There exists in our society a certain class of progressive that uses the word “cowboy” as an insult.
Unless, of course, they’re in the company of cowboys.
So, when they use terms like “red neck” to ridicule and marginalize the values and lifestyles of rural Canada, it isn’t really news.
And when these enlightened urban liberals choose descriptors like “mouth-breather” and “knuckle-dragger” to dehumanize that other class of Canadians who haul their goods, grow their food, build their homes, drill their oil – it isn’t news either.
However, when an individual who maintains a public media profile, who advises and lobbies politicians at the highest levels, who rubs elbows with the rich and wanna-be powerful, hurls cultural slurs towards a farm advocate and political candidate under the pretense of political criticism, it is.
“the Ontario Conservative Party’s red-necked, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing candidate in Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox” – Warren Kinsella.
That there are those who would provide space on their pages and time on the airwaves to any individual who so casually displays such intellectual laziness and cultural bigotry in a public forum is a Canadian media disgrace.
Update – Quite coincidentally, Mr Kinsella today has dusted off an old SDA incident for readers of the National Post – a reader’s comment that was deleted and for which he recieved a private apology from the writer.
So, let it be known that this is the same Warren Kinsella who then recommended to his readers a notoriously hateful Canadian blog site in which the (anonymous) writer had recently advised that I “hated Muslims”, linked to my contact information and advised that I was “not hard to find”.
But back to the National Post. It seems our serial traffic inflater has responded to being publicly suckered by a variation of Nigerian scam spam by penning a column that peels back a layer of ignorance that is simply jaw-dropping – by suggesting spammers could be controlled through legislation in Canadian parliament.
Does the NP not verify that their writers are qualified to write on topics that touch on the technical before they pay them to do so? I mean, this is a man whose internet street creds include a history of confusing “hits” with unique visits to falsely claim he draws more traffic than our national newspapers have subscribers. It’s the journalistic equivalent of a hiring a 15 year old with a learner’s licence to test drive Detroit’s 2008 new car lineup.
Postscript – some advice for this new media expert who recounts receiving “one particular bit of spam … Addressed to a rarely used corporate e-mail account, and received by no one else at the same firm…”
If Google can find it, then so can the spammer’s email harvesting robots. Someone – get this man some moron protection software before he hurts himself.
You know, I kind of feel sorry for you Canadian conservatives, but there is a big part of me (my Wild Western part, undoubtedly) that thinks, “why do you folks let the lefties get away with it?”
Obviously not all is roses down here in the Real America, but neither is the situation so intolerable. Your left is so wishy washy, you could actually do something and they would just sit around and wonder “how did this happen up here in Berkeley North?”
Things will not improve on their own, and taking some action might inspire fence-sitters South of the border.
Musically he’s “Sh!t from Hell”
Politically he’s “LibSh!t from Hell”
Elvis he ain’t …..
Sorry, Eric, I’m not buying it. yes, the political culture in Canada is overall more to the left than the United States, but your left blazes incandescently.
Good lord, where do i start… Michael moore’s awards? Ward churchill? The rabid and huge population over at the daily kos?
I’d say the situation is equally intolerable. Why do you let them get away with it?
As I have posted many times, there is a world of difference between the ‘labour-left’ and the ‘latte/basket-weaving loony-left’.
It is abundantly clear which camp Warren Chinchella is in.
At one time I had some respect for him. After all, he helped rid Canada of the most dangerous PM we ever had, PMPM.
But it is easy to see that he had other axes to grind and would have otherwise let PM follow Mo’s directions to Loonville.
Oh yes, Warren. Next time you see JC, ask him if he still believes in da ‘hockey stick graph’. Most Canadians would not even associate with someone that is such a sucker. Let alone idolize him.
Oh yeah, WK. Remember when you said Baird cannot win against the so-called kyoto world ?? Well even that bastion of loons, France, saw the light and turfed the kyoto-kult and burka nonsence crowd.
Oh yeah, and Warren. I am in Ottawa now. I listened to Lowell’s CFRA radio this morning. His guest, Andrew Coyne (know him ?) shot down all the loonie’s ideas, IMO. ‘Unfinished Canadians’. WK is a shinning example of the result, for he is both an ‘unfinished Canadian’ and at the same time a ‘finished’ Canadian. IMO.
But does Warren care ?? Nope, doesn’t give a sh** … from hell, of couse.
Kinsella is a liar. He deliberately concocts lies, then re-tells them until they become ingrained in the public psyche. It’s a trick that Goebbels used.
When Mr. Kinsella refers to “the Ontario Conservative Party’s red-necked, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing candidate in Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington”, it looks pretty clear to me that he is talking specifically about Randy Hillier, and not about an entire class of Canadians who haul goods, grow food, build homes, and drill oil. You’ve misrepresented what he said. And when you consider the myriad juvenile attacks on Stephane Dion (just an example) that you have allowed to stand here, don’t you think you’re on rather shaky ground?
Anyway, from what I’ve read, it seems to me that Mr. Hillier might be a better fit with the CPC than with Ontario’s PC party.
“There exists in our society a certain class of progressive that uses the word “cowboy” an insult.
Unless, of course, they’re in the company of cowboys.”
… Ann Coulter says she feels safe wherever she goes because she keeps the company of conservative men.
… Keep the company of “progressive” men, and be prepared to defend yourself as they either run away or cringe on the ground and shout, “stop victimizing me!”
I think the conversation is degrading, Lloyd Fister compared WK to the Nazi’s (Geobbels). Let us be slightly more highbrow pls.
“It’s a puzzle why Kinsella plays at being the sophisticate.”
Because he is constantly apologizing to the eastern liberal patrician cliques he runs in for being a “redneck” from Calgary.
You can’t join the inside circles of the Grit skull and bones society unless you are from established aritocratic Grit families and have linage in easten Canada and can trace your “gritness” back to the fist anti-royalist bureaucrtic termite who established a colonial kleptocracy in Bytown.
Westerners aren’t invited or trusted. Warren is self concious of the “western” stink on him and he over compensates with a smarmy eastern Grit hubris, an urbane pretense and in loudly denouncing the culture of Canada outside the Grit metropolis.
He just want’s so badly to be a Grit “bonesman” 😉 …. Pathetic.
Crabgrass,
You need to re-read Kate’s post. It was quite obvious to me that the entire point of the post was what she considered NEWSWORTHY.
Somebody receives a death threat.
[That is awful, but it has been happening since time began. As has climate change.]
But the someone thinks this time is worse.
[The Kyoto Kult also says this time it’s worse]
And the someone thinks govmit intervention on the Internet is essential. Gov’t control.
[Carbon credits are the answer. Gov’t control.]
mmmm, thought I had seen this play before. Perhaps tougher on crime is the answer. Liberals, the latte-left, is against that.
ebt said: “You know, when you agreed to pay off this particular debt to the Liberal Party in this particular way, you got snookered. (…)
We’ve seen a few too many examples lately of the kind of sick, dirty twisted little creep who works for the Liberals. Does the Post take pride in employing one of the few that didn’t have to be imported from a foreign hellhole? Did you buy the Post so you could bully girls with it?”
Hmmm I always wondered what the Librano family had on Dave Asper to make him hire their corporate character assassin. He’s only semi literate, as politically popular as genital herpes at a Liberal youth convention and more vulgar than GTA taxi driver,..why/how’s he rate a column in the Post?
What have the Grit bonesmen got on the Aspers?
BTW I cancelled my online subscription when they hired him…I felt no need to pay to read his craven name calling.
ebt said: “You know, when you agreed to pay off this particular debt to the Liberal Party in this particular way, you got snookered. (…)
We’ve seen a few too many examples lately of the kind of sick, dirty twisted little creep who works for the Liberals. Does the Post take pride in employing one of the few that didn’t have to be imported from a foreign hellhole? Did you buy the Post so you could bully girls with it?”
Hmmm I always wondered what the Librano family had on Dave Asper to make him hire their corporate character assassin. He’s only semi literate, as politically popular as herpes at a Liberal youth convention and more vulgar than GTA taxi driver,..why/how’s he rate a column in the Post?
What have the Grit bonesmen got on the Aspers?
BTW I cancelled my online subscription when they hired him…I felt no need to pay to read his craven name calling.
Crabgrass – the point you’ve avoided is that the epithets he chose to sling at Hillier are rooted in a type of bigotry towards rural, blue collar lifestyles that is utterly unacceptable when directed at any other “identifiable” group. It doesn’t matter what individual he directed them at or if that person is deserving of criticism.
The left likes to play identity politics and wrap it in speech rules to avoid true political discourse. Fine. If those are the rules, then it’s time to damned well play by them.
It’s well past time we started holding their feet to the fire when they single out Christians, westerners and other groups associated with conservative thought for personal denigration and dehumanizing commentary.
The words Kinsella used suggest his target falls somewhat short of being as a full-fledged human being. Had Randy Hillier been a candidate in pre-civil rights era, and born of a black mother, I have no doubt whatsoever that the word “monkey” would have appeared in Warren Kinsella’s bigoted little diatribe. Eras may change, but the mentalities stay the same.
That’s nasty stuff coming from someone who has been granted access to both political powerbrokers and the national media – and it’s high time they were called to explain why they tolerate it.
I assume this is what you are on about ebt: some, like the rebarbative blog “Small Dead Animals” — where a regular correspondent had earlier suggested that members of my family be sexually assaulted– thought it was hugely funny.
I didn’t take it all that seriously, to be honest. It was obviously a spam scheme. Who could possibly get hurt?
Then, two established Canadian bloggers –Steve Janke and “Bene Diction” — ”
Yeah… “who could get hurt” I bet you peed the matress that nigh Warren….then got up to lash out at things that threaten your paper thin fortitude in your new national media pulpit.
Where to begin on this craven self-serviving cheap shot at WK’s blogging competition? Conflicted intersts, for sure…unprofessional and in violation of media industry regulatory ethics..yeah…creepy in its cowering vindictiveness..yeah certainly.
Typical Kinsella…WYSIWYG
Mr Asper I feel a letter coming on to you and the Canadian press council. Perhaps we can solve your problem for you.
Kinsella’s such a coward. Most bullies are.
Kinsella’s such a coward. Most bullies are.
I just heard Kinsella on Adler blathering about spam.
All he blathered about is what we all already know about spam.
Anything for attention.
I keep on forgetting, just what makes this WK God’s gift to Canada and expert on everything? I’d pay more attention to what come out the back end of a horse before I’d psy attention to that weenie. At least the former has a legitimate use in your garden.
The childish pout he has on whenever Kate’s name or SDA come up is pathetic and speaks volumes as to his mental maturity.
“To be a “progressive” means that there are right and wrong forms of racism, bigotry, and anti-religious hatred.
For instance, on any given “progressive blog” you will find the term “Jesus freak” being bantied about, while in the same breath they’ll utter cries of Islamophobia at the notion that Islamic terrorists exist.
While wagging their fingers at suggestions that there is endemic poverty on reserves as somehow being racist, in the next breath they’ll call you a “knuckle dragger”
etc,
etc,
etc.
Because its the “correct” form of racism, they act with self-proclaimed moral impugnity.
They are correct after all.”
Biff, I happen to find these comments excessively general and indeed highly offensive. You might want to consider some very basic fact checking before you attempt to smear “progressives” whom you disagree with (which is fine) as racists, bigots, etc.
I define myself as a progressive and fundamentally disagree with all forms of racism, bigotry, and hatred. While I have expressed certain concerns I have with taking religious accommodation and indeed multiculturalism too far (I find cultural relativism extremely problematic), I have tried and believe succeed in being respectful. On the blog I co-write with another person, you will not find anywhere the term “Jesus freak” (I am a practicing Catholic and also take offence at your insinuation that progressive are anti-Christian) nor accusations of islamophobia against anyone who suggests there are Islamic terrorists.
I have always made an effort to be consistent in my position and on my principles. You will find in many of my posts discussions on ethics, moral action, and the need to have strong leadership on the shared principles we as Canadians have (democracy, human rights, respect for human dignity, and the rule of law). There are times where I have fundamentally disagreed with people on issues of policy, religion, and culture but I think I have done so in a respectful manner. In my opinion, civility is one of the most important things that is missing in the “blogosphere” and I, and indeed many progressive bloggers if you had bothered to do research on this issue, am trying to add a little bit of it to the conversation (see my post today on my trouble with the political discourse from all sides on the issue of Afghan detainees).
Please let this be a lesson to be careful with the arguments you make. “Glittering generalities”, as the teacher who first taught us extensively about logical fallacies and propaganda used to call it, are not only gross exaggerations and emphasize the extreme rather than the norm, they can also be rather hurtful and insulting to those are the precise opposite of what you accuse them of being.
Thank you.
One thing he got right in that article. For some unknown to me reason, I use bill.gates@microsoft.com every time access to some web page is blocked with a requirement to enter an email address. No idea why I type those characters, or who is bill.gates and what is microsoft.com – my fingers just do it on their own.
Kinsella and his pathetic MSM buds have been issuing, and are issuing, “death threats” daily.
What else would you call; blah blah the earth will burn, .. life will end, …… computers and airliners will crash at Y2K’s midnight, …. aliens are coming to get us — crop circles blah blah, … SARS is epidemic , so is west nile ….. we are running out of oil, …
Do as the lib-govmit says or you will die..
Warren and his ilk are in a panic because they know that if Kate and others are allowed to tell the truth, Kinsella and his buds on the loony left are toast. (The real left, carpenters, plumbers, construction workers, ect will do just fine.)
After all, how would the loons resume’ look to a ‘real job’ interviewer ??
Sorry Warren, you may be a swell guy but you have truly jumped the shark.
Charles diddler just called kinsella “rock star” on his little radio show. This little dweeb kinsella couldn’t pack one of the ditzy chicks fiddles, he is just another pathetic lieberal that the media tries in vain to bestow with credibility, as I grow the worthless little pukes food every day out here on the land. Him and all lieberals make me want to quit.
Some of you seem to be missing the point. In our politically correct world (check our charter if you don’t believe me), it is impossible for oppressors to be oppressed.
Thus, it isn’t possible for white, Christian, heterosexual men to be victims. Since white men aren’t covered as a victimized group, then anything goes. If you argue the white men are currently being excluded from most office management type jobs, then you are a racist, because only a racist would think oppressors were victimized.
Does everybody understand, now?
For those of you asking “what do the librano$$ hold over the Aspers, that they need employ the one eyed mangey attack dog of the most corupt group of thieves ever to hold office?”
Izzy’s Museum, built with our issy moany.
Kate writes: “the point you’ve avoided is that the epithets he chose to sling at Hillier are rooted in a type of bigotry towards rural, blue collar lifestyles that is utterly unacceptable when directed at any other “identifiable” group. It doesn’t matter what individual he directed them at or if that person is deserving of criticism.
The left likes to play identity politics and wrap it in speech rules to avoid true political discourse. Fine. If those are the rules, then it’s time to damned well play by them.”
So because a nitwit named Kinsella writes these things, you get to paint an entire political spectrum (left and progressive) with the hypocrite brush?
I’m Sorry. I rudely interupted your caboose of thought. Please continue. I believe you were saying something very funny about identity politics and using it to avoid true political discourse.
It isn’t just Kinsella. Add Scott Bryson and Mark Tewksbury to that, and any number of other progressive lefties in both politics and media who think that these terms are completely acceptable slurs to use against percieved conservatives. That’s the problem. Nobody, but nobody, thinks there’s a bloody thing wrong in it.
If the left side of the political spectrum wants not to be painted with a brush, then they should step up and object to it as well.
This post is cruel.
Mr. Kinsella will now have to cry himself to sleep…
Well, I agree with you there. Cowboys are viewed differently than, say, gays are. Maybe the solution is the same as what the gays did to make people realize it wasn’t ok to make fun of them. I say Cowboys should hold a parade. They could call it Cowboy Pride Parade. They could wear oversized hats, spurs, leather chops, and make a big banner to carry that shows their noble history of living and wrangling on the open land. Maybe a rainbow?
Its alsway cute when “progressives” get all moist about being called urban bigots, then proceed to demonstrate that, in fact, that’s exactly what they are. Right, Ted?
Here is why Punk Rocker has his punk-filled, Rotten Johnny drawers ’round his ankles: Property owners telling Liberal Slush-Fund McGuinty’s bureauc-rats to: Back Off, Government.
This is the work of Randy Hillier, aka,
“the Ontario Conservative Party’s red-necked, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing candidate in Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox” – Warren Kinsella.
Go, get ’em, Randy.
…-
Landowners group descends on winery to protest health officials’ demands
A family-owned fruit winery that was hailed as an Eastern-Ontario success story when it opened last year was the scene of a confrontation between landowners’ rights activists and health inspectors Wednesday.
Two dozen members of the Ontario Landowners’ Association amassed unannounced at the Countryman’s Estate Winery near Prescott and demanded area health unit officials cease their demands for costly upgrades to the facility. […]
Instead, the two officials were peppered with questions and comments about their sudden attention to the Countryman operation by carloads of frustrated landowners who pulled in just after they arrived.
“Why are you harassing the Countrymans, who are just trying to make a living?” asked rally organizer Jacqueline Fennell. Area farmer Gill Cyr told the officials, “we’re not at the government trough looking for funding. We just want to be left alone.”
Spencerville egg producer Shawn Carmichael, who has had highly publicized run-ins with regulators and food inspectors, said the health unit “must have a pile of money” to be able to spend time inspecting the Countrymans’ operation. …-
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=59403b4e-673a-4729-b83b-c0c663b5bfc7&k=0
“It isn’t just Kinsella. Add Scott Bryson and Mark Tewksbury to that, and any number of other progressive lefties in both politics and media who think that these terms are completely acceptable slurs to use against percieved conservatives. That’s the problem. Nobody, but nobody, thinks there’s a bloody thing wrong in it.
If the left side of the political spectrum wants not to be painted with a brush, then they should step up and object to it as well.”
Many have. I think one of the best examples of it is the Euston Manifesto.
Michael: Just read your whining and finger wagging chastizing of Biff.
So you’re a “progressive” eh!
I hope you realize how arrogant and supercilious a concept “progressivism” is. It makes the rest of us what? “regressive” or “stagnant”?
Why not just stick to “liberal”. The term comes with positive and negative connotations, but in it’s purest (pre-trudeau) form is what most of us are.
“Progressive”, on the other hand, is by any definition exclusive, bigheaded, elite, and above all, the province of Jack Layton and others like him who have, whether you like it or not, claimed it as their own.
“Progressia” has become Socialist Utopianism … go ahead and create your own definition for yourself, but you’ll be judged by those more public than you who wrap themselves in the “progressive” flag.
So frankly, I completely agree with Biff.
That would be as opposed to white necks, manicured draggers and nose breathing. A superior argument from a superior mind. How can anybody top that?
Sometimes, when would be politicians talk, it is hard to listen; it seems to hurt the brain.
How can anybody take this character seriously when he insults the working people? Bet you he is a socialist and pays major lip to the working class, then again if you are a socialist, you just pretend anyway to fool the masses.
Michael,
I had a gander at your blog.
Funny, you don’t seem to mind generalizing about “conservatives” all over the place. Indeed, you don’t seem to have a problem with suggesting someone is a “conservative” merely because they disagree with your point:
“An anonymous (and likely Conservative) commenter …”
Now,
why don’t you take your condescending finger wagging back to your little liberal coccoon, where it belongs. Your nice furry comfy place where you are free to cast aspersions on others while committing the very same acts which you decry,
all with the moral certainty and self righteousness that only a “progressive” could possess.
And oh,
Thank you.
Skip blathered: “Its alsway cute when “progressives” get all moist about being called urban bigots, then proceed to demonstrate that, in fact, that’s exactly what they are. Right, Ted?”
I dunno Skip. Depends what you mean. If you mean then I’m sexually turned on by the conversation then… maybe…
If you’re saying that I have a problem with name-calling as opposed to bigotry then you’ve missed the mark.
I find name calling amusing for the most part. E.g. Taliban Jack is name calling (in addition to being informative and amusing), but not bigotry. I have a problem with bigotry.
I think the real issue here, the one that Kate was driving at (wait a tic… yup, now I’m getting turned on!) was the same as what some of your fellow cons were shooting for; they can’t stand moral righteousness among the fallen, like Kinsucka.
Besides, I’m just poking fun at Kate. I think she’s probably right for the most part. The moral righteous are insufferable. Kinsella does suck, is a hypocrite, and so forth. Her generalizations aren’t my cup of tea, but if I wanted a scholarly analysis I wouldn’t read a blog — any blog — I just saw an opening to make a bit of fun. I don’t think anyone but you took it too seriously.
Here’s the deal: Warren Kinsella will have a woody going through these 84 comments. He could care less the nature of the commentary about him. That there is attention coming his way is all that matters. I’m not a shrink, but I think the guy may be a sociopath. The only way to silence Warren Kinsella is to stop reading him and stop writing about him.
And don’t buy gas on May 15th!
Kinsella is definitely a sociopath. He does get a ngry when he is mocked.
Kinsella is definitely a sociopath. He does get angry when he is mocked.
“Michael” sez: “I define myself as a progressive and fundamentally disagree with all forms of racism, bigotry, and hatred.”
Mike I feel compelled to jump in here to help correct some of your misinterpretations of “progressiveism”.
First, “Progressives” DO NOT hold a monopoly on being repulsed by incivility and inhumanity (bigotry, racism etc.) The fact is these “evils” were first acted upon by Chritian reformers and were a main plank in 18th century libertarian/republican thinking…the concepts of all men being equal before law was a machination of the British and French libertarianism which grew out of tenets of the reform church. Christian reformers in the UK and their counterparts in the US were the active force to abolosh slavery in western culture…although it is very much alive in Mid East and Asian culture.
So the core justifications for “progressivism” wave long been established in proper civil western culture.
Second, I tend to mock most of what is labeled “progressive” thought because so little of it is actually progressive.
The core of nodern political progressivism seems to be the omnipotent state with sweeping power and an inverted mandate not to serve the public, but to mold and engineer it (with a large dollup of enforced control). I see nothing “progressive” in a ideology or mindset that uses the brute force of government to bludgeon people into confoming to your way of thinking…there is nothing “progressive” about someone presuming to have the moral or divine authority to impose their views on others “for their own good”. Modern political progressivism rejects free will concensus for enforced social engineered edicts.
In my obsevations self proclaimed “progressives” come in 2 varieties:
1) Sanctimonious secular busibodies who hound us incessantly imposing their world view on us through the subversion of the purpose of government….this type see evil lurking in the most innocent places and are the torch bearers of social wich hunts.
OR
2) Megalomanic ideologues who want to force their utopian “vision” on us by autocratic decrees or political stealth.
In any event from my experience there is nothin less “progressive” than a self professed progressive.
I adhere to the universally ethical tennets of classic liberal democtats who hold that the highest moral and ethical plane a government can aspire to is to leave people alone to exercise their free will and liberty…they need to be listened to not lectured to, responded to not given directives, set free not enslaved in a morass of regualtory tyranny.
But I suppose that is not “progressive”…seems the only thing “progressive” is any idea that furthers the enslavement of the individual to either the state or the mob.
Cjunk sez: “Why not just stick to “liberal”. The term comes with positive and negative connotations, but in it’s purest (pre-trudeau) form is what most of us are. ”
On the money C-Junk!…I see most Canadians are liberal… myself included…there is a distinct departure however from classic liberalism in the post Trudeau liberal idologies…neo-liberalism is distinctly statist, intrusive, manipulative, elitist, corrupting, uncivil and amoral…a vast departure from pre Trudeau Canadian liberalism( which I feel the CPC embodies policy wise)
Laurier would not recognise the ideals and politics at play in modern “progressive” liberalism.
“Michael,
I had a gander at your blog.
Funny, you don’t seem to mind generalizing about “conservatives” all over the place. Indeed, you don’t seem to have a problem with suggesting someone is a “conservative” merely because they disagree with your point:
“An anonymous (and likely Conservative) commenter …”
Now,
why don’t you take your condescending finger wagging back to your little liberal coccoon, where it belongs. Your nice furry comfy place where you are free to cast aspersions on others while committing the very same acts which you decry,
all with the moral certainty and self righteousness that only a “progressive” could possess.
And oh,
Thank you.”
Biff, I am not the only writer of the blog. In fact, most of the recent posts are by the blog’s co-writer so please be very careful when you state that I said something. Look at the author of the particular post you are referring to. At least try to get your facts straight please.
WL Mackenzie Redux
Thanks for the history lesson, but that was not necessary. You did not inform me of anything I didn’t already know (give me a little credit for being intelligent). I know about the origins of liberalism, of ideas of progress, and indeed about cosmopolitanism (I called myself progressive and do so, in part, because most people don’t seem to know what a liberal cosmopolitan is and even then, there are a number of important variations which I need to explain in order to establish my position on it; legal vs. moral cosmopolitanism, etc.).
“The core of nodern political progressivism seems to be the omnipotent state with sweeping power and an inverted mandate not to serve the public, but to mold and engineer it (with a large dollup of enforced control). I see nothing “progressive” in a ideology or mindset that uses the brute force of government to bludgeon people into confoming to your way of thinking…there is nothing “progressive” about someone presuming to have the moral or divine authority to impose their views on others “for their own good”. Modern political progressivism rejects free will concensus for enforced social engineered edicts.”
Well this is a very interesting statement. I think you are taking extreme elements who call themselves “progressive” and are using this to define what a progressive is. If you look closely, I think you will find that the majority of progressive do not share these views at all. Again, read the Euston Manifesto which I would argue is one of the most important documents from the left in a very long-time. That document outlines what I would call progressivism. We are not Marxist finding new terms to hide Marxist tendencies (I truly despise Marxism because I think it is destructive to individual self-determination, individual creativity, and individual responsibility).
If you want an explanation of liberal cosmopolitanism (which, in particular, influences my foreign policy views that have been called “hawkish”, amongst other things) I would be happy to give it but be warned, it would be a very long explanation and even then, I would only be scratching the surface. The application of it is something I intend to spend my life writing and teaching about.
Kate, the only epithet that WK used that I think suggests bigotry (i.e., that you could really argue is widely associated with a rural, blue-collar lifestyle) is “redneck”. Terms like “knuckle-dragging” and “mouth-breathing” are to my mind just colourful (okay, they’re tired) ways of attacking someone’s intelligence, or, more usually, belief system. I don’t associate them with any particular class of individuals, any more than I do words like “idiot” and “dumbass”. Don’t get me wrong here – I’m not impressed with all of the name-calling in any case, but I don’t believe that Kinsella’s remarks reveal the kind of bigotry being suggested here, and I would certainly put them in a different class than use of a word like “monkey” in the context you describe above (May 10 3:12pm). I can barely type that one without grimacing (not suggesting you’re any more comfortable with it, btw).
And though it should not be necessary to point this out, comments that I see here move me to remind everyone that when WK speaks, by no means does he speak for liberal-minded (or Liberal) Canadians everywhere. It is unfortunate but sadly predictable that many of your readers chime in, nodding in agreement that it’s just another example of the hatred and bigotry displayed by liberals (and/or Liberals) time and time again, a generalization that I realize you yourself did not make.
Slick Myxolydian,
We don’t have “Human Rights Commissions” that can fine us for saying “faggot.” In fact, here in the Bay Area, we can say “faggot” and get excluded from boring company, but beyond that, there is really not much that can be legally done to us.
We also don’t have some Protestant German Queenlet on our currency. Instead we have degenerate dead freemasons. It is better that way. I think.