We're Supposed To Be Able To Choose

'If you're not doing exactly what Justin Trudeau wants you to do, you are no longer accepted. I think it's wrong.'

nePart 1: Time to Move On!  

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Trucker Sheldon says he himself declined to take COVID vaccines partly because "I'm your typical male. If an arm's not falling off, I'm not going to the hospital." He sees no need for annual flu shots since he and his family "are pretty healthy people. You wanna do it, go do it," he says. "But we're supposed to be able to choose."

The more governments ramped up the pressure, the more suspicious he became. In 2021, the Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corporation gave away $2 million in cash and scholarships to individuals aged twelve and older who'd received two doses. "Something in my heart told me it was wrong," he says.

According to the Prime Minister, nearly "90 per cent of truckers in Canada" were already vaccinated. Sheldon didn't understand why that wasn't good enough. "How much more do you want than that? Why can't we just leave it there?" (By comparison, only 67% of eligible voters cast a ballot in Canada's 2019 general election, and only 62.6% voted in 2021.)

See bottom right corner for voter turnout data in recent federal elections. Source here. Backed up here.

"Or here's the other question," why was vaccine-induced immunity the only immunity that counted? "I got COVID in September" 2021, he says. "I isolated, I stayed at home." Afterward, "one thing I wanted to do is go get the antibody test. The results came back, and it was authentic. They give you a form, a stamp of approval, it was an actual nurse. I had COVID, I had high, high antibodies."

Why, he wonders, was that piece of paper not sufficient? Why was he still denied entry to hockey and football games? "I love sports," he adds, pointing out that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers had recently won the Canadian Football League's Grey Cup - at a time in which he himself had been barred from entering the stadium.

"If you're not doing exactly what Justin Trudeau wants you to do, you are no longer accepted. I think it's wrong."

There on Nicholas Street the truckers were hearing heartbreaking stories. About teen depression, drugs, and suicide. About intense levels of social coercion in schools. Parents who were "a little skeptical, just like I am" about the vaccines "because it's unknown what this vaccination is going to do to the kids" long term, told him about a child

coming home begging mom and dad. 'Please, please. They're having celebrations every single time somebody gets vaccinated at school. They're down to the last three kids. I don't want to be the last one. They're already bugging me and picking on me because I'm not getting vaccinated.'

Sheldon told the podcaster his heart "just swells, hearing people's stories. How Covid's affected them, how the mandates have affected them. My heart has been on a major roller coaster ride here."

One thing that had changed forever, he says, is his opinion of the news. "The mainstream media is doing a horrible job of portraying what actually goes on. I honestly didn't realize the mainstream media was so tainted."

Now that he was "seeing stuff with my own eyes," it was impossible for him not to think: "Man have I ever been snowed. Bigtime. It makes me question everything I ever see from the mainstream media now. I'm going to have a hard time watching CBC ever again. Unless it's just hockey."

He knows these are scary thoughts. That threaten some people’s "whole world and their identity. It's kind of like the old farm boy story. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.” Some people, says Sheldon, “want to be blind."

During COVID, he himself hauled a few loads across the border. "I didn't go on long trips," he told the podcaster. "Just into the Dakotas and Nebraska." After asking a US official, "Am I supposed to wear a mask here?" he was told it wasn't necessary.

But then, "you get back to the Canadian border and you pull up to the Canada Customs booth. This is like six months ago [mid-2021]. They wouldn't even open the window to talk to you until you had a mask on."

Alone, in his truck. With several feet of outdoor ventilation separating him from the masked person inside the booth. Two neighbouring countries. Battling the same virus. With the government of one of those countries demanding scientifically meaningless rituals of submission and obedience. "It's got nothing to do with the virus itself, if you ask me," says Sheldon.

One of the most sinister facts of the COVID pandemic is that these meaningless rituals were enforced by individuals. Day after day, month after month. Individuals who could have chosen to be pleasant and apologetic about stupid rules, but who instead behaved like humourless petty tyrants. There is darkness as well as light in the hearts of ordinary people.

next installment: Like Going to a Bar Without the Booze