If you’ve ever wondered what the meek will be like after they inherit the earth, have a look at a modern democracy after the left wins an election.
Actually, it doesn’t even need to be an election. A favourable court ruling will do.
Point being, you will see waves of intolerance, outbreaks of idiocy and, at no extra charge, lots and lots of smugness.
In Canada, as Liberal Justin Trudeau has been installed as prime minister, along with his quota-based cabinet, a George Clooney-type cloud of smug wafts over the capital and, conveyed and exacerbated by major news outlets, into every home in the nation.
Liberals are many things: Race-obsessed, certainly; smug, you betcha; but, more than anything, they are good ol’ fashioned stupid – so much so, they’re not even wrong, they’re just out where the buses don’t run.
For example, raise your hand if, since Justin’s election victory, you or an opinion-maker with whom you agree has criticized the Liberal worldview only to be countered with, “You don’t understand how democracy works!”
The presumption transgresses stupidity into a kind of derangement: We won the election, therefore you no longer have the right to disagree with us.
Specifically, the Liberals were elected by fewer than 40 percent of the Canadian electorate, with a lower percentage of the vote than the Conservatives, led by the Dread Pirate Harper, had won four years before and somehow, they think this gives them a monopoly on acceptable opinion.
We understand democracy just fine. It is the left who don’t understand how Canada works.
Similarly, when I ascribe near-dictatorial powers to a Canadian prime minister with a majority, as I and others have done for decades, we are pointing out a bipartisan condition of the nation’s parliament. Canada lacks the Constitutional checks and balances of the United States, or even the intraparty leadership mechanisms of other Westminster systems, such as Australia or the United Kingdom, and therefore vests greater power in its head of government.
Benighted to this basic and uncontroversial fact of the country they were so eager to “take back,” Liberals absurdly suppose that we are making a charge against Justin in particular, then point to some dastardly excess, real or imagined, of his predecessor, who is irrelevant to the discussion.
But since they keep bringing him up: I don’t give a sweet tinker’s damn about Stephen Harper, never much cared for him, and rarely write about him. While he deserves credit for winning in the first place, he did his party, and his country, a grave disservice by hanging on too long and losing.
About the nicest thing I’ve said about Harper is that he was the best available leader in this recent election – the other options being Justin, Thomas Mulcair, and Mulcair’s beard.
And now look where we are: A really rich guy who used to be a mime or something has been given his dad’s old job and near-total power and we’re all supposed to say that’s super. Moreover, any dissent is an affront to “democracy!”
Speaking of dissent, remember when it was the highest form of patriotism? In the United States, that was when George W. Bush was president. But somewhere about 12 noon on January 20, 2009, when Barack Obama took over, dissent became racist.
It happens that fast, gentle reader.
Let us return to that aforementioned, quota-attaining, ceiling-shattering cabinet of Justin’s, as it provides a valuable object lesson.
“Great to see the diversity!” enthused a city councillor of my acquaintance, who has been described as a spinning 8-ball of leftist clichés.
Ah, the diversity!
Bathe in it. Rub it all over yourself. Don’t be shy, really get in there.
To leftists, as you know, diversity means people who look different but think alike.
Diversity of opinion, however, is so not cool.
And therein lies an advantage of the right. Conservatives are culturally bilingual. We know what the left thinks, awash as we are in their bilge from our first day in school, to every movie and TV show, to every time we are trapped in an airport lounge, forced to watch CNN.
About us, they haven't a clue, hence the absurd caricatures they construct of conservatives as unintelligent troglodytes or vampiric billionaires. Moreover, they have an extreme, phobic reaction to arguments from the other side, like someone who burns down their house to kill a spider.
I am scrupulous about including my email at the bottom of every column I publish, such that the like-minded may heap praise upon me and the angry left may unburden themselves, if they must.
Most important, if I have made a mistake or my ideas can be improved upon, I wish to know.
I endeavour to write back to every person who writes me, positive or negative, but I find the secondary-market discussion interesting.
Detractors, in particular, would rather talk about you than to you. They'd rather take a picayune point that they disagree with, or likely don't understand, and make a day of it elsewhere than come to you for clarification. Because, as you know, it isn't about you at all.
It's about them, their bias confirmation, tapping that reward center, being affirmed by their tribe.
Kathy Shaidle is fond of saying that it is best to read online columns from the bottom up – that is, start with the comments (take note, Sun Media).
Taking her advice to heart, I considered some leftist reaction to my most recent column, starting with this gem:
“Seeing that our new Defence Minister wears a turban and our new Minister of Democratic Institutions, who is in charge of reforming our entire electoral system, is a 30 year old Muslim woman. It’s so great to have our country back.”
See, that is how people know you’re stupid. That, right there.
Harjit Sajjan, Canada’s new Minister of National Defence, is a human being, with skills and aspirations – and, according to some reports, a legitimate ass-kicker – and you reduce the man to what he’s got on his head.
Throughout history, wonderful deeds and dastardly acts have been performed by people in all kinds of headwear.
It is even rumoured that Beethoven composed his entire Eroica symphony while wearing Hello, Kitty! earmuffs. And so?
To be clear, I don’t care if the Defence Minister comes to work in nothing but a codpiece and a unicorn mask, softly singing, “My horn can pierce the sky.” I care what he thinks and how competent he is. I know, I know, that’s racist.
And to be clearer still, for gentle Liberals who deliberately misunderstand in order to call someone a bigot, I am not making fun of people in turbans – I am making fun of you.
Another commenter, whom I believe to be Margaret Atwood employing a nom de plume, wrote:
“Justin just kicked your political ass…It’s about time you started acting Canadian.”
That last bit is at once ominous and idiotic, is it not?
Where, pray tell, is one sent to learn to “act Canadian”? And by whose standard?
To readers of a certain vintage, it is familiar to hear Liberals once again lecture us on how their values are, ipso facto, “Canadian” values.
No, you dweebs, they’re just your values, and north of 60 percent of the country didn’t vote for you, either.
And while we’re at it, I’m tired of being told how “sunny” I’m supposed to be. My country has just elected as its leader the dumbest man I have ever seen wearing a tie. Don’t expect me to act chipper.
I’m not interested in playing along, or going about grinning like an imbecile while the nation is stupefied and ransacked. It is my patriotic duty to help elect someone else at our earliest opportunity.
And anyway, our new, sunshine-worshipping overlords aren’t as cheery as all that.
On “social media,” the inaptly termed domain of the most unsocial, light-averse, pock-marked wretches known to man, their misery is even more pronounced.
We who opine in the public square, particularly from the right, are acutely familiar with the standard liberal rejoinders. Time was, you couldn't say boo without some online vigilante calling you a racist. That still happens, of course, but even the left seems to feel that's getting a little played.
My favourite epithet is “someone called,” meant to characterize you as beneath their notice, even as they are clearly noticing and writing about you, as in, “Someone called Theo Caldwell is a H8R and needs to STFU #lovewins.”
This is, some anonymous internet dork purports to have read your work, then goes to the trouble of commenting on it, but feels the need to preface his queeny remarks by pretending he doesn’t know who you are.
Since you don't know me, would you value my opinion more if I told you I were wearing a turban as I type? Top hat? How about a sombrero?
Of course not, because these prejudices only go one way.
Likewise, if, say, Lisa Raitt or Michelle Rampel were to become Conservative leader and challenge Justin in the next federal election, would these people cooing about all the women, women everywhere in the Liberal cabinet be as excited about electing a female prime minister?
Watch this space.
Meantime, maybe ask Sarah Palin or Carly Fiorina how that "break the glass ceiling" stuff works out when you're on the right.
Liberals may be race-obsessed knobs and gender-parity fetishists, but only when it suits their interests.
To the left, politics is everything, and it isn’t just personal – it’s religious. They yearn to be ruled, to bow down to a god of their own making. Since Moses, liberals have been worshipping a Golden Mooncalf in one form or another.
And, like true believers, they are relentless. From being barely alive like Steve Austin after the crash, they always come roaring back, dumber than they were before: Dumber, angrier, more smug.
Indeed, when Justin is conjuring a thought, you can almost hear that bionic noise as the scene goes to slow motion.
For example, asked to explain the deliberate 50-50 split of women and men in his cabinet, he replied, "It's 2015."
The follow-up should be, "Exactly. And in 2015, can we not treat people as people, judge them on their merits, or must we continue to apply quotas, as though we are nothing more than our colour or sex?"
But no, not only is the pat answer accepted, Liberals praise it and hashtag it and point to it as a feat of superhuman mental strength.
In case you are unprepared: Justin will say similar, shorthand, stupid things over the next four years, and each emittance will be lauded as Solomonic wisdom. Get used to it.
But Liberals, like all fanatics, harbour a secret doubt. They can't name it, maybe don't even recognize it, but if we're right and they're wrong, their universe collapses.
Let's speed this up a bit: We are right, Justin is a very silly man, and they should take their citizenship more seriously than to put someone like that in charge. Geez, he's not even wearing a hat.
Our hope is that, once the Liberals are done playing with the shiny buttons, breaking things, and putting things in their mouths that they really shouldn’t, there will be enough left of our country to rebuild.
Theo Caldwell made you look. Contact him at theo@theocaldwell.com
