The American satirist and libertarian commentator P. J. O’Rourke, who passed away this week, once said this: ‘At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child – miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of snivelling brats.’

One can’t help but think that he presciently had Trudeau and Co. in mind.

The disease that is destroying Canada right now is liberalism in general – and Trudeau in particular. The deplorable treatment of the freedom convoy by federal and provincial leaders tells us all we need to know about liberalism – it is not only a mental illness, but it is a kissing cousin of fascism.

When you have heavily armed militia with fingers on the triggers of their assault weapons staring down toddlers playing on jumping castles, you know we are seeing the end of democracy and the rise of full-tilt tyranny.

When governments can freeze the bank accounts of peaceful freedom marchers, you know we are seeing the end of democracy and the rise of full-tilt tyranny.

When the state can take pets away from the protesters and have had them destroyed, you know we are seeing the end of democracy and the rise of full-tilt tyranny.

When you have leaders calling lovers of liberty a fringe minority of terrorists and white racists, you know we are seeing the end of democracy and the rise of full-tilt tyranny.

When police use pepper spray, horses, and clubs against unarmed protesters, you know we are seeing the end of democracy and the rise of full-tilt tyranny.

When you have Trudeau telling the convoy that they are interrupting people’s normal lives and stopping everyday business, when he has been doing exactly that to the Canadians for the past two years, you know we are seeing the end of democracy and the rise of full-tilt tyranny.

Or to paraphrase one social media post, when ‘we have the names of the people who contributed to the trucker’s convoy, but not the names of Ghislaine Maxwell’s customers’ you know we are seeing the end of democracy and the rise of full-tilt tyranny.

Never in my rather long life have I seen Western democracies so rapidly and so decisively descend into the stuff of dystopian novels. This is certainly shocking to behold. It is as if we never had Germany in the 30s and 40s to learn any lessons from. It is as if the past two years have appeared in a vacuum, with nothing in the past to give us any hints as to what might happen, and how we might proceed.

Several recent pieces by important social commentators – one Jewish and one Christian – have offered further insight into the situation that is Canada. And they see the spiritual dimension as being as crucial as the political, social, and ideological. Dennis Prager said this about the clergy who have become largely indistinguishable from their secular counterparts:

‘For two years, Americans have been partially or entirely deprived of fundamental freedoms – of assembly, speech, religious liberty, making a living, a child’s right to an education, access to early treatment for a potentially deadly virus, and more – for the first time in American history. That half of America, especially its elites, has either made peace with or supported these deprivations of freedom is why many of us worry about America’s future as a free society.

Even more concerning has been the reactions of America’s great religions – specifically, Catholics, Protestants, Mormons (Latter-day Saints) and Jews. The government issued irrational (as well as anti-religious and unethical) edicts, and nearly every church and synagogue obeyed. 

These churches and synagogues closed their schools to in-classroom instruction despite the fact that Covid presented virtually no threat to young people. Exponentially more children have been hurt by closing religious and secular schools and, later, by making children wear masks – even outdoors – than by Covid. This has been made clear not only by relevant data in America but by Sweden, which never closed its schools for children under 16 – and not a single student or teacher died from Covid.

As Swedish physicians wrote in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2021: “Despite Sweden’s having kept schools and preschools open, we found a low incidence of severe Covid among schoolchildren and children of preschool age during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Among the 1.95 million children who were 1 to 16 years of age, 15 children had Covid, MIS-C, or both conditions and were admitted to an ICU, which is equal to 1 child in 130,000. […] No child with Covid died.”

Recently, some churches and synagogues told their congregants that children as young as 5 had to be vaccinated in order to attend services. It is immoral to give young children a Covid vaccine for which we have no long-term safety data, and especially when children are not at risk from the virus. Yet most churches and synagogues, pastors, priests and rabbis have insisted on it. 

Given the sheep-like behavior of so many of America’s religious leaders and institutions, the question is: Why? There are both similar and different answers for each religion. The similar reasons are that most religious institutions and leaders have become largely indistinguishable from their secular counterparts. With the exception of attending church or synagogue, most Christians and Jews think and act like most secular Americans. 

Regarding Covid, most religious leaders have been as scared as most secular leaders. And regarding fear, the only major difference between Americans has not been between religious and secular, but between right and left. Conservative clergy have been less scared than liberal clergy, just as conservative nonreligious Americans have been less scared than liberal non-religious Americans. Which, of course, prompts the question: Does religion make people wiser, better and more courageous? Or has religion largely become something that serves only to make adherents feel good?’

And Protestant commentator Owen Strachan has said this: ‘Before there were the Canadian truckers, there were the Canadian pastors.’ He explains:

‘In case the preceding sentence is strange to you, here’s what has been happening in Canada lately. Truckers from across the nation streamed into Ottawa a week or two ago. They did so in order to peacefully protest the loss of liberties. Under the guise of Covid policy, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has altered the very nature of citizenship in Canada. Vaccine mandates, forced closure of all manner of institutions, and vaccine passports have meant that Canadians have suffered tremendously as they watched their freedoms dwindle. In the name of fighting a (real) virus, a once-great nation has fallen to its knees.

But it has not stayed there. The truckers have fought back. They have shown that the light of the West – freedom for the individual – has not gone out. Putting their livelihoods on the line, the truckers have acted as men must in the face of massive civilizational threat: boldly. They have not torched Ottawa or anywhere else. They have not caused violence and mayhem. Unlike the riots of the summer of 2020 – riots fomented by Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and the mainstream media’s coverage, the winter of 2022 has featured protests of a peaceful kind. The truckers have given the world an example of how to advocate for liberty and defy tyranny – tyranny of a distinctly Trudeauian kind. Call it “champagne tyranny,” for although Canada’s foremost political leader projects a cosmopolitan air, if you look beneath the half-smile and the flowing locks, you see an emerging totalitarian.’

He concludes:

‘Truly, at this hour, Trudeau is alone. He is not bolstered by a wave of popular opinion. He who has done so much to mask and muzzle the Canadian people is well and truly unmasked. In his common grace, God has let the world see – in Canada and across the world – the totalitarian nature of modern leftism. It is not “live and let live” as an ideology; it is “do what I say or suffer.”

Here is the story on the ground, then. Canada is not fallen – not yet. Amidst much travail and real suffering, the true Canada is rising. Long may it rise. We ask not for violence or destruction but a return to liberty, human flourishing, and justice. If it is brave truckers who have lately led the way here, know this: before there were the Canadian truckers, there were the Canadian pastors. Man may oppose them, but God is behind them. What is the emblem of the Christian faith, after all? Light has come into the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5). And, we may rightly say, it never will.’

At this point in history it seems that as Canada goes, so goes the world. They sure do need our support – and our prayers.