Defending Faith Based Spaces

A short solo episode on the topic of defending faith based spaces.

Transcript

[00:00] Russell: Alright, folks, and we're back. Russell here with the canadian conservative podcast. Do another solo episode today. Won't be too long. Just talking a bit about defending faith based spaces. So what does that mean? Well, the security guard industry around the world is really taken off. I remember I was sitting in a class long time ago, instructor was talking about saying that private security is the next big biz. And at the time, I don't know if I really bought it at the time because, I mean, you saw the security in malls and sort of some places, although it really seemed like security guard services were leaving the banks for the most part, except for like brinks and kind of valuable pickups. So it seemed like the security industry to me was really receding. A lot of it was going into more mobile based patrols, so there would be an alarm. Alarm goes off, mobile patrol goes and takes a look, something looks suspicious, calls police, tries to, I don't know, get some descriptions, things like that. And for the most part, it was pretty hands off. You know, I think back to Ontario, a couple of high profile incidents in which security guards seriously injured or even killed someone, and it kind of led to security guard act being revamped. Licensing, and you're seeing that a lot more like security guards now are licensed, they go through basic training course for security guards. There's a lot more restrictions. Again, most of my experience seeing this was in Ontario. And even now, there's still lots of organizations that don't follow the rules. You see security organizations that try to look like the police and that part like an intimidation factor, maybe. But other organizations like Paladin Security and even the commissionaires, they've really tried to take this different approach to it now, looking less and less military, more kind of casual kind of security. So that industry has really developed over the years to a much more professional level. And so I was wrong. I mean, like I said at the time, I didn't really think the security guard industry was going to take off. But living in Saskatchewan now, you can hardly go into a store now that doesn't have a security guard in it, and for good reason. Theft is insane. People that have mental health issues are wandering around everywhere. People that are homeless, people are just angry at life, just bitter, ready to snap at any moment. People are absolutely looking for trouble wherever they go. It's actually been insane. The amount of signs I've seen in places where it says, like, verbal and physical abuse won't be tolerated. Well, I just kind of thought in a society that's supposed to be like, a first world society that physical and verbal abuse just wouldn't be acceptable. Anyways, I didn't know we had to have signs up about it. And so, like the, like I said, the private security industry is just, it's absolutely taken off. And we're seeing now, too, that more and more security guards are, for better or for worse, going hands on more often now. So it's like the security industry is moving away from observe and report. And now people are like, well, you're here. Something bad is going on. We expect you to take control of the situation. And with the police, busier than ever. Two tier policing. You do a whole topic on two tier policing, anarcho tyranny policing. So that's like low hanging fruit policing. There's been a lot of different things, and I'd love to do a podcast episode one day on what I believe is, like, the South Americanization of Canada. And just very briefly, it's this idea that as the police become less and less effective, private industry and private citizens are stepping up to target Hardin their homes and their businesses. So you go to some cities in South America, and you'll notice that there's just walls everywhere, and at the top of the walls there's spikes and windows that can be reached. They all have bars on them and businesses, they have bollards. So they're kind of these, they're these metal spikes that are in the ground that when someone's parked in there, the spikes kind of shoot up. And that way you can't steal the car in there. And of course, every business has security cameras now. And they're not just, you know, security cameras where you kind of catch a shadow of someone. These are your caught in four k. And so without going too much into that, as I call it, the South Americanization of Canada, as the police become less effective, we are seeing more and more that people are target hardening. Now, how does that apply to faith based spaces? Well, we're seeing now more than ever that it appears that the issues that were largely stuck in Europe and the Middle east while they're in Canada now, whether we like it or not. So every single week, sometimes daily in some places, there are Hamas rallies going around calling for the extermination of jews. So as our society claims that we're secular and so state and religion are supposed to be separate, we're seeing that there seems to be this two tier attitude when it comes to protection of religious spaces. So I saw on Twitter there that there's now a group, they're calling themselves j force. And they're going around and they're supposed to be protecting jewish businesses and jewish synagogues, that sort of thing. Around the Toronto area, since they've received a bunch of vandalism, attempts to burn businesses or synagogues down. And so they have kind of come together and they form like a little mini security group. Now, this isn't a new phenomenon. If you look in Europe, a lot of the synagogues in Europe are like fortresses. They've target hardened so much, some of them in the states as well, similar thing, target hardened security groups. So, like the security industry for faith based spaces is, that is a exploding industry right now. And so if you're interested in starting a security company just for religious spaces, I mean, you are hitting the market right now while it's hot, I'll say that. And we're kind of seeing as our society becomes more low trust, so people are, don't trust authority, they don't trust that they're safe wandering around, they don't trust that criminals will be prosecuted and that public order will be kept, that people are looking for more private market solutions. And we're seeing that too in the christian world as well. In Canada, a bunch of churches burnt down, and of course they're being blamed on all, it was the candles, it was the incense holder, it was all these other things. So all these churches just burned down. Apparently, even though they've been around for a long time, suddenly they burnt down because apparently everything in the last few years just suddenly just stopped working. Huh. Crazy. So we're seeing now, too, like, you know, hospitality. So that's like, that's what they kind of call, like group of people, like ushers and people that have been selected and screened in the church. When people show up to mass, they're the ones greeting people at the door. And so, well, they're greeting people and they want people to show up and worship. That's, they're also doing entry level screening as well. So when people show up, they're taking a look and they're kind of looking, you know, how's this person's disposition? Does it look like they're here for the right reasons? I mean, it can be difficult to tell, but we've seen attacks on priests, we've seen attacks on churches. And so there's a lot of churches now, too, that have security cameras everywhere. And again, as the world seems to spiral more into insanity, the secular separation of church and state becomes more and more blurred because as religions start to target each other for various reasons. We're going to see these types of attacks ramp up and of course the target hardening because of that. The state itself seems to be completely incapable of dealing with this issue. Not surprised. So I think that this is going to be a very growing and emerging market. And I would suggest that if you are involved in a church, that you have a serious talk with your pastor and your parish council or your church kind of group, the body that governs whatever church you're in, and you need to be asking those people there, how are we protecting our faith space? I think it's going to be important. We have to remember, too, that for a lot of people, faith and culture intertwine so we can have a religion that says that it's peaceful, but the culture doesn't match those religious values that they preach. So what ends up happening is they say, well, it's just, it's a religious issue. Well, no, it's a cultural issue and you can't fix that overnight. It just doesn't fix itself. And as the rhetoric seems to ramp up and for whatever reason, our government seems to be completely incapable of getting any handle on this whatsoever, whether that's by design or just pure incompetence. I think it's going to be more important than ever that people stand up for their faith based spaces and that they ensure that they have adequate security and adequate protection, because this is not an issue that the government seems to be all that worried about. So I think that every church that's out there needs to have a security plan. I think that ushers need to have extra training to be watchful and to ensure the safety of the congregants. If it's difficult finding ushers, perhaps if it's some of the churches you could use, like the knights of Columbus or something like that. And I just think it's really important that these spaces need to be cognizant, that the issues that seem to be long ways away, they're on our doorsteps now. And I understand, you know, it seems abhorrent for a lot of people that in the west that faith based spaces would be attacked. But it, it's happening, it's here. And it doesn't appear that the government's going to be taking these issues very seriously. We've seen that last few years and so I think it's definitely time that people start to take it a lot more seriously. Anyways, just short episode talking about this. I maybe dive into it in depth. In the future, I would like to get a pastor on the program in the future to discuss these issues. And, you know, their thoughts, of course, they're the ones that run their churches. So what? Their thoughts are not just me as an outsider, insider. And so hopefully I'll be able to get someone on the show in the future and we can have that discussion. That's all I got for today, everyone. Have a great day.