Did you know that if you take a frog and put it in a pot of cold water on top of the stove, then gradually turn up the heat, the frog will actually stay in the water without trying to jump out of the pot? In fact, if you turn the heat up slow enough, it will actually cook to death - without ever trying to escape.
Dumb frog, right? Maybe. But that has nothing to do with why the frog seems willing to die. Unfortunately, the poor frog dies simply because the change in heat is so slow that it doesn't realize it's in an environment which is dangerous to its well-being.
In the same way, right now, each of us is a 'frog' in a pot of uncomfortably warm - yet comfortable - 'water' which is about to become even hotter. As each day passes, those who have the power to turn the heat up or down - our elected politicians - increasingly choose to turn the heat up. More laws, more taxes, more restrictions, more control by politicians, and of course, less and less control for citizens and taxpayers.
It's just a matter of time before the political 'waters' in Ontario come to a boil. Our well-being is about to be threatened by a political environment that has a nasty name with nasty connotations.
It's called fascism, and it's about time more of us woke up to the fact that fascism is increasingly becoming a dominant philosophy of Ontario's "mixed" economy system.
If you think that 'fascism' is too strong a word to apply to Canadian politics - that it just couldn't happen here, that people who use the word are being unreasonably alarmist ("Like, hey, Bob Rae isn't Hitler!") - remember the frog.
Had the change in Canada's political environment that has taken a generation to condition us to its acceptance otherwise occurred in, say, five years, we would all be much more aware of its nature. The change in temperature would have been much more noticeable. We would be much more able to sense how radically we have shifted away from the fundamental working principles of a free, tolerant and prosperous society and fallen right into the clutches of the very ideology that thousands of Canadians fought and died to protect us from.
No, Ontario's not predominantly fascist - yet. But our current mixed economy - part capitalist (private property, individual freedom and choice) and part socialist (state ownership, monopoly), and - increasingly - fascist (state control of private property) is coming to a boil. If we're not careful, the frog just might croak.
Increasingly, the political direction in Ontario is towards fascism: state control of private property or private choice. It is important for each of us to recognize that politically, the distinguishing characteristic that separates a socialist policy from a fascist policy is not to be found in their similar philosophies (i.e., state control), but in their differing views of the social role of private property as the means of production. Whereas socialists uphold the doctrine of government ownership and control of the means of production (i.e., no private property, total government control), fascists simply uphold the doctrine of state control, dispensing with the need to consider the status of property. After all, in practice, control is ownership.
Though they may call themselves socialists, Conservatives, or Liberals, don't be surprised by most politicians' eager support of fascist policy: rent controls; official bilingualism; pay equity laws; Sunday shopping laws; censorship; gun control; minimum wage laws; forced union dues; hiring quotas; discrimination laws; drug prohibition, among a list of many others. What each of these policies have in common is that each represents a control on private property, contract or choice. Whether one agrees or disagrees with them, both in theory and in practice, these controls can properly be referred to as being fascist.
Once a society has enough such policies in place, there is very little that can be done to prevent the same type of catastrophe that enveloped Europe during the Second World War. Of course, one, two, or even three fascist policies does not a fascist state make. Just how many have to be in place before we can no longer avoid the fascist label and its social and economic consequences is at best, I suppose, a matter of personal judgement. I'll leave that for you to decide.
By the way, did I mention that you take a frog and put it in a pot of cold water...
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last updated on April 28, 2002
