Canadian truckers create convoy to protest vaccine mandate
Trucker and pastor Sheldon Andreas opens up about the Freedom Convoy on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’
Truckers are a unique breed. There are very few jobs in modern Western life quite so solitary as driving a huge vehicle across the mostly barren landscapes of North America. Miles of road are coursed under heavy tires and light, thoughtful minds free to linger on their own devices.
So the anti-vaccine-mandate protest initiated by these modern-day cowboys in Canada is worth paying attention to. These are people who know a thing or two about freedom. In fact, they base their whole life around it.
Protesters and supporters against a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers cheer as a parade of trucks and vehicles pass through Kakabeka Falls outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario, on Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022.
(David Jackson/The Canadian Press via AP)
What is most telling about the reaction to the protest is the disdain being shown to these truckers by their own government and many in the media. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has dismissed the effort, and apparently gone into hiding as the big rigs surround the capital of Ottawa. He claims that these men and women hold “unacceptable views.” Heaven forbid.
You see, for politicians like Trudeau and so many leftists in Canada and the United States, it’s not really COVID they are worried about. It’s the idea that some people, specifically people who work for a living and aren’t slaves to their handouts, have the audacity not only to disagree with them, but also to ignore them.
Pandemic restrictions and mandates galore are easy to impose on urban dwellers with office and service jobs. They can be and have been crushed with the flick of a governor’s pen. But denizens of the open road, without whom our modern miracle of an existence screeches to a hungry standstill, are not so easy to control.
Most of us in the influencer class, the politicians and pundits, leaders of business and those unsung heroes, Hollywood celebrities, don’t think very much about how things actually get done. Toilets flush, thanks to plumbers, houses are built, thanks to carpenters, and yes, store shelves are stocked (at least they used to be) thanks to truckers. The better sort of people, with their degrees and acceptable views don’t generally have to think much about any of this.
But what the Canadian truck protest shows is that this is a two-way highway. The truckers are just as free to ignore the elites as the elites are to ignore the truckers. The key difference being that the elites don’t produce much beyond noisy chatter.
Over the past week, it has been noticed that the very influencers and outlets who have spent two years lecturing in favor of lockdowns have come to a “now it can be said” moment. Maybe kids shouldn’t be wearing masks at school, the New York Times and The Atlantic suddenly opine. Perhaps there is nuance, we now hear from the buttery voices of NPR.
Part of this is because lockdowns have led to embarrassingly bad poll numbers for the favorite party of the elite, but there is something deeper. There is an emerging recognition that regular people, the ones who actually do things and make society function, are under no obligation to listen to the bleatings of the supposedly powerful. Maybe freedom isn’t dead after all.
The time may be coming when robots push hogs across the vast stretches of our North America, when we no longer need the obstinate, caffeinated men and women counting mile markers with empty packs of cigarettes. But that time ain’t yet. For now, with the turn of a key, they can threaten those who seek to control them. It’s a valuable lesson.
When those who choose to live a solitary existence, who wish power over no one but themselves, decide to speak out, it is worth listening. And if the politicians listen carefully they will learn something important. They work for the truckers. The truckers do not work for them.
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