Let's see if my predications about modern statism devolving civil pride into distrust, dread and fear are correct or whether Canadians have resigned themselves to be cogs in a national social engineering project. Take the civil responsibility test:
1) When you see police "sniper teams" and SWAT teams in military battle gear, masked faces carying machine guns and screaming orders to civilians in your neighbourhood... are you:A) relieved and feel secure
B) filled with dread
C) feel an impusle to find out which one of your neighbours is being gooned in an increasing incidence of "shock and awe" intimidating police "raids" on private residences justified by an increasing number of unconstitutional no warrant/no probable cause search legislating.
If you discover it is a friend who has fallen afoul of a new "paper crime" or "thought crime" from any one of a dozen draconian federal statutes that allow carte blanche police search and siezure, you run home grab your video camera to film the raid and offer to testify for the defendent if you witness any civil/constitutional breeches by police carrying out this rediculously excessive use of para-military force in another theatrical staged PR event for the media.
2) When a registered letter arrives in the mail from your government, are you:A) elated to have such a personal interface with your government
B) filled with dread, resentment and/or anxiety
3) When political electoral events like party conventions and local, provincial or federal elections are broadcast on TV, are you:A) Filled with wonder and elation at the miracle of democracy and representative government
B) So Jaded by long term systemic political corruption that you turn the volume down when the candidates speak and make rude commentary because you feel this is about the only chance you will get to air your complaints to their face.
4) After complying with the multitudes of regulation, licencing, permitting systems operated by 3 leveles of government, do you:A) Feel elated that there are so many government people looking out for your better interests and the tax/permit/licence bills paid are money well spent to provide good value and security at a reasonable cost...OR...
B) Thrive on overregualtion and statist bureaucratic expansion because you are a member of the 1 in 5 ( and growing) Canadians who derive income from civil service careers.
C) Feel that redundant regulating has made owning a home, car, duck gun or savings account so onerous that the simple joy of property owenership and use has been sucked out of you.
5) When you see another law passed which requires another bureaucracy to be set up to regulate something which was previously a matter of free individual choice, or which now allows the government a service monopoly on something you used to do for yourself for far less expense, do you:A) Feel secure in this presumed role of government and feel POGG ( Peace Order and Good Govermnt) is working as adversied in the document the fathers of Confederation penned
B) Feel a heavy weight of tax-slave servitude and bureaucratic tyranny on your shoulders.
6) If you are one of the minority of Canadians that exercise your sacred franshise to vote, do you:A) Proudly and fully endorese the philosophy and entirely trust the motives of the candidate the party and the system you voted for because you family has always voted for them. Your duty to a healthy multi-party democracy has been satisfied by this single trip to the polls and attention to issues for 15 minutes of one day every 4-5 years...you feel no need to think about "boring" politics again until next election. Politics are "yucky" and not talked about in the circles you run in.
B) You hold your nose and vote for one of a slate of candidates and parties who you feel have a history of conflicted interests in a political system you feel breeds self interest....you are the second generation in your family that feels this way....you wonder why you go through the motions every 4 years.
C) You have actively supported the campaign of a candidate who swins out of the mainstream of corrupt status quo politics and is deeply passionate and proncipled about returning lost freedoms, liberty and prosperity to his constituents and returning honor and principle to public office....he sees his election to office as a duty and honor to serve his nation and NOT a career with great perks.
7) When another ex-cop, or intelligence agent, bureaucrat or MP blows the whistle on another government scandal, you:A) Put it down to just so much sour grapes from someone who didn't have the loyalty required to climb the civil service career ladder.
B) Are outraged and shocked at those fellow citizens who are not outraged. You feel that when people who kill, spy, steal and lie for a living tell us that even they think the government has gone too far we better damn well listen and act on it.
8) Even though you are aware of secret police agencies like CSIS and special departments of the RCMP which mimic the qiasi-secretive domestic spy agencies in the US, you:A) don't concern yourself with the workings of secret government police and spy agencies and feel that if they exist they exist to be doing the overall will of the people. Accountability is unneccessary because secret police forces are well intentioned and look out for our best interests.
B) shudder with dread at the inevitable civil dangers when outraged citizens attempt to put this evil anti-democratic genie back in the bottle when its unaccountability to the law, constitution or common morality causes it to go rogue as history has dictated all such secretive unaccountable para-governmental criminal organizations do.
9) When a victim of crime is saved from injury by the swift intervention of a fellow citizen and the police spokes-thingie warns you not to do this...to not attempt to intervine in a on going crime or even offer defensive resistance to a criminal, just dial 9-1-1 as only the police are authorized to deal with criminals and keeping the peace, you:A) obey unflinchingly and accept this abandonment of your civil duty as it fits your craven servile nature and absolves you of your responsibility for your personal safety and that of your fellow citizens.
B) feel outrage at the nation's largest governmental lobby (the police) are claiming an absolute monopoly on the use of justified defensive force. You harbour an abiding contempt for the incivility and immorality in this dyslexic police-state policy which renders you defenseless yet absolves police from providing the needed protection of your personal security. You bite your lip and grudgingly obey while grumbling about the type of insanity that increases criminal victimhood by outlawing justified use of armed defensive force by citizens in the absence of police.
C) You make effective provisions for your own self defense, that of your loved ones and your friends and neighbours which does not have official sanction from the social engineers who now corrupt the police and justice functions. You hope you never have to confront an armed criminal but * IF* you do...you have resoleved to do what must be done to stop the attack and disregard politically motivated prosecution of your self defensive actions until your trial...at least you will be alive to testify to a jury of your peers.
10) When you read of another unaccountable high court judge "reinterpreting" or "reading into" the Charter or constitution something that is clearly not written there, you:A) Figure these people know what they're doing...that's what law school was for...besides, you don't know anthing about the legalese in those confusing constitutional papers.
B) You see a dangerous precedent of an unaccountable Jurocracy unilaterally changing our declaration of rights and freedoms outside the democratic formula for change stated in the chartering document. You worry that there may be a new elite unaccountale oligarchy of Jurocrats forming that have the ability to supercede the will of the people and the authority of their elected representatives. Jurocrats making and changing laws without parliamentary consensus and without public accountability scares the begeezus out of you because historically, nations who have a judiciary which can do this thrived in an atmospere of authoratarian tyranny.
C) You write your MP with your concerns about judicial unaccountability and political activists with agendas legislating from the bench. You talk to your neighbors about addressing this in the next election at a candidate meeting. You continue to stir the pot at a grassroots level until there is a groundswell movement for Judicial reform which politicians cannot ignore.
11) You find the questions in this civil responsibility questionaire:A) disturbing and unneccessary in the current utopian state we live in
B) Disturbing and has issues which need your personal action.
C) Disturbing but you have been actively working to wake your fellow citizens to the degenerated democracy, ethics in government and our civil institutions and have been working to elect people who feel the same as you do about responsible citizenship in a free and open socierty.
Scoring;3 or more "A" answers: you're a write-off as person and a responsible citizen. You are just wasting space and air in a free civil society. We should chip in for a one way flight to Cuba for you as this seems to be your ideal society.
4 or more "B" answers: You are waking up, keep your eyes and ears open, use your reason and refuse to drink the poisoned Koolade of the "official" spin and policy. You realize now that creeping "statism" under the guise of "progressiveism" is the true enemy of our free democracy.
2 or more "C" answers: You're in the trenches and facing the ugly face of the sprawling leviathan state. Keep your mind clear, your back covered, your intent pure and your powder dry....we need you to help save this nation from blindly falling down the rabbit hole of overbearing statism.
