Our shifting 'moderate centre'

Babble on.

Kate at The Last Amazon has brought attention to a Jerusalem Post article that shows just how 'centrist' Canada, the moderate and balanced voice of reason, the honest broker, has performed on the world's most divisive issue on the world's biggest stage. The truth is that we have performed abysmally:

Let's begin with the United Nations. Here Israel's friend, Canada, has voted against Israel 78 times, abstained 38 times, and voted in support of Israel, by its own admission, only once – although a phone call to Israel's UN delegation in New York was unable to confirm even that.
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And if all the above was not sordid enough, how is this:

Canada's porous refugee and immigration laws have allowed PFLP terrorist Mahmoud Mohammed Issa Mohammed, convicted in the hijacking of an El AL plane and subsequent killing of one person at Athens Airport in 1968, to live comfortably in Brantford, Ontario, while enjoying refugee status.

Mahmoud Issa is a convicted terrorist and murderer, he lied his way into Canada in 1987. Thirty appeals later and he is still here and running a candy store in Ontario. According to this Stephen Brown article it has cost the Canadian taxpayer $3 million and counting.

I've only recently embraced the clumsy and inadequate label of 'right-winger'. For years I resisted, preferring to think of myself as a centrist. But I finally realized the centre of political thought in Canada has shifted away from me, away from Canadian traditional values, away from historical allies, and away from principled leadership.

The other Kate, of small dead animals, points today to a story on the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and their threats of legal action for libel against David Frum and the National Post.

Until recently, [CAIR] has had considerable success winning acceptance in the United States and Canada as something close to an official spokesman for local Muslim communities. CAIR has been influential in advocating for a sharia court to arbitrate divorces and other family-law matters in the province of Ontario. CAIR's strong criticisms of Canada's anti-terror legislation have won respectful hearing in Ottawa.
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Over the past 10 years, CAIR has grown rapidly. It now claims a total of 29 affiliates, including CAIR Canada. CAIR's media savvy won it much official attention after 9/11. With that attention, however, also came a higher degree of scrutiny.

Since 9/11, three CAIR associates in the U.S. have been indicted on terrorism-related charges.

That an organization like this has become 'mainstream' in our proud country speaks volumes about how rudderless we have become.

I don't want Canada to be 'balanced', I want us to be 'fair'. I don't want our government to be 'centrist', I want it to be 'principled'. I don't want our leaders to give equal weight to every opinion when not every opinion is equally sound. I want our country to stand for something again.

That's why I fly both the Red Ensign and the Maple Leaf on this site: to remind us all not only that we have a past, but also that that past would undoubtedly be instructive in how we should chart our future, if only we would study it and respect the lessons it teaches.

Thousands of years ago, Solomon threatened to cut a baby in half, and taught us that simpleminded compromise and the illusion of evenhandedness is no substitute for sound judgement. It's long past time we remember that wisdom.

Babble off.