Raymond Klassen – Ideals and Identities

To be clear, I am politically liberal in the sense that individual human agency is a motivating ideal in everything I do. But I am old enough to enjoy conservative things: development of character, investment in the family, hard work and education is good for the spirit (even if it doesn’t always lead to material advantage). I used to believe that America was a place to live in all those things. The following is written with apologies to all ducks, and ducks as a species. Literal ducks are awesome! Metaphorical ducks are not.

I spoke with my family – we won’t be going to the United States anytime soon. Considering the US treatment of legal non-nationals – it’s an unnecessary risk. I remember 6 summers ago – 2019, just before COVID swept our bodies, minds, and hearts – a 3-week family trip with the kids through Western Pennsylvania, D.C. and Virginia, New York City, Connecticut, and Maine. It was pleasant, exhausting, and disturbing all at once. You could see the weeds coming through the soil – totalitarian weeds.

Canada has its own weeds, but we keep battling them. In America, the weeds are dominating the yard. If it walks, looks and sounds like a duck, it’s a duck. Fire truck!

First, it walks like a duck: mass detentions, targeting non-nationals and the LGBTQ2S community, coercive threats, bringing manufacturing back to the United States in a step to nationalize industry, instrumentalization of all friendships (Ukraine, Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Russia, China, Panama, El Salvador, all NATO countries, the U.K.).

Second, it looks like a duck: governance by decree; breaking law without accountability, government agencies patrolling the streets, laws enabling government and non-government actors to root out non-compliers; terror in academia and schools; and the spectacle of finding the enemy within; compliant universities and judiciary and tech companies.

Third, it sounds like a duck: control of language (L. McMahon and the Education Department, defunding all things that include the words Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion); re-writing history; detentions of Palestinian protesters of a genocide, no mention of human rights, complete disregard for truth and organized lying.

I encourage you to read the dawning and thoughtful realization entitled “Let’s Be Honest” by Kristin Du Mez.

Let’s not mince words: this is a duck; it is totalitarianism. This is no authoritarian swan or oligarchic goose; it is a totalitarian duck. And if you don’t admit it and resist it, you comply with it.