2016-10-25

I've Come To Freeland's Emotional Rescue

You may have heard the story of Canada's seven year trade deal negotiation (CETA) with the EU started under Harper's Conservatives (which wasn't terribly, interestingly, popular among Canadians either) and continued by the Liberals.

It didn't go too well. And International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland made sure to let us all know where she stood: 

"Canada worked really hard, and me personally, I worked very hard," she said in French, expressing Canada's disappointment — as well as her own — at this turn of events.

"It's become evident for me, for Canada, that the European Union isn't capable now to have an international treaty even with a country that has very European values like Canada. And even with a country so nice, with a lot of patience like Canada."
....
We have decided to return home. I am very sad. It is emotional for me," she told reporters. "The only good thing I can say is that tomorrow morning I will be at home with my three kids."

Good grief. See it here.

Geez, Chrystia get it together.  Kleenex tissues are .59 cents at Shoppers. 

But what did you expect from someone who made a lot of money writing a book covering all the left-wing talking points of our times. Plutocrats? Check! Income inequality? Check! Fair wages and rigged systems? Check! But she does it from the lofty position of the classes said to be destroying the rest of us. It read a little like, well, her outburst. It didn't feel all that much thinking went into it.

It goes without saying, me being a psycho extremist, if I'd write a book telling tales opposite to this narrative you'd hear the lone monkey in the crowd coughing. It's just not in. None of the cool kids are doing it!

Never mind she's your run of the mill progressive who hated such trade deals until she came to like them. But it won prizes (as if those are worth anything these days) - PRIZES, ANDY! - so she must be saying something good, T.C. unlike you!

Look, it's simple. Take a touchy emotional and vapid subject like 'Income inequality' or 'climate change' or 'peace' and write a book and watch the prize panelists shower you with gifts. She had all that access and this is what she came up with?

Cynical even for me, I know, but it's all more about principals than principles.

Anyway.

You're representing an entire nation for crying out loud. Okay. Wrong choice of phrase.

And heeeeere's Justin Zoolander and The Shiny Pony Riders!

I don't profess to know the details of CETA having read it on and off for years and couldn't get too worked up about it. I've grown to realize trade deals don't benefit me all that much. It's just another trade deal that apparently if not signed signals the end of business and trade as we know it. Or some crap like that.

Trade deals are soooo over rated and passe.

In any event, I'm not going to bash Canada because quite frankly Wallonia is a socialist mistake enclave. And judging from what I've read out of Europe, they ain't too happy about it either.

Which probably means the Walloons - ack! - did something right.

I mean, to piss off so many elites has to be a good thing, no?

And nothing is better salty tears than elitist salty tears.

Whatever. I never saw what everyone seems to see in Freeland. She came off as wooden and awkward and without much of an original or deep thought whenever she appeared on The McLaughlin Group. Her defense in Parliament only cemented my view of her not being much of a speaker. I really hope she's better in private.

Her bio says she's a Rhodes Scholar - but so is Rachel Maddow, you know? Being a RS doesn't give a license to be a free and critical thinker  - and a former managing editor of the Financial Times - which baffles me because I never got a glimpse of all the knowledge whenever she had a chance to show it.

Now she's Canada's International Trade Minister. Come to think of it, it makes sense why Trudeau would have selected her.

Who cries when she puts in an honest day's work but to with no results.
 
Welcome to the real world, pal. 

***

Freeland is the sort of tart (with all the appropriate degrees) that just follows the intellectual trends believing them to be healthy and rational discourse. She's scripted in her head leaving her little room to wiggle around when confronted with substantial debate.

Much like her boss I guess.

Barbara Kay of The National Post got to the heart of it.  Kay was able to put into perfect words how a progressive mindset operates.

Excerpts. Warning: Trigger warning for the intelligent:

"Maher went on to blast multiculturalism: “this idea that somehow we do share values that all religions are alike is bullshit, and we need to call it bullshit.” That galvanized Freeland who “now more than ever” called for respect for “diversity,” because — here’s where she lost the thread — “we in Canada are not going to say Muslims are worse than Christians, or are worse than Jews, or worse than atheists.” Maher shot back, “Not as people, the ideas are worse.”

Maher and his other guests were keen to talk about those ideas, but Freeland just couldn’t bring herself to go there. You could almost see alarm bells ringing in her brain: “Offensive to Muslims! Abort! Abort!” It was as though an automatic pilot had overridden her manual controls. Unable to engage, she remained doggedly on script: “it is incredibly dangerous, and very wrong, to … say there is something wrong with being a Muslim,” which nobody on the panel had said; in fact, both King and Domenech spoke sympathetically of Muslim victims of jihadism.

Finally — and it was kind of funny/sad to see her incredulity — the penny dropped, and she asked, “Are you guys saying the Muslim faith is by definition worse than other people’s?” Maher answered, “Yes, the ideas.” A troubled Freeland, one could see, felt way out of her Canadian comfort zone. She flailed, accusing Maher of “demonizing” Islam. Maher retorted: “I’m not demonizing, I’m just reporting. You are making it a demonization.”

And so it went. Soothing multiculti platitudes that would have had CBC’s Peter Mansbridge gravely nodding agreement weren’t doing the trick with Maher. He just kept lobbing disturbing statistical grenades at Freeland, such as Pew polls that put support for honour killings, even in moderately Islamic Indonesia, at 18 per cent. Lamely, Freeland bunted with the Bible’s “an eye for an eye.” “Well, we don’t listen to the Bible,” Maher crisply returned.

Clearly Maher (as well as King and Domenech) and Freeland were talking past each other. The American panelists, intellectually marinated in First Amendment rights, understood that while it is wrong to defame any faith group collectively (like, say, “Muslim men hate women”), it is impossible under U.S. law to demonize an idea ( “Sharia law is misogynistic”). But Western progressives, splendidly represented by Freeland, no longer grasp the distinction. They have internalized the pernicious, anti-democratic, dangerous notion of “Islamophobia” — the very concept was invented and promoted by stealth-jihad strategists — which interprets as defamation criticism of Islam itself."

This is the key sentence. It's why when someone, say, suggest police or education reform, they're told they 'hate' cops or teacher - and the children. Always the children.

Canada has no impulse or cherished laws protecting free speech. It doesn't exist and don't think or take for granted this country would defend your right to free speech or expression.

America is the last nation on earth to fight that battle.

And they're hanging on.

For now.

***




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