‘The culture war is just privileged people looking for problems’ - "Brendan O’Neill: I want to kick off with one of our favourite topics of conversation: how completely insane the world has gone. Imagine if, five years ago, someone had told you that female MPs would be hauled over the coals for saying that only women have a cervix. Or that middle-class eco-loons would be blocking the M25 in protest against climate change at the exact moment that we have an energy-provision crisis. Or that the BBC would be putting out content about the problem of white privilege and encouraging its staff to play white-privilege board games to work out just how sinful they are. You would have thought it was all impossible. But all of that stuff has come to pass and much more besides. The descent has been quite rapid, hasn’t it?
Julia Hartley-Brewer: It’s like one of those really bad BBC Two satire shows that Nish Kumar got commissioned to do for some reason utterly beyond me. I remember the night before Brexit day, going to a wonderful dinner with about 50 hacks, all of them Brexiteers. It was a fun night and very drunken. We were all talking about what the next battleground would be. We said it would either be the culture war or climate change, or a combination of the two. I didn’t think that we would be battling both, at the same time as battling for the right to book a holiday, and for our daughters to go to school. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought those things were a given... I think that, fundamentally, this is a bunch of very privileged people, largely white and middle class, who have got too much time on their hands and whose lives are too easy. They are looking for problems. We all have friends and family members like that. But now we have a whole class of people like that. It’s really tiring. In the normal world, we would all have told them to shut up. They are the pub bores. But now they are running the shop. What we used to think was limited to just a few crazy people in American universities and a few people at left-wing magazines is now pervading our culture. This stuff is being thrust down our throats by politicians. By diversity managers in pretty much every corporation. By the mainstream media. By social media. And it feels like a very scary place to be right now – to be someone who is saying no.
O’Neill: I think you’ve touched on something really important, which is just how regressive the culture war is. If you raise any criticism of the white-privilege agenda, for example, you are instantly denounced as racist. If you raise any questions about the trans agenda, you are called transphobic. A lot of these culture warriors fantasise that they are in the same tradition as the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, or the second-wave feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s. But in my mind, they completely undermine those traditions. They have rehabilitated colour over character, which is the exact opposite of the civil-rights movement. They have rehabilitated misogyny with the way in which they denounce ‘witches’ and ‘hags’ who dare to raise critical questions...
Hartley-Brewer: Think about how you’re not allowed to question ‘The Science’. It’s so laughable that there is a capital ‘T’ and a capital ‘S’ in it. You and I were raised in similar traditions. My background was on the left. My parents were working class and it was a massively Labour-supporting family. I was taught that you debated things, you were valued for what you contributed, what you had to say and what you did. When I was at school and university, and in my first 20 years as a journalist, the idea that you would shut down debate was seen as bizarre. For that to change, particularly on university campuses, is very, very scary. Debate is the basis of everything that we value in the West – of science, reason, logic and progress. Things that were considered progressive in the 1980s are now considered totally unacceptable. Something I said even five years ago, or frankly five months ago, could be out of date. There is this desire to start from Year Zero pretty much every week. But at the same time we have offence archaeology, where anything anyone has done before has to be punished. That’s true even if they were 14 at the time and wrote a tweet that someone didn’t like. I find that chilling."
Internal documents reveal Oregon teachers union exodus is a crisis of its own making - "Until 2018, Oregon was one of 23 states without right-to-work protections for government workers, meaning teachers and thousands of other public employees were required to financially support union activities. That changed in 2018 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Janus v. AFSCME, affirmed that mandatory union payments violate public employees’ First Amendment rights. Knowing members could suddenly walk away without losing their jobs, OEA and other government unions could have responded by simply working harder to provide a service worth paying for. But of course, that is not what happened. Over the last several years, teachers and the American public have seen firsthand how government unions are more aggressive political organizations than membership-based professional associations. Nothing illustrates the union’s priorities better than its own finances. The National Education Association (NEA), OEA’s parent affiliate, reported spending more than twice as much on political expenditures than it did on representational activities for its members... these are the same unions that had no qualms about politicizing the COVID pandemic. For example, while demanding public schools remain closed to in-person learning despite credible evidence showing youngsters seldom contract the virus and almost seldom die of it, OEA and its labor allies successfully blocked hundreds of children from continuing their education at virtual public charter schools in 2020... Oregon legislators ran interference for the unions by quietly approving a union-backed bill in August 2021 extending until 2024 a temporary suspension of the state requirements that students demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing, and math to graduate from high school. In the meantime, the union resumed its stealth war against parental influence by demanding even the youngest students be exposed to explicit sexual content and embracing Critical Race Theory curriculum."
Why liberals hate optional union membership so much
‘Targeted Assassinations’: Court Docs Uncover Shocking Details In Pro-Life Woman’s $5M Win Over Airline, Union - "Union officials representing Southwest Airlines employees and activists ridiculed and even targeted for social media “assassinations” members who disagreed with the labor group’s left-wing political activism... The messages, contained in court documents, were exchanged between Southwest Airlines and Transportation Workers Union of America (TWU) Local 556 union officials and activists. They were revealed during a lawsuit brought by pro-life flight attendant Charlene Carter, a 20-year veteran fired by Southwest Airlines for her religious beliefs. A jury last month awarded Carter a whopping $5.1 million — $4.15 million from Southwest and $950,000 from the TWU Local 556 union. When Carter complained in 2013 about deductions from her paycheck going to the union’s leftist political action committee, union treasurer John Parrot forwarded Carter’s email to other officials with a message making fun of her. “Ha! She has been supporting the thing she despises this entire time…,” he wrote. Todd Gage, a union vice president, joined in the mockery. “I wish I could give her a list of all the campaigns she has donated to in the last 17 years! Her head would explode,” he wrote... Union officials, including its president, Audrey Stone, attended the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., in 2017. The event receives funding from Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country. Stone, who was included in the email chain, does not appear to have admonished anyone for the inappropriate remarks... “I am all about targeted assassinations,” an email from union activist Brian Talburt reads, discussing social media dissidents. The message was sent to Southwest’s then-senior director in inflight services Sonya Lacore, and then forwarded to Stone by Talburt. “It IS maddening trying to reason with these sheeple,” Talburt said, comparing at least one other critic to “cancer.” Talburt also called Corliss King, a black woman who later became a Local 556 executive board member, “incredibly dangerous.”"
Howard Levitt: Why I am ecstatic about Ontario teachers' union's controversial voting system to increase minority representation - "When asked in an interview by Jamil Jovani on Newstalk 1010 this week my reaction to a local Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation unit’s new policy of giving each visible minority member more votes than White members, I responded that I was ecstatic — not outraged and disgusted as Jovani expected. I should have long ago ceased being surprised by the sheer obtuseness, even doltishness, of many unions and the left. But usually, their more outrageous moves are less transparent, more obfuscatory, more intended to deceive than to shock. Until this move, unions at least purported to be democratic institutions. You know what I mean: one member, one vote, all of that... an OSSTF local representing 1,400 members voted by an overwhelming majority to give 50 per cent of all votes to their visible minority voters. If, for example, visible minority votes are a sixth of the voting group, each Black, East Indian, Asian or Aboriginal voter gets five times the vote of a white voter. It is actually even more absurd than that, since it applies to the branch presidents of the local unit so that individual members’ votes will count for more or less depending upon whether their particular representative is racialized. Of course, that in turn will ensure that voters are compelled to elect persons of colour so they will have more leverage... Political correctness gone mad? Leave it to the unions. It is not just the practical implications of this new voting policy. It is also likely illegal... Why am I delighted? Because it exposes what some segments of the union movement, particularly in the public sector, have descended to. And it will not only be those members who worry that their votes will no longer be meaningful. Even many visible minority union voters who are unfairly “advantaged” by this policy will be uncomfortable and upset. As the OSSTF story hit the news and teachers were called for comment, they were instructed that they could not speak and that only Cindy Gage, the local president, was allowed to speak. Union democracy in action."
I was fired from union job over ‘anti-male atmosphere’: suit - "A union secretary says he was fired for being a guy — citing a female supervisor’s poster that declared, “Women on the Rise” as Exhibit A in an unusual gender-discrimination lawsuit. Staten Island resident Manuel Garcia was hired as an administrative assistant in 2011 by the Office and Professional Employees International Union, which represents 125,000 white-collar workers... Garcia, 52, claims he was “subjected to disparate treatment due to his gender (male), such as not being allowed to perform his responsibilities in QuickBooks and if he made a mistake he was not allowed to correct it, unlike the similarly situated female employees.” “Female employees were allowed to have a lunch at their desk while [Garcia] was not allowed to do so,” he claims in the Manhattan Supreme Court suit. He was canned in March and replaced by a woman... He says supervisor Mary Mahoney fostered an “anti-male atmosphere” by displaying the “Women on the Rise” poster in the office."
Mercedes Lackey Removed from the Nebula Conference - "SFWA removed Mercedes Lackey from this weekend’s Nebula Conference less than 24 hours after celebrating her selection as a Grand Master during the Nebula Awards ceremony. The reason given is that she “used a racial slur” while on a panel"
So much for her promoting liberal themes in her work. One offence is sufficient to make anyone persona non grata. Plus, her infraction was calling someone "colored". Amazing.
Someone claimed "colored" had been a slur for decades. Poor NAACP.
Libertarian Party of Delaware on Twitter - "Are men taller than women on average? If you needed another reason to abandon the universities, here it is."
Heather E Heying on Twitter - "Modern activism is often performative, rehearsed, and utterly out of touch with reality. Here, I make the bold claim that men and women are, on average, different heights. That appears to have been a bridge too far."
SJWs reject reality after all. An activist sabotaged and damaged the sound system on her way out. These facts were called fasicsm, Nazism and brainwashing, one speaker labelled a piece of shit and the women in there were called brainwashed
The Dark Triad traits predict authoritarian political correctness and alt-right attitudes - "It is well established that mainstream personality traits are associated with moderate, traditional political attitudes. However, very little is known regarding trait predictors of extreme political attitudes. In the current study (N = 511 U.S. residents), we examined the relationships between the Dark Triad traits, Entitlement and three extreme political attitudes that are highly covered in mainstream media: White Identitarianism (‘Alt-Right’), Political Correctness-Authoritarianism, and Political Correctness-Liberalism. We found that Dark Triad traits and Entitlement had incremental validity in the prediction of these 3 attitudes over demographic factors. The Dark Triad traits and Entitlement explained a substantial portion of variance in White Identitarianism and Political Correctness-Authoritarianism, and only a small portion of variance in Political Correctness-Liberalism. Across all attitudes, Psychopathy and Entitlement were the most consistent, strongest predictors. Results indicate that, from a Dark Triad perspective, Authoritarian PC advocates have more in common with extreme right advocates than those holding PC views related to compassion."
SJWs hate the alt-right, but have a lot in common with them, with traits that can be described as "Evil" in short
Welcome to Year Zero - "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of America announced last year that it would set diversity quotas for any film eligible to win a best picture award. In order to enforce these targets, there will be regular surprise inspections into the racial origins and gender identity of cast and crew. At the time of this announcement, I joked on Twitter that such inspections would be ideal work—cushy, low-risk—for former police officers from soon to be abolished, defunded, and/or "reimagined" departments: "Defund police in order to fund racism police." Last year’s joke is this year’s policy... None of these are "excesses" of the anti-racist movement. They are the practical application of the principles laid out by the anti-racist texts that became required reading across corporate America during the racial reckoning of 2020. In the words of one of the two most required authors, Ibram X. Kendi, "the only remedy of past discrimination is present discrimination." Some of these measures almost certainly violate the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The courts brushed them back in certain cases and will likely continue to do so as challenges emerge. But that we enacted them is a victory for those seeking the drastic expansion of what they call "race-conscious policy" beyond the relatively constrained area in which affirmative action in college admissions, government contracting, and hiring has been allowed to operate... What were once held to be “colorblind ideals” of impartial treatment on the basis of individual attributes have been reclassified as a form of white supremacy on the “pyramid of white supremacy” presented as dogma in now pervasive diversity, equity, and inclusion training sessions. It took a decade or so for the theory of "colorblind racism" to move from academia to corporate America, and another half-decade for it to be explicitly endorsed by the federal government. It amounts to a quiet overturning of the post-1964 racial consensus. “Cancel culture”, which has created a situation in which 62 percent of the American public told pollsters that they afraid to share their political opinions, was always simply a means to an end—the noisy herald of a mandated adherence to new dogmas to come. The agenda is here today, in the process of being rolled out at scale across a range of institutions, including K-12 schools. The means must therefore be judged in relation to the ends they have secured. They have already begun to transform the schools and to exert influence over law enforcement in ways that are changing the character of education and city life. How far this will go, what sorts of resistance it will meet in the courts and other venues, whether the institutional consensus around it will hold firm in the face of political resistance, is all to be determined. What is not in dispute is that the federal government and other private entities have already crossed a Rubicon and signaled a willingness to defy legal precedent and public opinion in accordance with the ruling consensus of the new regime that they have thereby inaugurated. I call this regime the Successor Regime. 2021 is its Year Zero... Other names that are used for this doctrine tend to express either adherence—"social justice","critical studies"—or hostility—"Cultural Marxism", "political correctness"—or refer to one of the many constituent parts—"anti-racism", post-structuralism, deconstructionism, post-colonialism, gender theory — of an ideology that is more than the sum of its parts. Successor ideology is a placeholder term that performs a necessary function. As it marches through the various institutions, scaling up through a combination of social contagion and institutional capture, the Successor Ideology brings practices once confined to left activist spaces into new territory: struggle sessions, campaigns of rectification, rituals of purgation and repentance, denunciation and confessional, unencumbered by due process, which it explicitly abjures as an instrument of an unjust status quo. Tying together an unwieldy and often contradictory assortment of claims is the underlying doctrine that Western culture is a matrix of interlocking oppressions advantaging some categories of people at the expense of others (the white over the non-white, the male over the female, the the straight over the homosexual, the cisgendered over the transgendered, the abled over the disabled)—and the belief that nothing short of a total act of "dismantling", "decolonization", or "abolition" of the various institutions that enact ongoing "structural violence" will suffice. Although this language is hyperbolic and untethered from reality, it serves as a rallying call and statement of common purposes for the faction of those who speak it — the members of the “activist class” who work in the donor-funded nonprofit activist sector... How this inversion of the moral order—in which it is criminal justice rather than crime that is the greatest menace to communities afflicted by crime, and where it is the stable middle class family that is the true seedbed of the structural violence that menaces America—came to become constitutive of bourgeois respectability itself is a story at once intellectually null (because victory was secured largely through emotional blackmail and intimidation) and sociologically fascinating (because victory was secured largely through emotional blackmail and intimidation.) It is a story in which the Trump presidency plays an important role, but largely as that of the foil of the larger forces he summoned up in opposition to himself. It is the story that has been told only obliquely and in fragments by a media more prone to compulsively acting out the absurdities and excesses of the movement than dispassionately chronicling it."
Washington Post writer says she's leaving America to 'escape racism' - "An award-winning staff writer for the Washington Post says she's ready to leave America to "escape racism" and is thinking of moving to Africa. DeNeen L. Brown wrote that "as a Black woman, I want freedom from oppression. So I’m finally plotting my exit," in an article for WaPo titled "The Case for Leaving America to Escape Racism." Brown, who is also an associate professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, explained her reasoning... she flew to Ghana to "reconnect with the continent" of Africa and explore "a potential place to live and plant new roots."... Brown even mentions the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as evidence that the "fight for racial justice seemed to be failing" in America, making the country seemingly "increasingly dangerous for Black people."... Brown seemingly advocates for a separation of Black Americans and America. She writes of several proponents of Black Americans leaving the United States, including Malcolm X and Jamaican national hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Brown's trip to Ghana apparently also solidified her decision to advocate for separation instead of integration."
Confederate flag at Hamilton-area home prompts calls for changes to hate-symbol laws - "Whenever Amie Archibald-Varley sees a Confederate flag waving in the wind at a rural Hamilton home in her neighbourhood, she said she feels fear and confusion... Hamilton city councillors voted to ban the flag and the Nazi swastika from city property, classifying them as hate symbols. Police acknowledged then that it was not a criminal offence to fly a Confederate flag on one's own property. It would only be considered a crime if an investigation revealed that placement of the flag was motivated by hate.
Freedom of speech only applies when liberals like what you say
These are the people who go on about "white fragility". Unsurprisingly, she is an "antiracism/anti-Black racism educator"
Left-wingers avoid reading 'negative' news stories because it could leave them feeling 'overwhelmed' - "Left-wingers are more likely to avoid reading 'negative' news stories because they could leave them feeling 'overwhelmed' and 'carrying feelings of powerlessness', research has found. Surveys of more than 93,000 people across 46 counties, found that political allegiances made a 'striking difference' to why people avoid news. The findings were revealed in a new report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. They showed how almost half of Britons actively avoid the news, a figure which has doubled in the past five years. The number of those in the UK who reported avoiding certain types of news 'sometimes or often' has risen to 46 per cent, compared to 38 per cent worldwide. Those on the political Left are more likely to avoid news because it makes them feel 'overwhelmed, carry feelings of powerlessness, or worry that the news might create arguments,' the report said... 'Concerns about the news having a negative effect on their mood are higher among avoiders in the United Kingdom (55 per cent) and United States (49 per cent) than they are elsewhere.' Worldwide, around 43 per cent of so-called 'selective news avoiders' said they were put off by the repetitiveness of the news agenda, especially around politics and Covid-19. Just over a third, particularly those under 35, said the news brought down their mood, while around 17 per cent said the news leads to arguments they would rather avoid."
Howard Anglin: Alberta's social studies curriculum is filled with facts, and the left can't handle that - "if you showed the curriculum to most people over 50 or anyone who attends school today in Europe or Asia, they would have a hard time explaining why it would be controversial. They might quibble, as I do, with some emphases or be surprised at the diversity of the content, but otherwise they would probably assume this is what students are already being taught. By contrast, the reaction from the education establishment and the opposition NDP has been incendiary. The attacks began the day the new draft curriculum was unveiled, which means they had almost certainly been prepared well before critics had time to absorb all 550 pages... In the inane category, we can put the accusation promoted by some opposition politicians that teaching schoolchildren about the Ku Klux Klan’s activities in Alberta in the early 20th century is part of a nefarious plan to make them sympathetic to white supremacy, which makes about as much sense as worrying that teaching about the Second World War is a Nazi recruiting tool. Among the amusing responses was a tweet from an NDP MLA, who fretted that she “could weep” at the thought that in Grade 2 her child would be taught about “Genghis Khan & Silk Road” instead of “Iqaluit, Saskatoon, Ukraine & city govt” as provided for in the current curriculum, which is “(100 emoji) more relevant to his understanding of the world.” Put aside that the new curriculum contains far more Alberta history than either the current one or the NDP’s historically-empty 2018 draft, one can only pity someone traumatized by the thought of her child being taught about centuries of cultural, religious, economic, and demographic exchange between Europe, Russia, India, and China. Relevance is a myopic way of measuring a curriculum, but since this MLA brought it up, introducing a child to the history of four of the five global superpowers and a region that will likely dominate the politics of this century seems rather more “relevant,” not to mention engaging, than learning about the municipal government of Saskatoon (no offence to Saskatoon). Progressives love to talk about teaching students to be “global citizens.” It’s a nonsensical phrase, but to the extent it means anything, it means taking an interest in the world outside our own country and beyond the personal and the local... For flustered incoherence, the NDP’s horror at the thought of teaching children global history is matched by the Twitter progressives outraged that the curriculum will introduce students to the tenets of world religions. The screenshots, of course, usually focus on Christianity, making it look as though the curriculum were a project of “Eurocentric” indoctrination, but the basics of Christianity are taught alongside Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, not as fact but as what adherents of those faiths believe. Being for diversity, inclusion, and multiculturalism, but against teaching the facts of world religions — which are also the religions of our neighbours — requires gymnastic levels of ideological contortion... The progressive critique is more fundamental than misgivings about the volume of content: it opposes the very idea of a fact and content-rich curriculum and it is skeptical about teaching students about important events and figures in history and great works of art and literature. At its most benign, the progressive critique scoffs at teaching young children Greek and Roman or ancient Chinese myths because, as implied by the NDP MLA concerned over Ghengis Khan’s presence in the curriculum, old and far-away places are irrelevant and therefore uninteresting (The Walt Disney Company, with its billions of dollars of revenue from Aladdin, Hercules, and Mulan might dispute that.) At its most insidious, it opposes the very idea of a hierarchy of knowledge and even between teacher and student... To many education professors, being au courant with academic trends is more important than student learning outcomes... because these critics view school as a process of socialization first, and a place of education second (if they recognize the distinction at all). Following Dewey’s goal of using public education as a way to reshape society, 20th century theorists like the enormously influential Paulo Freire (whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed remains one of the three most-cited works of social science more than fifty years later) borrowed the “oppressed-oppressor” view of society from Karl Marx and put it at the centre of modern education. To critics who view education through this ideological lens, it is irrelevant that teacher-directed instruction of core knowledge has been shown for decades to produce better outcomes than the constructivist methods. The traditional ways of learning must be discredited and defeated because they get in the way of the all-important program of social change. When the sweep of centuries can be reduced to victims and oppressors — or, as Lenin pithily put it: “Who? Whom?” — what need is there to learn names and dates?... the evidence supports Alberta’s approach. And it isn’t close. Dan Willingham, a professor at the University of Virginia who studies the application of new findings in cognitive science to education, has written that “(d)ata from the last thirty years lead to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts.”... A detailed, knowledge-rich curriculum like Alberta’s helps with Direct Instruction because, instead of spending time planning what content to teach, teachers have more time to think creatively about how best to teach their classes... search engines are not a substitute for knowledge. You can’t look up a reference you didn’t get, and you can’t make connections between facts and ideas you’ve never heard of. There is also good evidence that a foundation of core knowledge improves critical thinking in general, and that even experts don’t think much better than novices outside their area of expertise (a weakness that is often piteously exposed by Twitter)."
Matt Walsh on Twitter - "It is the year 2022 and there has never been a polyamorous genderqueer indigenous furry on the Supreme Court. I hope President Biden does the right thing."
Meme - polyamorous ship of the day! @polyamshipOTD: "today's polyamorous ship of the day is abby, mei, miriam, and priya from turning red! they are a platonic quad!"
Iaymon @Iemontlngg: "... a friend group. We call that a friend group."
polyamorous ship of the day! @polyamshipOTD: "platonic polyamory refers to platonic relationships that are considered *more* than friendship, but not in a romantic way. many people have a person in their lives that they consider their "life partner" but in a platonic way, this is the same thing but with multiple people!"
"Some people are just chronically online, I swear"
Meme - "Okay guys. My autistic sister has been looking at a ton of inappropriate stuff on her phone. Mom wants to turn on parental controls but we can't find it in the phones settings. Does anyone have the same phone and know how to do it? The phone is an RC555L Orbic Wonder.
Oh my fuck people. First off, I relayed that she has autism because it DOES play a part in her understanding of things. She has not only been looking at porn (which wouldn't be nearly as bad if she understood what it was and not to let people touch her there without consent, and we've tried explaining but she's not able to comprehend it) but she texts tons of random people sending nudes and asking them to fuck her. Again, she does NOT know what that means. She is a thirteen year old with an intellectual disability that makes it EXTREMELY hard for her to understand how dangerous that is. Predators ARE out there so forgive us- we're SO horrible for wanting to protect her from creeps who prey on little girls. Second off: mom only looks through her phone when she catches her looking at inappropriate things or texting people that way. Other than that, my sister DOES have privacy. Third: none of this is any of your business anyway, all I needed was answers to the question. When it comes down to it, mom and dad have every right to monitor her phone when they sense that she's putting herself in danger. But no- you all had to throw a shit fit and assume we werejust being mean to her. If she was an adult then it would be up to her, but she's not. She's a minor. So next time you all wanna start a fight, at least get your fucking facts"
Ableism is bad, so you should let minors be sexually exploited
Letter from the Editors: Happy Canada Day! | C2C Journal - "Some countries were born out of the fire of revolution or the chaos of armed conflict. Others reflect an enduring geographical logic or stand testament to unique cultural roots or ethnic identities that date back millennia. Canada is none of these. This great country of ours was instead forged through cooperation, compromise and accommodation upon a foundation of constitutionalism. And because of this, the Canadian experience is properly understood as a triumph of the better angels of the human spirit. Canada stands as an exemplar for a modern, pluralistic society. It is an accomplishment worthy of great celebration. And this is true even if many Canadians today are unwilling to accept it. From its earliest moments, the Canadian nation-state accepted and codified minority rights and eschewed centralized power in order to allow diversity to flourish. Confederation of 1867 was a grand bargain between disparate colonies that allowed the seemingly eternal foes of French and English (loosely, Catholic and Protestant) to live together under one roof. This was a singular achievement by our first prime minister and master negotiator, Sir John A. Macdonald. It also knitted together Maritime and Continental elements into a single federal system, later adding Pacific representation as well. This willingness to cooperate became a distinctively Canadian imperative, yet its roots lie much deeper than Confederation... Given the attention currently paid to Indigenous concerns, it is salutary to note that the Royal Proclamation of 1763 enshrined substantial rights for natives and committed the British Crown to a treaty process with the land’s original inhabitants... Canada’s deep respect for the treaty process, even centuries later, stands in stark contrast with the American experience in which treaties were often violated after just a few years, and with frequently bloody consequences... Forgetting our past comes with a price. Ignorance facilitates such calumnies as the tearing down of statues, the burning of churches (words that we thought we would never see written in relation to Canada), the destruction of historical reputations and the current #CancelCanadaDay social media campaign, which has occasioned this editorial. The newly-woke mob insists on living in unschooled “presentism,” ignorantly marching the great men and women of our past before their ahistorical, anachronistic tribunals. Despite what noisy activists might claim, Canadian history is, on balance, a remarkably positive and uplifting affair... It is telling that some of the historical figures most reviled today, including Macdonald and educator Egerton Ryerson, espoused policies that their age considered decidedly progressive. Consider, for example, the fact Macdonald vigorously carried forward the vaccination of essentially all of Canada’s Indigenous population against deadly smallpox... No country’s history is beyond criticism. But any informed critique must survey the entirety of the past – from glorious to ignominious, from uplifting to degrading – rather than focus on single utterances or actions presented without context. Further, we should judge our predecessors in good part by what they left us and what we have made of their efforts. With regard to their personal actions, the test should be how they reflected, rose above or fell short of the standards of their day, not by how they measure up to the self-proclaimed social justice standards of 2021... With the possible exception of Iceland, Switzerland and a few other obscure and lucky enclaves, the study of history is replete with eras and incidents of violence, injustice, tyranny, oppression and corruption of a kind and on a scale that have never been approached in Canada. By any historical or current measure, Canada has a superb track record. It should be a source of pride for all Canadians rather than a reason for the self-abasement that the woke ideologues and so many of our elites currently propound. If, as Canada-hating critics claim today, we are a society riven with systemic racism and hate, why do so many immigrants from all over the world – people who will likely become minorities the moment they arrive – still choose to flock to our shores?... The liberal ideology of our age has given us what the British writer David Goodheart calls “anywhere people,” a redefining of citizenship into globalized deracinated individuals, abstracted and disconnected from their history, traditions, families and communities. “Anywhereism” denies the importance of the local and the particular and paves the way for faceless globalism. We must push back against this ill wind."
