The Hitler meme post occured after the windsor bridge blockage was peacefully dispelled by police. The bridge was operating by then. The only protest still occurring was the one in Ottawa that wasn’t disrupting any significant commerce, nor movement of people. The meme was posted in reaction to the Prime Minister declaring martial law.
People immediately jump to the Holocaust when they think of Hitler, and fair enough, that was by far the worst thing he did. But before that, he had to consolidate power. Once he got elected, he invoked the Enabling Act, which was a “temporary” emergency act that gave him martial law powers, very, very similar to the powers Trudeau has just given himself in Canada through the invocation of the Emergency Act.
Today, Trudeau suspended parliament and is arresting anyone caught in the downtown core. Peaceful protesting is now not allowed and people are being jailed for it.
So, yeah, comparing anyone to Hitler is in poor taste (which, by the way, is now a right of passage for any Republican President in the US since they all get compared to Hitler, but I digress), which is why Elon deleted his tweet. But if you know your history, as Elon certainly does, it isn’t an inapt comparison.
I was not familiar with the Emergencies Act in Canada, so I did some research. The act, as written, requires Parliament to act within 7 days of the declaration of an emergency to renew it or it expires. Parliament was debating this Thursday night when police felt the protests might be getting out of hand close to the Parliament Building and the article I read was vague about who told Parliament to suspend the debate, but they did go home. Considering that many members of the US government were put at risk a little over a year ago when a protest outside came inside, the officials in charge may have decided caution was called for in this case. It may have been overly cautious, but governments are usually overly cautious after something extreme happens there or close by.
As I understand it, if Parliament does not vote on the declaration within 7 days, it expires.
Just came across this:
Canada’s parliament cancels session as police set to clear protests
Apparently Parliament agreed among themselves not to meet today (Friday) because of the turmoil around the Parliament building.
It is an unprecedented call on emergency powers in Canada, but it is different from what the NSDAP did in 1933. Many functioning democracies have had to invoke emergency powers in times of crisis. The United States federal government has invoked marital law in limited jurisdictions at least 15 times. Most have been under the 1807 Insurrection Act. It was changed in 2006, but repealed a few years later. The 1807 Insurrection Act is currently the law of the land.
The protests in Ottawa are controversial in Canada and they are getting noticed in many other countries. Fivethirtyeight looked at the opinion of Canadians and most do not agree with the protesters. The blocking of the bridge into the US was disrupting the economies of both countries and thus negatively impacting a lot of lives. Someone reported in this thread that the disruption of life in Ottawa from the protests was intolerable.
The job of head of state in a republic is to look after the welfare of the citizens. When a minority is causing harm to the majority and police are not able to control it by regular means, some kind of emergency powers need to be invoked to return order. Maybe invoking the Emergency Act was too much, maybe not. That is a matter of serious debate and Parliament has been doing that until the protests got too close.
In 1933 the Weimar Republic in Germany was only a little over a decade old. Germans were familiar with autocratic rule and the NSDAP took advantage of it. Something that has happened in many countries with fledgling democracies. The countries with governments that evolved from British common law (including both Canada and the US), there is a well rooted tradition to rule of law that provides resistance to would be autocrats.
I have not seen any tendency in this direction from Justin Trudeau before this. As an outsider, this looks to me like a legitimate attempt to restore order in a situation that has spun out of control. The law he is using has a limited shelf life unless Parliament extends his authority. In this case the long term power is held by the legislative body, not the head of state, which is the opposite of what happened in Germany in 1933 as well as other fledgling democracies that went too the dark side.
Comparisons of Trudeau to Hitler in this case is specious. More apt comparisons would be comparing him to Dwight Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and George HW Bush who all invoked the US' Insurrection Act one or more times during their presidencies. In each case rule of law returned to normal after the emergency was over.
I don’t ride Jane Fonda to work and don’t park her in my garage. No one sees me at lunch and asks how I feel about Jane Fonda.
I truly think it’s important for those who support Tesla to realize that the bulk of customers are just regular car buyers now. These are the same folks who wouldn’t buy a gasoline Tiguan because of Dieselgate or a Honda Accord because it doesn’t come in orange. Now that the company is far beyond the affluent fanboi nerd customer base it doesn’t take as much to sway purchase decisions.
Having the Tesla brand directly tied to very frequent, extremely public, and highly controversial commentary on sensitive topics could hurt Tesla going forward. It certainly isn’t helping.
The claims that Tesla is a luxury brand were never really true. The Model S is a nice car, but it isn't truly luxurious compared to many European luxury brands.
Even if it was partially true once, it isn't true today. The bulk of Tesla's sales are Model 3s and Model Ys which are mainstream family cars. They cost a bit more because the drive train still costs more than an ICE. The cars have a few luxury car features, but just about all of those come about because they are cheap to add with software rather than the creature comforts found in a lot of luxury cars.
I do think that since Elon is already a lightning rod for controversy, he should lay low and restrict his comments to things that are relevant to his products. If he wants to opine in social media, create an alias account and Tweet to his heart's content about whatever is on his mind.
thehill.com
blogs.prio.org
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www.inquirer.com
www.cnn.com
thejewishnews.com
www.theguardian.com
