As the expression goes, if you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.
Specifically, if you find yourself made queasy by the group hugs among our new Liberal rulers, our moral and intellectual superiors in the news media, and the people we pay to make our lives that much more difficult through the public bureaucracy, you are in excellent company.
And since the Canadian federal election, you’ve been under pressure to get in line and start smiling like everyone else, haven’t you?
Resist that pressure to conform, push through the nausea, and keep speaking your mind.
Don’t be fooled by all the grinning, oleaginous calls for comity and putting differences aside. As I’ve written previously, this is what the left always does after winning an election – they declare the time for partisanship is at an end and it’s better that you just get with the program rather than stick to your principles.
Ask yourself – would they be so accommodating if we had won? Were they so eager to beat swords into ploughshares last time we prevailed?
Instead, I propose that we keep taking the piss out of them for the next four years at least, until we are hoarse and our ribs ache from laughing. Not only will this numb the pain and pass the time, but liberals are at their preening, unattractive worst when on the business end of humour.
It’s not that they can’t take a joke – it’s that they willfully refuse to acknowledge a joke when it’s at their expense. Rather, they attempt to recast mockery as intolerance, hate, violence, and, of course, “anger.”
It’s been awhile since I first supposed that “angry” is the new “racist.”
That is, the leftist tactic of accusing every opponent of racism having grown tired from overuse, they instead denounce those who disrupt sandbox play as furious and unhinged.
My own commentary has been called harsh. This puts me in mind of the one time I ran for public office, 15 years ago. I was 27 years old and advocated a few simple ideas: more free votes in Parliament, fixed election dates, lower taxes, and reducing government spending and debt.
For this, and for the unpardonable sin of running against the Liberals, I cannot count the number of times I was called a racist.
One morning, while canvassing outside a subway station, some urban beta-male (whom I guaran-damn-tee is some kinda Twitter tough guy nowadays) called me a Nazi, flashed a “Heil, Hitler!” salute, then ran through the turnstile and down the stairs before I could discuss it with him further.
I and my fellow candidates, many of whom were likewise economy-focused amateurs participating in the process for the first time, were called “bigots” and “Holocaust deniers” by a Liberal cabinet minister who shall remain nameless (hint: It was Elinor Caplan). And that person goes around with “Honourable” in front of her name.
Yet I’M harsh? Serve it on toast.
They’re getting better at it, but not much. A commenter on my previous column took issue with my characterization of Liberals as bionically stupid, but inelegantly attempted to conflate my derision of the left for their ideas with bigotry of the worst kind: “Every time someone expresses hatred towards another party, race, country, etc., by pigeonholing them and describing them in black-and-white ways, they are doing a disservice to society and to themselves.”
See how that works?
My ridicule of the left in general and Liberals as a party is juxtaposed with racial and national prejudice, in hopes of drawing an equivalence. Also, it’s “hatred.”
Never mind that judging people by skin colour rather than character content is the exact opposite of what I propounded. Persiflage is upgraded to incitement, as well.
Watch for that move.
The left cannot defeat you with ideas, gentle reader (to the extent they have any, they’ve all been discredited by the 20th century), but they will criminalize you if you’re not careful.
Beat them to the punch and never apologize, it says here.
And as to this “hatred” business, let’s dispense with that right now, my leftist friends: I don’t hate you and I’m not angry with you – no moreso than I could hate or be angry with a two-year-old monkey.
I think you’re misguided, I’m often embarrassed for you, I do worry you’re going to hurt yourself by chewing through a cord or swallowing car keys – but hate? Never.
The disingenuous little flower who attempted to re-characterize me from a poor man’s Mark Steyn (which I strive to be) to a Republican Robert Byrd (as if the GOP would tolerate one) concluded his whinge with a familiar plea: “Take the ‘other’ to lunch and listen to them.”
Ah, the old “listen” routine, as though we can ever escape hearing from the left. Now I’m meant to buy them a meal, too?
We’ve listened, we’ve heard you, and we think you’re already out to lunch.
This is reminiscent of agitators perpetually calling for a “conversation” about race, gender, what-have-you, or people who want to tell you about their religion but almost never want you to tell them about yours.
Of course we listen and talk to them.
We hear from liberals in the media non-stop, both in news and entertainment. We even have an inside joke with them about the movies and TV shows they produce (more of a plot twist, actually): Look for the first character to profess Christianity and he’s the true villain, in league with Big Business and neo-Nazis.
And they’re always full of good tips for real-life Christians about what Jesus would think about this policy issue or that one, and how we can adjust our views to be more Christ-like.
On a personal level, we talk to them all the time. They teach our kids, for heavens’ sake. They’re the ones who organize the Peace Assembly (formerly, “Remembrance Day Service”) and the Winter Festival (formerly, “Christmas Concert”).
Theirs is the mindset that gave us political correctness, government-enforced multiculturalism, and mandatory bilingualism coast-to-coast. (Speaking of which, I happened to read the French label on my shower curtain this morning: “Rideau de Douche.” Sounds a lot like Ottawa these days.)
Which brings us back to the news media, the Liberal Party, and members of the risibly named “public service.”
Of course journalists are feeling “sunny.” Their party was victorious.
Civil servants are all giddy, too. Like Arthur and England, the left and the bureaucracy are one.
Kevin D. Williamson calls the government payroll a more dignified form of public dependency for relatively low-skilled and mainly unenterprising people, whose main purpose is to stand between citizens and the things they wish to achieve, charging a fee to get out of the way.
It’s a question of who’s king of the castle.
Someone suggested to me that the next Conservative leader should promise two billion dollars for the CBC on the campaign trail then, after winning the election, put Ezra Levant in charge of the place.
Howzat for a hidden agenda?
You’d have the Friendly Giant digging oil fields with his bare hands. Tell me that’s not win-win.
Alas, the current CBC is just as it always was. Still, one wonders at how swiftly they go from antagonistic to prostrate once their preferred party takes power.
Peter Mansbridge is smarter than Justin Trudeau (heck, Peter Puck is smarter than Justin Trudeau). Why, then, does the venerable newsman feel the need to give the young ruler a full rub-down on the occasion of his swearing-in?
Is it purely pecuniary, as the Liberals have promised to give the CBC more money? One senses it is less a matter of quid pro quo than simply a shared ideology – and identity.
It is notable that both men have had wonderful careers handed to them with very little effort.
Mansbridge tells how he was hired by a CBC manager who liked the sound of his voice when he made a lost luggage announcement at the airport (perhaps the last unbiased report he ever gave).
And as for Justin, well…
We on the right have long since come to terms with that the CBC is about. We also accept that, among the rest of established news media, there is precious little comfort to be found.
About the Toronto Star, the less that is said, the better. As for the Globe and Mail and its affiliates, their girlish squeals that pass for analysis are barely worth mentioning.
The National Post, which features some genuinely top-notch columnists (take a bow, Chris Selley), is nonetheless too ideologically confused to be reliable.
Indeed, this is a long-standing problem and is part of why the then-Editor in Chief invited me to write columns for that paper almost a decade ago. I did so for three years, often frustrated by a hard-left opinion editor whose views on abortion, for just one example, made Henry Morgentaler look like Rick Santorum.
He also, in our first meeting, advised me that his major challenge was finding female columnists. Naively, I wondered aloud if his major challenge weren’t to find simply good columnists, such that readership would increase. I was young(ish) then, and not yet fully aware that, in the leftist worldview, everything – education systems, military and foreign policy, and certainly media outlets – are nothing more than the apparatus for politically correct, social engineering claptrap.
Consider another of the Post’s opinion editors, Andrew Coyne, who recently resigned his editorial position (while bravely keeping his lucrative column space) when the publishers spiked his endorsement of the NDP, and you get the picture.
Writing in the Post, Christie Blatchford purports to chide Mansbridge for conflicted and shoddy journalism. What she ends up doing is slagging Mansbridge for not massaging Justin quite the right way.
Justin’s a genius, you see, for not making too much of softball questions and letting Mansbridge do all the work. He not only found Justin’s lost luggage, he carried it for him, too.
It’s a question of perspective. J.J. McCullough has written a tremendous piece imagining what it might be like if the media reported on Stephen Harper’s first day in office like they reported on Justin’s.
Because when it’s a Liberal ascending, it’s “sunny ways,” no matter what. For just one example, as we speak, they are literally dumping tons of crap into the St. Lawrence River. Can you imagine the hysterical media outrage if a Conservative Environment Minister signed off on that?
I have heard from a number of people who suppose that after Justin inevitably founders in office, the media might admit their mistake. Fat chance. As with Barack Obama, they will double down, blame everyone else, and willfully deny the obvious.
But the market is changing. One feels for victims of now-routine layoffs at large media companies but, from a consumer’s perspective, it’s not hard to see why this happens. Traditional news media are predictably leftist, humourless and flat-footed. Who wants to pay for that?
New outlets, like The Rebel and Taki’s Magazine, represent a different business model. Even so, it’s often suggested that the powers that be will try to stifle us, or haul us up in front of one of their little star chambers. If only.
My friend Kathy Shaidle and I are in competition to see which of us can be first to garner a “human rights” complaint. We know you’re out there, you little crapweasels, and a word of advice – you’re better off sticking with me.
Put yourselves in a room with Shaidle and she’ll make what Ezra and Steyn did to you look like Mansbridge interviewing Justin.
(Incidentally, ever notice that “Human Rights Commission” has the same initials as “Hillary Rodham Clinton”? Discuss.)
Fortunately, we no longer have to hold still and be lectured on what is acceptable, or funny, or hateful or out-of-bounds by a handful of privileged, coddled, news media fossils.
You know why?
“Because it’s 2015.”
Theo Caldwell is the monster at the end of this book. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com
