COVID19 AND THE HIERARCHY OF RIGHTS

 Anti-maskers are howling that their rights are being violated. I presume they are referring to their rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Which constitutional rights do they have in mind? The right to peaceful assembly and association (S2: c & d)? Their mobility rights (S-6)? 

 How could any Charter right possibly supersede Section 7 of the Charter?: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

Let me assert that the legal rights of Section 7 must always supersede the right to association, assembly and mobility. There must be a hierarchy of rights.  Why? Without the right to life guaranteed, liberty and security of the person cannot be guaranteed. If public health measures are required to minimize serious threat of COVID 19 then the right to peaceful assembly, association and mobility must respect primary rights. In times of crisis primary rights must take precedent. A minority of Canadians who refuse to follow basic public health principles of physical distancing, wearing masks and staying home must not be allowed to threaten the majority of citizens! The majority of the population’s right to security of their person (and quite possibly their right to life) is more important than the right to gather at the local bar or have a party or not wear a mask—until the pandemic is over. I came across an appropriate comment: “Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.” 

Canada is in a health emergency that has infected 396,270 Canadians and killed 12,407 (as I write these words). Granted, the minority’s rights must be respected, but not at the cost or threat to the majority. Like another old saying goes: ‘Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.’ There have been other desperate times when citizens’ rights have been temporarily suspended or curtailed. 

Conscription during the 1^st and 2^nd World War is an example. In 1970, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s imposed of the War Measures Act[1] after the radical French separatist group Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped Quebec Deputy Premier Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross. They murdered M. Laporte. The War Measures Act suspended Canadians civil liberties until the crisis was over. 

 

What’s my point? There are times when the citizens of a country are called upon to obey urgent policies on matters that threaten their fellow citizens. They may not like it, but they follow government direction—in this case, public health measures for the general good. We are being asked to temporarily give up a few of our guaranteed rights to overcome a grave and dire pandemic. 

 

Throughout the ages, an ancient question is continually posed. Each generation must answer it with a Yes or No: Am I my brother’s keeper?[2] The answer determines what kind of people we chose/choose to be. Are we an interdependent nation that looks out for each other or a jungle of self-centered individuals demanding what’s theirs no matter who it hurts or kills?

 

Related post http://www.humanlifematters.org/2020/11/covid19-desperate-times-call-for.html

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[1] The War Measures Act was repealed in 1988 in favour of the Emergencies Act.

[2] Genesis 4.9.

COVID CAN NOT KILL OUR MEMORIES

This is a Christmas like no other. COVID is keeping us apart from loved-ones. Let us keep in mind those families that lost someone in 2020. There will be an the empty chair at their tables is Christmas. 

COVID may kill the body but not the soul. Sweet memories live on. So many people are grieving. Memories are all they have. 

If you know of someone who has lost a loved-one, please reach out to them by Skype, FaceTime, or other means, and include them in your Christmas Season. (Click the image below.)

COVID19: DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES!

 COVID19 infections are growing more severe each day. What were hundreds of new infections have become thousands, what were thousands of people infected are becoming tens of thousands. Voluntary measures to curb the virus from spreading are not being heeded. Draconian mandatory measures have become necessary. Government leaders have been trying to avoid this, and I get it, but too many people are ignoring necessary public health practices put in place. Some people are construing important public health measures as violations of their rights. Bizarre I know, but it’s  happening. Restrictions on the right of assembly and mobility are prompting some people to fear we are becoming a police state—conjuring up images of the gestapo or the stasi. Those prone to imagining conspiracies think it’s all a globalist plot. Wingnuts!

 

We’ve moved in to a second wave of COVID19 and the daily infection rate is worse than the first wave.  Desperate times call for desperate measures! It's time to institute severe fines for those people who refuse or neglect required health measures that are intended to stop the spread of COVID. If mandatory lockdown is required, declare it and enforce it. Mandatory compliance of public health care policy to combat coronavirus are only temporary. They will be lifted when an effective vaccine is available. (Then we’ll have a problem with the anti-vaxxers!) But if tough enforcement of public health measures is required I call on government to do it. Let the opponents, conspiracy theorists and anti vaxxers howl. Protection of the population takes priority.

 

This is not the first time in history the world has faced a pandemic. For example, the bubonic plague of 1663-1665. The city of London faced many of the same things we have experienced since March 2020: normal bustling city streets were empty. Businesses shut their doors, people defied municipal directive of quarantine.  

By June of 1665, the mayor and council issued orders under the title: ORDERS CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF THE CITY OF LONDON CONCERNING THE INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE, 1665.[1]

 

They were not playing around. The orders were compulsory. People who did not obey them were jailed or faced heavy fines, or both! The ordinance gave sweeping powers to justices of the peace, bailiffs, examiners, searchers and others to enforce the order. In its preamble the order stated, “It is now, upon special consideration, thought very expedient for preventing and avoiding infection of sickness (if it shall so please Almighty God) that these officers following be appointed and these orders hereafter duly observed.” Examiners and other appointed authorities for local areas were appointed by aldermen.  Those who refused were jailed. Examiners and “searchers” were required to find and identify infected houses which were then padlocked and guards placed at the doors twenty-four hours a day. People who refused to serve as guards faced severe punishments. And to make matters worse for the folks appointed to positions where they might inadvertently come into contact with the plague could not enter or keep public places of business or take any other employment. Violators were imprisoned. Anyone who entered an infected house, such as a nurse, had to isolate themselves for twenty-eight days. Occupants of an infected house had to sequester themselves for a month after the last infection, under threat of imprisonment. The City of London had to take tough measures, but desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.

 

Canada finds itself in a desperate time with rapidly rising COVID infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Enough people are defying or neglecting voluntary public health measures that mandatory public health requirements need to be instituted. Violators must face severe  consequences—be it heavy fines or jail. Further, I think provincial premiers must use emergency measures within their power to enforce consistent public health measures across the country so there’s no confusion. Too many vulnerable people are a risk and too many have died. Lockdown fatigue be hanged! We need to get infection rates under control. Things may get much worse before they get better. That is the bad news. The good news is that a vaccine is within sight; we are being told that one will be available in early 2021, if not earlier.

 

Let the tiny cadrés of anti-vaxxers and conspiracy wingnuts howl foul. The human rights they believe are being taken from them will be returned as soon as this pandemic is over.  The good of the majority must be protected.

MDP

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[1] Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague, (Bolton, Ontario: Amazon Books), p. 31.

ON NOVEMBER 3RD, YOU MUST STAND FOR AMERICA!

 “Tonight, we pledge ourselves to each other and to the cause of human freedom—a cause that has given light to this land and hope to the world.”—Ronald Reagan  1986, on the occasion of relighting the Statue of Liberty. 

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Dear American friends of this blog: When you go to the polls on November 3^rd, remember what made America great. It was your nation’s birth-right of optimism, patriotic values for family and community, one nation under God, that made America great. And those same values can make America great again. Historically, your nation believed in the American Dream where every citizen could rise to their aspirations with determination and hard work.  

Remember when communities were built not destroyed? Dare to believe that America build can again and be a beacon of freedom and liberty, just as Ronald Reagan believed. He saw the United States as a special place, “a shining city of a hill”—set by God between two oceans heralding a sacred call of human freedom and liberty for all the world to see and follow. It can be that way again.

 

America is at a pivotal crossroad.  Will it descend into a socialist/communist state under Biden and Harris? Don’t let that happen! Give Donald Trump a second term to usher America into new sunlit uplands of opportunity and potential. He’s setting the stage for America’s innate optimism and prosperity to blossom and flourish anew. Remember when that was a part of America’s culture and tradition of encouraging people to rise to their fullest potential? It can be again!  Just like Ronald Reagan before him, Donald Trump wants to rekindle a simple ideal: Free America from the shackles of big government. Restore American values and virtues of patriotism, family and community.

 

Donald Trump’s vision for America stands in stark contrast to how the leftists’ are replacing order and stability with disorder. They are spreading physical violence and bloodshed, destruction of property and communities. We have seen their vision for months playing out in street of cities across America. It is tolerated and even supported by the Democrats. But you must not! For the sake of all that is decent and good about America, return Donald J. Trump to the presidency to complete his task of truly making America Great Again.

I began this blog post with words of Ronald Regan 34 years ago, at the relighting if the Statue of Liberty. I believe that God has called President Trump to rekindle liberty itself across the nation. On November 3^rd, vote Donald Trump and let him complete his task.

 

May God bless America and President Trump. —Mark Davis Pickup

FROM PHYSICAL BROKENNESS CAN COME SPIRITUAL HEALING

God can use us in any circumstance in which we may find ourselves, even dire circumstances. Dire circumstances and pain are teachers, if we listen for God's voice. I have been chronically ill and physically disabled with severe multiple sclerosis for over 36 years—more than half of my life. Strangely, I have been more use to God disabled than I ever was able-bodied. It was at a certain point of disability and sorrow that I asked God what He wanted me to do? He led me to speak out across North America about disability inclusion and against an emerging cultural acceptance of euthanasia.

And so from 1994-2018 I spoke to anyone who would listen to what I had to say. I spoke to community groups, colleges and universities, politicians at provincial, state and federal levels, evangelical and Catholic groups, churches, medical professionals, disability organizations, legal organizations—literally anyone and any place that invited me. Unless speaking about public policy in government settings, I used every opportunity to witness for Christ. Today, I was sent a link to a 2016 presentation I gave in Ottawa, Canada, to the annual conference of the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF). They asked me to speak on the subject of "I AM MORE THAN MY DISABILITY." Click on image below. 

[NB: Notice the first inklings of my useless right hand awakening from MS paralysis.) I did not know then that a prayer not yet prayed was being answered ever so slowly. By 2019 I was walking after decades of paralysis in my legs, and regained full function of my right arm and hand.)

 

ALL CHRISTIANS ARE INDISPENSABLE TO THE BODY OF CHRIST

 

My devotion last night was 1 Corinthians 12.12-27. 

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

Every believer has an indispensable role to play in God’s plan. You may not think so, but you do. Everyone has something, a role, a ministry, a talent, to offer in building the Church and spreading the Gospel. It may not be a front-line ministry, or in leadership but God has something He wants you to do. Perhaps your ministry does not win the applause of singers or musicians on stage each Sunday. Your contribution to the Kingdom of God might not receive resounding “Hallelujahs” of the congregation approval at the profundity of a speaker’s words. Your contribution may in fact be behind the scenes and out of the public eye. Perhaps a believer is a janitor and thinks he’s never even noticed.  But his supportive contribution is crucial to the operation of the church. 

I am reminded of the mayor of a major city who was being interviewed for a news story. The reporter referred to him as having the most important job in the city. The mayor stopped the reporter and said something to this effect: “Do you know who’s really important to the operations of this city? Garbage collectors. If I don’t come to work for a month it will scarcely be noticed. But if the garbage collectors don’t go to work, it will be noticed by everybody within a week.” Wow. He put things into perspective. 

Saint Andre Bessette (1845-1937) was a lay brother of Holy Cross in Montreal. He was plagued with poor health throughout his life. All he ever became was a porter at College Notre Dame in Côte des Neiges, Quebec. His lofty superiors did not see the holiness of the little brother in their midst. He was barely five feet tall, yet he was a spiritual giant. Despite being a porter for 40 years, his powerful prayers healed thousands of sick people. Word of his spiritual gift of healing became well known and crowds came to his door. Jealous superiors at in the Congregation of Holy Cross were sceptical and local doctors called him a “quack.” In the end, the humble little brother was receiving 80,000 letters a year and needed four secretaries to handle them. God puts us right where He wants us to serve the Kingdom of God.

It does not matter that your contribution to your church may seem inconsequential to you. It is not to God. It does not matter if others notice your offerings to God. He notices.

 

Don’t wish you were more talented or gifted in different areas than where you have been given a calling. That’s like a frog wishing he wasn’t green. God made you just as you are, and He has a purpose In His design for you. 

  

 

A GRANDFATHER'S LOVE IS FOREVER AND EVER

 One day, when my grandson was four years old, we were exploring nooks and crannies, playgrounds and trails, in our little town. Some dark clouds appeared so he climbed on my lap and we hurried home on my wheelchair just as it started to rain. He and I watched the Disney movie "Pooh's Grand Adventure." My little guy sat in a big comfy chair eating popcorn. He did not know his family was going to move away from Grandma and Papa’s little town. My heart was heavy. The song 'Forever and Ever' began to play and I got a lump in my throat. It made me sadder. I did not want him to move away but it had to be. The day he moved away was the same day my mother (his great-grandmother) died. I don’t think the world ever felt so lonesome as it did that day. I wanted to always call his name and hear his voice answer. It was not to be.

Now he has grown to be a man. But no matter where he goes in the world, he knows his Grandmother and I are still in our little house. A candle is always burning in the window for him and his younger siblings.

I am old now. Everything is simple again. Rhythms of life are becoming gentle, seasons pass and a nearby church bell still rings each day, just as it has for over a hundred years. Each night when I get into my bed and turn out the lamp, I still dream he, and my other grandchildren will come back to stay. And though it is unlikely, love for my family is forever and ever. -- MDP