In a column in the Toronto Star, Tim Harper attempts to put Vikileaks -- the Twitter account that broadcasted portions of the affidavits from Public Safety Minister Vic Toews' divorce proceedings -- in perspective.
His conclusion is a simple one: a mean town -- Ottawa -- just getting meaner. And it could be as simple as that.
Or not. There could be more.
What was Vikileaks about, really?
In reality, it wasn't about privacy. It certainly wasn't about giving Toews any kind of just desert. The latter of these two propositions is not only patently absurd, but patently insane. The purpose of the "lawful access" bill was never to make the information sought public.
Rather, it was about political tribalism. Full stop.
The parading of Toews' divorce in public wasn't by any means spontaneous. There have been those on the far left who have been both longing and eager to refer to Toews' divorce as a means on doing with politics as they have always wanted: making it personal. Deeply personal.
German philosopher George Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel considered pre-historical human society to be inherently tribal -- a time when competing tribes sought to conquer or destroy one another. At that time societies didn't triumph over each other by advancing beyond each other in scientific or social pursuits, but with what Hegel described as "superior strength, superior ruthlessness, and superior cruelty."
Make no mistake about it, there are those among the left -- in Canada and around teh world -- who intend to triumph over their adversaries using these precise means.
They're easy to identify if you look hard enough. They are the ones who, faced with a complex public debate, rush not to attack their adversaries' ideas, but to attack them personally. They're the ones who hunger to destroy their opponents, not merely as political actors, but as people.
They aren't that hard to find. I could even name names.
That the IP address used to operate the Vikileaks Twitter account was traced not only to a House of Commons IP address, but to one routinely used to make pro-NDP wikipedia edits, is of little surprise. (It also raises some serious questions about how the NDP have been making use of HoC resources, but that's a question many in the media prefer not to ask; the NDP would prefer not to answer.)
As individuals like John Gormley have made it crystal clear, the NDP has spent decades peddling the idea that they're morally superior to their opponents. Over the years, this has fed a culture of hate- and contempt-based politics that has dwelled just under the surface of many NDPers.
Embracing that toxic political culture has emboldened some of them to think that it's morally permissible to do virtually anything to an opponent. In their eyes, cruelty and ruthelessness are no longer vices -- rather, they believe these are virtues, and even some of those who pretend to be benign political actors are often inexorably drawn to those who employ the most ruthless, cruel, and hateful tactics against their opponents.
It's hard to accept many of them as benign politicos considering the amount of admiration they show for some of these people.
This kind of tribalism pre-dated modern history, and was supposed to have been abolished by the advent of civil society. Make no mistake about it, it's civil society that's at stake in these sorts of matters.
A civil society that accepts or tolerates this kind of politicized cruelty is one that has turned its back on what its historical legacy was purported to be. It's not just a step backward for political discourse, but potentially a step backward for civil society as a whole.
The NDP's complicity in this latest episode is undeniable. Don't think the NDP doesn't know which of their staffers is responsible for Vikileaks. At the very least, some of them know. The kind of politico who commits acts of cruelty like Vikileaks is hungry for the recognition of their peers, particularly those of their peers who they know to share their own simmering hatred.
Moreover, these individuals have embraced these kinds of acts with a fervour that is simply Pavlovian in nature. They have become adept at ignoring, justifying, defending, or simply rationalizing these kinds of acts.
Unless those of their peers who truly do value a benign and constructive politics finds the will to stand up to them and ensure they pay the penalty for their actions, it will continue unabated. But don't hold your breath waiting for the Canadian left to do what is right.
They've shown time and time again that they either lack the will or lack the courage to stand up to the villains in their midst. Either that, or a third alternative: they simply enjoy it.
Vic Towes himself is no angel. Because there are serious issues at stake in the lawful access bill -- which I support in principle, but I've also been looking to the amendment process to temper some of its overeaches -- his declaration that opponents either stand with the government, or stand with child pornographers was not only uncalled for, but a disservice to the business of governing.
More than that, it, too, was cruel.
But two wrongs don't make a right. And it doesn't help that this is a wrong the left has just been itching to commit. Nor was it the only one. When John Baird made an "it gets better" video, the left leaped at the opportunity to use his sexuality as a battering ram with which to attack him personally.
And while fellow conservatives can stop Toews' acts of cruelty, only fellow left-wingers can put a stop to the cruelty of Vikileaks. Whether or not they will is up to them to decide: are their demagogic ambitions more important than the health of civil society?
That's the real question.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Justin Trudeau: Ideology First, Canada Second
Son of Trudeau turns out be a barely-hidden separatist
Those familiar with Canadian history have become familiar with one basic, overwhelming fact about it -- that there are, in fact, two different versions of Canadian history.
There's the fairy tale Canadian history, in which Pierre Trudeau is allegedly the father of the nation, a luminescent figure and separatist fighter who is at all times above reproach. Then, there is the real Canadian history -- wherein Trudeau precipitated a near-permanent national unity crisis for the sole purpose of being able to sign his name to the repatriated Constitution.
Pierre Trudeau was the kind of Prime Minister who always put himself and his agenda first, and put Canada second.
Now, it turns out that his son is not a whit different.
In an interview with the french language CBC, Trudeau suggested that he would embrace separatism if Canada were to become too conservative under Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- the very Prime Minister who, for the first time in 30 years, is setting about repairing the damage Pierre Trudeau did to the Canadian state and polity.
"I always say, if at a certain point I thought that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper - that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways - maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country," he declared.
"If I no longer recognized Canada, I know my values very well," he added.
"But I believe deeply in Canada," he added, almost as an afterthought.
Yes, it turns out that Justin Trudeau is just another of the kind of far-leftist Canada has become all too familiar with in the most recent years -- those hell-bent on transforming Canada into a far-left construct, for the sole purpose of the implementation of their demagogic agenda. Or at least, if they've already convinced themselves that Canada was such a place, the preservation of that.
It's nothing new. It's nothing shocking. We've already seen it in the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire partisan who currently sits as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Her name, as you know, is Nycole Turmel.
During the 2006 election, Turmel endorsed not candidates of the NDP -- the party she currently leads on an interim basis -- but Bloc Quebecois candidates. Turmel was the President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada at the time, and she declared that BQ candidates were more likely to support PSAC's agenda.
That the BQ's agenda is to destroy Canada is a detail that seems to have entirely evaded her attention.
Now, Justin Trudeau -- the heir apparent to the man who gave life to the separatist crisis that nearly dismembered Canada in 1995 -- has revealed himself to be a member of this particular club: the Canada Second Club. Where their ideological agenda is the only thing that matters, and Canada can be damned as far as they care.
Those familiar with Canadian history have become familiar with one basic, overwhelming fact about it -- that there are, in fact, two different versions of Canadian history.
There's the fairy tale Canadian history, in which Pierre Trudeau is allegedly the father of the nation, a luminescent figure and separatist fighter who is at all times above reproach. Then, there is the real Canadian history -- wherein Trudeau precipitated a near-permanent national unity crisis for the sole purpose of being able to sign his name to the repatriated Constitution.
Pierre Trudeau was the kind of Prime Minister who always put himself and his agenda first, and put Canada second.
Now, it turns out that his son is not a whit different.
In an interview with the french language CBC, Trudeau suggested that he would embrace separatism if Canada were to become too conservative under Prime Minister Stephen Harper -- the very Prime Minister who, for the first time in 30 years, is setting about repairing the damage Pierre Trudeau did to the Canadian state and polity.
"I always say, if at a certain point I thought that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper - that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways - maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country," he declared.
"If I no longer recognized Canada, I know my values very well," he added.
"But I believe deeply in Canada," he added, almost as an afterthought.
Yes, it turns out that Justin Trudeau is just another of the kind of far-leftist Canada has become all too familiar with in the most recent years -- those hell-bent on transforming Canada into a far-left construct, for the sole purpose of the implementation of their demagogic agenda. Or at least, if they've already convinced themselves that Canada was such a place, the preservation of that.
It's nothing new. It's nothing shocking. We've already seen it in the Parti Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire partisan who currently sits as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. Her name, as you know, is Nycole Turmel.
During the 2006 election, Turmel endorsed not candidates of the NDP -- the party she currently leads on an interim basis -- but Bloc Quebecois candidates. Turmel was the President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada at the time, and she declared that BQ candidates were more likely to support PSAC's agenda.
That the BQ's agenda is to destroy Canada is a detail that seems to have entirely evaded her attention.
Now, Justin Trudeau -- the heir apparent to the man who gave life to the separatist crisis that nearly dismembered Canada in 1995 -- has revealed himself to be a member of this particular club: the Canada Second Club. Where their ideological agenda is the only thing that matters, and Canada can be damned as far as they care.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
He Talks Loser Talk
John talks loser talk/
he takes a defeat and whines about it
Apparently, the Globe and Mail hasn't tired of John Doyle. At this point they must be almost the only ones. Over the past month his work has become more politicized, more sanctimonious, and more contemptuous of basic little things like... facts.
In his most recent work, Doyle takes it upon himself to whine about the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruling on the namby-pamby complaints filed -- at Gillis direct request -- by people who were outraged that Sun News personality Krista Erickson wasn't deferential enough to "iconic" interpretive dancer Margie Gillis.
But even in the wake of acknowledging that the CBSC has no business punishing broadcasters if their on-air personalities are "obnoxious" (the CBC, with Marg Delahunty, wouldn't stand a chance), Doyle is still playing pretend.
He's still pretending that Gillis wasn't obnoxious, despite the fact that she was the one speaking over Erickson at will.
Not that Doyle seems to think that Canadian TV is any better for the alleged freedom to be obnoxious.
"Those who felt they could gain justice for Margie Gillis were naive. The obnoxious have triumphed on TV here," Doyle complains. "If being obnoxious was a disqualification, then Don Cherry and Kevin O’Leary would have disappeared from the airwaves many years ago. They didn’t. They prevailed."
It's laughable to think that Gillis should be able to go on any TV show of any kind, speak over the host at will -- as she did, regardless of the will on Doyle's part, and on the part of Gillis' disciples to simply ignore this -- and then later demand justice. Which is precisely what happened.
The 6,000+ complaints that were directed the CBSC's way over the Gillis interview weren't, by any means, spontaneous. They were, each and every one of them, organized and orchestrated by Gillis herself through her Facebook page. They were astroturf, nothing more, and nothing less.
At the end of the day, Doyle is so stunned by this setback for his personal crusade against Sun News that all he can manage is to regress: he regresses back to his argument that the Sun News audience is tiny, when in fact they are setting ratings records.
More people watch Sun News than read John Doyle's column. But that, along with the simple fact of who was speaking over who, is a fact that's simply too inconvenient for Doyle, so he ignores it.
It's just what he does.
he takes a defeat and whines about it
Apparently, the Globe and Mail hasn't tired of John Doyle. At this point they must be almost the only ones. Over the past month his work has become more politicized, more sanctimonious, and more contemptuous of basic little things like... facts.
In his most recent work, Doyle takes it upon himself to whine about the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruling on the namby-pamby complaints filed -- at Gillis direct request -- by people who were outraged that Sun News personality Krista Erickson wasn't deferential enough to "iconic" interpretive dancer Margie Gillis.
But even in the wake of acknowledging that the CBSC has no business punishing broadcasters if their on-air personalities are "obnoxious" (the CBC, with Marg Delahunty, wouldn't stand a chance), Doyle is still playing pretend.
He's still pretending that Gillis wasn't obnoxious, despite the fact that she was the one speaking over Erickson at will.
Not that Doyle seems to think that Canadian TV is any better for the alleged freedom to be obnoxious.
"Those who felt they could gain justice for Margie Gillis were naive. The obnoxious have triumphed on TV here," Doyle complains. "If being obnoxious was a disqualification, then Don Cherry and Kevin O’Leary would have disappeared from the airwaves many years ago. They didn’t. They prevailed."
It's laughable to think that Gillis should be able to go on any TV show of any kind, speak over the host at will -- as she did, regardless of the will on Doyle's part, and on the part of Gillis' disciples to simply ignore this -- and then later demand justice. Which is precisely what happened.
The 6,000+ complaints that were directed the CBSC's way over the Gillis interview weren't, by any means, spontaneous. They were, each and every one of them, organized and orchestrated by Gillis herself through her Facebook page. They were astroturf, nothing more, and nothing less.
At the end of the day, Doyle is so stunned by this setback for his personal crusade against Sun News that all he can manage is to regress: he regresses back to his argument that the Sun News audience is tiny, when in fact they are setting ratings records.
More people watch Sun News than read John Doyle's column. But that, along with the simple fact of who was speaking over who, is a fact that's simply too inconvenient for Doyle, so he ignores it.
It's just what he does.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
The Far Left's Vision for the RCAF
Make no mistake about it, the far-left has a vision for the Canadian Forces.
What is that vision? I'm glad you asked. It's this:
This isn't to say that they actively want Canadian servicemen and servicewomen dead. Athough some of them have taken certain glee in attacking their grieving family members after they're already dead.
No, they just have all sorts of crazy ideas that end up with Canadian servicemen and servicewomen dead. And for all the times it's happened before -- such as with Sea King helicopter crashes -- these people just never, ever, ever learn their lesson.
Take Graham Chivers, who tweets as @DeepGreenDesign, and fancies himself a genius engineer. He's one of the many fools fighting tooth and nail against the purchase of CF-35 fighter jets for the Royal Canadian Air Force, thus relegating our pilots to fly their existing CF-18s long after they become flying death traps.
Chivers recently took to the Twitterwaves to assure people that the CF-18 could, in fact, be maintained "indefinitely". No, he actually said that. Really:
This can, of course, immediately be dismissed as false with anyone holding so much as a modicum of knowledge about aviation, fighter jets, or even basic engineering. No aircraft's airframe can withstand the stresses of supersonic flight indefinitely. That's one of the most basic facts regarding these kinds of aircrafts.
Chivers -- who claims to have designed them -- doesn't know this. In fact, he seems to think that he's such an engineering genius that he could retrofit our CF-18s with "electronics and software" that would extend the operational lifetime of the airframe indefinitely:
Whatever software and electronics increase the strength, durability, and thermal resistence of titanium infinitely is a secret likely only known to Chivers. Now there are only two reasons I can think of for this, and they are as follows:
1. Because Graham Chivers is a genius, and only he knows about them.
Or:
2. They don't actually exist.
Now which do you actually think the answer is? And, if Graham Chivers were ever to become the engineer responsible for maintaining Canada's fleet of military aircraft, how long do you think it would be before the flag-draped coffin would again be a regular peacetime phenomenon in Canada?
It wouldn't be long at all. And this is one of the best reasons for the government to ignore individuals, self-annointed experts like Chivers, and go ahead with the F-35 purchase as quickly as it can be done. To put the decision in the hands of people like this -- as it was done in 1993 -- is not only to invite disaster, but actually to make it inevitable.
One thing is for certain: Graham Chivers is no genius. He's a self-glorifying tool who tweets with all the intellect of a spambot. And whether he intends it or not, his vision for the RCAF -- the far-left's vision for the RCAF -- is dead pilots. It could be nothing else.
What is that vision? I'm glad you asked. It's this:
This isn't to say that they actively want Canadian servicemen and servicewomen dead. Athough some of them have taken certain glee in attacking their grieving family members after they're already dead.
No, they just have all sorts of crazy ideas that end up with Canadian servicemen and servicewomen dead. And for all the times it's happened before -- such as with Sea King helicopter crashes -- these people just never, ever, ever learn their lesson.
Take Graham Chivers, who tweets as @DeepGreenDesign, and fancies himself a genius engineer. He's one of the many fools fighting tooth and nail against the purchase of CF-35 fighter jets for the Royal Canadian Air Force, thus relegating our pilots to fly their existing CF-18s long after they become flying death traps.
Chivers recently took to the Twitterwaves to assure people that the CF-18 could, in fact, be maintained "indefinitely". No, he actually said that. Really:
This can, of course, immediately be dismissed as false with anyone holding so much as a modicum of knowledge about aviation, fighter jets, or even basic engineering. No aircraft's airframe can withstand the stresses of supersonic flight indefinitely. That's one of the most basic facts regarding these kinds of aircrafts.
Chivers -- who claims to have designed them -- doesn't know this. In fact, he seems to think that he's such an engineering genius that he could retrofit our CF-18s with "electronics and software" that would extend the operational lifetime of the airframe indefinitely:
Whatever software and electronics increase the strength, durability, and thermal resistence of titanium infinitely is a secret likely only known to Chivers. Now there are only two reasons I can think of for this, and they are as follows:
1. Because Graham Chivers is a genius, and only he knows about them.
Or:
2. They don't actually exist.
Now which do you actually think the answer is? And, if Graham Chivers were ever to become the engineer responsible for maintaining Canada's fleet of military aircraft, how long do you think it would be before the flag-draped coffin would again be a regular peacetime phenomenon in Canada?
It wouldn't be long at all. And this is one of the best reasons for the government to ignore individuals, self-annointed experts like Chivers, and go ahead with the F-35 purchase as quickly as it can be done. To put the decision in the hands of people like this -- as it was done in 1993 -- is not only to invite disaster, but actually to make it inevitable.
One thing is for certain: Graham Chivers is no genius. He's a self-glorifying tool who tweets with all the intellect of a spambot. And whether he intends it or not, his vision for the RCAF -- the far-left's vision for the RCAF -- is dead pilots. It could be nothing else.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
So, Why Aren't We Talking About the Death Penalty?
With Shafia trial finally coming to close with the appropriate verdict, it's sad to see that one key thing is missing from this case in order for justice to truly be done:
Simply put, Mohammed Shafia hanging from a rope, with his wife and son hanging alongside him.
Most of you probably know full well what the Shafia trial was about, but for those who don't, I'll provide a very quick synopsis: Mohammed Shafia's three daughters were becoming too liberal and westernized for his medieval tastes. So he, his wife and his son conspired to murder them. They locked them in a car and pushed it into the water, drowning them. During the trial, each of them lied, then lied over and over again. In the end, the verdict could only be one thing: guilty.
But unfortunately, Canada doesn't have the death penalty. So while the Canadian justice system has sent the requisite message to the millions of moderate Muslims that have immigrated to the western world -- we will not abandon you to the savagery of those who cling to medieval values -- we haven't sent the requisite message to those who would commit murders such as these:
That message being very, very simple: move to Canada and do these things, and you have committed suicide. Get ready to burn.
So it's in the wake of this trial that NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel has chosen to demonstrate the naivete of the NDP when she condemned Conservative Senator Pierre-Hughe Boisvenu, who recently stated that the worst criminals -- those who cannot or will not be rehabilitated -- be allowed to take their own lives.
Boisvenu wasn't really being serious. But when he suggested Canadians should be discussing having the death penalty as an option for dealing with the most dangerous criminals, he was dead serious. And he was right.
Boisvenu has more reason than most to have realized this. When his daughter was raped and murdered in 2002, it was by a repeat sexual offender. By the kind of offender who, at the very least, should have been locked up for the rest of his life, if not -- preferably -- shuffled off this mortal plane by way of a lethal injection.
No, I'm not joking. About any of this.
"What Senator Boisvenu did is against the law. You can't call on people to kill themselves," decried Turmel. "The death penalty debate has been closed in Canada for decades. Why are the Conservatives reopening the whole debate?"
The problem is that they aren't. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already declared that his government will not revisit the death penalty. And as much as those who favour its return may wish otherwise, one Conservative Senator bringing it up does not entail reopening the debate.
Which is a shame. After the Shafia trial, of all things, we as a country need to be asking ourselves why Mohammed Shafia, a man who murdered his three daughters and their mother, will continue to draw breath, instead of being dumped into the Rideau Canal with his Lexus SUV chained to his testicles to ensure he makes it to the bottom.
So why aren't we talking about the death penalty in Canada? Why are even those who, like Pierre-Hugh Boisveru, have been victimized by these sorts of crimes, targeted for doing so?
Because hug-a-thug, peacenik, naive twits like Nycole Turmel or Justin Trudeau are always waiting in the wings, just waiting on baited breath to denounce any mention of the death penalty as barbarous, although they'll always take pains to never denounce acts such as the Shafia honour murders as barbarous.
That's how backward these people are. And that's why it's so sad that so few real leaders have the cojones to tell them to shut the fuck up while adults discuss how these matters will be properly dealt with.
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