UPDATED: The Inmates Run Amok

One of the people I follow religiously on Twitter is Caryma Sa'd. A Toronto lawyer and satirist, her online presence is largely devoted to video she shoots of the unhinged amongst us, i.e., those Canadians obviously infected by the American disease whose symptoms include uncritical acceptance of conspiracy theories popularized by groups like QAnon.

Sa'd's brilliance lies in the fact that for the most part, she merely documents their madness, letting their words and actions indict them. Because they appear so clearly foolish and deluded, it is fair to say they strongly dislike, even hate, her. Such people rarely enjoy having a mirror held up to their delusional behaviour.

The following CBC report makes use of some footage Sa'd recently shot in Peterborough, where a group went to make citizen arrests of its police force. It did not go well:

As in the United States, these inmates seem to think they are in charge of the asylum. How to get them on much-needed medication eludes me. Perhaps some Thorazine or Haloperidol in their water bottles would be a good start?

UPDATE: To add insult to injury, now the Americans are starting to notice:

H/t TizzyEnt

The Time Is Out Of Joint

 

I spend a fair bit of time in this blog discussing my aversion to the United States. Widely populated by benighted souls, it is a country I now shun and have no intention of ever again visiting.

However, my smug convictions about the superiority of Canadians relative to our American counterparts has been shaken, for reasons that will quickly become apparent.

Martin Regg Cohn offers this disheartening news:

One in three adults in Canada believe Microsoft founder Bill Gates is either monitoring people with vax chips, or they think it’s possible, or they’re just not sure — but can’t rule it out. That leaves just 66 per cent of Canadians who reject that particular conspiracy theory outright.

According to new public opinion research by Abacus Data, it’s not just the Gates microchip, but a host of hoaxes and top secret cabals that are on the minds of Canadians — and causing them to lose their minds. A few more to blow your mind:

• Elections, recessions and wars are controlled by small groups secretly working against us: 44 per cent agree;

• COVID vaccines have killed many people, but there’s a coverup: 44 per cent say it’s definitely/probably/possibly true, or they’re still unsure;

• COVID was caused by the rollout of 5G wireless technology: 26 per cent can’t rule it out.

While it would be comforting to lay the blame for these results on the way the Abacus poll was framed, a quick check reveals that respondents were simply presented with statements with which they could agree or disagree which, I believe, as polling techniques go, seems fairly innocuous. (I stand to be corrected here by those who know more about such things,)

But it has long been a quintessentially Canadian conceit that we are a more judicious and less suspicious nation, not so easily manipulated and corrupted. Not quite.

“As pollsters we often get asked, ‘Is Canada different, is Canada immune, are we somehow exceptional to our neighbours to the south?’” Abacus CEO David Coletto said in an interview.

“We felt the answer is No,” which is why his polling firm tested out these questions with a representative sample of 1,500 Canadian adults. “We’re still human beings and still susceptible to the same information at a time when we’re feeling anxious … I think we’ve come to this place.”

While I think we are all aware, thanks to the stridency of the anti-vaxxers and the Freedom Convoy occupation in Ottawa, that we have people who subscribe to destabilizing fictions, we have sometimes chosen to ignore other signs, one of which Regg Cohn reminds us:

When a trickle of “irregular” migrants started crossing our border from Vermont and upstate New York, the clamour to batten down the hatches kept rising; when a couple of boatloads of ethnic Tamil refugee claimants from Sri Lanka arrived off the coast of B.C. in 2010, a Toronto mayoral candidate named Rob Ford complained publicly that Canada didn’t need more migrants.

...an Angus Reid poll later showed a remarkable 55 per cent of Ontarians wanted those Tamil passengers deported even if found to be legitimate refugees (as most were). 

If any comfort is to be found in the Abacus poll, it comes from the fact that the support for fringe ideas

is higher among supporters of the People’s Party, those who self-identify on the right of the spectrum, those who have not received any COVID-19 shots, and those who think media and official government accounts of events can’t be trusted. Those who feel Pierre Poilievre is the Conservative leadership candidate closest to their values and ideas are more likely to believe these theories when compared to those who feel more aligned with Jean Charest.

You can see the full breakdown of that support here. 

While it is true that only a minority of Canadians hold beliefs or leanings that run counter to the goal of living in a rational and ordered society, the size of that minority is disturbing, and its implications a cause for concern, especially if the fracturing spreads. 

As Abraham Lincoln famously said, borrowing from the Bible, "A house divided from itself cannot stand."

Let's hope it never gets to that in Canada.

P.S. If you have the time and inclination, check out M.P. Charlie Angus's take on all of this.

  

 

Just Wear A Mask

That is the message, simple and direct, delivered by CNN's Becky Anderson:


Somehow, I doubt her message will resonate with the unhinged who have emerged from their lairs during the pandemic. This recent delegation at a Palm Beach County hearing into masks should provide more than ample incentive to avoid the Sunshine State for the foreseeable future:



Lest we be complacent as Canadians, however, Emma Teitel writes:

Yes, Americans can be wacky. But so can we. In fact, we’ve got our own version of the God’s-wonderful-breathing-system brigade right here in Ontario. Last week, anti-mask protesters broke mandatory mask regulations when they rode the TTC barefaced, and this week reports emerged about anti-lockdown activists printing phoney official looking cards claiming to give people medical exemptions from wearing masks in public.

According to a survey by Policy Options, Canadians are not immune from believing conspiracy theories about the virus. From the think tank’s survey, “Almost one in 10 Canadians believes that the COVID-19 pandemic is a way for billionaire Bill Gates to microchip people.”

She ends with this simple but powerful advice:

Stage 3 is days away. Now is not the time to be cocky, or bored. Now is the time to be vigilant. And though not much fun, a big part of being vigilant in a pandemic is listening to public health experts. Wear a mask where distancing isn’t possible.

Or to put it even more succinctly: Time for everyone to grow up a bit. Maybe this report from the CDC will help in the maturation process.

A Unified Theory Of ....

I'll leave you to supply the appropriate term to reflect this gentleman's 'insights':

These are the type of people who should be pepper sprayed, not peaceful protesters pic.twitter.com/hibwzJfLh1

— Rob Gill (@vote4robgill) June 20, 2020

Conspiracy, Anyone?

Probably because I am in possession of a reasonably well-functioning brain and had the benefit of a good education, conspiracy theories have never held any particular allure for me. You know the kind I mean, the ones about faked moon landings, undersea ufo bases, and the machinations of the Illuminati who are plotting to achieve a new world order, thereby subverting all that is good and holy.

Yet such enjoy great currency, thanks largely, I suspect, to the Internet.

Now, in the wake of the Parkland school shooting tragedy, the conspiracy machine has a new target: a survivor of the shooting who is turning out to be a passionate and eloquent spokesman for gun control, David Hogg. The Toronto Star reports the following:

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students, David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, are among those targeted by conspiracy theories about the Feb. 14 shooting that killed 17 people.

Similar hoaxes were spread online following other mass shootings, including the 2012 assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

In Florida, an aide to a state representative on Tuesday emailed a Tampa Bay Times reporter a screenshot of them being interviewed on CNN and said, “Both kids in the picture are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis [sic] when they happen.”

Broward County Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie called the remarks “outrageous and disrespectful.”

Runcie called such attacks “part of what’s wrong with the narrative in this country. If someone just has a different type of opinion, it seems that we want to somehow demonize them or colour them as being somehow illegitimate instead of listening. We’ll never get beyond that if, as soon as you show up, you’re demonized.”

You can learn more about this from this NBC report:



The other day, I posted about Russian infiltration of American social media, their goal being to sow division and discord. Seems to me that Americans need little outside help in that regard.

The Cost of Profound Ignorance

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I have to admit that the profoundly ignorant deeply distress me, especially those who revel in that ignorance, wear it as a faux badge of independent critical thinking, and refuse to entertain the possibility of error.

Take, for example, climate-change deniers. Despite the overwhelming evidence that it is taking place, indeed, accelerating at unanticipated rates (see, as an illustration, Kev's graphic at Trapped in a Whirlpool) and has almost universal agreement amongst scientists that it is mainly human-caused, they blithely dismiss such data as mere 'opinion.'

I had reason to reflect upon this sad fact the other day when I ran into a neighbourhood woman walking her dog. As is the norm when talking to people we don't know well, we discussed the weather, specifically the incessant heat, humidity, and drought that has plagued my part of the country this summer.

While I realize that the volatility and harshness of any one season cannot be attributed to climate change, I opined that perhaps we are paying for our environmental 'sins.' Immediately she snorted and pointed out that there had been a dustbowl in the thirties. I responded by saying that the problem now, unlike the thirties, is that a pattern has clearly emerged in which the frequency and extent of meteorological volatility stands in marked contrast with previous periods.

She informed me that she doesn't 'believe' in climate change, and that the aberrations we are now experiencing are simply part of 'natural cycles.' Her logic eluded me, and I had to wonder when belief in scientific data became optional and simply a matter of opinion.

It does not bode well for our survival as a species, does it?

Well, time to go out for a bike ride. This morning is one of the few days this summer without a humidex.

UPDATE: The Guardian reports the following:

In a survey of more than 1,000 readers of websites related to climate change, people who agreed with free market economic principles and endorsed conspiracy theories were more likely to dispute that human-caused climate change was a reality.

As well, you might find this of interest: The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic