One More Epicycle

A few months back I wrote the following, Jeopardy-style, to a graph theorist friend:

A: Hockey. And Rex Murphy.

where the question I had intended was

Q: What are the two best things about the CBC?

Well, Murphy recently addressed the Mark Steyn case — hat tip Kathy Shaidle — and he’s in classic form. It might be time to put hockey second (especially seeing how awful the Leafs are this year.)

It’s not difficult to predict where Murphy would come down, of course– despite the devastating and sharp wit for which he’s justly famous, and which tends to be associated with the political right, he’s at heart a moderate. And the good kind of moderate: no wishy-washy averaging of different views for him. Instead, he simply brings his special brand of brutal reasonableness to everything. Even when I disagree with him — on Trudeau’s greatness, for example — he respects the issues.

And as he explains, it is brutally unreasonable for a so-called human rights commission to be involved in suppressing the free speech of columnists and magazines.

Once when I was living in Toronto I was walking in front of the CBC building in the early evening and saw the man himself. I thought to introduce myself and offer a few words of fanboy praise but decided to let him be. After years of being one of only a few CBC figures willing to wander past the fences of acceptable central-Canadian (l/L)iberal-wisdom, he’s more than earned the privilege not to be disturbed by the likes of me.

From Jonathan Kay, on the collapse of Ezra Levant’s Western Standard, like its predecessor the Alberta Report:

All this bloodless market analysis notwithstanding, I was still upset to hear last week’s news – and not just because I felt bad for Ezra, whom I am now happy to call a friend. In many ways, Ezra and his magazine serve as metaphors for red-meat conservatism itself in this country: feisty, iconoclastic, resourceful and clever, but ultimately marginalized by an eastern Canadian intellectual establishment still beholden to the left-wing dogmas and anti-Western antipathies of Trudeau era.

To be fair, the standard-bearer of American conservatism in the U.S. is the National Review, and despite an illustrious history and enormous influence I don’t think they’ve ever turned a profit. Could an offbeat Canadian Western-focused conservative-libertarian magazine with limited audience and no large donor base really survive? It was, to quote one of my favourite Python skits, “an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place.”

And of course now there’s one fewer destination for Colby Cosh’s writing, and that’s a tragedy: albeit not an uncommon one for freelance writers in general, and for him in particular. (Now less “lance”, as a friend of mine might put it.)

To take this in a different direction, Michael Novak has done his best to rehabilitate the idea of business in Catholic moral philosophy. Among other things, he emphasizes that the man who employs others in good and lawful tasks is doing an excellent and praiseworthy thing, not merely by achieving a good end (providing service to his customers) but giving his employees the opportunity to do the same and legitimately earn a living. Doing good to make it possible for others to do good is itself a good.

Honourable failure in such a task — whether it’s related to the always quixotic missions of Canadian conservatism or not — isn’t reason to celebrate, obviously.. but there’s no shame in it either.

Cheers to Levant and company for holding the banner.

Steve Janke lays it down in a fascinating post entitled “Canada needs the NDP” (no, but seriously):

For a conservative, a liberal serves the purpose of contrasting his views and highlighting to the voter the potential futures at stake. The same goes for the liberal. An honest liberal or conservative would admit that, once in a while, the other side has a better take on an issue, or at the very least, is offering up something worth considering. But for the Liberal Party of Canada, other parties serve no purpose, because as a party without vision, the Liberal Party doesn’t require contrast. How can the other parties have a better take on the issue of the acquisition of power and money by the Liberal Party? It makes no sense when those are the only issues that matter. The Liberal Party doesn’t need opinions, all the Liberal Party needs is votes when an election happens. Best if these other parties were gone altogether in order to make the elections simple. The choice to voters: confirm the Liberal Party’s position of power or…well, nothing else, really.

I find myself agreeing with him. My Dipper friends have an almost endearing lack of connection with reality, but on their good days they can be touchingly earnest. I think his argument that Canada will be better off for having the NDP as the alternative to the Conservatives is correct.

There’s another excellent reason for conservatives to prefer having the NDP in opposition: as Janke notes, they will inevitably become more centrist, which should allow the misnamed “Conservative” party to move to the right.

My insistence on the point may be tiresome, but it’s still true for all that. The CPC made a deliberate decision to abandon many historic principles of Canadian conservatism on the grounds that more centrist goals were the only ones achievable. I disagreed with the choice at the time, and complained about it loudly at the pub.. although the narrowness of the last election suggests they may have had a point tactically. I’m still not convinced it was the right decision strategically.

Anyway, Janke offers much food for thought for observers of the Canadian political scene.

As a rule, I avoid stepping into comment sections for other than one-timers.. but I’ve thrown my hat into the ring over at David P’s blog.

We consider the idea that “in long periods of war, violent crime tends to increase as people become more and more desensitised to violence”, and the IMHO farfetched possibility that such an effect involving the UN-sponsored Afghanistan campaign will result in higher Canadian crime rates. Homicide rates in the UK and in the US are discussed.

The invaluable Steve Janke comments on the recent Mark Holland “there will be consequences” threats aimed Alberta’s way, riffing off an interview by Charles Adler, and captures the contemporary Liberal worldview perfectly [emphasis mine]:

Holland: Take a look at the energy that’s required to extract it from the ground, uh, even, there’s a report, now when we look at it, it’s gonna require something like 20 nuclear reactors at 600 megawatts in order to just provide the power necessary for THREE times the existing capacity.

Adler: So, would a Liberal government ban that from happening?

Holland: Well, what I think what we would do is that we would manage that resource responsibly and we would.

Notice that Mark Holland does not say a Liberal government would use less energy or more. He refuses to be pinned down on just exactly is the right amount to use. All that matters is that if Liberals were running the show, things would be reasonable and responsible, but not necessarily different.

Janke goes on to note that this the-same-but-different approach of the Liberals puts Holland in the unfortunate position of having to hold several different positions on the same policies. Those interested in Holland’s mental health should hope the Liberals don’t return to power anytime soon or he’ll have to handle not merely triplethink but quadruplethink as the laws in question become good again..

I miss Canadian politics. It’s distinctively Canadian — both boring and strangely appealing. And it’s comprehensible. Sure, it’s a little odd.. but once you get used to it, everything makes sense, from Garth Turner doing Something To Attract Notice on regular intervals to the Liberal emphasis on Lenin’s Who Whom with less concern about What. (Who? The Liberals. Whom? Everyone else.)

By comparison, British political life is more extreme and yet less varied, and very difficult to get a handle on, for this outsider at least.

I’m as astonished as Cosh was (hat-tip), but it’s true. Sheila Copps wrote a really interesting article.  For my money the best part is this:

At one point, I hosted a dinner at the Canadian embassy in Paris for then-French minister Catherine Trautmann. Trautmann was planning an international meeting to which she intended to separately invite the PQ minister. When the subject came up, I politely informed her as a sovereign country, Canada would determine the composition of our delegation. At the time, political upheaval in Corsica had just led to a couple of arrests, and I pointed out that if she felt compelled to issue a separate invitation to the Parti Quebecois, I would have to invite a separate Corsican delegation to our next international rendezvous.

Trautmann literally choked on her dinner. She claimed there was absolutely no legitimate comparison between the state of Corsica in France and Quebec in Canada. She further pointed out that France does not permit separation since the country was deemed indivisible during the French Revolution. Voila. End of story.

“Voila.  End of story.”

Ouch.  Ms Copps, you can write: I could’ve worked for a day and not come up with something so perfect.

Taylor Owen wrote a positive review of Michaëlle Jean’s performance. Along the way, he writes (referring to Jean’s appointment as Governor-General):

Well, you can imagine the uproar from the conservative punditry. David Frum and minions just about had aneurisms, shamelessly pushing a litany of ‘better suited’ candidates (all -surprise!- old, white, and male.)

Unfortunately for Owen, as Frum notes in reply, his list isn’t all old and white and male. Blogger makes snarky point without reading source material, trusting instead in his prejudices about other people’s biases: surprise!

Worse yet, as Frum explains, Owen somehow neglects to mention the single largest concern that people had with Jean: her support for Quebec separatism, including her friendliness with the terrorist variety. You can write off his inaccurate description of Frum’s list as mere inattention to detail driven by his own certainties, but Owen must have known about the separatism concern — it was the single most controversial subject at the time of the nomination, requiring the Prime Minister (then Paul Martin) to make what I hope was an unprecedented declaration that his choice for G-G was indeed a committed Canadian — and yet in his opinion it didn’t merit a mention, even to dismiss the criticism.

One wonders why, and I look forward to seeing Owen’s response.

In the meantime: to the box with him!

UPDATE: Owen replies thusly in the comments to the post:

The distain from a certain faction of the conservative right in Canada to Michaelle Jean’s appointment was beyond ‘reasoned critique.’ Take a quick read through Frum’s and others’ pieces on her. They are filled a level of anger and resentment that whatever reasoned arguments may lurk, are masked by thick layers of vitriol.

This is remarkably vague, and instead of presenting any concrete references instead makes generic and hard-to-verify comments about what he sees as masking layers of vitriol in both Frum’s work and that of unspecified others. The descent into broad comments about the emotional state of those who disagree with your view isn’t usually a sign of enormous confidence in one’s position.

Speaking for myself, who was also unimpressed with her selection, I don’t think I was filled by anger and resentment.

But then, as an ex-girlfriend once noted, I’m dead inside.

His recommended alternatives where all qualified, certainly, and one was female, yes my mistake (they were all middle aged and white though, so I stand by that one). The main point is, they were all your typical voices of Canada.

Actually, Owen said they were “old”, not that they were middle-aged. Since presumably we should choose only distinguished men and women for the position of Governor-General, and it takes time to distinguish oneself in a lifetime of accomplishment and service, they should typically be “old” in his sense, and his evidence of bias is in fact a necessary criterion. Jean herself is fifty or so, I believe.

As for “typical voices”: John de Chastelain, Hilary Weston, and Robert MacNeil certainly aren’t typical Canadians. (To be literal for a moment, MacNeil’s the only one whose voice I’ve heard, and he has a great one.) Owen may have a point with Rae or Charest, but they’ve made substantial sacrifices to serve the public, despite my profound differences with them both.

As for the ‘terrorist’ connection – This is obviously hyperbole. Did she have separatist sympathies at some point in her life? So did Trudeau and many others who at some time in their lives, rightly questioned the status quo establishment Frum so conservatively seeks to protect.

It’s true that if she had merely had separatist sympathies, then accusing her and her family of terrorist connections would be not only hyperbole but a vile slander. However, as convicted and unrepentant FLQ terrorist Francis Simard is a close family friend, along with several other FLQers, I think it’s not hyperbole but painful truth.

The “some point in her life” phrase is a nice touch, though, given that she’s refused to give a straight answer to the question of how she voted in the 1995 referendum which almost broke up the country. If not being able to honestly say you never voted to shatter the nation to pieces doesn’t rule you out of being the Queen’s representative then I suppose it doesn’t matter who the Governor-General is because there’s no nation there to worry about.

This, however, is mildly amusing:

ps. Even Frum’s ’standards’ could not catch that it is Porter, not me, who is the historian. that’s it, now it’s getting personal!

There’s a law which says that anyone correcting anyone else inevitably makes a mistake. I’m too lazy to look up the name, but it’s comforting to know it still holds.

Via Kathy and Kate, a darkly amusing story:

Bob Rae was the target of anti-Semitic attacks during the Liberal leadership contest, motivated at least in part by the fact that his wife is Jewish.

Sources close to Rae say that his wife, Arlene Perly Rae, was approached during last weekend’s convention by a delegate who didn’t realize she was the candidate’s wife. The delegate told her not to vote for Rae “because his wife is Jewish.”

Perly Rae stonily informed the delegate that she was the wife in question. The delegate beat a hasty retreat.

I said it was dark humour, didn’t I?

I’m unsurprised, though I’m more used to such opinions coming from self-described progressives than capital-L Liberals. If this indicates the increasing progressification (?) ‘progress’ of the Liberal party it doesn’t bode well for the future.

Speaking of anti-Jewish sentiment, and at the risk of calling down Godwin’s wrath on my head, there’s something I find very familiar about the socialist-anarchist mobs who protest WTO conferences and the like. (Yeah, I know socialism and anarchism aren’t compatible. You have to let it ride: their logic does not resemble our Earth logic.) Not sure who first pointed this out to me or if I noticed it myself.. that’s the problem with mentioning things you’ve been thinking about for a long time: you’re not sure if you’re plagiarising or not!

Back in the days of Weimar Germany, Communist and Nazi mobs would roam the streets and beat each other up. Despite their alleged differences, both groups would complain about the same three things: capitalism, international bankers, and the Jews. Today’s progressive mobs have simply updated the terms, and instead they complain about neoliberalism, multinational corporations, and, well, it’s still the Jews.

It’s always the Jews.

When it first became clear that I was coming to England, many people asked if I’d be taking out UK citizenship. Because of my mother’s birth in Scotland, it wouldn’t actually be that difficult, though time-consuming.

No way, I said.

When pressed, I tried to explain that citizenship means something to me. I’m proud to be a Canadian, as frustrating as I find my nation sometimes; and even if I weren’t, it’d still be who I am. We may not have one of the world’s all-time great cultures, but despite the confusions of those trapped in the multicult, we do have one. And it should be celebrated for itself, on its own account.

I have nothing against the English or the Welsh, but I’m not one of them, and don’t think it’s appropriate for me to fill out some form and become a citizen of their land. And although I’m ethnically a Scot, I’ve never even set foot in Scotland. Doubtless when I go up north I’ll find many things which resonate deep in my soul, but also many things which drive me crazy. Certainly enough that goes on here in London does.

After all, there’s one thing which all Canadians of British descent have in common: they, or their ancestors, left. They left and came to Canada. Certainly I’ve been told that the Scots who left Britain tend to be more independent-minded and entrepreneurial than those who stayed, and my experiences so far suggest that may be true.

Moreover, becoming a citizen would mean becoming a subject of the EU.. and I hate the EU, both in implementation and in principle. It’s centralized, bureaucratic, uniformity-inducing, weak, arrogant, condescending: all the worst elements of transnational progressivism rolled up into one Brussels-run nightmare. I expect half of my beliefs fall afoul of some EU law or other.

Citizenship should be deeply connected with identity, and if I’m unwilling to adopt the ways of a people and consider myself one of them, then I shouldn’t become a citizen. If that makes some things a little harder than they would be otherwise, so be it.

So when I was reminded that Dion has dual French and Canadian citizenship, I agreed there was a problem. I also agree with the suggestion that he’ll have to make a decision. Unlike our Governor-General, he didn’t choose to be a French citizen, but he did choose to run to lead the nation.

Dion must renounce his French citizenship.

As a follow-up to my earlier post about the SGPS-endorsed Day of Action Against Canadian Participation in Zionist-Crusader Imperialism Or Something Like That, an interesting story came out of the other London.

Mike of The London Fog encounters a peace-loving entirely nonparanoid protestor who later turns out to be a completely average citizen.  Mike kind of had it coming, though.. he was wearing a poppy, after all.

You have to love it.

H-t Darcey at Dust my Broom.

Several years ago a faculty position opened up at the physics department at Queen’s in the astronomy group, and a shortlist was made. The astrograds took a straw poll and our views about the various candidates were conveyed to the search committee. Unfortunately one of the profs didn’t think much of our opinions, and he launched into a table-pounding rant which included describing us all as ’second-rate graduate students’.

As you might expect, after the story broke the phrase became instantly popular, and calling something second-rate became an inside joke for months. To really insult something you had to call it third-rate.

That memory’s what I thought of first when I read about al Qaeda’s latest Can-con screed, which describes Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan as second-rate Crusaders, a phrase Zawahiri’s fond of.

Methinks we’ve touched a nerve with the Egyptian doctor..

Now there are many people in Canada — Jack! most prominent among them — who act like bad caricatures of themselves when it comes to dealing with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Islamofascist threat.

(My suggestion: we send Jack! himself to meet the Taliban negotiators. I ask only that he describe the NDP platform on important social issues to the Taliban representatives before discussions begin. It’s possible, though by no means guaranteed, that his successor will have more sense; in any case at least he’ll have a head.)

Jack! is far from alone in this. Playing the role of useful idiots (dhimmidiots?) back home at Queen’s, for example, are my old friends at the SGPS. The grad students’ association decided it was their place to take a stand against the War in Afghanistan and last week invited people to a Day of Action or something. The response the president gave when I asked what mandate they had to take political positions on behalf of the student body? Well, no one ever said they couldn’t, and the Executive doesn’t like the war.

Actually, when the war in Afghanistan first started, not long after 9/11 — not all of the funerals were done, as they were still recovering bodies — the SGPS sent out an email asking if anyone was available to carry the SGPS banner at some anti-war protest. Because, of course, it was self-evident that fighting the Taliban was wrong, and that the SGPS was a political action committee, and it didn’t dawn on the young woman making the request that anyone could possibly think otherwise.

Fortunately here at One More Epicycle we speak for no one but ourselves.

So there’s nothing inappropriate about me saying that I support the troops and support the mission in Afghanistan. My only concerns about the mission come from the fact it’s UN-endorsed. I’m proud to be part of the great Zionist-Crusader conspiracy, and proud of all those who serve it. I offer my heartfelt gratitude to the members of the Canadian military, both in-theatre and at home, and to their families, for their sacrifice. Their memory shall be eternal.

Let the Maple Lions roar!