Bash some heads together or be chopped separately

This past weekend has seen an unprecedented series of public demonstrations in France as an outpouring of solidarity and “don’t-tread-on-me” in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  World leaders (though notably no-one from the USA) lead the crowd, and the one in Paris was estimated at 2 million people, bigger than Liberation Day in WW2.  At the same time, the anti-Islamization marches in Germany continue, and may be gaining traction.  The latter is hard to be certain of, as the media is determined to tar all of these people as Nazis and supresses and distorts reports.  In these two events you see that Europe is approaching critical mass in terms of the threat of Islam to Western Civilization. 

The West has spent much time, blood and treasure of fighting amongst itself, but in the post WW2 period one could be excused (on casual reflection) of thinking that this internecine fighting is behind us.  I think that in the post-nationalism period the struggle has changed from being international to being a “civil war” in every Western country at the ideological level.  In other words, the West is wilfully destroying itself. 

Not all of it of course, but the self-loathing strain of “white guilt” progressivism is firmly entrenched in our university and media making it the default position of the latter.  The idea that anything done by white men is the worst thing ever seems to be the basis of it, and as such it encompasses everything from Marxists (the cultural variety) to radical feminists and many other sub-groups besides.  I run into this on a regular basis online, and have greatly curtailed my activities there (mostly to here) as these people are so thoroughly indoctrinated that they don’t even try to debate, just insult and belittle. 

How many of them are having second thoughts in the wake of the Paris attacks, and the ones before them in Ottawa and Sydney is anyone’s guess, but the hard core (who I estimate at c. 10% of the population) will cling to their “Écrasez l’infâme” attitude toward their own society no matter what.  They are, no matter what their actual proportion of the population, a minority and at some point, hopefully now or very soon, the majority who don’t feel like bowing down to these jihadis will accept that some heads need to be cracked to maintain what we have. 

Canada is overhauling its’ laws to deal more proactively with terrorist wannabes (we’re already arresting them) but France I’m sure already has what it needs to deal with them, including now the public and political will.  The EU overall needs to tighten up to track these guys (and girls) when they travel to Syria, etc. and either nab them before they go, or (better to my mind) let them go and revoke their passports as soon as they clear the EU.  Couple that with contributing military force to battle them wherever they went and we have most of a plan to manage this threat. 

People need to be (and are) arrested for supporting Salafist causes, and the net has to expand to Facebook etc. posts.  Post a message supporting Islamic State,  10 years in jail.  Conspire to support them, life.  Make it painful and you will weed out the lightweights, or at least muzzle them.  The intelligence services can track them (hopefully) when they go underground, and I’m sure (as much as I can be with no inside knowledge) that many a plot has been foiled already.   

Whatever laws are passed and whatever action is taken, it has to be balanced with not making life difficult for law-abiding citizens.  For routine investigation and enforcement this is very do-able, and the (let’s face it, pinprick) attacks those guys can make do not justify martial law.  That’s here; in France they have a much larger problem with extensive “no-go” areas in the banlieues of Paris and elsewhere, and  military reinforcements have been sent.  This is the tactical response required to the situation, and as long as the usual whiners shut up when the necessary “profiling” takes place and supporters are rolled up the problem is, as mentioned previously, manageable. 

Soluble?  No measures which would leave our societies recognizable as “free” could reduce the threat to zero, and even the alternatives (police/military state) aren’t 100% solutions.  “We” must decide that our way of life is worth defending and do so at all levels.  That will necessitate hating a bit less the society that allows you to publicly call for its’ downfall and (sometimes) replacement, if for no other reason than you’d rather not be lumped in with the jihadis who do the same.   You can and will be judged by the company you keep, even the virtual kind.   

Beyond-the-Pale Horsemen

Events like yesterday’s massacre at Charlie Hebdo in Paris are a tactical surprise, but not a strategic one.  CH has (they say they’ll be back) a history of nettling Islam and doing so in an inflammatory fashion.  While this is offensive to some people, under no circumstances in a civilized society should that lead to bloodshed. An appropriate (civilized) response is to ignore, rebut inaccuracies, or failing that, to skewer their stuff as well as they did yours.  

I saw this compared (due to the death toll) to the Brevik massacre in Norway in 2011 which leads me off on a related tangent.  Brevik was the odd exception these days, someone without a religious motivation who killed a lot of people for a cause, but he did it to attack what he saw as the out-of-touch “elite” who were enabling Islamization in his country.  Not the civilized way to do things, but if those “elites” don’t figure out that most people are unhappy with being flooded by immigrants who don’t share their values, we may see more things like this. 

There is some concern that the fallout of the Charlie Hebdo attack will be a strengthening of the “radical right”.  If that’s the threat you take away from this you’re totally missing the point, but there’s plenty of that going around.  Hitler used the analogy of the culture as a biological system, with (in his view) the Jews representing an infection in the “body”.  Breaking that concept into its’ component parts and generalizing, it is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that not all cultures are the same, and some are too alien for others.  The indoctrination provided by Cultural Marxist universities these days does much to suppress actual critical thought so this realization is rare within the intelligencia, but it’s obvious to the man on the street.  

A “reaction” is inevitable when you mix incompatible cultures, and Europe is hip-deep in that right now.  “Right wing” parties can’t rise if people aren’t drawn to them, and people won’t be drawn to the fringes if the centre looks after their concerns.  Pragmatic/realistic politicians will note the way the wind is blowing and tack that way to keep the “extremists” from gaining traction.  Currently in Germany there is a growing anti-Islamization movement which has been denounced by Angela Merkel, but she is no dummy so I suspect we’ll see some re-positioning by the ruling party.  People all over Europe are concerned that they are being overwhelmed and edged out by immigrants and mainstream politicians had better take note. 

I have no idea what will happen, but despite recent attacks on mosques in Sweden I don’t predict an anti-Muslim pogrom in Europe.  This does not preclude more violence, but as much as I want to keep the baleful influence of political Islam away from my culture, people walking around in headscarves and skullcaps is not by itself a threat to Western civilization.  By this I mean that the last thing I want to see in response to the very real Salafist threat to our institutions and free speech is your everyday Mohammed or Fatima hassled (or worse) just for their general affiliation.  What I would in fact like to see is those Dick and Jane Muslims putting the boot (literally or figuratively) to the Salafi assholes in their midst.  

For that to happen governments must be prepared to call Islamist terror what it is, while giving the larger Muslim community the (moral and enforcement) support it needs to purge itself of Salafis/jihadis. They can flush them out then we’ll sort them out, at home or in whatever wanna-be Caliphate they jihad off to. 

 

I believe I’ve talked about my conception of  a “tribe” on here before, but the essence of it is that a tribe should encompass anyone who is willing to live by its’ rules.  The Western Civilization tribe can absorb anyone who wants to be absorbed (apolitical Muslims included), but must fight anyone who tries to subvert it. We can’t all get along, but most of us can and we have to expand that circle as wide as possible.  With that done, open season, no bag limit on anyone outside of it.  

RIP to the fallen staff and police at Charlie Hebdo.  I have confidence that the French will get those two assassins; I won’t put any money on them ever standing trial, but I don’t hear the Barons of Runnymede rolling in their graves about that.   

Katie, bar the door.

There has been so much happening and all of it at a fair rate of change that I have had a hard time coming up with a coherent idea for a post here, but I’ll take a stab at it today.
Right now Da’esh is on the cusp of taking Kobani (spelling varies), a Kurdish village on the border with Turkey. Turkey has voted to take military action against Da’esh, bur are sitting on the border watching Da’esh overrun the town while preventing Kurds on their side of the border from getting through with reinforcements and resupply.

Turkey of course has a long violent history with the Kurds, but by their present actions they are ensuring that this continues. There are no simple solutions in that (and many other) part of the world, but if you want to move forward you have to change. Keeping the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” even under these circumstances is a sign of almost pathological hatred, and no good will come of it.
What I would do in Erdrogan’s place is push Da’esh out of a sizable chunk of the area contiguous with Iraqi Kurdistan and encourage as many Kurds as possible to move into it. This would give the Kurds what they want, rid Turkey of its’ more restive Kurdish population (non-violently) and put a stick in Assad’s spokes which Turkey is anxious to do. Looks win-win to me, certainly in relation to what they’re doing now.

The last seismic shift in boundaries in the region was WW1, this is the next one. There is no more “Syria” nor for that matter really any “Iraq”. The resulting vacuum (from failed revolution in the former and failed nation-building in the latter) will be filled by something, as Da’esh is doing right now. The one place where nation-building has a chance (few sure-things in this life) is with a self-identifying group, and the Kurds are one such. This sort of chaos doesn't have to benefit only the bad apples, but force will be required and eggs will be cracked for any such omelette. Mixed food metaphors, but you get the idea. I don’t see a good outcome to this as the will to take the action required is lacking in those who have the power and resources to make it happen.

Speaking of political will, we also have Ebola to deal with. Liberia is on the verge of total collapse, although with its’ recent history that was never too far off at the best of times. These local tragedies would be of scant concern for any other than humanitarian reasons were it not for a confluence of two features of modern life: air travel and Political Correctness.

It is abundantly clear that this is a deadly disease with a c. 40% mortality rate even if you get proper care, worse if you don’t. It’s no SARS in terms of transmission, but in the later stages of incubation all body fluids are vectors, and with fever, nausea and diarrhoea the main symptoms, there are many opportunities if you aren’t quarantined.

This is precisely what needs to be done: quarantine the region. That will be impossible to 100% enforce of course, but without an attempt it will spread everywhere. It has shown up so far in the USA, Spain and now Macedonia, and that’s just what I can remember with certainty right now. Screening measures are going into place but are easily spoofed by people taking standard anti-inflammatory meds or by people lying about their point of origin.

Some airlines have stopped going to these countries, but unless all of them do it won’t stop it. This is frightening enough, but it gets worse. Think panicked mass migration. "Katie, bar the door" indeed, but you won’t like what it would entail to do so. Positive enforcement of borders while ensuring zero entry of desperate and possibly sick people cannot end well and WOULD necessitate lethal force. The only thing which might dissuade someone facing something like Ebola from going where they think they’ll get better medical care is them knowing that they’ll be killed if they try it. What (Western) politician is willing to make THAT call?

Yeah, we’re screwed, but no change there. I may be laying in more emergency food supplies, but if I’m going to do so I’d best do it soon. Likely it won’t come to that here, but even if not I’d best lay in some ammo in case these Da’esh fanboys try to take a crack at us in our “bedrooms”.

District 9 by Osmosis

I've had a hard time writing about immigration policy. It's not because I don't have opinions on it (you should all be that lucky) but more because I see a reasonable policy as a forlorn hope.

That however will not stop me, any more than it stops me on all of my other Quixotic railing against stupidity and ignorance. Here is, imo, the crux of the problem for Western countries and the proximate cause of our eventual disappearance.

Bibi speaks no English and has been working at a small Saskatoon restaurant for the last six months. Her boss and friend, Sahana Yeasmin, told CTV that Bibi’s "situation back home is very bad."

Amnesty International is also urging the Canadian government to reconsider the deportation, saying the work of the UN body should be completed before the Canadian government makes any final decisions.

"There’s no way that Canada would want to be responsible for returning a woman back to a country where her rights could be violated," Gloria Nafziger, an Amnesty International refugee co-ordinator, told CTV.

 Emphasis mine. I do not dispute that Pakistan is a horrible place to live if you're a woman, and I can say the same thing for a lot of other places in the world. The problem is, if being a a woman means that your rights could be violated in Pakistan, by this logic we should accept all c. 90 million Pakistani women to protect them from this fate.

Don't be ridiculous, you say? That is the logical extension of this thinking, and it would take a lot less than that to destroy Canada as Canada. We can help some people, but we need to do that in such a way that they help us too. The harsh market truth is that a woman in her 60s with no money, no skills and who doesn't even speak one of our official languages is a liability to Canada, not an asset.

This is the sort of thinking which keeps the wheels turning and the lights on; mushy bleeding-heart talk about trampled "rights" in places we can't control does not help Canada (or the UK, France, Italy, Australia, the USA, etc. ) retain its' character as a place people would want to live in preference to their 3rd-World shithole.

You see what happens when I start in on this stuff? Obnoxious but unassailable truth is what happens. Sure you can tell me I'm a big meanie or a racist or whatever the fuck else you want to tar me with, but WE CAN'T TAKE EVERYBODY WHO WANTS TO COME HERE. I wish I could find the link to it again, but I saw an excellent lecture on immigration which involved jars full of marbles representing the various populations of the world. It very graphically represented what would happen if we were to open the borders, and that if we do so we'll all be living in Nairobi, and most of us not in the nice parts.

"We" are vastly outnumbered, and we should act like it, or there won't be a "we" left. Be very clear that this isn't some "White Power" shtick, I'm talking about culture, which can be adopted. Multiculturalism has failed. It works, for a while, as part of an empire, but a functioning democracy is a delicate flower which can be crowded out by weeds. Iffy analogy, but I think you get the point.

Going back to Nigeria again, contrast the governance of that country with that of Canada. It's a good comparison, as both have rich resource-based economies and educated, English-speaking ruling classes. Canada has internal divisions, but not the sort who raid each others' villages; the same cannot be said for the diverse parties in Nigeria. Nigeria is not poor, and Nigerians are no stupider on an individual basis than Canadians are (I'll steer clear of "Race IQ" stuff) so I would have to say the difference between their volatile and ineffective governance and ours is mostly a cultural one.

Now, if you like the way they do things, good for you. I don't, and I suspect the majority of people who grew up in (or gravitated to) the Western system would like to keep living in it. That means we can take some immigrants from wherever, but in digestible increments, and not just anyone. Sticking to this sort of policy is not for the meek, but if you like how things are where you are, it must be done so that the fortunate and productive few who we do take in have a nice place to live.

Symptoms of the Diseased Body Politic

With the Global Whack-a-Mole on Terror sputtering along again in Iraq, the issue of "foreign fighters” is at the fore once more. The UK has announced an intention to do something half-assed about non-citizen passport holders who go off on jihad. While some may take this as "finally someone's doing something", I personally see it as a sign of the rot and weakness which will be the end of Western Civilization.

Western Civilization has had a rough go for sure and is far from perfect, but it has produced most of what makes modern life comfortable and reasonably long. Scientific Method, germ theory of disease, immunization and advances in horticulture and chemistry have all come from "us", immeasurably improving lives the world over and the only things which make our current population remotely sustainable. This doesn't even include the advances in materials sciences and computers which keep everything moving.

It's not about colour or race, it's about culture. Anybody can be "western" if they want to, and there was a time when it was the thing to aspire to. Two World Wars accelerated the collapse of the British Empire as well as that of the French, but not before both had left their modernizing and linguistic impressions across the globe. The ideas were loose but so were some others, specifically Communism and Islamism. It could of course be argued that Communism is a Western development, but despite its' geographical origin it fails the "keep moving forward" test. There was a time when that was about unrestrained development, but it moved past that (for most people) to be about doing things better than before, not just bigger.

That still exists, but it is increasingly opposed by limiting philosophies. Foremost in my estimation is the "Climate Change" lobby. If you actually look at who is doing what you'll notice two distinct groups. First are the profiteers, the ones pushing carbon trading scams schemes, the Solyndras and wind farm subsidy-seekers, and of course the "scientists" who have sold out for the grants. They are bad and dangerous, but their motivations are venal and easily understood. The real menace are the Luddite (watermelon) Greens.

EVERY proposal to limit greenhouse gases (they could start, simply by ceasing to breathe) would destroy advanced technological societies by wrecking their economies. The partial success they've had in North America has driven up electricity rates and decreased reliability of supply, a mere shadow of what they would like to do. See the UK for the next step from where we are.

All of this is to say that the seeds of the downfall of Western Civilization are sown from within, and we are proving ourselves "unfit" in the evolutionary biological sense by the death-wish we have as a society. Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory are the key tools to take us down from within. When Moral Relativism is your guiding philosophy the outcome seems to be that everything else is judged superior to your own culture.

I like Rule of Law and having a decent chance of surviving walking the streets at night; it may surprise you but the two things are not actually related. They are in fact a historically exceptionally (vanishingly) rare combination even in the imperfect form we find them today in our First World countries. The harsh truth is that if you hate your heritage so much that you'd deluge your country with "Diversity" the basic institutions created in that First World will be replaced by the Third World which you have imported. Think of India, but where it's too cold to live in a shack, but that's the best case going down that road.

Which brings us back to the intro paragraph. Thousands of Saudis flocking to al Qaeda and now ISIS is no surprise. What is more of surprise on the face of it is recent Muslim converts of European extraction doing the same. Scratch the surface a bit and it starts to make sense. If you think of these Salafist groups as both "a Cause" and as gangs, you will see the appeal to overlapping personality types.

The simplest type is the adventurer. Young men have been from time immemorial headed out on raids and general mayhem, and these find expression in gangs, pirates, drug cartels, etc. I'm sure you would find that many in ISIS' current ranks aren't "true believers" but more opportunistic criminals and psychopaths with a gloss of religion to make it look good to the group. The next group need to belong to something, and jihad is the most dynamic something going today. A sub-set of them are the types who hate Western society as decadent and overly permissive and find the intolerance and rigidity of Wahhabi-style Islam the perfect antidote.

If the Arabs hate us, big deal, we've been fighting them since Roman times at least. When our own people turn against us to join them we really need to think about root causes. The simplest way to look at this is as osmosis or as Nature abhorring a vacuum.

Our confidence in the way we do things has declined, and with it our confidence and assertiveness as a culture. People in most parts of the world like to be on the winning side, and right now that doesn't look like us. We need something to believe in, but the common culture we once had (even between British and French in Canada it wasn't fundamentally different) has been systematically dismantled and blackballed as the worst thing ever.

There's your vacuum. Something needs to take the place of the Iliad and Odyssey, Horatius at the Bridge, Charles Martel, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Vimy Ridge, the flag raising on Iwo Jima, etc. If you don't have passing familiarity with at least 5 of the above, well, you're not alone these days.

The past is treacherous territory, but at some point you have to choose something to believe in. It could be where you come from (dangerous to outsiders) religion (ditto) or whatever else, but if you don't stake out something as the Line Which Shall Not Be Crossed you'll have no anchor and no standards for how things should be. We can do better than the old days, but we need something for people of diverse backgrounds to rally to. The current Canadian government is bucking the trend and trying to bring our history back, but they won't last forever. As long as we can't give our people something worth dying for, radical Islam will be ready to fill that void.

Red is Red and Blue is Blue, and Never the Twain Shall Meet

News of the day-or-so is the Malaysian Airlines plane being shot down over Ukraine, but I'll wait for that to settle out a bit before I comment on it. For now, something completely different, certainly off my beaten path here.

The general scenario is Sarah Palin getting a job on "The View" television show. I despise The View as a coven (no offence to actual witches) of shrieking harpies; although that is a personal opinion, it is relevant to the situation.

To say that Sarah would be a minority viewpoint on that program is to understate things significantly, but the "minority report" is important to the credibility of any undertaking. The writer for The Daily Beast to whose article I have linked doesn't see it that way however.

1. Co-hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg would crush her.

The View isn’t Fox News, where hosts fawn over Palin like she is dropping pearls of wisdom instead of inane comments.

It’s not going to work out that way on The View, because in past years, Rosie and Whoopi would frequently slam the conservative co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s right-wing politics. For example, there was the time Whoopi schooled Hasselbeck on the reason why women need to be the ultimate decision makers when it comes to their reproductive rights. The audience clearly sided with Whoopi, breaking out into thunderous applause as she finished her comment. Expect more of the same with Palin on the panel.

2. Palin’s daily dose of idiotic comments. Currently, we are stuck waiting for periodic appearances by Palin to make unintentionally hilarious remarks, like when she said Paul Revere “warned the British,” not the colonists. Or when she insisted that “We’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies.”

Listening to Sarah Palin talk about history is like watching an episode of the new Comedy Central show Drunk History. That show, based on a hit web series, features horribly inebriated people telling their versions of history. With Palin on The View, it will be like Drunk Historyfive days a week.

3. Sarah Palin’s views will be tempered or she’ll be fired. Here’s the most serious issue for Palin: She can’t play to both mainstream and probably not very political American housewives (The View audience) and the Tea Party wingnuts.

ABC’s parent company, Disney, is not going to let Palin be the Palin that most of us hate (or love.) Sure, Disney wants ratings because they equal profits. But I very much doubt that Disney will allow Palin—or any one person—to cause damage to its corporate image.

If her views are to be "tempered" (read: supressed, mocked, censored) why the hell would they bring her on? The answer is of course to use her as a punching bag for cheap points and laughs with the show's base just like Liz Hasselbeck before her, the token Christian conservative. The real mystery is why would Palin want to put herself in that position? Sarah is, bless her, not the sharpest knife in the block, but should have drawn to her some smart people as advisors by now. Her coming out with this idea calls that assumption into question, but whatever.

My point here is more on the ideological divide in public discourse shown very starkly by choice of language and personal vilification/mockery of those who don't conform. The linked article is relatively mild as these things go, but is still about as clever and subtle as a sledge hammer, 'though I'm certain the author would differ. Most likely he'd call me a bunch of names and tell me how ignorant I am while feeling smugly superior. I don't know this for a fact, but past experience with the broad "type" (determined by his treatment of his subject here) places a high level of confidence on that prediction.

Too much exposure to this sort of zealotry has soured me on online discussions, as it is impossible to keep things to the facts of a situation. Recently I called someone on a flippant remark completely at odds with reality, and the response was a constant barrage of assumptions about where I get my info from, words put in my mouth and complete dismissal of the possibility that I had any idea whatsoever what I was talking about. I consider myself sharper than Mrs. Palin. (she does have other redeeming qualities however) and the way I really displayed it there was that I walked away from a fight I could never win.

Here in my obscure corner of the internet I can say what I want, and I like it that way. I am happy to debate things with people who see things differently than I do, but the old concept of "agree to disagree" seems to be lost, so it's not worth it.  I know that I don’t know everything; it’d be nice for a whole lot of other people to realize the same thing but I’m not holding my breath.  Or ever watching “The View”, Sarah Palin or no Sarah Palin.

And the Truth shall see you fired

First of all, unless I name somebody specifically I am talking in generalities about groups of people. Groups of people are stupid, and anything I say about them may not apply to individual members of those groups.

Secondly, I will not deny "inconvenient" truth and I will admit when I have been PROVEN wrong. I will not roll over to group think or political correctness, but the real world has ways of putting the screws to you to at least shut you up. With that intro I will wade into this "Wired" article about elements of the US armed forces and Islam.

FACT: "Islam" means "submission", in this case to the will of Allah as promulgated by a certain Mohammad in the 6th Century AD.

FACT: "People of the Book" e.g. Christians and Jews (ha!) have limited rights in Islamic society, such as being subject to the jizya, or poll tax and a proscription on building or even repairing churches or synagogues. All of these restrictions are calculated to make it more attractive for you to convert. If you're a straight-out "pagan" it's simply conversion, slavery or death.

It's in the book, I'm not making it up. If all of this sounds like how you'd like to live, feel free to move to some Muslim country and enjoy. You might want to look into the local interpretation of Sharia before you move though...

Another fact before I jump into the deep end here: most major religions contain all sorts of barbaric old-school ideas which have no place in a modern educated and advanced society. What sets Islam apart is the "mission from God" to make the entire world Submit to it. Again, in the book(s).

Old news of course and a well-trod path here at AotF. However there is an institutional policy in many Western governments to suppress the facts as they relate to Islam and its' (and by extension its' followers) intentions.

A threat can be defined by both intention and capability. If someone intends you harm but is a quadriplegic with no influence, they are not a threat. Intention with capability is always a threat, and 1.4 billion or so self-identified people who to some extent or another think that everyone else is wrong and should convert or else could indeed be considered a threat to, well, everyone else.

Of course, most people are not particularly hard-core about what they believe and Muslims are no exception. For this reason I consider that some of the tactics discussed are a bit extreme under present conditions, e.g. using Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki as historical precedents for dealing with Mecca and Medina.

This was of course within the context of an exercise specifically designed to get people talking about what's really out there instead of the "see-no-Islam" policy of the US government. It's not the first time I've seen the idea of nuking Mecca and it won't be the last. It's a fantastically bad idea under anything less than an apocalyptic Jihad-Gotterdammerung against everyone else, where you'd better be prepared to kill over 1 billion people to neutralize that threat.

The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance, and some simple immigration policy changes could defend SUPERIOR Western civilization (yes, I said it) against creeping Islamicization of our Protestant Work-Ethic-derived societies. It doesn't mean accept nobody from Muslim countries, just screen them effectively for their willingness and ability to adapt to the way we do things. For the record this precept applies to everyone else too; what we need to screen out are ALL of the extremists.

Islam as a religion, even more so as an ideology, is a threat to human progress. Hell, organized religion in general is, but nothing else is so violent about it these days. People don't critique Islam because idiots threaten to kill them for "heresy" (and these are not mere threats), or less lethally they can be fired or demoted by panicky PC types. I read through the .pdf I linked to and nothing there is untrue, as inflammatory as some of it may be. If your only defence against an idea is to suppress it, guess what; you're in the wrong, not the people stirring things up.

The only way to deal with "true believers" of any stripe is to kill them. Avoidably killing a lot of other people while doing it though is both morally unacceptable and counter-productive. Accordingly the current assassination-by-drone-and-Spec Ops squaddies is the best maintenance policy, keeping the leadership off-balance and surgically removing the most pressing problem children. No nukes required, and even bringing that up undermines your message, allowing you to be written off as a crank. On the other hand if it ever comes to that, well, at least somebody is thinking about how to do it.

The Maple Leaf for Now

First off, all the best to you in the year that Mayans decided to stop making calendars; considering where that civilization is these days I'd say they built more than enough redundancy into them. I can never guarantee we won't have a cataclysm, but I'll put my money (and everything else!) on the fact that I'll still be around this time a year from now.
 

AotF starts the year starts with more local musings on civilization. Canada is 40+ years down the history-abnegating path of Multiculturalism and Political Correctness, and we finally have a government which is trying to reclaim the common past of this country.
 

Political observers of all stripes believe the revival of interest in Canada's colonial history is part of a broader Conservative effort to rekindle patriotism and reshape Canada's culture more in the government's own image.

Tom Flanagan, a former adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper who now teaches at the University of Calgary, said that vision took root many years ago -- and originated at the top.

"Stephen once said to me that a conservative party in any country ought to be party of patriotism," Flanagan said in an email. "He is now creating a conservative version of Canadian patriotism."

Harper's brand of national pride relies heavily on elements common to many right-wing political movements, including unwavering support for the military and a push to lay claim to the country's far-flung northern regions, Flanagan said.

 

The thing that gets the most press of course is the attention to the formalities of our association with the Crown. There seem to be a lot of people who can't tell the difference between a Republic (what the USA started off as) and a Constitutional Monarchy, our form of government. The Queen is our Head of State, not the Prime Minister, and as long as that relationship is maintained protocol must be observed.
 

Where I weigh in on this is the connection it provides Canadians with a common heritage. Quebec, although intimately wound up in Canada’s common colonial past will always be bent out of shape about that fact that a German king took over from their French one. La Belle Provence has never accepted that they were but a Great Power pawn, so getting them on board with the monarchy is not going to happen.
 

Canada was referred to as "two solitudes" but I'd like to think we can reduce that to one: Nationalist Quebecois  who are already a vanishing political force. The rest of us, whatever our extraction, can adopt Canada with an identifiable history. Even if it wasn't your ancestors directly, you should be able to adopt the broad sweep of Canada's history, for example:
 

At Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane,

Our brave fathers, side by side,

For freedom, homes and loved ones dear,

Firmly stood and nobly died;

And those dear rights which they maintained,

We swear to yield them never!

Our watchword evermore shall be

"The Maple Leaf forever!"
 

The whole of "The Maple Leaf Forever" is dated, sure, but there need to be things that a culture can identify as its' own or it doesn't exist. The latter works for "progressives" for whom everything that might set someone apart from anyone else is bad, but even a democracy requires an identity if people are going to be inspired to work for it.
 

Defending our territory is foremost in the duties of the Federal government, so solidifying our hold on the Arctic should not be at all controversial, merely overdue. Acknowledging the constitutional advantages of having a hereditary Head of State with (very) limited but absolute powers to dissolve government shows the robustness of our Democracy to withstand tyranny and demagoguery.
 

I am not a Monarchist for the sake of the Royal Family (Charles as King, really?) but the Canada that most people can agree that they want to live in would not be secure as a Republic. The separation of taxation power from the hereditary/appointed Crown which has the power to approve and dissolve government provides a simple "check and balance" on the prerogatives of both elements. Supporting that should not only be a "conservative" position.
 

Anyway, I pulled back in to start off the New Year, but I'm sure there will be wide-ranging wackiness for me to comment on before long. As I do occasionally, I'll appeal to any of you who read this to give me some sign with comments or even the quick "tick in the box" impressions I've provided for your convenience. No names, no pack drill, but I am curious to know a bit about who is looking at this.