Do you love JK Rowling? Best not show it! You could lose your job.

We have just discovered that in Vancouver, Canada, it is a fireable offense for a registered nurse to commission a billboard to read, “I love JK Rowling”. On the surface, it seems innocuous. Maybe the authorities were angry that she used a heart emoji in place of “love”?

Surely, I must be joking, right?

Nope. Although it seems like woke insanity has receded (at least a bit) here in the US, up in Canada, the trans-lunacy is still raging.

Amy Hamm was a registered nurse for 13 years prior to being fired. Over the last four years, she has advocated that “trans-women” (read, “men”) should not be allowed in the private spaces and sports leagues of actual women. She was even so bold to put up that oh, so, offensive billboard proclaiming an affection for a beloved author.

The nerve.

Not to worry, the diligent Canadian authorities had that billboard removed after just 30 hours displaying the hateful message of… love? Canada is so weird.

As psychologist, author, and world-famous intellectual Jordan Peterson discovered, many professions in Canada are ruled over by regulatory boards who have been invested with broad disciplinary powers. They literally can order a person to stand before a tribunal for professional punishment.

So, to recap: A highly qualified 13-year nurse with no blemishes on her record (as a nurse) advocates for women’s rights to keep men out of their bathrooms and locker rooms. She has the audacity to put up a billboard saying she loves author JK Rowling.

She is then “investigated” for 4 years by The British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives, who deem her guilty of “professional misconduct” — again, I blame the heart emoji. She is then fired from her nursing position by Vancouver Coastal Health.

Again, Canada is so weird.

This whole episode is just awful, and it’s not even that rare. Very similar things have happened here in the US and are happening in the UK and Australia. The woke mind virus is pernicious and the trans-lunacy is particularly noxious.

But what this particular incident made me think about is how vulnerable we all are when our society deems us, for whatever reason, to be part of the out-group. I wrote about this recently, and it’s worth reflecting on.

Nothing is more dangerous to an individual than when the tribe considers her “not one of us”. When that happens, all the social norms and legal rights that we rely on can wither away with shocking speed.

Here in the US, we think that we are protected by our constitution’s Bill of Rights, but are we? As Harvey Silverglate demonstrates in his book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, we are all guilty of something if the authorities feel like digging deep enough and being creative enough.

“District attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that, by and large, they could get them to indict a ham sandwich.”

— Judge Solomon Wachtler

That quote should horrify us all. And for those of us silly enough to want an even stronger state to do more great and wonderful things for (to) us, consider this quote:

“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”

— Soviet Secret Police Chief Lavrentiy Beria

All this to say: By all means, stand up for what you think is right. Stand tall. Be bold. Tell the truth. But don’t think the road won’t be hard. The tribe treats dissenters harshly, even when the dissenter is right.

That doesn’t mean the effort isn’t worth it, though.

Naturally,

Adam

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