Canadian Truckers 2.0: What the New Bank Rules Mean

There have been several significant new developments in the area of bank rules and changes to the laws surrounding free speech in a number of jurisdictions of late. I will presently focus on one jurisdiction that shows with unusual clarity the direction that the entire system is taking all over the world.

We live in a day and age where national sovereignty is a thing of the past. We have global climate accords, global education accords, global health cooperation, global religious accords—in recent years, the world has rapidly reorganized itself away from the former model of national sovereignty. For this reason, the bank rules and legal provisions that are set in one part of the world under the global framework serve as a precedent for what is permissible everywhere.

For that reason, it is necessary and sufficient to look at just one nation as an example. For this purpose, we will examine a case from a part of the world that is still under a sovereign ruler, who has recently been flaunted before the entire world with all the pomp that lust could ask for: King Charles, who reigns over not only the United Kingdom but the entire Commonwealth, which accounts for about a third part of the entire world population, or 56 countries. Of that subset of the world, the illustrative case comes from Australia.

On November 1, 2023, new rules went into effect in Australia allowing banks to close accounts for merely offending someone on social media. One journalist tweeted a summary, the beginning paragraphs of which read:

It’s started😡
A bank in Australia can now close an account if a customer makes offensive or discriminatory comments on social media.”
The National Australia Bank (NAB) has set new criteria for excluding customers. From 1 November 2023, a bank can ban customers from using its services if they negatively impact another person’s emotional well-being.
This includes customers who leave “offensive or discriminatory posts or comments” online or cause “mental harm” on social media. In addition, people who behave in a threatening or abusive way towards others may be excluded from the bank.

Think about what that implies! One article on the topic from September 5, 2023, offers quite a bit of context, with a headline that already assumes speech is no longer free:

Australia ‘Compromised’ by National Bank Rule Closing Accounts for ‘Speech Violations’

In that article, a banking expert, Mr. Daniel Freiheit, a Counsel at Rousseau Mazzuca LLP and a Law Society of Ontario Certified Specialist in Corporate and Commercial Law, called these new bank rules “an abuse of human rights” and “antithetical to democratic values.” The article quotes the bank itself as follows:

According to a news release by the bank about the updated terms and conditions, the rule will allow bank administrators to investigate and close the accounts of people reported to have used “coercive or controlling behavior to limit a person’s access to or use of funds; making profane, derogatory, discriminatory or harassing comments to any person; making or promoting threatening or abusive language to any person,” and “making or threatening physical or psychological harm to any person.”

Ironically, the justification for closing bank accounts sounds very much like what the banks themselves are doing.

Notice that the broad justification for closing bank accounts is closely connected to the issue of free speech:

The move has aroused the fury of defenders of free speech, which does not have the same legal foundations as it does in the United States, where speech by and large is legally restricted only by its potential to imminently provoke violent or illegal behavior.

The article goes on to quote Freiheit saying that “[t]he entire Commonwealth is compromised.” He recommends you “[l]ook into dual citizenship & consider moving your savings to countries that respect property & speech.”

He proves this is systemic to the Commonwealth by recalling the bank freezes on Canadian truckers. Remember: the Commonwealth accounts for a third of the world, so he is effectively saying that a third of the world is no longer safe to inhabit or store one’s wealth in. I would argue even further that if the global compacts of today’s world allow this type of control to happen in the Commonwealth, that means it is also allowed in every other country around the globe—the only thing holding back banks from inflicting this type of punishment on the citizenry is how much backlash they can practically manage.

Researching the motivation for these new rules further, another article catches the attention with the following headline:

NAB tells customer of 30 years the bank is closing his account - with no explanation why: He suspects cause was a common act

That article from Daily Mail says the “customer was shocked to receive a letter telling him the bank would close his account in six weeks without any reason, despite him being a client for more than 30 years.” The article stated that the customer had until October 14 to close all his NAB accounts, after which the bank would wait two weeks before doing it for him.

Now let us do a little bit of math. October 14 plus two weeks is October 28—awfully close to the November 1 date when the new bank rules went into effect. Mere coincidence?

The article states:

Mr. Lucas said he is at a loss to know why his personal and business accounts are being closed.
“I am as straight as you come,” he said. “I don’t drink. I don’t go to the pub. I don’t gamble.
“I am just a family man who runs a small business. My bank account (and I) can’t get any cleaner.
“I pay my suppliers and get paid by my clients. I haven’t written ‘duck off’ on any of my transactions.”

As already noted, the new rules deal with free speech (or lack thereof).

Could this customer have accidentally triggered a speech violation?

Major banks have terms and conditions which state customers may not use their services if they engage in conduct that in ‘the opinion’ of the bank is offensive, harassing or threatening to other people.
Mr. Lucas said when he read about this in a NAB brochure, he made a complaint to this local branch about why the bank should be allowed to do this but was dismissed as “being silly”.
He has since been told the account closure was not punishment for raising that objection.

Nope. That wasn’t it. What else could it have been?

Frustrated by the lack of communication, Mr. Lucas went to see his local bank manager.
“He went through my personal and business accounts and there’s nothing there,” Mr. Lucas said.
“He couldn’t see on his screen why they have closed my account. So the branches get no information.
“When I said ‘is it because I brought Bitcoin?’ He said ‘that’s probably the issue.’”

There you have it, in one offensive word: Bitcoin. Now it becomes clear why THE BANK said “coercive or controlling behavior to limit a person’s access to or use of funds” would be punishable by account closure: orange pilling will soon cost you your bank account—so you better do a good job if it and walk the talk.

The article notes how non-forthright the banks are acting:

NAB announced in July that it would stop “transactions made to high-risk cryptocurrency exchanges’ to save customers from ‘a scam epidemic”.
“If you attempt to make a payment using your NAB Visa credit or debit card to one of these exchanges, the transaction will be declined, and you will be shown a message which says, ‘Issuer Declined Transaction’,” a Q&A on the announcement said.

Mind you, there was no mention of account closure. Besides that, the customer the article speaks about called himself a “shrimp,” which in the context of Bitcoin means that he owns less than one bitcoin. This shows that bank closure is something that can happen to the little guy. The customer contrasted several vices that a bank has no problem paying for, and argued that whether a person makes a good or bad investment with respect to Bitcoin should be a matter of individual choice just like any other purchase.

Bitcoin, above all, is a platform of free speech built on free speech. In the Genesis block itself is recorded a news headline that says:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

Furthermore, Bitcoin is an open-source computer program, and therefore the source code for it can be distributed as free speech. This principle was demonstrated years ago when cypherpunks mailed a book about cryptography overseas, ultimately dismantling the US government’s ban on the export of cryptographic algorithms.

When any user compiles the Bitcoin program and runs it on their local computer, it connects to other Bitcoin nodes and becomes part of the Bitcoin network. In this way, Bitcoin itself is an open network of free speech, one particularly geared for global conversations about who owns how much bitcoin. And nobody can interfere with this free-speech conversation. Nobody can stop someone from saying “I sent X bitcoin to person Y,” and nobody can stop that statement from being heard globally and treated with respect by the hearers.

Nobody can stop someone from saying “I sent X bitcoin to person Y.”

Now the connection is clear between “speech violation” and banks closing an account on the basis of a Bitcoin transaction. Doing any kind of business with Bitcoin is a type of free speech that is stepping on the toes of a financial system that does not support free speech. With such account closures, the door between the two systems will soon shut forever.

The legal framework is already in place. It is just waiting for CBDCs like FedNow to put the teeth into the system, to turn off good people’s money supply easier than the flick of a switch. In fact, if you ask me, it will likely be done by an expert-trained AI system that will watch social media, know you by your Digital ID, and flag your bank account as soon as you cross the line. Badmouth someone on social media and no lunch for you! What better whip for the slave could there be?

No, the shiny new CBDC system will certainly not have such features implemented. At least not until a “crisis” warrants it. But it doesn’t take much foresight to recognize where this is headed. You are making the choice between sovereignty and slavery every moment (by action or inaction). Are you prepared to live with your decision?