The Boys Who Cried Wolf

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Feb 2017

From the Hamilton Spectator of 28 Feb 2017:

RE:  Why We Railed Against Trump’s Executive Order

RE: They Produced a Frankenstein Monster

The two articles referenced show Progressivism as reduced to farce.  Here we have two ivory tower liberals exhibiting cultural snobbery even as they preen in their own superiority.

Henry A. Giroux is an American who hates America.  I get that.  I know the type.  Giroux long ago exhausted his superlatives of evil on George W. Bush.  The America of Barack Obama got no reprieve.  And so when a blue-collar billionaire, the brash, coarse, and deplorable Donald J. Trump was elected president, defeating the Progressive’s favorite Hillary Clinton by conquering the reliably Democratic rust belt states in the process, the vocabulary of the professor of grievance-studies had no bile left.  It was exhausted.  And so we get the same sky-is-falling turgid, faux elevated narrative for the third or fourth time in words that, this time, are unworthy of an academic.  (“They produced the Frankenstein Monster.”  Like the Mel Brooks character?)  Giroux is like cranking an old engine that has no fuel.

The president of McMaster University is another cosseted Progressive pretending to be brave.  Neither Patrick Deane nor Henry Giroux is wondering where his next buck is coming from.  Deane demonstrated that he has no clue of the fate of conservatism on American university campuses.  He apparently has never heard of the rioting and threatened violence that for years occurred at the mere prospect of conservative speakers appearing on American university campuses.  Student campus clubs that have the air of conservatism about them have for years been harassed or banished from campuses.  Deane talks the game of the “free flow of ideas, values, diversity, inclusion, and openness,” but he fails to realize that Progressivism is a totalitarian counterfeit of the Western Enlightenment.  The ‘free flow’ of Progressivism flows only one way, and it brooks no opposition.  Free speech is for progressives only.  Violent demonstrations and disruptions in the cause of Progressivism is “free speech.”  But mere words from conservatives gets branded as hate speech, and those evil people get what they deserve for expressing their values and ideas, and to hell with diversity, inclusion, and openness when it comes to conservatives.  Forget classical history, the classic Progressive ‘education’ are the grievance-studies of the likes of Henry Giroux.

Well-to-do, cossetted, financially secure liberals who live in nice neighborhoods hold the blue collar workers in America – the deplorables – in contempt.  But the votes of blue-collar America has rendered them and their opinions irrelevant, for now.  That, for the elite, is hard to bear.  But the elites had their chance.  They made the lives of blue collar America miserable with their theories, the ramifications of which the elites were safe from.  Blue collar America finally noticed.

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Examples of Fake News

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Feb 2017

Fake news is in the news, and Saturday’s Hamilton Spectator contained two perfect examples of it.  The one was headlined, “Are Trump’s Denunciations of Hatred Good Enough?” and the second was, “Trump Advisor Asked FBI to Dispute Russia Reports.”

Besides being fake news, the first piece was also an example of the media echo chamber in action.  

The first Spec story was reprinted from the notorious Washington Post, which in turn created the report from a show the writer saw on the Clinton News Network.  CNN commentator Kayleigh McEnany asked Steven Goldstein, director of the Ann Frank Center a set-up question, "Do you think the president does not like Jews and is prejudiced against Jews?

If you know anything about Mr. Goldstein and the Ann Frank Center, you knew already what his answer to the set-up question would be: “You bet!” he answered.  (The Ann Frank Center describes itself as "a progressive voice for social justice fighting hatred of refugees and immigrants....  The McEnamy question was meant to elicit Mr. Goldstein's controversial opinion.)

When challenged about Trump’s daughter and son-in-law being Jewish, Goldstein exploded, “I’m tired of commentators on the right trotting out his daughter…”  He concluded his tirade with, “Have you no ethics?”  And thus begins a narrative about President Trump being anti-Semitic, based upon eliciting the controversial opinion of one ideologue most people never heard of.  Then it echoes through the media.  And the proof that the busy Mr. Trump is secretly anti-Semitic?  He didn’t denounce anti-Semitism fast enough and fiercely enough 35 days into his first term (in the opinion of a committed ideologue!)

The second example of fake news proffers the narrative that Reince Priebus improperly pressured the FBI to falsely discredit another media narrative, that the Trump campaign had nefarious connections with Russian intelligence during and after the election campaign.  But the timeline of the story never gets mentioned.

The New York Times publishes a false story given it by outgoing Obama Administration officials.  Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe at a morning meeting tells Priebus that the Times story was based on pure bunkum.  Priebus asks Deputy Director McCabe if there is something the FBI can put out that would say that.  McCabe says, give me a few hours and I’ll find out.  Priebus calls a few hours later, and McCabe says there is nothing the FBI can do, officially.

Hence, the storyline is: “Priebus asked FBI to dispute Russia reports,” not: “Times spoofed, Reports of contacts based on ‘bunkum’.”

Narratives that live by the unnamed source deserve to die by the unnamed source, except when Trump is the target.

Of course, the Spectator can’t vet everything that comes across the wires; but when too-convenient news that's anti-Trump and originates with CNN, the Washington Post, NBC, CNBC, the New York Times and LA Times comes across the wires, it deserves to be checked on Fox, if only to get a second opinion.

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Ontario's Anti-Islamophobia Resolution

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Feb 2017

Just so that we have a common basis of analysis, the motion put forward yesterday is as follows:

 

Mme Nathalie Des Rosiers:  I move that, in the opinion of this House, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario should reaffirm that diversity has always played an important part in Ontario’s culture and heritage; recognize the significant contributions Muslims have made, and continue to make, to Ontario’s cultural and social fabric and prosperity; stand against all forms of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance; rebuke the notable growing tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments; denounce hate attacks, threats of violence and hate crimes against people of the Muslim faith; condemn all forms of Islamophobia and reaffirm its support for government’s efforts, through the Anti-Racism Directorate, to address and prevent systemic racism across government policy, programs and services, and increase anti-racism education and awareness, including Islamophobia, in all parts of the province.

There is little worse than a sore winner.  After seeing her Anti-Islamophobia resolution passed unanimously in the Ontario legislature yesterday, Nathalie Des Rosier, OC, OOnt, LLM, lawyer, professor, constitutional expert, and Liberal MPP for Ottawa-Vanier, complained that she received an unspecified “racist backlash.”  Since Mme. Des Rosier is a Franco-Ontarian, it is hard to image what could be racist in respect of any backlash she might have received.

The response she received might have something to do with the witless, unbalanced, and in an important respect false resolution that she introduced.  Unspecified Ontarians and Canadians are fatigued at being accused of ‘hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism, intolerance…” and for being rebuked for hosting the “growing tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments” and being condemned for harbouring various forms of Islamophobia.  By people who don’t know them.

I know I’m tired of it.  I think time is better spent trying to cut electrical costs, upgrade infrastructure, and balancing the budget; but impotent, virtue-signalling resolutions like this are what the Liberals want to talk about.

The resolution is unbalanced and false because the statistics show that the real problem with hate is an old one: anti-Semitism, not Islamophobia.  Jews are far more likely to experience a hate incident than any other group, including Muslims.  But the statistics also show that the problem is small.

The witlessness of the resolution is found in its absolutism.  “It enrages me that we still have this conversation globally,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said in the legislature.  That sounds pretty hostile.  That sounds pretty intolerant, and that hostility and intolerance is directed at someone, those at whom the resolution is directed.  But since the resolution stands against all forms of hatred, hostility, and intolerance the Premier stands condemned by the resolution she spoke in support of.  The resolution is intolerant of fascism, and so condemns itself.  In naming Islamophobia specifically and singularly, and anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments, the resolution commits an act of Islamophilia – a prejudice favoring Islam, and so condemns itself.

The things the resolution condemns has to exist somewhere to the minds of those who support it.  That means that they think a fair number of Ontarians bear these evil thoughts and attitudes in their minds.  As an old, white, old-line Canadian male, I’m an obvious choice of being a guilty party.  No wonder Mme. Des Rosier got a blast from her constituents after her legislative success, for she had them condemned by their legislature for what she said was in their minds.  People she has never met.

Permit me a few more kicks at the cat.  The motion calls upon the legislature to recognize something that is patently false, namely that "diversity has always played a important part in Ontario's culture and heritage."  Between 1867 and about 1975 multiculturalism did not exist in Ontario.  There were French speakers of European descent in Northern Ontario and a few spots here and there in Southern Ontario while the rest were English speakers of European descent.  Bilingualism and biculturalism.  That was it.  The diversity of multiculturalism did not even come into being until Canada was 110 years old.  So the absolutism of "always" makes the resolution false.  I am going to ignore the statement of the significant contributions Muslims have made and continue to make because, like much else, they are unspecified and likely wouldn't stand scrutiny; I can't name one significant contribution a Muslim has made to Ontario's cultural and social fabric distinct from mere existence.

One last kick:  the resolution calls for the prevention of systemic racism in Ontario.  Canada's Indian Act establishes systemic racism in Ontario.  The efforts to implement the resolutions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are acts of systemic racism.  The resolution simply fails to distinguish the good systemic racism from the bad systemic racism.

Virtue-signalling like this resolution are what dominates Ontario's politics.  Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

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The Real Problem is Anti-Semitism, not Islamophobia

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Feb 2017

Motion 103 and similar resolutions refer to a climate of fear and hatred that exists in Canada in respect of Muslims.  But a review of crime statistics show that overwhelmingly the victims of religious hate crimes are Jews, not Muslims.

Hate crime data in the United States is collected by the FBI.  Their figures show that between 2010 and 2014 the total number of people victimized for their religion declined from 1,552 to 1,140 in the America, of which anti-Jewish bias comprised 1,039 and 648 respectively.  A slight uptick was observed in 2015, to 1,402 total, of which 730 were the victims of anti-Jewish bias.

Hence, of the hate crimes based on religion, between half and two-thirds of the victims were Jews.  The numbers thankfully are small, but the proportion in the numbers is significant.

Now, Canada is a more peaceful country than the US, and our numbers are likely proportionately even lower in the overall than one tenth of the US figures, but there is no reason to think that ratios are strikingly different.

Hence, in Canada too, Jews are overwhelmingly the victims of religious hate crimes, not Muslims.  These facts seem not to be taken into account when debating the ‘climate of fear and hatred’ in Canada, where it is assumed that Muslims are the victims when in fact it is the Jews who are.

I think this point is worth raising in the debates because the resolutions specifically condemn Islamophobia but neglect to mention that the real problem that exists is anti-Semitism.  The crime numbers thankfully are small, and to that extent it is an exaggeration to speak of a “climate” of fear and hatred.

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Patrick Brown Blows it Again

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Feb 2017

Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown is being hailed in the media for his cleverness in side-stepping a political trap set for him by Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario Liberal caucus.  The alleged trap is a motion before the Ontario legislature similar in kind to Motion 103 before the Canadian House of Commons.  It is a resolution condemning Islamophobia and all kinds of religious discrimination.

The witless Mr. Brown is being too clever by half, or isn't clever half enough by coming out in favor of the resolution.  I recall Brian Mulroney being confronted in 1984 with the Canada Health Act with the expectation that he would reject it on conservative principles, and thus opening himself up (just before his landslide victory) to accusations of being a wicked man because he expressed disagreement with this or that Liberal piety.  Mulroney, with alleged political adroitness, came out in agreement with the Canada Health Act, and Canadian health care (or lack thereof) has been saddled with it ever since.

Patrick Brown is alienating people who would be inclined to support him - people whose teeth grind at the prospect of preening moralisms and proclamations of support for the religion de jure.  Donald Trump created a revolution down south by punching such preening pieties right in the mouth.  But Trump is a much bigger man than Brown, and could weather the media storm thrown at him in the course of the campaign.

With a little bit of wit and cleverness (admittedly missing in both federal and provincial politicians) Brown could have turned the motion on its head, and exposed it for the empty, meaningless gesture of Liberal virtue-signalling that it is.

For starters, Mr. Brown can say that the motion is nothing but an empty gesture of meaningless virtue-signalling by the Liberal party and another sign of the exhaustion of the Wynne government. They have no justification for another term, and are trying win the election nevertheless by dividing people with these political traps.  He can say that the motion exposes the Members to ridicule because of the unseriousness of the motion brought before the legislature.

He might then playfully accuse the motion of being Islamophilic in its condemnation of Islamophobia.  Islamophilia is a prejudice also - in favor of Islam, rather than against it.  And since prejudice of any kind is being condemned in the motion, the motion condemns itself!

The absurdity is thus made manifest, and Mr. Brown has not committed himself one way or the other on any issue larger than the wording of the motion itself, or on its intent (being virtue-signalling).

Regrettably we do not have in Canadian politics an intellect equal to that of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who would tear this childish stuff apart.

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Motion 103

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Feb 2017

Motion 103 is just the sort of infantile thing that I would expect the House under PM Sunny Ways to debate.  Like many other things, I wouldn’t take it too seriously.

However, the intellectual emptiness of it is noteworthy and, unfortunately, Canadian politics does not have a Senator Ted Cruz to bring them to light.

The most obvious piece of idiocy of M-103 is the condemnation of all forms of systemic racism.  Canada’s Indian Act establishes a systemic racism in its strictest meaning – discrimination on the basis of race; but I don’t think anyone has this in mind when they condemn systemic racism in Canada.  But there it is.  So, they must mean bad forms of systemic racism, not the good ones.

M-103 also condemns religious discrimination, but it doesn’t say by whom and for what.  I think it is a well-established principle in Canadian law that religious institutions are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion in respect of their hiring practices.  It would be pretty silly for an Anglican priest to sue the Roman Catholic Church for religious discrimination because he wasn’t considered for the post of Bishop of Kingston.  But without clarification, this sort of thing was also condemned in the motion because it included all forms.

Since degree of discrimination is often measured by the left in terms of statistics, lets look at some numbers.  Before it was suppressed, the number I saw of proportion of Syrian refugees coming to Canada who were Muslim was 97 %.  Since the Muslim population of Syria is 90 %, that seems to show discrimination in favor of Muslims and against Christians.  (You will find now all kinds of statistics on Syrian refugees in Canada: by type, by province, by city, family size, education [over 60 % less than secondary education], age & gender, language - but significantly NOT by religious affiliation, the most important statistic in this matter.)

Here's another number: ZERO.  That's the number of Yazidis resettled in Canada as of 19 Feb 2017.  The Yazidis are a 6,000 year old culture in the midst of Iraq, and were designated as a group subject to genocide by ISIS in a House of Commons resolution of 25 Oct 2016.  The government is expected some time this week to announce a policy of resettlement, but observers are forecasting disappointment.

So, on the basis of statistics, Canada appears in the grip of prejudice called Islamophilia, not Islamophobia.  So, by condemning all forms of discrimination, while the motion names Islamophobia as a specifically condemned discrimination it indirectly condemns Islamophilia, which is also a discrimination - one of favoritism, as well, and by extension the government policies associated with rank Islamphilia.

Returning to the text of the motion and the condemnation of all forms of discrimination, let me speak to the case of the Editorial Page Editor of my home town newspaper.  He has frequently made calls for the extinction of the Separate School System in Ontario, and has published many op-eds in favor of it.  This is also a case of religious discrimination - by him.  At least, that is the Catholic perspective, because he calls for the extinguishing of a black letter right for Roman Catholics in Ontario that existed from the beginning of Canada, i.e. the Constitution Act, 1867.  So, he could stand condemned by this motion for a belief he sincerely holds.

The part of the motion recognizing the "increasing climate of hatred and fear" is also unserious.  This aspect could easily be met by announcing an immediate and permanent halt of all Muslim immigration.  That would certainly put a cap on the problem, but no one in the House debate thought of that.  An opposition member could frame this aspect as a condemnation of the government for moving too quickly and in an unwise direction in respect of Muslim immigration; but members of the House are pretty witless.  You could support the motion and condemn the government at the same time; and make Liberals supporting it look foolish.

It is great that Canada's House of Commons is returning to the custom of having important matters of state debated freely.  But it is exposing Members to ridicule for their witlessness and the unseriousness of the matters they choose to discuss.

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Ingrate Twenty-something bashes Canada for racism

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Feb 2017

RE: Time to end the myth of Canadian Exceptionalism

Sarah Adjekum is a twenty-something social activist who graduated from Hamilton's McMaster University with a Bachelor's in Social Work.  While there, she was a member of Communist Youth Association.  That hasn't stopped her from working for a Catholic Social Outreach organization called The Good Shepherd.  She is one of the principle organizers of Hamilton's Anti-Racism Initiative.  She describes herself as a long time Hamilton resident.

This date saw an article she wrote published in my home town newspaper.  It was grievance-mongering at its worst.  She set up a straw man and then tore it apart.  She set up this myth of Canadian exceptionalism, and then tore it apart with by arguing the case that Canada was rife with racism.  (Islamophobia being one example, but that's a proof of stupidity that's been discussed elsewhere.)

It is a failure of Canadian universities that students of grievance studies are not required to become educated in the Western Enlightenment as part of the core curriculum.  That's the only explanation I have for people like her spewing uninformed hatred into the public domain.  She doesn't even understand the Canadian mentality in which she has been immersed for a long time.

Below are my comments to the newpaper:

The article is just the sort of sophomoric argument that is drearily common nowadays, and that it comes from a young activist trained in grievance-mongering is not surprising.

Let this old-line Canadian help Ms. Adjekum out.  Exceptionalism is an American thing, not a Canadian.  To the extent that a Canadian thinks his country is exceptional, it is that it is different from America, and better in a way.  We don’t feel a need to compare ourselves to cultures in Africa, Asia, South America, or even Europe.

Ms. Adjekum’s thesis is that Canadians should stop thinking of themselves as exceptional because our culture is shot through with hatred, racism and Islamophobia.  Since we modestly don’t think of ourselves as particularly exceptional, except perhaps with respect to America, her thesis falls to the ground.  But her argument that the culture which Canadians like myself bear is shot through with hatred, racism and Islamophobia, and for that reason is unworthy, deserves further analysis.

Since Canada is committed to a policy of multiculturalism, why would an immigrant assimilate into Canada’s domestic culture when it is shot through with hatred, racism and Islamophobia?  If they had any moral sense, they wouldn’t.   They would cling to the old ways and resist the attraction of the thing that brought them here is the first place.  (People don’t come to Canada for its delightful climate.)

This is the sort of thing that gives life to the “Canadian Values” campaign of Dr. Kellie Leitch.  Ms. Adjekum is arguing the same thing as Dr. Leitch, except from the other side.  Ms. Adjekum says that Canadian culture is, on the whole, unworthy of being assimilated into by immigrants, while Dr. Leitch argues that Canada should not take in immigrants who think that way.

If a country is going to hold itself together, it needs to have some unifying theme.  Perhaps Ms. Adjekum can reflect upon the argument of the other side, and see what unifying theme she can come up with.  That is if she can overcome her moral revulsion of Canadians like me.

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Corrupt Justice: Siding with the 60's Scoop "Survivors"

Vincent J. Curtis

15 Feb 2017

In a court case decided very recently, a judge sided with the plaintiffs against the government of Canada in a law suit concerning the so-call "60's Scoop"  so-called "survivors."  The so-called "scoop" was a federal children's aid program.  Young aboriginal children were taken from their homes and reserves and placed in foster care with white families in affluent Canada, where they were raised.  The "survivors" feel aggrieved that they had had their aboriginal language and culture stolen from them, and demanded financial compensation for the loss.  The total demanded runs to $1.3 billion, according to news reports.

This program was another one of those progressivist do-good programs that sought to, as a minimum, preserve aboriginal genetic material, and better, provide the aboriginal community with people sympathetic to them who could better fight the aboriginal battle because they had been raised and educated in white society, i.e. the enemy camp.  It was not uncommon before the white man reached North America for aboriginals themselves to take children or save children of other tribes that they had annihilated in order add to their own stock of acculturated fellow tribesmen, of different genetic makeup.

The decision was based on racism and a painfully obvious flaw in logic, which required a lot of reverse-racism on the part of the judge to overlook, as explained below:

 

In siding with the so-called 60’s scoop “survivors”, the judge reached a decision founded upon racism and the theory of white guilt.  A bad high school student would not have made his error in logic: you cannot lose what you do not have.

The racism lies in the belief that a person is born with a culture or "belongs" to a culture, unless you are white.  What is the culture of a white baby?  Is it British, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Azeri, Greek?  It could be any, or none of these, because a person is not born possessing a language or a culture.  A person born genetically “aboriginal” no more possesses aboriginal culture and language than a white person is born possessing a "white" culture, whatever that is.  It is racist to say that an person "belongs" to a culture.  It is plain wrong to say that a person is supposed to possess at birth an “aboriginal” culture and language, and that these possessions at birth can be wrongfully taken from them by substituting another culture and language.

How racist is it to hold that a person born with a certain genetics is supposed to possess certain cultural characteristics?  Let's explore:  If a person is born with a culture, what cultural traits would be associated with a person genetically an Arab or a Jew?  What cultural trait would you associate with an Indian?  (A tendency to drunkenness, perhaps?)  Would it be racist to think that, or not?

If a young Polish girl comes to Canada and is assimilated into Canadian culture, has her language and culture been taken from her?  We would say no, because, being Polish, she is white.

The salve for this guilt is a hefty dose of money – over a billion in compensation for the pain of having been raised in Oakville instead of Attawapiskat.  White guilt is inexpiable, but it can be priced.  And “surviving” with greater opportunity in life and in better living conditions form no part of the compensation.  (Maybe the adoptive parents should counter-sue for expenses and emotional trauma.)

The irony of all this is that the 60’s scoop was the progressive thing in its day.  It began under the Liberal government of Lester Pearson, and continued under the aegis of Pierre Trudeau.  You have to have a heart of stone not to sympathize with the aim of the 60’s scoop, and perhaps if done over it could be done better.   But that isn’t the point.  The aim is to milk the theory of white guilt for all it is worth – at the expense of the Canadian taxpayers of today, not those of thirty and fifty years ago.

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Ontario's Anti-Racism Minister Finds a Lot of Work to do in Hamilton

Premier Kathleen Wynne of Ontario set up a new Ministry of Anti-racism.  The Minister was in Hamilton, and submitted to an interview by my home town newspaper.  The story opened with the Minister's conclusion, after a day's inspection, was that there was a lot of work to be done in Hamilton.

Below is my response.

Let’s set aside for the moment the natural inclination of a government minister to justify his new appointment with the line:  “A lot of work here.”  But when you are explicitly an “anti-racism” minister, saying there is a lot of work here in Hamilton is tantamount to saying that Hamilton is full of racism and racists.

I regard such statements, and the appointment of such a minister, as acts of political oppression, as divisive, and as a poison-pill intended to politically delegitimize Premier Wynne’s non-Liberal successor.

I remember as a boy the Spectator headlines of 1963 - screaming about the KKK and the real racial upheavals going on in the American Deep South.  I remember the March on Washington.  I remember Malcom X.  I remember the long, hot summer of 1967 when numerous American cities exploded in race riots.  I remember the assassination of Martin Luther King.  I remember real racism, and was young enough to be impressed by its evils.  I also remember that Canada was spared much of that.

Since the 1960s, my generation and two more that followed were raised with the example of real racism and the evil of social division.  If human culture is educatable, then the unwisdom of racism – of discrimination based on race alone - is surely implanted in the culture of Ontario, and Canada, after three generations of propagandizing.

You would think.  Yet it wasn’t until Premier Kathleen Wynne and 2016 came along, that racism became such a problem in Ontario that a Minister whose mandate it is to combat it was appointed.  How stupid we must all be.  Stupid, as in being duped.

There is a lot of political mileage to be gained by being seen as ‘combatting racism.’  After all, racism is evil, and so combatting it must be the good fight.  But is it?  In order to fight the good fight, there have to be villains; there have to be racists, otherwise the Minister would have precious little fighting to do.  Otherwise, he would be reduced to being a spouter of platitudes, like “chew your food properly,” and “brush your teeth twice daily.”  And so racism must be discovered where it really doesn’t exist.  Or exists in a degree that amounts to a highly refined matter of taste, not the robust racism that tears civic life apart.

So how must this new ministry operate?  Well, you have old, white guys like me who are the natural bearers of racism, with our white privilege and all.  Then you have twenty-something minorities who have been told their entire lives that they are victims of oppression by people like me.  Then you have a Minister, a black guy, who is twenty years my junior who says he knows what’s in my mind better than I do myself.  And he has the weight of the government behind him.  He says that people like me are racist and don’t know it, and are oppressing all these young minorities.  That’s how you accentuate civil discord, and only the government of today, i.e. the progressive Kathleen Wynne, is able to combat that civil unrest that her government fomented for political gain. 

And then we must fear a Trumpian upheaval among the less-educated older whites who will vote in mass for someone who will sweep away this foolishness.  Sound familiar?  It should, look at the political reception Mike Harris received – after he won a majority.  He is still regarded as illegitimate.

Let me address myself directly to our Lesbian premier and particularly to our black minister of anti-racism.  Your very election is proof that your accusations of racism and intolerance are false.  So blow your accusations out the wazzoo.  Mr. Minister, I know your mind better than you know mine.  Mine has been shaped not only by greater life experience, but by thirty years of the study of philosophy of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Jacques Maritain, Etienne Gilson, and Mortimer J. Adler, and by self-reflection.  Your mind has been filled with progressivist platitudes, which you very quickly run out of justifications for.  Then you are left with “might makes right.”  When you feign superior wisdom, I’m not sure if you are that stupid, or you think I am.

How stupid are you?  You know Islam is a religion and not a race.  You know that Islam is not coterminous with a race.  Yet you lump Islamophobia as a kind of racism.  You mention mosques getting attacked.  Has it not occurred to you that maybe government policies that change the demographics of society are changing things too fast?  You call on Canadians to “share our values” and “embrace those people and look for ways to make sure they are set up for success” but why should newcomers want to accept Canadian values that are shot through with racism and other evils?  Why should Canadians embrace newcomers and set them up for success - ahead of our own?  Please explain these painfully obvious contradictions.  Is it racist for Canadians to place the success of our own ahead of success of newcomers?  Is it racism for Canadians to embrace our own ahead of embracing newcomers?  If you think so, then you don’t understand human nature at all.  Give up your charge, Mr. Minister.  You are a danger to the civil peace.

I pity you, Mr. Minister.  You have been given a charge by Premier Wynne that is illegitimate.  As a good soldier, you have to carry Premier Wynne’s poisonous and divisive message, that racism is rampant in Ontario and only she and her government can stamp it out.  Neither you nor she is likely to suffer the consequences of her outrageous accusations of rampant racism in Ontario.  You haven’t got a clue what real racism looks like.

Appointing an anti-racism minister is an attempt by our Lesbian premier to foment a political crisis that can only be solved by her re-election.  Disturbing the civil peace in such a way in order to gain re-election is a most vicious way to operate.

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An Islamophobe’s Response to Dr. Raza Khan

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Feb 2017

My home town newspaper ran an article by Dr. Raza Khan, spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Greater Hamilton, a Muslim Brotherhood outfit.  He says he is Hamilton born, but I don't know how he could be Canadian educated and get the Canadian sense of things so wrong.  By his diction, you would think he was an immigrant from India or Pakistan.

Anyhow, he wrote a piece allegedly thanking Canadians for their signs of support from Muslims after six of them were killed in a mosque in Quebec last week.

The section below was submitted for publication, and the latter part would be additional material if more than 850 words were allowed.

Get your helmets on, progressives, and tighten your chinstraps.  Get the signs printed, the gasoline ready, and the two by fours ready to smash things.  An Islamophobe is about to make a forthright reply to the proselytizing of Dr. Raza Khan, contained in his article “Muslims encouraged by worldwide support.”

 To begin, in what sense am I an “Islamophobe?”  It is not in the brain-dead sense employed by Edward Said against Bernard Lewis.  I am Islamophobic in the same sense that a frog is scorpiophobic.

The story of the frog and the scorpion runs like this.  A scorpion asks a frog for help crossing a broad pond.  “I could ride on your back,” says the scorpion.  The frog says, “Yes, but you could sting me and kill me.”  The scorpion says, “But in that case we would both die, for I would drown.”  At that the frog agreed to carry the scorpion on his back across the pond.

Half way across, the scorpion stung the frog.  Looking back, surprised, the frog said, “Why?  You are going to die too.”  The scorpion replied, “I can’t help it.  Stinging frogs is what scorpions do.”

It is the natural and endemic tendency of Muslims to be Muslims that causes me to become deeply alarmed for Canadian culture, and the culture of the West in general, at the prospect of large numbers of Muslims moving into the Western world.  I am quite well read in the history of the relationship between the Christian West and the Islamic world.  (If you think it wrong to call the West “Christian,” think again.)  I have read the works of Bernard Lewis, Harold Lamb’s “The Crusades”, Oriana Fallaci, Mark Steyn, and others.  I bear the Islamic world no malice, I just think they should live in their own House.

Islam divides the world into Dar al Islam (the House of Islam) and Dar al Harb (The House of War).  Canada, Europe are the House of War, the places Islam has yet to bring under submission to Allah.  For 1,400 years it was forbidden for Muslims to sojourn in the land of the infidel, but now they are, by the millions.  Why?

Islam is absolutely incompatible with Western values.  Islam has Sharia law, laid down by Allah, and therefore unchangeable.  The West has its Charters and Bills of Rights – laws made by men.  In having to choose between law made by Allah and law made by men, the True Muslim will follow Sharia law, a law which places Muslims legally above non-Muslims and men above women.  Free speech critical of Islam, which Muslims regard as blasphemy, is punishable by death in Muslim countries, like Pakistan.  The tolerant, secular Christian values of Charters of Rights cannot stand against Sharia.

I see the insinuation of Muslim values shot through Khan’s piece.  “Today we are Muslim” the politicians and protesters declared in support of Muslims worldwide, he quotes.  Does anyone remember “Je suis Charlie” in response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris two years ago?  Same thing, same reason: empty moral posturing.

Khan continues, “…on behalf of all Muslims, thank you… We are grateful to Allah that you are all our Canadian brothers and sisters.  Your support is antivenin to those of who seek to spread hate,” he says.

Look, big time Imams can’t speak on behalf of anyone but themselves, so Khan’s thanking Christian Canadians on behalf of all Muslims binds no one beyond himself.  It was a Christian thing done by Canadians.  In Egypt, when Christian Copts are killed by Muslim gangs and their churches fire-bombed, you don’t find Muslims in the Middle East out protesting the violence against Christians.

Why?  Because Christians are being chastised in accordance with the will of Allah, whereas something is wrong when Muslims get chastised.  That simply is not the proper order of things.  Muslims are special in the eyes of Allah.

Khan goes on, “all peace-loving Muslims have been targeted for their beliefs and made to account, atone, and answer for the violent actions of other Muslims in land occupied and attacked by western armies.”  See, no Muslim gets blamed here.  The actions of ISIS, al Qaeda, are due to western armies attacking and occupying Dar al Islam.

Except that isn’t true either.  9/11 happened before the United States invaded anywhere in Dar al Islam.  ISIS arose in Syria, where the United States has never been, and in Iraq after the United States and coalition forces left in 2011.  So, the excuse that ISIS and al Qaeda are responses to western actions is simply a pious falsehood.  Tawriya as it is called in Arabic.

And then, “Media outlets world-wide seemed to make little effort to differentiate the vast majority of peace-loving, law abiding Muslims worldwide from those committing violent acts in the name of Islam…”  Again, not so.  George W. Bush bent over backwards to differentiate between radicals and followers of the “Religion of Peace.”  So did the media, and politicians from top to bottom.  The demonstrations about Quebec were further examples.  So, Khan releases another self-pitying falsehood.

When asked about the difference between radical Islam and peaceful Islam, President Erdogan of Turkey replied, “there is only one Islam.”  The president of Turkey says the opposite of Dr. Khan.

Muslims can be as Muslim as they want.  They can self-pity, and complain about everything from the Crusades to the cartoons.

Just not in my House.

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Additional material

Khan makes a theological error when he says that "We worship the same God...that many of you worship, only we call him 'Allah'"  This frankly is not true.  Islam is the most profound of Christian heresies in that it denies the divinity of Jesus.  The Christian sense of God is a triune, consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Unlike the God of Christian acquaintance, Allah is a singularity that is utterly incomprehensible and capable of contradicting himself.  Allah, in the Islamic conception, lacks the trait of aeseity.

Khan says quite properly that Islam is not coterminous with a race, and then says that racism does not stop with Islamophobia.  After admitting that Islam is not a race, he implies that Islamophobia is one form of racism!

Khan then conjures up the image of closet racists and xenophobes rising up to upset the entire Canadian establishment and anything politically correct under Trump style politics of fear and division "infused into the veins of Canadians by these politicians who have not the interests of all Canadians heart, but their own fortunes and self-interests."  Just like Trump! So, are Canadians who have fear and division infused into their veins racists and xenophobes now, or only after this stuff was infused into their veins?  How big this group is, only Allah knows, but he says we have to watch, wait, and be ready to stand up of Canada, strong and free.  Except he is calling upon Christian Canadians to do the heavy lifting, for the benefit of Muslims in Canada.

From beginning to end, Khan's piece was proselytizing for the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Canadians Standing Against Trump

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Feb 2017

A collection of recent short pieces in which I attack those Canadians who are attacking Trump.

Jan 18

RE:  Locals Join Busloads heading to Washington

A bunch of local progressives got puff-ball front page coverage from my home town newspaper for travelling to Washington, D.C. to protest the election of Donald Trump.  Like it was any of their business:

No doubt about it.  Progressives can be real assholes.  Sanctimonious assholes.

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Jan 26

RE:  Standing Against Trump

Another worshipful piece by my home town newspaper on people who demonstrate against Trump.  Oddly enough, this one actually got published.

Of course there are a lot of self-satisfied and sanctimonious people standing against Trump.  They are watching everything they believed in being invalidated before their very eyes - by success.  Noteworthy is the contrast between the way Trump is being treated and the acceptance and the bootlicking that took place under Obama.

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1 Feb

RE: Canadian Values and Taking on America’s Bully

My home town newspaper thinks it a good thing for Canada to get on the bad side of Donald Trump.  In this case, in justification for its madcap recommendation, it quoted “Canadian values,” a subject it denied knowing anything about in an editorial of 9 Sept 2016.

The Spectator editorial page needs to get its act together in respect of “Canadian Values.”

When Conservative party leadership candidate, the eminently qualified Dr. Kellie Leith, speaks of “Canadian values” the Spectator Editorial page pretends it knows of no such thing, and wouldn’t know where to look for the list.  (There is a Wikipedia entry on that subject in case the crack research team hasn’t found anything yet.)  To speak of “Canadian Values” is to make dark hints of racism and intolerance when coming from the lips of a conservative, according to previous editorials.

However, when Donald Trump puts a temporary halt on Obama’s refugee policy pending a top to bottom review, the Spectator editorial page waxes on, “We urge the PM to continue speaking up in defense of Canadian values, such as tolerance, diversity, and compassion for those in need.”

So, the editorial page can find Canadian values whenever it needs them to bolster some argument or other that it wishes to make.

For the record, Trump is president of the United States, and as such is responsible for the welfare of Americans.  The purpose of the temporary halt is to ensure that the safety of Americans is not compromised by an incontinent amount of compassion.  America is a target for terrorism as Canada is not.  Canadians can stand on their soapboxes and bray about our superiority and the wickedness of the United States because international terrorists haven’t targeted Canada yet.

In the meantime, the Spectator editorial page has found a list of Canadian values, and perhaps it might reflect a little on the matter of tolerance, compassion, and diversity in respect of America.

1 Feb

Help With Research

In case memories are short at the Spectator Editorial, you can find your denial of any list of Canadian values that you recognize in the Sept 9, 2016 edition, headlined “Dogwhistle Politics and the Conservatives.”

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2 Feb

RE:  Counter Trump

Thomas Walkom is a columnist for the Toronto Star, and the local paper occasionally runs his pieces.  He thinks Canada should do things to “counter” and antagonize the U.S. president.

In his column today, Thomas Walkom runs through a list of things that Canada could do to express its displease with President Trump and to counter the evil effects of his recent policy decisions.

The question Walkom fails to address is the one that comes right at the start, namely “why?”  Why does Canada need to express its displeasure with the decisions the President Trump makes in respect of the United States that has no effect on us?  Why does Canada need to take in more refugees because Trump has placed a temporary moratorium on refugees entering the United States from certain countries?  We’re already doing our part.

Why should Justin Trudeau “wade into Quebec’s cultural identity battle and take on Bill 62, which would ban those serving the public from wearing face coverings, such as niqabs at work?”  Walkom wants to re-ignite a national unity/distinct identity crisis for the purpose of what, exactly?  Use Trump as an excuse to salve a different sore?

The idea that Trump’s problems should be taken on by Canada is absurd.  Enough with the moral posturing already!  Canada is doing its fair share, and it is foolish to do more and disrupt the consensus we current have.

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On the Soap Box – Part 1

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Feb 2017

With the excitement of the election being over, the inclination to write on significant events has kind of waned.  My output has been lagging.

 However, my hometown newspaper has been providing opportunity, on a small scale, to keep the writing mind (an claws) sharp.  What follows is a series of small pieces of local concern primarily, but are in relation to Trump’s election or other world events.

Professor Henry A. Geroux is professor emeritus at McMaster University; his full bio is available on Wikipedia.  He is, from my perspective, an extreme leftist, a hold-over from the 1960s.  While Obama was president, he was writing articles expressing hatred for his native land.  He is a one-note Johnny in that respect.  The Spectator published on Op-ed of his, in which he talked about the need for the “normalization” of Trump.  My response is below:

  

Jan 4, 2017

With the parlance of high, extreme-leftist academe, Henry A. Giroux amply demonstrated that he doesn’t get Trump at all, and much else in the working world.

Contrary to what Giroux says, there is no need for the “normalization” of Trump, as Giroux claims is not going on. Trump is a New Yorker, and is as American as they come.  If there was a truly weird one, it was Obama, who struck me as quite un-American in comparison to his 43 predecessors.

If “normalization” of Trump is going on, it is due to the main stream media finally coming to grips with the new reality.  The MSM are getting past the denial and grief stage, and are moving on to acceptance.  The MSM lost all credibility in the election, and coming to grips with Trump is a step forward on their road to redemption.

The old media and political paradigms were smashed by Trump’s election. President-Elect Trump embodies the rejection of progressivism and political correctness, and only in the contorted perspective of leftism and progressivism - that makes the bizarre seem normal - is Trump horrifying.  America’s virtue-signalling coastal elites were beaten by the blue-collar workers of the great interior, who suffered the consequences of elitist idealism.

It must be astonishing and alarming to an elitist progressive to be weighed and found wanting by the great unwashed masses.  The elite progressive is the expert, and the unwashed masses those in need of his expertise.  Rejection of the expert must be due to a fault in the masses, he reasons.

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Jan 6, 2017

The Editorial page editor of my hometown newspaper is something like a blind squirrel.  Occasionally, even he can find a nut.  For the occasion below, Mr. Elliott editorialized that Canada’s forced adoption of a carbon tax is a good thing, even though raising taxes at any time usually is not.  I decided to try giving Mr. Elliott a little encouragement upon his discovery of a real truth.

Howard Elliott is RIGHT!

It never is a good time to raise taxes.

Why?  Because raising taxes increases the power of the government and reduces the economic power of the taxpayer, who has to pay a tax for the privilege of buying something, or merely earning a living, or dying.

Mr. Elliott argues that by raising taxes on gasoline, diesel fuel, and natural gas in Canada the world’s climate is going to stop changing.  Okay, he admits that isn’t going to happen, because what Canada does or doesn’t do is insignificant compared to the United States, China, India, and the EU.  Nevertheless, he argues that we should do penance for our use of carbon fuels because it is the morally right thing to do.

Mr. Elliott reached a moral conclusion dogmatically after the practical argument proved impractical.

A new carbon tax is not going to reduce the consumption of gasoline, diesel fuel, and natural gas because the amount is not punitive enough to change behaviour.  If the tax were punitive enough to change behaviour, the outcry would be fierce.

As the economy improves, the consumption of fuels will increase, creating both more carbon dioxide and more tax revenue.  So here we have the argument that Canadians should collectively put on a hair-shirt because it is good for us, even if as a practical matter wearing a hair-shirt will have no effect on the problem at issue.

The new carbon tax is not a tax on carbon, it is a tax on stupidity.

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Jan 11

January 11 was an especially bleak day for editorializing in my hometown newspaper.  Editorializing was found disguised as news articles and fashion articles.  What was produced on the actual editorial page was noteworthy for its poverty.  The article at the very end was of a fancy, but newly minted, lawyer arguing that a defendant in a racism case had no right to council.  Not a good day.

Today was not a good day for Spectator editorializing.  Readers found needless editorializing even in the GO section.

The news section ran an editorial disguised as a news story from AP.  The story encourages disruption and defiance of Trump in its very headline, “Sessions says he’ll defy Trump if needed.”   Jeff Sessions is one of Trump’s earliest and closest supporters.  Sessions was asked what he would do if Trump ordered him to do something unconstitutional, illegal, or unethical.  Out of this no-brainer was drawn the headline.

Readers were treated to an editorial cartoon which depicted Trump as a blonde ape.  I don’t recall ever seeing an editorial cartoon that portrayed Barack Obama as a chimp.

A tired editorial from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was regurgitated under the headline, “Replacing Obamacare with a job killer.”  Obamacare was dubbed a job killer, and in their intellectual poverty the progressives can’t think of anything original to throw at its replacement.  We don’t even know what that replacement is going to be, so calling it a “job killer” jumps the gun, and exposes the defensive set-up.

In the GO section readers are treated to a headline which asks, “Can restaurants take a stand during inauguration without alienating Trump voters?”  Those that do I hope get the Black Lives Matter/Ferguson/Baltimore treatment.  If Christian bakers and photographers can be financially ruined for taking a personal stand against gay marriage, progressive institutions can get a taste of their own stick.

Then we have today’s doozy, a newly-minted juris doctor morally shunning a union chief for the crime of doing his job too well in, “Police union chief owes Green an apology.”  What does this credentialed lawyer think a union is for?  More broadly, are those accused of unprogressive activities entitled to effective outside council?  Attacking council for his line of defence is not only illegitimate ad hominem, but is border-line contempt of court, councillor.

Not a good day.

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Jan 14

The Canadian Press ran an article that quoted the Ukrainian Ambassador as encouraging Canada to treat President Donald Trump in a patronizing manner.  Yeah, like that’s going to work!  Anyhow, it seems that no one except blue-collar America (and a few observant foreigners) understand what Trump is about.

Mike Blanchard of the Canadian Press did Ukraine Ambassador Andriy Shevchenko no favors by quoting him word for word.  If English were Ambassador Schevchenko’s first language, he would not have said that Canada should ‘educate’ the Trump Administration about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The foreign policy team of the Trump Administration are all highly accomplished men who reached the top of the ladder in either the military or business.  In virtue of that they are all self-confident and undoubtedly well informed.  I doubt that they could sit patiently while they were being ‘educated’ by a callow youth from a militarily insignificant foreign power.  I’m sure they get the worry from the Baltic States and the Ukraine about Putin.

I suspect that Trump is giving Putin every reason to put aside his military aggression against neighboring and NATO states.  If, despite Trump’s efforts at a reconciliation with Russia, Putin decides to take another bite out of the Ukraine, or try to take over Latvia, or try to force a split in the NATO alliance, that Trump will react violently and unpredictably.  In the meantime, Trump’s focus on rebuilding the US military and insisting that NATO countries live up to their pledge to spend 2 % of their GDP on defence will make a Trumpian reaction all the more potentially unpleasant to Russia as time goes on.

Trump is operating in a dimension that his critics have no inkling even exists.

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Jan 16

An article about the many failed experiments in psychology demonstrates that the fans of the soft-sciences have no clue what science really is.  Science may not be perfect, but it is imperfect in a way the author doesn’t understand.  Anyhow, climate science is mentioned.

It is quite evident that the author of the piece “Science Isn’t Perfect” came to his conclusion because he don’t know what a science really is.  His examples of “science” are in fact disciplines that seek the dignity and reputations of a science on the promise that they will eventually deliver the goods.  That’s how you get funding, by promising something you don’t yet have.

That goes for sociology, psychology, and so-called “climate science.”  The reason why all those psychology experiments failed to be reproduced is that no objectively measurable etiology was proposed, and without an etiology you don’t have a science.

“Climate science” makes extensive use of other sciences like physics and chemistry but is not a science itself, because it has no central etiology.  Climate science cannot even agree that the world is warming, let alone assigning the cause of warming being the wicked activities of man.  It was the obvious politicization of climate science twenty five years ago that told me that something was amiss.  Its conclusions fit altogether too nicely into a progressivist political narrative about the evils of western civilization.

Actual science isn’t perfect, but it does know the limits of its error.  Made-up science has no idea of the significance or validity of its data, but Arts majors are sure ready to tout alleged “conclusions” that real scientists would be circumspect about.

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