Sure, a lot of Canadians think the country’s turmoil is a strong indicator that the Liberal Government is cruising down the wrong track. Protestors disrupting rail lines and killing pipelines in the west. Hundreds of thousands out of work. Billions in capital flight, with Quebec joining the party thanks to Warren Buffet’s quick escape from the quicksand that is the Canadian investment landscape. Anger boiling over from coast to coast to coast. Why, the very fabric of Canadian society is being shredded before our very eyes. “Incompetent!”, scream the government’s opposition.
I beg to differ. It is all a matter of perspective. The Liberals only look incompetent if you view Canada through the eyes of the people suffering through the consequences of Liberal policy. If you view it from the perspective of Canada’s “new” values of diversity and tolerance versus Canada’s “old” values of freedom and liberty, then the Trudeau Liberals are rocking, and mocking, it!
The current upheaval the nation is experiencing is not a sign of incompetence at all, it is a sign that a larger cultural battle is nearing its end. We are in the 11th round of a 12-round heavyweight battle and diversity has rocked freedom’s jaw, sending it to the mat for an eight count. The ref is at 7.
Here is how we got there.
Information and the Values Battle
Structural integrity is to buildings and bridges what informational, or perceptual, integrity is to knowledge and understanding. We want things built with structural integrity to prevent them from collapsing on top of us or from underneath us. Similarly, we need information to have perceptual integrity so that it leads to knowledge and understanding rather than ignorance and exploitation.
Information is comprised of both fact and emotion and for it to have perceptual integrity requires the factual portion to be truthful.
For instance, 2+2 = 4 is a truthful fact and even though the statement has no emotional component, its perceptual integrity is solid. You can count on it. 2+2 = 5. Not so much.
The statement, Joe is a child rapist and murderer, is an unproven factual statement that does carry with it a strong emotional message. It is the same as saying, Joe is alleged to be a child rapist and murderer. Because the factual truth is unproven, these statements have poor perceptual integrity and cannot be trusted, but they still pack a powerful emotional message and are likely to impact your feelings about Joe, even if Joe is found innocent.
Now, if authorities reported that sexually violated children were found dead and buried on Joe’s property and Joe Is proven guilty, then the factual evidence supports the emotions that come with the knowledge. The information’s perceptual integrity would be strong, making it fair to conclude that Joe is a vile scumbag.
So, for information to have perceptual integrity it needs a solid factual foundation, and this holds true whether the statement has an emotional component or not. Much of Canada’s problems are due to a particularly dangerous type of statement that can be described as factually empty but emotionally strong. In effect, these statements have no factual argument to rest on but carry a distinct emotional message. They have no perceptual integrity whatsoever and cannot be trusted, but they do have power and, therefore, political purpose.
Diversity is our strength
This Liberal Party slogan is an example where a positive emotional message lacks factual support. It is factually “empty” because diversity remains undefined. This damages the slogan’s perceptual integrity and, therefore, its use will promote ignorance rather than knowledge.
True diversity, let’s say, in professional football, might mean the team fields 300 lb wide receivers, 150 lb linemen, two senior citizens, a 110 lb lingerie model, and a blind quarterback behind her. The thought is absurd, but it accurately represents the perceptual integrity of undefined “diversity”. Without a clear definition of what diversity represents, it cannot be said to represent strength. Its purpose is hidden.
Support Canada Free Press
Politically, the slogan is used to support the Liberal Party’s multi-cultural ideals. It suggests that all cultures are equal and should be welcomed with open arms. However, not all cultures, regardless of race or colour, are the same so opening the door to all inevitably invites cultural conflict. Obviously, the Liberals cannot factually defend against concerns arising from those cultural conflicts because there is no factual basis to support their programs. This leaves them intellectually shorthanded and limited to the use of emotional responses such as racist or xenophobe to defend their policies.
Still, cultural conflicts will occur, and the government will be forced to deal with them. Some mechanism is needed to evaluate the conflicts and decide on the appropriate course of action. Sadly, that mechanism comes in the form of another undefined factual slogan.
Tolerance is a virtue!
This is another undefined factual statement designed to carry a positive emotional message. Take politics out of the equation for a moment, would you tolerate a slap in the face, your child being beat by an adult, rape, theft? Of course not, the thoughts are ridiculous. In those instances, tolerance is the furthest thing from virtue. Yet, this is the intellectual support behind the resolution of cultural conflicts due to government immigration policy. The result, current Canadian values (freedom) are subordinated to new Canadian values (diversity).
Once again, there can be no factual defense to a fact free argument so only an emotional defense can be mounted, and it is. If you aren’t “tolerant”, you automatically become a bigot!
How does one defend one’s culture of freedom in this intellectual environment? They don’t, not without receiving the Don Cherry treatment.
But stubborn Canadians who still believe in the old Canadian values will continue to push factual arguments against policy that causes cultural conflict, so the government needs another tool to nip such nasty opposition in the bud. This is where Hate Speech laws enter the culture war.
Hate Speech Laws Hate Old Values
When vile emotional assaults aren’t enough to stop Canadians from complaining about the massive cultural changes being forced upon them, the government has a problem because continued opposition could gain traction and cause push back.
The solution is to criminalize dissenting speech under the guise of preventing hatred against protected “minorities”. But what it really does is shut the door on Canadians’ ability to defend the culture they grew up with and want to keep. It literally leaves no options for people to defend the old Canadian values of freedom and liberty.
Death Throes
What we are living through in Canada is a cultural metamorphosis brought on by the globalist policy of multi-culturalism. A program that has been heavily supported by the mainstream media and delivered by politicians of all stripes. The transformation from a free nation to a subjugated people is near complete. The angst, anger, and societal upheaval the country is experiencing represent the dying heaves and gasps of our old cultural values and the emergence as supreme our new, factually undefined, ones.
Censorship, gun confiscation, attacks on oil-and-gas that do grave harm to our own brothers and sisters. Laws that elevate one over the other. This is our future now and the ugly results are unsettling. Even a change in government is unlikely to stop the makeover because none of our politicians are willing to face the truth about the existential threat to our old cultural values.
President Donald Trump gets it. He knows and understands that the “fake news” media are the real problem and by far the most dangerous enemy he faces. However, he is both right and wrong about them. They aren’t the “enemy of the people”, as he often proclaims. That isn’t quite accurate. Rather, the media, particularly here in Canada, are only the enemy of a free people.
In Canada, though, the media are winning and what looks like a Liberal Party mess paints over what is truly a massive, agenda-driven media success.
Mark Gray hails from the Kirkland Lake, Ontario area and has spent over 30 years as an Analyst/Developer in Big IT, mostly in Calgary’s Oil-And-Gas Sector. Creator of an non-partisan, analytical methodology that seeks out and identifies Bias and Deceit embedded in weaponized information.
