tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post8544168090555412143..comments2023-10-31T03:58:32.056-07:00Comments on Empathic Rationalist: Daniel Spirohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09656412977046134771noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32924329.post-30202644087174611612011-06-19T21:11:27.741-07:002011-06-19T21:11:27.741-07:00Young Man,
Even though we have become even more p...Young Man,<br /><br />Even though we have become even more ploralized philosophically and politically, we seemed to reach common ground in sports.<br /><br />Until now.<br /><br />How much hockey do you watch, especially relative to other sports? And I'm sure you bled for Vancouver because it is not only the most physically attractive city in North America, and the most "progressive" city in North America.<br /><br />Yet what happened to the Canucks is poetic justice...not only becausce Alex Burrows bit (did I saybit with his teeth) Pat rice Bergeron, but delayed justice for what Todd Bertuzzi's blind sucker punch to Steve Moore seven years ago.<br /><br />I happened to be at the game in Denver at which Moore laid out Tervor Linden; it was a clean hit...and not the premediated assualt and battery comitted by Bertuzzi. Had Bertuzzi's assualt on Morre occured in the United States, he'd be rotting away in an orange jump suit somewhere instead as a paid goon for the Red Wings.<br /><br />When Boston won, I leapt with joy over the figurative goal crease as did Bobby Orr did for the Bruins 41years ago.<br /><br />I have no sysmpathy (nor do most Canadians for the Canucks or their uncontrolled mob of progressive fans.....<br /><br />I commend the article that follows from the Ottawa Citizen:<br /><br />Anyone who loves this country -genuinely loves her, as opposed to the many gestures and emotions that ape love -will have felt deep shame at the rioting in Vancouver this last week. It gave the lie to so many pretences.<br /> <br />There is nothing that can be done about human nature, beyond twisting it. The zeal of youth will be there, in every generation. It is also expressed in heroic acts, including those of soldiers in necessary wars; in acts of selfless devotion to friends, family, and even to strangers; in art and poetry and music; and in the legitimate mystical life wherein God is served through the action of prayer. In every high civilization, the energy of youth is harnessed to profoundly civilized ends.<br /> <br />But in our time, in our society, it is expressed in hockey riots.<br /> <br />Nor is Vancouver to be especially condemned, for something that could happen and has happened elsewhere. What makes Vancouver interesting is that it is socially more "advanced" - has gone farther down the road to which all Canadian society has been trending. It is Canada's most "progressive" city. We see here what that progress has been toward; what lies just under the surface of all that smileyface, laid-back, "inclusivity."<br /> <br />Compare Calgary, whose Flames both won and lost Stanley Cup finals without property damage. Among large Canadian cities, Calgary is supposedly most "backward." It is the redneck town; the wild west of oil rigs and cowboy capitalism. We need more such enterprising backwardness.<br /> <br />Compare the attitude of young anarchists toward the police, in Vancouver and elsewhere. Since the 1960s, when they were first called "pigs" in the degenerate hippie subculture, through decades in which police behaviour has been adapted by ever more fatuous, "politically correct" bureaucratic edicts, our attitudes toward them have "evolved." We no longer expect them to be kindly. To the young they now resemble zombies; to the police, the rioters are an impersonal force, coming at them like a tsunami.<br /> <br />To me, witnessing last year's riots in Toronto at first hand, the most frightening thing was the entirely depersonalized encounter, between the police and crowds.How far we have come from the notion of the individual citizen, with a personal stake in the civil order, uniquely responsible for his acts. "Civility" requires that this notion be rekindled. It cannot be done with mass propaganda from a new taxpayer-funded Department of Civility. It can only be done one human being at a time, through good, solid, very old-fashioned families.<br /> <br /> <br /><br />otiosus@sympatico.caberg7711@yahoo.comhttp://hon77cutnoreply@blogger.com