Kelly McParland: Progressives feel the need for everything to become a crisis, from climate change to COVID

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I’ve been wondering when we would hit peak hysteria. It seemed certain. We are constantly reminded to be fearful. There is no normal anymore. Everything is a crisis.

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We have a global pandemic, a climate emergency and a global pandemic. CrisisAll of this is possible because democracy is simultaneously a democratic system. We are always finding new terms that increase anxiety. We don’t have weather anymore, we have heat domes and atmospheric rivers, as well as polar vortexes.

We are facing emergency lockdowns, border bannings, rising debt, and rising inflation. The Arctic is melting, and forests are burning. “Now is not the time to travel,” our (latest) health minister informs us piously.

I assumed we were close to the peak when i noticed an arrow. ArticleThe New York Times headlined the weekend: The Planet Is Failing. What Does that Look Like in Every Country?

Every country. All 193 of them, according to the Times’ count. No exceptions, no excuses. You are all there. Quit smiling, you’re doomed. Grab your children and hide under the mattress. Lock yourself in the basement. Put on your masks and stand two metres apart. No talking — death travels by air. Keep your mother away, she might even breathe on you.

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“Cities swallowed by dust,” the Times article begins. “Human history drowned by the sea. Economies devastated, lives ruined.” I don’t know who authors these horrors, but I hope they know a good therapist.

Neither of the two smallest Countries (if you don’t countThe Vatican) lived upto the hype. The Monaco one was about its embrace for electric vehicles. The Nauru one was about a plan that would provide metals to those e-vehicles through the mining of the ocean floor.

But there was plenty to generate alarm elsewhere: Sierra Leone has appointed a “heat officer” to prepare people for a roasting future; temperatures are up in Jamaica, Mauritania and Liechtenstein. Turkey is overcome by something called “sea snot,” and Morocco is losing its desert oases.

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Because science is settled, none of this can be discussed politely. Environmental activists made their beliefs a religion long ago. If you don’t buy its principles and beliefs in full, you are a heretic and must be condemned. The pandemic is now added to the equation.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of America’s pandemic response, at least Try itModeration of the message. Yes, he SaysThe new variant is likely set records for COVID cases, and will cause another rush on hospitals. But no one should hide in a cave. It’s still OK to get on a plane or see your relatives as long as you’ve been vaccinated. “For right now, people who are vaccinated and boosted should feel reasonably comfortable,” he said.

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Sunday’s football games in the United States took place before full houses, largely maskless. Canada is not like that. Canada is a “progressive” country, and apparently fear is a big catalyst for progress, so we’re getting new closures, new warnings, new admonitions to stay home and isolate.

Quebec Premier François Legault Announcement that, as of this week, “high risk activities” like karaoke, office parties and dancing will be banned. Hockey teams can play again before they are half-empty or empty arenas, if necessary. ableTo play at all

Ottawa restored the PCR testing requirement for Canadians crossing the border for even a second on Friday. It is still possible to drive to the U.S. legally without having to pass a test. But you can’t come back untested.

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There are many signs that the progressive impulse is to regulate and dictate is generating a backlash. It’s strengthening resistance among people who dislike being lectured to.

Even if they don’t have a strong argument against the intent — who doesn’t want to protect the environment, defeat the virus and strengthen democracy? — they don’t appreciate the tactics in play or the direction it’s taking us. They vote for demagogues or charlatans. They refuse to get vaccinated. They support stupid ideas such as blocking hospitals. They sign up to internet sites that support their fears.

The Associated Press Reports that the anti-vax site run by Robert Kennedy Jr. “used slanted information, cherry-picked facts and conspiracy theories to spread distrust of the COVID-19 vaccines,” and has had a great pandemic as a result, pulling in millions of dollars in donations. It launched a TV station and a movie studio with the money. It plans to expand globally, including Canada.

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It is possible to argue that progressivism in America has already succeeded in eliminating moderate conservatism and produced a nastier and more extreme version that lives on Fox News and attacks on the Capitol.

The result is a Democratic party so “progressive” it can’t trust the reliability of its own members to adhere to preferred behaviour: President Joe Biden’s legacy project, his US$2.2-trillion ($2.85-trillion) climate and education plan, ran aground Friday when Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he simply couldn’t provide the crucial 50th vote for a project he thinks is dangerously expensive. Naturally, he was awarded the presidency. scornSen. Bernie Sanders, whose leftist absolutism precisely worries Manchin.

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We tend to express our anger in Canada in a milder, less disruptive way. Many people came from elsewhere to escape conflict. We probably don’t have enough political opportunists, radicals or malcontents to match the U.S. right — Maxime Bernier’s People’s party got less than five per cent of the vote and no seats in September .

We’re more passive-aggressive, reflecting our dissatisfaction by simply removing ourselves from the field. If the goal of progressivism is to drive enough people from the political process to let them control what’s left, they’re showing signs of success. Only 62% of voters actually cast ballots in September. One in three voters supported the Liberals. But, the votes of a fifth of the electorate was enough to keep them pushing through their debt-fueled revolution and leaving the Conservatives in chaos.

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The last person “progressives” are willing to take lessons from is Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who has grossly mishandled his province’s response to the virus, but he wasn’t far off when he Suggestions , after a summit of premiers and the prime minister, that “we’re kind of at the population’s outer limits after 21 months.”

As Kenney noted, “A complex free society is not a machine that the government can easily micromanage. We have to account for things like human volition and freedom in the stringency of our measures.”

It was a much more liberal figure, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, certainly the greatest of progressive U.S. presidents, who said, “We have nothing to fear except fear itself.” He didn’t add, “But let’s scare the hell out of everyone anyway.” That was left to his successors.

National Post
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