Op-Ed: Keep on truckin’

“Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin’, we’re gonna do what they say can’t be done.” — Jerry Reed

These straightforward words ushered in the story of one group of my childhood heroes. I once wanted to be a trucker; residing in my cab-cabin, hauling long-distance loads, driving across the vast fruited plains from sea to shining sea. And, yes, connecting with others via my own CB Radio.

Now, for the first time since Burt Reynolds led Jackie Gleason on a chase from Texas to Georgia, truckers driving Eighteen-Wheelers are once again front-and-center among my pantheon of righteous champions.

It may very well be that truckers will be instrumental in saving our freedom. Truckers are not philosophers. High society would categorize them as unsophisticated nobodies.

Indeed, truckers are as common as the fishermen recruited by Christ. Any aspiring leader would be wise to remember what flawed and fallible commoners can do when inspired to pursue great dreams!

And, foremost among these modern-day Minutemen are truckers who are,… Canadians!? I could never have imagined that our congenitally “nice” neighbors to the north would be the vanguard of restoring liberty to the West.

After all, Canada is where Tory Loyalists went after the American Revolution. Canadians, like the rest of the world, abide a level of government intrusiveness that would shock most Americans. They have no real analogue to our specific Bill of Rights.

Yes, Canadian truckers are doing what others asserted can’t be done. They are bravely and resolutely standing up to a government of cowardly hypocrites. They are reminding everyone that, here in the West, our governments work for us.

Public servants, elected and appointed, serve at the pleasure of citizens. But many have forgotten this.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is prominent in this would-be aristocracy of politicians, bureaucrats and academics. Remember that Justin is PM only because his daddy, Pierre Trudeau, was twice Prime Minister of Canada and dominated that nation’s Liberal Party for a quarter-century.

Like Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, Al Gore, Rand Paul, and countless others, the family connection to old power smooths the path to prominence. It is a genuine sign of decadence that so very many of our leaders are close relatives of those who led our parents and grandparents.

Instead of engaging seriously with the criticisms of concerned Canadians, Trudeau has hurled at these truckers the full battery of ad hominem accusations employed by every lazy Leftist. Once again, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, white supremacy has been exposed as the real motive behind any principled opposition to his Statist policies.

This would be funny if it was not accompanied by the application of naked force against peaceful Canadians engaged in support for what is really a civil rights protest. Police have arrested people for honking horns in support of the truckers, fuel and food have been confiscated by law enforcement, online funding has been blocked, and even private citizens who have made supportive comments on social media have been harassed in their homes by uniformed officers. As I write, the government’s forces of repression are moving against their own citizens.

The mechanisms of surveillance and control that were set up to protect society from terrorists in the wake of 9/11/01 are being mobilized to suppress citizens engaging in peaceful civil disobedience. Truckers’ have been told that they will be barred from future employment, imprisoned, and that they might even endanger their children if they do not immediately disperse.

In the face of being demonized and threatened, these truckers have remained scrupulously civil and peaceful. They have foresworn violence, but they have also said that they will not be bullied into compliance with immoral and illegal orders.

This is the right answer, the only answer that any free person of conscience could possibly say to such brittle authoritarianism. NO! Any other answer condemns us all to nothing less than enslavement.

Thank you, Freedom Convoy! 10-4 good buddies! Keep on truckin’!

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In Maine and then Idaho, Ralph K. Ginorio has taught the history of Western Civilization to high school students for nearly a quarter century. He is an “out-of-the-closet” Conservative educator with experience in special education, public schools and charter schools, grades 6-12. He has lived in Coeur d’Alene since 2014. Email: rginorio@cdapress.com