It's like giving Dracula's name to a blood bank. (Gilles Rheaume, quoted in Fredericton's Daily Gleaner, Aug. 22, 03, A6)
While I do not endorse Gilles Rheaume's reasons for saying this--as president of the Mouvement souverainiste du Quebec, he hated Trudeau's influence to stop separatism--I heartily agree with the statement.
Was it not under the over-praised Trudeau that the feds decided to downgrade Dorval and send international traffic to the moribund Mirabel Airport -- after expropriating much flat farming land? It has been a costly failure -- as has the Charter! With the latter, we are so hamstrung by a piece of paper cobbled together by extremely fallible human beings--a political document which is not based on reality--that we cannot protect traditional values that buttress communities nor our borders -- and the Federal Liberalss are still praising this man! Surely, the Charter should be ripped up and we should go back to English Common Law and precedent? Stop revering this man just because he was a long-lived Liberal. Can't you see already the elevation of the sons in the Liberal-controlled media?
Update: to the post below from The Canadians website.
Response from Thomas Nagy at McMaster Univerisity
Hi Jack . . . .
Thank for the fix. You and other Canadians continue to impress me with your civility and fair play! Have just submitted another an op ed to another newspaper entitled: "One Month in Canada is Enough: Where do I Apply for Citizenship?" Have never worked harder but been happier in my life. It's fantastic to be in a country where one is not forced to choose between:
a) empty batter [sic -- banter?] limited to sports, weather or how to make big bucks
or
b) talking about significant issues but then facing rage and/or shunning if the opinion does not match up with the main stream media, but is based on primary source documents instead.
best,
tom
Jack's response:
Canada is a great place Tom -- so is the US. We're very lucky. In some countries I'd be in jail for my views but of course you already know that.
Welcome to Canada but please keep an open mind about things. There are people out there (I added this link to emphasize what Jack is saying) that desperately want to change us in ways that I can't accept. They use any tool that they can find. I know that results in innocents getting hurt or killed but we do have to defend ourselves.
Scroll down to the picture of Nadriyeh Mohammed Fattah. I call her "Angel" and the US just got the butcher that murdered her. That pleases me immensely and in my mind SHE is what this is all about.
It keeps things simple and focussed(sic).
[. . . .]
Have a great day and send the link to the article if it is printed. I'll use it.
Later...
Jack
Bloggers do make things happen! With bloggers on the case--in fact, on several cases--in Canada, we may see a fairer dissemination of information and as a consequence more democracy--representative democracy as opposed to being governed from above, by JC and claque of trained seals.
A free and eminently fair exchange has been posted at The Canadians entitled, In My Mail: Contacted By Dr Thomas Nagy in response to Refuge for radicals, a post The Canadian had made earlier based on a media report at canada.com. Dr. Nagy takes issue with that post and in fairness, Jack posted this.
He [Dr. Nagy] asks only for fairness and he has it. I have no problem with that! What follows is an e-mail exchange with Tom.
Note that the Ottawa Citizen did NOT post Dr. Nagy's response to the editorial, an offer to post a link to his lecture. Dr. Nagy wrote:
You can access the hour-long streaming audio of my lecture at McMaster re Iraq last year at home.gwu.edu/~nagy together with a lot of my other work on Iraq.
Jack responded as the fair blogger that he is:
I'll publish your comments with a link to the story and another link to the video.
Jack published the whole exchange and links; it doesn't get any fairer than that. Leave it to a Blogger to be fair! Dr. Nagy's response is excerpted below so you'll go be intrigued enough to go to The Canadians and read the whole post.
Does Supporting Canada’s Policy of Peace through Justice = Anti-Americanism?
Thomas J. Nagy, Ph.D., George Washington University, Washington DC
Friday’s “Ottawa Citizen” editorial, “Refuge for Radicals” warned Canadians of one particular “radical academic”, me.
I’m described as an “America-hating intellectual”. “The Citizen” juxtaposed me with “America-hating terrorists operating in secret cells across America”.
[. . . .]
Since the “Citizen" is alarmed, I invite it to record my lectures and post them on the Internet. My only demand is that my work be unedited, complete, and in the public domain. My sole plea: Let the Canadian people judge!
'Winning the Cultural War'
Charlton Heston's Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum February 16, 1999
I want to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty of your own freedom of thought, your own compass for what is right.
[. . . .]
What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression? Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. You are the best and the rightist. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that and abide it ... you are - by your grandfathers' standards - cowards.
Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me." If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion.
If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe. Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism.
But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people. You simply ... disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Non-violently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King ...who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.
Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Vietnam. In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.
But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. . .
How true!
Gun controlSunday, August 17, 2003 (also reported by the CATO institute)
Guns save lives and reduce crime
Laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons have caused violent crime to drop by 4.9 percent, murder by 7.7 percent, rape by 5.3 percent, and aggravated assault by 7.01 percent. Contradicting the rhetoric of reformers, the ability of citizens to carry concealed weapons suppresses crime far more than any other factor. Only one category of crime increases when non-discretionary concealed weapons laws are adopted: property crime. The explanation is simple. Criminals switch to less dangerous crimes when potential victims are likely to be armed. Mugging wanes; car-stereo theft waxes. “The policy implications are undeniable: If you’re interested in reducing murder and rape, then letting law-abiding, mentally competent citizens carry concealed weapons has a positive impact.”
