53 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
53 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
Oh, Canada! Oh, delicious!
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<p>Stephen Harper, the newly-elected Conservative prime minister of Canada,<br />
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is huffing and puffing about Canada asserting its sovereignity over the arctic<br />
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waters of the Nortwest Passage. “The United States defends its sovereignty;<br />
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the Canadian government will defend our sovereignty,” said Harper at the<br />
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end of a news conference, promising to deploy naval icebreakers into the<br />
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disputed waters.</p>
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<p>The resulting brouhaha is hilarious on so many different levels<br />
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it’s hard to know where to start.</p>
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<p><span id="more-254"></span></p>
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<p>But let’s just start by considering all the<br />
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wisecracks about the Canadian military to have been made already,<br />
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shall we? True, they’re about as intimidating as three troops of Girl<br />
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Scouts nowadays, but it’s not really fair to harsh on them; they were<br />
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a tough, professional service before po-mo leftism in the Canadian<br />
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elite made it national policy that the military could never be more<br />
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than a joke.</p>
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<p>What’s much funnier is that the U.S. mainstream media sees Harper’s<br />
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maneuver as an I’m-not-your-poodle message to George Bush. There’s<br />
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some justification for this; Harper is doubtless playing that card to<br />
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stroke Canadian Liberal voters, who indeed do tend to hate Bush almost<br />
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as intensely and irrationally as the U.S. press does.</p>
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<p>But really! Over a bunch of ice floes on the sub-zero ass-end of<br />
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nowhere? Harper, an ex-libertarian, isn’t that stupid. Anybody who<br />
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can’t hear the wink-wink-nudge-nudge in Harper’s parody of territorial<br />
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posturing is tone-deaf.</p>
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<p>Harper is doing something much deeper and funnier here. He’s<br />
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catching the Left in a trap. If they want to join him in<br />
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his anti-Bush polemic, they’re going to have to stand behind the<br />
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principles of — <em>national sovereignity</em>?<br />
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<em>Patriotism</em>? Rendered idiots by their hatred, many of them<br />
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will probably take the bait — not anticipating that their own<br />
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rhetoric is going to come back around to hammer them flat sometime<br />
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when there’s a serious issue on the table.</p>
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<p>Harper is such a clever bastard that he’s setting this trap right<br />
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in front of their faces and daring them to notice. Read that quote<br />
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again:</p>
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<blockquote><p>
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“The United States defends its sovereignty; the Canadian government<br />
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will defend our sovereignty.”
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</p></blockquote>
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<p>By invoking Canadian national sovereignity, and justifying it on<br />
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the direct analogy with the <em>U.S.’s right to act as a sovereign<br />
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nation</em>, Harper just kicked <a href='http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2002_04-06/fonte_ideological/fonte_ideological.html'>transnational<br />
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progressivism</a> in the nuts. But by making it look like an<br />
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anti-American, anti-Bush move, he has made it almost impossible for<br />
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anyone in the Liberal Party to argue with the anti-tranzi terms in<br />
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which he has framed the issue – <em>because arguing would look<br />
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like rolling over to the Americans!</em></p>
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<p>It’s beautiful, I tell you. Beautiful. The most adroit political<br />
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mindfuck I’ve seen in years. My respect for Harper just shot up about<br />
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300%.</p>
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