Angry in the Great White North

I like Warren Kinsella.  I really do.  But it has become difficult to ignore just how ridiculously offensive he can be.

As you might be aware, a terrible storm come through southern Ontario 48 hours ago:

Ontario began a long cleanup process after at least four suspected tornadoes left a trail of debris and damage in several communities, officials said Saturday.

An 11-year-old boy died at the Durham Conservation Area about 50 kilometres south of Owen Sound during the storm, West Grey Police Service Chief Rene Berger said at a news conference in Durham.

The child was from West Grey, but his identity was withheld at the family's request, Berger said. Police declined to provide further information on the death, but it is believed the boy was killed by debris.

A number of other people at a day camp at the conservation area were hurt by the storm and they were taken to hospital, said Mike Muir, manager of Grey County EMS. They were later released.

Across the street from the conservation area's entrance, damaged homes included a brick bungalow owned by Arthur and Shirley Campbell, said their son, Anthony Campbell.

"The tornado came up their driveway and completely destroyed the house," Campbell said in an email. Both parents were unhurt except for some cuts and bruises.

This was a brutal assault on the people in these communities by the forces of nature.

But Warren Kinsella turns this into politics.  Un-fucking-believable.

W@AL: CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT IN OTTAWA, GOD EXPRESSES ANGER IN TORONTO

A few minutes ago, black skies, driving rain, and crazy winds. Now it's intensely sunny and - as Warren has captured - a full rainbow is above East Toronto.

Why did the storm stop? Because a Liberal government is coming, that's why.

Really?  And if a Liberal government wasn't foreordained, then what?  Would the storm have continued on its rampage, guided by God's hand, to kill even more children in His righteous anger at the fact that Joe Volpe wasn't in a ministerial limousine? 

I mean, what the hell is Warren Kinsella thinking when he makes statements like these?  And it's not the first time.  It comes on the heels of the Catsmeat fiasco.  And before that, there was was the "baking cookies" blow up.

I let these other two slide by when they happened.  I mean, everyone makes a mistake or two.  But three?  And claiming God to be a Liberal sending His deadly vengeance against the people of Toronto for not having stopped the Conservatives in the last election?

Hey, I know it was supposed to be a joke.  But it doesn't change the fact that it was deeply offensive.  And it doesn't change the fact that a boy is dead.

It comes down to the difference between conservatives and liberals.  Conservatives are realists.  Conservatives see the world as it is, read no special significance in it, and understand the limited ability of people to make large scale changes.  For a conservative, ideas are just that -- imaginations that can guide our behaviour and influence our decisions, but nothing else.

Liberals, on the other hand, are idealists.  For them, an idea has a existence all its own.  The idea of, say, universal taxpayer-funded childcare, is not merely an idea, but the way things should be.  If the world does not conform to their ideas, the world is wrong,  The world can't simply be, it must be changed and fixed.

So a true conservative would never crack a joke about deadly storms being the result of which party is in power.  It would never occur to a true conservative to attribute a storm to anything more than atmospheric conditions.  A storm simply happens.  But a liberal sees signs of the wrongness of the world everywhere, and so is far more likely to make a deeply offensive joke such as this one.  It isn't just a joke.  It comes out of the arrogance of liberals to believe that they have the solution, that they know how the world must be ordered, and that they are ordained (by God, apparently) to make it so.

If there is an election in the fall, comments like these will be worth votes, and I'm guessing not for the Liberals.  So I hope we don't get that meaningless conditional apology ("I'm sorry if someone else cares, because I certainly didn't care until people started yelling at me, and then all I cared about was to stop the yelling.")   As much as it pains me, I hope we continue to hear from Warren Kinsella and others like him.  Let Canadians make their choice based on how these people really think.

I'm sorry to say that I'm surprised at how these people really think.  I always expected, or at least hoped for, better.

Unacceptable Comments: Someone going by the name of Levesque posted an utterly unacceptable and deeply hurtful comment regarding Warren Kinsella's family.  It has been removed, and I'm also posting this to make it clear that I am taking responsibility for the comment and for its removal: