Sep 21, 2023·edited Sep 21, 2023Liked by Diane Francis
Diane, the difficulty separating the long-standing 2nd-amendment/freedom to shoot people issue and 'what drives MAGA enthusiasts' is the thing the MAGA movement and Trump's revival-tent mania and pandering the judge-stacking of courts with qualified and otherwise magnificently capable pro-life conservatives is not the culmination of a 50-year relentless effort to overthrow Roe v. Wade, it's about race. And by that I don't mean fear of shapes/sizes/heritage or religion, it's the 'America is white controlled' feeling of Republicans and maybe a lot of independents too, is about white rights, white privilege, white wealth and white power (and Jews too if could co-opt them) ... and they got what they quite literally paid for with NRA, Republican, Pro-life, and church-collection-plate donations (from the masses + recently exposed billionaire's buying Supremes (or renting them at least!), they have their conservative courts, they have their abortion victory (fortunately that's been eroded state by state) and they THINK and HOPE they'll keep white control of their country. White atrocities against minorities is as historic and American as their flag and tea party - and laws are supposed to protect people. BUT, they don't change white-think and the only places that white-think is politically correct is in the KKK, the NRA and the MAGA club. It plays out on TV as political theatre, the 4-year cycle of endless gag-worthy politics we must listen to on networks left and right and centre.
As a Canadian I fear guns very little, I fear my weak prime minister very little and I fear nothing from my fellow Canadians.
My message to Americans is this - we love you as neighbours and trading partners, we love you as tourists and we welcome your investments; we love to visit your country and holiday in warm places when it is winter here, but we are very much a 'community of communities' (to channel Joe Clark) and we have the Quebec v. the rest of us we've had from the beginning, so we are not smug and problem free, but really ... AMERICA, get your shit together.
Britannia once ruled the waves, and America once ruled the world without question, but these are different times.
Trump should be jailed - and I think Guantanamo might be a good place because that's where American as stored its enemies.
But Trump is a fool, he saw where the Republicans were parading and he rushed out front to say, "Follow me, I'll be your leader", and they did.
Republicans are, sadly, way out of touch with the times and their time to get their shit together may have passed.
Even if Republicans could re-unite their name with principles, they are pretty severely infected with too many bad things and bad people, so if anyone can right that ship and rid the party of Trump, you have to ask whether - if Trump started a 3rd party how many Republicans would leave that party for his?
Trump-fandom is a pop-culture phenomenon and social media plague - and whether or not Americans can figure out their country again, it might one day be great again, but not if it's underlying unspoken mantra is to be white controlled - that ship has sailed.
A Canadian wrote this and feels this way. I don't for a moment believe my views are not shared by many Canadians.
Thanks Diane for producing a prescient article, as you regularly do.
I read that Canada has the fifth highest rate of gun ownership in the world according to the most recent Small Arms Survey and the third highest rate of firearm homicide among populous high-income countries, after the U.S. and Chile. Even so, there is no sense of a national pathology as there is in the United States. Mexica has its horrific cartel problem but Canada seems quite normal, and in the middle is the United States with its destructive pathology of which we are all aware but seem helpless to deal with it.
Charles - thanks for those observations. I, like most Canadians, don't own a gun. Our government's efforts in recent years to enforce registry of long guns faced a backlash (most conservatives, farmers, ranchers, and hunters fought - and won the public opinion war and government retreated, rightly I think) . We have domestic violence murders too, but the majority (I'm not a statistician, just a new junkie) of gun deaths in Canada are drug/gang related and while our problem is small compared with the U.S., it's not small in our eyes. Policing and police budgets get a lot of attention, but my personal view is that the root causes are connected to poverty, and we have that problem too!
I'm not a statistician either but the internet makes it so easy. Canada's murder rate is low at 2.1 compared with the U.S. at 6.8 and Mexico at a whopping 32 per 100,000. And your incarceration rate is also low at a mere 85 with Mexico at 175 and the U.S. leading the entire world at 531 (not including political prisoners in China, etc. I assume). Canada is part of the same land mass and yet so entirely different, it does make one wonder.
I assume "controls for" means deducting the factors you mention from the total homicides which I put at 6.8/100k, I think from Wikipedia, bringing to total down. Even so, 2023 is turning out to be high as regards mass shootings, which according to The Hill has just surpassed 500:
Charles - what can I say, we have a wonderful country to enjoy (and to welcome tourists - please come visit, bring your family, your friends and your money - visitors and immigrants are welcome here!) and we have fortunately/unfortunately, front row seats to see what is happening in yours ...
Are you serious? Canada is the country that denied food to those who refused, for good reasons, to be jabbed. Canada is the country that raided bank accounts if one protested peacefully. Canada is the country that jack boots catholic priests from their pulpit. No Thanks....Americans that once enjoyed the Northern Great Outdoors will not return until freedom returns
Denying people entry to a restaurant if unvaccinated isn't quite "denying food". In terms of "raiding peoples bank accounts" - this was freezing accounts and preventing transfer of "Go Fund Me" monies to protestors, a significant amount found to be coming from right wing US sources. The protest in Ottawa lasted for 3 weeks, significantly impairing innocent bystanders and residents rights as well as an impact on the economy as the Ambassador Bridge, the largest volume crossing and major trade corridor, before the government stepped in. The protestors in Coutts Alberta were implicated in an assassination plot of RCMP officers. The majority of Canadians, including this one supported the decision. A peaceful solution was sought and couldn't be had. Our government also didn't "bring out the national guard" nor did we clear the area with tear gas...Lafayette Square anyone?
Please provide one instance of a Make America Great Again devotee associated with your "freedom to shoot people" thingy. Go ahead an in the meantime we will recount the rifle attacks on Congressional Republican baseball team, the attacks on Republican senators and supreme court judges in their homes, and the summer of love where mask-free bolshevics burned, pillaged, and murdered billion$ and scores.
Excellent summary of the dangerous situation in the US. It's a powder keg is ready to explode. Trump along with his MAGA supporters are blind to the world wide implications of not being able to trust or rely on the United States to act in a democratic and rationale manner. Their leader, Mr. Trump, has no respect for any Rule of Law, it's all about him. As you reported previously, the World Order is in danger and not just because of Putin. I believe the Trump tyranny needs to be tested now at whatever the cost. If I was the CEO of a major corporation, I would be discussing at the Board level "what is our disaster recovery plan?" in the event of civil unrest in the US. What happens to the financial markets? Trump will never accept losing any election and assuming he runs in 2024 only to lose again, may God help the US and the World. Trump has become the most dangerous and irrational man in the World because he sees himself as a victim. Let's remember what he said about Senator John McCain, he doesn't like him because he was POW and loser.
Hopefully Trump won't get the chance to be on the ballot. The roster of criminal charges against him is daunting. And his utterances seem to be getting 1. energetically weaker and 2. more incoherent. All the other Republican hopefuls long for his political demise. So do all the Republican leaders in the Senate though they've been ensnared by their own cowardice.
Is this the same Trump that brought peace between Israel and Arabs for the first time...that brought record income growth to minorities, business, and the stock market?....that reined in North Korea and China making him the most popular US president in the eyes of Japan, Taiwan, SE Asia,?....that made the US the largest exporter of gas and oil to end Putins monopoly in Europe?...that gave the people of each state back their rights to determine how they wanted to deal with commerce, abortion, criminal law, etc?
It has never been truer that the insane are now running the asylum. The irony is that they are simply the tail of the dog and the inability of such fainthearted politicians as McCarthy to round up the critical mass of sensible representatives makes such "terrorism" possible.
Thank you for bringing Romney's insights to our attention. The media (or is it the public?) does not seem very interested in the observations of statesmen......they are fascinated by flakes like Trump and
ramswampy. Perhaps we are entering the period of bread and circuses and a very un-exceptional nation.
I can sense the demise of USA - no longer the 'mighty' USA - guns & violence are the 'new political' party. Yikes - what a mess. (Canada's weak leader is NO comfort either,)
Good article fits with Republicans need to better direction than the one they are in now. If the Republicans get into the Whitehouse then you will see things get worse with guns. Many want machineguns back on the table with the second amendment . If things get worse new business in Canada selling bullet resistant clothing for those entering the US or Mexico.
Thank you very much, Mark. Perhaps I will bring my wife; though living in a statistically-compromised country we have maintained a remarkable record of not killing each other.
All true about living in a gun culture of mass shootings nearly every day, even so the USA retains its dominance economically and military. Russia? Its economy is half the size of California’s. China? Its economy built on the wallets of American consumers is now in meltdown. Europe? Fit to follow but not to lead. India? Sometime but not now. Yet America’s pathology is in full eruption right now, of which as you point out the gun culture puts everyone at risk. The prison culture is appalling. DH Lawrence 100 years ago: “Every American is a torn, divided monster….The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer. It has never yet melted.” Section 210 opened Pandora’s box of sorrows, woes, vice, violence, greed and madness. So this is the time of America’s harrowing, with next years elections critical for our future. I think it’s going to be OK and that Americans will want to put a lid on Pandora, on endless lies and fake news, and will vote for America's foundational principle, the rule of law.
But what it does succeed at is whipping up Anti Trump hysteria and the question is why? Trump brought huge growth and wealth (especially for the poor and middle class), international peace, and an end to the statist overreach that was melding media and silicone valley oligarchs with the left.
Diane, the difficulty separating the long-standing 2nd-amendment/freedom to shoot people issue and 'what drives MAGA enthusiasts' is the thing the MAGA movement and Trump's revival-tent mania and pandering the judge-stacking of courts with qualified and otherwise magnificently capable pro-life conservatives is not the culmination of a 50-year relentless effort to overthrow Roe v. Wade, it's about race. And by that I don't mean fear of shapes/sizes/heritage or religion, it's the 'America is white controlled' feeling of Republicans and maybe a lot of independents too, is about white rights, white privilege, white wealth and white power (and Jews too if could co-opt them) ... and they got what they quite literally paid for with NRA, Republican, Pro-life, and church-collection-plate donations (from the masses + recently exposed billionaire's buying Supremes (or renting them at least!), they have their conservative courts, they have their abortion victory (fortunately that's been eroded state by state) and they THINK and HOPE they'll keep white control of their country. White atrocities against minorities is as historic and American as their flag and tea party - and laws are supposed to protect people. BUT, they don't change white-think and the only places that white-think is politically correct is in the KKK, the NRA and the MAGA club. It plays out on TV as political theatre, the 4-year cycle of endless gag-worthy politics we must listen to on networks left and right and centre.
As a Canadian I fear guns very little, I fear my weak prime minister very little and I fear nothing from my fellow Canadians.
My message to Americans is this - we love you as neighbours and trading partners, we love you as tourists and we welcome your investments; we love to visit your country and holiday in warm places when it is winter here, but we are very much a 'community of communities' (to channel Joe Clark) and we have the Quebec v. the rest of us we've had from the beginning, so we are not smug and problem free, but really ... AMERICA, get your shit together.
Britannia once ruled the waves, and America once ruled the world without question, but these are different times.
Trump should be jailed - and I think Guantanamo might be a good place because that's where American as stored its enemies.
But Trump is a fool, he saw where the Republicans were parading and he rushed out front to say, "Follow me, I'll be your leader", and they did.
Republicans are, sadly, way out of touch with the times and their time to get their shit together may have passed.
Even if Republicans could re-unite their name with principles, they are pretty severely infected with too many bad things and bad people, so if anyone can right that ship and rid the party of Trump, you have to ask whether - if Trump started a 3rd party how many Republicans would leave that party for his?
Trump-fandom is a pop-culture phenomenon and social media plague - and whether or not Americans can figure out their country again, it might one day be great again, but not if it's underlying unspoken mantra is to be white controlled - that ship has sailed.
A Canadian wrote this and feels this way. I don't for a moment believe my views are not shared by many Canadians.
Thanks Diane for producing a prescient article, as you regularly do.
Cheers,
Mark
I read that Canada has the fifth highest rate of gun ownership in the world according to the most recent Small Arms Survey and the third highest rate of firearm homicide among populous high-income countries, after the U.S. and Chile. Even so, there is no sense of a national pathology as there is in the United States. Mexica has its horrific cartel problem but Canada seems quite normal, and in the middle is the United States with its destructive pathology of which we are all aware but seem helpless to deal with it.
Charles - thanks for those observations. I, like most Canadians, don't own a gun. Our government's efforts in recent years to enforce registry of long guns faced a backlash (most conservatives, farmers, ranchers, and hunters fought - and won the public opinion war and government retreated, rightly I think) . We have domestic violence murders too, but the majority (I'm not a statistician, just a new junkie) of gun deaths in Canada are drug/gang related and while our problem is small compared with the U.S., it's not small in our eyes. Policing and police budgets get a lot of attention, but my personal view is that the root causes are connected to poverty, and we have that problem too!
I'm not a statistician either but the internet makes it so easy. Canada's murder rate is low at 2.1 compared with the U.S. at 6.8 and Mexico at a whopping 32 per 100,000. And your incarceration rate is also low at a mere 85 with Mexico at 175 and the U.S. leading the entire world at 531 (not including political prisoners in China, etc. I assume). Canada is part of the same land mass and yet so entirely different, it does make one wonder.
I am a statistician and of one controls for gang warfare, cannabis psychotic school shootings, and a couple other factors, the US is less homicidal than Europe. That is because felons dont act so freely if they know they might get shot. https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/here-are-8-stubborn-facts-gun-violence-america
I assume "controls for" means deducting the factors you mention from the total homicides which I put at 6.8/100k, I think from Wikipedia, bringing to total down. Even so, 2023 is turning out to be high as regards mass shootings, which according to The Hill has just surpassed 500:
The Hill https://thehill.com › policy › national-security › 4209...
17 Sept 2023 — The United States's 500th mass shooting of 2023 occurred over the weekend, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.
Mass shootings are mostly done be minorities and people suffering from cannabis psychosis.
https://mass-shootings.info/statistics.php ........... https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/marijuana-and-mass-shooters/
Charles - what can I say, we have a wonderful country to enjoy (and to welcome tourists - please come visit, bring your family, your friends and your money - visitors and immigrants are welcome here!) and we have fortunately/unfortunately, front row seats to see what is happening in yours ...
Are you serious? Canada is the country that denied food to those who refused, for good reasons, to be jabbed. Canada is the country that raided bank accounts if one protested peacefully. Canada is the country that jack boots catholic priests from their pulpit. No Thanks....Americans that once enjoyed the Northern Great Outdoors will not return until freedom returns
Denying people entry to a restaurant if unvaccinated isn't quite "denying food". In terms of "raiding peoples bank accounts" - this was freezing accounts and preventing transfer of "Go Fund Me" monies to protestors, a significant amount found to be coming from right wing US sources. The protest in Ottawa lasted for 3 weeks, significantly impairing innocent bystanders and residents rights as well as an impact on the economy as the Ambassador Bridge, the largest volume crossing and major trade corridor, before the government stepped in. The protestors in Coutts Alberta were implicated in an assassination plot of RCMP officers. The majority of Canadians, including this one supported the decision. A peaceful solution was sought and couldn't be had. Our government also didn't "bring out the national guard" nor did we clear the area with tear gas...Lafayette Square anyone?
Please provide one instance of a Make America Great Again devotee associated with your "freedom to shoot people" thingy. Go ahead an in the meantime we will recount the rifle attacks on Congressional Republican baseball team, the attacks on Republican senators and supreme court judges in their homes, and the summer of love where mask-free bolshevics burned, pillaged, and murdered billion$ and scores.
Excellent summary of the dangerous situation in the US. It's a powder keg is ready to explode. Trump along with his MAGA supporters are blind to the world wide implications of not being able to trust or rely on the United States to act in a democratic and rationale manner. Their leader, Mr. Trump, has no respect for any Rule of Law, it's all about him. As you reported previously, the World Order is in danger and not just because of Putin. I believe the Trump tyranny needs to be tested now at whatever the cost. If I was the CEO of a major corporation, I would be discussing at the Board level "what is our disaster recovery plan?" in the event of civil unrest in the US. What happens to the financial markets? Trump will never accept losing any election and assuming he runs in 2024 only to lose again, may God help the US and the World. Trump has become the most dangerous and irrational man in the World because he sees himself as a victim. Let's remember what he said about Senator John McCain, he doesn't like him because he was POW and loser.
Hopefully Trump won't get the chance to be on the ballot. The roster of criminal charges against him is daunting. And his utterances seem to be getting 1. energetically weaker and 2. more incoherent. All the other Republican hopefuls long for his political demise. So do all the Republican leaders in the Senate though they've been ensnared by their own cowardice.
Is this the same Trump that brought peace between Israel and Arabs for the first time...that brought record income growth to minorities, business, and the stock market?....that reined in North Korea and China making him the most popular US president in the eyes of Japan, Taiwan, SE Asia,?....that made the US the largest exporter of gas and oil to end Putins monopoly in Europe?...that gave the people of each state back their rights to determine how they wanted to deal with commerce, abortion, criminal law, etc?
It has never been truer that the insane are now running the asylum. The irony is that they are simply the tail of the dog and the inability of such fainthearted politicians as McCarthy to round up the critical mass of sensible representatives makes such "terrorism" possible.
Thank you for bringing Romney's insights to our attention. The media (or is it the public?) does not seem very interested in the observations of statesmen......they are fascinated by flakes like Trump and
ramswampy. Perhaps we are entering the period of bread and circuses and a very un-exceptional nation.
I can sense the demise of USA - no longer the 'mighty' USA - guns & violence are the 'new political' party. Yikes - what a mess. (Canada's weak leader is NO comfort either,)
Another excellent piece. Seems highly likely MAGA and Russia are interconnected.
Sadly a spot on accurate assessment.
Good article fits with Republicans need to better direction than the one they are in now. If the Republicans get into the Whitehouse then you will see things get worse with guns. Many want machineguns back on the table with the second amendment . If things get worse new business in Canada selling bullet resistant clothing for those entering the US or Mexico.
Mordor is on the march!
Thank you very much, Mark. Perhaps I will bring my wife; though living in a statistically-compromised country we have maintained a remarkable record of not killing each other.
All true about living in a gun culture of mass shootings nearly every day, even so the USA retains its dominance economically and military. Russia? Its economy is half the size of California’s. China? Its economy built on the wallets of American consumers is now in meltdown. Europe? Fit to follow but not to lead. India? Sometime but not now. Yet America’s pathology is in full eruption right now, of which as you point out the gun culture puts everyone at risk. The prison culture is appalling. DH Lawrence 100 years ago: “Every American is a torn, divided monster….The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer. It has never yet melted.” Section 210 opened Pandora’s box of sorrows, woes, vice, violence, greed and madness. So this is the time of America’s harrowing, with next years elections critical for our future. I think it’s going to be OK and that Americans will want to put a lid on Pandora, on endless lies and fake news, and will vote for America's foundational principle, the rule of law.
beautifully written ..thanks diane
This fails on so many counts...where to start.
But what it does succeed at is whipping up Anti Trump hysteria and the question is why? Trump brought huge growth and wealth (especially for the poor and middle class), international peace, and an end to the statist overreach that was melding media and silicone valley oligarchs with the left.
But why?