Pointing the Finger of Racism

Vincent J. Curtis


20 March 2014

E.M. is a columnist for my hometown newspaper who has made a living accusing others of racism.  That, I could live with if there was some substance to her charges.  But she has gotten lazy.  In addition, she has failed to recognize the tremendous strides we have made in Canada to put an end to racism.  Perfection is the enemy of the good, and after a while the demand for perfection begins to work against the accomplishment of the good.

She also fails to recognize real racism that exists in Canada officially and by preference, namely the treatment of Aboriginal people and specifically the Indian Act.  It would not be politically correct for her, however, to call for the abolition of special treatment for Indians.  And, if she recognizes it at all, she doesn't.

What is also a little annoying is that E.M. does not seem to be a native born Canadian, but an immigrant from another country.  So here we have a immigrant telling us native borns what is wrong with our country.  Academically, I can accept this if the argument is sincere and well-put.  I don't sense genuine sincerity in the criticisms of E.M. and her arguments are not well put.  If Canada were all that bad, why did she immigrate here, and why is she staying here?

Thus a response to an opinion piece in my hometown newspaper.

E. M. needs to understand that when she points an accusing finger of racism at someone, three fingers point accusingly back at her.

 

Without investigating the facts herself, on the basis of hearsay she accuses citizens of the town of Morris, Manitoba, of racism and homophobia.

 

She complains about the near invisible existence of “systemic racism” in Canada.  But the word “systemic” means “of the system,” and of the system would mean the existence of Jim Crow laws in Canada, or certain covenants that once existed in property deeds.  She couldn’t identify a single one.  But here’s one: The Indian Act.

 

She complains about “cultural assumptions about the dominant group are the norm” and these “regularly and systematically advantage some ethnic and cultural groups and disadvantages and marginalizes others.”

 

Here’s a news flash: anywhere you go in the world, there are going to be assumptions about culture and norms, and the people who were born into that ethnic group and that culture will have the inside track over someone who was not born into that culture and that ethnic group.  Try living in Japan.  Having norms and assumptions about some things is how a society organizes itself so that it can function.  If Ms. M. were to live in Africa or Asia, she would find simply another set of cultural norms and assumptions, most of which are far more hostile to her point of view than she finds in this wretched country.

 

In my view, racial hatred is not ended but provoked by false accusations and by demanding impossible standards be met.  How about accepting some of these cultural assumptions and norms of Canada?  How about trying to fit in?  That would certainly help end suspicion and distrust, at least in this country.

 

The perfect is the enemy of the good.  If Jamaica was all that wonderful a place to begin with, T. M. would never have risked going to Morris, Manitoba, in the first place.

 

If Canada is not good enough, try Russia.

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A Doozy of an Editorial Section

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Feb 2014

 

My hometown newspaper sure had a doozy of an editorial section in Saturday’s edition.  Where to begin?

 

A. V. was taken in by the artist, Gabriel Parniak.  Painters are not kind to title readers.  The content and meaning of a painting is found in the painting, not in the caption or title given to it.  This is true of any work of art: the meaning of any work of art is found in the work itself; and in the case of non-verbal art media that meaning is not verbalizable.  The meaning of a painting cannot be put into words, any more than the meaning of a piece of music can be put into words.

 

By giving a deliberately provocative and highly ambiguous title to a painting of a coffee cup, artist Gabriel Parkiak sucks title-readers like Mr. V. into idle speculation about his meaning in the painting.  The secondary meaning of the painting is the joke pulled by the artist in the ambiguous title.

 

The “Squandering science to honour ideology” editorial, excerpted from the St. John’s Telegram, is another case of Arts majors pretending to know more about science than real scientists do.  If you substitute “National Defense” for “science” and “soldiers” for “scientists” you get the argument that the government doesn’t care about National Defense because it is getting rid of soldiers, which it is.  Well, in neither case does the conclusion follow from the premises.  As for the ideological basis for getting rid of scientists, or soldiers, apparently budget reasons or changing government requirements never entered the minds of the editors of the Telegram.  The editors must believe they have the inside track to the minds of government ministers.  The editors are hiding behind the dodge that they are merely quoting a report from an obviously self-interested group; but they wouldn’t have published the editorial if they didn’t believe the cause worth advocating.

 

D. P. proved once again that not only has she the mind of a vicious adolescent, but so do all her friends.  If I were Ms. Horwath, I’d look to hire a body-guard.

Finally, the LRT editorial by the Spectator’s own editor-in-chief, “LRT is about much more than transit.”  It repeats all the non-demonstratable and non-disprovable arguments in favor of the LRT.  Apparently, the overt purpose of the thing, the obvious need to move people, is not advanced as an argument in favor of it.

 

I’ve seen the ‘sun and moon’ and then ‘the stars’ argument made before in the service of many other causes.  That style of argument, i.e the benefits of the secondary effects or the unintended consequences of the thing, is the tip-off that there is something wrong with the basic sales pitch of the thing itself.  When the bill comes due, I wonder if Mr. B. will still be working at the newspaper.

 

Like I said, a doozy of editorial section.

 

Just keeping the mental knife sharpened.....

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Giving the wackos an airing

Vincent J. Curtis

 

31 March 2014

 

 

My hometown newspaper is once again on a tear.  It is indulging the habit of airing opinions that are transparently and obviously absurd.

 

Perhaps, letting some people and some groups bay and the moon is a good thing.  Steam is let off that would otherwise build in pressure until something exploded violently.  However, it is also often useful to review the argumentation employed by these wackos, if nothing more than to keep our own mental knives sharp.

 

The first article was written by D.C. who is a poobah in the groups “Environment Hamilton” and “Hamilton 350.”  The first group “seeks to inspire people to protect and enhance the environment” while the second is a global warming doomsday cult.

 

Briefly, D.C. rehearses the usual arguments that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and to prove his case cites one of the usual suspects: a “NASA sponsored” study (read: Jim Hanson).  Apparently, industrial civilization is going to collapse on the grounds that Rev. Malthus would recognize and, in fact, first employed himself some two centuries ago, when the earth had fewer than one billion of human population.  Presently, the earth has over seven billion and that number continues to grow.

 

D.C.’s solution to the problem of the imminent collapse of world civilization as we know it is to collapse the world civilization and the world economy as we know it.  So, catastrophe awaits human civilization regardless.

 

Those who are familiar with Gaia and with deep ecology will recognize the proposed solution: to reduce the size of the human herd to manageable proportions.  But D.C. generously thinks it should be done in a “graceful” way.  Other things which will prevent global catastrophe are to have a maximum wage as well as a minimum wage to reduce income inequality.  He calls for monetary reform, but fails to propose anything.  He wants economic measures such as GDP to be abolished because they promote the wrong thing.  And, of course, work sharing.

 

He concludes with “if this seems like idealistic claptrap, remember that the economy is a sub-set of the environment.”  Well, the economy being a “sub-set of the environment” is claptrap as well, so in an argument full of claptrap, D.C.,  you may as well end with a resounding example of it!

 

The Gaia people believe that a sustainable world human population is around one billion people.  That means that over the next generation or two, to meet their expectations, the human herd has to be reduced by six-sevenths, or by 85.7 %.  That is a die-off of a species not seen since the last asteroid hit the earth.  And if we don’t do this, something even worse is going to happen!!  What this is I’m not sure, but I think I, my children, and my grandchildren would rather take their chances with the other thing.

 

A human die-off of 85.7 % would certainly do a number on the world GDP.  Now that would be a good reason not to look at those numbers anymore.

 

What ought to be most worrisome is that these folks chant the following incantation: Think Globally, Act Locally.  What this means for us is, that it is the Western economies and the Western populations that are intended to take the hits.  If India, China, and Brazil don’t cut back on their economic growth and their population growth, there is no point about Canada, the United States, and Europe cutting back on theirs, because the world will go to hell simply on the growth of those three countries.

 

Getting India, China, and Brazil to go along with Environment Hamilton and Hamilton 350 is a matter D.C. fails to address.

 

The second wacko is K.D.  This guy rehearses the usual arguments about the abolishment of Separate Schools in Ontario.  The right of Roman Catholics to have a fully funded Separate School system in Ontario is a black-letter right that was put into the original British North America Act of 1867, and remains there in the current Constitution Act, 1982.  To abolish Separate Schools in Ontario would require that the Constitution Act be amended in the teeth of Roman Catholic opposition.  This niggly little problem, K.D. utterly fails to address.

 

What he complains about simultaneously are: Public Schools are failing because of mismanagement by the school boards, while Separate Schools are doing just fine, thank you.  But not due to the superior management by the Separate Boards, it is because the playing field is not level!  And it is high time for a little equity, he argues.

 

To bring about equity, the funding for Separate Boards needs to be ended entirely!  All students need to be treated equally (equally stupidly, he means.)  We need to eliminate duplication of services.  A government duopoly will not do, we need a government monopoly.  K.D. would not be aware that the public boards were failing without the Separate Boards to compare them to.

 

Nevertheless, we need to have one system that would benefit all students in Ontario.  Milk and honey would flow in abundant quantities, sufficient for all if this came to pass.

 

K.D. has been a high school teacher for 28 years.  He used the statement “there are equally the same frustrating issues that come from dealing with hundreds of teenagers in one place.” Equally the same.

 

Wow.

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