There's No Demagoguery Quite Like Fantasy-/Fear-based Demagoguery...

...and David Climenhaga specializes in both

Sometimes the best way to to tell what really stings a far-left ideologue is what they pretend to dismiss.

And the reason it stings is because it's so true. And they know it.

That seemed to be the case recently when Rabble.ca cartoon character David Climenhaga made a wry reference to a Bad Company blogpost pointing out his fearmongering demagoguery related to the long gun registry.

I'm sure readers remember, but just in case you don't, a reminder: Climenhaga dropped a suggestion that abolishing the handgun registry is next on the Harper government's agenda. His evidence? Well, he has no evidence.

For good reason. It's hard to have evidence that something is on the agenda when it's unequivocally not on the agenda.

In reality, Climenhaga knows what he's doing. The left has exploited guns as their favourite wedge issue for decades in Canada, and he's doing what he can to try to keep that wedge issue alive. He does it badly, but he does his best. Which is sad when you think about it.

Today, on the one-year anniversary of the shooting of US Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Climenhaga is back at it again. And like any other cartoon character, he's predictable. He's once again peddling the far-left myth that the lunatic who took aim at Giffords was set off by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

It's fiction. Anyone who isn't viewing the tragedy through the lens of a desperate need to blame it on their political adversaries knows that. Climenhaga himself might even know it... but don't hold your breath.

"Mr Loughner was known to hold extreme negative views on such topics as the right of women to have an abortion or to hold public office, as well believing that the US government was practicing mind control, faking spaceflights, and had backed the 911 attacks," Climenhaga writes. "But such beliefs, while they are associated with the Tea Party right, are of necessity completely legal in a democracy."

In terms of beliefs popular with the Tea Party, one of these things is not like the others. Oddly enough, it's the one idea that does find traction amongst the Tea Party: opposition to abortion. The other things are entirely inventions necessary to advance Climenhaga's fantasy-based demagoguery.

That becomes crystal clear when you consider that Climenhaga attempts to attribute 9/11 trutherism to the Tea Party. That's a belief far more at home among the Occupy movement. Don't worry, I'm getting to the occupiers.

Climenhaga's attempt to paint Loughner as an ideological compatriot of Palin and the Tea Party by linking only a single belief prevalent amongst the Tea Party, and known to be held by Palin, is extremely thin gruel. It's actually slightly more substantive than his past offerings, but that's actually saying next to nothing.

Climenhaga also overlooks reports by those who knew Loughner -- and went to high school with him -- that Loughner, in his younger days, was actually a far-leftist whose beliefs gravitated much closer to the Occupy movement than anything even resembling the Tea Party.

Which brings me to the Occupy movement, and just how self-serving the far-left is in politicizing these sorts of violent acts.

Some may remember what happened in November when Oscar Ortega-Hernandez opened fire on the White House. It was a very big story for a few weeks. Some may even remember that Ortega-Hernandez had been spotting hanging out at the Occupy DC encampment. They later honoured him with a moment of silence.

These are the same people who pushed an elderly woman down a flight of stairs, so don't be shocked.

Predictably, Climenhaga isn't doing handstands trying to associate Ortega-Hernandez with the Occupy movement. I don't think the reasons why need to be explained.

Although the pro-Occupy shills of the far-left did handstands trying to dispute the connection. Like Climenhaga, they did it badly, but they did their best. Which, again, is just sad.

But this is all just background. What Climenhaga really wants to do is plant the idea of of imminent political gun violence in Canada -- although we've already seen that Climenhaga will settle for the act of a demented, confused gunman that he himself can politicize.

Once again, Climenhaga offers no evidence. He alludes to the allegedly-threatening tone of pro-gun advocates on Twitter. Which is funny when you think about it.

But, in the end, it just comes back to the common political currency of Climenhaga: demagoguery.

Seeing as how Climenhaga doesn't seem to understand demagoguery. So it seems useful to conclude with a definition: "A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace".

Fits the bill nicely, even if David Climenhaga himself can't bring himself to admit it... to himself.

Demagoguery of the Day: STOP PEOPLE FROM WALKING IN THE MOUNTAINS!!!

When you happen to be a foreign-funded lobby group operating in Canada attempting to masquerade as a Canadian nationalist lobby group, the opportunities to gain some street cred are few and far between.

Don't bother telling this to the George Soros-funded Avaaz. They know full well. So that may be the best reason why they're constantly in search of a nationalist crisis.

The recent results have been amusing, to say the least. The George Soros-funded Avaaz's crisis of the month for January 2011 is, apparently, that the Canadian government  may allow a steel walkway to be built in Jasper National Park by an American-owned company.

This, you see, would have the unfortunate effect of allowing private enterprise to build a facility that would allow tourists -- Canadians and foreigners alike -- to enjoy the Jasper icefields.

Which would be a shame, really. Not.

Apparently, the folks at Avaaz have overlooked one not-so-minor detail about the Canadian people: we like being able to enjoy our mountains. We also like it when people come from around the world to enjoy our mountains.

David Climenhaga's Desperation is the Anti-gun Lobby's Desperation

Desperation.


That's literally the only explanation for a recent blogpost by far-left demagogue David Climenhaga. It appears both on Climenhaga's Alberta Diary blog and on Rabble.ca.


The latter is a dead giveaway into the true nature of the post. When writing for Rabble.ca not only is basis in fact or sound logic not a prerequisite, it frequently seems like it's discouraged.


It's not surprising: this particular blogpost very clearly has no basis in either of these things. It's merely an exercise in desperation, and a tacit admission that the debate over the long gun registry isn't about the long registry at all -- not for the left.


Rather, they want to make it about everything but the long gun registry.


In Climenhaga's case, he wants to make it about the shooting rampage perpetrated by Derek Jensen, killing three and wounding one other.


It's only natural Climenhaga would want to draw the conclusion; the story has everything that LGR proponents favour. It's tragic. It's sensational. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the long gun registry, but that doesn't matter. Climenhaga practically practically says as much himself, without ever realizing it.


Derek Jensen opened fire on a car carrying the four victims, one of whom was his ex-girlfriend, not with a long gun, but with a handgun... the kind of weapon that will be entirely unaffected by the legislation that is about to formally abolish the long gun registry.


But to Climenhaga, none of this matters. Not a whit.


Rather, Climenhaga forecasts that the Harper government will also move to abolish the handgun registry... even though no one has even flirted with such an idea. If he bothered to attempt a search for remarks by Conservative MPs talking about abolishing the handgun registry, he very clearly came up empty; his blogpost features not a single one.


Simply put, Climenhaga is openly spreading panic about something he's concocted entirely out of his own imagination.


But in his desperate bid to try to make the long-gun registry about more than just the LGR, he's unwittingly played a dastardly trick on himself: he's just written every pro-gun rights activist in Canada a license to make the LGR about more than just the registration of long guns... about things such as mass gun seizure.


Pro-LGR activists have insisted that mass gun seizure has never been on their agenda. We've been expected to take them at their word.


Ironically, there's a great deal more justification for being concerned about mass gun seizures -- stories abound about Toronto Police, in particular, seizing long guns mere hours after owners have mistakenly allowed the registration to expire.


Meanwhile, with no evidence whatsoever to justify the prediction, Climenhaga infers that abolition of the handgun registry is next.


The only trace of evidence Climenhaga offers is a remark about wedge politics, suggesting that the handgun registry is the next, ideal, wedge issue for the Conservatives.


It's beyond comical. It ignores the fact that it's been the Liberal Party, NDP and Bloc Quebecois who have been exploiting the LGR as their wedge issue. It also ignores the fact that one of the priorities of the Conservative government has been gun crime. Not gun ownership, but gun crime.


Of course that the facts so neatly lineup against his handgun registry strawman argument is a detail that seems to have evaded Climenhaga in his desperate frenzy to erect a strawman that will distract from now the facts also so neatly lineup against the long gun registry.


In the end, there are only two things about David Climenhaga's blogpost that are remarkable: the first is the extent of its self-edification. The second is the desperation.


But mostly the desperation.

Occupy the Canadian Wheat Board?