Two things I could care less about (great conservative rant: Liberals & Quebec only the start)

Toronto Sun - Canada ^ | Saturday, December 2, 2006 | MICHAEL COREN

[GMMAC]

Two things I could care less about

By MICHAEL COREN

Toronto Sun
Saturday, December 2, 2006

Two of the things that we should care least about in all the world are dominating the news at the moment in this country.

Quebec and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Not that we should be indifferent to the needs and well-being of the people who live in Quebec.

But no more and no less than to the needs and well-being of any other Canadian.

As for childish screams from the sovereignists about separation and unique identity, they ought to interest us not a jot.

If Quebec wants to leave Canada, close the door on the way out, please.

There, I said "please".

Polite enough for those of you who are willing to sell your soul for the sake of a bunch of spoilt separatists living a few miles away?

Just living in this country makes us members of a privileged class.

We are residents of one of the wealthiest, freest, most caring and civilized nations on Earth.

I'm tired of the paroxysms in which our political elites indulge each time another nationalist leader moans on about oppression.

It's bad enough that we pretend to be bilingual, especially with the language in question being French.

Either of the two major Chinese languages are today more useful. So is Spanish.

Outside of Quebec, French is spoken primarily by the French, slices of Belgium and Switzerland and a handful of former colonies, some of which are allergic to democracy.

We've sat by and done nothing as English-speaking Canadians were humiliated in Quebec and then tried to bribe separatists into remaining part of a confederation that they frequently despise.

I say it again.

I couldn't care less if Quebec becomes a country, as long as it takes its fair share of the national debt and doesn't try to impede commerce and contact between western and eastern Canada.

Call it a nation, call it a people, call it a community -- but please, just shut up about it.

It's a colossal digression from the real issues of life, liberty and morality that face us all everyday.

Get over it, people.

But while doing so don't forget that Quebec gave us that friend of dictators, Pierre Trudeau, whose fatuous son is now explaining why life is so hard for him.

Thus making the fellow a perfect potential leader of the Liberal Party.

GREAT IRRELEVANCE

Bringing me to the other great irrelevance.

Whether it's led by a failed New Democrat called Rae, a virtual American called Ignatieff, a little-known federal politician called Dion or a provincial politician with no national experience called Kennedy, the Liberal Party is an anachronism.

In fact, it is precisely what it likes to call the Conservatives.

A dinosaur. A large, unwieldy creature that has survived merely because it had no natural enemies that could bring it down.

So it grew fat and tired and predictable, then toppled over and became a fossil.

Watch them run around in panic at their convention this weekend as they choose a new leader, who will remain in charge for a few years before strolling off to some lucrative post in business, law, a university or government.

Listen to their self-important chatter about the future of Canada and what Canadians supposedly want.

Then shake you head, relish the real Canada, hug the kids and ignore the Quebec question and the Liberals for years to come.

[GMMAC]

PING!

[cripplecreek]

I'd be happy to donate a shovel so you can dig a moat around Quebec.

[joebuck]

Shouldn't that be two things I "could not" care less about?

[kjo]

Yeah, let 'em go; they'ed come back crying in two years. It's a tough economic world out there.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

We are residents of one of the wealthiest, freest, most caring and civilized nations on Earth.

Here! Here!!! Right behind the good 'ole U.S.A.!!!

Most Canadians are good people (once you take out Quebec).

[Senator Goldwater]

The separatist Quebecois up there are some of the most insufferable lefties in the known universe.

They make Vermont seem like Arizona.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Is the title an example of liberal media bias? Within the article he states, "I couldn't care less if Quebec becomes a country..."

Did the headline writer intentionally use the incorrect version of that common phrase to make him look stupid?

[Lorianne]

COULDN'T CARE LESS, the phrase is couldn't care less.

There is hardly a better clue to someone's lack of education that they can't get this simple euphamism correct (execpt when they can't distinguish when to use the words THEN and THAN).

[GMMAC]

In most papers of any size in North America, editors - not the the writers of articles - author headlines.

Akin to the axiom 'those who can't - teach', apparently 'those who can't write - edit'.
I have a few conservative journalists/pundits as friends who send me copies of their columns when they submit them.
Often, by comparison to the original working titles, some subsequent editor-created headlines, aside from being questionably literate, raise questions as to whether the article was even fully read and/or comprehended.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Yeah, let 'em go; they'ed come back crying in two years. It's a tough economic world out there.

DON'T take them back then! Don't take them back until reality, with no one else left to blame for their own problems, has beat sense into them. That will take a lot longer than two years for their thick skulls. Two generations might suffice.

[Lorianne]

I have no doubt this is true.

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

Two comments:

First, the author must read a lot of Steyn's work, and is doing a pretty fair job at imitation. (Although I suspect we would all be ROFLMAO for weeks if Steyn took a whack at this topic.)

Second, instead of ignoring those people as irrelevant (even though they may very well be that very thing right now), I'd put 'em in a box in some secure corner where I could look in now and again to check on fang growth and the progress the occupants are making in do-it-yourself bomb making or associated indoor sports. Maintaining vigilance plus a good memory are the best proofs against having someone sucker punch you that second time. (Don't remind me.....I've already sent that note to some of our pols down here in the states along with pictures from 9/11.)

[GMMAC]

Agree with your 2nd point entirely but not with your 1st one.

While every writer has their own style to some extent, it could be argued some rhetorical elements within Steyn's work are, to me, fairly typically 'Canadian' or, more accurately, 'Canadian conservative'.

Take away Steyn's superior sense of - especially ironic - humor and employment of invective and I believe this to be true of, as examples, David Warren's and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Lorne Gunter's writings as well as those of Ezra Levant, Lorrie Goldstein & both Byfields.
All of whom, IMHO, are better self-editors than the often overly verbose Steyn.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Obviously the state of education in Canada is as poor as it is in the States as one Michael Coren demonstrates.

[Lucas McCain]

I have never understood why so many people say that they could care less about something or other when they mean the exact opposite.

[Xenalyte]

(Psssst . . . "infinite" is misspelled up there at the top.)

[GMMAC]

"Obviously the state of education in Canada is as poor as it is in the States ..."

Agreed.
I've often said, when one reads the chapter on teachers & public education in general in Ann Coulter's "Godless", you'd swear it was written specifically about your own immediate area irrespective of just about anywhere you reside in North America.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Psssst ... pound sand, puke.

[Xenalyte]

Sheesh! Lots of hostility in response to a friendly remark.