Patric J. Dufficy: Dealers in Hope

Do you sometimes find yourself thinking about all the ways we are controlled in our society?
What I mean by control is, not being able to do simple logical things showing no real danger because of security, laws or simply a way to do things.

Lost of Liberty

Let’s talk about some security controls.
Somethings we all take as normal are, stop signs and traffic lights. I’m sure several people do the same as I when I’m on the road late at night, and I arrive at a red light and the entire city is sleeping, that red light is becoming a stop sign, I stop, look and pass.
And let say there is a stop sign 200 feet away and I can see pretty far at the 3 other crossing roads, this stop sign has no meaning to me.
Why do I have to stop, for no reason, because of a steel panel or a red light, when I’m all alone on the road? Is this logical?
It’s the law, yeah right!
Laws exist because of those who are irresponsible and have no respect.
So stops and lights exist because of those who aren’t enough conscientious to make sure there’s no one coming on the other road and continue and BANG!
This is why in many places we must by law put a fence around our swimming pool, we must buckle up in our car, we can’t allow our young children play in the street, etc.
This is also true in our work places too, take for example many offices, they block several web sites because of those who exaggerate… Result; you cannot check anything personal anymore, even for 2 minutes, during a break or lunch time.
Several jobs have specific schedules for breaks, lunch, arrival and exit time.

In the “I don’t care” and “no respect” category come the smokers. Today, they cannot smoke in any public place anymore. And I was a smoker until last February 2011. I perfectly understand that non-smokers can have a real hard time breathing smoke in public areas, but it’s still control on a personal habit.
There is control because of crime. Also in the “no respect” category, but at a higher state.
Think of how control has gone nuts if you travel by plane. Since couple of years, we must have our passport to go through the US or Canada borders by car… Come on! In a normal world, US and Canada should share the same dollar and no frontiers… My 2 cents.

And here comes the government control… A huge, big big huge reason why the government has this enormous control over the people is because the people now give all the responsibilities to the government.
A ridiculous problem in Quebec is Social Security; there are families with many generations of non-working parasites. “If I loose my job, no problem, the government will pay me.” What a pathetic mentality!
In short, a big majority of the western population suffers from a near-extinction of leaders and goes by with a thinking that somebody else will fix all their problems and they don’t have to leave their couch and miss their favorite TV shows.
Another example from our Province is our electricity company (Hydro-Quebec is government property), they will replace in the next couple of years all the meters for new “smart” ones.
They will record all sort of data giving them the possibility to create a chart of your life habits and control you a little more, telling you that you open too much lights at a certain time frame or take too long showers, or clean your dishes too often.
I could go on for hours writing about government control, but I’m sure you have several examples popping into your mind as you read this.

Several cities compel citizens to use public transport by eliminating downtown public parking. I know we can debate this widely on environmental basis, excessive traffic jams, etc. But it is still a form of control.
Several years ago, our Quebec provincial government forced peripheral cities and municipalities around bigger cities (Montreal, Quebec…) to merge together as one big city. They claimed it would be a smart move economically. It has been a disaster for small cities with low taxes and good services! Management of the big cities that already has problems before merging increased and spread to the new united cities resulting in huge taxes raise and declining services quality. Nobody asked the citizens if they agreed with this decision.
Is this can be truly called a democratic system?
Forcing a population to do what the government wants is not called a democracy in my mind.

Do you understand now what I mean by loosing our freedom?
Between a simple stop sign to a controlling government, there are countless examples of lost freedom in our so called free countries.
I know there are far worst countries in our world with no freedom at all, but they don’t claim to be free democratic countries.

We need new leaders who have the guts to fix broken things in our society.
They are there, scattered around our countries, working to find other leaders, so we can make a positive impact in a near future.

“Everything rises and falls on leadership” – Dr. John C. Maxwell

Thanks for reading, Patric J. Dufficy

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