Thursday, April 14, 2005
Values and morals in Canada
Is this man trying to bring the U.S. culture war up here. Probably. beccause conservatism is getting its ass kicked up here
Jax
Klaus Rohrich - As and adjunct to my column last Monday, wherein I take voters to task for the quality of our government, I’d like to talk about Canadian values. Over the years I often hear politicians talking about what Canadians want. Alexa McDonough was famous for starting her rants with "The people of Canada want/do not want…" and then telling us what she did/did not want. Another famous expert on Canadian values is the current Prime Minister, Paul Martin, who during last year’s election campaign positioned himself and the Liberal Party as being synonymous with true Canadianism. Conversely his references to the Conservatives’ "hidden agenda" were clearly indicative that they were the exact opposite.
If you what to know what Canada's values are please allow me to recommend two books: Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values and The New Canada : A Globe and Mail Report on the Next Generation. The two clearly demonstrate that Canada is what the Liberals and NDP describe: tolerant, individualistic, and culturally curious. People who don't like to be told what they can and can not do. This is the main thing that Klaus here doesn't get. Canadians hate to be bossed around by authority figures, particularly religous ones.
I recall numerous voters talking about how Stephen Harper and the Conservatives "scared the hell" out of them because of their leaders’ religious beliefs. Interesting concept. People who hold essentially moral beliefs "scare the hell" out of us, while those who nihilistically believe in nothing but hanging onto power are representative of Canadian values.
The rest of us also have a moral code. It is different then the one put forward by the religous dogmatists. We do not consider it moral for other people to command our lives. For example: It is immoral for the state to control a woman's reproductive life. An other exaple: It is immoral to tell two people who are in love that they cannot marry. Harper and the conservative "scare the hell" out of us because they do not share our values. To us their behavior is immoral because it is intolerant and authoritarian. Two things Canadians can not accept.
The columnist Mark Steyn recently made an interesting point. Writing in The Western Standard, Steyn postulates that had the Quebec separatists of the 1960s opted not to reject Catholicism, Quebec’s dominant religion, then quite possibly la belle Province would be la belle country today. The reason it isn’t is that rejecting religion and its attendant moral teachings has resulted in Quebec having the highest number of abortions and the lowest birthrate of any jurisdiction in North America. So when the time to hold the referendum came around, there weren’t enough young Quebecers to carry the day for the separatists.
If Quebec had not rejected the Catholic Church there would be not seperatism, because the church is a force for pacifying the francophone majority so the anglophone minority could continue to run the province. Hence Mark Steyn doesn't know his Quebec history. Since he writes for the Western "Lets end human rights" standard this may not be a surprise.
Steyn’s point is that had Quebecers not discarded the moral teachings of the church, there would have been fewer abortions and more births, meaning that there would have been a lot more young Quebecers who might have voted "oui".
It’s not a stretch to see how this could apply equally to the rest of Canada. In the new, improved Canada, Canadian values are represented by high welfare rolls, intrusive government, the destruction of our traditional culture in favour a multiculturalism, reduced productivity, high taxes and a steep decline in the birth rate. The luminaries who are creating this brave new country deem embracing old-fashioned ideals "reactionary". Hence anyone espousing conservative values, or religious beliefs, or traditional family values must, by definition, have a "hidden agenda".
High welfare rolls? I guess he must have missed the last decade. intrusive government? You mean government that would poke its nose in the love affairs of Canadians, i.e. ban same-sex marriage. The destruction of our traditional culture? the racist culture that calling women "incorrigible" and locking them up for years for sleeping with their lovers (especially if it was interracial). the traditional culture that sent thousands of Jews back to german death camps. Is this what we should be proud of. Is this what we should defend? I say good riddance. Reduced productivity? When has our productivity gone down? High taxes? Only if your wealthy, lower and middle class Canadians has comparible if not lower tax rates then most of the U.S. And low birth rate? Has this goof not realized that there are too f**king many of us on this planet. We can choose to get our population under control by lowering our birthrate, or it will be done for us war, disease, famine and genocide. I vote for low birthrate it seems more reasonable to me.
It’s also interesting to note that the voters of Ontario who are responsible for the Liberals getting re-elected would prefer to choose a government that has no values, rather than one that has traditional values. We've covered this. Your values don't match those of the rest of the country. This week’s polls showing that the Liberals and Conservatives are neck in neck is living proof. Despite all the smoking guns stinking up the Gomery inquiry the Liberals are at the same level of popularity as the Conservatives. Some Toronto radio stations were carrying the usual man-in-the-street interviews, which yielded an embarrassing array of moral bankruptcy. Many of those asked thought that the conservatives may not yet "be ready" to govern. Some thought that this scandal was Jean Chretien’s scandal, despite the fact that Paul Martin was in control of the government’s purse strings. I’m wondering what it would take for Torontonians to finally get fed up with the Liberals; being sold into slavery?
I can answer Klaus's question. What do Torontians need to get fed up with the Liberals? An alternative that isn't racist and homophobic. An alternative that shares their values.
I bet that downtown Toronto will elect a green before a conservative.
It appears that Canadians, particularly those living in the Greater Toronto Area, enjoy being robbed and lied to by their elected officials, which is either indicative of a serious guilt and self-loathing problem or a terminally compromised moral compass.
Canadians consider themselves morally superior to Americans. Who knows, maybe they are. But if Canada’s birthrate continues to hover at its current 1.48 births per woman, there soon won’t be any Canadians left to feel superior. As a nation we would be well advised to carefully examine the hogwash the Liberals have been feeding us about Canadian values these past 12 years. Under close scrutiny it appears that having "Canadian values" means having no values at all.
Only to blind hack fanatics like Klausy here. Close scrutiny show a people that are willing to sacrifice for their beliefs. Having your money stolen by a government is a sacrifice. We know it, but it is how we have defended what we believe in: freedom and tolerance. Exactly what the Conservatives want to take away.
I almost forgot, here is the link.
