Boy Genius ... Mark Steyn

Steyn Online ^ | 15 March 2011 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

Should western governments describe “honor killings” or female genital mutilation as “barbaric”? The son of the late Canadian colossus Pierre Trudeau thinks such terms have unfortunate pejorative overtones:

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau said the government should not call honour killings “barbaric” in a study guide for would-be Canadian citizens…

“There’s nothing that the word ‘barbaric’ achieves that the words ’absolutely unacceptable’ would not have achieved,” Trudeau, the Liberal immigration critic, said.

“We accept that these acts are absolutely unacceptable. That’s not the debate. In casual conversation, I’d even use the word barbaric to describe female circumcision, for example, but in an official Government of Canada publication, there needs to be a little bit of an attempt at responsible neutrality.”

I suppose one should be relieved that he absolutely accepts that it’s absolutely unacceptable. The trouble is, as your average honor killer or clitoridectomist around the planet well understands, “absolutely unacceptable” is Liberal Weeniepants-speak for “we entirely accept it”. Last month:

Libya Must Stop ‘Unacceptable Bloodshed’ Now: Hillary Clinton

This month:

Obama Warns Violence By Libya Government ‘Unacceptable’

Alas, all this absolutely unacceptable unacceptableness is spreading. Secretary Clinton on Bahrain:

We do not want to see any violence. We deplore it. We think it is absolutely unacceptable.

When a western politician says something’s “unacceptable”, the rest of the planet understands it means “carry on until it drops off the front page, and I no longer have to talk about it”. Justin Trudeau’s observation is characteristically moronic – whoops, I mean “absolutely unacceptable”.

[UPDATE: When you're in a clitoridectomy clinic, stop digging: M Trudeau has now clarified that, by "absolutely unacceptable", he means "totally unacceptable".]

[Berlin_Freeper]

Savage.

[Slings and Arrows]

Ping!

[Portcall24]

This is why people cuss...to make their point. How about, “If you do it again, I’m going to come to your house and burn it down with your wife and kids inside?”

[Happy Rain]

Oh those silly morally relativistic Lefties—now they are defining barbarity down.

Can't wait til they start on sadistic--perhaps renaming it "uncalled for buzz killing."

[Waco]

What does Mr.Pearl say about all this???????

[SECURE AMERICA]

Another useful idiot for the muslims in their quest to destroy freedom and liberty

[Oztrich Boy]

Justin Trudeau: Heredity or environment?

[Jack Hammer]

No, I’m not a neutered weenie with no b@lls whatsoever.

I’m an insufficiently maled non-female.

[aruanan]

“There’s nothing that the word ‘barbaric’ achieves that the words ’absolutely unacceptable’ would not have achieved,” Trudeau, the Liberal immigration critic, said.

No, Trudeau, you moron, "absolutely unacceptable" doesn't go far enough because it doesn't describe why: because these actions lie completely outside the confines of civilized behavior; that is, they are typical of the behavior of barbarians, people whose ethics and ways of life are inimical to our Western civilization. No matter how anthropologists may map them onto civilized society as "functional equivalents," they aren't equivalent.

[Soothesayer]

Another worthless scumbag leftist. I bet the underpants on the head at Gitmo was “barbic” though.

Make a mass murderer mildly uncomfortable and the leftist vermin will scream moral indignation to the sky. Mutilate or slaughter an innocent Arab girl and the leftist vermin will find it mildly distasteful.

[Soothesayer]

Another worthless scumbag leftist. I bet the underpants on the head at Gitmo was “barbaric” though.

Make a mass murderer mildly uncomfortable and the leftist vermin will scream moral indignation to the sky. Mutilate or slaughter an innocent Arab girl and the leftist vermin will find it mildly distasteful.

[Gene Eric]

A facilitator of barbarism.

[RoadTest]

(***Jesus***)

My favorite tag line and my friend.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Absolutely unexceptionable.

[momtothree]

“There’s nothing that the word “barbaric” achieves that the words “absolutely unacceptable” would not have achieved...”

Absolutely unacceptable is urinating in the sink. Barbaric is stoning some woman who went out of her house without a male escort. Barbaric is cutting someone’s head off while calling them an “Infidel”. Barbaric is hijacking planes and crashing them into a building killing innocent people. There is power in words and phrases. Barbaric is the “nicest” word to describe the radical Islamists. IMHO

[NonValueAdded]

there needs to be a little bit of an attempt at responsible neutrality

And there's the problem: "responsible" neutrality. In fact, young Trudeau is engaging in irresponsible neutrality or perhaps better put, pathological neutrality. Sometimes barbaric IS an appropriate modifier.

[Former Proud Canadian]

Re post 10, good post. But what do you do when your fellow countrymen insist on electing morons?

[JLS]

Mark Steyn ping.

Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.

Thanks for the ping slings and arrows.

[bert]

Over use of the concept of barbaric is unacceptable.