12 Oct 2015
Not content to stop digging after finding themselves in a hole, the Spectator released on Saturday, Oct 10, 2015, a third editorial on the matter of banning the niqab during citizenship ceremonies and throughout the public service, a matter they previously referred to as embarrassing to discuss.
The Editorial did answer my previous question of the periods referred to in the past when Canada did evil deeds in respect of immigration. The actions referred to were when Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first Prime Minister, imposed a head tax on Chinese immigrants, and cut off the Canadian government's supply of food to Sitting Bull and the Sioux Indians, who high-tailed it to Canada to avoid the U.S. Cavalry. The other examples were when William Lyon Mackenzie-King kept Jews out of Canada prior to WWII and the internment of Japanese Canadians. Nothing after 1946.
As Pope St. Pius X observed, that when you pull unrelated principles out of thin air that are not part of an ordered system of principles, the folly inherent in those unrelated principles may not be obvious. And this time the principle the Spectator pulled from somewhere was the principle of self-expression and religion which, by the way, are two different principles.
Nevertheless, the Spectator continued with the ad hominem attacks against those who disagreed with them, and insinuated that the Stephen Harper was employing "dog whistle" strategy to gain votes.
This editorial is the third in which the Spectator has tried
to justify a show of Islamic Supremacism in the course of taking the Canadian
oath of citizenship. The incongruity of the values expressed in the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Islamic Supremacism the Spectator
seems consistently to miss.
The Spectator yet again relies upon ad hominem attacks, snobbery,
and elitism as means of winning its point. The argument this time -
pulled, apparently, from the nether regions - is the principle of
self-expression and freedom of religion. The weakness here is that the
full rights of the Charter are only enjoyed by those who are citizens.
Those who are not citizens do not get the full protection of the Charter, and
so non-citizens have no right to assert Charter Rights they do not yet enjoy in
order to get to enjoy them.
Never mind the rights of self-expression and religion are
limited rights. One cannot, for example, use profane language or express
anger and a government service counter. The “self-expression” contained in the
wearing of the niqab is that the woman should not be looked upon by men who are
not her close relatives. How can a person displaying such self-expression
work in a government office where in the course of her job she will be looked
upon by men not her close relatives all lot, and may have to deal with members
of the public?
Never mind the “religion” expressed in the wearing of the
niqab is a form of Islam whose values run clean contrary to the principles of
equality contained in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms! The very
document relied upon to claim citizenship in the country whose values she
deplores!!
The Spectator suggests that Prime Minister Harper is
employing a “dog whistle” strategy to gain the election. Who, exactly,
are the “dogs” that the Spectator says this strategy is aimed at? Could
it be the 83 % of the electorate – Canadians - who agree with Harper on this
point?
The decision being reached by Canadians is that they are
exhausted of expressions of Islamic Supremacism in this country. They can
see what is happening in the Middle East and do not want any of the ferment to
come here. We have a wonderful, peaceful country and it would be
downright stupid to import trouble on the basis of some silly principle or
other when we don’t need to bring it in or show sympathy towards it.
The big principle at issue here is not self-expression or
freedom of religion, but whether we are so ideologically purblind that we will
import trouble when we don’t have to.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment