I really ought to steer clear of more left leaning blogs, even if they are Canadian. They make my head hurt.
A few more are continuing to take a run at the Red Ensign group for (what else, these are not very original people) being racist. This time they are being slightly more sophisticated. Two that I'm aware of rightly point out that there are Canadian racist groups who are attempting to lay claim to the Red Ensign and use it as their own version of the Confederate flag. One of our two critics has done some digging and says that it was Canada's flag for only X number of years, until we got our current one. Even if he has his facts right, and he might, it boggles my mind why he should stoop to allow official government acts to define what is and is not Canadian.
There are more things outside government than in; are they not real? As for me, I take it that the people of Canada come first. We have a government to do governmental things- above all, to defend the nation. Today we have a navy that does not have boats with icebreaking capability and that is shameful for a country with a huge ice bound northern border. Why do they not get upset about that? There may be minerals and other valuables there that other nations could lay claim to. Such weaknesses, aside from making us less secure, could mean a loss of territory and therefore, a lost source of tax dollars. According to our critics, we can only be advocating a properly equipped and funded military because we want to be (and isn't this original?) Americans. The non logic! The horror! Owww!
As I write this, a new and more gently worded post has appeared:
So the point is not to say the Red Ensign Brigade are racists. The point is to warn those who might belong or those thinking to join this Brigade: don't. There's a chance you could be connected in the public mind with these racist groups. Take it under advisement. Reclaiming the flag is certainly legitimate. I would object to this, because I believe the Red Ensign is an Imperial Flag (and I think it shows that Tories don't understand this country -- when they choose symbols from the past, they always choose the wrong ones). But good luck anyways.I suppose this is fair, although I disagree. I still work under the umbrella of "innocent until proven guilty," and I don't see enough of this in our critics on the left. Always we are assumed to be under the burden of proof. Not just the Red Ensign, but Conservatives generally. Why? There seems to be a conviction that Canada's past (all of western history, actually, but that would be a book, not a blog post) is guilty of something. It must be torn down and replaced with something new. What, exactly? Well, let's not get hooked up on details. Most Canadians will not stand for this tearing down because they are dumb fearful rubes (leftist elitism, they never get tired of it). So the best among us (their thinking, not mine) must capture the commanding heights of the culture and then define that and only that as culture worthy of the name (perhaps Kulture would be better). The commanding heights would be the government itself, obviously, and the courts, but it also includes things that are not traditionally considered to be governmental domain - the culture itself. We will have the government expand to fund, and therefore define, what culture is in Canada. There will be things outside, but we will look down upon them until they are too shriveled to matter. The Red Ensign bloggers dissent from that view of Canada. Canada is the people of Canada. Canadian culture is what Canadians do. Conservatives and Red Ensign bloggers not only stand outside the circle of power, we mock it. They shame us as an attempt to bring us inside that circle and make us conform. As Conservatives, and even more so as Canadians, we cannot allow ourselves to fight on the terms of our foes. When an accusation comes to the Red Ensign group, we should ask for proof to support the claim, and it should come from within our group, not some one we don't know or have any association with. If the proof is from someone outside our group, we ought to tell the critic he has no case. We are innocent until proven otherwise. If we were infiltrated by haters, I'm certain that person would not last. And we ought not never to concede that we could "only" support X because we are (insert leftist hate term here). The world is bigger than that. What we ought to ask is why some people continue to insist that they are the arbiters of all that is right and good and true, and that Canadians cannot be trusted to find those things for themselves. Make them attack us, not the straw man they like to draw up. Make them the defend their arrogance. Make them defend their shame and guilt. Above all, be not afraid.
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