In The Mail

Faster, please.

"How did we get into this mess...?"

It's the beer, eh? One's perspective on things changes when your head always hurts.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-3537-canadian-beer/

8-]

“It is irrelevant whether Wilder’s witnesses might prove Wilders’ observations to be correct”, the ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ stated, “what’s relevant is that his observations are illegal”.

Kafka would be proud. How would you like to be a witness in a court case where if you say what you observed you will be charged with a crime. If you don't say what you observed you will also be charged with a crime. Just like the Human Rights people in Canada. The truth is no defense.

sorry. wrong thread. Duh.

We have reached this point because the cowards amongst us, the better red than dead crowd are not being challenged enough, especially at the grass roots level, social gatherings and such. Appeasement is so much easier than facing a problem and working out a solution, why work when you can talk. Get in their face every time they cross the stupid line and challenge them, them personally, forget facts they don’t listen anyway. They certainly react when you challenge them personally. Reverse the name calling and call them stupid for believing in what they do and see how much of their loving, caring tolerance remains.

Western Canadian,

We reached this point, because the cowards amongst us are in positions of power and authority, because they were not challenged from the beginning. These cowards are now brave because they use the law and bureaucracy to enforce their beliefs. Nothing worse than a 98 pound weakling bully to have hired body guards to act on his behalf.

"How did we get into this mess that so many people think that Tolerance is a more important value than Justice?"

We let the ists take over: secularists, humanists, communists, socialists, feminists, statists, homosexualists, multiculturalists, etc.

I have to point out that Christians have never valued tolerance over justice. Christians realize that in order to pursue justice, it is almost always necessary to reject, and often do battle with, that which/those who are unjust.

Christians' shared holy book with the Jews constantly rejects injustice, dishonesty, tyranny, and naive "oneness" with others (they know that they are people called apart from "the world" by G*d) while emphasizing truthfulness, justice, shared responsibility, accountability, and compassion towards those less fortunate than themselves: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "What you do for the least of these your brothers/sisters, you do unto me," said Jesus.

It should be no secret or mystery, actually, why false "tolerance" -- or should I say the "equality" (sic) of every faith, every ideology, every philosophy, every way of life -- has proliferated in the West in the past century and into this century: Westerners have rejected the faith of their forebears and have readily accepted the lies of the "ists."

Christianity, which used to be the gatekeeper in the West against the enemies of justice, has been trashed by our educational, governmental, and media elites swiftly followed by citizens lacking in vigilance, seemingly unaware of the cost of consigning Judeo-Christian faith -- from which come the foundational values upon which our Western institutions are built -- to the dustbin.

The cost, of course, is injustice, intolerance, slavery.

Timothy has a very prescient message about just this:

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
2 Timothy 4:3,4

That time has come.

You're right batb. Its what happens when people cherry pick their morality. What is truly hilarious is the secular humanist who denies the Gospel yet cherry picks his morality from the Christian spectrum claiming it is 'self evident'. Of course the part of the Christian morality he disagrees with is of no relevance or else downright evil.

Anyone seriously wondering how we got here should read "NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER" by Theodore Dalrymple, who really gets to the root of the problem. I would call it collectivism which crosses all political party lines these days.

Alain, I LOVE anything by Theodore Dalrymple. He's got his head firmly screwed on and his observations are no-nonsense and go straight to the heart of the matter.

What, however, is at the root of the collectivism you suspect is the cause of our dilemma in the West? Does Mr. Dalrymple discuss the role our Judeo-Christian faith played for almost two thousand years in the establishment of our democratic freedoms and what has happened since our elites, our chattering classes, have denigrated Christian churches and their members? Because to airbrush out the spiritual dimension, which has been badly eroded in the West, is to leave out a crucial piece of the puzzle.

The secularists, humanists, communists, socialists, feminists, statists, homosexualists, multiculturalists I've mentioned are groups which champion collectivism.

We have to dig deeper to discover HOW collectivism has been able to usurp our democratic freedoms. Unfortunately, I've discovered that most Canadians don't want to touch the spiritual reasons for the collapse of our civility, our freedoms, our communal lives together. And, I'm afraid that if we don't grapple with this dimension, we're never going to get to the bottom of our malaise and apathy, nor are we ever going to be able to work towards a viable solution.

I don't disagree with comments made above, but I do think this is another example of the "slippery slope" at work.

I have used this argument in other places, and I am derided for doing so; the "slippery slope" is fallacious, don't you know?

Except that it isn't. In other threads, we have noted that government health care has justified increasing regulation of private activities - bike riding, smoking in your car, transfats in your doughnuts, etc. - on the ground that these activities raise health care costs. Back in the early 60's, when these arguments were raised about Medicare in Canada, proponents were pooh-poohed as alarmists and scaremongers.

When Sikh Mounties demanded the right to wear turbans instead of regulation hats, people said where will it end? They were also put down as alarmists and scaremongers. Now we have offices told they have to put aside rooms reserved specifically for Muslim prayers. Our liberty and freedom of expression is now subject to the whims of others who have temporarily gathered a majority in a particular spot.

Howard Beale had it right; nothing's going to change until we start shouting "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." Don't see it happening... yet.

I agree with many of your comments, KevinB.

Re your comment, "Our liberty and freedom of expression is now subject to the whims of others who have temporarily gathered a majority in a particular spot," why is it that the majority of us -- and our "leaders" -- don't get mad as hell and shout out "I'm not going to take it anymore"?

My take on it is that we have lost our will to fight, to take on the "whims of others" which we once knew to be wrong and which we were prepared to combat. And why have we lost our will? Why have we lost our courage? Because we have lost our faith which was a bulwark against the kind of tyranny we're seeing in our Western societies -- and with too little push back.

People aren't willing to push back because they've bought "multiculturalism" and a whole lot of "ists" (listed above) and have no rationale for discerning how wrong-headed and dangerous these "ists" are. In fact, they've been brainwashed into thinking that the "ists" are on the side of freedom.

Christianity has provided a rationale for rejecting the list of "ists" for centuries, it has provided the courage and spiritual fortitude with which to fight and, sadly, who would know?

We in the West now live in a self-imposed post-Christian era.

batb
[........In fact, they've been brainwashed into thinking that the "ists" are on the side of freedom.]

Yeah.....sorta like the Democrats south of 49 have convinced a lotta folk that they represent freedom-----while they forge chains....

The most preposterous is the Democrat's reflexive accusation of racism, in the face of any criticism. The Democrats were the Confederacy and following the War between the States, instituted the Jim Crow Laws and Segregation.....now they, unchanged, have the near universal backing of the blacks, coloureds, afro-americans ??????

There's also the problem with confusing "toleration" for "acceptance" or "promotion".

batb, actually yes he does discuss how the trashing and denial of our culture and heritage, including how it was founded on Christian values over time and history. If I recall correctly, he is an atheist, which makes his observation even more relevant.

Once you trash the history of a country, developed over a long period of time, and then add the doctrine of multiculturalism you have created a disaster, since immigrants and their children have nothing to which aspire. I think he is correct in identifying this as the root of the problem of young male Muslims born and raised in the West who adopt radical Islamism.

This is all part of what I call collectivism. As pointed out in his book once the state/government has become a vast and intricate system of patronage, there are very few who can escape entirely its influence. It is essentially corporatist: the government, avid for power, sets itself up as an authority on everything and claims to be omnicompetent both morally and in practice; and by means of taxation, licensing, regulation, and bureaucracy, it destroys the independence of all organisations that intervene between it and the individual citizen. Once it draws enough people into dependence on it, it can remain in power and in control, at least until some kind of crisis or cataclysm forces change. At the same time the government fails in its one inescapable duty; that of preserving the peace and ensuring that citizens may go about their lawful business in confidence and safety.

He also refers to Hayek who observed in the early 1940s the danger of what was happening in G.B. and who wrote: "There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues possessed by the British people in a higher degree than most other people were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility...non-interference with one's neighbour and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority."

What the book says about the situation in G.B. applies every bit as much to Canada.

Chesterton said it best: "Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions."

I admire Howard for his stand on free speech and taking on the politically correct elements who advance intolerant political speech codes. However I fear he is somewhat off the mark in getting to the root cause of "official tolerance of intolerance".

Yes a leftwing regime in any Canadian government is highly intolerant of any opinion that differs with the dogma they hold at any given time. But WHAT is it that causes this?

Again the roots of the present lie in the past.

We are seeing the seeds of 30s and 40s cultural Marxism bearing its malignant fruit in today's social miasmas. It began with the twisted, predatory subverting anti-culture paragons which "The four horsemen of the Frankfurt school" (music critic Theodor Adorno, psychologist Erich Fromm, sociologist Wilhelm Reich and professor Herbert Marcuse), had percolating through the halls of academia where our current crop of cultural elites and social engineers first encountered it in the 60s and 70s. That academic exposure to Marxist critical theory disguised as social psychology, social policy studies, anthropology and culture studies was the embarkation point of today’s politically correct catechism.

Part of this Frankfurt School alumnus constant aggressive denouncement and demonization of all established western cultural institutions, was a little gimmick called "the righteous intolerance of the authoritarian personality". This was essentially an attempt by pseudo science quackery to pathologize (diagnose as a mental disorder) what in western culture was to be destroyed. This concept is premised on the notion that Christianity, Judaism (or any religious faith),the traditional family these faiths culture and the rugged independence, free market capitalism, self defense and conservative self reliant principles of the colonial culture have created a flawed character prone to greed, self interest, violence, racism and fascism. Thus, anyone who upholds traditional western moral values and institutions is potentially violent and both racist and fascist. This concept plugs in nicely to two other inventions of cultural Marxim: The correspondingly diabolical regime of political correctness and confrontational identity group victimology politics (Multiculturalism). The operative social control element here is that in order for one not to be branded as criminally inclined or racist or fascist, then one must embrace the ‘new' intolerant moral absolutes and speech codes as dictated by the "authority personality" running the counter culture politically corrective enforcement regime.

Of course the "authority personality" overseeing this social control regime is a practicing cultural Marxist or a properly politically conditioned zombie who will seek out the unassailable power of an unelected administrative regulatory officer or quasi judicial official as per their counterculture activism indoctrination.

There's your source of one sided politically motivated intolerance Howard. And it has been the entrenched norm with the bureaucratic-political-administrative class long enough that cultural Marxism is now morphing into cultural fascism with petty government bureaucracts heavy handedly enforcing the one sided "rightious intoleration" of a politically corrected submissive society.

I broadly agree with The Fly's comments above, summarized by "the roots of the present lie in the past". Political correctness was derived from Marxism in the 20th century, just as Marxism was based on the philosophy of Kant and Hegel that preceded him.

On Oct. 14 of last year, the Transylvania Phoenix blog posted a 22-minute video overview of the origins of political correctness (it was linked to from a thread here on or shortly after that date). Its point was that when the Marxists realized that the "working class" was not going to be the bringer of revolution, they decided to enlist the minority and "victim" groups instead.

And, nv53, what was the underlying weakness/vulnerability in the West that allowed the Marxists to have their way?

That's the question that needs to be asked and answered, seeing as we know how political correctness and the tyranny it has wrought came about.

> How did we get into this mess that so many people think that Tolerance is a more important value than Justice?

There is an organized force that is working against us. It is the same force that either bribed or threatened PET into building socialism in Canada.
This force developed strategy and is implementing it in order to divert wealth from the West to the coffers of communist parties. They hired hordes of parasites who assist them for a share of loot.
They developed methods to which you can't resist - masquerading their true goals behind facade of progressive terminology.

Multiculturalism = destruction of society
Outsourcing = destruction of economy
etc.

Tolerance is cowardice masquerading as charity.

The Fly, yes you are correct in that the existing situation did not occur overnight. The seeds were sown long ago, in fact I would say during the "Enlightenment" and have continued to grow and flourish. In Britain what was happening between the WW I and WW II was clear to some such as Hayek. I fear we have now reached a point where it is impossible to turn things around without some kind of revolution, keeping in mind that revolutions need not be armed and violent.

Just who ARE these multitudes who value tolerance above justice?

...Judeo-Christian faith -- from which come the foundational values upon which our Western institutions are built...

Exactly which Judeo Christian values are the bedrock of our Western institutions,
bearing in mind such things as the Golden Rule are universal human values that
christianity can lay no legitimate claim to having originated?

phil, it seems to me that you are missing the point. The fact is that Western civilisation was developed based on Christian values. No one is saying that only Christianity has these values or rather that no other belief system possesses any of the same values. Once you destroy the belief system upon which a civilisation has been built, you create a vacuum, which in the West has been filled with materialism, selfishness, greed, hedonism and many other things that the traditional belief system rejected. Some of the values of which you claim to be unaware are: self-restraint, responsibility, faithfulness, charity for the down-trotten and less fortunate and love of your neighbour.

One does not need to be religious or even a non atheist to recognise that what has replaced the religious values upon which western civilisation was founded can only lead to self-destruction.

batb @ 7:31 a.m.: "what was the underlying weakness/vulnerability in the West that allowed the Marxists to have their way?"

The major underlying weakness was the failure to understand the nature of man's reason -- his tool of survival -- and it was a philosophical failure mostly. The philosophers ended up merely replacing worship of God with worship of society, which is no improvement. Please don't forget that Marxism is part and parcel of the mainstream of Western philosophical thought, and was derived from the work of his predecessors Kant and Hegel. When Kant separated reason from reality, it struck a huge blow against rational thought.

Alain @ 8:44 p.m.: "Once you destroy the belief system upon which a civilisation has been built, you create a vacuum, which in the West has been filled with materialism, selfishness, greed, hedonism and many other things that the traditional belief system rejected."

We live in a material world, so we need some material things for survival. We also need pleasure to help us desire to remain alive (this is not full-fledged hedonism though, which puts pleasure above all else). There is nothing wrong with "selfishness", since we have to look after our own lives first, as nobody else has the knowledge or the ability to do it (note that the nanny-statists think they can). And greed is not a big problem in a society / economy based on voluntary trade, since the person who asks too much will be refused. It's only when government can bend the rules to certain people's advantage that it can become a problem.

If you look into the beliefs of the enemies of Western civilization, you will find that they abhor materialism, selfishness, greed and (probably) hedonism to a man (or woman).

Cultural variety in customs, dance, music, food and dress are mostly assets to a nation.

There are exceptions however. The nation that tolerates a full covering of face and body thus concealing identity, is more foolish than it is tolerant.

Hidden identity makes it almost impossible for police, government officials, and elections officers to do their job effectively.