Liberals Will Win if They Can, Steal if They Must

When a situation does not make sense, it is often because you are missing something. A piece of the puzzle has slipped under the sofa and, without it, the picture is incomplete.

Canadians find themselves in such a circumstance now, struggling to discern why Justin Trudeau's Liberals have forced an election at this moment. Polls do not seem especially in their favour, there is no proximate issue that demands ratification by the voters, and recent health concerns have permitted them to wield their minority government as though it were a majority anyway.

So why now?

Some have suggested that there is dreadful, scandalous news on the horizon and the Liberals wish to get an election out of the way beforehand. But this misunderstands the nature of partisan politics. Liberals and Democrats are not undone by scandal as right-leaning politicians are. Ted Kennedy killed a girl and never lost an election.

Others suggest the Liberals' own polling shows them in a stronger position than we might suspect. This seems unlikely. One of the very few things on which Canadians currently agree is that no one wants an election right now, and we all know this one is a Liberal initiative.

I rise to propose an alternate theory: They plan to cheat.

To claim there is chicanery in electoral politics is as banal as observing that birds go tweet; to say it of left-wing operatives is even moreso. Theirs is a godless religion, wherein the cause is all and truth is, at best, a means to an end. With minds focused ever on power, perhaps they see an opportunity in this moment that more honest people might overlook.

When I first bandied this inchoate theory about, people seemed to agree in principle that something seemed off, but none of us could quite figure what it was. Alas, that missing puzzle piece.

Then came news that, while about 50,000 vote-by-mail ballots factored into the last federal election, around 5 million are anticipated this time around. This opens all kinds of space for mischief. Moreover, there is precedent that is nearby and recent.

Canada and the United States have much in common. At the moment, both countries are run by imbeciles who are managed by goblins. Both countries have also permitted their societal norms, including the way in which elections are run, to be upended by the recent health concern noted above.

For purposes of time and clarity, I do not wish to dwell on the recent US presidential election, except to say that the official interpretation, which we are obliged to repeat under threat of social media excommunication, is laughable on its face. While it is possible, theoretically, that Joe Biden won fair and square, the narrative of votes-by-mail, broken water pipes, and sleepy poll-workers in six different cities needing to call it a night and stop counting is absurd.

Whatever happened, we can agree that the circumvention of election norms to accommodate public health was a boon to the current occupant of the White House.

Those who know Canada appreciate that a smug, harmless tic of its people is to insist that whatever injustices or enormities occur in the United States could never happen here. Americans have no idea they are being slighted, and the uncontested win gives Canadians a jolt of pride.

In this case, whatever weirdness happened in the US election is unlikely to play out the same in Canada, but the will to power of our left-wing class is the same as theirs. And that will finds a way.

Five million votes go a long way in Canada. Allocated cleverly, away from prying eyes and in feasible numbers, they could sway any number of seats to win the day. And the mail-in ballots are perhaps not the only means the Liberals have in mind to secure the result.

The one and only time I ran for federal office, more than twenty years ago, Liberal poll-watchers in some precincts shouldered their way in such that they were hand-counting the ballots themselves. It made no difference to the result of our race. In most Toronto ridings, Conservatives could run the Risen Christ and finish no better than third.

But such behaviour, and perceived entitlement to power, is how they roll.

Not being a Liberal, I do not spend my days contemplating how I can attain control over my fellow man. Consequently, the lack of further suggestions as to how they might cheat is a failure of imagination on my part. I can, however, propose how it might look on Election Day and thereafter.

Ridings that seem lost to the Liberals may suddenly swing back into the fold. Of course, this sort of thing happens in every election, but the number, timing, and placement will seem strange. Mailed ballots, late counting, and convenient, peculiar delays could break in one direction; too frequent to be natural, but too subtle to be proved.

In the weeks following a surprise Liberal victory, those raising questions about the election and its result will be labeled “divisive” and “conspiracy theorists.” They will be told to “move on” and we “have a country to run” and “you lost, get over it.”

The opposition robbed of victory – Conservatives, most likely – would be less than no help in the effort, reverting to form as affable losers and attacking their own supporters for being impolite.

I have known Erin O’Toole for about a dozen years. Outside of personal friendship, I can think of no reason to vote for him. On the issues that keep me up at night – freedom and personal sovereignty – he is either mute, or repeats some lighter version of the Liberals’ policy. As they say, leftists want socialism now, while conservatives want it in two weeks.

But what he does have going for him – and I cannot stress this enough – is he is not Justin Trudeau. Observing the prime minister’s domineering conduct the past 18 months, while in possession only of minority status, one shudders to imagine what totalitarian horrors he would unleash with a 4-year majority mandate.

It would be delightful if all this worry were for naught – a waste of my time to write, and yours to read – and we awake to a new, non-Liberal government, beyond the margin of mischief. Like millions of Canadians, nothing would make me happier than to have Justin Trudeau out of my face forever.

But from the moment I first saw him mincing onto the public stage, I sensed that Justin, like some inoperable tumor, was a condition I would have to live with for the rest of my days.

Maybe the Liberals have made a massive mistake in triggering this election. Could they be that dumb? Justin manifestly is, but the ghouls around him are not.

Theo Caldwell is a dual Canadian-American citizen who wishes the governments of both countries would stay out of his kitchen. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com

Jabber's Remorse

People want to feel good about choices they have made, particularly if they are irreversible. This helps explain a mistake that I and others made in assuming people would, in the main, migrate from accepting Covid madness to embracing freedom.

That hypothesis did not account for the effect of these shots.

Many, if not most, of the people in my orbit who have allowed themselves to be injected have done so for reasons other than health. Perhaps their employer forced them to do it, or they wish to travel, or they want to be sure they can attend some Bay City Rollers reunion concert.

Maybe it was just good, old-fashioned peer pressure.

Whatever the reason, these are not unintelligent or illiterate people (in most cases) and so they have been aware for some time that, outside of a specific and identifiable cohort, Covid is not a mortal threat. This has been the finding of official sources the world over, yet for some reason people still get huffy when you bring it up.

To wit, unless you are elderly, obese, or have some serious underlying condition, Covid almost certainly will not kill you. Moreover, you may have had it and recovered without ever knowing it.

Why, then, inject one’s self with some brand spanking new concoction, the long-term effects of which are unknowable, and for which the short-term effects – again, according to official sources that will nonetheless ruin a pleasant evening to cite – are not good?

And why demand that everyone on the planet do as you have done?

Are they Eve, making damn sure Adam eats that apple, too? It is an honest question, difficult to answer, as the personality and perspective shift in the recently injected makes them unreliable interlocutors.

For example, a neighbor of mine was, until recently, all over social media, complaining about this or that demented Covid dance we have all been obliged to perform. You know the sort of thing – you can no longer just go to the bakery; you have to call ahead, wait in the parking lot, be signaled from the doorway, run and touch the hood of the assistant manager’s Thunderbird with your elbow, hop on one foot and recite the Gettysburg Address before you can receive your marble rye, which is fired at you from a stadium t-shirt cannon.

She was funny, despite her exasperation, and clear-eyed in seeing this madness for what it is. Then she got the shot.

Her stated reason for doing so had nothing to do with health. She is planning a vacation and did not want to have to quarantine on arrival. That was it. And it was enough to make her a different person.

Suddenly, every bit of insanity was for our safety, and anyone who did not follow her example was an “anti-vaxxer.” It was as though her former self did not exist and, most alarmingly, she in no way acknowledged the person she once was or the beliefs she previously held.

I am struggling with judging people who have taken these injections, not because I know what the effects will be (I do not, and neither do you, whoever you are) but because of their reasons for doing so and the way they are acting towards everyone else.

It is not a question of intelligence or knowledge, since the former is relative and the latter is impossible at this early stage. But the about-faces and insults coming from the newly jabbed are worrisome.

Many people are smarter than I am. You may well be one of them. But the people I see on my Facebook feed calling everyone else idiots are…not.

This is one of those instances, like finance and the Middle East, where those with an interest want you to believe it is oh-so-complicated and you could never, ever understand it. But in reality, when reduced to its essence and stripped of jargon, the concept is rather simple. The questions become bite-sized, even binary.

For example, as alluded to above, how can people be certain about the long-term effects of these injections when they have only been available for a matter of months? Again, it is an honest question and, if at all possible, I would like an answer more substantive than, “Shut up, bigot!”

How about politicians and media figures who, when one person was President of the United States, loudly proclaimed they would never accept these rushed, suspect injections but, now that someone else has the job, insist you must accept the jab or you can never go to Arby’s again? (Deal, by the way)

As the kids say, what’s up with that?

You don’t need a lab coat to see the discrepancy here, nor does it make you a Q-Anon nutcase to wonder aloud. Anyone with a calendar and a television can spot the inconsistencies.

The clanging illogic and head-patting maternalism were evident when the Centers for Disease Control announced in December 2020 that the injections were perfectly safe for pregnant women. How could they possibly know that? With one administration on its way out and one more friendly to the bureaucracy on the way in, had that changed things?

Those of us asking these questions are not trying to be contentious for its own sake. This is a discussion we feel is worth having but the Hyde-turn and invective coming from the other side make that increasingly difficult.

We have seen this before. Covid is the new “climate change.” Questioning conventional wisdom is met with accusations, insults, and demands to know where you matriculated.

But despite the coming and going of every drop-dead doomsday foretold by Al Gore, Prince Charles, and the Mayan Calendar, we remain well above sea-level.

Set questions aside for the moment, then, and let us agree, if we can, that there is much we simply do not know. Perhaps that explains some of the panic and hostility.

My body-snatched neighbor was, in her telling, something of a party girl in her youth. She laughs off concerns about the injections by saying she’s taken a lot of naughty things in her life. But, as she surely knows, this is not like getting a dicey batch of edibles.

For good or ill, this is for life. In her case, as in many others, she accepted a bargain in exchange for getting her freedoms back. But with variants, boosters, and shifting goalposts the world over, and no talk of normalcy returning, the deal seems to be off.

She is left, then, with this mystery concoction within her for the rest of her days. That may be a good thing. It may give her telepathic superpowers, for all we know. But it may also end badly, and for what? Ostensibly, for protection from a disease which, in her case, was as likely to cause death as a freak folding-couch accident (no one ever thinks it will happen to them).

All of this is before we get to the more recent questions; the ones that will most definitely get you kicked out of a family gathering (although that may not be a problem soon; want to bet that those of us who celebrate Christmas will have to do so with the curtains closed again this year?).

What about these “fully vaxxed” hospitalizations in the UK, Israel, Iceland, and elsewhere? Are these shots weakening natural immunity, especially in people previously infected with Covid? When the injected encounter the virus naturally, will it hit them harder, as happened in animal testing? What role have the injections played in facilitating these lettered variants? And what about these side effects that, despite Zuckerberg's best efforts, are being reported in large numbers? (I lead an active lifestyle, so blindness, amputation, heart failure and death would put a crimp in my weekend plans.)

I do not have these answers, nor do I pretend to. I am asking in good faith.

Before I accept an irreversible treatment, on pain of having to order my groceries online, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for straight answers.

Theo Caldwell just wanted to be left alone. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com

All is Lost (Maybe)

 

In his seminal book on screenwriting, Save the Cat, Blake Snyder posits that near the end of a good script, the protagonist should arrive at a moment where all seems lost. Our hero’s ambitions are not only dashed, but he is worse off now than when the movie started.

Ideally, per Snyder, this is followed by a dark night of the soul, during which the hero must face up to his failures. Suddenly, help arrives, often in the form of friends the protagonist made or something he learned earlier in the film, leading to a triumphant and satisfying finale.

Snyder cites examples as eclectic as Star Wars, Elf, Miss Congeniality and “Christ on the cross” to illustrate the power of that penultimate moment when death and darkness are all around.

For me, as for most educated people, the ideal cinematic All is Lost instance comes when Daniel LaRusso is THIS close to forfeiting the All Valley Karate Championship but convinces Mr. Miyagi to do that clap-hands healing move on his leg, then remembers the crane technique he had seen him practicing on the beach. The science is settled.

Many have supposed that what we are living through feels like a movie, or perhaps a Black Mirror episode, as it is so bleak and unreal. Whether or not the Lizard People are huddled in some writers’ workshop in Davos, typing out our future with their tongues and tails, those of us who value freedom could be forgiven for believing that, at this moment, All is indeed Lost.

As I type (with fingers), governments and corporations the world over are imposing barriers to travel, employment, commerce, and daily life. The ostensible purpose of these infringements is to force people to accept injections, and then carry physical and digital proof that they have done so.

To anyone capable of seeing more than one move ahead, it is the second part of that proposition that is most troubling. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the contents of these syringes are the best possible thing one could have coursing through one’s veins. Let us further suppose that the disease they are meant to mitigate makes smallpox look like a Plantar Wart.

This remedy – if one can call it that – will render every human being traceable, trackable, and permitted to function only at the sufferance of official authority. Moreover, as with all Covid measures nowadays, no sunset date or endgame is mentioned or contemplated. “15 Days to Flatten the Curve” sounds as anachronistic and truthful as “Remember the Maine!”

I maintain a Facebook account largely for purposes of anthropological study. It allows me to observe the meanderings of the dimmest people from my past, many of whom I forgot I knew. Without exception, they are whole hog for this idea, describing anyone who differs or seeks delay in the vilest possible terms, without stooping to consider what reasons we may have.

An especially gobsmacking recent example is a photo of those old, yellow vaccination cards we had for school, captioned with, “You’ve had a Vaccine Passport your whole life, so what’s the big deal?”

Now, my cohort and I are half a century into this material experience. Even the most meticulous hoarders among us would be hard-pressed to put their hands on that old thing. But that is hardly the point, is it? That document was a record of decades-old inoculations against deadly and crippling diseases, required for admission to a few, specific places (public school, summer camp, etc.).

What is now being proposed is a comprehensive, inescapable, digital monitor that tracks your every move, and is a requirement for the essentials of daily life. So yes, I suppose I did have a yellow card at some point, but I did not need to carry it as a condition of buying food or leaving my home.

My acquaintances championing this have never known privation in the least degree and so they see freedom as some right-wing fetish. They do not know it is the air they breathe but, like oxygen, they will miss it right quick.

Again, the problem is not a scientific disagreement. They aver that everyone should accept these injections – and maybe that is true, or maybe not – but the means they advocate are both worse and larger than the proximate threat itself. They are so blinded by their will to power that they cannot, or will not, contemplate the consequences.

So as this prison is erected around us, applauded with rancid enthusiasm by the dribbling idiots we have known, is All truly Lost?

I think not.

For one thing, the government and corporate overlords mandating this madness are not behaving as though they are winning. They seem panicked. Their worry is not over the disease (is there anyone remaining whose primary fear is Covid itself?), but they are in a race against time.

I believe official vaccination numbers about as much as I believe that pipe burst in Atlanta. Even so, as noted, there are many people eager to be injected and recorded and monitored. But a significant minority, or more, of free-born populations are and will remain unwilling to be jabbed. Even among those who are willing, or have been, many see through to the problem I am describing. In Italy, for example, many citizens have burned their vaccination passes in solidarity with the freedom-minded.

Doubtless, the top people pushing this have held dreadful meetings, possibly by Zoom, peopled by hollow-chested men in problem glasses, insisting they must advance this agenda “as one” (they always uphold uniformity as a virtue). If havens are allowed to exist – businesses or jurisdictions that do not require the tracking of human activity – the scheme perishes.

It is often noted that if these injections were so splendid, there would be no need to threaten and cajole. Similarly, if their goodness were self-evident, and towering majorities of populations were on board, as official numbers suggest, there would be no need to race toward totalitarianism at ludicrous speed.

Further, they really don’t understand us at all. By “us,” I mean not only freedom-loving people, but humans generally. Everything they are proposing, from the perpetual wearing of masks to scheduled injections, digitally policed, is so unnatural that it can only be imposed by overwhelming and sustained force. Now, overwhelming and sustained force is just about their favorite thing, but even they can’t keep it up forever.

We can outlast them. This will be easier for some than for others, as they continue to foreclose aspects of normal life to the non-compliant. I am not the most advanced prepper-survivalist in the world but, as Cliff Clavin once advised, I do keep an inflatable raft and a couple cans of tuna fish in the trunk of my car. Your move, jackwagons.

So, what have we learned, and what friends have we made, such that we may endure this All is Lost moment, through the dark teatime of the soul, and arrive at ultimate victory?

Significantly, we have seen that everything they tell us is untrue. This applies to mortality and vaccination rates, therapies and, most important, the bargains they offer to buy back our freedom.

You may wish to advise the zealous converts in your orbit who announce they are “fully vaxxed” that they are nothing of the kind. With third and fourth boosters already forthcoming, to be mandated as a condition of participation in society, they will discover, to their sorrow, that there is no such thing as “fully vaxxed” in this world and we all fall short of the grace of Fauci.

We have further learned, as alluded to above, that they cannot accommodate or understand non-conformity. To them, freedom is just another word for racist. Ridicule, in particular, scrambles their circuits, and we must up our mockery game. This one is easy for me; as a born smart-alec with no friends, I have plenty to say and nothing to lose.

Beyond wise-ass remarks and scalding prose, I have wondered what I can offer to this struggle. If it is a war, where is my unit and how will I look in the uniform? For now, I think the strongest move is simply to remain firm, to hold out, to say no. The way they are behaving now ought not to be rewarded with compliance.

All the frantic energy is being expended on their side. Let them punch themselves out like Clubber Lang, and then we’ll see where we are.

Then there are the friends we’ve met along the way, who help us to overcome. All over the world, people are finding each other, seeing the truth, and giving one another the courage to stay strong.

Despite the best efforts of Zuckerberg, @Jack, and the gargoyles at Google, people are coming together, sharing their stories, and letting others know they are not alone. The ongoing protests across Europe, hundreds of thousands strong, are just one example. More of this, please.

Taken together, all that we have learned and those we have befriended make for a potent combination. As Mr. Miyagi presaged before Daniel-san delivered the kick to the face that changed history: “If do right, no can defense.”

Theo Caldwell just wanted to be left alone. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com