Friday, January 9, 2015

Mark Steyn: #JeSuisCharlie-But You're Not

Lots of excellent stuff in this blog post, so take your time to go through the whole thing. 

Definitely take the time to watch Canadian liberal poster boy Evan Solomon wade through the interview with Steyn, and how he is not intellectually able or willing (I don't know what's worse) to process facts such as birthrates, how birthrates relate to free speech, the publication of books in Spanish versus those published in Arabic and how sitting over a falafel in Paris is not necessarily something to celebrate if you have to give up your freedom in exchange a bunch of shitty little fried chickpea balls and a plate of hummous.

That's too big a trade-off and obviously, it's too simple for someone like Solomon to understand, so he gets all huffy puffy and accuses Steyn of being dangerous, blah blah, generalizing, blah blah.

Solomon is a very typical Canadian liberal, but I must give him kudos for having Steyn on the show. He certainly could get away with not ever having an opposing view on the show, and nobody who watches the CBC would ever know the difference. 

Steyn describes the CBC experience thus:

"The devotees of multiculti tolerance and the Allahu Akbar crowd are united by their reliance on the shut-up card. Still, at least the CBC types merely issue a couple of queeny Tweets rather than reaching for the scimitar. On such slender distinctions does our fragile civilization rest."

(SENDING MARK A VIRTUAL HIGH FIVE FOR THAT BIT, THAT'S GOLD.) 

And on a recent death threat:

" It's trickier than you might think, when you get an email from a guy promising to chop your loved ones' heads off, to distinguish between a 46-year-old Cleveland loser sitting in his basement and taking a five-minute break between masturbation sessions, and the more motivated types issuing real threats they intend to carry out. I'm all for the rich, vibrant tapestry of diversity, but I think, if you're going to let loose with the old blood-curdling head-choppery, you should actually mean it."

Having watched the whole show, I must say that the chap from the Canadian Arab Federation guy is particularly incidious in his repeated non-response to Mark Steyn's actual comments and ideas in the clip from Power and Politics.

Essentially, he is making the very specious and tired, disgraceful case that the Jews aren't the real Jews.  He puts for the 'argument' that actually, Muslims-always the victims, are the real/new Jews. He kind of slips that in at about the 21:00 mark. If you notice also, the story for him is not actually about the victims or terror, or the jihad, it's merely about the imaginary backlash that never happens and "Islamophobia".

He also dissembles real birth rate concerns basically by suggesting that anyone who discusses birth rate issues is a Nazi, wanting mass sterilization. It's lovely to be called a Nazi, isn't it?

Not surprisingly, he wants government limits on freedom of speech, and on "bad taste"- to his religious satisfactions.

Fortunately for him there are, already many places where governments limit freedom of speech according to Muslim religious sensibilities. Those places are called Muslim countries and are governed according to sharia.

Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for him, Canada is no such country. 

Steyn makes two incredibly important points within the Solomon interview that are clear and need to be repeated:

1) The first, and I can guarantee you that this is going to become a more visited theme in SteynLand in the coming weeks and months: that "...we are right to put a big question mark over Islam's ability to function in a pluralistic and advanced society". That's a biggie-and seems to me a sufficiently succinct thesis for an entire book.

2) This: "These guys were killed because they did a cartoon of Mohammad." That's the bottom line on the murders and it bears repeating. The facts are the facts.

NOW this lady is my new girl crush, you MUST listen to this ballsy, ballsy broad chat with Steyn. 

Joyce Kaufman, where have you been all my life??!

Seriously, this was an excellent interview-great banter and I loved every minute. 

(I loved it so much that I am going to listen to it again, and I have to admit with grace that I have been out fan-girled by Joyce-who admits to framing her autographed book cover.)

/not worthy