Elderly Woman Faces Jail Time For Refusing to Tick Boxes

This article was also published on The Art of Not Being Governed blog.

Anyone who knows me would attest that I have few illusions regarding the depths to which individuals who call themselves "the government" will stoop in order to indulge their inhuman desire to sadistically and remorselessly exert control over the lives of their fellow man. I'm rarely surprised by the most recent acts of cowardice carried out by agents of the state through their institutions of violence. Occasionally, however, their threats and initiations of violence against objectively peaceful, non-aggressive people are so frivolous that I question whether I may have had too much of my favourite lucid dream tea before bed, causing my dream-mind to have plucked me from between my sheets, depositing me, instead, between the pages of a novel penned by Larken Rose or Ayn Rand.

Take the case of 89-year-old Audrey Tobias of Ontario, who is facing up to 90 days in jail for refusing to complete the *mandatory* short form census questionnaire mailed to her in 2011 by Statistics Canada. The eight questions included in the short form questionnaire cover topics I would feel uncomfortable discussing with a barista who has served me coffee for years, let alone a creepy part-time census collector who returns day after day, knocking on my door after I've failed to respond to their threatening letters and automated telephone messages. Information demanded includes the name, gender, date of birth and relationship status (past and present) of every person living within a household, as well as the nature of relationships among inhabitants.

Audrey Tobias
Photo by Chris Young/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Audrey Tobias, a peace advocate, has refused to complete the census questionnaire as an act of civil disobedience in protest of the relationship between Statistics Canada and military contractor Lockheed Martin. Census data collected by Statistics Canada is processed using software purchased from Lockheed Martin, known profiteers of military conflict. Tobias has stated that she would be happy to comply with the government statute that claims to oblige her to complete the census, if only the data were processed by a different means.

While Ms. Tobias's courageous act of defiance and stated ideal of peace are to be admired, she should be reminded that the greatest barrier to world peace is not military contractors acting alone. The single greatest obstacle to achieving a free and peaceful world is the superstition of the state and the societal belief in governmental institutions of violence. Governments carry out acts of war whether or not they contract with this military contractor or that. Audrey Tobias was justified in her refusal to complete the census form not because of whom was chosen by statistics bureaucrats to process data, but because no human being is justified in demanding, at the point of a gun, that a person release information from the sacred safe of their mind.

If tomorrow, the Canadian government cancelled every single one of its contract held by Lockheed Martin, Audrey Tobias would still be morally justified in refusing to provide census data because she owns herself. Threatening violence against a peaceful person who refuses to surrender a part of themselves is, and always will be, the action of a coward.

Victim of the State: An Open Letter to Victim Services

This article was also published on The Art of Not Being Governed blog.

Recently in my travels, I drove past a regional Victim Services office. This office is a satellite office of Ontario Victim Services, an agency run by the provincial Ministry of the Attorney General, dedicated to, "providing victims [of crime] with the support and services they need in the communities where they live."

Perfect, I thought. As a victim of crime myself, I would love to be able to access programs and services to support me following my victimization. I decided to pen this open letter to Ontario Victim Services seeking help for myself and others in similar situations.

To whom it may concern:

Please consider this letter to be my formal application for participation in the programming offered by your agency in support of victims of crime. I am, along with every person I have ever known, a life-long victim of a highly organized, well-funded, violent and merciless criminal organization.

The purpose of my correspondence is twofold; to secure a spot for myself in one of your programs servicing the victimized, and to draw your attention to the vast and under serviced population of victims that has been overlooked by your agency. It is my hope that once you are aware of the multitude of victims of a single criminal organization, you will move swiftly to expand your agency in order to ensure that all victims of violence and intimidation receive the services to which they are entitled.

The criminal organization of which I speak, and of which myself and everyone I know (to varying degrees) are victims, is an entity known as the state. The state takes form as federal, provincial, county and municipal governments, and is represented by its employees, including soldiers, police, legislators and bureaucrats.

I, a peaceful, non-violent individual, have found myself a victim of the state for my entire life. I have been robbed, extorted, assaulted, kidnapped and intimidated by agents of the state, and threatened with far worse. My list of crimes suffered at the hands of the state is modest and insignificant when compared to the injustices perpetrated by the state against others. On a daily basis, the state steals from hard-working, peaceful people, commits mass murder, cages dissenters and rewards those who carry out the most violent, sadistic and heinous acts on its behalf, or in its name. We victims of the state are innocently targeted, peaceful people who have committed acts which, in and of themselves, created not a single victim.

As employees of Victim Services, I am sure that you want nothing more than to be able to serve innocently victimized people like myself. I trust that you will do everything in your powers to make services available to the countless victims of the state. Of course, as an agency of the state, this will mean securing funding by means of theft and extortion. Doing so will create still more victims of the state…

…But that shouldn’t be a problem for you guys, right? After all, more victims mean more jobs for Victim Services bureaucrats. Your union will love that!

A victim of the state,

Dean Tea

Poppy Seed in a Muffin

The Different Among Pawns
Image by podpad.

In a little over a week, I’ll be heading east to New England to spend a week in the mountainous forests of New Hampshire among a thousand anarchist and libertine lovers of philosophy, morality and freedom. The Porcupine Freedom Festival is a week-long event that takes place at a campground in northern New Hampshire, bringing together free thinkers from across America, as well as from around the world. Sound like my kind of people, right?

On paper, these people are my kindred spirits; people with a deep and mutual understanding of my worldview. It seems like an ideal experience for me to have, however I wonder how I will end up feeling about such an experience. I’ve never been among the majority. I’ve lived my life thus far being a minority member of the social world; engaging with the majority, but always standing apart as a distinct individual. I have always been a poppy in a lemon poppy seed muffin. For my grade six talent show, I sang Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.

I will be venturing into uncharted waters, placing myself among such a large group of like-minded thinkers. At my hometown bar, you’re far more likely to engage in a conversation with a local about how dickered he and his buddies got on the May 2-4 weekend than one concerning the violent and coercive nature of the state, and of the many absurdities of fiat monetary systems. In a group of people who all stand out as distinct from the norm in their own communities, how do they assert their individuality as a member of this constructed peer group? Having become so comfortable in the role of the functioning, and welcomed outsider, – a member of the philosophical minority - how will it feel to find myself a member of the majority – a mainstream thinker?

Those are some questions I consider in advance of my trip, but I attempt to enter this experience with an open mind, and to allow myself to go where freedom can take me.

Judging the Dead

People seem to be compelled to -upon the death of a family member, friend, co-worker, celebrity or acquaintance- make an almost instant, and irrevocable absolute value judgment on the virtue of the life and character of the deceased. Think about it; it’s rare to hear mixed reviews, so to speak, of the deceased at his own wake, or around town in the days following his death. It’s more likely that you’ll hear something like:

"He was such a good man." Photo by Simon Howden.

“It’s a shame that the old bugger died and all, but he really was a terrible fellow. He spanked his children and beat his wife.”

           

OR

“You know, life dealt him some tough blows, but he was a really great guy with the best of intentions.”

I wonder if this tendency to make a summative value judgment of the life and character of the deceased is what is commonly known as closure. If that’s the case, then closure is about choosing to reduce a person, and a whole life down to a single notion of who, or what you choose to believe the deceased was – what he meant to you, what he meant to others, his actions, his omissions, his thoughts, beliefs and values, all boiled down to a definitive positive or negative judgment.

For a person who made a negative judgment of the deceased following his death, she almost definitely made that initial judgment based on her own unpleasant, negative, perhaps even violent, embarrassing or degrading experiences of him. While it’s possible that the deceased was “bad”, and at fault for these interactions, I wonder, with the judgment having been made so instantaneously following the death, if the judge may not have played some role in the negativity of these interactions with the deceased. But by affirming with herself the evil nature of the deceased, immediately following his death, the surviving judge has released herself of any guilt and responsibility for those negative interactions, regardless of the truth of the situation.

For a person who made a positive judgment of the deceased following his death, he almost definitely made that initial judgment based on his own pleasant, positive, perhaps even joyful, friendly or amorous experiences of the deceased. While it’s possible that everything was cupcakes and puppy dogs in the relationship between the sympathetic judge and the deceased, I wonder if, given the haste with which the judgment was made, if the sympathetic judge didn’t experience some negative interactions with the deceased that he doesn’t want to acknowledge. By making a summarily good judgment of the deceased, the sympathetic judge had alleviated himself of any guilt associated with any negative interactions between him and the deceased that may have occurred, and his possible responsibility for any such interactions.

I can’t really make any absolute and irrevocable value judgment of the practice of almost immediately branding the deceased a good or bad man following his death, and I’m probably not the most qualified judge in the case given that I have yet to experience any significantly profound loss in my own life. I am, however, interested in the affect that this practice has down the road. Think of any family member, family friend, or even famous person who died before you were born. With the exception of famous people (and the odd family member or friend) whose own wittings, audio or video recordings may be available to you, your notion of any one of these people is almost entirely based upon the value judgment made by those around you (your parents, relatives, etc.), who knew the deceased,. Ask anyone whose grandfather passed away either before their birth, or when they were very young, and I bet most of them have either a summarily positive notion of him as a hard-working and loving husband and father, or a completely negative notion of him as a hard-living, alcoholic, neglectful father, and abusive husband – either way, the judgment must have been perpetuated by those around them (i.e. their parents, etc.), since they barely, if ever even knew their grandfather.

I can recall the mythology of my grandfather when I was young. In fact, both of my grandfathers had very positive associations for both of my parents, so at a young age, these two invisible men who I had never, nor would I ever meet, often melded into one. In fact, I can recall, at a very young age, confusing the myth of my grandfather(s) with that of another invisible man who I had never, nor would I ever meet. I distinctly recall being confused as to whether it had been Jesus or Grandpa who had been nailed to the cross. Or maybe Jesus had nailed Grandpa to the cross? Or were they both crucified? I couldn’t figure it out, and I’m sure I lost a few nights of sleep over it.

With the complexities of living and dying, and then having a whole other life after death of which you have no control, but is determined only by the value judgments of your life made by others following your death, I think I’ll be a little more careful about how I life my life. And I’m thankful I only have to do it once!

Playing the Blame Game

Do you ever fall victim to minor colloquial misfortunes that are so inconvenient that they must have been the manifestation of someone’s mastermind plan to ruin your day? Of course you do.

I blame Teerapun for this image!

When you stubbed your toe last week on the threshold of a door in your own home, your first thought was that your landlord, cleaning lady or handy roommate must have built up that threshold when you weren’t looking, for the sole purpose of having you trip over it, and break your neck. By the time you grabbed your throbbing big toe, yelling out obscenities in pain, it was all clear to you; your vengeful roommate had to have been the responsible party – it was probably in retribution for that day earlier in the week when you failed to re-fill the milk jug!

Yesterday morning, I journeyed, westbound, along the Trans Canada Highway. The previous night had brought about 30 cm. of wet, heavy snow. As unpleasant as it was, I made, what I considered to be, a reasonable effort to clear the snow off of my car in the morning, including that which sat on top of my roof, and coated my brake lights. As I drove along the highway, the wetness remaining on the pavement from the melted snow sprayed up onto my windshield from the rear wheels of the cars traveling in front of me. This sludge – some combination of melted snow, mud and road salt, I think – completely impeded my field of vision every thirty seconds or so. This meant that I had to constantly spray the windshield with my precious, and dwindling supply of windshield washer fluid, until the indicator light on my dashboard began to flash to tell me that it needed to be re-filled.

Like you and your toe, of course, I was not able to simply accept this spraying of sludge on my windshield as an inescapable fact of winter driving. No. It seemed to me, at the time, to be an incontrovertible fact that the other drivers on the road were maliciously spraying me with this filthy sludge. They probably stored their mélange in tanks under their cars, and sprayed it through invisible nozzles next to the exhaust pipe with a push of a button located conveniently next to the cup holder, inside their car. And next to that button, there was probably another button; this button, I was sure, when pressed, would shoot hunks of ice and snow off of the roof of their cars, striking my windshield.

I was willing to bet that these perpetrators were probably the same shady characters who were behind the inexplicable, sudden and unexpected change in water temperature in my shower that morning. One minute, the water felt great, and the next, I was jumping back, squealing, my eyes burning with shampoo, and my skin being scolded by the near boiling water. Someone has to be held to account! Right?

I think we’re much quicker to place blame, usually on innocent, or unwitting parties, when the offence against us is, in reality of little consequence. We so passionately, and sometimes even vocally, in cases like this, toss out blame without thought. Why are we willing to place blame in such insignificant cases, when, logically, we know that the accused party is almost certainly not to blame. My guess is that, like the incident that provoked the blame, placing blame is of little consequence. A serious conflict is not likely to be sparked, because the accused instantly recognized the absurdity of the accusation, and is able to shrug it off, taking no offence.

What we seem to be less willing to do, is to place blame for more serious transgressions, when the guilty party can be clearly identified. We’re afraid of sparking conflict. While people can shrug off an absurd and clearly false accusation, they’re much more sensitive to being called out for something for which they are actually responsible. They will deny, or make excuses, and escalate the situation.

All of this is not to say that we should never assign blame to those who are guilty. I’m not really sure what it all means, but maybe we should keep it all in mind next time we’re thinking of playing the blame game.

Blogging in Ink!

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Radio Head

With the advent of so many new forms of media that came with the technological age and the Internet, many traditional mediums of communication have come to be seen as obsolete. Rather than read the classifieds in the newspaper, nowadays people log onto Craigslist, Ebay or Kijiji; instead of tuning into the evening news at 11:00 on TV to find out what’s going on in the world, we watch the latest news report online on the Onion News Network whenever we please; and there’s no need to peruse celebrity tabloids at the grocery store checkout when we can just as easily load our Facebook news feeds on our smart phones to find out what all of our casual acquaintances are up to.

Radio is still relevant to me. How about you?
Image by Tungphoto.

There is, however, one traditional medium, which I still find to be quite relevant and interesting in my life. While many of you have probably ditched your radios in favour of iPod play lists, I believe that over-the-air radio is a medium worth holding onto.

I know that the reason many people prefer a personalized play list to a disc jockey’s lineup is that it gives them full control over what they hear. As someone who has very little critical knowledge of music, beyond being able to say that either I like or do not like a song, or genre of music, I find choosing a comprehensive list of songs to be a daunting task. I would much rather choose a genre that I would like to listen to, like rock, jazz or country, set the dial to a station, and let the disc jockey take it from there. It’s especially nice to be able to set it and forget it while driving in the car.

“But, don’t you hate all the darned commercials?” you might ask. I tend to see the inevitable advertisements that one must endure if they subscribe to my ‘set it and forget it’ method as the price that must be paid for having someone line up your play list for you. I, for one, am willing to pay that price. As a matter of fact, I quite enjoy listening to radio advertisements. Since radio is really the last surviving and not-dying form of local/regional media, you’re not subjected to the same boring standard national ads, as you are on Television or on the Internet. In fact, radio ads tend to be quite eclectic, with local small business owners recording their own commercials, and updating them weekly.

When I lived in range of Toronto radio stations, I always told myself that the next time I was in need of a business suit, I would go down to “Korry’s Clothiers, 569 Danforth Avenue,” or “Tom’s Place, right in the heart of Greek Town”, or that if I ever needed to buy some jewelry, that I would get it from Jack Berkovits at Omni Jewelcrafters.

If you’ve moved to a new city, listening to local radio stations is a great way to get to know the area. You’ll be sure to hear about events going on in the area, and hear interviews and sound bites with local celebrities. Just last year, I strangely began listening online to a radio station out of Burlington, Vermont*. For whatever reason, I liked the station, and continued to listen. Now, almost a year later, I still listen to this station, and I feel like I know the Burlington Vermont area pretty well. Now that I live closer to Vermont, I would definitely consider driving down to the area for a weekend to check out some of the events that are promoted on the station, and I would very likely check out some of the businesses that advertise with them.

So here’s you’re homework class: go online an start listening to a local radio station broadcasting from a city that you’ve always wanted to visit, but never have, or a random city that you’ve never even hear of. If you’re at all like me, you’ll learn a lot, and build an interesting image in your mind of what that city must be like, based on what you’ve heard on the radio.

Thanks for tuning in!

*I started listening to this station in December because they carry a syndicated radio host who plays great Christmas music in the evening that wasn’t available in my local area. I ended up listening to them around the clock.