The plot to behead Stephen Harper

There are more left handed goalies in Canada then there are muslim men.

 

Interesting column by John Ibbitson, a pretty conservative Globe writer (have to cut and paste, the Globe charges a million dollars to read their columnists)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Ontario, within living memory, a lot of people were anti-Catholic. Catholics conspired against English constitutional monarchy. The Orange Order was needed to uphold the Protestant tradition against the Catholic threat. A good Protestant would never vote for a Catholic politician, whose first loyalty was to the Pope.

Why did anti-Catholicism in Ontario disappear? First, the Catholic minority received minimal but necessary protection from Protestant intolerance by the state, which funded the separate school system; second, immigration ultimately turned Protestant Canadians of British descent into just another minority; third, and most important, experience eventually made it plain that anti-Catholicism had no basis in fact and no place in Canadian discourse.

In the wake of the exposure of an alleged Islamist plot against the Canadian government, writers in print and on the Web have argued for a reappraisal of Canada's multiculturalism policy. Some of them accuse elements of the Muslim community of disloyalty, and insist that Muslim Canadians demonstrate their commitment to the Canadian democratic ethos.

Actually, Muslim leaders have gone out of their way to denounce this alleged conspiracy. There appears to be a greater realization within the community that Muslim Canadians have at least as much at stake as other Canadians in containing, condemning and cauterizing the threat. But for some critics, nothing short of utter abasement will suffice.

Others maintain that governments must do more to define and instill Canadian democratic and cultural values, especially among the young and new arrivals. They are the ones who would turn Muslims into Catholics, the rest of us into Protestants, and the date back to the 1950s or before.

What does it mean to insist on adherence to Canadian values? Does it mean toughening the programs landed immigrants must take before becoming citizens? Citizenship courses already provide new Canadians with a firmer grounding in governance than most native-born Canadians.

Does it mean instilling Canadian values in the young, through the education system? The Ontario curriculum currently examines the early history of Upper Canada; Canada's provinces, regions and territories; citizenship and government; the history of New France and British North America; and Confederation, Western Canada and the evolution of modern Canadian society -- all between Grades 3 and 8.

Some writers talk about developing a written moral or social code to which all Canadians -- and new Canadians, especially -- must adhere. What would this new code say? Who would get to decide what went in it? What would happen if native-born Canadians refused to swear to it? If non-native Canadians alone were forced to swear to it, what would that accomplish? After all, most of those charged with this alleged conspiracy are native born.

All these proposals accept the need for an expansionist, intrusive state, interfering in the lives and cultures of individuals in defence of a threatened social contract. In fact, Canadian liberal democracy, and its values of pluralism and tolerance, are amazingly robust. This debate will be settled in the ideological marketplace (or street). The state need do no more than keep a watchful eye.

So pervasive is the English language and Western civilization in the world today -- it really is becoming a global culture -- that other civilizations, especially Islam, feel threatened, and militants are fighting back, and we are fighting back against them. Because militant Islam has taken root among a few marginalized citizens in this country, governments must equip police and security services with the necessary physical and legislative tools to protect the public from this threat, which they have done.

But to extrapolate from this some clear and present danger to the social fabric sounds like hysteria. Those who insist it isn't need to tell us what, specifically, they are proposing. And here's a bet: Once all the screaming headlines return to normal size, you will find those proposals anathema.

 

You've obviously never been to Brampton.

 

JR, this is the part that I can't get my head around.  They were trying to fly under the radar in Washago?  I know that place very well and as far as I know, there are no Muslims in that town.  There's one Asian family that owns the Jug City, but I think everybody else is white.  How they thought they could run a training camp, trespass, fire off guns, etc., and not get noticed, is completely beyond comprehension for me.

EDIT - Hey, a Brampton reference. Now THAT's where they should have tried to run a training camp. Nobody would have noticed.

 

Nope. Surrey. That's the homeland.

 

Reinforces the notion that they were dumb as stumps. Dangerous maybe but two bricks short of a load.

Either that or they're attention whores.

And an Asian family owns a convenience story? Wow. Never seen that before. ;D

 

Grew up out there, now live in Toronto. Brampton wins hands down.

 

Really? Everywhere you look in Surrey, there's a mosque ... I wonder what will happen the first time someone requests a permit to build one on the East Coast ... maybe there already is one, that I just haven't heard of.

 

It seems like these jackasses have a long way to go before they have the juice of a Front de Libération du Québec.

 

Regardless of how poorly organized they were, the fact is they were organized enough to recruit 17 young men from different backgrounds, and order 3 tons of a matierial widely known to be a main component in an easily made car bomb that can be devastating. A threat is a threat, regardless of how smart they were about it. They need to be squashed like a bug, and the law inforcement organizations in this country are doing that.
This goes to show that Canada is not immune to terrorist activity - homegrown or imported - and people need to realize this and take their heads out of the sand. I know way to many people that have ignored the world-wide crisis that is terrorism due to the thought line that it will never happen here, forgetting the fact there are many terrorist cells active in this country.
As far as common denominator for the group - sometimes the easiest answer is the most obvious one.  Why does there need to be something else? Does it mean that all muslims in Canda have their finger on a detonator? of course not. But that doesn't mean there aren't extremists - no matter how disorganized - that have a hate on for our society. A gun is often more dangerous in the hands of somebody who has a few screws loose.

 

And Trudeau squashed the FLQ pretty damn fast after the initial kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte.

"Just watch me".

These recent guys were serious--no doubt about it--but they also appear to be dunderheads.

 

With very few exceptions, including Roy MacGregor but definitely not including Christie Blatchford, they're overcharging by about $999,999.95.

Radio talk show hosts and university swim coaches would argue that Marsden is far more volatile and dangerous than Coulter's wildest dreams.