they won’t get to enjoy the same things as those who’ve done their part for others. It seems like a very logical thing. It seems like a very obvious thing.”

It is deeply wrong to treat basic activities such as going to restaurants, movies, and gyms as privileges reserved for people who have done some allegedly virtuous deed to earn them. Trudeau’s reasoning on vaccine passports is wrong for several reasons:

  1. Getting the Covid vaccine does not equal “doing the right thing.” It is morally neutral. Getting the vaccine and not getting the vaccine are both perfectly valid and acceptable choices; both are equally right. People who get the Covid vaccine are no more deserving of being rewarded than people who opt not to get it.
  2. People do not have a moral obligation to “do their part for others;” in fact there is no such thing as “their part for others.” No one is morally obligated to actively contribute to the health of others or to the greater good. The only moral obligation that people have is to refrain from violating other people’s rights. Simply doing nothing, and minding one’s own business, is a perfectly morally acceptable option. 
  3. Because no one is morally obligated to take any actions for the benefit of others, people have a fundamental right to “hesitate” or “resist” getting the vaccine. Those who “hesitate” or “resist” getting the vaccine are not doing anything wrong at all, and Trudeau has no right to speak about them in a critical or disparaging manner. 
  4. No one has a right to know about the vaccine status of the people around them. Trudeau seems to be implying that it’s important for people, when going to a restaurant, to know that the people at nearby tables have gotten the vaccine. But actually, the vaccine status of people at nearby tables (or even at your own table) is none of your business. The right to make one’s own medical decisions, and to keep those decisions private, outweighs any desire to minimize the Covid risk that is present in one’s environment. In other words, an inherent part of going out in public is that one may come into contact with people of varying health statuses and vaccine statuses. If this poses a level of risk that is unacceptable to you, then stay home. 
  5. Basic, everyday activities such as going to restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters are rights, not privileges. Being allowed to do these things is not a “reward” for (allegedly) good behavior; it is a fundamental right. It is beyond disturbing that activities nearly universally considered rights two years ago have morphed into privileges.

In conclusion, contrary to what Trudeau claims, requiring people to undergo a medical procedure in order to participate in life is not a logical thing, nor is it an obvious thing. It is logically unsound, morally wrong, and totalitarian.