A defense of democracy

 

READ, LEARN, VOTE

Is democracy doomed? To hear day after day the fears about losing democratic rights to Trumpian/Republican authoritarianism has obviously got many of us running scared. Is the fear for our political future warranted?

First in New Brunswick and then in Saskatchewan and being contemplated in Alberta, current governments have found it okay to legislate the classroom procedure if a child asks that a pronoun and name exception be made without notifying parents. Ten Republican-governed states in the USA have done the same thing, and others are considering it. (Indiana Senate backs bill on student names, pronoun changes | AP News).

Without arguing the merits and pitfalls of this particular “parental rights” law, the prospect of a central government legislating in that way can certainly be disturbing. We have become used to the dismantling of earlier legislation that seemed to set standards for social/moral behaviour. Gay marriage, MAiD, even film classification are just a few examples of practically withdrawing central authority over what ought to be local, even familial or personal choices.

Granted, solving real or imagined social problems by enacting a law, will live on as a temptation. Problem solved, but in that solution the possibility of significant exceptions, of variations case-by-case are wiped out. Such is the dilemma created by applying central authority to the relationship between a teacher and a child; teachers come to know which students go home to loving, informed, nurturing homes and which to homes that are abusive or neglectful or oblivious. To legislate parental rights that can override individual human rights represents the common, devastating consequence of authoritarian regulation of social issues.

We do well to remember the words of Pierre Eliot Trudeau, who in debate regarding the decriminalization of homosexual acts famously quoted, “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation ('No place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation' | CBC).” And before countering with the fact that PET was much hated, we need to ask ourselves, “By whom was this devolution of central authority on socio-sexual behaviour hated?” Was it the cohort that relishes the presence of kick-ass, authoritarian governance that privileges one stratum of citizens, one set of opinions?

In today’s Iran, women who allow a lock of hair to protrude from a head covering can be arrested and maltreated by authority. Without implying that Canada is headed in that direction, it should serve as a reminder that without vigilance, we can as a nation edge closer toward authoritarianism. Populations in Germany now lamenting the rise and fall of Naziism mourn the fact that they didn’t read the signs and respond at the outset when the persecution of Jews was gaining strength.

You and I have as much power at the ballot box as does the prime minister or the governor-general. Going into the voting booth uninformed about the issues and the policies of candidates might as well be declaring that we don’t really care enough to bother.

Here in Rosthern, our member of the provincial legislature is also the province’s premier. Many are weighing recent legislation against the question of democratic/authoritarian governance in, for instance, the passage of a bill to regulate the approach to schoolchildren experiencing gender dysphoria, requirement that every school fly a Saskatchewan flag, the ongoing rhetoric pitting Saskatchewan against Canada on climate change and resource development issues, the promised attempt to refuse collection of the federal carbon tax, etc. Is the promise of a new hospital for people in the Saskatchewan Valley enough to ensure that we’ll ignore the elephants in the room? I would hope not.

The point being that as long as we’re well informed on issues, and have understanding enough to rank them in importance, we’re not as subject to voting on single issues that may crowd out more important ones. For instance, voting for the party that promises to lower the tax on gasoline, or the party that is keen on sticking to carbon-emissions-reduction goals requires ranking the two policies in importance. Election rhetoric is not likely to clarify the question; science can … for anyone taking the time to tune in, that is.

Most of us, most of the time, can “walk and chew gum at the same time.” Pride in our Saskatchewan needn’t feed on the denigration of our Canada; we don’t have to give up on one to support the other. In a place where Saskatchewanians are also Canadians, and in a province where legislation would never have been forced with the invoking of the Notwithstanding Clause until now, the authoritarian approach to governance lately demonstrated should certainly affect what people rank as important as they enter the voting booth.  

 

 

 

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES, SPEARS INTO PRUNING HOOKS

Forward: About five hundred years before Christ, a Chinese military strategist, Sun Tsu, wrote a book we now know as The Art of War. He said much about strategies for executing winning wars, but also wrote quite philosophically about wars precursors, including the personalities that lead people to wage destructive, murderous conflict. He wrote, for instance, “An evil enemy will burn his own nation to the ground … to rule over the ashes.” His “The wise general is a Lord of Destiny; he holds the nation’s peace or peril in his hands” I find naïve if applied to today’s geo-political environment. Surely placing our destinies in the hands of our militaries would be a lot like assigning curriculum development in schools to the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada. Good people, but primary education isn’t where their heads are.

When trade disputes, territorial claims, even ethnocentric impulses lead to strife, the difference between negotiated accommodation and bloody war has come to hinge around the possession of the means of force. US and allied response to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan right now is to send killing and destroying machinery. Strenuous, prolonged negotiation isn’t necessary if you have a big gun to hold to an adversary’s head. What’s more, superior weaponry holds out the hope that you can have it all; compromise unnecessary. A zero-sum game.

And so I wrote this allegory ... But let the allegory—parable, if you prefer—do its work.

GGE

Pablo Picasso, Guernica (la guerra=war)

SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES, SPEARS INTO PRUNING HOOKS

Drill Sergeant Yoshie Hauptmann wouldn’t have needed the alarm to go off at 7:30 every morning. He’d disciplined his body to fall asleep at 11:30 precisely, and as precisely to wake up at 7:30, and he was as punctual at setting the alarm as he was about everything. Just in case. You never know. Be prepared. The devil’s in the details.

               On August 5^th, 2027, he rolled over, sat up gently so as not to wake Anika and padded into the walk-in closet to retrieve the uniform Anika had so carefully brushed the night before. It wasn’t there. He backed out of the closet and closed the door, in response, probably, to the ubiquitous advice that unplugging a thing that’s not working usually cures the problem. He opened the door again, but a white robe hung in the precise spot where his uniform should be. He woke Anika. She was as befuddled as he was.

               His duplicate uniform was at the cleaners and they wouldn’t be open until 10:00. He donned street clothes and drove to the barracks. A few dozen raw recruits were wondering around the parade ground, some in pajamas, some in their underwear. They gathered around Drill Sergeant Hauptmann and informed him that where they’d hung their uniforms and street clothes last night, there were only blue jeans and Hawaiian shirts. Also, that they’d been awakened at 7:00 by what sounded like a choir singing something about sheep grazing.

               With that news, DS Hauptmann took out his cell phone and dialed headquarters in Tel Aviv. They already knew something was up, had already decided that Iran was retaliating for the previous week’s bombing of a nuclear enrichment facility by Israel. “The air force has been ordered to scramble all fighter jets, and land-based-missile command to be ready for further orders. Do your best to …”

               The call was interrupted by “Hang on, Hauptmann,” and the click of a phone being hung up.

               The news flashed down the chain of command via X. When pilots (in street clothes) ran to the hangers, they found every jet had been replaced by a skateboard and where bombs were stored ready to be attached to planes, there was a bowling alley. Missile command examining the silos’ contents found that the ICBMs had mysteriously turned into long, fat sausages.

               The entire base was gripped by excruciating fear. Officers and privates ran back and forth between rooms, between buildings, and the parade ground was awash in Hawaiian shirted “civilians” carrying baseball bats, hockey sticks, anything they could get their hands on.

Fortunately, relief followed hard upon all this devastating news: Iran, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Russia, Australia, Great Britain were all struggling to understand how their entire military apparatus had turned into food, flowers, game venues and identical Hawaiian shirts. Nobody knew who was who, rank and privilege lost all their markers and most amazingly, every economy discovered that the last year’s military spending had been reimbursed and governments were awash in cash.

Prince William was up early, dressed for a portrait photograph to be taken by Amelia Standingstill, Great Britain’s most celebrated female portrait photographer. At 7:00 precisely, Amelia gasped as she saw poor William through her viewfinder suddenly without hat, coat, pants, epaulets and medals, his entire naval uniform gone, and him looking down and wishing he’d chosen boxers instead of briefs.

Jerry Pinkstable and Hank Surinamy were neighbours on Colonel Wogey Street in Denver Colorado. Jerry’s first thought when he heard the news of very strange doings was to prepare to defend his family. He reached in and felt around in his night table drawer, but his pistol was gone. In a panic, he ran downstairs to his gun cabinet and found when he opened it that his hunting rifles had turned into gardening tools and his last-ditch, assault rifle was now a cricket bat. Jerry has never, ever played cricket. Somebody goofed.

He ran out to make sure the gate in his chain link property fence was locked and discovered no fence and no gate. He ran back into the house and placed Jonathon’s and Sidney’s miniature baseball bats near the door, then ran back to the kitchen for a knife, but wherever a knife had been, there was now a pizza cutter. He felt silly holding one in his hand and making a few ridiculous thrusts with it. He dropped it back into the drawer.

               He picked up a bat and stepped gingerly out onto the front porch. He was startled to see that “that bastard Hank” was mirroring his stance and his weapon on the Surinamy’s front porch. Hank’s six-year-old son stepped out beside Hank, looked at Jerry and said, “Daddy, if your guns went away, and Jerry’s guns went away, prob’ly everybody’s guns went away.” Jerry’s defiant demeanour left, replaced by a sheepishness at the wisdom of a child. He dropped the bat on the lawn, as did Hank and both felt that a ton of rocks had been lifted from their shoulders, although it would take some time before they could admit it.

 

A chapter of Hell’s Angels had bought three adjacent houses on Grady Street in Summerdale, Ontario back in 2024. Every other house in that block had been FOR SALE ever since, but they didn’t care. They tore down the middle house and erected a large garage for their motorcycles.

               At 10:15, a bearded, barbed-wire-tattooed Jason Farthing awoke, sat up, scratched his ample belly, pulled on a black muscle shirt and reached for the leather jacket that he’d left hanging on the bedpost. What came away was not his jacket, but a plaid sportscoat whose only nod to leather was in the elbow patches. Jason hung it back up, shook his head, went for a pee—in response, probably, to the ubiquitous advice that unplugging a thing that’s not working usually cures the problem—and came back. The plaid sportscoat was still there, hanging from the bedpost.

What’s more, the handgun he kept under his pillow at night was not under his pillow.

               Jason pounded on every bedroom door in the house screaming, “OK, you jackasses, who’s the wise guy. Joke’s over!” A few doors opened, a few arms appeared, a few hands gingerly held out plaid sportscoats with leather elbow protectors and every coat with a pen clipped into the breast pocket.

               Eventually the world news registered via Aaron “Frisky” Patterson’s Facebook account. He rushed out to the garage where, you guessed it, fourteen Harleys and Yamahas and Phantom Blacks had been replaced by fourteen high-end racing bikes.

Aaron was probably the most astute of the chapter membership. First, he thought, “Strange, bikes for bikes, but why these?” Then he thought, “Military hardware intimidates; motorcyclists in packs wearing Hell’s Angels decals are intimidating, that’s what we set out to be. So what now?” He rang the little bell on the handlebar and remembered the thrill of owning his first bike, a pink CCM hand-me-down that had been a cousin’s. “Whoever did this is smart, not unlike me,” he thought.

He ran his hand across the new leather of a bicycle’s banana seat, then went back upstairs and put on the plaid sportscoat with the leather elbow pads and took the racing bike out for a spin.

               It felt really good except that the jacket didn’t match his leather pants. He stopped on a country road, took them off and hung them over a barbed-wire fence and gleefully headed west in his boxer shorts and the greenish-plaid sportscoat with leather elbow protectors.

               He was enthralled by the singing of the birds on the fence wires.

Joe Biden at age 87 was nearing the endpoint of his presidency and like everyone, he was shaken by the news as it unfolded from around the world. Most astounding to him were the images of the Pentagon on TV—before and after. Whoever or whatever force was at work had exercised some cosmic geometry and turned it into a circle. Furthermore, it was now a school; offices with their maps and strategic planning documents and international intelligence apparatus were all gone, replaced by classrooms. The signage out front and back now read “Plowshare College,” and President Joe chuckled because he’d actually been listening in church and knew where the name came from.

His attorney-general opined that it must have something to do with agriculture, an easy mistake to make.            

Prime Minister Poilievre in Canada approached the new governor-general with a request to prorogue parliament and institute martial law, a request that was denied. “You’re suddenly befuddled and clueless, Pierre,” she said, “and you can’t wrap your head around no fighter jets, no tanks, no army. Well join the club. Go back and write a budget and a throne speech. Trust me. It’s gonna be fun with all that new cash and all those personnel freed up to fight climate change. Right up your alley, nuh?”

And the world unfolded as it should. War- and terrorism-refugees started to drift home, people (who had practically habituated themselves to the inevitability of international violence) became obsessed with saving the planet, cleaning up oceans, rivers and lakes, planting trees, building renewable energy infrastructure, building better hospitals and better schools, ensuring food security, all these and more creating jobs, jobs, jobs.

               Street gangs filled their pockets with rocks at first, but gave that up when their thrown stones turned into potato chips the instant they left their hands. Everyone knows how hard it is to throw a potato chip with any degree of accuracy. A few gangs, in desperation, turned themselves into comic book clubs.

               Most importantly, the world of the poor, the rich, the powerful, the ordinary, celebrities and heroes, artists and poets, writers and readers, labourers and thinkers, all could finally count on a good night’s sleep. The sounds of snoring would at times have been deafening … if there’d been anyone awake to hear it, that is.

               CBC reported later--two years later, actually--that Putin had made a disparaging remark about the Canadian Prime Minister at an international conference. Apparently, the Canadian Prime Minister stuck his tongue out at Putin in response, at which the UN General Secretary was reported to have remarked, “My goodness, will this aggression, counter-aggression cycle never end?”

In Israel/Palestine all the walls and barriers came down, missiles and personnel weapons were nowhere to be found. And amazingly here, the power that had demilitarized the nations had added a twist: whether faces and clothes were different or just appeared to be, observers could no longer tell Jews from Palestinians. Authorities soon tired of having to ask people whether they were Jewish or Palestinian before telling them whether they were allowed to stand or walk, here or there.

There was nothing for it, finally, but to declare the entire area a democratic, secular state with politicians elected by universal suffrage, police armed with little more than good will, compassion and intensive first-aid training, and everyone tapped into the same spirit of well-being and optimism … side by side.

The En…, no, The Beginning!