Good morning, and welcome back to the Bright Morning newsletter. Last week, we took some time off from writing and instead released another podcast between the two hosts: Chris and Klayton. In case you have not yet had the chance to listen, the link can be found here. As always, your comments, questions, and critiques are more than welcome, so please consider writing to us at contact@thebrightmorning.com, as well as sharing our work with friends, family, peers, and detractors. 😉
Having said that, we have some catching up to do. So, without further ado, allow us to brighten your morning by talking about some of the annoying events that transpired over the past couple of weeks.
| CULUTRE
Toxic Relationships
The Nitty Gritty:
An interview between Oprah, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry a couple of weeks ago drew much praise and much criticism (we’ll let you guess where we landed) when the group put the royal family on blast
Dramatic foreshadowing below 👇
Without naming names (okay, we already gave it away ☝️ but play along will yea), we would like to kick off this week’s issue by asking readers to meditate on the past, consider the bad relationships they may have been involved in, and see how those experiences align with the following description of events that we believe are definitive traits of a toxic relationship.
Imagine that you are someone who is from a well-off background. As you grew up, you did not have to consider the mundane and tedious aspects of life, such as personal responsibility or self-sufficiency. Your wealth, lack of character, and inflated sense of self-importance, however, make you an easy target for other, like-minded narcissists, and so you begin a relationship with one. This person, with whom you are now in a relationship, has never had a successful career, and has even boasted about becoming estranged from members of their own family. Therefore, having already set fire to one family, your new partner begins to sabotage yours.
Almost instantaneously, your new partner causes tension by disrespecting your family traditions and sewing division between you and your siblings. Then, your partner begins to slander your family in public, even going so far as to insinuate that your family is racist. Instead of asking your partner for evidence of these accusations and discussing them, in private, with all of the parties involved, you sit idly by, as your partner broadcasts these assertions to the public.
In case it is not yet obvious who we are referring to, this is a brief description of the saga, to date, of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The reason we chose to structure our interpretation of events like this (i.e. without naming them) is because the wealth, status, and prestige of these two is distracting the public from the crux of the issue. Forget that Harry and Meghan are literal royalty. Forget that their interview with Oprah Winfrey can best be described as two millionaires complaining to a billionaire about being oppressed. And forget that the content of the interview was, as Douglas Murray described, “a US culture war missile aimed at the heart of Britain and Europe.”
Instead, the lesson that we might learn from this chicanery (if there even is a lesson to be learned) is that Harry and Meghan represent a toxic, dysfunctional, and unhealthy relationship. That is the only thing worth taking away from this. The rest is nothing more than noise from the culture wars, and as a result, deserves no attention from the public. Therefore, we will wrap this up with a message of our own: if you ever find yourselves in a relationship like that of Harry and Meghan - that is, with someone who has virtually no relationship with any of their own family and seems intent to ensure that you have no relationship with yours - end that relationship immediately. As Jordan Peterson argues, a weak relationship is (in part) characterized by submission to narcissistic tyrants, but a strong relationship is based on negotiation, mutual support, and maintaining strong family bonds so that we can navigate the inevitable catastrophes and challenges in life. It is a message that we all need to hear, and Harry and Meghan’s recent episodes exemplify the precise opposite.
| CANADIAN POLITICS
Roman Baber vs. The Ontario Government
The Nitty Gritty
Ontario MPP Roman Baber sued the government for their ineffective and unconstitutional lockdown measures
Good.
Whenever we see Ontario MPP Roman Baber in the news, it provides us with a feeling of hope. Whether or not one agrees with him (we do), it is undeniable that he is a man of principle - something that is depressingly rare in Canadian politics. Last time we checked in on him, he introduced a piece of legislation that, if passed, would have slashed parliamentarians’ salaries to the equivalent of the Canada Recovery Benefit ($500.00 per week). Baber knew that it would not pass, yet he introduced it to prove a point: there is a massive asymmetry whereby politicians, who are paid with taxpayer dollars, are legislating people into poverty and bankruptcy through ineffective lockdowns. “It’s easy to pass laws that destroy people’s livelihoods when you’re on government salary. My PMB will encourage MPPs to fully appreciate the consequences of their actions,” he said.
Baber is back, and this time, he is bringing the long arm of the law with him. Last week, Baber announced that he is “suing the attorney general of Ontario for our right to protest, pray and gather outdoors.” He argued that the Reopening Ontario Act violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ guarantees of “free association, the free expression of ideas and peaceful assembly, including for protests.” He also added that the outdoor restrictions in the Act are “inconsistent with their purpose or over-intrusive and therefore in violation of the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.” This lawsuit represents one of the first major constitutional challenges towards a sitting government that we have seen since the pandemic began last March.
Ford, of course, did not respond. However, during one of his stone-faced announcements, he said that “there’s no politician in this country that is going to disagree with their chief medical officer. They just aren’t going to do it. They might as well throw a rope around their neck and jump off a bridge.” In other words, Ford admitted to the public what we have all known for months: he is not in charge of his own government. Instead, he has outsourced his responsibilities as a leader to a team of unelected public health bureaucrats who have no accountability to the public.
Even if one is in agreement with lockdowns (which is becoming increasingly rare), it is impossible not to see the danger that is implicit in Ford’s admission. The people of Ontario elected Doug Ford to lead the province, not Eileen De Villa, David Williams, or any other previously-unknown public health bureaucrat. Therefore, if Ford believes that he is incapable of deciding how to run the province without unelected public servants breathing in his ear, then he should resign his position to someone who is up to the task. Or, he should instead do the job that he was hired to do. A good place to start would be consulting with multiple experts from the bottom-up, such as small business owners, restaurateurs, and gym owners, rather than relying solely on the word of those who earn six-figure salaries as they work-from-home in Toronto highrises.
However, to be fair, Ford did show some progress. Instead of sticking with the arbitrary and unscientific 10-person limit for restaurants in the “red-level” of Ontario’s tiered-lockdown system, Ford announced that they can now operate at 50% capacity, while those in the “grey level” (i.e. lockdown) can host outdoor dining. Roman Baber commented on this announcement, stating that “despite fear mongering of a third wave and rising cases, [Ford] caved and started loosening. Why? Because it’s now clear that lockdown is a catastrophe, he did all of this for politics, and he is in for credible litigation.” Perhaps this is true, but if nothing else, it is a sign that the tides are shifting, and that we are (hopefully) seeing the return to normal that we have all been longing for.
| THE GAVIN CHRONICLES
Two doses of Gavin Newsom for the price of one
Readers of this newsletter will know that we are not exactly fans of the current Governor of California, Gavin Newsom. Our distaste for him is not because he uses Gorilla Glue to maintain his slick-back hair, either. Instead, Newsom appears to be the embodiment of everything that people dislike about establishment politicians; those leaders who are so far out of touch with common people that it cannot help but leave us wondering how they were elected in the first place. Newsom is arrogant, irresponsible, and dishonest. In other words, he represents the unholy trinity of bad leadership qualities.
It appears that the Recall Gavin movement, which we spoke about two weeks ago, is starting to make Newsom sweat. Last week, he publicly acknowledged the recall effort, and in his response, there was a very predictable outward assignment of blame. He tweeted a link to a website that is aimed at stopping the movement and commented: “I won’t be distracted by this partisan, Republican recall -- but I will fight it. There is too much at stake. Getting Californians vaccinated, our economy safely reopened, and our kids back in school are simply too important to risk.”
What Newsom is refusing to acknowledge, however, is that this is not a Republican effort - it is bipartisan. A quick scan through the comments on this tweet will prove this. One of the top comments on Newsom’s tweet perfectly summarized the zeitgeist in California, even if it was not particularly eloquent: “Bro, gas prices are higher than ever, taxes are so stupidly high, the homeless population has skyrocketed, our economy is going down the drain because of the Covid restrictions, and you wonder why we wanna recall you.”
Furthermore, Newsom’s excuse of wanting to “safely reopen” California might have flown several months ago when there were not many other states to compare it to, but now we do have those comparisons. For example, we are now three weeks into the complete reopening of Texas and Mississippi, and low and behold, the apocalypse that was predicted (or wished) by Michael Moore and Beto O’Rourke has not arrived.
Then, in case Newsom did not embarrass himself enough by unsuccessfully attempting to portray the recall effort as a partisan witch hunt, he went one step further by lying to the public about being a “Zoom school parent.” Newsom currently has four children who attend a private school in Sacramento that has been open, full-time, since November. Yet, here he was, attempting to come across as relatable, as if he somehow shares the struggles of parents whose children still cannot attend public school. The public schools, by the way, will not open because the Teachers Unions are resisting, even though it is perfectly safe - and necessary - to reopen.
These events, though not exhaustive, explain why there is a strong effort to recall Newsom. He is an ineffective, dishonest, and elitist career politician who postures as if he is “one of the people.” But he isn’t - and Californians know this. As Jordan Peterson stated in a recent interview, the actions of common people are viewed with contempt by their leaders. People have had enough of this contempt, and as a result, anti-elitist movements such as the Recall Gavin campaign will not be the last of their sort.
| EXTRAS
Further Listening 🎞️
As our readers likely know by now, Jordan Peterson was out of the limelight for close to two years. However, now that he is back, he is able to look at the “chaos and order” of our times with some renewed clarity. Watch him as he speaks with Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster on Triggernometry (a podcast that we highly recommend) about the issues of our time.
Have a great week, everyone. Until next time.
