Canada
I grew up in North America, and for several years I travelled to Canada every summer for 3 months of camping, hiking, staying in the country side, and rarely the large cities. Canadians are from my experience a varied group from at least 16 different countries in Europe and several countries in Asia. But they all speak English, except the province of Quebec, and Ottawa, where they speak French.
Westernized Democracy
I think that because the country was formerly a British Colony it has a parliamentarian form government just like the UK. I have always assumed that Canada was a typical western democracy, with the usual freedoms, including the right of the people to peacefully assemble, and protest. I think the right to protest and disagree with your government is a central principle of democracies.
I recently read about the Canada Truckers demonstration at the Canadian American border. I don’t know all the details, but it seems that the Canadian governments is imposing bans on truckers with regard to Covid vaccination. It appears that the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike in this group of workers feel vaccination should be a personal choice. After all they drive trucks for a living, a truck populated by themselves only. Surely some scientifically acceptable social distancing can be arranged for men and women driving trucks alone across the cold, snowy roads of Canada?
Demonization or fair characterization?
But the media in Canada is calling these people terrorists and also conspiracy theorist anti-vaccination people. I think being a supporter of Choice is not the same as being anti-vacination. I think those are very strong words, which lead to escalation of conflict not deescalation. Plus I am concerned about the possible vilification of citizens exercising their rights. After all it is not an anti-vaccination position to believe people should have a choice. It’s a pro people position.
Go Fund Me
Add to this already politically charged situation and you have the potential for very bad behavior, and that’s what we got here from Go Fund Me. The Truckers were on strike, not working, and they were hungry, cold and some apparently were in dire financial condition. The Truckers went to Go Fund Me, a internet based fund raising site, where people are free to pick causes and people to support. After a lot of money was raised by this Fund Raising Group, the people who run Go Fund Me decided they thought the Truckers were dangerous and stopped releasing funds to them. They said they would start giving away money sent in for the truckers for other charities.
This caused quite a stir on social media and lawyers even commented that they were on shaken ground. We all know Web 2.0 platforms exercise enormous control, but apparently they may have overstepped their legal rights and have walked back from their decision.
Then Bitcoin entered the picture …
.
.
… as the truckers and their supporters decided they would send them money that Go Fund Me can’t freeze or confiscate.
The truckers and supporters decided to fight back, using Bitcoin.
Now the government enters the picture with emergency powers …
Now that they are demonstrating at the border of America and Canada. The world is looking at Canada. Canada’s Prime Minister has activated emergency powers.
Weaponized Canadian Dollars
The use of these powers is designed to weaken the protest by seizing their Canadian currency or freezing bank accounts so they can’t get to it. They literally manipulated the Canadian currency into a weapon to use against them.
For added display of power the government also started suspending drivers license and revoking permits.
When you government uses your money against you.. you need another form of money..
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… as the truckers and their supporters decided they would send them money that Go Fund Me can’t confiscate and that the government can’t manipulate.
The call went out for neutral money and Bitcoin answered the call.
Yes, indeed we are going to see what happens when the citizens start abandoning their Countries Currency in order to survive and continue their protest without their government Currency. This is historic. It’s amazing. It’s almost as big as El Salvador. Now we will if Bitcoin is as unstoppable as cryptocurrency proponents think.
We will see if they can ban Bitcoin.
The truckers are now challenged to find aways to buy everything they need with Bitcoin. The government is now challenged with stopping Truckers from buying everything with Bitcoin.
I am excited to see what innovations come from this as necessity is the mother of invention.
What do you think?
Penned with my hand.