My house during Earth Hour.

Earth Hour happened last night for the fifth year in a row, allowing people who don’t otherwise think much about energy consumption to make a symbolic gesture of penance. I choose the word penance deliberately, since the act is arguably as meaningless, and done primarily to ease one’s own conscience.

It isn’t that I oppose conservation, energy efficiency and awareness about finite resources. But Earth Hour is none of those things. Like most movements generated by “slacktivists”, nothing about Earth Hour does something beneficial for either the environment or the realities of finite energy.

Nor does my extra consumption of energy during that hour make any real difference on anybody or anything. My gesture of defiance was equally meaningless, since an extra hour of high energy usage won’t make any long-term difference in terms of consumption or affordability. In essence, my meaningless act was simply the symbolic flipping off of the other side for offering up such a trite activity as somehow being relevant or important in any way.

Every year we go through this charade and every year it’s just as stupid. We all turn off our lights and huddle in the dark and I suppose the point is to think about how collectively we could reduce our environmental impact if we did this on a semi-regular basis. But we never will.

See, I can get behind an idea that actually has a plan. For instance, I wouldn’t support the symbolic deployment of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan for one hour because it’s not relevant to the struggle. Nothing can be accomplished in an hour, whether it’s supposed to inspire people or not.

What’s more, I get the sense people partake in Earth Hour not because they wish to engage in a meaningful self-analysis of man’s impact on the environment and their own personal effect on the world. Instead they’re merely following, lemming-like, with whatever happens to be the pop culture flavour of the week. In the 90′s it was AIDS, today it’s the Earth, next decade it’ll probably be something else.

Look, if people were really interested in saving the environment, they’d close the borders, enact a one-child policy, and argue against economic stimulus so that the economy can contract to a point where “sustainability” actually means something. But they aren’t interested. They just want to make the appearance of caring because not caring means you’re either a climate change denier, pro tar sands developer, or other assorted nonsense.

Sustainability. There’s a word I’ll never quite understand. It appears the environmentalists are quite confused when it comes to what that means, since they want people to work for a goal that has never really been defined. Even if you conserve energy, or bike to work, or eat within the so called 100-mile diet, it’s all offset by population increase. There’s really no evidence that anything we do now or in the future can offset the inevitable resource crunch.

At the heart of environmentalist philosophy is the realization that advanced civilizations aren’t compatible since we produce far more than can be regenerated, which is why I think we undergo these little symbolic gestures. It alleviates whatever the environmental equivalent is for white liberal guilt.

The dominoes effect of politically correct conformity has resulted in the firing of Rogers Sportsnet host Damian Goddard over a tweet he made on Tuesday. His heinous crime? He supports the definition of marriage that has, up until about 10 minutes ago in the 24-hour clock of human history, been defined as being one man and one woman:

How did this contrivance all come about then? Well, a few days ago NHL agent Todd Reynolds spoke out against New York Rangers forward Sean Avery’s public service announcement supporting gay marriage. Reynolds has since taken quite a bit of heat from the thought police, who have called him everything from a homophobe and bigot to a knuckledragging caveman.

As for Reynolds’ own tweet, all he said was, “Very sad to read Sean Avery’s misguided support of same-gender ’marriage’. Legal or not, it will always be wrong.” He didn’t say homosexuality was wrong, and in fact he clarified the remark to say, “This is not hatred or bigotry towards gays. It is not intolerance in any way shape or form. I believe we are all equal. But I believe in the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. This is my personal viewpoint. I Do not hate anyone.”

Unfortunately, personal viewpoints and clarifications are of little use in a world where context is an inconvenient truth and it’s far easier to simply label people as homophobes and bigots. The times change quickly, and if you’re not in then you’re in the way, so they say.

The fact is that I’ve never understood what the problem is with allowing gays to marry. If they want to share in the socially constructed contrivance that is a commitment to be monogamous and file joint tax returns, why not allow them to share in the human misery? After all, it’s not as if heterosexuals have a particularly good track record in marriage, and although I’m too lazy to look up the statistics, I’m pretty sure we all know how common divorce is.

Having said that, the reason that the view of a traditional marriage being one man and one woman doesn’t seem bigoted or hateful to me is that, logically speaking, marriage is the heterosexual extension of the natural procreative norm. The union of one man and one woman is a necessity for the creation of the family unit, the procreation of the species and the balance of influence between mother and father. Most homosexuals—but not all—don’t want any part of marriage because marriage is typically a procreative normative.

It isn’t the way I see the world, but I don’t believe that others who see the world this way are bigots. They truly believe that marriage should be reserved for the behaviourally heteronormative people in society on the basis that men and women are the intended natural attraction of the species. The problem with this view, of course, is that some people will illogically conclude that if you believe in the normative heterosexual definition of marriage than you’re thereby calling homosexuals not normal. Which isn’t what’s happening.

At any rate, because heterosexuals compose roughly 89 per cent of the population, homosexual marriage should never be something left up to the democratic prerogative of the majority. The courts in most liberal jurisdictions have ruled that homosexuals can have some form of legally-recognized union, and I think that equality under secular law is consistent with liberal principles.

Having said that, homosexual marriage should never be foisted upon religious institutions who choose to believe heterosexual marriage is sacrosanct. Nor should we look down upon those who uphold such views.

Are we still doing this nonsense in 2011? Are we still counting silly things like carbon footprints and measuring every theoretical cloud of carbon and methane created by existing and breathing on this planet?

Well, yes and yes and yes and yes and no. There are four parties all paying for carbon offsets for their campaign tour across the country, and one who doesn’t give a damn because it’s ridiculous and stupid.

Nothing exemplifies what this election is about better than the fact all four opposition parties are all doing something meaningless yet symbolic. Each of the four parties provides something a little different from the others, but they’re all pretty much the same kind of leftwing choice, with the same kind of block-voting penchant for policies that provide good optics.

But one can’t help but feel that a party that chooses empty symbolism for one thing is likely to choose it for others as well. Something doesn’t necessarily have to make any sense, so long as a majority of Canadians think it makes sense. Earth Hour is the perfect metaphor for the green movement: an hour of darkness.

Carbon credits are about as useful as carbon taxes. They don’t actually offset anything but liberal guilt, and even that seems to be an impossible task given there are so many things to feel guilty about. Such as turning on lights and running washing machines. It’s an inconvenient truth we live in a cold and dark climate.

I can think of a more useful offset market. Every time a politician makes a wild and ridiculous promise he knows he has no intention of keeping or living up to, that politician will contribute to a fund that will pay people to live up to their promises and make sensible, lucid statements. I think this would be a great boon to our economy.

The funny thing about carbon credits is that you’d think the principle would offend the left, since it allows wealth to be used to shirk a social responsibility. Conversely, the carbon tax that so many of them favour only eliminates the lower income drivers from the road, freeing up highway space for those who can afford it.

There are few things so pretentious and hypocritical as the carbon offset. That we have created a society so prosperous and free from hardship that dire calamities need to be invented in order to spend our money on placebos is symptomatic of the perils of too much pacifism.

Because let’s face it, the idea that paying some company to plant trees that may or may not capture carbon dioxide emissions 30 years from the time they’re being emitted is just about as useless as the proverbial screendoor on a submarine.

Restorative justice is one of the more dangerously immoral values of the liberal class, and every once in a while it surfaces in our legal system to the shock and horror of many. The latest example, taking into account the aboriginal upbringing of a violent child rapist in sentencing, is just about as sickening as it can possibly get.

A career criminal, who has preyed on society his entire life, kidnapped and raped a 6-year-old girl after abducting her from a Winnipeg playground. Greg Hope, 35, pleaded guilty to the abhorrent act, but will now wait for a court-ordered report to study what, if any, effect his aboriginal background might have had on his actions, and whether it deserves more leniency.

Think about this for a moment. The victim is a 6-year-old girl, an age of innocence and vulnerability. There isn’t a reason that could possibly be given to could provide even the slightest sympathy or understanding for a 35-year-old to do that.

It isn’t as though this is some wanton decision by a liberal judge trying to make a statement about the difficulty facing aboriginals in modern-day Canada. If there is any blame to go around, it belongs to the Supreme Court, which binds all decisions made to lower courts, for stating that some aboriginal offenders should receive more lenient sentences based on the hardships they endured in life. The lower courts have no choice but to adhere to follow the precedent.

This belief has been reinforced in judgments before. Darnell Darcy Pratt, the remorseless kid who, at the age of 16, decided to turn a night of drinking into a murder, had his sentence reduced on appeal. Pratt dragged 24-year-old Esso station employee Grant De Patie for eight kilometres under the stolen car he was driving, a murder that has since resulted in “Grant’s Law”, requiring drivers to pay before they pump gasoline.

Although he was originally sentenced to nine years in prison, a B.C. Court of Appeal looked at his case and felt his aboriginal ancestry and his exposure to family drug addiction deserved a reduced sentence.

Social workers had taken him from his mother when he was 12 because she was a crystal meth addict and placed him with his aunt. Two months before the murder, he ran away because his aunt tried to stop him from getting drunk all the time, so he went to live with his grandmother. He continued to drink regularly while committing petty theft with his friends.

So where does that place the responsibility for aboriginal criminals in our society? Well, somewhere below that of everybody else. A kid who drags someone below his car for eight kilometres deserves nine years in prison, but only seven if they’re aboriginal. Now the question is, how much of a reduced sentence does a child rapist get if he’s aboriginal?

After all, prison makes aboriginal men worse according to testimony heard before The House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women when it stopped in Winnipeg.

One woman present at the hearing, Karen Chevillard, wore a t-shirt reading, “Decolonize yourself. Break the racist pattern.”

“They want to build more jails and if they build more jails, it will be genocide for our families,” she added.

Racist pattern? What part, exactly, did racism play when a 35-year-old aboriginal man decided to have sexual intercourse with a 6-year-old girl?

Genocide? Here’s a thought. Stop committing crimes against society, and there won’t be any more family breakups.

The justice system has one obligation to the people and one obligation only. That is to protect society from dangerously violent offenders who rape, assault and murder people. The background of the perpetrator is irrelevant in the context of the decision to harm another person. As the expression used to go, “yeah, tell it to the judge.” But today that might not be a good idea.

When I heard about this yesterday, I knew I wanted to chip in my toonie on the idea. As you’ll read in the article, I do think paying teachers is a fundamentally good idea, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Here’s why:

B.C. Liberal leadership candidate Kevin Falcon has raised a few eyebrows (and singed a few off) with his proposal to give cash incentives to teachers whose students demonstrate marked improvement in school in terms of graduation, attendance and grades.

Falcon promised that, should he win the leadership race, he would create a master teacher incentive program that would positively identify exceptional teachers and an incentive program that would reward schools. Read more »

Leave your thoughts in the comments. I’d be interested to hear them.

But then the NY Times is a liberal paper with an agenda for its American readers.  Take a look at this puff piece, in which the downsides are well buried on p. 2 (anyone from Winnipeg want to comment?):

Defying Trend, Canada Lures More Migrants

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — As waves of immigrants from the developing world remade Canada a decade ago, the famously friendly people of Manitoba could not contain their pique.

What irked them was not the Babel of tongues, the billions spent on health care and social services, or the explosion of ethnic identities. The rub was the newcomers’ preference for “M.T.V.” — Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver — over the humble prairie province north of North Dakota, which coveted workers and population growth.

Demanding “our fair share,” Manitobans did something hard to imagine in American politics, where concern over illegal immigrants dominates public debate and states seek more power to keep them out. In Canada, which has little illegal immigration, Manitoba won new power to bring foreigners in, handpicking ethnic and occupational groups judged most likely to stay.

This experiment in designer immigration has made Winnipeg a hub of parka-clad diversity — a blue-collar town that gripes about the cold in Punjabi and Tagalog — and has defied the anti-immigrant backlash seen in much of the world.

Rancorous debates over immigration have erupted from Australia to Sweden, but there is no such thing in Canada as an anti-immigrant politician. Few nations take more immigrants per capita, and perhaps none with less fuss…

The LA Times was also at it earlier this year:

Starry-eyed about immigrants to Canada

Check out the figures I have found on how many immigrants really are “skilled”, and see here for the points system’s problems.  On the other hand some Canadian are waking up:

One of our greatest and goodest wants immigration limited…

Plus a book by Lowell Green of CFRA Ottawa:

Mayday! Mayday!

Update: A reaction from a friend to the NY Times piece: “It read more like a satire than serious journalism. Man was that sad.”

Mark
Ottawa

Publius’ hero, as seen by another great writer:

Quote of the Day

This judgment goes to the heart of Kipling’s character. He was a conservative in the sense that he believed civilization to be something laboriously achieved which was only precariously defended. He wanted to see the defences fully manned and he hated the liberals because he thought them gullible and feeble, believing in the easy perfectibility of man and ready to abandon the work of centuries for sentimental qualms.

Evelyn Waugh

Mark
Ottawa

OMG! Another instance of plagiarism! Photo: Jeff Knapp, 2004

I find myself shaking my head more often than not these days, not just because of the many senseless things the Conservatives manage to do [like deciding to change the wording of the national anthem in an apparent display of political correctness on steroids], but because of the things the opposition actually decide to complain about.

If they’re not calling for a public investigation into whether Helena Guergis made airport workers cry by turning into she-hulk and threatening to squeeze the goo from their puny human heads, it’ll be some other completely ridiculous and irrelevant story that may as well have been pulled from the pages of Ibn Fadlan’s diary.

Take, for instance, the recent controversy over whether or not Immigration and Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney removed sections from the Canadian Citizenship Guide that pertains to “gay rights” and “same-sex marriage”. Please give me a moment to state the obvious: So what?

Does it matter if he did or if he didn’t? And what does it accomplish, finding out the editorial preferences of the Minister? Will it prove to anyone who doesn’t already have a partisan bias, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Jason Kenney is a homophobe?

It doesn’t change the laws protecting homosexuals in Canada under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, nor does it deny homosexuals complete equality under the law, and blindness in adjudicating matters unrelated to their sexuality. It doesn’t change the fact that homosexual marriage is completely and wholly a legitimately recognized union between two people of the same sex, equal in both law and recognized by the same government that employs Mr.Kenney. And it doesn’t, as the outrage would seem to imply, have any affect, whatsoever, on whether immigrants who are homosexual should choose to come here or not.

Then there’s today’s latest Brouhaha about the title of the Throne Speech, called “A Stronger Canada; A Stronger Economy; Now and for the Future.” The Liberals say that this was lifted from former Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s 2004 election platform: “A Stronger Economy. A Stronger Australia.”

A “stronger economy” is the contentious plagiarism? Isn’t that like accusing someone of plagiarizing a cliché? Do we really expect our politicians to deal with titles more original than “stronger”, “better”, and “brighter”? I mean, these are the basic adjectives for politics and political writing. It isn’t as though John Howard ran an election platform called “A Supercalifragilistic Economy. An Expialidocious Australia”, and then Stephen Harper came along and used the same obscure words today.

No, he used the word stronger. If you could think of a more generic, basic, common motto for a post-recession government, you’d be hard pressed to find it. And here’s a news flash: Barack Obama’s “hope” and “change” wasn’t very original either. Being hopeful, wanting change, and being stronger are all extremely banal descriptions of human ambition.

The continued profligate spending, out-of-control programs, bloated bureaucracy, soaring debt, are all concerns that the Liberals could raise, and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid in defence for the Conservatives. But the above manufactured controversies really belong in some low-ratings reality TV show. On CBS. At 2:30 in the morning. Sponsored by Ashley Madison.