Essays in Idleness

Do you have any rights, gentle reader? Perhaps not. Up here in the Canadas we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, granted by the charity of Pierre Trudeau (late father of the child now governing us). It spells out what we are allowed to do, “subject to such limits” as may occur to our government from time to time. I viscerally opposed it, whenas it was being written over our inherited constitution, four decades ago.

Animals have rights, under the law of the jungle. I approve of these, insofar as I approve of life on this planet. Hunters have rights, because they are animals. The state has rights, thanks to soldiers and police, for as long as they are willing to obey. What a lot of rights exist!

In the old Roman Fora, the Christian had the right, to be eaten by a lion. He had no other rights, however. As the Marxists say, the capitalist has his right, to become extinct. In their time, the passenger pigeons were as free as any bird; and the eagles, who used them as a foodstuff, had the right to harry their vast flocks. Our own right, to squab, tipped the balance until the last ones found the right to die naturally.

Rights are not conferred. They are taken. They exist for as long as they can’t be taken back.

Under the fabulous and mythical Natted States Constitution, these truths are self-evident. Though still young, it contains many mediaeval features. Federal, State, and Municipal governments are allowed to exercise certain prerogatives, under specified conditions; but there is another level of government. “The People” have all the rights that remain. This includes the ancient right to overthrow a tyrant. In the theory, they have not been granted these rights by the government, but by God — the Same who granted the rights of the Lion.

As Loyalists, not Patriots, my ancestors opposed the innovative Yankee legal arrangement; though as fellow Americans, they were just as feisty. Since I mentioned hunters above, let me consider gun rights. Our “right to bear arms,” up here in the Loyal Canadas, wasn’t encapsulated in any constitutional arrangement because it was among the oldest and most obvious rights. A man has a right to defend himself, and if he has the means, he will be respected. In his recent “Covid-related” (i.e. characteristically fraudulent) ban on 1,500 brands of firearms, the Trudeau child has been revising this. It is hardly the first outrage he has attempted — avoiding Parliament whenever he can.

To my shame, as a Canadian, he was not overthrown — even when we had a chance to do this peacefully.

Today, we have (not only in the Canadas but through much of the West) the sort of people to whom I’d have to explain that I am not advocating disorder. Rather, I propose to restore it. We were once free countries, to an extraordinary degree — thanks explicitly to our Christian traditions, through which were established conditions of trust. We have still, however, such rights as we are willing and capable of defending.

Unless we are willing to defend them — violently, when push comes to shove — we proceed to conditions like those in Red China. We will be allowed what most people seem to want: a “progressive,” consumerist, high-tech megacity. But it will be one in which we have agreed that, because we can’t be trusted, we must wear the equivalent of GPS bracelets.