My dad, in his infinite wisdom and experience, when I would complain about having individual rights superceded by collective rights, (e g., even as basic as being required to go to a family reunion when I'd rather hang out with my friends, but then having a good time and now being grateful I had those memorable experiences) would always say that if I am not doing anything wrong or against the good of society, then I have nothing to worry about those rules of law.
Dad would also say, if I disagree with where society is going, there are ways to make my voice heard without breaking the laws that are there to protect my safety and well-being in that society. He's right. Again.
And it's true that our Canadian value system has always put collective over individual and it has worked to make us the nation we are today. Putting individual over community would have kept us out of WWII for longer or forever, instead of being the first to jump in, being just one example of how putting the good of all over the interests of one has served us well as a nation.
We have a history of putting down rebellions or harmful protests *For the Common Good*. We follow English Common Law. Our survival as a nation is in the understanding that we are a community first, a family, and the collective is more powerful as one voice, not as a bunch of individual bleats.
It's a delicate balance to keep the individual tiles of the mosaic patterned together in one beautiful whole. Uniting us all is the job of our democratically elected leaders and their job is working as a Team no matter which political stripe they are aligned with. That's the Canadian Way.
Counterpoint: just look how selfish individualism and the rampant egocentric beliefs that come out of that perspective socially, politically, economically, and culturally (especially with religious affiliation) have led the U.S. into their current state of chaos. Interestingly, what their No Kings march has just shown, is how powerful the collective can be. Time will tell if, as a nation, they come to realize that individual rights like those manifested in, for example, their gun laws and the tolerance of hate speech and lies (*free speech*) are detrimental to the common welfare. Canadians have known this and we must not be saturated by these foreign values. They are NOT ours and will no more serve us than they are serving our southern neighbours.
We are not the same. Stopping our leaders from stepping on some toes for the good of most peoples' feet seems to be anathema to the generation of millennials who were swamped with American culture and raised to believe everybody gets a participation prize and we all are winners just for being born. Not true. Freedom is earned and is not a licence to do whatever, whenever. It comes at a cost. A worthy price but a necessary one...even of sacrifice. There has to be limits, boundaries, and lines in the sand to everything or else the alternative is chaos. And we have to trust in our own sovereign nation's leadership to do what's best for the common good.❤️🇨🇦
My dad, in his infinite wisdom and experience, when I would complain about having individual rights superceded by collective rights, (e g., even as basic as being required to go to a family reunion when I'd rather hang out with my friends, but then having a good time and now being grateful I had those memorable experiences) would always say that if I am not doing anything wrong or against the good of society, then I have nothing to worry about those rules of law.
Dad would also say, if I disagree with where society is going, there are ways to make my voice heard without breaking the laws that are there to protect my safety and well-being in that society. He's right. Again.
And it's true that our Canadian value system has always put collective over individual and it has worked to make us the nation we are today. Putting individual over community would have kept us out of WWII for longer or forever, instead of being the first to jump in, being just one example of how putting the good of all over the interests of one has served us well as a nation.
We have a history of putting down rebellions or harmful protests *For the Common Good*. We follow English Common Law. Our survival as a nation is in the understanding that we are a community first, a family, and the collective is more powerful as one voice, not as a bunch of individual bleats.
It's a delicate balance to keep the individual tiles of the mosaic patterned together in one beautiful whole. Uniting us all is the job of our democratically elected leaders and their job is working as a Team no matter which political stripe they are aligned with. That's the Canadian Way.
Counterpoint: just look how selfish individualism and the rampant egocentric beliefs that come out of that perspective socially, politically, economically, and culturally (especially with religious affiliation) have led the U.S. into their current state of chaos. Interestingly, what their No Kings march has just shown, is how powerful the collective can be. Time will tell if, as a nation, they come to realize that individual rights like those manifested in, for example, their gun laws and the tolerance of hate speech and lies (*free speech*) are detrimental to the common welfare. Canadians have known this and we must not be saturated by these foreign values. They are NOT ours and will no more serve us than they are serving our southern neighbours.
We are not the same. Stopping our leaders from stepping on some toes for the good of most peoples' feet seems to be anathema to the generation of millennials who were swamped with American culture and raised to believe everybody gets a participation prize and we all are winners just for being born. Not true. Freedom is earned and is not a licence to do whatever, whenever. It comes at a cost. A worthy price but a necessary one...even of sacrifice. There has to be limits, boundaries, and lines in the sand to everything or else the alternative is chaos. And we have to trust in our own sovereign nation's leadership to do what's best for the common good.❤️🇨🇦
Sounds like a very wise man.