One of the biggest problems with being a centrist is trying to tell people that you don’t belong to any political camp. Sure, you can consider yourself more Libertarian than most, but even that ideology is not an absolute. I mean really, there are no absolutes when you look at political/economic/social structures. Everything is nuance, driven by culture, social norms, and the general temperament of a population. There can be no real ‘if you’re not for us, you’re against us’ mentality. Sure, for some things, but not everything. People entrenched on the left or the right don’t see this. To them, it’s their way or the highway. They hold their views as gospel and demand we follow them lest we be shunned by their peers. If you give a shit about their peers, then I suppose that could be a bad thing, but if you have no respect for them, shunning just means you don’t have to deal with them anymore. More peace and quiet? That’s a win in my book.
Over the past couple of weeks, Canada has been reeling from the discovery of hundreds of bodies found in an unmarked grave at a former residential school. State-sanctioned, church-run institutions designed to de-native our indigenous folk and force them to become like the colonists who came in and stomped all over this country. They were brutal, abusive, and we still have survivors of those hell-holes alive today, many of whom have PTSD equivalent to what a soldier goes through. I can’t imagine what they went through in those places. I don’t want to imagine if I’m being honest. Just meeting someone who’s been through it is enough.
Since the discovery, the political juggernaut that is the government of Canada has done everything they can to put another band-aid on this. Native issues have plagued this country for as long as I’ve been alive. It seems every time a new PM was elected, the natives would demand an apology from them for things that I thought were long done. Oh, how naïve I was. See, in history, I never learned about the residential schools. I didn’t know about the Indian Act, or why natives had to stay on reservations. Some of them are complete dumps…why not move out? There are a lot of reasons why. It makes me wonder if the government did that in order to slowly kill the native population off over time. Pretty sadistic long game if you ask me.
I made a few comparisons though to what I’m seeing with my neighbors to the south. In particular, two buzz phrases that you hear on the lips of every leftist talking head down there, and even on the lips of a few of my friends: Systemic Racism and Critical Race Theory.
Systemic Racism is the concept of having written and canonized law that either forbids or grants you certain privileges and/or rights based on your racial heritage. It would be like a law saying that if you are black, you cannot own a business, or you cannot drive a car, or you cannot vote. The Civil Rights act did away with the systemic part of US racism, but not the cultural part. Prejudice is a learned behavior, tapping into that most basic and powerful survival mechanism: fear. Fear that which is different…that which is not part of your tribe. Fear it…hate it…destroy it before it destroys you.
In Canada, we have the Indian Act…a document and set of laws that are still on the books and explicitly state that if you are of native heritage, there are things you can’t do/have, and things you can do/have. Laws based on race…that’s systemic racism, chapter and fucking verse. I’ve asked people in the US if they have something like this down there, and no one can give me a definite answer. Instead they try to conflate cultural racism with systemic racism as a way to justify their hatred of the system…the very system that has allowed them the freedom to talk like this. Ironic, isn’t it?
Now, critical race theory. This one’s been thrown around a lot lately as anti-white or just plain racist. It’s perceived to mean that if you are white, you are born a racist a la original sin. Therefore you must acknowledge your privilege and if an opportunity stands before you, you must step aside and allow a person of color have it because they don’t have those same privileges. I could go into it more, but to be honest the more I look into this, the more I want to kick a dog.
The residential schools were very much centers of critical race theory. If you were born native, you are born savage and must have your native-ness removed, by force if necessary. Children went to those places and were programmed to believe their heritage was evil and they must cast it aside. This was a form of academic genocide, where they tried to kill off the native population first by culture, then by body with the deplorable condition on the reservations. For a country touted as being oh so gentle and welcoming, we’ve got a pretty shitty heritage when it comes to native treatment. Personally I’d like to see something done, but I’m not sure where to begin. I’m not a politician; I’m just some guy trying to carve out his own life and be the best human I can be.
And this is where being a centrist/moderate comes into play. On the left, you hear them scream the same shit over and over these days. Cries of ‘racist,’ ‘homophobe,’ ‘sexist,’ et cetera ad nauseum. Yet, when you say you want to help, they slap your hand away and continue to scream at you, or demand you prostrate yourself at their altar of Wokeness and repent your sins. This basically gives them permission to hate you, which accomplishes nothing but lets them keep screaming.
On the right, they will tell you this was God’s will or God’s plan, or they’ll try to downplay it as much as possible. They’ll his you with facts, but behind those facts will be nothing but cold logic. Oh, only this percentage of people were affected…it wasn’t that bad. When you look at the population as a whole blah blah blah. Yes, maybe only a small percentage of those people died, but each of those people was someone to somebody. Each one had a story, and each death affected more people. Collateral damage is a thing.
The facts and figures from the right and the emotion from the left are not mutually exclusive. A pragmatist would look at both sides and walk that Daoist path between them, using emotion to drive the will to make real change. I don’t mean dying your hair purple and screaming on TikTok. I mean investigating what can be done, and organizing a way to do it. No politics, no bullshit…just action. The trouble is these days, everyone wants to profit off things. Nothing fills a bank account like drama, and the more they draw it out, the fatter their wallets get.
So what do we do? If you’re a centrist, my best advice would be to turn the shit off. Walk away from mainstream media and mainstream news channels. Focus on your locality. If you live in Wyoming, focus on Wyoming and don’t give a fuck about California. Keep your house in order, and to hell with anyone else’s house. Mind your own business and treat people with a bit of respect regardless of what they look like. You don’t have to talk to anyone…just go about your day as you see fit. if someone gets in your face, then feel free to retaliate, but do not…DO NOT…instigate.
I’m trying to learn more about this dark time in my country’s history so I can understand more what went on. We have an opportunity in this country to learn about a culture that was nearly wiped out, but has somehow survived. It’s a rare thing, and experiencing it with an open mind and pragmatic attitude would be best. See it, learn about it, understand it. Don’t judge it based on your own culture. Compare/contrast, sure…but don’t judge.
We are the centrists. We walk the line between order and chaos. We are the moderates. We are legion, and the extremists should remember that. While they scream for attention, we keep society moving, quietly separating fact from bullshit.
In the end, the extreme left and right will cancel each other out…and we can get back to living.