Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute has a great post on the hypocrisy of western leaders hyperventilating about Putin’s thuggish take over of Ukraine, while conveniently side stepping their own horribleness with authoritative COVID measures. As Tucker states:
“The “free world” has lost the moral high ground to preach to the “unfree” world about rights, liberties, and democracy. For two years, most every government in the West experimented with new forms of servitude in the name of public health. They showed how emergency powers can be deployed to lock people in their homes, shut businesses, cancel church, close parks, ban travel, censor speech – massive attacks on essential freedoms all justified simply because the people in power said it was justified.”
And he’s right, such glowing words we’ve been hearing lately about freedom, democracy and human rights from people who have at times trashed these same principles in their own countries in the name of public health.
Joe Biden vows “freedom will prevail” and “America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom. This is who we are.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, “We must not give up our unity around our principles of freedom, sovereignty and democracy”. “Their (the Ukrainian people) freedom is ours.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “Putin’s moves are “an attack on democracy and freedom in east Europe and around the world.” and, “The “flame of freedom” would return in time to Ukraine.”
Gag, cough, spit, yuck.
As Tucker stated, after 2 years of business shutdowns, school closures, travel restrictions, forced masking, vaccine mandates and the visceral demonization of the unvaccinated, there is just no moral authority left for these people to call out brutal power grabs by authoritarian tyrants. None. 0, zilch.
President Biden for example wanted to lockdown and mask up the entire country as if King of America until someone explained to him what federalism and states rights are. He also openly championed for the firing of people who weren’t keen on injecting experimental drugs in their bodies until the Supreme Court slapped him down. He’s still pushing for it with federal workers, which includes our armed forces by the way, who may be forced to fight in a war soon he played very little in helping to prevent.
Macron, instituted harsh, authoritarian shutdowns/vaccine mandates and has caused unprecedented divisiveness among his own citizens by openly targeting the unvaccinated as immoral, even saying “they are not French citizens” and that “he hopes to make their lives so complicated they would end up getting jabbed.”
And Johnson, who somehow manages to look perpetually drunk and hungover at the same time, seems to appreciates freedom, but only for himself and cabinet members who frequently broke their own COVID rules by hosting lavish holiday parties while citizens were still under lockdown with limits even on the amount of people allowed in their homes.
The best performance (or worst) however goes to Canada’s Prime Minister, the insufferable, petty man child Justin Trudeau. It’s been sad and a bit unreal watching our friendly neighbor to the north devolve in to tyranny. Canada under Trudeau had (and still has in many areas) long and harsh lockdowns, with strict vaccine mandates, even for domestic travel.
Trudeau also enacted Canada’s emergency powers act during the trucker convoy protests; an unprecedented move that gave his government powers normally reserved for wartime matters. He then promptly directed private companies to halt funding for the truckers and had their bank accounts (and anyone affiliated with them) frozen. Such a freedom fighter that man, eh?
He then has the gall to say this about Ukraine:
“Canada condemns in the strongest possible terms Russia’s egregious attack on Ukraine. Canada is taking strong action to stand up for what is right and protect the rights and freedoms of the Ukrainian people. Let me be clear: there will be serious consequences for Russia’s actions. Together with our allies and partners, we will continue to take decisive action to support the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of Ukraine and by extension, democratic principles, freedom, and human rights around the world.”
Really? Here’s a tip, if you want to be known as someone who walks, talks and quacks freedom, then you must walk, talk and quack freedom when it matters, not just when it’s politically beneficial.
I will end with another quote from Tucker’s article which ties things together perfectly:
“The last two years have revealed to us what we would rather not have discovered, namely that freedom and rights, along with enlightened ideals and good science, are extraordinarily fragile. They are only guaranteed by a public that believes in them and is willing to stand up for them. When the cultural consensus in favor of liberty decays, terrible beasts are unleashed on the world.”
Quite right. And now that the beasts are unleashed, who has the moral authority, talent and gravitas to challenge them?
Freedom Through Empowerment 