The US had a bloody civil war which they reenact not to “celebrate” but to commemorate their history. You can go to Quebec City in the summer and see the British regiment that fought on the Plains of Abraham marching through the streets as a point of interest for tourists and no on minds that!

The French are dirigiste idiots whose culture has now collapsed under the weight of its own flatulence.

That’s another story that has been whitewashed from our past.

You would be hard pressed to tell all those people (who, of course, would have to be included in ‘everyone’) that it is a “fact” that what they are reading is violating their sense of good taste.

And if the multi-culti free speech haters want to imagine that it’s nothing but old white men reading Steyn, they might want to check out some of his college speeches that are packed to the rafters, with students watching on the monitors in the hallway because they couldn’t get a seat.

Life is tough. History is worth learning and reenacting even when it is unpleasant.

Sorry I singled you out as the one who informed on me to the moderation queue. I guess it was somebody else.

I would claim the opposite in fact. But what’s the point? Neither of us have the slightest idea who pushes these buttons except for the rare circumstance when Paul Wells annihilates all posts from a particular individual.

And you people have the whole concept backwards!!!

Steyn and Ken Whyte went to court because they wanted to defend their right to put whatever they like in their own magazine, which would include deleting whatever you write if that is what they want, whatever Jack writes, and whatever I write.

I would claim the opposite in fact. But what’s the point? Neither of us have the slightest idea who pushes these buttons except for the rare circumstance when Paul Wells annihilates all posts from a particular individual.

And you people have the whole concept backwards. Steyn and Ken Whyte went to court because they wanted to defent their right to put whatever they like in their own magazine, which would include deleting whatever you write if that is what they want.

And then you write something you think is clever but is usually completely irrelevant to the debate at hand, for no particular reason whatsoever. You are the king of straw men arguments.

Case in point: your post was deleted because you insulted the journalist with a nasty epithet. Now, I’m sure the result would be the same on most blogs, whether it be Wells or O’Malley or Potter, if you did the same and called someone else a b***t your comment would be deleted, probably by someone at Maclean’s.

Now you have attempted to twist this very simple fact into some kind of competely irrelevant tangent involving free speech and Mark Steyn fans.

Whatever.

You see, this is why I get your goat, because what I just said makes sense and you feel the strongest urget to rebut such a coherent argument. You don’t like it when people don’t fawn over your sophisticated diatribes.

Steyn has more fans than the rest of the journalists combined, although Coyne and Wells have a lot of fans too, and O’Malley may be getting more and more popular, for all I know.

As for your other remarks, I know you haters love to accuse him of every offense under the sun, but I think he was pretty on-topic- obviously you don’t agree with the substance of what he was saying, which is fine (doesn’t matter to me, or likely to Steyn), but I find the accusation a little weird. I had no trouble seeing the main threads of his argument throughout the column and found it quite readable. He does like to dot his writing with little quips and wisecracks, but anyone familiar with his books and columns knows this is his style. He has remained remarkably consist in that regard and, in my view, it’s what makes his stuff an enjoyable read. He has a sense of humour and it shows. Of course, to his detractors (generally, a bit of an uptight, humourless bunch) wouldn’t agree- there too busy taking offense and calling him names.

I also don’t really see where you get the ‘unsubstantiated’ accusation either. He listed clear examples of some school traditions in Europe that we’re being altered or eliminated. I suspect Maclean’s would have trouble publishing outright lies in one of its columns, so unless you have other information, I’ll take Steyn at his word. Not sure where the Muslim smears are either. I do recall him mentioning that some school districts in England were becoming more Muslim in terms of the demographics, which from what I’ve read is actually true. Is mentioning Muslims in a column considered a ‘shot’ in your book? Guess so.

Again, I enjoy his writing- generally- and I think he has a point about certain aspects about the changing nature of many Western societies. In America Alone, his most recent book, he actually draws on many verifiable sources of information to buttress his arguments with. Now, I can accept some may not agree with the inferences and conclusions he draws about all of these statistics, but there are some which are hard to dispute. Not sure if you’ve read the book or not, but it is an interesting read. It might also change your position that he doesn’t think about what he’s saying. I think his writing actually provides ample proof that he’s done plenty of thinking about his subjects.

I mean, I could say on the Star website that I think Linda McQuaig and David Olive aren’t really thinkers either because they produce reams of copy (McQuaig especially) that is littered with wisecracks, insults and cheapshots that are almost always directed at the same targets. Do we really need another rant against the US or corporate CEOs? Talk about a broken record. She’s been recycling the same rants for years, and while she tends to be wrong frequently, it doesn’t bother me much at all. I actually make a point of reading her stuff on a regular basis- usually when I need a diversion from reality. I wouldn’t say they aren’t thinkers though (McQuaig is actually quite thoughtful in person), their thoughts just tend to lead them to the wrong conclusions, in my view.

Something to think about, eh?

And so, were we to do a Plains of Abraham re-enactment, what version would we use? The British one? The French one? The truth? Some silly one-big-happy-family-out-for-a-picnic version? You can see if the British version is used, the French-Canadians will be furious, and if the French or even truth version is used, those English Canadians who were taught the same thing I was will cry foul at the obvious French revisionist history.

What we need to do is get together and document a Canadian version–one as close to the truth as humanly possible. Then we all need to learn THAT version, and the rest of our Canadianized history while we’re at it. It’s been a number of years now. We aren’t British and we aren’t from France. It’s time we wrote (and read) our own history.