On the other hand, I'm glad that as the Supreme Lord God of my own little blog (until blogger/google mega-corp pulls the plug on me that is) I can also ban people who only want to lie repeatedly, or spew racist nonsense, or repeat the same thing over and over, ignoring all my statements that challenge them.
A commenter from a bit of a way's back here, "Mithrandir" (some sort of geeky Tolkien fan I guess) responded with a fair bit of eloquence to my post "Gary McHale gets bruised" wherein I called McHale a hypocrite and a racist, while being pointedly un-outraged that he got roughed-up at one of his stupid Caledonia rallies.
I also said: "Cue the closeted racists to appear and start denouncing First Nations violence, roused from their blissful sleep, where they were not dreaming about over one-hundred years of broken treaties and "two-tier justice" against the First Nations."
And, sure enough, they came. Some of them even came to the schoolyard! But Mithry first seemed a little serious and earnest, stating that McHale was being falsely accused of assault (something that I wasn't prepared to dispute, indeed, I hadn't mentioned that he was being charged, let alone cheered that fact) and that my characterization of him as a "racist" was unfair because McHale never says anything about the natural inferiority of First Nations people. McHale is simply opposed to "two-tier justice." (The Rule of Law is a sacred principle. When it is compromised, civilization itself is endangered.
Regarding the absence of explicit racial theories in McHale's yammerings, I'll admit, from what I've read, there doesn't appear to be anything. But in this post-Nazi eugenics day and age, it's rare (relatively) that somebody actually states claims about genetic superiority/inferiority out loud, especially if you're trying to get a sympathetic reception from the mainstream.
But the narrow definition of "racist," where you believe in genuine human "races," and you believe that some breeds of human are superior to other breeds of human isn't necessarily what I was saying. You can be "racist" if you think that a people, or a culture, are inferior as a civilization, or as a culture, especially if you can identify these people you've lumped into this inferior category through their shared physical attributes.
On top of this, I was perfectly prepared to concede the use of the term "racist" for McHale, if only his defenders would accept the use of the term "bigot" or "complete fucking moron." No dice. McHale is neither a bigot or a moron in their eyes, but, once again, the champion of the sacred principle of THE RULE OF LAW. He is, therefore, a hero.
Which of course, is complete garbage. McHale is a hypocrite, plain and simple. If you're going to puff yourself up and put yourself up on a soap-box and bloviate on some topic, it's best if you be consistent. And neither McHale, nor this "Mithrandir" character seemed aware of, or concerned about, the persistent violation of the sacred RULE OF LAW when it came to the abuses against the First Nations.
And that was something that "Mithrandir" was never able to grasp. If it's so damned sacred, then where was McHale, where IS McHale on the excessive application of the coercive aspects of the law that are routinely applied to the First Nations? McHale has said nothing about this. Just like the OPP and the provincial government, McHale is being selective in his concern for the rule of law. Only on the Douglas Estates in Caledonia, and ONLY at this Native occupation, is McHale prepared to demonstrate on the rule of law. Not for corporations getting away with illegal dumping. Not with the McGuinty government arresting FN elsewhere for protesting a mining project that violates their rights to consultation. Not with the Harper government's abuses of parliamentary traditions, but only in Caledonia, when FN people are taking a stand and where the authorities are reluctant to ignite a wider conflagration by moving against them, does McHale feel compelled to take a stand. Complete, utter hypocrisy, and his motivations seem particularly transparent.
At first though, as I said, I was prepared to give "Mithrandir" the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps he genuinely believed in McHale and had never considered these things before. So I debated with him. But it was quickly becoming obvious that "Mithrandir" was an idiot and was more concerned with getting out as many slurs against the First Nations as possible on my blog. Which was something that I was not going to allow. But before I could finish establishing this nauseating agenda as clearly as I'd have liked, I had to close it off and simply delete his comments, as life/work issues took precedence.
But here's the gist of it: "Mithrandir" took issue with my claims about uneven treatment of First Nations at the hands of the police, the courts, the prison system. When I gave him links to example of this, he blathered some Tom Flanagan-inspired nonsense about a culture of crime that I couldn't be bothered exploring with him:
A few years ago I hitch-hiked to a Tea Party concert. I was picked up by a truck driver. Nice fellow. He was native. He talked about how rough the reserves are and how people around him did nothing to take on their own responsibility to drag themselves out of it. But he said he left. He told me not to party on the reserves. He said it is fucked up in alot of those places. And he said that blaming it on everyone else is what keeps it going on.
It's not a racial thing. It's a segregationist culture thing. And no one says natives have to stay there.
Then he said that this evidence of mistreatment didn't have anything to do with McHale, because "two wrongs don't make a right." But of course, it has everything to do with McHale if McHale's whole shtick is about how the law must apply equally to everyone or else we do not have justice. If McHale is going to ignore utterly, the fact that many of these Native activists are angry at how their rights have been systematically ignored for over a century; how as a people they've been singled out for abuse for over a century; how the law has shown itself to have "two-tiers" with themselves on the lower tier, and if McHale will only stir himself when these people decide to ignore this corrupt system, then he is a blatant hypocrite, a moron, and most likely a bigot.
That was when "Mithrandir" farted out this little gem:
Now I don't know exactly what you mean by one hundred years of oppression. Have all native indivuduals been oppressed for a hundred years. I sincerely doubt that any of the Warriors and Six Nations protesters are one hundred years old.
At which point, I decided that "Mithrandir" was either too big a racist, or too big a moron, for me to bother with. I'm making this post though, because I didn't have the time to explain to Mithrandir why I was shutting him down. And that's kind of been gnawing at me. Because I generally only refuse to post ad hominems and stupid attempts to goad me. But "Mithrandir" was veering quite close to making my blog a forum for his racist hypocrisy and double-standards and I was more prepared to appear censorious than to permit that.
If, as a people, the First Nations have received the lower tier of "two tier justice" for over a century, and as a people, they've been robbed, abused, and oppressed, then individuals of this group of people, have every right to feel aggrieved, as a people. Abuses of 100 years ago against their people, will not fail to resonate with them today, as members of the same group of people.
Besides trying to appear as a naif imbecile, "Mithrandir's" other debating tactic was to continue repeating that he was winning the debate. I found that amusing, but I gotta also mention this:
People can't excuse everything with racism and bad treatment. You don't see Jewish people going around beating up people and saying "you know the holocaust and all".
Uh, sure Mithry, sure.
I don't think there's any reason to give such people more space to spew their nonsense.
[ETA: Why the fuck does "blogger" make "snot-green" the default colour when you change fonts???? Also, how many times are you supposed to choose the "jet-black" colour option at the top-right before the software figures out what you want???]
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