Posted: Peter O'Donnell @ 05/ 10/ 06 7:41 pm
The year past -- crisis to hope
-- Peter O'Donnell
Was it only a year ago? May, 2005 -- the time when the embattled Prime Minister, widely known as "Mister Dithers," was fiddling with constitutional procedure to stay afloat. Yes, the time of Belinda's conversion to Liberalism, and the adventures of Gurmant Grewal. And more to the point, the time when we were very frustrated conservatives, knowing that our country was slowly circling the drain, and that there seemed nothing that could be done to save it from oblivion -- certainly nothing that occurred to Chuck Cadman or a handful of Liberal backbenchers who could have voted another way.
And so it went on for six more months, a government full of rhetoric and the almost legendary inability to focus on fact, pompously marching on like some military band on the deck of the Titanic, leading here, there and everywhere, except to a coherent vision of Canada and its future.
Then came the hard-fought election, and the narrow victory of the Conservartive Party, followed by what must be acknowledged as the most competent display of governance in Canada since the first term of Brian Mulroney or the best Trudeau had to offer in that regard, think what you might of their politics.
So are we out of the woods now? Hardly. We stand like an army on a hill, the fog of moral and political confusion swirling around us, not united so much by what we believe to be right, but by what we know to be wrong.
And in that, lies much danger, and only faint promise. The nation has not changed as much as Ottawa has changed. There is still that widespread mindless belief in the enabling myths of liberalism, the cherished "Canadian values" which can be choreographed by the still-robust Liberal Party to mean almost anything, but usually something anti-western, anti-American, anti-constitutional, and anti-Christian. Sorry if you're not from around here, and you're not used to plain talk, or you find it, umm, vaguely American, but that's just the way we are here at Free Dominion.
Even an elected Member of Parliament can make one false step, like Mr. Vellacott just found out, and the state religion of political correctness still has enough sting left in its tail to slay him, or at least wound him for a time. The apologetics are, frankly, nauseating (and on my TV as I write) -- Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla states that Vellacott's criticism of the Supreme Court attacks the "foundation of our country" in terms of an attack on "the independence of the judiciary." Exactly, she's worried that somebody will dig under the Martinite foundation of the Trudeaupian revolution and find an entirely distinct foundation of our country, and one where Supreme Court justices interpreted the law and were not self-appointed revolutionaries looking for new ways to expand an undeclared socialist revolution.
Similarly, while half of Canada realizes that we are honour bound and duty called to serve an international cause in Afghanistan, the other half, as represented by the NDP and the ever-wavering moral vacuum that is the Liberal Party (not to mention the Bloc), see fit to throw up their hands when the other side fights back, and points us teary-eyed to Darfur, now that even the doctors of E.R. have sanctioned that cause. Now, there is no debate that the international community should act to alleviate suffering and avoid genocide in Darfur (or what's a heaven for?) but that doesn't imply that our presence in Afghanistan is anything but vitally important, noble, and good for our national character after a generation of anti-American temper tantrums.
This counter-revolution is just as undeclared as the revolution it seeks to overthrow. How typically Canadian is that? We are having our own Prague Spring, and we're too shy to give it a name. We'll be fighting for the soul of our country with the zombie-like forces that swarm out of the pit at the daily trumpet call of the state religion (political correctness), in complete anonymity, and out of sight of the national or international media, because they won't even be able to conceive that such a struggle is possible.
Even our own Conservative government can hardly believe it themselves, although I find Stephen Harper cunning like a fox in this way -- he knows that to state openly what our counter-revolution entails would be to awaken forces half asleep for many years, put in place by the Trudeaucrats a generation ago in some cases, and renewed by Chrétien and Martin, but bought and paid for by your tax dollars, and ironically, by your decency and your dislike for conflict.
We would do well to remember what T.S. Eliot wrote: "this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper." Or a parliamentary committee, same difference, when it lays down its elected sovereignty at the throne of the appointed third power of the constitution. Judge not, lest ye yourselves be judged, I suppose -- there is clearly no higher court in this land.
The year past -- crisis to hope
-- Peter O'Donnell
Was it only a year ago? May, 2005 -- the time when the embattled Prime Minister, widely known as "Mister Dithers," was fiddling with constitutional procedure to stay afloat. Yes, the time of Belinda's conversion to Liberalism, and the adventures of Gurmant Grewal. And more to the point, the time when we were very frustrated conservatives, knowing that our country was slowly circling the drain, and that there seemed nothing that could be done to save it from oblivion -- certainly nothing that occurred to Chuck Cadman or a handful of Liberal backbenchers who could have voted another way.
And so it went on for six more months, a government full of rhetoric and the almost legendary inability to focus on fact, pompously marching on like some military band on the deck of the Titanic, leading here, there and everywhere, except to a coherent vision of Canada and its future.
Then came the hard-fought election, and the narrow victory of the Conservartive Party, followed by what must be acknowledged as the most competent display of governance in Canada since the first term of Brian Mulroney or the best Trudeau had to offer in that regard, think what you might of their politics.
So are we out of the woods now? Hardly. We stand like an army on a hill, the fog of moral and political confusion swirling around us, not united so much by what we believe to be right, but by what we know to be wrong.
And in that, lies much danger, and only faint promise. The nation has not changed as much as Ottawa has changed. There is still that widespread mindless belief in the enabling myths of liberalism, the cherished "Canadian values" which can be choreographed by the still-robust Liberal Party to mean almost anything, but usually something anti-western, anti-American, anti-constitutional, and anti-Christian. Sorry if you're not from around here, and you're not used to plain talk, or you find it, umm, vaguely American, but that's just the way we are here at Free Dominion.
Even an elected Member of Parliament can make one false step, like Mr. Vellacott just found out, and the state religion of political correctness still has enough sting left in its tail to slay him, or at least wound him for a time. The apologetics are, frankly, nauseating (and on my TV as I write) -- Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla states that Vellacott's criticism of the Supreme Court attacks the "foundation of our country" in terms of an attack on "the independence of the judiciary." Exactly, she's worried that somebody will dig under the Martinite foundation of the Trudeaupian revolution and find an entirely distinct foundation of our country, and one where Supreme Court justices interpreted the law and were not self-appointed revolutionaries looking for new ways to expand an undeclared socialist revolution.
Similarly, while half of Canada realizes that we are honour bound and duty called to serve an international cause in Afghanistan, the other half, as represented by the NDP and the ever-wavering moral vacuum that is the Liberal Party (not to mention the Bloc), see fit to throw up their hands when the other side fights back, and points us teary-eyed to Darfur, now that even the doctors of E.R. have sanctioned that cause. Now, there is no debate that the international community should act to alleviate suffering and avoid genocide in Darfur (or what's a heaven for?) but that doesn't imply that our presence in Afghanistan is anything but vitally important, noble, and good for our national character after a generation of anti-American temper tantrums.
This counter-revolution is just as undeclared as the revolution it seeks to overthrow. How typically Canadian is that? We are having our own Prague Spring, and we're too shy to give it a name. We'll be fighting for the soul of our country with the zombie-like forces that swarm out of the pit at the daily trumpet call of the state religion (political correctness), in complete anonymity, and out of sight of the national or international media, because they won't even be able to conceive that such a struggle is possible.
Even our own Conservative government can hardly believe it themselves, although I find Stephen Harper cunning like a fox in this way -- he knows that to state openly what our counter-revolution entails would be to awaken forces half asleep for many years, put in place by the Trudeaucrats a generation ago in some cases, and renewed by Chrétien and Martin, but bought and paid for by your tax dollars, and ironically, by your decency and your dislike for conflict.
We would do well to remember what T.S. Eliot wrote: "this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper." Or a parliamentary committee, same difference, when it lays down its elected sovereignty at the throne of the appointed third power of the constitution. Judge not, lest ye yourselves be judged, I suppose -- there is clearly no higher court in this land.