Uptight. That might be the word to describe one of the most noticeable ways my culture has diminished during the time I strayed from my country. People have become more uptight. I hesitate to say that it is the busybody lawmakers that have inundated the Canadian public with rules, regulations, and endless lists of qualifying steps you must take to perform what used to be simple tasks. I hesitate because, as you have probably already gleaned if you read my rantings regularly, I find this uptightness decidedly female. It is one way I believe our culture has been unequally dominated by women as they've sailed beyond the equality they once told us they were after. But that's just my opinion of the origins of this uptightness. It may or may not be true. The uptightness itself is hard to deny. I'll give you a good example:
I heard this story on the news this morning. It's about "Senior Assassin," a game played by students in their final years of high school to relieve stress during their final examination study periods. We know how much stress this can cause. It can be the difference between getting in or missing out on post-secondary education. So kids go out and squirt people with squirt guns. In the article it mentions nerf and even pellet guns. I will just talk about the water. I certainly can't condone shooting strangers with pellet guns. Does that REALLY happen or is this just a case of media getting excessively uptight?
At any rate, a homeless native dude was squirted (and the student captured it on vid) and this caused "hurt" to Tania Cameron in Kenora, Ontario. I may have caused hurt by calling the dude "homeless" instead of "unhoused." My bad, I apologize. Tania Cameron goes so far as to say that the offending squirter blew her mind because he obviously did not see the vulnerable, marginalized victim of the squirting as a human being.
Constable HAYLEY Cheater says any unwanted physical contact or contact with something that someone doesn't consent to could be seen as assault in the criminal code. Well she's a cop so I guess she should be taken seriously, but let's check anyway. The Canadian Criminal Code in section 265 defines assault as when a person applies force intentionally, directly or indirectly to another person without that person's consent. Technically the squirter in the Kenora scenario IS forcing the water upon the unhoused native dude and technically he did not give his consent. So is this assault?
What the written report here doesn't say, and what the report I heard earlier DID say is that when questioned, the victim said he did not give permission to be squirted with water but he "dealt with it." I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that maybe he dealt with it because he heard about the "Senior Assassin" ritual. I was in grade 13 in Ignace in 1986 (that's near Kenora and that's 40 years ago) and boy howdy did WE ever play the senior assassin game! Water balloons, squirt guns, buckets of water, students with cars did drive-by waterings, it was SOOO much fun!!! And when we got squirted or even completely soaked, we dealt with it even though, yes, it was other people applying force directly or indirectly without our consent. Does anybody see the subtle difference here?
I'll do you one better. There's something in Thailand that takes place on April 13-15 (my birthday is in the middle there) called Songkran. Maybe that translates to the "Festival of Assault." I'm not sure. People squirt, splash, and soak other people, sometimes total strangers, sometimes even unhoused strangers, who have not given prior consent, and all that "FORCE" being applied - for three days - goes completely unpunished. In fact people have fun with force. They accept assault. It's uncanny!
Before watching the above video I must warn you there are plenty of weapons that could be confused with actual firearms; there are multiple versions of non-consensual soakings; LOADS of force being applied both directly and indirectly; and people of all (notice I didn't say "both" cuz this is Thailand) genders and ages not being all crotchety about it. In fact the Thais have a way of making all this uncontrolled, unpoliced, unlicensed, non-certified, make-your-own-rules MAYHEM... kinda sexy.I have done this two or three times, once or twice in Pattaya and I think once in Kausan Rd. Bangkok. It's a complete blast! I did what the guy in the vid did and brought a pocket full of change because along with their ability to make things sexy, Thais will also find ways of making things lucrative and this is no exception. There were kids with barrels of water who charged you to refill your water weapons. The charge depended on the weapon. I would highly recommend this to anybody going to Thailand! It's a great way to meet locals and foreigners! Some become opponents and some become allies. It just naturally happens. And by the end of the shenanigans everybody is tired, wet, and thirsty so we dry off in a pub (if you can find a dry one) and regale one another with battle exploits.
Now, put this in the current context of Canada and there would be several manipulative busybodies who just love controlling others who would manufacture legal explanations of sexism, civil rights violations, human rights violations, and legal violations that would all equate to "That's too much fun SHUT 'ER DOWN!"
Give me your honest opinion: When you watch that Songkran vid, do you see an unruly mob or do you see people having fun? In the Kenora example some folks think that Senior Assassin is just "kids being kids." I would go along with that. And in the Songkran example I would say it's people being people. When we are forced to document everything we do, mathematize our lives, take everything seriously it's just unnatural. What's more, it's unhealthy. I like that. "What's more." I think I'll try to use it more often along with my "why." Just so it doesn't disappear. It's a handy phrase and what's more, why, it's downright stylish!
How and when did Canada become so boring? It's not just me! Many Canadians are expressing a diminished sense of enjoyment in Canadian life citing a combination of economic downturn, high cost of living, declining quality of life, all work and no play make Canada a dull country. I think you need to throw COVID in there too. It was a gift from the control monger gods when all of Canada was forced to learn how to obey as a unit. It taught all countries who to look to if you don't want to find the facts out for yourself. It also established that even in this day and age when we THINK we are becoming more free, it doesn't matter a damn if you DO find facts out for yourself, we can ALL be forced to obey. Thousands of Canadians lost their jobs due to Covid-19 vaccination mandates. In 2021 a reported 70% of Canadians thought that was A-OK. However, if you look at the arguments people gave for refusing the Covid vaccine shots and more recent developments, I think the 70% would drop drastically. For example, S. Korea is granting up to 10,000 bucks worth of aid to people with Covid vaccine-caused illness even if they cannot prove medical causality. In fact, courts there are increasingly ruling in favour of those seeking damages due to side effects and deaths following Covid 19 vaccines sometimes overturning previous decisions. Could Canadians who were fired for not getting vaccinated say, "Hey, that could have happened to me?" Not yet. Canadians fired for not being vaccinated (who also were refused EI) are still appealing without success.
Okay, I'm just spitballing here, not giving my opinion one way or another on the Covid vaccine. I got all my shots and have noticed no health problems associated with them. However, if you scroll up to section 265 of the Canadian Criminal Code... some of you saw this coming didn't you? lol
Look, if we are going to seriously consider squirting a person with a squirt gun to be "force," then I have to submit to you forcing an entire country to put shit directly into our bloodstreams without knowing what it is and telling us we will lose our jobs if we don't, why, that's a FAR better example of assault than Senior Assassin! What's more, it's a far greater health risk. There HAVE been a couple of health risks linked to the Covid vaccines: myocarditis/pericarditis, thrombosis (TTS), GBS a neurological disease, and strong allergic reactions. The Canadian government reports that there were about 0.056% cases of adverse effects after the shots.
To play Devil's advocate here the pandemic ended about 3 years ago. How long does it take for medical professionals to prove direct correlation between a medicine and adverse effects? Maybe more devilish advocation might be how long does it take the medical profession to prove direct correlation between a medicine THEY FORCED EVERYONE TO TAKE and adverse effects? Oh geez, I would never distrust the medical profession would I? I certainly would as you can tell by my use of dis instead of mis in my question.
What's more, why, by golly, if direct correlations between adverse effects and the Covid vaccines could be proven, those big pharmaceutical companies might lose a little bit of the billions of dollars they made from it. Why, suing Big Pharma would be tantamount to applying direct or indirect force to the people in the medical profession responsible for the Covid vaccines entirely against their wills, wouldn't it? The legal profession being what it is regarding the unfair advantages that are available through wealth, Big Pharma might end up charging those who were adversely affected by the Covid vaccines with assault when they sue! And they'd win.
Let me clarify before you think I'm saying that Canada forced people to get the Covid vaccines because it's an uptight country. I think, having the information I have now (albeit GOVERNMENT information) with less than 1% chance of adverse reaction I'd get the vaccine again today. I always had a problem with the amount of force that was used and the fact that ingredients of the shots were actively withheld from the public and you can read that in my blog. There's no way of knowing how things would have gone down if the threat of firing was not introduced so comprehensively, but I think it certainly could have been replaced by selective layoffs and by now a lot of people who refused the shots should have been rehired. This probably falls under the category of just not wanting to have been wrong and I think that is certainly part of uptightness.
With the Senior Assassin/Songkran examples we can see a clear uptight nature that Canadians seem to have accepted as the norm that other countries would consider just plain boring. I think it has infected all parts of Canadian life like a virus and made our country a lot less fun to live in than it used to be. There are times to take things seriously and I think Canada took Covid 19 seriously to their credit. But I think that they went overboard and that is a recurring theme I have found. Canada can take a lesson from Thailand I think and loosen up. Don't be so uptight, be more... downloose? Whatever the opposite of uptight is.
Leastaways, that's what I reckon.
