Canada a Tyranny of Politeness

It's a strange country we live in. For all the talk we hear about how brave men fought and died to keep Canada a free country, we sure don't act like a free people. In Toronto there is a problem with violence in schools - more in some than others, more in those with underprivileged than others, more in those with poor black kids than others... and a so called human rights lawyer is charged with doing a very thick report on what the problems are and what the solutions are and as it turns out the problem was Mike Harris, a premier who ran the government of Ontario for six years, and has been out of power for the last six years.

Does anybody really think that the issues Toronto is dealing with on the very important subject of young black boys and young black men doing poorly in school is about Mike Harris? Does anybody have the moral courage to talk back to this kind of larceny, this kind of deceipt, this kind of rhetorical manure? Are we really a free people?

Wouldn't a free people simply refuse to accept what they know in their hearts is nonsense, nonsense that is masking the real issues? I know we don't want to discuss problems in terms of colour, in terms of ethnicity, in terms of country of origin. We want to keep saying what the government and all agents of contemporary want us to say, that all people are the same, that all individuals are the same, that all groups are the same and when there is a problem, when that problem involves low outcomes in education, low outcomes in family unity and domestic harmony, higher rates of criminal behavior, drug addiction and violence.

When there is a problem, we must not point any fingers at the people who have the problem. If we are going to point, we must point at ourselves. We are the problem. We are the village raising the child...and if this country were a tyranny, run by a dictator, I could understand how we could just feel we have no choice but to keep sucking on this multicultural lollipop until we gag.

But I thought as a young child growing up in Canada that we a choice on speaking the truth or not speaking it. I thought that's what separated us from all those other countries where societies are under the thumb of the evil man with his evil secret police force and corrupt judges and lying media lapdogs.

Now if I were still a child, I could still buy into the idea we are the country that I thought we were, and I guess I could go along with the idea that the troubles in certain cultural communities in this country are everybody's fault. I could swallow the idea that the family of the murder victim is as responsible for the murder as the murderer himself. If I were a child I guess I could swallow that. But as an adult I have had it up to here with the idea that I have to murder my own mind in order to fit in with a chattering class in this country that is betraying this country by chattering around issues, around problems and participating in avoidance instead of confrontation.

Confronting people and their lies is impolite in a country that worships politeness. When did politeness conquer freedom. I don't know. There was no newspaper headline declaring this. No radio or TV bulletin. No big lunged broadcaster saying “Breaking News in Canada: Freedom of speech has been replaced by the Tyranny of politeness.”

In a contest today between polite speech and freedom of speech, politeness won, freedom lost and we now return you to regular programming. Play nice my fellow Canadians especially with those who are never nice and never have to be. You made them that way. It's your fault.

Earlier this week a Toronto school board voted to have Toronto's first Afrocentric school. It's considered a solution. The premise is simple. Too many black kids have been forced into classrooms taught by white people in schools that have white principals. Sure the faces sometimes aren't white. They may be brown or yellow or black for that matter. But it's a white dominated system. White. White. Say it like you mean it. Say it like it's a mean word a bad word.

On a native reserve in Saskatchewan, a young native father takes his two babies out doors. No coats no boots no chance of surviving minus 50C weather and they die. Within 24 hours we are told that the white dominated society has not provided enough money for enough native reserves and so while we must deal with the actions of the young native father in this obscene story of child neglect, we are told that we must not be harsh or judgmental because after all, it's our fault that those children were frozen to death.

We stole their land, removed their opportunity, distilled the liquor, poured the liquor again and again and again until it resulted in death by exposure. If we weren't living in a free country, it would make sense for us to swallow that swill. It would make that sense that we could liquor up our minds and believe it and pass it on to our children. But in a free society why can't we talk back to the lie. Why do we continue to behave like some dictator has taken over the country? We know that in dictatorships there is only one emotion that needs to mastered in order turn the people into sheep. FEAR.

Fear of losing your personal freedom, your family, your life. Fear of losing everything because you said something. That's the emotion that becomes your personal tyrant.

It's the evil landlord who is demanding way too much rent. Maybe you haven't noticed? Or maybe you would rather not think about it. Not thinking is probably best way to avoid a problem. But there is only one problem with that theory. As long as your mind is functioning. Unless it has been damaged by the force of a lead pipe, the smoke from a crack pipe, or the ingestion of a vast and fascinating menu of things we use to avoid reality, unless you're out of it, your mind will continue to observe that many things that are said about the issues that matter most in this country are just bald faced lies that go unchallenged by people who are supposed to be leading you. Where are they leading you to? Apparently into the desert of dictatorship.

You can salute now. It's the polite thing to do.

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