Anderson's Crime Revealed

 

Alexa Lavoie may have uncovered why Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre have both declared Christine Anderson, without explanation, a hateful racist. In an interview for Rebel News, the MEP states her opinion that Islam is not a religion, but an ideology. Moreover, it is a “misogynistic, dehumanizing” ideology, more properly comparable with Communism than what we refer to otherwise as religion.

I can understand why Trudeau and Poilievre do not want to actually quote her or explain their opposition. The problem is, she has a good case. And if more people in Canada hear it, it is liable to lead to civil strife.

First of all, we must be free to criticize religions, as opposed to adherents of a religion. Nobody looks askance at criticizing Scientology’s theological claims, or those of the Unification Church (the “Moonies”); or for that matter Catholicism, or evangelical Christianity, or Christianity as a whole. In a free and pluralistic country, Islam cannot be exempt from such criticism. 

On the other hand, awkwardly, Muslims themselves are not tolerant of any criticism of their faith, and are liable to issue fatwas, and generally become violent. 

The politicians have a tiger by the tail. It is safest to just try to silence anyone who mentions the problem. Not that this will fix it—it will make it worse—but with luck, they will be retired from politics and living in a gated community somewhere by then.

As someone trained in Comparative Religions, I can say that Anderson’s questions about Islam are reasonable. People in general, and perhaps also our politicians, do not seem to understand that the definition of religion is uncertain in the field, and Islam is in fundamental ways not a religion like Christianity or Judaism. Unlike them, or Buddhism, it does not see a separation between religion and politics, church and state. For Islam, in principle, the only legitimate government is a Muslim government, and Islam can  only be practiced, in principle, under a Muslim government.

Hence, Anderson is right to say it is a political ideology as much as it is a religion. 

It cannot coexist with other faiths in peace on an equal playing field. Whenever and wherever there is a substantial concentration of Muslims, they will demand their own government. If they control a government, they will want to impose sharia law on all citizens.

This is not compatible with a pluralistic liberal democracy.

So—if we continue to accept Muslim immigration, should we require new citizens to take an oath to support liberal values like free speech, equality of the sexes, and religious tolerance?

Problem: we are then in effect asking them to renounce their religion. Those who do may not turn out to be ideal citizens; we may be selecting for the unscrupulous and irreligious.

It is a serious problem, which we are building for our future. It is probably past due for us all to have a discussion of this. Anderson is forcing such a discussion, as are some others in Europe. Trudeau and Poilievre fear one.

Pulling the Foot Out

 

Pierre Poilievre has made a serious mistake, in condemning Christine Anderson. He now risks losing enough voters to Maxime Bernier to take away his chance of beating Trudeau. Even if this does not happen, we know from past experience that moving to the middle does not get you any more votes. It gives people no reason to vote for you. Ask Erin O’Toole. Ask Andrew Scheer. Ask Tom Mulcair. Ask Mitt Romney. Ask John McCain. It is a losing strategy.

What Poilievre should have said is something like this:

“Christine Anderson is a democratically elected representative of the German people. Not to entertain and to respect her shows contempt for the German people, our good friends and allies. It does not mean we agree with all her views. Cooperating with those with whom we sometimes disagree, on matters of agreement, is the lifeblood of democracy. It is the lifeblood of civil society. Much of the ill-will and suffering in Canada today is caused by a Prime Minister who refuses to even speak with those with whom he disagrees, who simply calls them names and slanders them, as ‘racists or ‘misogynists’ or ‘antisemites’ and the like. 

This man who danced around in blackface with his tongue out and a banana stuffed down his trousers.

We Conservatives do not want that kind of Canada, nor that kind of world. We respect people, the people of Germany and the people of Canada, and we welcome those who come here from abroad.”

Poilievre has now stupidly missed his chance. I guess he thought he could duck the issue by having the statement sent out by someone in his office, and just to one reporter, Brian Lilley. Lamely playing right into Trudeau’s accusation that the Conservatives hide their true feelings behind claims they “just didn’t know.” That backfired, because everyone noticed it anyway, it painted Trudeau in the right and the Tories in the wrong, and it made him look like a coward.

Now that he has not immediately dissociated himself from it, he will not be able to convince anyone he is sincere in doing so, that it was some advisor going rogue. He will just look more cowardly, less principled, and callous as well. He will also be throwing Brian Lilley under the bus. He cannot afford to alienate the few members of the media not already trying to destroy him. He will not look like a leader.

I suspect his failure to either acknowledge the statement by his operative, or dissociate himself from it, reflects indecision. He and his office do not know what to do. Yet this too now makes him look weak and cowardly. He cannot stay silent now, and he cannot dissociate himself from the controversy. He put his foot in it.

He has t take full responsibility, and apologize. People will respect him the more for it. It worked for JFK after the Bay of Pigs. It is something I firmly believe as a teacher: if you do not know the answer, you immediately own up to it. If you gave the students the wrong information, you immediately own up to it. Indeed, if you are a good human being, and you realize you have done something wrong, you immediately own up to it. That is what real leadership looks like.

He should issue something like the following statement:

"I regret deeply my lack of respect last week, expressed through a member of my office, but with my knowledge and consent, for Christine Anderson, a duly elected fellow parliamentarian and representative of our friends, the German people. I cannot endorse all her views. That is not the point. We are all individuals, and have the inalienable right to our views, and to express them freely. We do not have to always agree with each other to support and love one another, to work together to build a better Canada and a better world—a lesson I wish our present Prime Minister would learn. I must humbly remember it too. I apologize to Ms. Anderson, a fellow democrat and believer in human freedom, and to the German people, for my lapse in judgement. And I pledge to try to do better."

If Poilievre is a good man, and a leader, he will say something like this.

But I don’t expect him to.

Spotting the Good Guys

 

MEP Christine Anderson has been on a Canadian tour. She has been welcomed by Rebel News, Maxime Bernier and the PPC, Leslyn Lewis, and the leaders of the Freedom Convoy. On the other hand, Brian Lilley, previously considered a conservative columnist for the Toronto Sun, Justin Trudeau, and Pierre Poilievre have denounced her in quite intemperate terms.

Trudeau:

She is “responsible for a particularly vile level of rhetoric and hatred … hateful, vile, intolerant rhetoric.”

Poilievre’s office:

“Christine Anderson's views are vile and have no place in our politics. … Frankly, it would be better if Anderson never visited Canada in the first place. She and her racist, hateful views are not welcome here."

Yet neither Lilley, Trudeau, nor Poilievre quote anything Anderson has said. We must take their word for it.

My web search also turns up nothing. The most controversial thing I find is that Anderson posed for a photograph with Jeremy MacKenzie and the flag of Diagolon. Many people, it is true, claim Diagolon is a dangerous terrorist group; but again, we have to take their word for it. MacKenzie claims it is only a meme, a gag.

I cannot imagine Osama Bin Laden insisting that Al Qaeda was a gag, or Hitler that his antisemitism was.

It is conceivable that either Diagolon or Anderson do hold racist views. We cannot tell, because those who accuse them not only present no evidence, but will not allow us to see the evidence. They are the same people who are censoring anything on the Internet they disagree with. Anderson’s or Diagolon’s views are silenced.

This being so, we must assume innocence of Anderson and Diagolon. They have never been given a hearing here.

We’re in a deeper hole in Canada than I had imagined. Brian Lilley appears to be a member of a Fifth column. Perhaps he once was a conservative, but he has joined the Family Compact and started attending the cocktail and Kool-ade parties. Poilievre, so previously promising, looks like another O’Toole. He’s just a politician playing the game, will run cover for the established interests, and will change nothing.

This was a litmus test, and we need to remember who passed and who did not.

Matt Walsh's Straight Talk

 

A Burning Question from 1600

 

Giordano Bruno

Recently over the transom, a poem protesting the death of Giordano Bruno: “423 years ago, on February 17, 1600, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun.” Stunning. Brave. 

This, unfortunately, is part of the anti-Catholic “black legend,” about as historically legitimate as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, although much more socially acceptable.

Bruno was burned at the stake, but not for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun. The Catholic Church had no position in 1600 on that matter. Copernicus, a Catholic cleric in good standing, had advanced the argument as early as 1514, and faced no opposition from church authorities.

According to the poem, Bruno was also killed for saying

that God is inside us, and not out there,

a bearded man looking on from a cloud

There is no evidence that Bruno believed this, other than that all Christians did. He would have faced no opposition from the Church if this were what he was preaching in the square. Jesus said “the kingdom of God is within.” The Christian concept of God is not a bearded man looking on from a cloud, but as God chose to reveal himself to us, as a thirty-something Jewish carpenter. However, it was precisely this, God’s humanity, and God’s immanence,  that Bruno denied.

Killing someone for their opinions or beliefs, or even silencing them, is always wrong; but Bruno was condemned for denying the existence of Hell, denying the Trinity, denying the divinity of Christ, denying transubstantiation, claiming the universe itself was eternal and infinite, and advocating reincarnation. It was these doctrines, for what they were worth, he was prepared to die for rather than renounce.

That, and he was also suspected of being the spy and agent of a foreign power, Calvinist Geneva.

Is Democracy Coming?

 

A ray of hope: there has been a spontaneous revival, if you haven’t heard, at Asbury University in Kentucky. An estimated 50,000, mostly young, have flocked here over two weeks, before the event was shut down by the college administration.

This is what we need. This is what we needed in the Sixties and Seventies, but it was cruelly shut down then by a moral panic about “cults.” This, spiritual revival, is now the only alternative to societal collapse, and probably the US is the only place capable of it. Everywhere else has actually gone further down the postmodern rabbit hole, except perhaps for Eastern Europe, the Philippines, or Subsaharan Africa.

Let’s see if it spreads now, and hope against hope that it does. It has happened before in America, in the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening, in Azusa in 1906, in Duquesne in 1966. One sensed it in the Freedom Convoy to Ottawa a year go.

Leonard Cohen predicted this.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street

The holy places where the races meet

From the homicidal bitchin'

That goes down in every kitchen

To determine who will serve and who will eat

From the wells of disappointment

Where the women kneel to pray

For the grace of God in the desert here

And the desert far away

Democracy is coming to the USA

It's coming to America first

The cradle of the best and of the worst

It's here they got the range

And the machinery for change

And it's here they got the spiritual thirst

It's here the family's broken

And it's here the lonely say

That the heart has got to open

In a fundamental way

Democracy is coming to the USA

 

Spirituality without Religion

 

Pan: Father Nature

I fell recently into a Zoom discussion on spirituality among avowed atheists. Their challenge was that they found themselves experiencing odd emotions, when, for example, walking through a forest or seeing a sunset. They were discussing among themselves what words to use to express such things. They called it their “spirituality.”

I was fascinated to listen, since I have never knew what people meant by “spirituality” as distinct from “religion.” I do not think they were expecting anyone else at the meeting to be religious, although I think one other participant was. He had a thick accent which I could not place. Otherwise, surely they were being impolite to discuss things in this way, as though religion were out of the question.

One asked, “can there be negative as well as positive spiritual feelings?”

I offered, innocent at this point of their ground rules, “Obviously yes. People speak both of God and the Devil; of heaven and hell.”

This was immediately rejected. “We have to avoid using religious terms.”

“But why?” I asked. “These terms have been established. Why do you need to reinvent it all from scratch? I take it that you do not want to believe in the existence of any metaphysical beings, but then you can understand it all as symbolic.”

“No, no symbols. We can’t allow any symbols.”

Another participant chimed in soon after, although not immediately after, that panic was a negative spiritual feeling. It came, he noted, from a supposed encounter with the god Pan.

And everyone seemed to accept this.

“Wait,” I inserted. “You broke the rule. Pan is a metaphysical being.”

“No no. I was only using him for explanation.”

My point about symbols exactly. Although I did not pursue it, the problem here was evidently only with the Judeo-Christian God. He who could not even be mentioned. Along with the Devil. Pagan gods were fine. An anthropomorphized and deified Nature or Earth or Ecosystem or Environment was fine.

I asked one participant what their position on religion was more specifically. Why avoid all mention? Did they believe all religion was bunk, or is it that they were not interested, or that they just had not found one that rang true for them--yet?

I got no straight response; only what seemed a deflection. He asked: “How is it that God spoke to us two thousand years ago, then stopped speaking to us; at least, to most people?”

I tried to respond: who thinks God no longer speaks to us? Certainly Pentecostals, Catholics, Mormons, think he still does. But only some of us are listening. The Bible is sufficient for salvation and complete, but that is a different issue. Eternal truth does not change.

At this point another guy cited Dawkins and brought up the problem of evil: “how can you believe in a God who allows children to be born with some genetic defect, then suffer and die young?”

I pointed out that there was thousands of years worth of learned philosophical response to this among the world’s religions; it obviously occurred to everyone. But there was far too much material to go into here in detail. I pointed first to the Christian response: we do not know that physical pain or death is evil. The one thing we know is evil is moral evil; and all moral evil is from man. Eve, meet apple. The sufferings of life, including the physical sufferings, are a result.

Then I cited the Hindu response; the theology of play. Suppose you are playing a baseball game, and the third inning is going very badly. You do not feel good about it. Even so, you win the game, and somehow, you forget the terrible griefs of the third inning, and decide it was actually fun, and you want to play again. Even when you actually lose the game, it is still fun, and you want to play again.

Now suppose you were playing a baseball game in which every pitch was a home run, and you could not lose. Fun? No.

I did not then, but I should have also cited the example of a film or novel. We actually want to see dangers and sorrows. We are not happy with a story in which nothing bad happens.

Pain exists because without it, pleasure would be meaningless to us.

I’m not sure whether anyone got this. It did not seem to provoke a response.

Another guy—I think it was about the problem of evil—started by saying that nature is actually red in tooth and claw, and without this constant strife, we would never have evolved. 

And, he concluded, if we all died tomorrow, nature would go on without us. That is the one thing we know for sure.

I’m not sure where he was going with it, but I had to challenge that last statement. It is, at a minimum, not something we know for sure. I suspect it led on to a worship of Nature as some eternal being and ground of the real.

“That is, if you reject Berkeley. And nobody has been able to disprove him.”

“What does Berkeley say?”

“If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears, did it make a sound? To be is to be perceived by some conscious being. If we did not exist, and God did not exist, nothing else would exist.”

I think that one, too, sailed over their collective heads. It was ignored.

Then someone said something that made me think the real issue was the supposed need to defer to God. The problem was with worship. I cannot recall his words, but that is how I summarized them to him.

Another participant, a woman, spoke up. “If God really is omniscient and omnipotent, and made all things, he should not demand things from us. He doesn’t need anything from us.”

I chipped in: “but what if it is not something he demands, but something he deserves. Do you feel the same way about respecting your parents?”

That seemed to blindside her. 

“My parents were terrible.”

“But as a general principle. Not all parents are awful, are they?”

“I can’t answer that unless you define your terms. I don’t know what those words you’re using mean.”

I think I saw here an example of what Scott Adams calls “cognitive dissonance.”

“Which words?”

“God. Parents.”

“I’m using the dictionary definition of parents. I’m using your definition of God. You said it: omniscient, omnipotent, and made all things.”

Someone else said something here in the chat: “That’s a deflection.” 

I think they meant the woman I was speaking with, not me. 

But the woman I was speaking with disappeared from the Zoom call at this point, without saying goodbye.

I think that means I won my point. I wonder if the topic will come up again next week?

So what have we learned?

I believe there are no atheists. There are only people who do not want to acknowledge any obligations to God or to their fellow man.

Our Home on Native Land?

 

Jully Black sang “O Canada” to begin the NBA All-Star game in Salt Lake City recently. She made headlines the world over by changing the lyrics from “O Canada, our home and native land,” to “O Canada, our home on native land.”

According to her version, Canada belongs to the native people, aka “First Nations.” And not to its citizens. 

To understand how offensive this is, imagine she had sung, instead, “O Canada, our home on Spanish land.” After all, the Spanish have a traditional claim, since they “discovered” the Americas, and were assigned them in the Treaty of Tordesillas. I do not believe they have formally renounced this claim.

Unlike the First Nations of Canada, who formally renounced any claim of sovereignty many years ago, and passed it to the British crown in the Treaty of Niagara. And in all the other formal treaties with the British and then the Canadian government.

Or what if Black had sung “O Canada, our home is on French land.” The French once claimed us, and had settled here; the land was taken from them by conquest. The Acadian were actually expelled. Is that fair? By contrast, the ceding of sovereignty from the natives was by agreement and with compensation.

But either of these phrasings, surely would be intolerable. They would sound like treason. Like the Poles singing “Our home on German land.” Or the Americans singing “Our home on British land.”

If we leave aside racial prejudice, Black’s version of the anthem sounds just as treasonous.

As are the interminable "land recognitions" now found at almost every public event.

In a video interview, Black complains in explanation that aboriginal history was not taught to her in school, that the Indians had been “erased.” 

This is not true. Any check of old Canadian school texts—many are available online at the Internet Archive—shows Canada’s Indians have always been prominent in the curriculum. Unless Black went to some uniquely bad school, she seems to be thinking specifically of the supposed horrors of the residential schools.

This was not taught, of course, because until recent years it was not known. No prominent historians supposed there was anything especially wrong with the residential schools. Maybe a bad policy; maybe not. Not especially worth teaching about, any more than the history of denominational schools in Newfoundland, or Canadian orphanages.

And what is currently taught about the residential schools—and, I warrant, in every school in Canada—is not true. They were mostly just schools like any other, with some lousy cafeteria food. 

The notion of “genocide” in the residential schools is, in the end, a moral panic like the witch hunts of Renaissance Europe, or the Medieval dancing hysteria.

I hope we awaken from it soon. And without, say, selling Canada down the river.

The Pink Tax

 

Ben Shapiro has come across a feminist on TikTok complaining about the “pink tax.” The problem, she says, is that identical items marketed to men or women coast ten percent more for the women’s version. This is discrimination against women.

But here’s a comparison. Identical food items cost more at Sobey’s than at No Frills.

Clearly, this is discrimination against those living in wealthier neighborhoods.

Or maybe, the free market being what it is, items are priced in part for how much the customer can or is prepared to pay. And the higher price for women’s goods is evidence that women have more money to spend than men.

They do. Women spend 80% of the consumer dollar. Men may make more money on average, or used to, but they don’t get to spend it.

If you think this is a case of oppression of women, here’s a simple test: if the male and female items are identical, why don’t women just buy the male item? That would end the practice immediately.

They don’t because women have enough money to be picky and not care about the cost. They will actually spend 10% more to get a pink razor instead of a blue one.

The same TikTokker notes that new drugs are always tested on men, not women. And this too is discrimination against women.

But by the same logic, it is more discriminatory against white laboratory rats and guinea pigs.

The eternal truth is that society considers men more expendable than women. If there is anything risky that needs doing, they use men.

Like trying experimental drugs.

Why do women insist that they are ill-treated? Because people will always listen and they get results.

Those who really are ill-treated are more likely to keep quiet about it and keep their head down. Because nobody will listen, and, if they do, it will just mean another blow of the lash.

The Death of Canada

 

The recent decision by Justice Rouleau that the Trudeau government was justified in declaring the Emergency Act to end the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa last year demonstrates that the corruption of democracy in government extends to the judiciary. 

But this is not news. The Canadian courts, and the Canadian Supreme Court, have been partisan for decades, and have been eagerly legislating from the bench. There is an obvious flaw in the system: judges being appointed by the Prime Minister, they are political appointees. They are beholden to the government. 

Once, we relied on professional ethics to overcome this: in effect, the old code of chivalry. There was a gentleman’s agreement binding on the powerful not to abuse their power, and to protect the weak. It was the strength and durability of this code of chivalry, not found elsewhere, that allowed Europe to outpace the rest of the world from 1500 on. It seems that it was strongest in Britain, and Britain did best of all. It was all, ultimately, founded on Christianity: the premise that all men were brothers, and so had intrinsic dignity; that government was not the supreme authority; and that, on Christ’s example, he who would lead must be servant to all. 

“Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.’”

It is also this code of gentlemanly conduct that allows democracy to function. Without it, as in the Third World, those in power would hunt down and imprison or kill those out of power. We would simply shoot those we disagree with politically. We would not bother with Marquess of Queensbury rules.

And this code of chivalry has broken down. It is breaking down everywhere in the Christian world, but perhaps fastest in Canada, which has now gained a reputation for being especially “progressive.”

Beginning I think, with the rejection of “conventional morality” for the sake of more sexual pleasure in the 1950s. Then feminism rejecting the chivalric code of courtship. That slipped down the toboggan run to everyone doing as seemed advantageous to themselves, and feeling morally justified in it. You have power—why not use it?

After all, as Hitler argued in Mein Kampf, if anyone else had the power, they would use it against you.

All of which has now put the full stop and the hand brake on freedom and democracy in Canada. Freedom may return—although it is not evident how—but it no longer exists when the government can arrest anyone or freeze their assets if they feel threatened; and without recourse. It seems likely it will get worse now, perhaps much worse, before it gets better.

The one bright light is the convoy itself. If the government and judiciary cannot be expected to act honourably, the members and leadership of the convoy acted throughout with remarkable decency, public spirit, and restraint. They were a spontaneous model of what Canada is supposed to be: a community of peace, order, and good government.

How can it be, then, that the elites are depraved, while ordinary people are still moral and decent? At least a large part of the problem, surely, along with the inevitable temptations of power, has to be with our system of education. For this means that, the more formal education a Canadian has, these days, the less moral and tolerant he is. Our education system is doing the opposite of what an education system is for: creating good people and good citizens.

Because instead of instilling morality, our current system mocks it and demands transgression.

Providentially, then, our education system is in any case technologically obsolete. For that matter, any kind of ruling elite, corrupt or not, is probably technologically obsolete. Everyone can in principle now study online as and when needed. They can have their choice of instructors. 

And with expert systems, “experts” will find it harder to obfuscate and maintain a monopoly on information.

What Genocide Looks Like in Canada

 

Students at Carlisle Indian Residential School, US, circa 1885. 

This SubStack article written by a former Indian residential school teacher points out a few salient facts, although he tends to bury his lede:

- The death rate from tuberculosis in the residential schools in the period 1930 to 1950, according to the Truth And Reconciliation Commission’s own data,  was many times lower than that on reserves generally. “TB mortality in the residential schools was consistently much lower than among the general First Nations population.”

- The Indian Residential Schools were brought “up to code,” so to speak, to conform with expert opinion on preventing tuberculosis, at least sixteen years earlier than the public schools of Toronto.

- A 1909 survey of kids at the residential schools found that “only 60% of the fathers of residential school students, and 70% of the mothers, were still living.” They served primarily as orphanages, taking those whose families could not care for them. Closing them may not have helped these children.

- At the same time, 1909, death rates for children on reserve were 25 to 50%. It should not be surprising if some children died at residential schools as well. Nor is it likely to be entirely the school’s fault.

- Young people living on reserve even today, with all our medical improvements, have a higher death rate than in the residential schools any year since about 1950. Child and youth death rates on reserve today are three to five times higher than among the general population.

- “By several key measures, residential school students fared better as adults than their peers who did not attend.” Only one third of Indian children attended the residential schools, as opposed to regular day schools. This select group were more likely to earn a diploma or degree, more likely to be employed, less likely to be on welfare. They were taller on average and less likely to be obese. This despite the fact that they were, commonly, orphans or from the most impoverished families.

So what is the solution to the sufferings of our “First Nations”? Don’t close the schools. Close the reserves.

Sex and the Single Cell

 

Can you spot the difference? Need a minute?

The gospel reading last Sunday was this one:

“Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.”

King James has the colourful “not one jot nor tittle.”

This is because the Law is the Logos, Christ himself, the order on which the cosmos is formed. Pseudo-Chrysostom comments:

“…since all things which should befall from the very beginning of the world to the end of it, were in type and figure foreshown in the Law, …, He therefore here declares, that heaven and earth should not pass till all things thus foreshown in the Law should have their actual accomplishment.”

There is a Law, a Logos, to the universe.

I have not been inclined to comment on the whole gender thing, because there is little to say, and saying it gets you in trouble. 

But here goes:

Gender is a grammatical concept. People do not have gender. Nouns do. People have sex.

There are only two sexes. This is a binary system.

If you are male, every cell is identifiably male. If you are female, every cell is identifiably female. But for the rare anomaly of an XXY in the 23rd chromosome pair, there is no ambiguity.

Women and men differ in many more ways that the visible shape of their sex organs. Women’s bodies are different from men’s in many appealing details. Their brains are also different.

It is a denial of reality for a man to declare himself a woman, or a woman to declare herself a man.

Denial of reality is delusional by definition. It is insanity.

It is not helpful to anyone to encourage a delusion. This is like encouraging an alcoholic to stay drunk. It is usually a way for people to avoid their problems.

Why do people want to deny the two genders? Because they want to deny binary systems as such. All binary systems are limiting to the human will. Each is a line you cannot cross. Gravity is annoying. Not being able to stay 18 forever is annoying. Not being able to eat some given apple is annoying. As a graffito seen during the Paris uprising of 1968 had it, “Be careful: even the ears have walls!” The border between life and death, human and non-human, self and other, is annoying. It prohibits abortion. Not to mention offing your inconvenient grandparents or Republican neighbour.

But the ultimate binaries are true and false, yes and no, Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction; and good and evil. These are the enemies that the non-binary really want to destroy.

No surprise that Biden’s transgender appointee as undersecretary of state for whatever turns out to steal other people’s luggage; or that transgender swimmer Lia Thomas worships Satan. Or that more men in prisons declare themselves transgender women than in the general population.

Vive la difference. 

“La difference”: there’s an example of gander.

Will the Last One Out Please Blow Out the Candles?

 

According to current projections, the last Anglican in England will die by about 2060.

Evangelical and Pentecostal groups, on the other hand, are growing.

The Anglican Church serves no purpose. They now simply tailor their teaching to whatever the public wants. They have just approved the blessing of gay marriages; despite the prohibition of homosexual sex in the Bible.

So why bother with church? 

Imagine if you went to a doctor, and the doctor simply asked “What do you think the problem is?”

Whatever you suggested, he agreed with. Then he asked,

“What do you think would help?”

And agreed with whatever you said.

Why would you bother going to the doctor?

Perhaps Evangelicals and Pentecostals only have snake oil to sell. Revivalist denominations seem to lose all energy within a generation or two. But at least they offer hope of something better.

The Catholic Church in Britain cannot be complacent. It is dying at about the same rate as the Anglicans.

But Catholicism really does have something to sell. Even without appealing to the truth of its doctrines, to religious faith, it has in its traditions the wisdom of the ages on the care and feeding of the human soul.

This demands strict adherence to the Bible, the ancient creeds, the ancient liturgies, the old traditions. They are valid and do their good whether or not the ordained cleric has any idea what he is about. 

Unfortunately, the Anglicans have thrown out all that dusty old ballast. Because the Anglican hierarchy decided they were smarter than their ancestors.

Under Pope Francis, that seems to be the Catholic program as well.

It is a fatal mistake.

Jesus at the Superbowl

 

People on the left are unhappy with the “He Gets Us” ads that ran during the Superbowl. Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez claims they are fascist: “Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign.” A leftist friend on Facebook objects that the huge sums they cost should have been spent instead on the poor.

Why does she not express the same concerns about the huge sums spent on the Satanic performance in the recent Grammy Awards ceremony? All the celebrities dressed in outfits costing thousands of dollars; all the big production numbers; all the expensive talent?

Why does she not ask the same question about the huge sums spent on the Super Bowl halftime show? What about the money spent on Superbowl tickets, and trips to Glendale Arizona to watch the game? How many bowls of soup for the poor could that have bought?

The left has immense hypocrisy here in claiming their concern is for the poor.

That is an alibi.

And why is a message of tolerance and reconciliation fascist? The ad I saw ends “Jesus loved the people we hate.” 

Can you imagine that as the concluding line of a speech by Hitler or Goebbels?

It is obviously the opposite of the Nazi message, if not so clearly of the Fascist, message. 

Here is another example of how the modern left classifies any reference to morality as “fascist,” or “racist,” or “white supremacy.” 

They feel hunted and victimized by any reference, even oblique, to morality. They feel like the Jews being hounded by the Nazis, forced to wear the yellow star. But what is really hunting them is the Erinyes, their own conscience, morality itself. It is their pervasive sense of guilt over abortion and sexual libertinage. And their terror is making them increasingly hysterical and violent

Ironically, it was probably their identification with morality—what Nietzsche called “slave morality”—that really motivated Hitler to hate and persecute the Jews.

Disney Calls for Reparations

 

This little rap from the new Disney+ series “The (New) Proud Family” is causing a stir. It demands reparations for those of darker skin tone on the grounds that “slaves built this country.”

If the current prosperity of the USA is built on the labour of slaves up to a hundred and fifty years ago, why is it that, even at the time of the Civil War, the South, where there were slaves, was far poorer than the North, where there were none? How did nations like Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany, or Japan also get wealthy, without slaves; while any other country you might mention in which African slaves were a large part of the labour force remains relatively poorer: Brazil, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, the other islands of the Caribbean?

Why isn’t black Africa rich?

The “slaves built this country” concept is Marxist: it sees manual labour as the only form of labour and the only source of value. And then black slaves as the only labourers.

Remove this materialist assumption, and it makes better sense to say that folks like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson built the USA. And maybe Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Walt Whitman, the Wright Brothers, Stephen Foster, Mark Twain, and the like.

It looks as though the US suffered, rather than profited, from slavery. Enslaved workers, perhaps, do not do a very good job of it. And then the US paid a heavy price, in lives, money, and property destruction, to rid itself of slavery. Perhaps more than the profit slavery ever generated, for anyone.

And of course, it only generated profit for a small number of people, perhap one percent of the US population at the time. Poor whites necessarily suffered, as the jobs taken by slaves were not available to them, and their labour was devalued. They too were victims of slavery.

So perhaps we should trace family lines back to the actual slaveholders? Then their descendants could pay the reparations

If we did so, it is likely that many of their descendants would turn out to be the very blacks demanding reparations. Most modern “African Americans” are of mixed race. Much of this mixing surely occurred on the plantations, with plantation owners taking full advantage of their ownership for sexual services. It all has nothing to do, on the other hand, with the probable majority of “white” Americans whose ancestors arrived in America after the days of slavery.

Of course, there are other reasons to see the demand for reparations as nonsensical. It requires the sort of “blood guilt” that led to the persecution of the Jews for centuries. Everyone who was ever enslaved is now dead. Everyone who enslaved them is also dead. Far from being discriminated against, modern American blacks can point to many laws and “affirmative action” programs that discriminate in their favour.

One might counter with the “lingering effects of slavery.” Then what about the lingering effects of the Holocaust on the Jews? That was worse, and more recent. The lingering effects of the Great Famine and indentured servitude on the modern Irish—now apparently the richest nation per capita in Europe? The lingering effects of the Holodomir on modern Ukrainian-Americans? The Armenians? The Chinese?  Why are they not suffering economically as blacks are, and why are they not also deserving of reparations?

One reason these other groups are more successful, perhaps, is that they have never learned to depend on handouts. The result, not of slavery, but of progressive Marxist "Great Society" programs.

The Growing Menace of Catholicism

 

You may have wondered how the American FBI has decided that traditionalist Catholics are “white supremacists.”

I think I can explain.

In a recent class with a middle school student, the text offered this proposed essay topic:

“Why everyone should be vegetarian.”

“That’s really racist!” he responded.

“Racist? Why?”

“It is forcing everyone to be vegetarian.”

“I don’t see that. It says ‘should,’ not ‘must.’ It could be giving health advice.”

“OK, my bad. It’s not racist.”

This seems to reveal the assumptions children are getting indoctrinated into, either in school or, possibly, on the Internet.

“Racism,” in woke vernacular, no longer has anything to do with race. It is about culture. Or rather, it is about morality. 

Because cultures supposedly have different moralities, any mention of moral issues is racist. Even if the moral stance cannot be identified with a particular culture, let alone a particular race. You are claiming racial superiority the moment you say anything is wrong. 

It is the belief in “cultural relativism” that makes the woke so supportive of multiculturalism. It even leads them to support Islam, a highly moralistic religion. Because its morality is supposedly different from Christian morality; so it helps to undermine morality generally. 

But Satanism is better. Any reference to religion is prohibited in the public square; Super Bowl commercials about Jesus are widely condemned by the woke. But Satanism figures prominently at the Grammies.

This belief that the different world religions differ in their moral values is false. Except around the edges. Kant has proven that the basis of morality is universal and self-evident. The woke believe in moral relativism because they want to believe this. They need to out of a guilty conscience. Which goes back to abortion and the sexual revolution. For proof, mention the word “sin,” or phrase “conventional morality,” and they will automatically think of sex.

So, because traditionalist Catholics hold to traditional moral values, they are by this definition white supremacists. No matter what their skin colour, or opinions on race. Anyone who believes in right and wrong is a white supremacist.

Of course, the awkward corollary is that all non-whites are evil. This may, in time, come back to bite. You never know. Funny how conscience leads us into self-condemnations like that.

Now go away and let the woke do whatever their baser instincts tell them to.

On the Conscience of Psychopaths

 

This video goes into more depth, but I want to note their lede: psychopaths and narcissists do not do well on polygraph tests. This disproves the common claim that they have no conscience. Everyone does. They know perfectly well that they are lying or doing harm to others. Rather than not feeling guilt, they experience a high level of ambient guilt at all times. They are jumpy about it, and liable to explode in a tantrum or melt into self-pity if challenged. This is one reason why they are prone to alcoholism or drug use, and prone to complain of symptoms often diagnosed as “depression” or “chronic anxiety.” And then often put on SSRIs that, like alcohol, allow them to commit their crimes with greater alacrity.

This also explains something I have noticed for a long time, and been unable to really account for: you can commonly recognize a psychopath by smell. They stink; Mao Zedong famously did. This might have something to do with their corporeal self-love—they love the smell of themselves, and assume that others would too. So they do not shower or bathe as often as they might. But I’ve known narcissists who did shower and bathe, and still smelled. It might also be because they tend to sweat more than others, an anxiety response.

Another sign of narcissism or psychopathy, touched on in the video, is that they lack spontaneity. This too is anxiety; they must always guard their words. They tend therefore to seem robotic, their responses predictable, “NPC.” The unexpected or unfamiliar is to them threatening. As a result, narcissists and psychopaths lack a sense of humour, and rarely laugh in a natural way. This is also the source of the celebrated narcissistic smirk: their smiles are never sunny or spontaneous, but calculated.

The Greeks believed in the Erinyes, which would pursue malefactors to their death. Christians call it conscience. It is real.

On Canada's Pressing Need to Track More Health Data

 

“among advanced OECD countries, we are 31 out of 34 in acute care beds per thousand population, 26 out of 31 in medical doctors and 17 out of 32 in nurses….We have 10 times as many health administrators as Germany although Germany has more than twice the population of Canada.“

--Fraser Institute, quoted by Conrad Black, National Post.

So why is it that the Trudeau government sees the first priority to be imposed on the provinces as improving the tracking of medical data?

I have a guess.

See below.

Tracking Health Data

 

Internal passport, Nazi Germany, 1939

Some time ago, I noted that, by uncanny coincidence, the Trudeau government is taking just the steps a government would take if it intended to turn Canada into a totalitarian dictatorship. Control of the press. Seizure of guns. Freezing the assets of any opposition. Outlawing peaceful protest. Setting up a controlled opposition—the NDP. Restricting freedom of speech on the Internet: Bill C-11.  Restricting freedom of speech in the public square: the “hate laws.” Establishing a need for identity papers—the vaccination passes and the ArriveCan app. Trying to suppress and bring to heel pre-emptively those segments of the population least dependent on government and hardest for government to control: the transient truckers, the self-sufficient farmers.

The coincidence has now grown even more remarkable. Arrested in their attempt to impose an internal passport by the end of the pandemic emergency—although they tried to rush it into being just before the pandemic ended--the Trudeau government seems to be trying to impose one by other means. 

The Canadian health care system is in crisis; not just because of the pandemic, but because the federal government, years ago, limited their contributions. The premiers have been begging for help.

Now Trudeau has announced a package with $46.2 billion in new spending. However, “To access the enhanced CHT, provinces must first commit to improving how health data is ‘collected, shared, used and reported to Canadians to promote greater transparency on results, and to help manage public health emergencies.’"

That might sound harmless, but does it address a real problem? Do Canadians care about collecting accurate health data; is that the emergency? Or about getting prompt diagnosis, medicines and surgery? Is data collection where the additional money should go first?

Perhaps the provinces have been squandering their funding? If so, that can be as readily addressed by voters at the provincial as at the federal level. And the Canadian Constitution specifies that be handled at the provincial level.

But it does open the door to the federal government collecting and coordinating health data on all Canadians. It can be used as an excuse to reintroduce an internal passport. Keep tabs on you at all times to maintain your health data, sure; just like the vaccine passport. But also then your whereabouts at all times, your expressed political opinions, your bank and financial transactions, and, given present technology, much else.

Given the actions of the Trudeau government, it is urgent that we vote them out at the first chance. And obviously not in favour of the NDP. 

But will we get a chance? They now control the media, and are about to control the Internet, so that opposition parties will have trouble getting their message out. 

Ontario, and some other provinces, have begun to use voting machines. We must be vigilant that the federal government does not sneak them in at the federal level. Voting machines prevent citizen oversight and forensic examination. They are a blank cheque to rig any election.

If and when you hear that voting machines are coming in for federal election, you will know the jig is up.

Pacifism and the War in Ukraine

 

A number of commentators, both left and right, have taken the position that it is wrong for the US, or Canada, to be involved in the fighting in Ukraine.

This position is morally depraved. The worst of it is that it masquerades as a superior morality. It is the devil’s work.

There are snide, self-serving suggestions that Ukraine is corrupt, and its ruling elite has bribed the American leadership into giving support. Hunter Biden doesn’t help.

This is not plausible. They must then also have bribed Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Latvia, Morocco, Denmark, … over fifty countries who have sent material aid. If we are getting into bribery, Russia would be able to outspend Ukraine on that battlefield. And Putin, ex-KGB, would surely have thought of it.

First point: every man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. The people of Ukraine, or Russia, are just as much our brothers as those biologically linked to us. We share the same father. That they are separated from us by distance means nothing; considering that significant would be like supposing, if we close our eyes, the thing is not happening. 

Second point: the rights and wrongs of the situation are clear. Russia invaded Ukraine.

Whenever there is conflict, the default assumption needs to be that it is a fight of right against wrong. Nine times out of ten, there is no “misunderstanding” to be negotiated. Strife breaks out because someone without moral constraints thinks they can take something from someone whom they think is in a weaker position. This is not always so, but must be the default assumption. “A plague on both your houses” works in the case of a vendetta, but is usually moral sophistry. And it amounts to blaming the victim at the moment of his or her victimization. This is weasel morality.

Third point: in the face of evil, we are required to come to the defense of the victim. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.” This is inherent in the essential scenario: conflict occurs when someone stronger tries to take something from someone weaker. If no one intervenes, evil will always triumph.

Fourth point: Refusing to become involved, on the plea of “pacifism,” is simply cowardice. It is not even in one’s own long-term self-interest. If aggression succeeds, more aggression can be expected, and sooner or later you yourself will be the victim. 

And, as C.S. Lewis has explained, courage is the one essential virtue. Without it, none of the other virtues can exist. There is virtue only in something difficult or dangerous to do. In any other case, you are simply acting in immediate self-interest, or on a whim.

There is no moral ambiguity here.

Mindfulness

 

I came across an interesting passage in John Fowles’s book A Separate Peace. Gene, the protagonist, has deliberately but secretly made his best friend fall off a tree branch out of envy, shattering his leg. Now he is dealing with the guilt:

“I spent as much time as I could alone in our room, trying to empty my mind of every thought, to forget where I was, even who I was.”

This may explain the common misconstrual of the Buddhist practice of “mindfulness” to mean emptying your mind of any thoughts, concentrating only on immediate sense perceptions. 

It is a form of escapism, that might take the place of alcohol or other drugs.

But it is accordingly not a way to confront your problems or to solve them. It is certainly not a way to deepen your spiritual life or improve your mental health.

A pre-raphaelite take on the Greek goddess of memory.

The actual Buddhist term we translate "mindfulness" is related to the word “remembering.” As we might say "keep in mind." It is filling your mind with thoughts. It is carefully examining the past.

We all need to do this. The guilty will resist it mightily, but they need to do it more than anyone.

Black History Month

 

Glooscap celebrates black history month

Friend Xerxes has written in praise of Black History Month, and suggests we should also have an Aboriginal History Month.

As a fan of history, I am not a fan of “black history month.”

Black history, or aboriginal history, has not been neglected in the past. There simply isn’t much of it.

History relies on written documents, as science relies on experimentation. That is why we call the time before the invention of writing “prehistoric.” If we are relying instead on oral traditions or personal recollections, that is folklore. If we are relying on physical artifacts, that is archaeology. Both no doubt interesting fields, but not history. History is traditionally studied in the public schools, and folklore and archaeology are not.

Because African American slaves were preliterate or illiterate, and the First Nations had no writing, they had no history until contact. After contact, what records we have are scanty, and mostly written by Europeans. Their accounts are inevitably superficial.

One might want to argue that folklore or archaeology ought to be taught in the schools, as well as history. Perhaps; but then you cannot argue that the folklore of these two groups has been ignored in comparison to that of other groups. Collections of Indian and African tales, songs and poems, have been popular for generations. You probably grew up, as I did, gentle reader, playing cowboys and Indians, camping in fake teepees, watching Western movies, reading tales of Glooscap or of Br’er Rabbit, listening to rock and roll, rhythm and blues, jazz, soul, blues and gospel.

If we are going to have a “black folklore month,” or “aboriginal folklore month,” this is giving preference to these two groups; and not because their folklore has been previously neglected. It is not “reverse discrimination.” It is just discrimination.

You might want to argue that, folklore aside, blacks and indigenous people deserve special consideration in general, on this and on everything, because their ancestors were poorly treated and underwent suffering. But then what about other groups in Canada or North America whose ancestors were treated as badly or worse, and in many cases more recently: the Jews, the gypsies, the Ukrainians, the Cambodians, the Irish, the Polish, the Chinese, the Armenians, the Koreans, and so forth?

Discrimination now cannot fix discrimination in the past. You cannot go back and change the past. The actual people discriminated against are almost all dead now, as are the people who discriminated against them. All you are doing is creating more discrimination and injustice, which in turn can never be compensated for.

There is value in knowing and understanding the sufferings of our ancestors. We ought to study slavery, the Holocaust, the Great Famine, the Holodomor, the Killing Fields, and the Highland Clearances, such conflicts as there were between European settlers and First Nations, in Canada and elsewhere, and so forth. But not just one or two, and ignore the others.

The reason we study history is to learn the lessons of the past. And this is certainly one. 

Because such events are past, they are, in theory, less influenced by current politics and vested interests. This is why we study history in the schools, and why we should. We thus see human decisions and their results writ large, and learn lessons about human psychology and behaviour. We can avoid the mistakes of our ancestors. Like discrimination. We are not supposed to repeat it.

For this reason, history is all about cause and effect. What were the causes of the First World War? Of the rise of Hitler? What were the effects of the Treaty of Versailles? Of the Danegeld? And so forth. Because if a certain course results in human suffering, we do not want to do it again.

In doing history, we must rely on the written evidence. The same issues of evidence pertain as might in a court trial: hearsay is too easily falsified and cannot be examined. 

This means history is mostly about socially important people; their decisions and the results of their decisions are those for which we have documentation. This may look like bias, but it is necessity.

From Bad to Verse

 

Thousand-year-old yew tree,  Kelburn Castle, UK.

Recently, at a meeting of a local poetry society, I encountered the ultimate denial.

I innocently read a recent poem of mine that described the winter trees expressing various emotions, in the tradition of pathetic fallacy, and ending

But then, the winter willow

Broken by winds

Kneels as if in pity on the lesser rest of us,

Who do not live as long or stand as strong as trees.

We who do not last the winter.

Once everyone had read their poems, discussion was opened. Someone queried, “What did that last line mean?”

Is it not obvious, gentle reader? Read those last two lines. I think it is so obvious that her question was really a demand that it mean something else. I had stumbled upon the penultimate denial: of the inevitability of death.

Painful as it is to explain a poem, I explained. Winter is death. Trees are reborn in spring. We are not. 

“But trees don’t really die in winter,” another then piped up. “And pine trees don’t die in winter. Coniferous trees don’t die.”

Imagine that; someone at a poetry meeting not understanding metaphor. And only barely a metaphor at that: I might have responded that the only proof that trees do not die in winter is that they are born again the next spring. But we were getting into quibbles about semantics.

Of course she understood the metaphor. The problem was the subject: death, whenever encountered, must be denied to exist. That ought to work.

“Even if you take it literally, trees live longer than humans,” I responded.

“Sometimes,” she said. 

Almost always, if they are not cut down. Perhaps she had never thought of it—it would require, after all, thinking about death. Perhaps, as soon as the subject of death comes up, a hysterical “no” forms in her mind. Perhaps that is what was happening here. I had mentioned the unmentionable.

Another participant, from India, chipped in, “In India we believe in reincarnation; you are born again just like the trees are in spring.”

Someone else eagerly responded, “So it depends on your philosophy.”

No, it does not. You cannot simply wish things to be true. This is denial in its perfect form. 

Of course, reincarnation might be true. Not my business to write a Buddhist or a Hindu poem. Few in Canada would have understood.

But this person had not thought out the consequences of reincarnation either. 

There is nothing scary about death itself, if death is simply the loss of consciousness. Are we afraid to go to sleep? Are we worried about what is happening in Addis Ababa right now that we might not be conscious of?

People fear death because they are aware that the universe inclines toward justice, and the afterlife might bring retribution.

That is the real, ultimate denial: the denial of right and wrong, the denial of guilt.

Reincarnation is not infinitely extended life as you are. It is ruled by karma; your next life exacts punishment for this one. In fact, as I pointed out, in lands where reincarnation is assumed, the desired goal is “nirvana,” “cessation,” like the blowing out of a candle. You wish for final death. Breaking even is your best hope.

And that pretty much ended the conversation. Better to move on to other subjects, I guess. Like violence in the streets. What could cause it?

One of the participants, black, lamented the rising tide of violence in the city. But, she said, she had no solution. What was the solution?

The obvious solution would be more policing. But she had cited the recent murder of Tyre Nichols by police as one example of the violence. And this was fair enough. More policing may not be the solution.

Another participant—she who could not accept the death of trees in winter—immediately pitched in that the problem was mental illness. Yes; mental illness. More money for police, say, was a bad idea. We needed to put more resources into the treating of mental illness.

I chipped in that the new ingredient, causing the rise in violence, seemed to be the rise in drug use. New and more potent drugs had become available. Addicts need to steal to support their habit.

That comment, debatable as it was, was simply ignored. It dropped into the void of denial. She went back to lamenting the problem of mental illness. It had to be mental illness.

I held my tongue;  there was no point arguing with denial. But the problem with blaming violence on mental illness is first, that, statistically, the mentally ill as currently defined are no more likely to be violent or to commit crimes than the general public. This, remarkably, remains true even though we now actually define anyone who does violence or habitually commits crimes as mentally ill. “Antisocial behaviour disorder.” “Oppositional defiant disorder.” And so forth.

In other words, the “real” mentally ill, the depressed, manic, chronically anxious or schizophrenic, are probably far less likely to be violent than the general population. 

By claiming they are the source of all violence, we are scapegoating them. As if they didn’t already have enough problems, with suffering and with stigma.

Why? 

Because by doing so, we are able to deny the existence of human evil. Nobody is ever evil; if they do something evil, they must not know what they are doing. Hence, “insane.”

And we are not insane. So we cannot be guilty of evil, no matter what we do. Any guilty conscience to the contrary.

This is why attributing it to drug use, although it can be done, and the suggestion need not be reacted to violently, is much less acceptable. Despite the current insistence that “addiction is a disease,” drug use still does look somewhat intentional. There is a whiff of guilt about it.

No; better to claim it is the insane.

Speaking now of poetry, and art; for we are at a poetry meeting.

The rising tide of denial is surely why poetry and the arts are moribund in our time. Art and poetry cannot exist without speaking truth. That is their whole purpose.

The rising tide of denial is also the ultimate reason why drug use, and violence, is escalating. Those who deny are those most likely to become violent; and those most likely to resort to drugging themselves. To escape their guilt with attempted unconsciousness.

Canadian Leopard Spotted in Ukraine

 

Apparently Canada has been te first to actually deliver a Leopard tank to Ukraine.

Impressive speed.

Now if only they could do passports.

As Others See Us

 

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!

Tuli Gabbard is no right-wing voice. She supported Bernie Sanders in 2016. Nor is "Rising" a rigtht-wing outlet.

This is how the rest of the world now sees Canada.

I like to think of us as the "Deep North."

The Chamber of Sober Second Thought

 

Senator Richards illustrates the possible value of an appointed senate, and what it is supposed to be: wiser heads unconnected with electoral politics, able to take the long view. Peter Hitchens is a strong proponent of this view.

The Senate probably saved us from the Emergency Act after a few days. It might save us from C-11.

Perhaps the thing to do is to keep the Senate more or less as it is, but have Senators appointed not by the Prime Minister, but by the members of the Order of Canada. Governors-General and Lieutenant Governors could be similarly selected—as David Johnston was under Stephen Harper. One great advantage of this approach is that it would require no changes to the constitution or even necessarily any legislation.

The Yanks Are Coming! Man the Barricades!

 

I don’t think it’s a joke, and I don’t think it’s alarming.

If Canada were taken over by a totalitarian regime, say a Nazi or a Communist regime, I would want America to invade. What is more important, Canadian independence, or the lives and rights of Canadians?

Surely any sane person will say, the lives and rights of Canadians. Anything more is ugly nationalism.

There is no particular reason why Canada and the US are separate countries. It is only an accident of history.

You Need to Know This

 

Something of a public service announcement.

Also shocking.

We Need to Talk about Canada

 

Tucker Carlson, on air, has asked whether it is time for the US to intervene in Canada. After all, does America want another Cuba?

I remember when I was younger saying I would be ready to die if necessary to stop an American invasion.

Now I think I would welcome it. My concern is only that freedom and democracy in the US is not that much more stable than in Canada. Give me a DeSantis or Trump regime in Washington, and I would feel good about it. The Americans are our guarantee against tyranny, and tyranny is plainly developing in Canada at the federal level.

I expect in military terms it would be an almost bloodless affair. Whether the Canadian forces would even bother to put up a fight is doubtful. Why resist? If the Americans annex Canada, life goes on, only with more freedoms, full democracy, and greater prosperity. And potentially much less fuss crossing the border for a job or a vacation. 

I could live with that.