Both above and below, you can see people kicking puppies and putting kittens in clothes dryers. After all, how else would you characterize the suffering of the Amish, everyone's favorite old-fashioned, pacifist Luddites? Well, there's another way – as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Canada is currently doing Like that.
This story, published a month ago, is shocking. An Amish community in Ontario has been fined $300,000 (US$222,660) for failing to download the Canadian government's coronavirus app. Even though the coronavirus scare is as much past its sell-by date as Joe Biden. This is despite the fact that religious freedom should be a priority in Western countries. And surprisingly, this is despite the fact that the Amish reportedly don't use smartphones, which is necessary to download apps.
This story has broader implications. As American Thinker notes, this is “a harbinger of the attractions to come if Kamala becomes president.” In other words, given enough power, the American left will act like its comrades in the great white north. They will oppress us – for our own benefit, of course.
Weird Al, not an Amish paradise.
Rebel News reported on the matter last month. After writing that rural Chatsworth, Ontario is home to an Amish community that lives an 18th-century lifestyle, the site continues:
Their simple lifestyle, without electricity, telephones, or internet, sets them apart from the rest of the modern world. But this peaceful community now faces a challenge no one expected: an authoritarian government bent on enforcing digital compliance.
…The problem began with the Canadian government's implementation of the ArriveCan app during the COVID-19 pandemic. The app was mandatory for people entering Canada and required travelers to submit their health information digitally.
However, the Amish do not use smartphones or even apps. They also have exemptions from vaccination for religious reasons, making the use of such technology unnecessary and intrusive for them. However, despite these clear exceptions, the government insisted on compliance, resulting in severe penalties.
result? The Chatsworth Amish community was fined nearly $300,000 for not using the ArriveCan app. This is a community that does not use electricity, let alone digital applications.
The fines were a targeted measure, not just bureaucratic oversight. The government even placed liens on their properties, effectively freezing their ability to obtain loans or transfer land titles within their families. These punitive measures have left the Amish community in a state of shock and despair.
Note: Contrary to popular belief, the Amish do embrace modern technology, albeit with limitations. But Rebel News seems to say that's not the case with the Chatsworth Amish. If so, they would be called the “Old Order Amish.”
new order world
In any case, you'd probably have to be a pretty mean person to want to torment the Amish. And it would take a pretty big government to give that mean person the power to do that. Therefore, the American thinker explains:
Canada does not have a First Amendment, but it does have a 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. According to its charter, Canada has “freedom of religion.” It is so important that it appears very early in the never-ending document, Section 2(a). This section states: “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: freedom of conscience and religion.”
What's not stated, a small caveat, a small asterisk, is that this freedom only exists if the government allows it. It's a privilege, not a right.
Our constitutions are very different in this respect. As Obama once complained, the U.S. Constitution is “a charter of negative liberties, where the states say what you can't do and the federal government says what you can't do…”
That's exactly right. Privileges are given by the government, and what the government gives, the government can take away. However, rights are unique to each individual and cannot be accessed by the government unless there is a very good reason to do so.
The way the modern left seeks to circumvent these constitutional limitations is to clothe the desire for power with benevolence. We don't touch your rights. we want to do something for you. Or, as Obama added in the same interview quoted above, the Constitution “doesn't say what the federal government or the state governments have to do for you.” President Reagan had an answer to that complaint. “The nine scariest words in the English language are: 'I'm a government employee and I'm here to help.'”
when darkness falls
As the philosopher C.S. Lewis puts it, the reality is far worse than “tyranny exercised in good faith for the benefit of its victims,” ​​meaning that the dictator is “an all-powerful moral busybody.” This is particularly frightening because of the possibilities. Consider a very old study. One seems to date back to the 50s. The result was that leaders, always and everywhere, were always of worse character than the leaders they ruled. Additionally, more recent research has revealed how insightful people perceive themselves. The thing is that so many politicians are narcissists and/or psychopaths. In some cases, it can get even worse and manifest into the “dark quadrant” of narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism.
This is where Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comes into the picture. Fellow Canadian Jordan Peterson, a prominent clinical psychologist, said Trudeau is, at the very least, a “narcissist.” But in reality, the most appropriate way to describe individuals with such tendencies is “evil.”
Such a person will cause suffering to others. It may be because they despise victims' representatives. Because they are jealous of the good that their targets represent (such as the relative innocence that is typical of the Amish) and want to destroy it. Because they stop exercising power. Or, like an evil child who torments small animals, because they enjoy inflicting pain on others.
Either way, this is why our founders set a balance of government power to prevent tyranny, and it's why we do so at our own peril when we upset that balance. .
