MSM, getting it wrong, again.

In regard to the flag flap, those that know something of what it means to be a soldier, know, understand and applaud that the flag MUST fly, even in the face of death.

To lower the flag during the course of battle (and we remain "in the course of battle", in Afghanistan), is to surrender. Soldiers fight so that the sovereign banner of the nation, and its principles, may be held strong and high for all to see. This is one of the oldest traditions in a military history. Soldiers expect nothing less that the banner under and for which they fought and died to remain held high, regardless how grave the effort, how horrific the losses. A nation which lowers its flag in the face of battle signifies its surrender.

This is part of the purpose of Remembrance Day, so that a nation may in concert, and with pride, and humility, and in defiance of its enemies, dip its ensign not in surrender, but in salute to those who gave it life.

But those who from personal grief or simple lack of understanding would lower the flag, simply do not comprehend the commitment the soldier has made: to offer his life so that the flag of the nation would NOT come down.

The flag on the Peace Tower must only be dipped for matters of state. The soldier's vow, in life, and in death, is to keep it flying high. By breaking the faith, the previous government signaled its contempt for the sacrifice. It was to time to set it right.

God rest them all.

Update: Barbarians...

An update to the "Brown Bess" saga in Hamilton. The Hamilton Police apparently were able to contact the former owner of the firearm and ask him what he preferred to have done with it. The owner decided the musket should go to the Battlefield House museum in Stoney Creek, a major skirmish site during the War of 1812.

So one gun got saved, but what of the many other historic and valuable firearms in the pile? Or, is it as Leendertse says, history is meaningless, if "one life is saved". I guess WWI & II didn't happen. Neither did the Holocaust. Its people that pull triggers on one another, build gas ovens, and bomb fellows and cities. Since flippant dismissal of the real causes of violence toward one another is the current political buzz in Ontario, maybe the advocates of gun control here can try to bend their heads around this idea. Maybe the odd loss of a warped life or two, can "save lives", so why not "criminal control"?

Its never been about the things...

Barbarians At the Gate: Got books? Guns?

Police say people must not lose focus on why Hamiltonians want to get rid of guns.

"The people of Hamilton have an intolerance for gun violence," [Deputy Chief] Leendertse said. "If we save one life, that's worth more than any history." Hamilton Spectator

The city of Hamilton, Ontario, like all good little McGuinty communities, had its own version of the now famous "Ontario Gun Amnesty" thoroughout the month of March. The amnesty programs held in Toronto, Ottawa, and now Hamilton, were "intended" to allow gang bangers and friends of gang bangers, to turn in street weapons with relative impunity.

Of course, as was predicted, the vast majority of firearms that were turned in were from ordinary citizens getting rid of an old military trophy or an unused gun belonging to a deceased or senior relative. Very few came from thugs, naturally.

The usual take in these amnesties is 300-500 firearms. Not to be undone by Toronto or Ottawa, the good gun-naive citizens of Hamilton turned in some 1200 firearms. Most, as expected, were old military rifles and the like, but there were also a fair number of valuable antiques and rare guns.

The police, bless their hearts, care not a wit for the history. A couple of the guns are exceedily rare, one or two century old historical weapons. One in particular, a Brown Bess, caught the attention of the Canadian War Museum.

"You just ruined my day," said special projects director Daniel Glenney. "How do I get that Brown Bess?"

Glenney said the British India Pattern musket was manufactured between 1797 and 1805 and used in Canada by the regular British troops in the War of 1812. It was then used by the Canadian militia in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.

"Based on the picture, you only see ones in that nice a condition very rarely."

The firearms are slated to go to the steel smelter at the end of the month.

Police subtly softened their stance yesterday, after maintaining all through the amnesty that all weapons would be destroyed regardless of historic value.

The whole point of the gun amnesty is community safety, said Deputy Chief Ken Leendertse. Owners who turned in guns did so knowing they were entering into a contract with police.

"They signed a form that acknowledged they turned it over to the police service for destruction.

"Citizens had an opportunity to turn these weapons over to museums before they turned them over to us."

The story has attracted national attention, being carried by Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Sun, and by the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

So, are the Liberals out to rewrite history in Canada, by denying its existence? As a government they had little use for veterans on Remembrance Day, barely acknowledging them in government departments throughout Canada.
Now, in the gun control zeal of Liberal dominated Ontario police forces, erasing the tangible evidence of Canadian history is just fine, apparently. After all, Deputy Chief Leendertse apparently believes gang-bangers are lining up to acquire muskets and antique firearms for their next drive-by pop. Therefore, Canada's heritage has to go.
I wonder if he understands hundreds of thousands of Canadians (and a few Dutch) died to prevent history from being rewritten. I might have a copy of Fahrenheit 451, he'd like to read ...

Send your thoughts to the Hamilton Police.

Update: The Hamilton Police Department apparently has got the message (well, sort of):

Spectator update

Hamilton police will now try to save a rare 200-year-old British musket from the War of 1812 after a plea from the Canadian War Museum not to melt it down.

But, warns Chief Brian Mullan, it will depend on the wishes of the owner who turned in the Brown Bess India Pattern musket during a month-long gun amnesty in Hamilton.

The owner gave the gun to police under a signed understanding it would be destroyed, Mullan said.

"It's our intention to contact the owner of the flintlock" to ask if they would consider donating it to the national war museum in Ottawa, he said.

"Ultimately, if an owner wants it destroyed, regardless of the historical value, we will be proceeding forward with their wishes for destruction," he said.

"That includes the Brown Bess."

Odd, how the police will trample all over your rights when it suits them (C-68) and respect them - when it suits them.

"Moral imbeciles..."

Pacifists such as Loney have never accomplished anything in this world and never will, and they've certainly never created what they purport to love: Peace.

They believe violence never solves anything when, in fact, the judicious use of violence solves many of the large problems.

South Korea is free because men -- real men, not pacifists -- sacrificed to stop the North Koreans from enslaving it. Ditto for Nazi and Japanese aggression during the Second World War. Violence ended black slavery on this continent.

All of those achievements were won by men with guns, not the wimps on the sidelines praying and feeling smug about occupying the moral high ground.

So concludes Ian Robinson in a strongly worded article in the Calgary Sun Sunday, April 2, 2005. Speaking about James Loney, pacifists in general, and the escapades of the Christian Peacemaker Team in Baghdad, Robinson takes issue with what he sees as moral hyprocrisy amongst pacifists.

See, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams are pacifists and they don't co-operate with men with guns who might use the information to track down kidnappers and/or terrorists and shoot them in the head until they agree to stop kidnapping and/or terrorizing people.

Pacifists don't believe in violence and refuse to use it or abet its use. Pacifists are therefore moral imbeciles.

They're like the guy at the party who won't kick in for the pizza but sneaks a slice when he thinks nobody's looking.

Freedom and democracy come with price tags. They are unfortunately acquired and maintained with spilled blood. Individuals with a moral aversion to the violence of freedom have a right to their view; that's what freedom and democracy represent. But that right doesn't include turning away from the responsibility to assist those who may have to use violence to ensure those very rights. With freedom comes responsibility and vigilance. The burden has to be carried by all shoulders, not just those of a few we'd rather not know. You can't know freedom, until you know what it costs.

Steve Janke, in a current op-ed on Angry in the Great White North discusses pacifism, and the CPT, in more depth:

Ian Robinson has a column today in which he notes that pacifism can only exist where the state is ready to use violence to ensure that a pacifist's right to express an opinion and to act on that opinion is protected.

That helped me focus my thought. I'll take it a step further. Pacifism is myth. It cannot exist, since its existence requires violence to be undertaken. Since it inspires that violence it is responsible for it. Pacifism by violence is not pacifism at all.

Here is what I mean. Take it for granted that pacifism only makes sense against a backdrop of violence. In other words, pacifism can be recognized in contrast to violence. A pacifist is a pacifist because he chooses to forgo violence as a means of reaching his goal.

He goes on further to explore radical pacifism, and the apparent moral contradiction of radical pacifists:

But can a pacifist precipitate a violent act in someone else and still be called a pacifist? And by precipitate, I mean knowingly create the circumstances in which a violent act, or more likely multiple violent acts, were inevitable?

Wouldn't a true pacifist recognize that his own presence would be a trigger to violence, and so to avoid violence which he believes to be morally wrong in all circumstances, ensure that he was not present?

Simply deflecting aggression onto the back of someone else, does not make a moral argument for being pacifistic. Its a structured hypocrisy that may have more in common with cowardice than a strong principled stand. In a "perfect world", it might be possible to attain co-operative cultural benevolence, but a perfect world does not, never has, never will, exist.

Have the Mad Missionaries of Islam infiltrated Canada's biggest, messiest most arrogant city? Major Canadian media networks are reporting an explosion in the washroom of a Tim Horton's at Yonge and Bloor, downtown in the heart of Toronto. Apparently one man is dead, although building damage was light. The blast occurred between 1 and 2 pm today. It has been reported that the man was wearing the explosives, and that his body remains at the scene.

Police apparently cordoned off another area around another Timmies on Lawrence, to investigate a suspicious package. Both Timmies are located near major subway terminals in the Toronto subway system.

Certainly, this will bring calls to bring home the troops from the "Freedom for Free" brigade of forgetful Liberals and NDPers who have recently forgotten that it was the Liberals along with NDP stroking that sent troops to A'stan in the first place. More than a little ironic that Bill Graham, current mouthpiece for the shards of the Liberal Party, was the Forces numero uno for these rotos.

I fully expect David Miller, the so-called Mayor of Toronto, to blame the US for this episode, somehow. Either the perp was from the States, his bomb was from the States, he (likely) carried a gun from the States, his shoes were made in the States, he has relatives in the States, something.

Of course, there'll be a connection to the handgun collections of law-abiding citizens, somewhere.

Update: Police do not believe the explosion was the work of a suicide bomber, although the apparent gasoline fire may have been a suicide attempt. Debris from ceiling fixtures was originally speculated to be the remains of a possible bomb, but has since been ruled out. While there was a flash fire, there was little overall fire damage to the washroom. The investigation continues.

The Editorial Times.ca also exists as a regular "old style" web page. As webstyles and technology advances, I decided to add a more formal blog format to facilitate comment with less manual effort. As most have discovered, using the web for contemporary awareness is a thief of time. In true Windows tradition, once gone, never regained.

My interests tend to congregate around the Canadian political and social scene. I am somewhat right of centre, with tangentially spasmodic lefty episodes from time to time, and anchored in the belief that the words Rights and Privileges can't co-exist in the same democratic lexicon.

I had a longish conversation with a colleague the other day about driving. He maintained adamantly it was a privilege (he has a biased viewpoint somewhat, having been the victim of a terrible car accident that took years to recover from). Equally adamantly, I insisted that, on public roads, paid for by public funds, that it was unequivocally a right, freely granting that constraints on the right would be appropriate for matters of safety, but only for matters of safety. Living in Canada for those born of the land (and by extension, to those granted citizenship, with qualification) is not a privilege. The Government isn't given a mandate to assign or denigrate my rights on behalf of someone else, regardless of who they are, or where they came from.

Canada's government isn't entitled to assign privileges to disparate groups who don't have a specific mandate to serve the public interest in a narrow bureaucracy; its role is to protect rights, uniformly, absolutely.
The time of "special deals" for "special people" must come to an end if Canada is to survive. I'm not talking about wheelchair ramps for disabled folk, but rather aiming at the practice of awarding cultural privileges to narrow groups, to the exclusion of others. Arguably, I would maintain that "multi-culturalism" as it is practiced in Canada is inherently discriminatory, and not sustainable.

What do you think? Canada becoming another word for "Yugoslavia"?

Haven't had much time to post in the last few weeks due to the need to attend to other responsibilities, but I have been following the boys in A'stan... The loss of another soldier is always sad...Go with God Pte Robert Costall (Thunder Bay).

Kate took on the media again over the reportage and said it well, I think (so I've quoted her comment in its entirety):

From SDA

"Killed In Action"

The CBC focuses on the casualties in their coverage of the death of Pte. Robert Costall, and only hints at the outcome of the firefight;

The Canadians, along with U.S. helicopters and British planes, had been repositioned to a base in the area in response to an incident on Tuesday in which eight Afghan army soldiers were killed. The region is a flashpoint for insurgent activity and the illegal drug trade.

Fraser said Taliban insurgents attacked the base with mortars, grenades and small arms fire early Wednesday.

The firefight lasted for several hours, he said, adding that a "significant number" of Taliban members were killed during the battle. U.S. military reports say as many as 32 insurgents died.

As much as we mourn the loss of any soldier, those killed in combat deserve a media that reports not only on their sacrifice, but on their achievements. This reporting is incomplete, for it fails to directly advise us as to whether the base was successfully defended.

Instead, we are reminded (at the end of the item) of previous Canadian casualties - including those killed in accidents - as though this information is directly relevant.
The liberal-left media has little interest in understanding military culture. Yet, as they do on so many other issues in which they are woefully underinformed, lack of knowledge is no barrier to interjecting their world view into the reporting - in this case, forgoing the outcome of the battle to revisit an incident of a taxi hitting a light armoured vehicle in Kandahar. True to the liberal-left "war wouldn't happen if we were in charge of the world" ideology, modern war reporting begins and ends with counting the losses.

Pte. Robert Costall was not in Afghanistan to sacrifice his life - he was there to serve his country by accomplishing the missions set before him. To report on only his loss while remaining silent on the achievement (or the failure - after all, we are not told) of his unit in defending their base, is not only journalistic malpractice, it is a disservice to every member of the Canadian Forces.

Upon further reflection - perhaps the time has come to send sports reporters to war zones. It seems to be one of the last refuges of journalism in which a) reporters have basic knowledge of the subject matter they're assigned to, and b) they're expected to report the details and outcome of the race, even if a contestant is injured or dies during competition.

It's astonishing that the same country that still celebrates the envelope pushing performances (and near-death experiences) of the "Crazy Canucks" downhill ski team, hasn't figured out that covering a war in the context of body counts is the sports journalism equivalent of limiting Olympic coverage to the daily injury reports of the various countries in competition."