Never in my experience have I seen so many people, otherwise normal people, become radicalized to the point where they’ve lost themselves in some sort of vortex of anger.
In my view, we can thank Republicans, and their star-struck Conservative followers here in Canada, for this. They fan the flames of division, resentment, and bitterness, cultivate disunity, and trample all over and harass any who don’t agree with them. Their voices are always the loudest and most obnoxious in the room, as though volume wins arguments. They were once on the verge of political wilderness, but in the last several years they’ve become emboldened, much to the dismay of many of us.
They are bullies who like to punch down, and do so until they’re stopped.
They wrap themselves in their national flags, as if they own them, and call themselves patriots. Those not in line with their thinking are, to them, almost treasonous. But that’s just the Conservative way: you’re either with us or against us.
Personally, I’m against.
Wrapping yourself in a flag does not make you a patriot, it makes you an asshole. The flag is a symbol of nationhood and has absolutely nothing to do with one political cause or another. It flies over all of us, a symbol of national pride. Conservative-enabled agitation has trashed all that by causing the flag to be used as a visible symbol of protest, often disrespecting it along the way as they do.
That flag once meant something good, something to be proud of. Now, the self-styled fringe have turned it into a disgrace. They’ve managed to usurp the meaning of our national banner.
And we all let it happen right in front of us.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 