We Need To Encourage Canadians To Achieve Their Full Potential, Not Burden Them With Endless Fear

People are capable of much more than they often think, but instead of bringing attention to strength and resiliency, our society increasingly panders to weakness and crushes people with never-ending campaigns of fear.

Life is inherently risky.

After all, in the physical sense, we’re either alive or we’re dead, so being alive carries with it the possibility of the opposite.

Due to increases in wealth and technology, we have become very effective at keeping people safe and extending lifespans, and that is a great thing.

However, there is a point at which society shifts from a proactive focus on life, to a completely debilitating fear of death that begins to wipe out what makes life worth living in the first place.

And in the past year and a half, we have clearly crossed over into that extreme.

COVID is certainly real, and it has exacted a serious toll. However, it also didn’t turn out to be the horrific killer that was initially feared.

Further, people have now had more than enough time to consider the measures they can freely take to reduce risk if they so choose, like avoiding certain gatherings, wearing a mask, getting vaccinated, and so on.

At this point, people know their own acceptable level of risk.

And since we are supposed to be adults, and are supposed to be treated as such by the government, the idea of mandating and coercing people through draconian measures like ‘vaccine passports’ is clearly incompatible with a free society.

Simply put, life as normal must go on.

No escape from the risk of death

Everything in life carries some risk.

Driving is dangerous.

Flying is dangerous.

People can choke when they eat.

People can slip and fall in the shower.

People can get run over crossing the street.

Do we avoid driving?

Do we avoid flying?

Do we avoid eating?

Do we avoid showering?

Do we avoid crossing the street?

Of course not.

We do what we can to be aware and make those activities as safe as possible, and then accept that risk can never be fully eliminated.

It’s the same with COVID.

Does it still hold some risk?

Will variants still spread?

Of course.

But does that mean we simply avoid going outside, avoid gathering, avoid hugging people, avoid interacting with each other?

No. We have to accept that there is still some risk, and that living life is worth that risk.

Lockdowns as a psychological defense

It increasingly appears that many people have mentally offloaded all of their fears of the risks of life onto the concept of COVID lockdowns, using that as a proxy for everything else they are afraid of.

Hence, lockdowns have become comforting to some people, because it is a stand in for their need to feel safe and secure in all aspects of life.

This is understandable, but it is also very destructive.

Because these fears are so deeply-seated in some people, they react with rage towards those who want to end lockdowns. They demand the government ‘punish’ those who make them feel unsafe, and are basically seeking an authoritarian state to protect them from their own fear.

Even some writers for ostensibly ‘conservative’ media outlets are jumping on the vaccine passport bandwagon:

“Memo to Ford and Kenney: if you really want people to get vaccinated, you have to give them an incentive. And that incentive is safe access to their pre-pandemic life. After France announced “health passes” would be needed to access indoor spaces like cafes, restaurants, theatres and trains, four million people got their first shot within two weeks and nearly six million more have made an appointment. Italy’s similar “green pass” requirement saw vaccination rates rise between 15 and 200 per cent, depending on the region.

Yes, there have been protests. Yes, not everyone agrees. But with the delta variant on the rise in Europe and everywhere else, including Canada, the other option is shutting down again, which would be far worse.”

Of course, those aren’t the only options.

Continuing life as normal, letting people take their own level of risk, and letting people accept the personal consequences of whatever choice they make is also an option, and is in fact the only option that is compatible with a free society.

You can’t say we are ‘free’ and then claim that people must show a state-mandated vaccine passport to get “safe access to their pre-pandemic life.”

We are far beyond the point at which ‘saving everyone’ has turned into ‘stopping adults from making their own free choices.’

And this lack of respect for us as adults is – as Darshan Maharaja put it – a reason the establishment press is seemingly going into a death spiral:

“If this goes our way (and I hope it does), then we are quite possibly looking at the death spiral of traditional media. It’s people like @SpencerFernando, Vivian Krause @FairQuestions, Holly Doan @mindingottawa and others of their ilk who will enjoy the most public support.”

Laureen Teskey Harper also made an interesting point:

“There seems to be an abundance of people who love lockdowns, and they can continue to mask and stay home. As long as our hospitals can take care of Albertans when needed, let’s get back to living our lives. 2021 Stampede showed us it was possible.”

Teskey Harper makes the point about choice. If people want to, they can keep wearing a mask and they can stay home. That’s a fair choice.

Going back to normal is also a choice, and those who go back to living life as it was before are also making a fair choice.

We can all respect each other’s choices, without needing an authoritarian state enforcing its will upon us.

Moving beyond fear, and embracing strength

People are capable of much more than they often think. We see it in many ways, including in crises, conflicts, and disasters. People have a reserve of strength and resiliency they can call upon, and when they call upon it they often become stronger not just in the moment, but for the rest of their lives, as they gain confidence in themselves and their ability to overcome challenges.

Unfortunately, our society seems to reject the idea of encouraging people to be stronger and more resilient, and instead panders to weakness while spreading fear.

For a year and a half, people have been told that they are in constant danger, that everyone around them is dangerous, that they are vulnerable, and that only a big powerful government imposing draconian restrictions can save them.

That’s a recipe for generating debilitating doubt and fear in people, and for dividing people, as the misplaced anger generated by the constant fear has been directed towards their fellow Citizens (vaccinated vs unvaccinated, pro-lockdown vs anti-lockdown), rather than towards those who have exploited fear to gain more power and control.

We must move beyond the endless fear mongering and division, and start encouraging the best within people, showing that we believe in our highest potential and our ability to overcome our challenges and become stronger.

That is the path to Canada being a country where life is seen as truly worth living.

Spencer Fernando

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