There’s no solidarity in the ‘sovereign citizen’ protests now taking off around the world, only incoherent rage.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 16th February 2022
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This was just one example of the incoherent protests now sweeping rich, English-speaking nations. Others include the truck blockade in Ottawa and its duplicates in Australia, New Zealand and the US, and the angry men outside the British parliament, waiting to pounce on passing politicians.
By incoherent protest, I mean gatherings whose aims are simultaneously petty and grandiose. Their immediate objectives are small and often risible, attacking such minor inconveniences as vaccine requirements and face masks. The underlying aims are open-ended, massive and impossible to fulfil. Not just politically impossible, but mathematically impossible. Listening to these men (and most of them are men), it seems that every one of them wants to be king.
The “sovereign citizen” theory is a powerful current running through these movements. Its adherents insist that they stand above the law. Some of them refuse to buy vehicle licences, or pay taxes or fines. They believe they are exempt from public health measures, such as lockdowns and vaccine passes.
In other words, they arrogate to themselves sovereign powers that not even the monarch enjoys. They produce elaborate pseudo-legal documents to justify these claims. …
Incoherent protest movements tend to be infested with racism and white supremacy. Some of the key organisers of the Ottawa action are reported tohave a grisly history of racist statements, and some of the protesters have flown swastikas and Confederate flags. …
Trudeau going to freeze the bank accounts of all protesters. How authoritarian is that ??! Let them protest however stupid their cause may be for draconian govt action taken out of them lays the ground for action against left wing activism
If they don’t pay their taxes they deserve no bank accounts which is the result made possible by an opportunity to earn a wage within an orderly socio-economic structure of the Nation.
If they pay no taxes all their belongings should be confiscated.
Taxes are not a penalty, taxes grants you the right to use public services and conveniences made possible only by the commonly shared tax contributions.
You don’t pay taxes, you don’t get to use the bridge. Go swim across the river.
You don’t pay taxes, you don’t get to use the highways. Go drive across privately owned properties and see how far you get .
If you want to be king in the wilderness, then go live in the wilderness.
If you want to be king in the civilized world act in a civilized manner and that includes paying your fair share of taxes .
People protesting about their rights not no wear masks, not to be vaccinated, or to not pay tax, in the name of their right to freedom and sovereignty.
On a side, they make me very angry, because they forget that the exercise of these rights is limited by duties, duty not to harm others, duty to contribute to the collective.
On the other side, the followers, not the leaders, are lost. They are afraid, they are suspicious of any authority, and may be not wrongly. They are open to any person who wants to manipulate them playing on their fears and prejudices for ideological, political and financial reasons.
In the Germany of 1930, some people knew how to manipulate the lost crowds.
The right to protest, must be exercised peacefully. I agree, mostly.
The first matter is that peaceful protesters are very seldom listened to, even if they are right.
The second matter is that the first violence is the violence of the capitalist system, which crushes individuals and deprives them of their dignity, with the support of the State. In many cases, the first violence is the one of the system, the second violence is the one of the people and the third one is the one of the police and the army.
In a democracy, it is the people who elect the people they want to be in authority. If the people in power commit misdeeds it is the voter’s fault.
As George Carlin once said "the common view is people who do not vote cannot complain about the misdeeds of those who are elected, but that is a total turn around of the truth. It is the people who do elect the leaders that are committing the misdeeds who do not have the right to complain, they are the ones that voted them in to begin with.
The Anthropocene defines Earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans.
The word combines the root “anthropo”, meaning “human” with the root “-cene”, the standard suffix for “epoch” in geologic time.
The Anthropocene is distinguished as a new period either after or within the Holocene, the current epoch, which began approximately 10,000 years ago (about 8000 BC) with the end of the last glacial period.
Like insects sensing a change in the weather, humans are beginning to sense a change in the ecosystem itself. And like insects, we are beginning to react violently to any and all perceived unfairnesses. No more sober analysis of facts, just an instinctual aggressive reaction to perceived threats.
We’re back to the beginning when the “fight or flight” instinct ruled the world.
The troglodyte personality is making a comeback.
I don’t think you’ll really consider this thoughtfully, but, do you see the difference?
Human rights are different from “do whatever you want”. It is not a right to behave in a way that puts others at risk. Risk is not defined by one possible consequence, it has to be weighed against all risks.
In the case of wearing masks or getting vaccinated, you are weighing very small risks against the larger risk of the thing you are vaccinating against or taking health measures against.
Also, look at the pictures. You have a little trash in a street that was cleaned up and could just be avoided by taking another street. The truckers shut down a border crossing for days.
