Carbon Taxes and Legging Freedom

The infamous and unjust ‘carbon tax’ begins today, foisting an extra 5 cents a litre on every fill-up. The purpose for this imposition is to coerce us hoi polloi to use less gas, and hence reduce our ‘emissions’, and hence contribute less to ‘global warming’. Ideas – even manifestly dubious ones as anthropogenic climate change – do have consequences, and this will be deleterious for all Canadians. Of course, the likes of totalitarian Trudeau and our self-proclaimed overlords, all the ‘elite’ government employees, will be cushioned from its effects, their transport costs either fully recompensed, or, if they do begin to feel the pinch, they will simply up their already sterling salaries to absorb the pain.

Everything else will also go up in price, as the cascade from this imprudence spreads through society, for as the saying goes, if you got it, a truck brought it – unless you’re in the Potemkin villages of the far north, where everything is flown in, subsidized, of course. And trucks, yes, run on the evil fossil fuels. This will hit rural areas the most, for Canada is a big country, and anyone outside of metro areas needs a vehicle, or perforce live as a hermit.

Andrew Scheer seems to want to help, but ineffectively. In his grocery store interview on the weekend, glancing frequently down at this notes – he has to learn at least to fake speaking ex tempore, and look like he means what he says – the Conservative leader in response to a question accepted hook, line and sinker the whole notion of ‘climate change’, and that something must be done to ‘reduce emissions’. Why does he – and nearly every other ‘conservative’ – allow the other side to control the conversation? Why not just say that the whole human-hating global warming ideology is precisely what is driving this insanity, and we had all best get off the mystical merry-go-round, and back to reality.

I can only say what I have already said, in support of the mother being vilified for claiming that the fashion of ‘leggings’ is detrimental to the moral and spiritual life of her sons. She is, however, quite right: Modesty is not just a self-referential virtue – doing what we want so long as we feel ‘comfortable’ – but must take into account others. This seems obvious, but apparently not to some. Wearing ‘pants’, yoga or otherwise, that leave little to our fallen imaginations is not an act of charity; in fact, it is an act of manifest injustice, ignorant of the effects of original sin, the denial of which, as Cardinal Newman wrote, has had deleterious effects throughout society, far worse than the carbon tax.

Pope Francis, on his airplane interview back from Morocco, has said that we should not accuse Muslims of denying freedom of conscience if we do not also accuse Christian nations – an echo of his words on ‘violence’ a year or two ago – as in, forcing physicians to participate in euthanasia. There is some similarity, I suppose, but also a whole lot of difference. In Morocco, to take but one example amongst many, the penalty for ‘apostasy’ is death, and we know how Pope Francis feels about capital punishment, even for real offenses.

Distinctions must, and should, be made, and we must keep our wits about us.