Welcome to Canada, don't mind the raving moonbats
Babble on.
Paul at Ravishing Light scores an Instalanche with his photoblogging of the pathetic lemmings gathered in downtown Ottawa:
I hope not shaving, messing my hair up, and wearing an old jacket is enough to infiltrate the crowd. No one's capable of more violence than Persons of Diversity and Tolerance, and I don't plan to get hurt in the name of citizen-journalism, if at all possible.
Debbye at Being American In T.O. has no flashy photos, but instead posts typically insightful commentary:
In other words, the president, from a position of decidedly stronger domestic strength than, say, Prime Minister Martin, is extending his hands in friendship; a lesser man would behave far differently, but I doubt rabid Bush-haters will recognize or understand what they are seeing.
Wiser heads may reflect that he is capable of doing so because he has much bigger concerns than personal pique or feelings of self-consequence; they will even recognize that he is indeed a leader because he can consign the slurs and insults to their proper place and keep this young century's chief challenge at the forefront of his agenda.
He is determined to give credit wherever he can, to encourage the efforts - large and small - to the allies in the war on terror, and to continue to build that coalition and urge it forward.
She's right: Bush follows that theme precisely, and even the CBC can't find a way to report around it. I've said before that I think Bush has the best speechwriters around, and they've proven me right once again, as their boss manages to deliver the best one-liner I've heard in awhile:
I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave, with all five fingers, for their hospitality...
Heh. Welcome to the Great White North, eh?
Babble off.
posted by Babbling Brooks @ 4:53 p.m.
3 comments
3 Comments:
I just returned to Canada after 7 years, and am just now spending a few days going through bloglists trying to see who's interesting to read on local stuff.
Those pathetic lemmings that you describe out there went out, knowing that secret service and RCMP guns would be drawn, to give voice to their passionately held views, however misguided they might be. We all want to be heard; and protesting in person today requires a little more commitment than posting nasty, insulting messages on blogger.com.
Every single right and liberty we have came from fighting for it and protesting its lack. It's vital, cruicial that people have the freedom to keep fighting, keep protesting, keep having their voices heard.
Of course, that means there'll always be lots of people protesting things we aren't sure of, or even deeply disagree with. They might even protest in the name of something pretty stupid. And God bless them for it; for having the passion and the courage to stand up in person for something in a day and age when it's too easy just to tune it all out and not care.
Every time we mock people for disagreeing, and for dissenting, society becomes a little less free.
Anyway, I guess that's one more blog to cross off the list of having something interesting or challenging for me to read. For some reason, a lot of the especially dissapointing ones all seem to be displaying that red never-quite-a-Canadian-flag. I guess that's the badge that you're in the angry, mocking club of people who read each other's blogger blogs. It's kindof sad that a piece of Canadian history, however minor, should come to mean such a thing.
Peace,
Jonathan
Well, it'll soon be time to join the Protest Warriors.
Me, I'll reserve the right to mock people who carry signs like this.
Free country and all that. For all of us.
Not all ideas are equal, Jonathan. The people holding those differing ideas certainly are -- but the ideas themselves are not. Theories supporting totalitarianism, racism, or eugenics, for instance, are not meritorious and deserving of respect the same way way that treatises supporting democracy and the equality of all men (and women) are.
There's a big difference between silencing dissent and challenging the dissenters to argue or verify their theses. Arguing ideas is not silencing in and of itself. Unless, of course, the ideas do not hold substantive merit and can't survive a rigorous examination. One should hope that fatuous and unsupportable ideas die a natural death, otherwise ludicrous ideas like national socialism and chattel status for women would still be with us.
If ideas have substantive merit and virtue they will survive argumentation, gain traction, and prosper into the long term. If they do not, they will fizzle and die. I don't see any tragedy in that.
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