Dismemberment and Pieces

Soooo, D&P is funding abortion lobbyists in the developing world huh?

Don't know if you've been following this one, but lots of Canuckistanis are all in a tizzy over it.

I've been thinking a bit about this whole kerfuffle and have found it an interesting exercise to examine where the objections are coming from. LifeSite did a little digging, (and it didn't take much) and discovered that the social development agency of the Canadian Catholic Bishops is funding a large number of very energetic leftist/feminist groups in places like Mexico and Nigeria who, surprise surprise, have as their main interest loosening, by any means fair or foul, legal restrictions on abortion.

I pointed out something on a LSN conference call a few weeks ago that I thought would have been obvious.

There are certain segments of the Canadian Catholic Church who have reacted with fury at LSN for daring to lift that rock and take a peek at the wriggling things living under it. Bishops and bishops' minions have screeched at us like vampires dragged out into the sun.

Why?

Is it because LSN has found and published information that is not true?

No. Everything that was published about this subject is easy to verify, just by looking up the relevant .gov.ca web pages.

Is it because LifeSite has asked that D&P funding be suspended?

No. There has been nothing published but the who-what-where-whens. Calls for D&P funding to be halted or suspended have come from elsewhere.

It's this:

D&P represents the heart and soul of the Canadian Catholic Church. Everything that D&P does and is, everything it stands for and believes is emblematic of how the Canadian Catholic Church sees itself. D&P is the essence of Canadian Catholicism.

If D&P is grossly corrupt and its habits and beliefs are, (shall we say for the sake of brevity) incompatible with the teachings of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, then...

Well.

One begins to understand the reason for the shrieking.

"It's getting chilly lately hey?"

I hear that a lot.

In England.

I usually laugh.

These people run the country

Why Canadians don't like Tranna.

They've noticed!

finally:

US State Department on religious freedom in Canada

International Religious Freedom Report 2008
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Civil liberties organizations, the media, and some members of Parliament occasionally criticized federal and provincial human rights commissions and tribunals for their application of hate speech restrictions included in federal and provincial human rights acts, claiming that the commissions and tribunals at times limited free speech and expression, and religious rights. The commissions are required by law to process all complaints they receive.

A complaint against the editor of Catholic Insight, alleging the magazine promoted hatred against homosexuals,remained before the Canadian Human Rights Commission at the end of the reporting period. The complainant alleged that he was upholding Catholic teaching on homosexuality in the magazine.

Making us look good to all the world.

So, it looks like the crack Canuckistani Peace-Love-Groovy Tolerance Squad has struck again.

Nice going there. Good work.

Once upon a time

in Canada,

There was a club. It wasn't much of a club, just a big empty expensive space. Rumour had it that it had been built for something else that never happened.

So a bunch of strangers wandered over one by one and started using the space. It was more or less free. It wasn't licensed or zoned or any of that stuff. There had never been anything like that before, so people made up their own rules for using it.

Some people put on punk rock concerts. Fans and performers cursed, spat and fought. Within the confines of the club, that was "normal."

Some people staged fights. Within the confines of the ring, people battered each other until they bled. Had they fought outside the ring, outside the club, someone would have called the cops.

There were burlesque shows and insult comics and debates.

The space was the birthplace of many relationships, political movements, businesses large and small, and more. Everybody understood how it worked.

They understood -- because it was patently obvious -- that magic spells were an entertaining fiction. That asking stupid, crazy questions -- "did six million really die?" -- didn't somehow kill six million more people. That questioning global warming didn't make the world hotter, or even colder. Words were not nooses or bullets or fists. They were words.

It was like a movie or a play. Only children or simpletons thought that violence and deaths they watched on a screen or a stage were real. Oh sure: that didn't mean that in the entire history of movies, some poor guy had actually died on the set because a stunt went terribly wrong. But that wasn't the norm. Nobody said: let's shut down all of Hollywood, just in case... People die. That's life. Or used to be.

Then one day the lawyers showed up.

The lawyers couldn't decide whether or not to join the club or shut it down.

Being lawyers, they decided to do both.

First they showed up and shouted, 'hey, there's a FIGHT going on in here!' And everybody laughed at them.

So they gave brash speeches like other folks did, and sometimes these speeches were outrageous, rude and insulting, packed with lies. But if you heckled the lawyers or challenged their behaviour, they sued. Afraid of being sued, lots of long time clubbers simply left.

Other veteran clubbers defied the lawyers. They got sued, too, then got tired of that and left. The club wasn't the same anyway now.

When the lawyers weren't in the club, they worked for Very Special People called politicians, or became politicians themselves.

These politicians were allowed to say whatever they wanted about each other without being sued, in a club of their own, called Parliament. When they were rude or outrageous, other politicians cheered or booed. But that's as bad as it could get, because their special club had that special rule.

The lawyers didn't see the irony of this. They were lawyers, after all...

After the penultimate lawyer in the club sued the last lawyer left, the club was purchased by a bunch of lawyers and politicians and turned into a factory that manufactured children's bike helmets that also filtered out particles of peanut butter.

The best part was, the filters were recyclable!

And that's how lawyers destroyed the internet.

This was just too good not to post in full.

Kathy can sue me later, when she's finished being ruined by the minions of Sauron.

As well hung for a sheep as for a lamb

Seems the government of Canada is keeping a closer eye on the Catholics. Never know when something "questionable", like Catholicism, might come out of them into the public realm and start upsetting people.

Fr. de Valk might as well start saying the MOAT. If you're going to be arrested anyway on suspicion of Catholicism, might as well go all the way.

No Guarantees

Warren on the Canadian voting public:

While I unburdened myself last week of my contempt for Canada’s Governess-General, her Chief Justice, her Prime Minister, and other, undesignated officials -- in the affair of what I have come to call the “Order of Morgentaler” -- I’m not sure the people of Canada have yet been sufficiently condemned, and I will devote this week’s column to rectifying that oversight.

On the issue of same-sex marriage -- a proposition put in referenda before many U.S. states and consistently rejected by huge margins -- there was a similar swing. Canadians began totally opposed, were split by the time the “courts had decided,” and by now are, so far as I can see, hugely accepting.

Now, I am a Catholic, and my Church teaches that “despair” is a sin (since it involves the abandonment of hope in eternity). So I opt instead for “desolation,” which is not a sin, merely a psychological response to everything around one being in an advanced state of disintegration. For civilization requires, among other things, a general populace with moral ideas that cannot be altered by the slightest breeze.

Oh David, don't be silly. Christ only guarantees that His Church will survive. He said not thing one about civilization surviving. That's up to us, and we don't care in sufficient numbers.

Well, not all of it,

just the bits they don't like.

The Herald gloomily predicted, “Let a citizen of modest means utter a politically incorrect thought: He will be crushed.”

That is what happened to the Reverend Stephen Boissoin. In a letter to the editor in the Red Deer Advocate, he protested the homosexual agenda, and was hauled off before the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The complaint—sound familiar?—was that Boissoin’s words were “likely to expose homosexuals to hatred or contempt because of their sexual orientation.”

The panel ordered “that Mr. Boissoin . . . shall cease publishing in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches, or in the internet, in the future, any disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.” He was also ordered to apologize in writing for the article, and was fined.

As the Catholic Exchange reports, “In essence, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal is ordering . . . the minister to renounce his Christian faith, since his opposition to homosexuality is based upon the Judeo-Christian Bible.”

I'm sure the Alberta Human Rights Commission and Pastor Boissoin can find "common ground" on some issues of Christianity. That Jesus was nice to old people, say,

or liked little kittens...

Some thoughts on Morgentaler's Order of Canada

Officially, Henry Morgentaler was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada for:

"his commitment to increased health care options for women, his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy and his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations."

Let's deconstruct.

"Increased health care options for women".

Something I have learned in the course of all this in the last ten years is how little words mean any more. Words, language, has been the first victim in the shift to the political Mirror Universe we have undergone in the last century. Culture is almost entirely about words because culture originates in thought, and for humans, thought means words. Orwell knew all about this. As did the founders of our culture, Lenin, Mao and Stalin. There are no longer words, only political euphemism, now that all language is interpreted solely though the Marxist lens.

To Mao, words are not symbolic sounds representing objective realities: "Words are like little dynamite sticks in people’s minds...”

I've talked about this before. Our culture has accepted the notion that ideas and words are entirely separate things and that words have no necessary relation to reality. It also believes, rather paradoxically, that a thing becomes what the word says it is.

Abortion is women's rights. It is women's health. The mantra has been repeated so many times that the thing has conformed to the label.

To the Canadian government committee that decided to give Dr. Morgentaler this award, abortion has become women's rights, women's freedom. Abortion is women's health. The idea that abortion could possibly be anything else is one for which there is no longer any space in their heads. Those puzzle pieces do not match up.

"his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy"

Morgentaler's political efforts have indeed been highly successful. But his cultural work has been, I think, the more significant. Because of his work in the political realm, 100,000 people are killed legally every year. But his cultural success means that no one may say anything against that unless he wants to be entirely pushed to the sidelines of society. He has, by changing the meaning of the word "abortion", made opposition to abortion one of the most grave social crimes.

By entirely framing the issue as a matter of "women's health care options" and "women's freedom", any opposition to abortion is necessarily cast as opposition to women's health and freedom. What kind of person opposes "women's health"? Only a monster. Only someone who is so evil and twisted that he cannot possibly deserve a hearing.

Does no one ever stop and ask, "Is this really good for women? Is abortion actually a matter of women's health or is it all about something else? Does legal abortion actually make anyone more free?" No. Humans frankly are not really all that intellectually curious. If a man in authority, a white coat, or a black robe says a thing is so, it is so. With the help of the media, abortion = women's rights has become the new flat earth. It's just something everyone knows.

Principled opposition to abortion, therefore, is an oxymoron in the minds of people who have only considered the issue in the terms given by the media. If a discussion ensues, it does not take more than a moment to get to the shrieking part. (Trust me on this one.) As Barbara Kay points out, Dr. Morgentaler's success in shutting down debate, while it might be seen as a good thing by people who are not interested in the rules of a free and democratic society, can not by reasonable people be seen as a good for Canada. The reaction of pro-aborts to opposition is normally normally a short range from dumbfounded astonishment to shrieking hysteria to violence.

As Margaret Somerville put it recently:

Political correctness excludes politically incorrect values from the "all values are equal" stable. It shuts down non-politically correct people’s freedom of speech. Anyone who challenges the politically correct stance is, thereby, labelled as intolerant, a bigot or hatemonger. The substance of arguments is not addressed; rather people labelled as politically incorrect are attacked as being intolerant and hateful simply for making those arguments.

Another part of the same strategy is to reduce discourse to two possible positions. One must be either pro-choice on abortion and for respect for women and their rights, or pro-life and against respect for women and their rights. The possibility of being pro-women and their rights and pro-life is eliminated.

But what has acceptance of abortion done more broadly? To people's minds? To our "social cohesion" as they like to call it on this side of the Atlantic? What does it mean to a society that the killing of a child is so deeply equated with freedom?

John did a little follow up to his thing from yesterday about the newspaper polls. I looked at them all last night and saw this disparity:

The poll by CNews was the only poll not to offer a simple "yes" or "no" choice, instead giving the option of, "Yes, he's a champion of women's right," or "No, he's a murderer." Despite the strong epithet of "murderer" being applied in the negative response, a higher number of respondents to the CNews poll still voted that, indeed, Morgentaler is a murderer, and does not deserve the Order of Canada, than voted that he is a champion of women's rights. 47% said he is a murderer, while only 43% said he deserved the award. 11% said they were unsure. A total of 4129 votes were received by CNews.

Look at the incredible stark and irreconcilable choice between the two options.

1. Henry Morgentaler is a noble champion of women's rights.

2. Henry Morgentaler is a mass murderer.

Here we have in a nutshell the fault line of our entire culture. And it is pretty vast. It's actually so huge we can't really describe it as a fault line. It's a chasm. These two ideas to describe the same man, are so disparate as to render absolutely impossible any discussion between the sides.

We have one half of society, 47 percent, saying he is a ruthless, remorseless, calculating murderer of innocent children. A man who has spent his life not only killing the innocent, but making enormous amounts of money off it, and so radically altering Canadian society that that it has become almost impossible in polite circles to say this out loud. Johnathan Kay, in his National Post piece the other day, started out with a disclaimer (that he may have actually believed, Kay is a bit of an odd duck) that he was not going to call Dr. Morgentaler a "monster". My thought was, "If a man who has done these things, and shows not the slightest remorse, does not qualify as a monster, I'd hate to meet the man who does."

On the other side of the divide, we've got 43 percent, calling him a "champion of women's rights". A hero of freedom. And of course, we have the elites of Canada going so far as to make him, literally, into a national symbol. According to the governing class of Canada, Dr. Morgentaler and his work, are symbolic of Canadian national identity.

This is, by the way, why I have nothing but contempt for the Stockholm Syndromed quasi pro-life groups who are trying to play nicely. The other side knows perfectly well the distance between the two sides. But the position of being opposed to "increased options for women's health" is so despised by the culture that many in the pro-life movement have cringed away from an open acknowledgment of it. No one likes to be hated. No one likes to have such nice people screaming in their faces and calling them fascists. But the choice is too stark. The only way of moving away from the shrieking is to move away from the position: "you can't kill people to solve your problems". There is no middle ground, just a vast open space and a ten thousand foot drop. You have to be on one side or the other, and all the advantages are on the other.

I had an archbishop once ask me if we could please focus on avoiding divisiveness in the pro-life movement. I regret that I did not have the courage at the time to remind him that truth is divisive, and that we have the word of God on that.

"his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations"

Which are these?

Wiki:

Morgentaler was the first president of the Humanist Association of Canada from 1968 to 1999. He remains the organization's honorary president. On a number of occasions, he appeared opposite Christian theologians or evangelists on campus to debate the existence of God.

The Humanist Association of Canada is rather misnamed I would say, and is yet another example of the use of language not to identify and describe, but to hide and obfuscate and confuse. The HAC is a promoter of secular humanism, the philosophy of extreme materialism that rejects theistic religious belief and adherence to belief in the existence of a supernatural world.

Secular humanism posits that there is not only no God, but, paradoxically, no reason to regard human beings as important. Despite the name, secular humanists are invariably champions of radical animal rights that proposes that some or all species of animals have an equal moral value to human beings. The animal rights movement has grown out of the same philosophical flowerbed (materialism and utilitarianism) which has, as the flip side of the coin, also moved us, through Dr. Peter Singer and his kind, towards a cultural dedication to euthanasia and infanticide.

So the Canadian ruling class has identified called Dr. Morgentaler's campaign against religious belief as being worthy of reception of Canada's highest civilian award. In doing so, the Canadian ruling elite has openly acknowledged itself to be an enemy of religious belief.

To the governing elite of Canada, and of course of the rest of the formerly Christian west, abortion, infanticide, atheism and euthanasia, are what we are striving towards as a society.

I realise that the habit of using euphemism is now so ingrained that they likely do not notice, but one would think that instead of using this kind of language,

"his commitment to increased health care options for women, his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy and his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations."

they would by this time be confident enough in their ascendancy to say what they really mean.

Freespeechiness Roundup

Have been letting the Canuckistan situation lapse:

* ~ * ~ *

Steynianism 138: On the Internet and its threats

As a welcome tool for the powers that be, old-media, and power-mongers, let’s face it: a free web is the enemy. Ordinary peasants like you and me with info, connections, Googling facts, and making blogs and websites on any possible topic? Troublesome. Uppity...God & Jesus & Christianity? Bad. Roman Christianity? Very bad. Internet? Bad. Free speech? Really bad. Peasant slavery? Good. Prison/ re-education camps? Good. Sponsoring terrorism? Good. Oil & Jihad? Good. Democratic freedoms? Very very bad.

* ~ * ~ *

From the Canadian Department of Justice: Truth and Fair Comment No Defence in Human Rights cases

The defences of truth and fair comment remain available to torts such as defamation and seditious libel, regardless of the medium in which they occur. However, none of the traditional media can avail themselves of these defences in cases of alleged hate propaganda, whether the communication appears in print, on television or on a website.

38. As the Federal Court has explained, defences that may be available in tort actions are not available in cases of hate propaganda because the prohibition is concerned with adverse effects, not with intent.

[traduc: it is a crime only if the person who is offended against feels offended.]

"I guess that's why the new totalitarians equate Oriana Fallaci a journalist who told the truth, with Ernst Zundel an anti-Semite who lied because truth does not matter."

* ~ * ~ *

You can now join a Facebook group at which some Canuckstani Infidels are raging against the dying of democracy:

Here's how the Canadian Human Right's Commission works (CHRC): If an individual feels offended by what somebody has written, they can go to the commission, lodge a complaint and the commission’s lawyers will investigate the case at taxpayers’ expense. Although the plaintiff pays nothing, the defendant must defend themselves with their own money, and if they are found guilty, they must pay fines out of their own pocket and can be subjected to lifetime bans on their ability to talk about certain issues.

An act as simple as posting the picture of Muhammad could be considered a hate crime, and in fact, there are people currently being forced to defend themselves in front of the commission for doing just that. In another case, a Maclean’s magazine article was investigated for hate crime violations after the President of the Canadian Islamic Congress found it offensive to Muslims.

* ~ * ~ *

Kathy:

On June 2, Mark Steyn will be convicted of "spreading true news."

What a difference twenty years makes. And we have liberal self-aggrandizing bathroom Nazi hunters and cowardly, careerist Conservative hacks to thank for this, not just arrogant, ignorant Muslim beligerents.

Those of you who've been placing your trust and hope in electoral party politics -- and not just on this issue -- are deluded. By all means continue to write letters and sign petitions, but bear in mind that they will mostly be either ignored or will not be able to change the minds of a sufficient number of time serving cowards.

However, you can always live as we've already won:

Write and draw what you will. Step out in faith. Don't ask for permission first or apologize later.

Change the culture -- the Law will catch up later. Or not. But we can't afford to wait.

You can always get another job. But you only have one conscience.

OK, now, go throw a little money towards the defense fund. Also, R.A.G.E. Media and others are setting up internet things that allow you to buy or receive some cool stuff that will contribute to the cause.

Big CSIS is watching you

Kathy reports:

Another Canadian blog being spied on -- your tax dollars at "work"
"BlazingCatFur logs visitors from Defence Research Canada and the Canadian Human Rights Commission this morning.

Ha ha ha !

Can't get ME you bastards!

(think I'll just take a quick look at the site stats though...)

How's the weather over there?

For all our Kathy-originated Toronto and assorted mid-west visitors, I guess you guys must have pretty much dug yourselves out by now huh?


Ah, how well I remember it. In fact, I quite distinctly remember the Big Snow last year on March 21. Yes sir. That was a doozy.

Just thought I'd mention the weather in Cheshire. Got a bit rainy today, decided to stay in and save the walk for tomorrow.

But I thought now was a good moment for a few pics.
Took these a couple of weekends ago around the village.


...though the plum blossoms are all finished now, of course.


The daffs actually started blooming in January, at least the little white ones. In fact, they line the country lanes here, and grow wild all over the place, masses of them. Nice that no one picks them.


the apple blossoms were the first out. It looks like it will be a good crab apple year.




Yeah, I remember life in Parkdale so well.



Like it was yesterday.

Flowers in the Springtime

Snow in Toronto


This week, (I swear!) I'm going to charge up my camera batteries and take some pics of the spring here. I've been buying daffs from the greengrocer across the road but there seems little point in paying for them. They line the lanes here.

It reminds me so much of my happy childhood. Every year, like all my fellow Victorians, I went out in the last week of February and counted flowers and phoned in the results to the radio booth set up for the purpose in the corner window of Eaton's on Douglas St.

Flower count - smell 'em and weep, Toronto, Jack Knox says
Victoria Times Colonist
Published: Sunday, March 02, 2008

Today is the last day of the Victoria Flower Count - or, as it is less formally known, the 32nd Annual Festival Of Bite Me, Toronto.

Dunno what the total number of blooms is this year. Three billion. Eight trillion. I'm pretty sure the counting is done by Enron.

Whatever. The point isn't that we have umptillion flowers, but that we have any at all - something that Tourism Victoria emphasizes by sending bouquets of daffodils to media outlets across Canada and the northern U.S.

*Flower Count 2008 Final Total* 2008:
2,437,696,512


Congratulations to Saanich, the Banana Belt winner with 993,497,844 flowers counted in 2008.

3,364,658,680
Flowers Counted in 2007

8,521,514,876
Record Breaking Year of 2002

Bashing Canada

is turning into something of a passtime for me.


just found this from Weird Al.

"Is there anything that makes all Canadians one people?"

No.

Next question.

It's better here

than there.

(photo thanks to young Daniel, who never calls.)

Took these today, across the road from my cottage.






If the door to Narnia is going to be anywhere, it's going to be in a place where the daffs bloom in January.

More pics to come. Forsythia and more.

No search warrant necessary.

Did I mention I'm glad I don't live there anymore?

"Shirlene McGovern, or any other human rights officer, can come into my office whenever she thinks it's reasonable, to 'examine' it. No search warrant necessary. She can even come into my home, if she gets a court order -- but such a court order can be applied for and granted without notice to me. That's the kind of ambush usually reserved for getting warrants to break in on crack houses.

"Again, without a warrant, she can take any documents I have, including on my computer.

"Oh, and section 24(1)(c) allows for such search and seize orders to be granted not just against me but anyone else who refuses to answer questions put by investigators like Shirlene McGovern.

"That's the power of these commissions -- before I'm even found 'guilty'.

Alberta Human Rights Act says: (and if that name doesn't make you fall down on the floor laughing...)

an investigator may do any or all of the following:

(a) subject to subsection (2), enter any place at any reasonable time and examine it;

(b) make inquiries orally or in writing of any person who has or may have information relevant to the subject‑matter of the investigation;

(c) demand the production for examination of records and documents, including electronic records and documents, that are or may be relevant to the subject‑matter of the investigation;

(d) on giving a receipt for them, remove any of the things referred to in clause (c) for the purpose of making copies of or extracts from them.

(2) An investigator may enter and examine a room or place actually used as a dwelling only if

(a) the owner or person in possession of it consents to the entry and examination, or

(b) the entry and examination is authorized by a judge under section 24.

Judge’s order

Why the hell did I stay so long in that stupid country?!

Just looking at the website of Chester University:

Tuition Fees
You will find that your contribution to your tuition fees differs from university to university, but will usually be somewhere in the region of £3,145 per year. This will increase slightly each year in line with the cost of inflation. However, you will normally not be expected to pay for these directly until after you have completed your course, and until you are earning more than £15,000 per year. Instead, you will normally be eligible for a tuition fee loan to cover fee costs, which will be paid directly to us on your behalf.

So, it's about $6,300 a year for undergrad. You don't pay up front and you don't start paying back until you can actually afford to.

And I'm told that this is after the system was screwed up under the Blairistes.

Its a funny thing about Canada; they aspire to being a socialist country, but can't even get students into their universities.

Just another of the millions of reasons Britain is still better than that pathetic backwater I was living in for sooo very long.

so

very

long.

You tell em Ezra

...and I forgive you (finally) for not letting me write for the Western Standard on the grounds that I was incapable of writing about anything but Catholicism. That little bit of bigotry and the insult to my intelligence from you is soooo far behind us now.


Watch as the little HRC Trollwoman gets more and more miffed.
Nice defensive body language there sweetheart.

More here.