2020’s Rise of The ‘Karens’
*** Dec 30 Update – Nearly 5500 calls were made to the Covid Enforcement Brown shirts over the Christmas period of Dec 21-27. Most of the $1296 personal fines were related to household gatherings. So, thousands of Manitobans ratted on their neighbors. Nice to know who is watching. ***
*** Dec 22 Update – A nearby Municipality has confirmed that the Province is soliciting through Council for persons or organizations to act as their defacto Covid enforcers ‘Eyes & Ears’. This particular Council declined to cooperate. ***
Canary, fink, informer, narc, rat fink, snitch, tattletale are all synonymous terms associated with people willing to report their fellow citizens to the authorities whether it’s on the school playground or the mean streets. Now our 2020 lexicon has a new term added, the dreaded ‘Karen’.
Notice how all the words for a stool pigeon are derogatory in nature? Tattletales run to the teacher to squeal on the mean kids. Collaborators turned in their fellow citizens in totalitarian regimes such as fascist Germany or Stalinst Russia. Now, busybody Karens drop a dime on their neighbors commiting the sin of Covid infractions.
Karens in the Keystone province have been busy since April when you could first start complaining about your neighbor’s pandemic faux pax. If you are interested in the records of Manitoba’s enforcement fines, they can be accessed at the Cross-Departmental Reports section of this link. Businesses are named and shamed for various Covid related infractions which run at $5000 a pop.
All across Canada, there are increasing instances of snitch induced Covid disputes. A widely published social media video from Calgary recently showing a young man, Ocean Wiesblatt, being arrested by Calgary Police Services. If you watch the numerous full length online videos, the situation devolved to the point where a policewoman lost control of herself and pointed a taser at Mr. Wiesblatt with the threat of discharging the weapon. Eventually, he was taken down, his skates forcibly cut off, and he was arrested.
This entire incident was precipitated by an informer, Twitter handle dlo-artist, who had broadcast the following:
This Karen has since deleted many of their social media accounts but the person’s home address is still visible. The address is on the other end of town from the Southwood Community Association Rink. Why were they so bothered by the horrible ‘atrocity’ of an extra five people on the ice? Oh, the humanity, 90 minutes and the Covid SWAT teams aren’t dispatched yet?!?
Scrolling through D Lo 168’s patreon and clothing store accounts, which are still active, it would appear that this erotic artist is fond of drawing partially clad/naked Disney heroines in suggestive sexual positions. I would assume that the Walt Disney Company is entirely comfortable with the racy depictions of their creations and that there are no copyright issues.
This is the problem with the snitch game, what goes around comes around. Is it really any skin off your nose if this artist is making a living from ripping off Disney? But was it any of their business to call the cops on a gathering of an extra five people playing outdoor hockey?
Perhaps these Karens who are willing to snitch on Covid rule breakers are motivated by a higher cause. But the weight of evidence, especially from the totalitarian societies of the 20th Century, suggests otherwise. Informants were used to great effect in Stalinist Russia. If you felt slighted by your neighbor, desired his job, his house, or his pretty wife, all you had to do was call up the State, make up a story and late that night the SMERSH black sedans would whisk them away. Of course, you would always be nervously looking over your own shoulder in case you inadvertently crossed someone. Gradually, on a larger scale this devolves into a ‘Lord of the Flies’ situation and everyone lives in terror.
Even here in Canada, it has been recognized that police informants are only rarely to be relied upon, especially when some sort of compensation is involved.
By now it must be clear that jailhouse informers are so unreliable that they tend to undermine criminal trials… Their testimony has all too often resulted in a wrongful conviction… How many wrongful convictions must there be before the use of these informers is forbidden or, at least, confined to very rare cases.
The current trend of Canadian provinces setting up dedicated Covid Snitch lines is unsettling. Manitoba has a COVID Tip Line for tattling on your neighbors who might notice you are having guests over for Christmas supper. The Province went out of its way to authorize extra personnel with the ability to hand out tickets. Indeed, the Province went so far as to hire a private security firm to bolster the numbers.
What is worse is it seems that authorities are not just content with ‘Team Manitoba’ doing the right thing and volunteering to tattle. There are rumours that small towns now have PAID Covid snitches. I reached out to the Manitoba government and Crime Stoppers for comment. According to a spokesperson from the Manitoba Communication Services, the Province has not adopted this policy nor condones it. But, according to a Municipality in my area, the Council was approached by the Province to see if there was anyone or organization in town who would act as their Covid infraction ‘Eyes & Ears’. This particular Council declined to cooperate.
I predict this widening network of ratting out of your neighbors and local businesses over having a guest over or not wearing a mask, will not end well.
The young hockey player only mouthed off to those cops but he did not resist arrest other than passively stand on the ice. It was the two women officers who lost control and almost tasered him. How long will it be before someone gets shot and killed over something as stupid as not wearing a mask?
Then on the flip side, have you heard of the phrase ‘Snitches get Stitches’? It’s pretty easy to figure out in a small town who is ratting people out. Small town gossip travels faster than a viral video and the end result could easily end in bloodshed. Is that really the intent of health regulations that are supposed to be ‘protecting’ us?
The Covid-19 pandemic has started to unleash the brutish nastiness we are willing to inflict on our fellow man in the name of the ‘public good’. I suggest reading Christopher Browning’s novel ‘Ordinary Men‘ in order to better understand the concerns raised by people opposing the pandemic health orders and draconic enforcement measures.
Canada is lurching down a dark path and our authorities are employing tactics well known to tyrants. If you ever wondered what were the genesis points of past Canadian atrocities, we are living it now.
Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.
I think you nailed it here. Good work!
America and probably Canada could very well tear our democracies apart like two parties in a bad divorce. Once you move to the scorched earth phase and involve strong emotions, it’s almost impossible to ever turn back. Nobody wins at that point, except the lawyers. We’re being led around by the dog whistles of people who want to take advantage of the confusion and discord. I say, refuse to play their game.