‘Mass Graves’, Religious Hate, and European Erasure

Discovery of ‘Mass Graves’

On May 27, 2021, Chief Rosanne Casimir said that she had confirmed the preliminary findings of the remains of 215 children who were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. With the help of a ‘ground penetrating radar specialist’, that which was spoken about but never documented, was finally brought to light.

According to Chief Casimir,

We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify. To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths… Some were as young as three years old… This work was undertaken by [the] Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Language and Culture Department with ceremonial Knowledge Keepers who ensured that the work was conducted respectfully in light of the serious nature of the investigation with cultural protocols being upheld.

Now, how Chief Casimir claims to ‘know’ any of this is questionable. Her assertions of knowledge could very-well be exceeding her epistemic grasp, here. After all, ground-penetrating radar isn’t like some fish-finder that provides a more finely-grained image: pin-pointing the locations of your intended target. In fact, such data from ground penetrating radar surveys are seldom obvious or self-evident and require methodical interpretations and finally unearthing of the objects in question. Additionally, readings from such radar can be influenced by myriad natural and man-made sources, as well as human error.

Chief Casimir had stated that her community was aided by a ‘ground penetrating radar specialist’, but never provided the name of the individual nor of the company that individual worked for. Additionally, she never offered up the interpretations of the radar scans that led them to believe that they had found 215 children. Also, Chief Casimir stated that some children ‘as young as three’ were found. Well, ground penetrating radar scans cannot tell you the age of the remains – that can only be determined after exhumation. Moreover, children three-years-old and younger were not admitted to residential schools. Perhaps these issues will be cleared up, but so far, they are waiting for confirmation.

Further, Niigaan James Sinclair, an Anishinaabe writer, associate professor at the University of Manitoba, and son of Calvin Murray Sinclair, who was the chairman of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) from 2009 to 2015, has opined:

‘It's a story that I think Canadians are surprised about because they are not prepared for what has been the truth of this country, which is that this is the kind of abuses that were perpetrated against Indigenous people -- my people -- for over a century and a half in these places.’

Again, given the questions above, I am unsure to what ‘truth’ Niigaan is referring. Perhaps it is some ‘greater truth’ that is not affected by the truth or falsehood of the individual claims made in its service.  

That said, and with questions aside, what we are being told is a tragic story: the deaths of children are always tragic, and the context of their deaths in residential schools only exacerbates that.

Despite the good intentions may have motivated the residential school project of assimilation of indigenous peoples into a burgeoning Canadian society, the tales of abuse at the hands of staff and students, the poor conditions of housing and food due to persistent lack of Federal funding, as well as child separation from family and community are harsh and ought not be minimized.

Having extended that olive branch, I think that what we have been fed by media and motivated actors like Niigaan Sinclair, are likely instances of exaggerated evils.

For instance, the labelling of the Kamloops residential school – and subsequent ‘discoveries’ – as ‘mass graves’ by some in the media is utterly false and misleading. Though Chief Casimir, to her credit, has cautioned against using that term.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) defines ‘mass grave’ as a ‘burial site containing remains of two or more victims of extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and/or is a potential repository of evidence of mass killings of civilians and prisoners of wars during of an armed conflict.’

Like ‘genocide’, however, there is not unanimous agreement on this definition. The disagreements can lie in nitpickings over the number of individual remains in the burial site, but they are also motivated by the activist desire to craft weapons for the subaltern to use against their enemies in culture wars instead of finding truthful descriptions of events.

Nonetheless, the common definition of a mass grave involves the burial of numerous bodies resulting from mass violence, and its use in the residential school context is either hysterical or meant to gin up hysterical visions of dead children being unceremoniously tossed into a hole in the ground.

In her initial press release, on May 27^th, 2021, Chief Casimir referenced a report entitled ‘Where are the Children buried?’, which was completed by Dr. Scott Hamilton in 2015. The report was only made public following the press release.

According to Dr. Hamilton, records reveal ‘wild fluctuations from year to year’ which may reflect periodic epidemics at the schools, as well as poor record keeping and/or sporadic survival of records.

Archival records, as well as the TRC’s own statistical research, illustrated that the death rate of children (ages 5-14) at residential schools was about 19 times greater than the general population of the same age cohort. These higher death rates persisted until 1945 and thereafter plummeted to levels consistent with the general population.  

In recent interviews, Dr. Hamilton has expressed concern over the press’ use of the term ‘mass grave’, arguing that is misses the point of the situation being presented. Instead, Hamilton argues that what may have been found is a graveyard that accrued the corpses of children – and likely others – for over a century because of truly appalling conditions which led to high rates of devastating disease (like tuberculosis, influenza, and pneumonia) ending in death. Children also died from abuses, and others died whilst running away. However, the main cause of death was disease.

Children who died were buried in simple graveyards often located near the schools, however, sometimes, due to sickness, the staff would be incapable of burying the children on their school grounds, themselves. In these cases, and to ensure proper burial of the deceased, the school would sometimes contract out the burial to a neighbouring community’s undertaker to be buried at their graveyard.

Along with disease, another persistent issue was a lack of Federal funding which precluded sending the bodies home to their families or conducting proper burials.

According to Dr. Hamilton,   

Indian Affairs would only pay for a child’s burial under unusual circumstances, and if it paid, it expected the costs to be kept as low as possible. In this the department conformed to the general practice of the period in the treatment of those who died in institutions. It was not uncommon for hospitals to have cemeteries into which indigent patients were buried, while workhouses for the poor also had cemeteries. Many Canadians ended up in unmarked paupers’ graves.

The graves of the residential school children, and the cemeteries in which they lie, were simple and common; with wooden caskets and wooden crosses for markings which have disintegrated over time because of weather, lack of care, and being long forgotten. Dr. Hamilton also mentions how some residential school staff were worried about run away cattle trampling their cemeteries. All in all, these graves that have been purportedly discovered are not mass graves, and the use of the terminology is wrong and misleading - likely deliberately so given the lack of correction by news media. The graves may not have been initially unmarked since, as stated, their markings have likely been erased by weather and time. Also, most children were not killed, but, sadly, perished due to disease and poor living conditions caused by inadequate housing and funding. Finally, Dr. Hamilton stated that he found no evidence that school officials intended to hide the graves. In fact, according to the documentation, 

Ordinarily the body will be returned to the reserve for burial only when transportation, embalming costs and all other expenses are borne by next of kin. Transportation may be authorized, however, in cases where the cost of burial on the reserve is sufficiently low to make transportation economically advantageous.

Given that the reluctance of the Federal government to supply funds for such treatment and transport, it is unsurprising that many children would not have been returned home. 

All of these point to a long tragic story whose actual details are not nearly as sensational as headlines and activists would have the public believe.  

So, when assessing the facts and comparing them to the claims in the media, I think what we have are claims of exaggerated evils. Now, to say ‘exaggerated evil’ still implies the existence of ‘evil’. The abuse and neglect of children is evil, inhumane separation of children from their families is evil, and the involuntary assimilation of cultures is evil. And I think these can all be stated whilst still assessing the facts and acknowledging the context, motivations, and struggles of the parties involved. Residential schools were a part of a civilising effort that aimed to enfranchise the indigenous peoples of Canada so they could participate and survive in a world that was changing whether they liked it or not. Such a project was aligned with the civilising missions of Western colonial powers that were viewed as being inexorably guided by God and History. Concerns over ‘cultural genocide’ are beyond the scope of this article, and given that the definition of ‘genocide’, itself, is contested, I imagine determinations of cultural genocide will be contested, too.

 

Instances of Religious Hate

Since the discovery of these ‘unmarked graves’, over a dozen churches have been vandalised and numerous others have been set ablaze across Canada. Ten churches in Alberta were vandalised on Canada Day, alone.  

Condemnation of these acts has been tepid at best, with the repetitive chorus being ‘we understand the anger. But this isn’t the way to move forward’.

Arlen Dumas, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said ‘I personally wouldn’t have participated in that. Mind you, it has been a very triggering time over the past few weeks.’

Prime Minister Trudeau stated, ‘It’s real and it is fully understandable given the shameful history we are all become more aware of. I can’t help but think that burning down churches is actually depriving people who are in need of grieving and healing and mourning from places where they can grieve and reflect and look for support.’

A telling response came from a former residential school student who said, ‘[w]hoever is doing this, you're going to wake up a very ugly, evil spirit in this country’.

I would like to ask: how are these arsons and acts of vandalism not being condemned as examples of crimes motivated by religious hatred? These acts are clearly being perpetrated against a well-known religious group in Canada – namely the Catholic Church, but Christianity, in general – a group, in fact, which has been incessantly demonized in the press in recent weeks.

The Criminal Code of Canada says a ‘hate crime is one in which hate is the motive and can involve intimidation, harassment, physical force or threat of physical force against a person, a group or a property.’ The victims and/or their property are targeted for who they are, not because of anything they have done.

Well, given that no one in the targeted communities actually did anything in the residential schools, these attacks on churches obviously fit the bill. However, perhaps the perpetrators and their apologists would argue that the ‘genocide’ is still ongoing and that the Catholic Church, as well as individual Christians, who are not sufficiently upset by the findings are complicit in it. After all, ‘just because you didn’t actually do anything in residential schools doesn’t mean that you have nothing to do with it.’ The trap gets sprung and guilt is imposed – no evidence needed.

One can easily point to instances of double-standards at play, and so I encourage you, dear reader, to think of your own examples.

Now, I’m no fan of hate crime laws. But I’m also not a fan of inconsistent application of law. If hate-motivated crimes exist in this country, and if a perpetrator can be motivated by religious hatred, then surely these attacks on churches count as such crimes. The cowardice of our ‘leaders’ causing them not apply equal standards in quite evident.

 

Attempts at European Erasure

The acts of vandalism and arson are clearly motivated by anti-Christian hate, and Christianity is a proxy for European. How so? Because the attacks are not limited to churches but extended outward to signifiers of European heritage.

As is to be expected, statues and monuments of prominent figures in European Canadian history were vandalised on Canada Day. There were also calls to ‘cancel’ Canada Day – and some municipalities did just that.

A statue of Queen Victoria at the Manitoba Legislature was toppled by protestors, as was a statue of Queen Elizabeth II.  

Activists in Victoria, British Columbia also knocked down a statue of Captain James Cook and tossed it in the city’s harbour.

Sir John A. MacDonald’s gravesite in Kingston, Ontario was vandalised. His statue at Kingston Park has been previously removed on June 18^th, 2021.

Names of buildings, neighbourhoods, and roads are being petitioned for removal and replacement, and the list goes on.

One person who has been making the rounds in the news media is Niigaan Sinclair. For Niigaan, there hasn’t been a statue of a European Canadian that he hasn’t wanted torn down. He is a man who is fighting for his people, and I respect that, though I don’t respect his duplicity.

When asked about the toppling of the statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II Niigaan responded, ‘[l]et's get some scope here. A statue being re-altered or edited or vandalized, whatever you want to call it, is nowhere near the kind of scope [of violence] that Indigenous peoples continue to experience every day… [W]e saw a peaceful indicator of change in our community. And I think that's a cause for celebration’.

Well, that is one way someone can frame what’s going on here. But I think there is a more appropriate framing - one that does not rely on a ‘altered’, ‘edited’ or ‘vandalized’ post-modern version of history.

So, let’s get some scope here: what we are seeing are belligerent mobs engaging in vandalism and property destruction of elements of European heritage in this country in a bid to engage in an undemocratic and hostile take-over of the public square. These belligerents are also backed by a sympathetic consent-generating apparatus made up of academia, news media, and some politicians.

Prime Minister Trudeau, for instance, stated:

‘Even as I was speaking with people who chose to wear red and white [on Canada Day] instead of orange, they were reflecting on how their fellow citizens are hurting, how we need to respect and understand that not everyone felt like celebrating yesterday. Celebrating was the last thing on the minds of many many people in this country for whom we need to do better.’

One thing that ‘we’ can do better is developing confidence in ourselves and our history and standing up for both.

We are simultaneously told that we need to acknowledge our ‘true’ history whilst also respecting calls for representations of that history to be torn down and erased from the public square because they serve as reminders of past oppression.

Such attitudes are hinted at in the contemporary monikers of 'settler Canadian' or 'coloniser' - which attempt to reach back to the past and imbue today's European Canadians with the stain of generations long past.

We are told that we should be aware of the trauma that gets passed from generation to generation, however, we are also told that 'we' need to learn the 'uncomfortable truths' about our history, and to learn 'what it really is'. Indeed, so why, then, should the statues come down? If 'we' are to learn of our complicated history, then having memorials to it better serves that purpose than not.

The history of the residential schools is fraught with horror but declaring mea culpa over and over without accompanying action only intensifies tension between groups by amplifying certain negative aspects of the past whilst also engendering a permanent state of grievance.

That is the final olive branch.

A less gentle response also presents itself: why acquiesce to the offence that some people feel towards statues, names, or monuments anyway? I think we should reject this acquiesce wholeheartedly.

National identity and its symbols should not be left up to the dictates and whims of the capital, the government, let alone the mob.

National identity is retained by old and inherited sentiments of belong and tradition and it is cultivated through the consideration and practice of those who share in it. It is not bought, imported, or signed into existence on a sheet of paper. It is not universal or borderless; there particularities and there are sides. It is also personal, rooted and deeply normative. Challenges to it from the ‘outside’ must be seen as challenges to all these things – especially if they are cloaked in the language of social justice and equity. (For a more detailed assessment, feel free to check out my article: Statues, Legacy, and Sanitising the Public Square)

These people who wish to tear down monuments and the like are not working towards some collective emancipation that will be shared by all. Instead, they are severing people from their past in a way that remedies how they view their own past was torn from their ancestors. It is not about justice. It is about vengeance.

Every piece of art, every legacy of exploration, history, militarism, and religion will be deemed as enforcing white supremacy. As such, to live in such a society and see these elements of worthy of remembrance and not trauma is an example of white privilege.

What exactly does this entail? I take it to mean that the history, society, culture, and benefits that we, descendants of Europe have accrued from our ancestors is illegitimate. I see no reason to accept this.

It is not an argument in good faith, but rather is meant to manipulate empathy and good will to self-destructive ends.

 

 

 

Critical Race Theory is Anti-White

Last week, Democrat-turned-Trumpist-turned-anti-woke activist-commentator, Dr. Karlyn Borysenko kicked the hornet’s nest when she released a video on her YouTube channel wherein she asserted that critical race theory (CRT) is not anti-white. She also stated that CRT should not be framed as ‘anti-white’ in political discourse. These two claims are not synonymous – one is descriptive, and the other is normative - and she skips between them in her address.

In the video, Borysenko offered three points to justify her claims that CRT is not anti-white and that CRT shouldn’t be framed as such because:

1)   The claim that ‘CRT is anti-white’ is false;

2) You’ll be playing directly into the left’s  hands by making yourself out to be an identifiable racist, and;

3)   It is dangerous because it’ll form a white power movement in the US.

To support her her first assertion, Borysenko states that CRT is not anti-white, it is anti-whoever-disagrees-with-CRT. What is her evidence? An opinion piece in the Washington Post by a professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University named Cristina Beltrán.

Beltrán, who is also the author of ‘Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy’, writes in her op-ed that ‘we must think in terms of multiracial Whiteness’ to understand the presence of people of colour who supported Donald Trump.

According to Beltrán:

…'multiracial Whiteness' is an ideology invested in the unequal distribution of land, wealth, power and privilege — a form of hierarchy in which the standing of one section of the population is premised on the debasement of others. Multiracial whiteness reflects an understanding of whiteness as a political color and not simply a racial identity — a discriminatory worldview in which feelings of freedom and belonging are produced through the persecution and dehumanization of others.

This whole article is a screed against whiteness – and yet Borysekno thinks that this is evidence for the claim that CRT is not anti-white… The mind boggles, but I will elaborate where the confusion lies.

Borysenko is making two mistakes: first is that she is engaging in a compositional fallacy (intentionally of otherwise), and secondly, she is misunderstanding how CRT uses race in its politics.  

To the fallacy: she is stating that people are wrong to call CRT anti-white because CRT is anti-everyone-who-disagrees-with-it. By saying this, she is trying to argue that calling CRT anti-white is a fallacious attribution of the property of anti-whiteness to the whole of CRT. To support this claim, she offers a list of ways in which CRT condescends to and negatively impacts people of colour. For example, CRT is used to infantilise blacks by excusing black underperformance, and it also hampers Asians via discriminatory university admission standards.

These examples are legitimate, but sadly for Borysenko she is engaging in fallacious reasoning, herself. One cannot say that ‘CRT is anti-everyone-who-disagrees-with-it therefore the property of anti-whiteness doesn’t exist in CRT’. That is far to quick.

At best, one could say that Borysenko is arguing that CRT isn’t only anti-white, and thus to say that it is only anti-white is false. The problem for her, though, is that this cut both ways. One can say that CRT is anti-white while not being only anti-white. It can be predominately anti-white or even somewhat anti-white, but to deny any anti-whiteness in CRT is absurd.

So, she is either denying that there is any anti-whiteness in CRT or she is willingly subordinating concerns of anti-whiteness to other concerns.

If she is denying that CRT has any anti-whiteness in it, then what she is saying is preposterous. This is like saying that the French Revolution wasn’t anti-Catholic since it didn’t solely target Catholics. Or that slavery wasn’t anti-black since it also impoverished Southern whites. Or that the Third Reich wasn’t anti-Jewish because it also dispossessed non-Jews. The collateral damage of an act or program doesn’t negate or minimise the centrality of the primary target.

On the other hand, if she is dismissing the concerns of anti-whiteness, then she’ll need to offer a reason why.

I think it’s clear that she is engaging in the latter, and I’ll explain why after I illustrate her misunderstanding of CRT’s concept of race.

Borysenko, as a supposed critic of CRT, should know that CRT views race as a socio-cultural construct. Though there are biological traits that differ between groups, those are not the only or even the most important thing about one’s racial identity. On CRT’s understanding of race, someone is black, for example, if and only if one is systematically subordinated along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.), and is ‘marked’ out as a target for this subordination through real or imagined biological features, with darker skin colour being the primary mode of identification. (To define white, one needs only to switch out the language of subordination to language of privilege.)

Now, one would be correct in noticing that this definition departs radically from the standard definition of black being someone whose ancestors are indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa, and white being someone whose ancestors are indigenous to Europe. (There are caveats, of course and grey areas). 

One is also correct in thinking that it perfectly possible for a white person qua someone whose ancestors are indigenous to Europe to meet this definition of black, and that it also seems plausible that a black person qua someone whose ancestors are indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa can fail to meet this definition. This is gestured at by the multiracial whiteness concept.

Nonetheless, this is a standard definition of race utilised by critical race theorists and its fellow travelers in their ameliorative endeavors.

Borysenko, however, is using race in something like the standard sense, and thus not in the CRT sense.

That said, Borysenko should also know that CRT’s rather idiosyncratic definition of race is one of its flaws, and it is also one of its weapons. By having a sophistic definition of race, CRT advocates can engage in a motte and bailey tactic that both smuggles in anti-white politics while obscuring its intentions.

For example, in June 2020 Dr Priyamvada Gopal, an academic at Cambridge University, stated on Twitter ‘White lives don’t matter. As white lives’ and ‘Abolish whiteness’, in response to a banner flown over a Premier League football stadium that read ‘White lives matter Burnley’.

In a predictably tepid defense, Gopal stated that her tweets were opposing the concept of whiteness – the societal structure that presumes the superiority of white people – and not attacking white people.

When she had said “White lives don’t matter. As white lives,” she had meant their value should be inherent and not linked to ideologies around race, she said. “Whiteness does not qualify someone to have their life matter; the life matters but not the whiteness.”

For some reason, this was seen as an acceptable defense…

Cambridge came out and offered a defense of free speech on its social media accounts – though it didn’t reference Gopal directly.

Gopal then took the opportunity to chastise Cambridge whining that ‘…instead of a statement on freedom of speech, [Cambridge should be] saying that there is something to be said about a critical look at whiteness.’

Cambridge further prostrated itself by stating that:

[It] is working to address racial inequalities in collaboration with students, academics and professional staff, including the university’s race equality inclusion champions.

We are aware of the magnitude of the problem and are working on improving our support services for staff and students – recognising, investigating and challenging barriers to recruitment, progression and retention of black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and students.

Meanwhile, police started an investigation into the man who flew the banner. The poor guy was summarily fired from his job, and the CEO of the Burnley football team condemned the act as disgusting. Luckily, no charges were laid. And yet white pupils from state schools continued to have the lowest entry rate to higher education from 2007 and 2020.

What this example shows is the motte and bailey in action, and also how the politics of these CRT-types works.

CRT traffics in its idiosyncratic and abstract definition of white and black but its targets are the those who fit the standard definition of white and black.

The CRT advocate may say that they’re targeting systematic racism that is perpetrated by whiteness, but they only ever hit people whose ancestors are from Europe.

For example, Ibram X Kendi, an infamous African American anti-racist activist and scholar, has advocated for the discrimination against white people in order to achieve equity. By ‘white people’ Kendi does not mean ‘someone who is systematically privileged along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.), and is ‘marked’ as a target for this subordination through real or imagined morphological features, with lighter skin colour being the primary mode of identification.’ He means people of European descent. Why? Because he isn’t going to recommend that blacks who happen to fit the CRT definition of white – a la multiracial whiteness – be subject to the penalties inflicted on actual white people.

So, by CRT’s own lights it is anti-white, and even if one uses the standard definition of white CRT is still anti-white.

Now, I’m trying to be charitable to Borysenko here. But she is either unworthy of her PhD by displaying such fallacious reasoning or she is being dishonest. I lean towards the latter. After all, she points out that her primary motivation in this debate – and in politics more generally – is to prevent a so-called ‘white power movement’ from ascending in the US. Hence her other two points against framing CRT as anti-white. 

She also states that she’ll never support pro-white legislation. She doesn’t say what pro-white legislation is, however. Would banning CRT be an example of pro-white legislation? She probably wouldn’t think so since CRT is anti-everyone, and she has supported such moves, however the proponents of CRT would, and have, called such politics racist. Perhaps people needn’t ask for the permission from their political enemies in order to engage in politics that protects their interests.

Borysenko also keeps on hammering on the idea that those who profess that CRT is anti-white are ‘giving the woke, the left exactly what they want’, but she never explains who ‘they’ refers to.

Apparently, ‘[t]hey want you to be racist’ and ‘[t]hey want you to run around like Marjorie Taylor Greene and establish a committee to protect Anglo-Saxon values’.

She also says that a pro-white/white power movement is exactly what ‘they’ want… whoever ‘they’ is.

This is absurd on its face. If ‘they’ wanted a white power movement to form, then why are ‘they’ working so hard to stamp it down? Where is the pro-white sentiment on the left? Where is the pro-white sentiment in the government or in the corporations? If the left wants a pro-white movement, in order to have an enemy to attack, then why ban pro-white advocates from social media? Why remove them from banks? Why arrest them on trumped up charges? Why remove their books from stores and doxx people?

Borysenko also states that ‘they’ want to have people constantly at each other’s throats. They want to keep people divided and race is a good way to divide people. I do not deny that there are those who wish to sow discord in the service of their ideology and interests, but if that is what is going on, then one is going to have to do some investigation into who is sowing the discord. Nothing is offered by Borysenko on this.

Overall, what Borysenko is saying is flat-out false and, with luck, she’ll be knocked down a few pegs and ignored. An overarching problem, though, is that she isn’t alone. There are numerous counter-productive people, ostensibly on the right, who are gatekeeping.

These gatekeepers provide barriers to actual change by walling off ideas that could prove useful in the culture war.

What has been seen for the last few decades – and what has accelerated in the past 10-15 years – has been the increased hostility towards Western institutions, values, history, and traditions that were founded by people of European descent. And even though white are being told that CRT and other such programs are not about attacking white people, the effects are all too obvious to ignore.

There has been a ratcheting of cultural change that moves ever leftward and as change moves ever leftward more and more rightward ideas, thoughts, beliefs, traditions, and institutions become verboten. The Overton Window shifts, or even lurches. One can see examples of this in attitudes towards divorce, abortion, and marriage, and we can also see this in the politics of gender, race, demographics, immigration, etc. CRT is but one tool in the toolbox, but it is used to help ratchet change leftward. 

And so, the question can be posed ‘how do we break the ratchet?' In this case, how do we break the rachet of anti-whiteness propagated by CRT? 

One answer that could actually work is the one that we’re being told is a no-go: its white people collectively saying 'no'. 

George Floyd, Criminality, and Racial Justice

 As most already know, the Chauvin trial has come to pass, and he has been found guilty of all charges against him in the death of George Floyd. 

Now, the media is feverishly asking how this verdict will change policing, and what issues in policing are to be addressed in the wake of this historic trial. 

To my mind, there are plenty of issues with policing, such as the use of force and its justification, race relations, mental health, etc., but there is the issue of what the police respond to: criminality.

There is also behaviour conditional upon encountering the police that gets people into trouble, that otherwise could have been avoided.

If you do not run from the cops, you will not get chased.

If you do not resist arrest, you will not be restrained.

If you do not commit crimes, you will not be detained.

And yet we see time and again black men, in particular, do exactly all of these things. What are cops supposed to do? Shirk their duty and let the criminal off easy? Surely not. 

In the case of Floyd, the cops were not called on him because of some fake $20 bill being shown in the attempt of a transaction. They were called to deal with theft. Floyd had ‘paid’ for his cigarettes and banana with a fake $20 bill, and when confronted by multiple store employees to return to the store and pay up, he refused. It was after repeated attempts at this that the store manager had an employee call the cops on him.

Floyd was found with his drug dealer in the car, as well as a female friend, and he swallowed some homemade drugs (speedballs, which were a mixture of meth and fentanyl) – he had done the same thing in a previous 2019 arrest. Floyd was detained and cuffed, resisted arrest, was put on the ground, and got the knee.

We all saw Chauvin with his knee on the neck and back of Floyd, and we saw Floyd go from being an active, belligerent person resisting arrest to being unresponsive. We very well could have watched Floyd die right there.

So, we’re told the issue is policing: use of force and a callous indifference to human life – perhaps even to a racist degree.

 In the Chauvin case, I think the issue is more specific than ‘policing’. The issue is ‘causation’. Did Chauvin CAUSE Floyd’s death, and was his involvement in that death criminal beyond a reasonable doubt?

The state and its witnesses argued, successively, that Floyd was killed by a ‘blood choke’ by Chauvin’s knee cutting off Floyd’s blood supply to his brain, by a ‘respiratory choke’ by Chauvin’s knee cutting off Floyd’s air supply (a totally different thing), and by positional asphyxia-induced compression of Floyd’s chest and airways (yet another different thing). 

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy stated that the cause of death was cardio-pulmonary arrest, and another medical witness who reviewed the medical records said that ‘if they had found Floyd at home, dead, then she’d conclude it was an overdose’ – both witnesses stating that Floyd’s heart was a major culprit.   

To Floyd’s heart, it had substantial blockage of his major coronary arteries.  Thus, his heart was unusually vulnerable to any further restriction in blood flow and oxygen supply, as well as abruptly increased demand for blood. Floyd also had severe hypertension, with the resultant enlarged heart, making the heart exceptionally vulnerable under stressful conditions – this is compounded by the aforementioned blockages.

Floyd was an acknowledged drug addict and user of both meth and fentanyl, as well as other drugs. In the case of cardiovascular health, meth makes one vulnerable to heart failure, especially under stressful circumstances.

In the case of fentanyl, its a reasonable inference that the amount of the drug found in Floyd’s system, three times the standard lethal limit, also contributed to Floyd’s death. 

For what it’s worth, I think that had Floyd not resisted arrest and had gotten into the squad car he likely would have died that day anyway. In fact, I think that Floyd’s drug dealer is the real culprit here – but he knows better and pled the 5th so as to not incriminate himself in 3rd degree murder charges… Curious how the state didn’t grant him immunity to testify, isn’t it? I guess it isn’t. 

 All of this, and more, is to be considered in one’s own deliberation of this case in the quiet of their own mind, and I cannot reasonably conclude that Chauvin’s conduct created a foreseeable risk of 'deadly force harm' to Floyd. After all, though we’re privileged to have all this information to mull over, Chauvin, as well as many other cops in similar situations, would be making such assessments in the total absence of Floyd’s seriously damaged physiology and toxicology.

Should cops be expected to do as such? Surely not. 

Now, yes, the police are to be held to a higher standard, but they shouldn’t be sacrificial lambs that get tossed to the wolves. Other cops, good cops, will get the message and leave the force because they have the justified feeling that when things get racially controversial, the department will not have their back. 

That said, there have been/are issues with unconditional deference to the police, and the Yak-like herding cops will do around one of their own. But there is also the problem of unjustified, dogmatic scepticism and cynicism directed towards police officers. As I stated above, there are serious issues with criminality. Floyd was a criminal. Did he deserve to die? No. But as I think, the cause of his death lies with himself and his drug dealer.

That said, even though I think the issues involving Floyd’s death are specific and complicated, there are also more expansive moral issues ‘we’ – and let’s be honest, its ‘white people’ – must face.

We’re expected to soberly assess these situations and disown the bad guys, even ‘our own’ guys. We’re told not to be tribal and to engage in our higher ideals of justice, while also being told that the imposition of those standards is a continuation of the legacies of white supremacy. 

I have no problem assessing the facts and deliberating on the guilt/innocence of the parties involved, but it smacks of foul play when we are also told not to speak honestly about the criminality of the parties involved if they happen to be ‘racialised’, ‘marginalised’, ‘BIPOC’, etc. Last time I checked, such people are humans and are therefore moral agents, and they should be scrutinised as such. Unless we want to have different standards for these groups…  And we’re seeing this already begin to play out in the cases of Sergeant Pentland, Officer Nicholas Reardon, as well as others. 

It's this lopsided distortion of justice, presumption of innocence, and reasonable doubt that I fear will be promoted by this trial, and its message will play itself out in the lives of citizens across racial lines. 

Social Distancing, Modernity, and the Culture War

Leave it to the lefties at Canadian Dimension to keep serving up these piping hot takes.

In a recent article, Yavar Hameed, a human rights lawyer and sessional lecturer at Carleton University’s Department of Law and Legal Studies, offers a critique of social distancing: cautioning us to be aware of its insidious intellectual history, and its dis-empowering effects in the present day. 

He starts off by stating that the logic of social distancing is 'compelling' because it is based in science, promoted by trusted public health experts, and the advice is simple: isolation deters the the spread of the virus and it is temporary. 

However, there is a lurking danger in the concept of social distancing which serves to alienate people in an already atomized world. Pushing people into echo-chambers of their own solipsism is merely an extension of the way that many people live in both real and virtual worlds. In this sense, we are already socially distant—the more pressing concern is understanding the broader impacts of forced spatial distancing, especially upon society’s most vulnerable.

This is certainly a problem that we have in modernity: though we are told how 'connected' we are via technology, we are more isolated than ever before. The data are in on rising feelings of loneliness, lack of fulfillment, dissolving social cohesion and community, and general unhappiness. People really have a sense that things are not going well. 

Hameed, then, immediately springboards off of 'social distancing' and atomisation to a disucssion of the sociological concept of 'social distance'. He states:

While it should not be confused with the public health measures we are seeing today, “social distance” is a term whose intellectual roots lie in the discipline of urban sociology... [and the] theory of “urban ecology”... Extrapolated from plant biology, it argued that the “competition and equilibrium observed between plants provided a sufficient model for the interaction of social groups” in urban spaces... [and] rationalized physical separation based on personal preference for racial similarity (and related social activities) and an antipathy towards miscegenation...  In this sense, “social distance” animated the creation of physical architecture and the spaces of urban living predicated on race, or the separation of certain individuals from socially devalued groups.

In its origin, therefore, there is something insidious and deeply troubling about the concept of “social distance” and its implications for the material and ideological maintenance of human networks and the rights, responsibilities, and protections they offer.

Hameed also stresses that instead of using the term 'social distancing' we should move to use 'spatial distancing' in order to understand that distance between us in space, ought not translate to the distance between us in social connection. 

Where to  begin... 

One cannot preface their statement with 'while X should not be confused with Y' and then go on to confuse X with Y. 

This whole thing is based on a big fat equivocation between 'social distance' - the amount of differential preference and 'intimacy' social groups have with other social groups - and 'social distancing' - the physical act of remaining 2 meters away from other people.

I can understand the move to emphasise 'spatial distancing' instead of 'social distancing'; but c'mon: one cannot spatially distance themselves from others unless they're socially proximal. This point is fairly big brained rhetoric for us knuckledraggers who need to understand the difference between geographic distance and emotional distance. I jest: everyone knows about the phenomenon wherein a relationship one person becomes 'distant' - that doesn't mean that the person is farther away from you all the way over there, it means that they're aloof or emotionally disconnected. One of the main concerns that people have about social distancing is how they'll maintain the connections with people they love, or the more vulnerable. People aren't likely to feel more reassured about their predicament or feel inclined to do more outreach because of this rhetorical tip of the hat. 

And the change in people isn't likely to happen because nothing is really changing. It is a trick. What's happened is that they've taken the current phenomenon of 'social distancing' and poisoned the well by linking it to an over-simplified eva luation of the concept of 'social distance', which they've deemed racist. Having sufficiently tainted 'social distancing' in the minds of readers, they offer an alternative to 'social distancing' called 'spatial distancing' in a shallow attempt to implant the notion that though we have to remain physically distant, we can yet remain emotionally and socially connected. This helps to make them out to be the good guys in relation to the status quo that they've constructed via their cherry-picking. 

I also agree with the concern about further atomisation, but calling out a concept (social distance) in order to bring attention to another practice (social distancing) seems like a cheap analogy. We've already been told, again and again, that 'racism' and 'xenophobia' are 'viruses' spreading alongside this Coronavirus - this analogy is but more of the same. If it helps you raise you consciousness, then fine. But one should also be sharp enough to realise the bullshit... because there is bullshit to come. 

Hameed goes on to quote from queer liberation and anti-capitalist activist, Gary Kinsman, stating that '[s]pace is not a neutral zone; it is the battleground for ideological contests and the enforcement of normative patterns which dispossess rather than foster community.' I agree, somewhat. Space isn't as neutral as one would like: public space isn't just public. Try sleeping outside in a park and you'll see the regulatory forces come out. Try having a demonstration against Drag Queen Story Hour - we've seen snipers atop buildings in the US keeping an eye on such things. 

And that's why I detest the Left: they control the spaces for discourse, analysis, intellectual formation, rebellion, and finally, developing alternative ways of living, as well as the acceptable range of discussion - and they refuse to believe that they do. Gary Kinsman, after all, is founder of 'Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere', as well as the 'Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee of Toronto'. So, if you are on the Right, anywhere; Kinsman and his gaggle of gender deviants will be against you. And that gets me thinking a little about their motivations... It appears to be as much 'for' as it is 'against'.

Do you recall when 'Pride' was just 'Pride day'? Now we have Pride Month wherein corporations and governments don the technicolour rainbow to bedazzle onlookers with their inclusion and 'commitment' to equality, and yet, the LGBT folks still claim victim-status and harangue those who aren't sufficiently on board - even going as far as descending upon small rural towns with their Pride marches. I find it somewhat predatory and imposing. 

But I digress, somewhat. 

What I mean to get at is that the Left is equivocating, again by calling the imperatives for 'social distancing' just another part of the 'ideological spatial war of dispossession'. That's not what is happening. 

Social distancing is being recommended because it is an easy, cheap, achievable first-line-of-defence against a contagious viral spread. It is NOT being recommended in order to dispossess people and to atomise people - though these could be after-effects, and it is up to us to make sure that doesn't happen. After all, if we disagree with some government approach or other, we cannot gather, demonstrate, protest, march, and the like. We can't even gather in groups to discuss productive alternatives and figure out ways to help people in need - but that is baked into the nature of the crisis. So, unless this author wishes to deny that there is, indeed, a crisis afoot, and that the crisis isn't adequately addressed via social distancing, this criticism of social distancing, with its insidious intellectual history and dis-empowering effects, seems to be about something else... and what that 'something else' is happens to be what the Left wants for itself: control of and access to 'space' into to engage in the 'ideological spatial war of dispossession'. They think that social distancing is being used in an ideological war because that's what they're doing, or wish to do, and they are trying to fashion the social distancing phenomenon into another ideological lens in the prism for people to view the world through. Hence the appeal to the intellectual history of 'social distance', the link made between social distance and social distancing, and the final quick and easy shift from social distance to spatial distance.

They have no problem dispossessing people. They have no problem doxxing their enemies, going after their jobs, threatening their lives and families, and harassing them online and in-person. The Left wants control. They have no problem 'dispossessing' those they oppose, and freeing up those with whom they align, and Coronavirus is being utilised for all sorts of seemingly incompatible desires. For instance, the Left is calling for the release of prisoners because they're more likely to catch the virus whilst in prison, and yet they also advocate for the continued entry and assistance for immigrants and asylum seekers. How do these compute with the moves to contain the spread of the virus? I suppose the migrants are to be released, too.

There are many groups that are taking advantage of this pandemic, and it is important, however, to see who is acting as a conduit for the power that brought us here.

There are those who are willing become martyrs for the GDP; there are those who argue for a return the neo-liberal status quo whilst footing the blame solely on China; there are also those who continue to espouse the enforcement of PC diktats; and there are the technocrats who are attempting to justify a shift towards socialism because of China's apparent success at dealing with the virus, meanwhile law enforcement drones are soaring through the skies to identify and fine citizens walking in the countryside.

The most damning thing for our establishments - from news media to government officials - will have to be the decisions they made from January to mid-March, and they must all be held to account, and heads must roll. It is not only their fundamental lack of leadership, but this lack of leadership has been married to allegiances to corrosive and unsustainable ideas for the shaping of our societies.

Again, there are many groups trying to gain from this pandemic - and many of them are stuck trying to get their paradigms up and running, again, and those would lead back to this sort of situation. Folks are taking the opportunities they can, and are trying not to let a good crisis go to waste. 

But of course they side with their own, and fight against their enemies: such is the nature of  a war. 

Yes. 

So get used to the idea that you are in one.

Changing Priorities - Cultivating Virtue

'Delaying the peak'

'Flattening the curve'

More like: 'Managing the decline.'

---

It is interesting to see the lines that our various governments are taking these days in this pandemic.

In the UK and Canada, there are newly-crafted laws against mis-gendering trans and non-binary people. The laws were happily used, and people were prosecuted and convicted.

Before the outbreak, the government with its bureaucrats were happy to police private lives of its citizens: developing task forces to target 'mean tweets', to fund and implement studies on bigotry and x,y,z-phobia, to 'call-out' men who didn't call themselves 'feminists', to push diversity quotas, and punish those who strayed from or contravened the new orthodoxy.

Now, in the turbulence of the Coronavirus, we're being told to 'lean on each other', 'not panic', 'be prepared to lose loved ones' - to engage in a stoicism and reasoned deliberation that has been all but bred out of us, and mobilise towards a common cause to act in the favour of the common good.

How, exactly, are we to mobilise ourselves? Around what, exactly, shall we rally? Well, we are in quarantine or self-isolation so that puts a damper on things... We cannot physically meet to rally, or protest, but more the point I want to make: what reason do we have to do anything outside of self-interest and the immediate interests of our families and loved ones? What is the guiding ethos outside of survival?

Our 'leaders' are attempting to cheer-lead for a social fabric that no longer exists, and which, in fact, has been slowly unraveled for decades by their very blithe insistence on 'progress'.

What they've called the 'expansion of the moral sphere' is nothing but the expansion of licence to those who are vain and narcissistic enough to demand it, and back it up under the threat of censure by intolerant human rights legislation.

Culture, patriotism, national identity and character, peoplehood, family - it has all been deconstructed, devalued, and pinned on top with a Pride flag. (To be clear: each of these terms should have as [*] next them reading: 'white cis male' - and I mean this in the technical critical race theory sense.)

But given the mobilisation that has occurred, I wonder if this time is not appropriately paralleled to World War II - not the frontlines, but the homefront.

I know that WWII gets invoked a lot in order to prop up the seriousness of whatever cause one wants to promote, but with the rationing of obvious scarcity, national mobilisation around sacrifice, the odd camaraderie and fellowship that people seem to develop when life expectancy for everyone is cut to a possible 4-6 months... It seems to make things richer, deeper, and people become more grateful.

The analogy is far from perfect: we cannot mobilise production and community nearly as well as in WWII - its baked into the very nature of this crisis that we are to remain in isolation, and I don't want to get sanguine or pollyanna-ish about this: I'm not hopeful for a large communal turn away from the vices that led us here, and towards the virtues that will help build a new future.

In every age, people have thought that they're living in particularly gloomy times. I hear that. One mustn't get too doomy. But this time we find ourselves in is unique, and a sufficient amount of doomy thinking should prompt productive thinking.

The imposition of limits can inspire the imagination: like haikus or one-stroke paintings impressive beauty can be expressed within constraints. And in the past, the sword has been a traditional cure for decadence, and perhaps pestilence, though tragic, unseen, and uninvited, can be as well.

This isn't hope for the light-bulbs to flicker on in the heads of our leaders, and for there to be a serious discussion about the re-orientation of society, globalism, manufacturing and production, supply chains, and global finance. It is not a hope for someone to come down from the mountain with revelations on life.

It is hope that in this trying time, people on the ground will come to terms with that has been lost, damaged, and hidden from sight by censures, demagogues, and post-modern moralists.

People hate each other less when they need each other more and share confidence, and building shared confidence occurs with honesty: radical honesty about objectives, costs, fears, and hopes; as well as shedding the pretenses of our age, hyper-individualism and neo-liberalism, that have been propagated for decades.

This is already being seen in small instances: there are the videos of young people partying on Spring Break, or people going to pubs and bars, or other gatherings. The majority of the public looks on in shock, dismay or disgust at how such people can be so reckless and selfish, and how such disregard for one's communal duties to protect others is being flaunted.

Moving forward, though, we on the ground will have to do more than criticise. We have to be productive and present positive goals and values, and cultivate the possibilities for them to be exercised.

People should be open and honest about abilities, skills and talents. Differences have to be recognised and acknowledged - a tough one, in our age, will be complementarity between men and women. This should be acknowledged in order to create coherence in families, couples, and groups. There has to be the cultivation of the reliable person: the nurturing mother, the providing father. There isn't time for chatter about what we've come to know as 'equality', 'equity', 'diversity' and 'inclusion'. Those are distractions that people can toy with when times are comfortable - what has such chatter done to keep us out of this situation? It is a time to focus on cultivating autonomy, freedom, and dignity. 

Self-reliance and self-sufficiency, even in small things, will be important. From growing plants and herbs, to learning to pickle (lacto-ferment!) vegetables to extend shelf-life. These can be easily done in a home during isolation.

Make beef jerky - or liver jerky: it is tasty, nutritious, and is very cheap. Try buying offal - cook up a beef heart. You won't believe it isn't steak. And if you cannot cook: for God's sake, now is the time to learn. Same goes for tools - buy some, borrow some, and learn to use them.

People who can be counted on to care for others who need help will have to step up and create others like them. This can simple like grabbing groceries for an elder or a friend in need. Who knows what will happen come Spring time, but possible repairs to homes may need to be done, and the person who needs help may be a friend, family member, or neighbour who has been laid off work and cannot afford to pay a contractor. Laying a helping hand can make a big difference, if you have the skills and resources. Finally, just sharing information one has with a curious friend and family member can go a long way in spreading information for skill acquisition in a time of quarantine and isolation.

Families will have to be valued more. There is security in a family, as well as love, care and belonging. (Of course, not every family is loving, and some families are broken, etc., but families shouldn't be like that. If you don't have a salvageable family, then there are going to be other issues to deal with. I'm no doctor, and the spread of this virus is fairly clandestine with its long incubation period and asymptomatic spread, so take this with caution: is the virus worse than living with your broken family? Do you have another safe place you can go? Talk to the folks there. Wait a bit to check for symptoms, and then, if you all feel certain enough, go there.)

Contacting family and friends during this time will be important - not only are you checking in on them to see if they are OK or if they need help, but people will know who to rely upon, and who is more or less extraneous.

Start up a book club with family and/or friends.

Pick a book you all enjoy, or pick something new. What comes to my mind are books like The Road, I am Legend, and Jaws, or perhaps something less morose like The Count of Monte Cristo, Swiss Family Robinson, Time Machine, or Old Yeller.

Try picking one of the Classics - one of those books by old dead white men that the academy has tried to throw out of their curricula: Plato, Aristotle, Conrad, Melville, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth, Homer, Cicero, Dante, Ovid, Dickens, Tolstoy, and so on are ripe pickings. 

Like the underground educational networks in Eastern Europe under communism - building shrines in the catacombs to venerate the memory of their culture - one can cultivate deep interest and perhaps devotion to the timelessness of things.

Though many people are isolated and/or have lost their jobs and have claimed unemployment, there are those who are still working and yet are doing double-duty as workers and parents, or as care-givers to the elderly, or those who are sick, themselves. Making time can be difficult - but the difficulty is the constant, here, and how one deals with it will illustrate one's commitment or desire to making the best of this situation.

I'm not trying to get all high-minded about this: reading a good book and chatting about it can really pass the time, and sadly most people will just binge-watch whatever NetFlix throws their way.

If reading books is too cumbersome then try a film - a good one. But when the comics become dull, when the irony ceases to elicit a smirk, and when the formulae become predictable there is always the option to turn to things more rich, sincere, and illuminating. These are stable in an unstable world. 

Replacement - Conspiracy, Reality.

In the West: 

1) Native birth rates are below replacement;

2) Life expectancy is increasing;

3) People are getting older; thus:

4) The native young of the country is decreasing as a proportion of the population - or in other words, the population is 'aging'.

5)We need to import other young people to work, get taxed, and contribute to pensions, and;

6) The majority of these people being imported happen to be of a different race and culture than the native population.

[Edit. We'll have to see what changes given the Coronavirus outbreak]

This is replacement.

The point isn't that there is the white race being replaced by a particular race, but rather that white-majority nations in Europe and North America are having their native white populations dwindle as a proportion of the population as the foreign-born population increases due to immigration and birthrates.

It needn't be done intentionally by a cabal of elites conniving to erase the white race from the world, but regardless of intention the proportion of white people is decreasing as a percentage of the population of their countries whilst the proportion of non-white people in increasing as a percentage of the population, and the increasing non-white population is occurring, in part, due to the policies and incentives set up by leaders and decision-makers. So, there are people in charge, and they are making decisions, so there is at least some weak claim to 'intentionality'.

There are also some complicated issues about WHY native birthrates are so low. Reasons range from education, to abortion, to unstable economic conditions, to fear of climate change, to materialism and consumerism, the cost of raising children, as well as the promotion and acceptance of 'non-traditional' families, as well as changing gender norms and expectations. These all serve as explanations of (1) and (5), additionally, some of these are used simultaneously as achievements of a progressive society.  There is little to no discussion of pro-natal policies, and what to do about low birth rates. 

But what are we supposed to believe? Points (1-5) are consistently stated in the news and other media, and (6) is touted as an achievement by our leaders and elites: 'diversity is our strength', after all. Coupled with media and corporate campaigns that target and dilute the native populations national identity, character, and history whilst bolstering the prominence of the non-native; one cannot help but smell something is rotten. 

I won't believe bullshit. And I don't like being told to believe conflicting things without explanation.

When facing the evidence one is told: a) replacement isn’t happening, but when pressed, one is told b) it is happening, it is good, and you are a bigot if you think otherwise; or even c) it would be good if it did happen, oh, and you are still a bigot if you think otherwise.

This approach won't work. 

Instead of talking about the issue seriously, and addressing concerns honestly, the discourse around replacement reads like a series of A/B tests wherein media figures, politicians and pundits throw out shallow, poorly thought-out denialism, or even insults to dismiss critics. 

When someone asks about replacement or expresses a concern about it, they're told that there is no evidence for it and that one should ignore claims saying its happening. When stats are used to back up the claims about replacement, they're then told that such reasoning is conspiratorial, or, finally, that is its racist. I reckon that doubling-down on the reality of replacement will become more common amongst certain circles of people in the media.

Now, one can ask, 'why are you concerned in the first place?' But that's not my point, here. That is another issue, and I'll be happy to get into it later. The point, here, is modest: replacement isn't a conspiracy theory, one needn't be a hateful bigot to think it is happening, and there are arguments to show that replacement is happening.

If one reads the six (6) points, and agrees that they're true, then one agrees that replacement is happening.

Corona-chan, Globalism, and Living

Why didn't we just close the borders and stop air travel, Dad?

Our thought-leaders and politicians have come out to tell us of the real problems with Coronavirus: racism, xenophobia, nationalism, and borders. Pretty much anything that challenges the neo-liberal, cosmopolitan orthodoxy.

French President Emmanuel Macron has stated that: 

"Two pitfalls must be avoided, one is the nationalist withdrawal because this virus has no passport."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that: 

Closing Canada's borders and restricting travel is a knee-jerk reaction that will not slow the spread of the Coronavirus. 

(If closing borders in March in response to an viral outbreak that started in January is a 'knee-jerk' reaction, then that is the slowest knee-jerk I've seen. [Oh,and now his wife has tested positive for the virus after coming back from the UK]. I guess if you let your wife get Coronoavirus, you win.)

Steven Pinker says: 

"The Coronavirus Pandemic is one of many reasons neo-nationalism is destructive & ultimately futile. Viruses (like greenhouse gases, cybercriminals, dark money, terrorists, pirates, & technology) don’t care about lines on a map."

Richard Dawkins chimes in: 

"Nasty FOREIGN virus. Lock it up! Lock it up! Keep America safe. No FOREIGNERS from Europe allowed. Except Brits of course. They’re not really foreign. They speak English. Don’t they? I think they do, I went to London, I met the Queen, they love me there."

It's almost like they're getting out there to fend off an anticipated reaction... 

First, they must know that they're viciously equivocating fears of foreigners with fears of the virus - particularily Pinker and Dawkins. Its not the case that people who want their nations' borders shored up and inter-national travel restricted because they just don't like those dirty foreigners. They don't want travel to and fro because foreigners are people and people carry the virus. 

The cute quips about viruses not caring about borders is so obviously stupid, that it sounds like a joke. 

Also, Pinker's neologism 'neo-nationalism' is also dumb. Nationalism, first of all, is more of a default setting for national and international understanding than Pinker's globalism, so there isn't anything really 'neo-' about it. The very fact that Pinker and others feel like they have to 'in before' nationalistic approaches or motivations to the viral containment shows that nationalism is baked into people's assessments. 

It is also an opportunistic word that he can use to cast aspersions at his political and social opponents whilst also attempting to turn his own ideological framework of 'globalism' into the default setting. It is the language of global capital, finance, industry, complex global supply chains, and technocracy. It is the language of our age's orthodoxy. 

Oh, and it sound a little like 'neo-nazi'. So, he can slide in nazi insults while he pontificates.

Now, these are difficult times with tough decisions. Closing borders means serious economic impacts, and serious economic impacts can exasperate medical issues as goods, services, and money become increasingly unavailable. But easy travel and porous borders brought the virus to our shores in the first place. 

I wouldn't argue for a full, air-tight travel ban - though situations will differ - but platitudes and moral hand-wringing won't work. In fact, they could just reinforce the opposition to globalisation - so, in some sense, the Pinkers and Macrons of the world are welcome to spout their talking points. 

I don't know how much entropy Coronavirus will throw into the system. Inertia is a powerful force. But this pandemic, like climate change, will require tough decisions and strong, honest, clear leadership: traits that are sorely lacking in our litter of leaders. 

I do think that globalism will be undermined. 

People will have to be locked out. Mobility will have to be reduced. Supply chains will have to be truncated. Costs and advantages will have to be reassessed. Time horizons for planning with have to be lengthened. Medical and military priorities will have to be realigned. But those are challenges for our nation's leaders. Us, here on the ground, have to exercise caution and become more self-sufficient - re-discover old knowledge and reduce external needs. Learn to make and preserve foods; fish, trap or hunt. Get healthier and stay that way. Reduce reliance on global supply chains; get local. Increase production, not consumption - if you need something, try making it yourself. Keep friends and family close, and stay in touch. Communication with loved ones is important in unstable times, and you should all have each other's backs. Stay mentally engaged and stable, and try to enjoy the life you are trying to create. There are many things out of our control, but those things that we do control should be fashioned out of intent, and deliberation. 

This isn't just the calm before the storm. This could be the beginning of an age. And we're in it for the long haul. 

I'll leave this ramble with a quote by CS Lewis:

"In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

 In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948)