Ignatieff’s book, True Patriot Love – Revisionist Tripe
April 24, 2009 · By Greg Farries
Yesterday, the National Post published an excerpt from Michael Ignatieff’s new book, True Patriot Love. In the excerpt Ignatieff spends a great deal of time waxing eloquently about the uniqueness of Canadian character compared to the brutish Americans to our south. However, Ignatieff’s eagerness to sound prime ministerial and stately falls flat when he insults his readers:
To imagine it as a citizen is to imagine it as a resident of Yellow Quill reservation in Saskatchewan would have had to imagine it, this Canada where two half-naked children died in a snow-covered field in the sub-Arctic darkness because their father tried to take the sick little girls to his parents and never made it, and all you can hope is that death was as mercilessly quick as the cold can make it. What does a resident of Yellow Quill imagine, what do we Canadians imagine our country to be, the morning we learn that children have perished in this way? It is surely more than just a tragic story of one family. It is a story about us.
No Micheal, the story of Christopher Pauchay – the man who murdered his daughters by getting drunk and then dragging them out into -50 degree weather with only diapers and t-shirts to protect them from the bitter cold – isn’t a story about us. It’s a story about abuse, neglect and a disgusting disregard for basic human life.
The only thing more insulting than claiming “it is a story about us” is Ignatieff’s willingness to warp this tragic story to further his personal political ambitions.
If this excerpt is any indication of the overall quality of the book, I wouldn’t waste my time or money.
I think Ignatieff is also insulting the Canadian aboriginal population too. A lot of natives work damn hard to rid their communities of the scourge of fire water and they know their own responsibility in the matter of addiction.
It was a story that captivated the country – how could a person do such a thing? Canada as a whole carries no responsibility for this man’s actions, of course, but we do have a larger burden to bear.
Why do we continue to have such extreme poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction, poor social services, etc. in our native population? The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs spends billions each year, and yet we continue to see such poverty and problems. This is indeed part of Canada’s story.
Your use of the word ‘murder’ is questionable here. Doubtlessly it was employed intentionally to achieve a certain reaction in the reader, but murder requires intent, while this was mere gross neglect and homicide. Horrible, disgusting, atrocious, and vile – but not murder.
It makes me wonder why his liberal followers accommodate his lack of “Canadian” perspective when Ignatieff clearly has no grasp of what Canada is. It is naive to overlook the fact that he hasn’t lived in this country for the better part of his adult life and to assume his perspective isn’t tainted and very narrow. The example given is extremely insulting and I’m shocked he has the audacity to make it.
It is safe to say the Liberal’s were obviously forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
I think it’s really about white-anglo guilt. He goes on to implore us to consider the perspective of the Inuit and then of the Quebec separatist, not once mentioning that, perhaps, white-anglos may also have a valid perspective. To me the subtext is that we white-anglos need to do some soul-searching.
In any case, I think Canadians have pretty much moved on. This “who are we” neurosis really only occupies the minds of the habitually unproductive.
Somehow i dont think that his target demo are 17 year old Tory bloggers in their mothers basement.
Gosh I wonder what he has to say about poor misunderstood Kadar or Clifford Olsen. Sheesh!!!!!!!
Ignatief would do better to not write books anymore. That was nonsense and I’ve voted Liberal many times.
Manson:
Seems to me that your apparent liebrano insufferability is showing through. Not too many Tory bloggers matching your feeble elitist attempt at insult. More like your description of what I believe to be many of the libranoid supporters: Underage. Underdeveloped. Emotionally unhinged. Living on Daddy’s dole and Mummy’s baking and laundry service.
I am a retired veteran, business operator and entrepreneur. Widower. Father, Grandfather and Great-Grandfather. My immigrant parents stepped ashore off their respective boats in 1919 and in 1923. They promptly brought relatives over until 1929. Everyone prospered. All through the depression.
My father was able to make but one trip back to his place of birth, but only after living here for sixty years. Such was the impenetrability of that leftist Iron Curtain until the late 1980′s. Most of us did, and many of us still do, manage to get by, speaking four or five languages, moderately well.
Everyone has worked hard, saved money, educated their offspring [from the early thirties on, most of the offspring have advanced through to post-secondary education and many of them progressed to most of the professions. All, at least I think that all, paid their taxes. Many and served their country [Canada, that is] voluntarily, in harm’s way, as well as in factories and shipoyards, in times of peril and national crisis.
Your limp attempts at feeble salvos of childish insult do nothing more than showcase your own partisan and doctrinaire ignorance, insulting no one at all, embarassing no one but yourself.
If you are smart enough to realize just how truly ignorant you really appear to the casual observer, you might have gained something from this exchange, initiated by your infantile blathering.
Stop drinking from that vast vat of grit-red kool-aid. It just rots your brain, or what’s left of it. It also let’s your foolish prattle over-ride your self-edit function. This advise, this time only — No charge.
You’re welcome,
tj
t.e. & o.e.
p.s.: how are things in *your* basement suite, num-nums?
This about creating guilt. Collective guilt. It is what fuels the Liberal agenda. make us ashamed of our culture and society so that it cab be more easily re-engineered into the Utopian Liberal ideal. It goes like this…
Individuals are simply victims and are not responsible for what they do regardless criminal intent or gross neglect. It is the state and the society – all of us who are to blame. Society created the criminal and is therefore responsible. The answer, according to the Liberal mind, is more regulation and more intrusive law making.
Except when it comes to secret funds and money exchanged in brown paper bags….
Actually, Greg…it all sounds so very L-iberal. I was in a coffee shop in Victoria when a group of “young Liberals” (meaning: brash know-it alls) were discussing National Childcare.
Apparently, a program like this has little to do with helping the average working mother out…instead, it is a means to get little black kids in Toronto away from their Jamaican born mothers (because they all know that Jamaican kids don’t know who their fathers are) so they can interract with other kids and learn to speak english properly away from that violent and drug soaked black culture. As well, National Childcare wouldn’t really help Indian mothers get into the workforce, but National Childcare would get the little Indian kids away from the Reserve so they could avoid the rampant alcoholism and sexual abuse.
So you see Greg…when it comes to Liberals, they think ALL Canadians are stupid. Unless you’re a Liberal of course.
So that is the Liberal mindset. Non-white mothers can’t do the job and are burdening the rest of society with little sociopaths…therefore, the Liberals will see that the little tykes learn good L-iberal values.
The arrogance is astounding. (not to mention out and out racism…though they no doubt believe they are helping)
That is so twisted. So that’s an example of a typical Canadian working family? Trying to take the poor sick kids to grandma’s house? I hope this excerpt gets a lot of publicity. I fear that Ignatieff thinks he’s the Canadian Obama. Gonna save us with pretty words..
Wow,could not believe this when i read it.
Mike ,go back to Harvard, please!
This sure as Hell is not my story or the story of the parents I know.
But what is really strange about Iggy’s version is that it is so entirely divorced from the facts of the matter. After all, the story was reported widely. So where did Iggy get his version?
There is a very legitimate question to be asked about whether our current system of dealing with Indians works. And there are equally good questions to be asked about whether there is anything we might learn from this and similar incidents. But with Iggy’s version none of those questions can be asked because Iggy wants to sugar coat the tragedy.
A Prime Minister does not have that option.
Greg, I can only sincerely thank you for highlighting the sheer stupidity and arrogance of Michael Ignatieff. How typical of the Liberals to not only exonerate a criminal such as this but have the gall to liken him to every other ordinary Canadian citizen. NOT!
The Liberals place zero value on the lives of two innocent young girls but praise to the hilt a drunken murderer.
Abbatoir, get a grip on reality. It is called “personal responsiblity”. Try it sometime. Quit making excuses for child murderers. Poverty my ass. The list of entitlement programs is literally longer than my arm for the native population in Canada.
Entitlement programs aside, if I paid NO TAXES such as the native population does not, I’d be living in a mansion complete with butler and maid.