For the first time in history, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to crackdown on what he has described as an attack on democracy itself in Canada. While civil libertarians in Canada have condemned the move as threatening core free speech and associational rights in the country, the American media and legal commentators have largely supported Trudeau in the use of these extreme measures. Indeed, I triggered a tsunami of criticism in stating that Canada could have used such powers to cut off donations for the Civil Rights Movement and arrest Martin Luther King today for such protests. This was due to the distortion of my comments on MLK being arrested (as opposed to being subject to arrest under this law). However, there was also an objection that there is no equivalency between the truckers and the Civil Rights Movement. Again, that is not the point of the reference: the comparison was to the type of civil disobedience used in protests. The concern is that the Canadian government could declare such an emergency to crackdown on any group engaging in civil disobedience through blockades or occupation protests. It could even happen to Dr. King today if marchers sought to repeat historic marches in Canada. Without meaningful limits under the law, they could also be unilaterally declared threats to Canadian “sovereignty, security and territorial integrity” by Trudeau for acts of civil disobedience.
With the emergency powers, Trudeau can now prohibit travel, public assemblies, conduct widespread arrests, and block donations for the truckers. This also includes freezing bank accounts and ramping up police surveillance and enforcement.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association objected:
“The federal government has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act. This law creates a high and clear standard for good reason: the Act allows government to bypass ordinary democratic processes. This standard has not been met. The Emergencies Act can only be invoked when a situation ‘seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada’ & when the situation ‘cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.’”
Such voices have been drowned out by media demonizing the truckers as racists or insurrectionists.
As civil libertarians, it is less important what people are saying as their right to say it. That includes people who speak through their financial support or donations. Millions in such donations were blocked by GoFundMe or the Canadian government in this crackdown.
It is often tempting to ignore the implications of such extreme measures by focusing on your disagreement with a given group. To understand the scope of this law you can simply look to how widely revered movements could be treated under the same provisions. For example, the Civil Rights marchers also engaged in civil disobedience in shutting down bridges and occupying spaces. As I stated on Monday,
“Now, when you put all of that together, you’ve extinguished the ability of thousands, perhaps even millions of people to express themselves through a form of civil disobedience. And according to Prime Minister Trudeau’s definition, he could have shut down the Civil Rights Movement. He could have arrested Martin Luther King. He could have arrested any number of figures that we now celebrate today as visionaries.”
On Tuesday, I returned to that same point and noted that Canada could easily use the same law against the marchers and Dr. King today. Trudeau’s government could cut off all funding for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) while arresting figures like Dr. King. I noted that “I thought [the use of the Emergency Act] was quite excessive. This is an act of civil disobedience. That is a standard tactic of groups going back to the civil rights movement and even earlier to block bridges and streets, to do what was referred to as — quote — ‘good trouble.’ By this rationale, they could have cracked down on the Civil Rights Movement. They could have arrested Martin Luther King.”
The “they” is clearly the Canadian government in its use of these emergency powers today — not a reference to arrests in the past in the United States.
As is evident from the entire interview, I was referring to how the Canadian government could use these powers against an array of different groups for similar acts of civil disobedience. I was not saying that Dr. King was never arrested. Of course, he was. I have previously discussed those arrests, including in recent columns (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here).
To critics in our hair-triggered political environment, it did not matter that I have routinely discussed the record of arrests of Dr. King in past columns and interviews. It also did not matter that I was clearly referring how the Canadian government could make such an arrest today in shutting down contemporary marchers. The point is that it is not just truckers who can be the targets of such Canadian emergency powers. The sweeping language would allow Trudeau to shutdown a contemporary civil rights movement and a leader like Dr. King as easily as he did the convoy. Yet, even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined in.
The second objection, however, is more interesting. People objected to any analogy of these truckers and their cause to Dr. King and the fight for civil rights.
Brooke Binkowski@brooklynmarie
Turley here is simultaneously conflating human rights advocates such as Martin Luther King with a bunch of assholes shitting up international borders because their disinformation handlers told them to and telling racists that white people get the worst treatment.5:17 PM · Feb 15, 2022·
Of course, I was not saying that the truckers are the like of MLK. I doubt the truckers would say that. Rather, I was comparing forms of civil disobedience. The protection of forms of protest should not depend on whether we support or oppose the underlying message.
People objected to the very notion that the Civil Rights marchers could be viewed as akin to the truckers. But that is the point. The law does not have any distinction. It could be used today against Dr. King just as it was used against the truckers. Indeed, Dr. King was accused of being a communist and a traitor by government officials during the crackdowns and arrests of the period. The Canadian law, however, would allow the federal government to use such claims to freeze funding and order arrests under the Emergencies Act today, including a figure like Dr. King for acts of civil disobedience.
We should be outraged by the use of such measures against either civil rights marchers or the Canadian truckers. As the Canadian Civil Liberties Association correctly noted, there is no limiting principle in Trudeau’s use of these powers. Trudeau simply declared that the convoy “seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada” without any substantive support for that finding.
These are sweeping emergency powers that could be used against some of our most celebrated figures and shutdown some of our most revered causes. Under this law, the only thing preventing Trudeau from shutting down movements — even historic movements like the Civil Rights marchers — is his affinity for the cause as opposed to the underlying conduct.
Why do Canadians pronounce ‘about’ wrong?
Why do you ask stupid questions?
Because they’re hosers, that’s why. 😉
“I triggered a tsunami of outrage in stating that Canada could have used such powers to cut off donations for the Civil Rights Movement and arrest Martin Luther King today for such protests. Partly this was due to the distortion of my comments on MLK ever being arrested (as opposed to being subject to arrest under this law).”
Blame yourself for the criticism. You’re tweeting things like “The point is that it is not just truckers who can be the targets of such Canadian emergency powers. The sweeping language would allow Trudeau to shutdown a contemporary civil rights movement and a leader like Dr. King as easily as he did the convoy.”
But as Princeton historian Kevin Kruse said in response:
“Then the point is still stupid, because MLK was repeatedly arrested for minor offenses — loitering, parading without a permit, disobeying police orders, driving with an improper license, falsifying a tax return, waging an illegal boycott, etc etc.
“Emergency laws weren’t needed to arrest MLK and shut down the civil rights movement. Ordinary laws — seemingly race-neutral, but applied by racists to maintain white supremacy — managed to do that all on their own. It’s sort of a central point of Critical Race Theory.
“And, again, MLK himself talked about this all the time. From the Letter from Birmingham Jail: … [embedded image with an excerpt from King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail]”
https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1493975025396981767
For anyone who has never read King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail, I encourage you all to read it. Here’s a copy:
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Dr Turley, I’m sure there are some days when you feel like you’re pi$$ing in the wind. There are some readers who are just not “with it” enough to understand a comparison of underlying principles. Sadly, these people also vote, and we see where that got us.
Where does the desire to tyrannize come from? Why do some peopele get it into their heads that they are entitled to tyrannize?
Jonathan: Looks like you are getting a lot of justified blowback after your “legal analyst” comments on Fox. There is no equivalency between the Canadian trucker protests and the Civil Rights movement. But you bizarrely claim the two protests can be compared because “that is a standard tactic of groups going back to the civil rights movement and even earlier to block bridges and streets,…”. You obviously need a refresher course in one of the seminal events in the Civil Rights movement. In early 1965, after months of peaceful protests against segregation in Alabama and after the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson, John Lewis led a group of marchers on March 7 on a march from Selma to Montgomery. When they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge they were met by a phalanx of state troopers and Sheriff Clark who blocked the bridge. The marchers were beaten and teargassed. John Lewis was severely injured. The marchers did not “block” the bridge. It was blockaded by Alabama state troopers who prevented the marchers from continuing their march. This became “Bloody Sunday”. You have completely distorted the history of the Civil Rights movement with your false equivalency. You would make a lousy historian. I suggest you go back to doing what you do best–teaching torts to first year law students.
There is no equivalency between the Canadian trucker protests and the Civil Rights movement
Nobody says there is.
This has nothing to do with MLK or the civil rights protest.
Do you support the government using its regulatory power, against citizens protesting? Not laws, but non law enforcement agencies?
“This has nothing to do with MLK or the civil rights protest. ”
Turley disagrees with you: “By this rationale, they could have cracked down on the Civil Rights Movement. They could have arrested Martin Luther King. …
“Of course, I was not saying that the truckers are the like of MLK. I doubt the truckers would say that. Rather, I was comparing forms of civil disobedience. The protection of forms of protest should not depend on whether we support or oppose the underlying message. People objected to the very notion that the Civil Rights marchers could be viewed as akin to the truckers. But that is the point. The law does not have any distinction. It could be used today against Dr. King just as it was used against the truckers. Indeed, Dr. King was accused of being a communist and a traitor by government officials during the crackdowns and arrests of the period. The Canadian law, however, would allow the federal government to use such claims to freeze funding and order arrests under the Emergencies Act today, including a figure like Dr. King for acts of civil disobedience.”
Hitler had his Enabling Acts, too. There shouldn’t even be such a thing in any body of law for any Western nation. It defeats the purpose of securing the blessings of liberty with a constitution when the fast-track to tyranny is codified with some kind enabling acts or emergency powers.
I wonder if Trudeau dyes his own hair, of if he has it done at a salon.
This Trudeau guy is going to be a force to be reckoned with as soon as he emerges from puberty…
Democrats love labelling people. Let’s label the Canadian Prime Minister, “Fidel 2.0”. Leftists shouldn’t complain since it honors their and Justin’s Cuban hero.
To Democrats, values and rights are relative. They’ve made that perfectly clear over the years. There is no way to compromise, reason, or negotiate with a doctrinaire mob who thinks that everything they like is OK, and everything else is a “threat to democracy” (by which they mean, a threat to their hegemony and control). Conservatives can debate and discuss these issues until the cows come home, but the bottom line is that they will only get “resolved” through violence. I’m not advocating, just predicting.
“Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to crackdown . . .”
The trucker freedom protests are a godsend to Trudeau. He finally got his Reichstag fire.
Professor Turley, the left is fascist. Don’t expect fascists to uphold civil liberties.
S. Meyer, you don’t know what a fascist is to begin with. Stick to digging rabbit holes. You’re much better at that.
“Again, that is not the point of the reference: it should not matter if you agree or disagree with the underlying cause.”
*That* is the fundamental difference between you and them (and that is why they smear you). You are a man of principle. They are shills.
Truckers are jackmehoffs.
Ahhhh, Peter Strzok is at it again. Only this time he goes by Anonymous.
In which case the truckers are only following the example of Jeffrey Toobin.
To get a perspective on how MLK was treated, you would have to look at how facially neutral laws were applied with particular harshness to African-American protesters, such that they were repeatedly arrested and targeted, etc.
You could not make the above statement in schools in a lot of states these days because that would be “Critical Race Theory.” I would not assume that sort of knowledge among the average Fox viewer who heard this analogy from Turley; they do not want to know and do not want their children to know the truth about MLK.
Didn’t MLK believe that what should count was the content of one’s character, not his color? You seem to have missed MLK’s point along with the objections to CRT depending on color rather than one’s character.
You seem to have missed MLK Jr’s points in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail:
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
For that matter, you seem to have missed most of King’s Dream speech.
Here’s how it starts:
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of N~gro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 years later, the N~gro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the N~gro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the N~gro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the N~gro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the N~gro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. …”
https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety
Anonymous the Stupid, you don’t think. If color had nothing to do with how one was treated, then the speech would have been irrelevant because the black person would have been treated the same under the law. That is why it is fundamental and basic that we should look at a man’s character rather than the color of his skin. You missed almost everything MLK was talking about.
Your ideology has made you deaf, blind and dumb. Almost everything you stand behind is contrary to the essential words of MLK.
Meyer, the speech wasn’t irrelevant then, and it also isn’t irrelevant NOW. You want to pretend that the single sentence you like contains “the essential words of MLK,” when you ignore almost everything he’s written and said. I doubt you’ve read or listened to most of what he’s written and said, so you’re not in a position to assess which of his words are “the essential words” and which aren’t.
You claim “it is fundamental and basic that we should look at a man’s character rather than the color of his skin.” But King himself said not to judge on the basis of skin color, and he did NOT say don’t “look at” skin color, so don’t pretend that your substitution is consistent with his words. King himself regularly looked at skin color, and he understood that it was essential to look at skin color in order to address the racial injustices that continue to this day. The issue is what we do when we look.
I’ve looked at the content of your character, and I’ve consistently found it lacking.
If you truly want to honor King’s words, work on your character. Stop insulting people and lying about them day in and day out.
Anonymous the Stupid, stop living up to your name. MLK said a lot of good things. He believed in the rule of law along with peaceful protest. Those are things you might talk about but you don’t believe in. However, along with all of these things, his main concern was getting black people to be treated the same, under the law, as white people. Had there been no color difference, MLK would not have existed as we know him. That is why the essential part of MLK’s existence was judging a man based on his character rather than the color of his skin.
You focus on petty details and parsing words while missing the meaning behind what you are reading.
It’s so telling that I tell you to stop insulting people and lying about them day in and day out, and you reply with more insults and lies.
ATS, face it, you missed the boat as to what MLK’s main message was. Face it, you lie and deceive.
CRT: Let’s play Truth or Consequence: What you say is partly if not mostly true. There was a period of increased scrutiny and prosecution of Blacks. Race became a criterion for elevated suspicion. As a white, I cannot deny this.
But the rest, I believe, is consequence. Innocent whites who had nothing to do with racial unrest were robbed, their businesses set on fire and vandalized, vehicles and private property stolen or destroyed, and some Blacks carried an in-your-face attitude that was not conducive to constructive conversation. More and more, we became polarized by the consequences of riots, burning, and destruction–a tactic still used today.
I make no comment here re: CRT
Are you familiar with Tulsa in 1921?
I doubt it.
Which is why she says “Innocent whites who had nothing to do with racial unrest were robbed, their businesses set on fire and vandalized, vehicles and private property stolen or destroyed, and some Blacks carried an in-your-face attitude that was not conducive to constructive conversation,” but ignores “Innocent Blacks who had nothing to do with racial unrest were robbed, their businesses set on fire and vandalized, vehicles and private property stolen or destroyed, and some whites carried an in-your-face attitude that was not conducive to constructive conversation” and also ignores the history of innocent people of other races being robbed, their businesses set on fire and vandalized, and their vehicles and private property stolen or destroyed.
White supremacists continue to be our biggest domestic terrorism threat.
From the DNI last year:
“(U) [unclassified] The IC [intelligence community] assesses that racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and militia violent extremists (MVEs) present the most lethal DVE [domestic violent extremist] threats, with RMVEs most likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks against civilians and MVEs typically targeting law enforcement and government personnel and facilities. The IC assesses that the MVE threat increased last year and that it will almost certainly continue to be elevated throughout 2021 because of contentious sociopolitical factors that motivate MVEs to commit violence.
“(U) The IC assesses that US RMVEs who promote the superiority of the white race are the DVE actors with the most persistent and concerning transnational connections because individuals with similar ideological beliefs exist outside of the United States and these RMVEs frequently communicate with and seek to influence each other. We assess that a small number of US RMVEs have traveled abroad to network with like-minded individuals.”
From the WH last year:
“After the Civil War, for example, the Ku Klux Klan waged a campaign of terror to intimidate Black voters and their white supporters and deprive them of political power, killing and injuring untold numbers of Americans. The Klan and other white supremacists continued to terrorize Black Americans and other minorities in the decades that followed. In recent years, we have seen a resurgence of this and related threats in one horrific incident after another: the shooting and killing of 23 people at a retail store in El Paso; the vehicular killing of a peaceful protestor in Charlottesville; the shooting and killing of three people at a garlic festival in Gilroy; the arson committed at a mosque in Victoria, Texas; the appalling rise in violence and xenophobia directed against Asian Americans; the surge in anti–Semitism; and more.”
“There was a period of increased scrutiny and prosecution of Blacks. Race became a criterion for elevated suspicion.”
You seem to think that period of increased scrutiny ever stopped, when I ask you? After COINTELPRO, the FBI kept doing the same things and called the people they wanted to scrutinize, Black Identity Extremists. The definition was so loose as to include anyone that considered themselves Black. Still happening today.
https://news.yahoo.com/new-terrorism-guide-shows-fbi-still-classifying-black-extremists-as-domestic-terrorism-threat-190650561.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
Trudeau is using the government’s police powers to destroy political dissent.
It is no accident that he admires Castro.
I fear this is going to lead to more government surveillance, the erosion of the 1stA and other civil liberties.
The next Canadian elections will be interesting to watch.
UpstateFarmer: As will ours! This is only an Executive Order away in our country. Just consider this article: https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/14/bidens-department-of-homeland-security-announces-it-will-investigate-thought-crimes/
Maybe a better analogy would have been to compare the way the truckers are being treated under this act to the way Trump treated BLM protesters outside the White House when he wanted to do a photo op carrying a bible.
the way Trump treated BLM protesters outside the White House
Not sure how you categorized that “treatment” by President Trump (but you mean Dept of the Interiour), I just know it was way softer than the treatment metted out by the Black Lesbian Mayor of Washington DC
What I find amusing is the recent over-use, by certain politicians and provocateurs, of the phrase, “a threat to our democracy.” This is being used as the new “trigger” phrase of the 21st century, invoked to authorize calling in the wrath of hell to end a protest and demonize protesters who carry an unwanted message..
While I do not deny the speed with which a peaceful demonstration may turn violent or destructive, I would suggest that calling something “a threat to our democracy” is the new “dog-whistle” to control certain speech.
Lin,
Good observation.
I expect that phrase to increase in frequency in the coming months and leading up to the 2024 election, whomever is running.
The DEMS best bet to stay in power is to NOT have an election. Let’s see how they plan to do that…They’ve pretty much milked the Pandemic for all they can, maybe war with Russia will offer some reason to further stomp on our rights. If I were a Canadian trucker, I’d write BLM in 10 foot letters on my truck…and watch the liberals’ heads explode.
Yes. “Threat to our democracy” means “A message that will keep me from getting my way” on any particular issue. We are being bombarded by socialist children.
I know this is a legal blog, but as I wrote in one of my first comments, freedom of speech is not a legal right, it is a cultural value, and if it is not a cultural value, it will be severely restricted as a legal right.
Either the elites and the citizenry believe in free speech, or they don’t. Those who do not do so always will applaud “good” and seek to ban “bad” speech.
What is happening in Canada and Europe is also about passive resistance to unjust laws and petty tyrants like Trudeau and Macron and almost every Democratic governor in the States. In a republic, the average person is politically and economically impotent, unable to affect the choice of leaders, particularly in countries with first-past-the-poll and two-party voting systems. The only recourse of someone who is not powerful or rich is passive resistance — to protest peacefully in large enough groups and coerce the powerful and rich to do what they otherwise would not do.
The two ‘rights’ are intertwined — without freedom of speech it is exceedingly difficult to exercise any rights at all, and without passive resistance there is no effective way to challenge bad laws and bad leaders.
This is not about MLK or Gandhi or Mussolini. This is about petty tyrants censoring speech and suppressing those who challenge them.
Sadly most people on the left are hopelessly stuck in their tribe that they’ll view any freedom protests as inherently pointless because “Just get the vax and you get your freedom…. don’t you want to save grandma” and despite all my protestations that the vaccine does not prevent transmission it’ll never sink in their 5 ft titanium thick skulls. Twitter is a anti-American platform that sews discord around the world.