Western Standard - September 12, 2024


Citizens rejecting water restrictions and vaccinations due to broken trust


Episode Stats

Length

6 minutes

Words per Minute

191.61676

Word Count

1,152

Sentence Count

93

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Trust in the government is essential for democracy to function correctly. People must have a little bit of faith and be willing to cooperate with the government at times. And when that balance is thrown off, and healthy skepticism of the government has morphed into cynicism, things can go bad and quickly.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is on the government and public trusts, you know?
00:00:02.260 So a degree of skepticism and mistrust of governments,
00:00:05.240 it's a good thing, actually, it's healthy.
00:00:07.120 No elected officials or bureaucrats should get a pass
00:00:09.680 or be gifted with blind trust.
00:00:11.740 Government actions, they don't always have the well-being
00:00:14.280 of citizens at heart,
00:00:15.200 and the state should always be viewed
00:00:16.700 with a skeptical eye.
00:00:18.160 Now, with all that said, though,
00:00:19.460 a degree of trust in the government
00:00:21.360 is essential for democracy to function correctly.
00:00:24.020 People must have a little bit of faith
00:00:26.080 and be willing to cooperate with the government at times.
00:00:28.040 So when that balance has been thrown off
00:00:29.980 and healthy skepticism of the government
00:00:33.200 has morphed into cynicism,
00:00:35.100 things can go bad and quickly.
00:00:37.560 So during the COVID years,
00:00:38.640 governments at all levels shattered the relationship
00:00:40.620 of trust with citizens.
00:00:42.000 Elected officials and appointed bureaucrats,
00:00:43.800 they eagerly imposed controls upon people
00:00:45.740 with no regard for personal freedoms.
00:00:48.060 The ability to earn a living, travel, meet with loved ones,
00:00:51.360 or even pursue an education was curtailed.
00:00:53.460 Even the sanctity, of course, of medical choice was violated
00:00:56.220 as people were coerced into vaccinations
00:00:58.180 they weren't comfortable with.
00:00:59.940 The state fed mistrust between citizens
00:01:02.420 and the government and encouraged them,
00:01:03.820 and they fed mistrust between citizens and each other,
00:01:07.020 encouraging them to report on each other
00:01:08.560 for pandemic violations.
00:01:10.080 Families were shattered, livelihoods were destroyed.
00:01:12.500 With hindsight, we can see how clearly overblown
00:01:14.340 the risk of COVID was.
00:01:15.500 Even when the pandemic was first unfolding,
00:01:17.440 it was evident that the virus was harmless
00:01:19.000 to healthy young people,
00:01:20.600 yet the state couldn't resist imposing controls upon us all
00:01:23.980 with disturbing zeal, schools and playgrounds were closed,
00:01:26.680 and kids playing hockey outdoors were assaulted by police.
00:01:29.680 That really happened.
00:01:31.480 Citizens were fed misinformation by the state,
00:01:33.580 and the social fabric of nations was torn,
00:01:36.260 as people were publicly shamed for questioning
00:01:38.480 the motivation and action of their governments.
00:01:40.860 And now, now we're seeing the cost of this shattered trust.
00:01:44.640 A local example here in Calgary,
00:01:46.140 the water supply has been disrupted to months
00:01:47.900 due to decades of incompetent civil governments
00:01:50.180 neglecting to inspect and maintain the main water lines.
00:01:53.920 Restrictions on water have been dragging on,
00:01:55.880 and people are being shamed for daring to shower
00:01:57.880 more than three minutes,
00:01:58.780 or for flushing their toilets too many times,
00:02:00.840 or washing their cars.
00:02:02.600 Fines are being levied against people
00:02:04.020 caught committing the high crime of watering their gardens.
00:02:07.060 And of course, the threats are abounding
00:02:08.380 with further legal consequences,
00:02:10.320 should citizens be using water
00:02:12.580 beyond their rationed and allotted amount.
00:02:14.780 Now, despite all this pressure,
00:02:16.260 citizens aren't reducing their water use
00:02:17.640 significantly in Calgary.
00:02:19.060 While city officials beg, cajole, and threaten citizens,
00:02:22.300 their pleas are being ignored.
00:02:23.820 In order to repair the water lines,
00:02:25.120 people need to reduce their water use en masse,
00:02:26.960 and it isn't happening.
00:02:28.640 Apparently, if the overuse of water continues,
00:02:30.940 Calgarians may experience a total shutdown of water
00:02:33.380 or have boil water orders imposed on them
00:02:35.940 for the whole winter.
00:02:37.340 Now, with such potentially dire consequences
00:02:39.800 for using too much water,
00:02:41.000 why are Calgarians still refusing to cut back?
00:02:43.360 It's because they don't trust the bloody government.
00:02:44.980 They remember the satisfied gleam in Mayor Gondek's eye
00:02:48.620 as she maintained pandemic restrictions,
00:02:50.840 and they know the contempt in her voice
00:02:52.260 when she speaks to citizens.
00:02:53.700 They either don't believe the threats
00:02:55.260 to the water supply are real,
00:02:57.020 or they're continuing with their high water use
00:02:59.260 as an act of passive rebellion just to spite her.
00:03:01.660 It's probably a combination of both.
00:03:03.460 If people trusted the city government,
00:03:04.940 water use would drop.
00:03:06.280 It's annoying, but not difficult
00:03:07.660 to reduce daily consumption to a degree.
00:03:09.900 Trust has been compromised, however,
00:03:11.420 and now, in time of genuine crisis,
00:03:12.960 the government can't get citizens to cooperate
00:03:14.780 on solving the problem.
00:03:16.100 This isn't the fault of citizens.
00:03:17.740 It's a consequence of the abuse of power by authorities.
00:03:20.760 The issue gets even more worrisome
00:03:22.180 when it comes to vaccine use.
00:03:23.860 I mean, we've had safe, well-established,
00:03:25.760 and tested vaccines in use for generations.
00:03:28.060 People don't need a gun to their heads
00:03:29.860 to take their children in for those vaccinations.
00:03:31.940 They trusted the medical establishment
00:03:33.500 and the government back then.
00:03:35.080 The lives saved for polio vaccinations
00:03:37.100 and others have been immeasurable,
00:03:39.220 as well as the savings in health costs.
00:03:40.580 Now, though, we're seeing a resurgence
00:03:41.960 of some of those diseases we thought were defeated.
00:03:43.820 Measles is making a comeback.
00:03:45.280 So is whooping cough.
00:03:46.300 We have vaccinations for that.
00:03:48.100 Statistics are indicating that vaccine uptake
00:03:50.320 has dropped dramatically in the last few years,
00:03:52.340 and children are going to be paying the price for that.
00:03:54.340 I mean, there's always been some people
00:03:55.240 making crazed claims about MMR vaccines and autism.
00:03:57.740 It was a bunch of baloney.
00:03:58.800 But they were in a minority,
00:04:00.180 and enough people participated in vaccinations
00:04:01.820 to keep general immunity high.
00:04:03.820 So we didn't see outbreaks of mumps,
00:04:05.380 smallpox, polio.
00:04:06.400 The vaccines are safe and effective.
00:04:07.640 Due to the way the COVID vaccines
00:04:10.040 have been imposed on people, though,
00:04:11.440 mistrust of all vaccines has been growing.
00:04:13.620 People are lumping well-established,
00:04:15.040 effective vaccines
00:04:15.920 into the hastily concocted juice of the COVID jabs.
00:04:19.740 Elections are approaching,
00:04:21.080 and people must vote for change.
00:04:22.420 The old guard has to be flushed from power
00:04:24.700 and replaced with reformers.
00:04:26.140 We need to bring the trust back.
00:04:27.400 New faces won't solve every problem,
00:04:29.380 but we can be assured the old faces
00:04:30.740 won't solve any problem.
00:04:32.440 Citizens are in an abusive relationship
00:04:34.080 with their governments right now,
00:04:35.060 and the trust has been obliterated.
00:04:36.820 Only through new players
00:04:37.720 can trust start to be rebuilt
00:04:38.740 and a balance between citizens
00:04:40.480 and governments be regained.
00:04:42.800 Well, that's kind of my first rant of the day, guys.
00:04:45.160 It's a big one, you know,
00:04:46.160 because, again,
00:04:46.780 I know some people do believe
00:04:48.580 that the water leakages might be fake
00:04:50.720 or it's exaggerated
00:04:51.960 whether people should reduce it or not.
00:04:53.380 I don't know.
00:04:54.020 I think they probably should be reducing it
00:04:56.240 so these things can get repaired.
00:04:57.620 We should be fighting about finding
00:04:58.720 why everybody was so vulnerable.
00:05:00.760 We should be discussing, you know,
00:05:02.900 how this can be fixed.
00:05:04.200 But in the meantime,
00:05:05.200 they should cooperate.
00:05:06.440 But I understand why they won't.
00:05:08.100 I understand why they don't trust Gondek.
00:05:10.200 They don't trust the city administration
00:05:11.700 because we've been abused.
00:05:14.060 And now it's coming back to haunt us.
00:05:17.140 Likewise, again, mumps, rubella, polio,
00:05:21.760 those vaccines were effective, guys.
00:05:23.520 The proof is pretty solid with that.
00:05:25.200 But people now are afraid of all of them
00:05:26.780 thanks to the idiots with the government
00:05:28.120 shoving COVID vaccines down people's throats.
00:05:30.720 And we'll see you next time.
00:05:35.820 We'll be right back.
00:05:36.380 Once again,
00:05:37.220 uri Bexer,
00:05:37.820 we'll see you next time.
00:05:39.320 Bye for now.
00:05:44.320 Bye.
00:05:47.400 Bye.
00:05:48.620 Bye.
00:05:49.920 Bye.
00:05:51.540 Bye.
00:05:52.480 Bye.
00:05:55.060 Bye.
00:05:55.520 Bye.
00:05:55.660 Bye.
00:05:56.060 Bye.
00:05:57.160 Bye.
00:05:59.680 Bye.
00:06:00.100 Bye.
00:06:00.700 Bye.就是說.ulsiveie. dolly. Seven.