The Dead Enders

Bad ideas never die. They just keep collecting a government paycheque:

A New Democrat MP's writings that praise communist activists and criticize Canada's participation in the First World War have sparked outrage.

Writing on a left-wing Quebec blog, Alexandre Boulerice mocked the conflict as "a purely capitalist war on the backs of the workers and peasants."

"The only ones to have refused this butchery, to have rejected the call of the 'sacred union' within each nation, were communist activists," Boulerice wrote in an April 10, 2007 posting on Presse-toi à gauche (Hurry to the left).

Boulerice also sniped at Canadian soldiers involved in the Battle of Vimy Ridge with his claim that "thousands of poor wretches were slaughtered to take possession of a hill."

Unlike the hundred million or so who died under various communist regimes. Nearly a century after the end of the First World War, and a generation after the fall of communism, and M. Boulerice is still complaining about capitalists causing Europe's first brush with armageddon. These arguments have not been considered cutting edge or plausible since, oh, about 1914. You almost half expect the Dipper MP to start quoting Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

The causes of the First World War are hotly contested a century after the fact. Its origins are as debated and over analyzed as any event in human history since the Fall of Rome. Amazingly M. Boulerice has struck upon the one explanation few scholars take seriously anymore. If capitalists make money by causing war, which fails to address which capitalists and how, why aren't we constantly at war? Why has the growth of global multinational corporations over the last half century coincided with an era of decreasing international violence?

This is obvious stuff to someone not blinded by Leftist ideology.

But M. Boulerice is not alone in the Dead Enders club of history. He's got plenty of company as seen by this disgusting response to the death of Mrs Thatcher:

Pictures of anti-Thatcher graffiti scrawled on walls in Brixton also appeared on Twitter, with one reading: "You snatched my milk! & our hope" and there were reports of windows being smashed and shops looted.

Some were carrying banners, with one saying: "Rejoice, Thatcher is dead."

They also opened champagne and cheered, shouting: "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, dead, dead, dead." One shouted: "Free milk for all."

During the "party" a green smoke bomb was held in the air by one member of the crowd and a firework was set off.

Footage shows police in riot helmets tussling with the crowd as several missiles are thrown. Two women were arrested on suspicion of burglary.

That last sentence is the most revealing. When civilized people celebrate a happy occasion they do not, as a matter of course, begin looting and defacing property. This is because civilized people understand, perhaps only implicitly, that property is something people have worked to create and sustain. A city isn't just buildings and streets, it's the blood and toil of thousands or even millions over the generations. An awareness of this fact gives one a special care and respect for property both public and private. 

The careless destroyers of property do not have this understanding. They see property not as work made real but as things without owners and makers. A brick, a window, a building, a neighbourhood and a city were not made, they just happened like the sun and the rain. They are taken for granted. The psychology of the looter and that of the hard core Leftist, the sort who were eager to dance on Mrs Thatcher's grave, both share this common point: To them wealth is not created, it simply exists and should therefore be shared out. 

The world that Mrs Thatcher destroyed was a world very uncomfortable for the productive, the able and the ambitious. It was a very good world for the mediocre, the incompetent and the parasitic. The sort of mentality that had no interest in change, hard work or excellence. Not simply in themselves but even in others. The sight of excellence, achievement and success they found offensive. This cultural revolution, the Iron Lady's greatest accomplishment, is why the militant Left so hates her even now. She was destroying a universe in which they felt comfortable.

The Thatcher haters, as opposed to intelligent critics of her policies on both the Left and Right, are also fully paid up members of the Dead Enders Club of History. They sit not too far away from that most absurd of Canadian creatures: The militant Quebecois nationalist.

The Supreme Court of Canada says it will investigate allegations that some of its members intervened in the repatriation of the Constitution.

The high court's decision came after urging by Quebec's Parti Quebecois government for Ottawa to "open its books" on the events that led to the repatriation of the Constitution by Pierre Elliott Trudeau's federal Liberals in 1982.

The call by Quebec Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Alexandre Cloutier on Tuesday came after the publication of a book that alleges Supreme Court of Canada magistrates interfered in the political process and engaged in backroom discussions.

M Cloutier was about five years old at the time of patriation. To which we say: Get over it!

Having tired themselves out with stale rants about the Plains of Abraham, not getting service in French at departments in Montreal and the October Crisis, the Quebecois ethnic nationalist has in recent years become obsessed with patriation. In the ROC patriation was a largely ceremonial change over, a capstone in our movement from colony to first rank nation state. Everyone kind of moved on about thirty years ago. 

This is because most people in the ROC have jobs, families and hobbies. The Pequistes live in a parallel universe where their job, family and hobby is Quebec nationalism. They live within a narrative that bears only the most tangential relationship with the real world. In their mind the Quebecois is forever an oppressed habitant battling the Red Coats at Saint-Eustache. 

What ties together the Dead Ender Quebecois nationalists, Dipper MPs and Thatcher Haters is government subsidy. These ideas could not survive without taxpayer provided life support. There would be no serious Quebecois nationalist movement without the largess of the ROC. The Thatcher Haters are mostly teachers and public sector union organizers, people who do not have to compete on a free market and for whom even basic accountability is an anathema. M. Boulerice is a former journalist and consultant for CUPE. These are Dead Enders on the public payroll.

 

Comments

[Dennis]

I find Mr. Boulerice's notions that only the communists opposed World War One and that it was a war promoted by capitalists to be totally nonsensical. Many of the strongest backers of WWI were found in the Progressive movement, which was the socialist movement of its day. One of progressivism's major thinkers, Herbert Croly, admonished America to enter the war because he thought it needed the "tonic of a serious moral adventure". Many classical liberals at the time opposed the war because they knew that the only result would be a massive increase in the power of the state over the economy and the lives of individuals, and they were proven right.

[Jimmy Levendia]

It's so very easy, once one is even exposed to any depth of historical knowledge, to see through and mock to scorn treasured progressive shibboleths. I've had the deep satisfaction of flummoxing a leftist by declaring myself a proud imperialist: "I wonder why we have a Charter of Rights, parliamentary democracy, individual rights, etc? This is not London! This is not England! Such horrid imperialism, to impose such alien concepts on another continent!"
As for Quebec separatists, they owe the very existence of "the Quebec nation" to the Crown and Empire. Without that protection, Quebec would have been culturally absorbed by the United States, become a frozen Louisiana with blander cuisine.
It's just too easy to take apart those who are allergic to reality.
The problem with leftists is that history, actually existing reality, is the enemy: the God of Things As They Are stands in the way of the infantile progressive worldview, of the World as Whim and Idea. Mystics of the Spirit, if you will (bloody hell, you can't get away from the words of "That Woman", can you?)
It would take a fundamental, soul-shaking slow process of education to emerge from this mental trap. Fundamental economic crisis often doesn't, surprisingly: look at the decaying condition of Britain when Mrs. T took power. The dead were being left unburied, rotting in the sun by unionized undertakers, yet that this extremity was reached following the "British road to socialism" cuts no ice with present parasites.
All you can do is what you think right. You will always make enemies- just make sure that like Thatcher, they are the right enemies. If a bunch of parasites and moochers condemns you, how much more satisfying is that? As for myself, when I see that this repulsive crew was so cowed and intimidated by her that they remained silent even during the long years of her dotage and decline, when I see that even in the depths of her dementia they feared her...their misery is so sweet. Their frantic hate is a badge of honour.
Ave atque vale, Iron Lady.

[Richard Anderson]

Dennis,

"Many classical liberals at the time opposed the war because they knew that the only result would be a massive increase in the power of the state over the economy and the lives of individuals, and they were proven right."

As I recall the only member of the British cabinet to oppose entry was John Morley, the last Gladstone style Liberal. He resigned as a matter of principle.

Jimmy,

"As for myself, when I see that this repulsive crew was so cowed and intimidated by her that they remained silent even during the long years of her dotage and decline, when I see that even in the depths of her dementia they feared her...their misery is so sweet. "

Cowards and second handers always fear individuals of principle. The reaction was predictable if sad. I recall that Edmund Burke had to be buried in an unmarked grave to prevent its vandalization by Jacobins.

[John Chittick]

The academic community in the UK have been pissing on Thatcher ever since she was in power. Today, as I was driving down from Vancouver, NPR was interviewing a "protester" who was 12 years old when Thatcher left office. The Yank version of the CBC was equivocating Thatcher with this dissenting twit. They have no firsthand knowledge of the UK she salvaged. I can see the union thugs hating her but the rest are exhibiting spoon-fed behavior.