Russia’s invasion showed huge differences between how politicians handle threats.
The president of Ukraine, when offered evacuation, said, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” He’s a leader.
By contrast, in Canada a few weeks before, when truckers staged a protest against COVID-19 rules, the cowardly Prime Minister Justin Trudeau felt so threatened by the peaceful protesters that he went to “a secret location.” Then he invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act.
The authorities were able to break up protests by forcibly. Police rode onto a horseback crowd in one case. People were trampled.
It was a terrible act, but the best part to stop protesters from protesting was their bank accounts being frozen.
It’s similar in spirit to how the West treats Russian President Vladimir Putin right now.
Trudeau, however, did it for his people!
“You do have to have a bank account, really, to be able to live,” says George Mason University law professor Todd Zywicki in my New video.
“Imagine if, during the Civil Rights era, Martin Luther King could have lost his bank account because he trespassed at a Woolworth’s counter.”
Naturally, cash was more popular back then. Nowadays, banks and credit card are our main sources of income.
The easily frightened Trudeau justified his use of the Emergencies Act by saying the truckers received “disturbing amounts of foreign funding to destabilize Canada’s democracy.”
Really? The truckers were going to “destabilize Canada’s democracy”?
“I don’t know why you would say it’s ‘destabilizing democracy,’” says Zywicki. “This is democracy. Canadians trying to stand up for their rights.”
This abuse of power is rare in America.
But it is.
In 2013, Zywicki reminds us, “Companies engaged in completely legal services found themselves losing access to bank accounts … being forced to shut down.”
The Obama Administration launched Operation Choke Point which encouraged banks and financial institutions to close down accounts of gambling companies, payday loan lenders, guns dealers, pornographers, and other undesirable businesses.
Kat O’Connor, a gun dealer, did all that was required by the government: she filled out paperwork, obtained federal and state permits, and paid large fees. However, she was suddenly refused payment processing services by online companies. Then, she tried Stripe and PayPal as well as Square. “It always ended up with an email saying they were closing my accounts,” she told me. She assumes the blacklisting was “a backdoor attempt at gun control.”
It was probably.
Choke Point continued to be used until Donald Trump was elected.
O’Connor remains on the blacklist. The bureaucrats could make your finances impossible to access if you’re deemed a troublemaker by government.
That’s infuriating.
My job involves seeing the opposite side. Zywicki understood that banks were private companies lending money. Why would they loan money to people that they do not like? Privat businesses have the freedom to make any choice they want.
Zywicki gave a great answer. Banks aren’t really private companies. “There are barriers to entry. To open a bank new, you must get approval. … The financial services industry is so intertwined with government.”
This government-banking connection allows bureaucrats to regulate banks and shut down access to money for government critics. Canada’s protestor truckers held firm against the pressure of politicians and police for many weeks. Their protest ended when Trudeau frozen their cash.
Governments can bankrupt you.
“We need to tolerate people saying things we don’t like and separate that from their ability to make a living,” says Zywicki. “We’ve merged those two things. That’s a very big threat to the free society.”
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