Helpless fool or crypto-fascist?

Toronto City Councilor Giorgio Mammoliti has provided a great deal of comic relief and no small amount of insight into the thought processes (such as they are) of Toronto’s Left. His call to have the Canadian Army on the streets of Toronto deal with the city’s gang-crime problem betrays either a total lack of awareness of the implications of such an action or a readiness to surrender the people’s freedoms to an armed military establishment in an effort to regulate their behavior by force.

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Let’s give Mammoliti the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is unaware of the implications of having the armed forces keeping the peace in the country’s largest city. Let’s say that he doesn’t understand that to institute such a move would place Toronto under martial law and deprive its citizenry of their civil liberties. Let’s go further and assume that maybe Georgee-o hasn’t really sat down and thought of what it means to say, “We’re helpless to deal with the problem. Let’s give up our civil liberties and let the army fix it”. First of all, this position only serves to strengthen the gangs as they learn the city is powerless to stop them through the rule of law. Hearing that the police force is helpless in the face of their might and the only thing that could stop these various gangs is a military contingent with more advanced weapons, will make the gang members bolder, as they assume an omnipotence totally at odds with reality. Secondly, the last thing any democracy wants is troops patrolling the city’s streets because at the very moment that troops do appear that democracy stops being a democracy and starts to fall under the definition of “military dictatorship”. Third, the purpose of any country having armed forces is to defend that country against harm from foreign aggressors. There are instances in which it would be acceptable to have troops assisting local authorities in dealing with emergencies, but these fall under the category of disasters, such as the ice storm that befell eastern Ontario and Quebec back in 1998. An army’s function is not to control the populace, but to provide the means by which a nation can project its foreign policy interests into the global arena. Assuming that he is merely misinformed about the role of the army in Canada, Georgio Mammoliti has no business being in politics because his ignorance is an insult to his constituents and a disservice to all the citizens of Toronto. But let’s assume that Mammoliti knows what an army is supposedly for and wants to use it to forcefully regulate the behavior of Toronto’s citizens by having armed troops on the city’s street. Suddenly the picture isn’t so benign, as that would indicate that Mammoliti doesn’t care about people’s rights and freedoms. What if freedom and liberty were concepts that Mammoliti isn’t particularly keen on? Given some of his past public utterances, it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that the idea of democracy had outlived its usefulness in Mammoliti’s mind. Wasn’t he the one that was looking to criminally punish fellow councilors Rob Ford and Doug Holyday for spending too little of their office budgets? Assuming that he is not particularly high on democracy, Georgio Mammoliti has no business being in politics because the next thing he’s likely to advocate is the cancellation of elections. Let’s face it; whether Mammoliti is a helpless fool or crass crypto-fascist his continued presence on city council is an insult to his constituents and a disservice to all the citizens of Toronto.