The Uselessness, Risk, and Extreme Danger of Physical Mass Protest as a Solution to Tyranny

It is easier to pretend to seek freedom than to actually do something of real consequence to take and sustain it. The easy way out is most always sought by the common man, especially as a collective mob, where the presumed safety of numbers is more important than any effort to gain and sustain freedom where risk is inherent. Obviously, at least concerning the masses, it is much more important to appear to be doing something worthwhile, than it is to actually fight for something so important as one's own liberty, especially where any chance of exposure is present. If any possibility of uncertainty, social embarrassment, ostracism or rejection, or danger exists, most seek the comfort of the herd, hiding in a sea of avoidance and ignorance.

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Comment on Article by Grant Brown (February 28, 2023)

It is becoming obvious that both the January 6th and the Freedom Convoy "insurrections" were deliberately provoked and permitted by leftist governments in order to "justify" cracking down on right wingers. They were traps with many identical elements: the demonizing language to provoke and anger the protesters and draw them in; the removing of barriers, opening of doors from inside, law-enforcement leading protesters through the corridors and streets to their ultimate arrest; the exaggerated and fabricated reports to feed a media frenzy. It is the new leftist playbook.

On January 27th, Trudeau gave a speech calling the convoy participants a "fringe minority, with unacceptable views, racists, misogynists, etc." On January 28th, a ministerial staffer told his associates on email not to scare away the "crazies" before they got to Ottawa - because they wanted the "crazies" to be there! On January 29th, the Ottawa police invited the big rigs right down town, guided them right to Parliament Hill and told them exactly where to park; then they set up jersey barriers to trap the trucks in. On January 30th, "protesters" appeared out of nowhere carrying swastika and confederate flags; nobody knew who they were, they were conveniently photographed by Liberal-friendly people who gave the photos to the liberal-friendly media, they stayed just long enough to get captured on film, their flags and working-class clothes (plaids and work boots and hats with ear flaps) were brand-spanking new, never worn before, still factory-creased from the packaging... It was a set-up complete with a false flag. It was always absurd to think that the convoy would just stay for two days and then go home; it makes no sense to drive all the way from the coasts just to turn around and go home, and there was endless chatter on social media about not leaving until demands were met. No police "intelligence" could have believed otherwise. Hotels advised the Mayor that truckers were booking entire floors for weeks or a month at a time. The politicians - Trudeau and Liberal apparatchik Jim Watson - refused to talk to the organizers. The police are portrayed as incompetent and chaotic; but the more plausible explanation is that they were hand-cuffed by the politicians who wanted the chaos and frustration to grow. (Ah, but that is just a "conspiracy theory," right?)

I wouldn't make the sweeping generalization this author does, that mass protest movements always play into the hands of authoritarians. I think each protest movement has to be assessed on its own merits. Gandhi's passive resistance worked, ultimately, because his oppressors were relatively civilized. The British could not stomach brutalizing passive resisters for long, so they gave up. We couldn't expect that from a dictator like Trudeau, though. He had to copy daddy and be the strong man.

I do think that the truckers were alive to the trap that the author speaks of: being invited into the Capitol so as to provide an excuse to clamp down harder. That's why the convoy leaders insisted on non-violence, and quickly responded to anyone who got out of line. They knew that Trudeau and his side-kick Jim Watson had invited them into the city in the hopes of being the hero for brutally suppressing them.

The real benefit of the convoy is that it gave voice to the millions of Canadians who had had enough by that point. It was the sympathy protests by the tens of thousands in every major city across Canada that resulted in the removal of covid restrictions. For the first time, the public sentiment of fear and support for restrictions was challenged in a tangible, unmistakable way. It really did give people hope, and gave them cover to act on it.

Although millions of Canadians were on the side of the convoy, more were still too fearful and deluded to support them. The convoy didn't manage to quite gain a critical mass of support across Canada to secure outright victory - capitulation by the government. I don't think they were that far off in the end; I think the peaceful ordinary people flooding into Ottawa by the thousands every weekend scared the politicians. I think the Ottawa citizens who went to Canadian Tire by the hundreds and bought jerry cans to take to the protest, in defiance of the police claim that they would ticket anyone providing fuel to the truckers, was an eye-opener for the Mayor and the PM. It was a genuine, spontaneous, "I am Spartacus" moment. The politicians were afraid that the sentiment would continue to grow, and acted when they did to prevent a popular up-rising from gaining too much momentum.

The conditions for a successful mass protest are: (i) facing a relatively civilized, restrained government; and (ii) having a big enough critical mass of support, such that using strong-arm tactics would redound on the government. It was a near-run thing, but I don't think either condition was quite met in the case of the convoy. Time will tell, but it is possible that this invocation of the emergencies act will be looked upon by historians as the equivalent of the Kent State police shooting of Vietnam war protesters.