Imagine a really bad, and
really serious, version of Footloose
– but instead of Kevin Bacon and his pals triumphing over the closed minds of
small-town authoritarians, it involves a decades-long campaign using the
resources of the federal government to suppress cultural activities, including
throwing people in jail for up to a month.
That was one of the passages which didn't make the cut in a new op-ed of mine published in today's National Post, but I think it provides a decent precis of the piece for purposes of this post. Here, as well, is the original version of the concluding paragraph - I think the bolded portion is important:
Are you a conservative sick of hearing about
what has been done to our aboriginal communities? Fine.
But in addition to forgoing the inherent value of learning more about
our national history, in addition to missing the chance to gain a deeper
understanding of our fellow citizens and develop common ground for the pursuit
of further solidarity, think of what else is being overlooked. In a political era which promises an
increasingly active, robust and interventionist government, our past provides
us with excellent examples of the dangers inherent in such an approach. We had a government so hell-bent on molding
its subjects to its will and its view of what was “best” for them that it
literally threw them in jail because they danced. In a search for stories about the peril of
overweening government, one could certainly do worse.
