Freedom Does Not Exist

Let me tell you why

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” — Herman Melville

Freedom!

Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

It’s a heavy word. It comes with a lot of baggage and images of blue, red, and white flags and fireworks and rocking guitar solos.

Clearly, there’s a lot to unpack when my (a young woman from Canada) idea of freedom is steeped in American iconography. But, that’s not what I’m here for.

I’m here to talk about Freedom™️, this skewed idea of what freedom means and how it doesn’t even exist the way certain political and ideological groups want you to think it does.

If you’ve been living under a rock, don’t live in Canada, or don’t pay attention to Canadian news, you may not know that a couple of weeks ago Ottawa was set free (pun intended) from an occupation of “protesters” (aka Freedom Truckers) who set up camp and harassed citizens and healthcare workers, honked at all hours, waved Nazi and confederate flags, defaced the war memorial and the statue of Terry Fox, and were generally kind of awful.

There were also convoys blockading the Canada-U.S.A. border, preventing movement back and forth between the countries.