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(See our
Dhimwits page for a definition)
"Muslim values are Canadian values."
We aren't ashamed to admit that we love Canada!
For fifteen years our editor has had the Maple Leaf
hung from his office (right-side up, of course).
He stayed up late one dark election night ten years
ago
just to sleep a little easier when the Quebecois
failed in their bid to destroy the country (and
winced when Parizeau blamed the defeat on "the
ethnic vote"). We believe that it's only
proper to worship the Stanley Cup, and each spring
we cross our fingers in the vain hope that the
Senators won't break our hearts again.
In our experience, the Canadians are quite possibly
the best people on earth, particularly those living
outside of Montreal. The cities are wonderful
and can be experienced on foot in a way that very
few other countries afford. The Canadian
Rockies seem more majestic than they are south of
the border, and the Maritime Provinces have fishing
villages with a quaint, New England charm that is
much harder to find on the American side these days.
Canadians can be excused for thinking that theirs is
the best country on the planet. Indeed, while
America takes extraordinary measures to keep the
rest of the world from overwhelming her shores,
there is little such activity on the longest
undefended border in the world. Even as
would-be immigrants often pay with their lives for a
chance at the economic and social freedoms of the
United States, Canadians openly fear American
influence for the effect that it might have on their
quality of life - one of the only countries in the
world to truly do so. (We suspect that
American TV shows have a lot to do with this).
For decades Canada has been following Europe's march
toward economic progressivism, albeit at a distance.
Its business model is still closer to the United
States for the time being, despite government
programs such as socialized health care and the
higher tax rates that are required to support it.
The sales tax in some provinces approaches 20% and
the income tax rates often discourage the added risk
and effort required for wealth accumulation (and
business development). Canadians are more likely to
be working in America than Americans in Canada.
The country's "Employment Insurance" system was once
called 10/42, because a slacker only had to work ten
weeks out of the year to qualify for government
benefits the other 42 weeks. The labor laws
also favor unions against employers, even allowing
the former unchallenged influence among workers.
Canada has been following Europe's drift to the Left
in other areas as well. The nation's leaders
seem to have swallowed the egalitarian line that
social dysfunction is a product of class and
economic differences.
Undaunted by soaring crime rates even as the basic
needs of citizens are being satisfied, the theorists
now explain that crime is really a matter of
"relative deprivation" - meaning that people steal
(or cause bodily harm) not because they need to, but
rather because they are compelled to by the fact
that they have less than the people around them.
The solution, of course, is wealth redistribution
(what some might call looting from the producers).
Yet, the harder Canada works to enforce economic
parity and social equality, the more crime it seems
to suffer. The country's overall crime rate is
actually 50% higher than America's - and the two
countries have been
trending in completely opposite directions for
fifteen years.
Not surprisingly, Canadians find ways of blaming
America for their problems, just as the U.S. has to
be the scapegoat for all of the world's ills,
according to the sanctimonious.
The Iraq War was unpopular in Canada, where many
naively assume that dialogue and referendum are all
that's needed to resolve any issue. Their own
country wasn't spawned out of bloody struggle or
revolution, and neither have the people suffered
under dictatorship or faced a totalitarian threat.
The harsh reality that others in the world need the
sort of help that can't always be perfectly provided
fails to penetrate the consciousness of a land where
life is so easy.
Canada refused to intervene in Rwanda in 1994 when
it was obvious that hundreds of thousands of
innocents were being brutally hacked to death even
as one of their own, Lt. General Romeo Dallaire
begged for a force of 5,000 men to stop the
massacre. Better that a million Africans die,
than Canadians be responsible for the loss of just
one innocent life through the missteps of war, eh?
After all, there are no such hard choices in their
nation, so how can there be any in the
rest of the world?
Anti-Americanism and cultural bigotry were exploited
in heavy-handed fashion by the Liberal Party in the
recent January elections, particularly in television ads
that attempted to smear opponents through
association with the United States.
Thanks in large part to recent government corruption
scandals and their own promises to maintain the
status quo, the Conservatives won a plurality of
seats in the election, ousting the Liberal Party
leader, Paul Martin, who is the recipient of our
January Dhimwit of the Month honor. Although
Martin's own political career may be in doubt, it's
certain that his party will regain power in the
years to come. Democracy lends itself to
liberalism, since the path of least resistance will
always appeal to the greatest share of voters.
In December, a
Muslim member of Paul Martin's
Liberal Party won the nomination for the general
election and declared (in a Christian church, no
less) that "This is a victory for Islam! Islam
won! Islam Won!... Islamic power is extending into
Canadian politics." Not surprisingly, the
candidate supports Shari'a in Canada, and wants to
abolish the anti-terror laws that keep suicide
bombers out of the country. (He now sits in
parliament after handily beating his opponent).
Yet, Paul Martin was conspicuously silent.
Even worse, in January the Prime Minister issued an
incredible
statement to Eid ul-Adha celebrants in which he
bluntly stated that "Muslim values are Canadian
values." He went on to detail such
standards as multiculturalism, freedom, tolerance,
and the "equality of every person."
Although values are a matter of personal
interpretation, most Canadians would agree with
these general principles. Islamic values,
however, are explicitly revealed in the Qur'an and
Hadiths, which form the Sunnah (Muslim way of life
based on the deeds of Muhammad).
If history is any guide, there can't possibly be
anything less "Canadian" than the way Muslims have
practiced Islam through the centuries.
Take the most obvious contradiction. Canada is
a secular nation. At one point it was even against the
law to broadcast religious
messages on the airwaves. By contrast, Islam
is meant to be both a religion and a government.
Muhammad left no legacy of distinction between the
two. Most of those living in Muslim countries
believe that it's heresy for a Muslim to have any
sort of allegiance to a non-Islamic government.
Freedom and tolerance are also defined quite
differently in Islam. A Muslim is not free to
leave the religion, for example, since apostasy is
punishable by death. If a person is prevented
by penalty of death from choosing their most
important personal beliefs, it's certainly a farce
to suggest that freedom is a part of the religion.
According to Islamic law, religious tolerance is
conditional upon non-Muslims accepting a position of
subjugation. If they don't submit to
third-class status and pay the Jizya (tax),
then war is to be waged against them until they are
killed, converted or forced into dhimmitude.
This is what drove Islam to the military conquest of
lands in the Middle East, Africa and Europe that
were originally Jewish and Christian.
And, although Canadian law is certainly predicated
on the rule that all persons are equal before it,
there is absolutely nothing in Islam that isn't
based on strict hierarchy of gender and religion.
Women and non-believers are to be accorded very
different treatment from Muslim men under the law,
according to Muhammad - and there has never been any
Muslim country that failed to put this into
practice.
In fact, when Canada recently
flirted with allowing resident Muslims to practice
Sharia for certain family matters, some of the
strongest opposition came from Muslim women, who
preferred their newfound civil rights to reduced
status under Islamic law.
It's difficult to tell whether Paul Martin is truly
ignorant of Islam and Islamic history, or if he is
speaking strategically, hoping that optimistic words
and positive thinking might accomplish the sort of
reform that has eluded Islam for fourteen centuries.
It would be a real shame if Canadians actually
believed him, since it would probably be too late to
salvage their beloved country by the time they
discovered the truth.
Go back to the List of Islamic Terrorist Attacks
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