Mark Steyn: No Smoke Without Fire

Steyn Online ^ | 10/24/2007 | Mark Steyn

[mojito]

Canada: a little piece of Europe in North America.

[eureka!]

Marking for later

[Catholic Canadian]

The cities are turning into complete dungheap up here. Smaller towns and the rural areas have remained much the same. Personally I don’t feel welcome in my own home town anymore.

[Badeye]

(chuckle)

[SoldierMedic]

In Vancouver, it’s not tobacco that is being smoked in those hookahs.

[Max in Utah]

The cities are turning into complete dungheap up here. Smaller towns and the rural areas have remained much the same.

Why, that's because cities are "progressive."

I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue & freedom, would be my choice.
-Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush Monticello, Sep. 23, 1800

[Catholic Canadian]

Toronto is a prime example. 25 years ago it was wonderful, clean, safe. It has now degraded into a third world sh*t-hole of street beggars, gangs, drugs, prostitution, you name it, anything goes. The lefties love it though, because, like pigs, they love living in muck.

[Billthedrill]

At casual glance, this decision by the city council breaches one of the most fundamental principles: equality before the law.

That is a fundamental principle of law under Enlightenment legal theory, but it isn't, actually, a fundamental principle of law as interpreted by the Left from Marx to Foucault. Rather the opposite. Under the assumption that law is nothing more than the expression of a power relationship between a privileged and an oppressed class, there is by definition no equality before it. That is the genesis of the "special rules for special people" codocil that is so frustrating to those who actually believe in multiculturalism's nominal equality of cultures. They are anything but; there is only the one on top and all the rest.

That has always been a cynical and profoundly distorted interpretation of Western law, but it is a precise description of Sharia, wherein the respective power classes are clearly delineated as Believer and Dhimmi. For those who wonder where the commonality between multiculturalism and radical Islam lies, this is the big one, and it explains the willingness of many on the Left to adopt a tiered system of political rights. They think we're already in one.

There is, of course, the difficulty that the actual class definitions of privileged and oppressed, i.e. "rich" and "poor" in the lexicon of the Left, are vague and ill-defined, collapsing under any serious scrutiny. Under Sharia they are anything but. This isn't merely a difference in interpretation, it's a difference in fact.

One might, for example, contrast the theoretical institutional oppression of women according to feminist cant with the physical coercion of the burqa under Sharia. Given a sufficiently academic approach they may be thought of as all the same thing, but they aren't. Insisting that they are for purposes of ideology can take us into a very nasty place indeed.

[goldstategop]

Mark Steyn makes a good point. Tolerance becomes an excuse or rather an evasion for not living up to your own values. If you don't defend your own values, someone else's values will take their place. Nature abhors a vacuum. We may not be living in an Islamified World now but we are well on the way towards it in much of the Western World.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[steve8714]

If Canada is so depressing, let them return to Crapistan.

[Earthdweller]

"That has always been a cynical and profoundly distorted interpretation of Western law..."

Distortion of the law is the goal of anarchy. This is not an innocent mistake.

[mojito]

Canada has already set an exceptional precedent in this regard: it’s called Quebec. If Francaphone Canadians can have special laws and special rights, why not Muslims?

[goldstategop]

Its interesting Muslims get consideration (as well as attention) denied to Christians in Canada.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[philled]

In fact, if you’re at the Legion Hall and can no longer light up a fag (whoa, relax, I’m just talking about cigarettes, not another lively Muslim cultural tradition),

Steyn always has something that makes me laugh out loud. He is also a joy to listen to- I can imagine him speaking this and have no doubt his timing would be excellent.

[Catholic Canadian]

It is funny how watching how miserable they look in February...heh heh.

[-=SoylentSquirrel=-]

[nothingnew]

I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue & freedom, would be my choice. -Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush Monticello, Sep. 23, 1800

Repeat...repeat...repeat.

FMCDH(BITS)

[isaiah55version11_0]

bttt

[fanfan]

[kellynla]

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