Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right
voice of reason where art thou? will rational in-the-middle people please stand up?
“Well, I'm trying to make some sense of it all
I can see that it makes no sense at all
Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor?
I don't think that I can take anymore” — Gerry Rafferty + Joe Egan (Steeler’s Wheel)
Reader, do you ever feel like you’re in a dystopian social sandwich, surrounded by clowns and jokers?
Or maybe you feel as though suspended above the gaping hole of a collapsed bridge, looking down at the water, seeing sides that don’t join because the middle of the road buckled under and caved in?
Lately the political landscape in Canada feels like this. The recent draconian restrictions coming out of the maritimes have highlighted the divide we face in Canada when it comes to political discourse. The online echo chamber culture has diminished if not destroyed our capacity to debate like mature adults. How can we move forward as a country when we devolve into political warfare about benign stuff like forest management?
In a bid to reduce the severe risk of forest fires the conservative premier of Nova Scotia recently announced a ban on people hiking in most wooded areas of the province. You can see Jeff Evely’s video below. His video highlights the seeming randomness of the restrictions. It’s laughable and it makes me want to mock the restrictions entirely.
You can read about the restrictions below, in Michelle Stirling’s substack. She presents a reasonable and balanced and fair explanation of the situation. Reading her article convinced me to take the restrictions more seriously, Michelle changed my mind and heart about this issue.
We can probably agree that the restrictions seem draconian and severe on the surface. We can agree that the cops patrolling the forest when they told civilians to stay away smacks of hypocrisy. We can agree the risk of fire remains severe because of lack of rain and tinder dry conditions. We can definitely agree that the restrictions serve as a suboptimal and lazy and perhaps necessary compensatory mechanism for poor forest management. Poor + weak + misguided leadership means the collective suffers. We can recall last year’s horrible fire at Jasper. Who wants another Jasper, reader? No one does.
So, what happened?
In typical grievance culture rage-baiting fashion, the right wing freaked out. Suddenly the entire right wing has a vigorous interest in hiking and the forest. Everyone wants to go into the woods now that Nova Scotians got told to stay out of the woods until October. In its typical condescending way, the progressive left wing refused to concede any ground.
Because, of course.
Naturally the libertarian outrage junkies, still traumatised from the psychological torment of COVID lockdowns, reacted with a vengeance. This political cohort reminds me of crack and meth heads. Yes, they remind me of people addicted to stimulant drugs. They remind me of myself as a crackhead. Like any addict does, this vocal minority looks for and seizes on the latest thing to get their outrage fix — they must get high on their anger and fear. Terminal despair wafts off of this cohort like stale sweaty sports gear or very rank socks. The outrage junkies never fail to bring the room down, invoking words like lockdown, ban, and serfdom. They put wildfire risk in quotes, because everything is fine if only the commie leftists would stop trying to shut Canada down with their made up climate crises. The perpetually outraged do that thing where they make responsibility for the collective society an evil subversive communist takeover.
On the other side of the political spectrum, the Maoist safety junkies didn’t disappoint. The finger wagging school marms of political discourse didn’t miss a beat, trotting out the proper Canadian way to submit to collectivism, invoking character assassination words like selfish and egocentric. The arrogance wafts off of this bourgeoisie cohort like cheap perfume or dollar store scented candles. Progressives have an infuriating talent for turning any discussion into a post-colonial struggle session or a DEI tent revival meeting. Yes, reader, you can even get your Franz Fanon seminar at a discussion about Nova Scotia forest management. The country would run without a hitch if only the far right imperialists would stop behaving so selfishly and for once think of their fellow countrymen. The safety-obsessed do that thing where they make personal liberty an evil subversive right wing plot.
So, reader, where does this leave us?
Tired. Exasperated. Craving for peace and a semblance of unity in the country. Remember when your kids were little and they went on a week long jag where they didn’t sleep and they got cranky and turned into sh1tty little patience-testing assholes? Yeah, that. Right now, that. I know many Canadians haven’t lost their brains to the outrage cult or the safetyist cult. I know many of my countrymen remain quiet, perhaps stunned into silence by the weirdos on either side, perhaps busy with life and choosing to let things run their course. Monkeys and circus, right reader? Sometimes when you step into the chaos of the discourse it can feel like the song, though. Clowns and jokers choking the lifeblood of the nation.
“Yes, I'm stuck in the middle with you
And I'm wondering what it is I should do
It's so hard to keep this smile from my face
Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place” — Gerry Rafferty + Joe Egan (Steeler’s Wheel)
Will the stuck-in-the-middle people please stand up?
I’ll leave readers with the most recent NS fire statistics I could find. Reader, judge for yourself, think for yourself. And understand that others also have the right and responsibility to think for themselves. Understand that those living in NS have the responsibility to sort this out, and the rest of us ought to chill out and hang back and let them.