The War At Home

When I was in school not so long ago, studying something non-political so I could have a reasonably fulfilling job, a lot of my classmates didn't quite know what to make of my interest in the political world.

In my line of work, you try to avoid controversy. There are a lot of attempts to stay professional and above the fray. Some are successful at maintaining this professionalism. Most are not, but that's because they try and fail. And since everyone was trying so hard to pretend like they were professional robots and developing anxiety disorders in the process, there was little patience or understanding for people who actively sought out controversial stuff like politics.

So topics of discussion in school focused around stuff like TV shows, video games, sports teams, pumpkin spice lattes at Timmy's, and other stuff that was vanilla enough to be discussed without offending anybody. (In case you didn't know, pumpkin spiced lattes are now controversial, part of the anti-GMO agenda.)

Some of these people came from places that were torn apart by war. They may have lost family members in conflict and were no strangers to politics. Others were from small-town Ontario where there is little reason to love the government on a good day. But for some reason, they didn't bring their outside stuff into the classroom. And that was the way it was.

Then one day the Ontario government decided that the way everyone in my profession got paid was an affront to fairness. Until that day, we had been pretty confident that we were helping people, and that people trusted us in return. I of course knew that was nonsense, and that people viewed us as little more than pawns of massive corporations out to squeeze them for every dollar that they were worth, and that if things were really fair, we'd all be working for free. I knew that because I was a conservative, and I had pretty much always understood that life was an unending struggle for dominance, for the tiniest advantage over the next person. And for a short while there, they understood that, and life was good for me.

Then the government won the fight, as it always does, and my colleagues went right back to talking about the same stuff they'd always talked about.

I tell you this tale of woe because if it isn't your story, it soon will be. Soon, you too will be castigated by people for doing something you thought was perfectly natural and right, that you had always done and you will be made to change your behaviour. You can't stay on the sidelines. You can't claim neutrality. You are not safe.

This is the ultimate, undisguised agenda of the left. The total reconstruction of our society based on mass hashtag-shaming and picking fights over day-to-day issues until you can't even recognize the world around you anymore. This is the aim of the social justice warriors, of the unions, of the various forces which gain ground each and every day. And in a world where we're very, very concerned about rising income inequality, you- yes you, person reading this- are not going to avoid their scrutiny. Sooner or later, you will fall afoul of their agenda. You'll use an offensive word, or resist a change, or fail to speak out when your favourite actor or actress breaks a taboo.

Some people say, "Well, Mr. J., what's wrong with social justice? Why are you mocking people who want social justice? Isn't equality and fairness what we all want?" Sure. I couldn't possibly be against equality and fairness, because that would make me a monster. If it were just about equality and fairness, I would have nothing to write about. If it were about fairness and equality, the people pushing these agendas would have some defined point where things would finally be fair and equal.

Except....for some reason, the social justice goalposts keep moving. It's the craziest thing. When a milestone gets reached- like, say, having a Premier of Ontario who is a woman and who is married to another woman- you can't draw the conclusion that we have less sexism and/or homophobia in our province on the basis that such a thing was unthinkable just a decade ago.

You can't feel good about the direction in which society is heading, you can't praise advancements in equality and fairness, and you can't be optimistic about things getting better because- and here's the kicker- it is not about equality and fairness. It is about greed, selfishness, and endless, endless entitlements disguised as a drive for fairness and equality. How much can we squeeze from these rich people who don't like being called privileged?  What are other ways we can make people who have more than we do feel bad about themselves? Isn't it great that we can be as harassing and cruel as we wish to people we don't like and justify it because we've been oppressed for so long? 

We ask ourselves why Canadians are going overseas to join ISIS, as if this needs to be explained. They join ISIS because they want the power to retaliate against society because society hasn't given them what they want. I guess we should feel lucky that we have only have to deal with out-of-control unions, because at least the unions and the social justice warriors confine themselves to complaining about TV shows and video games and celebrities being offensive. You've got to go pretty far away from Canada to find oppression worth picking up a gun to fight against, I guess. Privilege really is terrible, isn't it?