I was mystified at Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, Frank McKenna, yesterday, when I’d read that he told a Canadian audience that “the government of the United States is in large measure dysfunctional.” He then went on to praise Canada in comparison—like a child might do—or a liberal—to say that Canada’s government, economy, health-care system and natural resources are way better than theirs.
What kind of thing is that to say? What kind of “diplomat” would say such a thing? And of course this question: was he smoking pot immediately prior to making those remarks? Because nobody in their right mind would. That’s what I thought.
So I didn’t even blog about it because I literally thought it was a misprint or some sort of an error.
But it demonstrates—in technicolor—the abject fallacy of much of the philosophy of the liberal-left in Canada.
First, they think that it would appeal to Canadians to act—or be—anti-American. Frighteningly and embarrassingly, it is actually effective among the liberal-left set. It betrays an abysmal lack of political sophistication among my Canadian compatriots.
Second, they appeal to the fallacy that in order to build oneself up, one must tear another down. In order to get rich, one must make someone else poorer. In order to win, somebody else must win less. This mentality is astonishingly provincial and jejune.
The U.S. Ambassador is apparently far more mature. Sophisticated. Enlightened. And I take no great pleasure in saying that.
The National Post article explains as much:
But Mr. Wilkins said Canadians do not need to put down the United States to feel good about themselves.
“The majority of [Mr. McKenna’s] speech was about building Canada up and bragging about the wonderful attributes of Canada and the government of Canada and I agree with that totally,” Mr. Wilkins said.
“I simply don’t think you have to tear one country down to build the other up, and that’s where I disagree on that…. I think the United States can stand on its own and be proud of what we do.”
And he added something else, addressing my first point above:
He said be believes anti-Americanism in Canada is “blown way out of proportion.” He said for every negative letter he receives, he has 20 conversations with Canadians that are positive. “From a personal standpoint, I don’t detect the negativism that I read about and hear about.”
The negativism is a liberal-left created and nurtured product, much like so-called “Canadian Culture” is, and much like what they are trying to foist upon Canadians as “Canadian values”. In actual fact and as a general matter, Canadians a far smarter than that. Far smarter than the self-anointed liberal-left elites are. They are being insulted by the liberal-left, and they should feel exactly that way.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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