“Where is the fight now?”

The news about Chris Barber’s arrest and the Canadian truckers’ response of retreat just broke when I asked this to two delivery guys in an elevator ride who were talking about Ottawa.

Their sudden silent stares meant they most likely thought I was critical of the drivers. If only support could be gifted in some tangible tapestry for each and every trucker.

 Watching yet another battle in man’s fight for liberty get extinguished, is watching yet another aspect of life die.

Rivaling my focus on questions of Where is the fight now? -  and What’s next for Canada and The United States? - were my feelings about the truckers.

There is an interview in the A&E documentary for Steve McQueen where actor Don Gordon says that watching Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, “Makes us feel like we can come back and we can kick ass”. Don Gordon’s words about Steve McQueen fit the truckers. Watching their demonstration gave us vicarious strength. For the past few weeks, the truckers exemplified the zeal of a Trump rally, the non-violent commitment of a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. march, and a God-given compass of walking towards freedom and away from government control.

Communism is Abuse, Just Like Family Abuse

Within families where the elders are committing abuse, there is often one member, a sibling, or even a distant cousin, who shows the will to fight – fight against the abuse - for his own right to exist in freedom. His will to embrace life weathers him from the otherwise dehumanizing effects of familial cruelty.

The power structure of government can sometimes have an unintended parental quality. Government officials do have some control over our behaviors and, in turn, our lives. The shared American ideology is that a system of checks and balances is a firewall for the overgrowth of government, dominance, and abuse of power. Like a family mired in mental abuse, the unbridled growth of government is marketed in every aspect of our lives. With the cadence of Chinese water torture is a steady drip of anti-American, anti-individual freedom rhetoric. Our Western culture family is being abused. Dying a bit each day are our collective basic freedoms, such as the freedom to select words, engage in private phone calls, and enjoy the freedom to safely walk through our neighborhoods, defending ourselves if need be. In turn, our individual freedom-loving spirits are demonized, marketed as dangerous, juvenile, and even evil.

Within our Western culture family, are our cousins -  the Canadian truckers in Ottawa. Watching others fight back from abuse is vital to survival and the prevention of further abuse. In addition to being an instinctual actor, Steve McQueen’s legacy is about overcoming obstacles, including early childhood abuse. He funneled frustration into his work – “acting feels like reaching into my gut and pulling out glass.” Steve McQueen found his way out of the quicksand trap of pain and claimed custody of himself, “I made my own opening.”

Is Ottawa a Foreshadowing?

 The truckers’ fight for freedom is our fight for freedom. Their enemy and our enemy are one and the same. The distortion of their fight by the media matches what is happening here. The consequences they are steeped in mirror what happened to peaceful protestors here. We know this. We also know that as long as we have our Second Amendment, we won’t endure our bank accounts being monitored, our freedom of speech being regulated beyond prevention of yelling fire in a crowded theater, etc. We know that our private phone calls are private. Or do we?  Can we know these truths to be self-evident – that all law-abiding phone callers are created equally? What if Canada is a foreshadowing for what is on the agenda for the United States? What if our unbreakable firewall for guarding God-given liberty is seen differently by self-determined “more equals”? And what if to these more equals, what is God-given to us is just an academic chess game? What if words are their pawns and with enough maneuvering, can be weaponized, just so to break the unbreakable? Is breaking our way of life merely a win in an academic debate or a chess tournament? Most of all, where is our fight now? 

Image: Screen shot from Fox News video posted on YouTube