Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:33 on 2019-03-27 Permalink Reply  

• Ginger Baker 15:22 on 2019-03-27 Permalink

  Can’t quite tell which is more disgusting, Shand’s vile comments, the fact that she happily accepted treatment and then trashed her doctor for being who she is, or the fact that she was only tossed once her party was certain she was no longer an asset.

  Politicians are a cancer on our society.

• Chris 23:38 on 2019-03-27 Permalink

  Just a few stories down, Kate said “I don’t like it when people are described as garbage or trash.”. I don’t see how your last sentence is substantially different.

• Kate 06:56 on 2019-03-28 Permalink

  Chris, Ginger Baker is free to say that people who choose to do a certain type of job are bad for society. The key is in the choice.

• BB 08:10 on 2019-03-28 Permalink

  Keeping vicious dogs that maul children and maim them for life is a choice that is bad for society.

• Chris 10:36 on 2019-03-28 Permalink

  The key is in the choice? Being Muslim is a choice. If she said “Muslims are a cancer on our society” she’d be (rightly) pilloried (a la Lynne Shand).

  Politicians, as a group (there are of course bad apples), are a blessing on our society. Yes, they are down in the muck slinging words, but the alternative is not a magic utopia where everyone agrees, it’s violence. Better they/we fight with words, ideas, and laws than with guns.

• Blork 11:17 on 2019-03-28 Permalink

  Some choices are choicier than others. Being a Muslim (or a Christian or a Hindu, etc.) is a “choice” they were born into for most people of those faiths. When you grow up in it, and surrounded by it, there is ultimately a choice to remain, but it’s a passive choice. Unless something happens to rattle your faith, you will continue in it, to one degree or another.

  But a career (be it politician, lawyer, whatever) is a hard, conscious, and active choice for most people.

  The only way a Muslim (or Christian, etc.) is operating at that level of choice is if they actively converted to the faith as an adult.

  #perspective

• Kate 11:22 on 2019-03-28 Permalink

  Blork, thanks. I was gathering my thoughts to say something along those lines, but am distracted by things connected with making a living 🙂

• Ginger Baker 15:52 on 2019-03-28 Permalink

  @Chris

  I’m venting, I’m genuinely and generally disappointed with the conduct of most politicians these days, regardless of their affiliations and/or political orientations.

  If I were a public person – in any capacity – I might be more cautious. However, that aside I don’t think these situations are comparable.

  Ms. Shand alleges members of a marginalized community of visible minorities are actively conspiring to upend and destroy whatever our culture is, and only somewhat walked back her statement once she discovered it wasn’t politically viable. Clearly she thought it was beforehand, ditto her party.

  I haven’t a kind word to say about any organized religion… quite frankly I personally feel that kind of reliance a supernatural celestial dictator is odd. However, I’m cognizant that religion plays an important role as a point of community amongst diaspora communities, and Muslim women in the ostensibly ‘civilized’ West often bear the brunt of both racism and misogyny.

  Ms. Shand should have known better before she discovered her comments weren’t politically viable. That she would trash the person who helped her… who cared for her and made her well, and with the ultimate aim of securing political points amongst her base, is beyond the pale.

  So I’ll happily rephrase: Ms. Shand is a cancer on our society. She should be shunned. I hope this results in her dismissal from council, she has demonstrated her inability to serve the public, and she owes the doctor an apology. Were it up to me, she’d be forced to do some kind of community service that directly benefited Muslim women, and further subjected to a psychological assessment.

• Chris 21:19 on 2019-03-28 Permalink

  Blork, yes, I agree. Some choices are harder than others. But it’s not like there’s a vanishingly small number of ex-theists; over 1/4 of Canadians are irreligious, and many of them were brought up religious. So it’s not *that* hard a choice, nor that rare.

  Anyway, it was just an example of a sweeping generalization about someone’s *choices* that would not be tolerated, whereas other sweeping generalizations are apparently ok. (Which of course is altogether different from sweeping generalizations about things that really are out of someone’s control, like their skin colour.)

  Ginger, thank you for rephrasing.

  “Muslim women in the ostensibly ‘civilized’ West often bear the brunt of both racism and misogyny” -> lamentably, that sometimes happens of course, but I dare say they’d suffer more misogyny in say Saudi or Iran. #perspective

  I’ll just add that I too deplore Ms. Shand’s thinking of course.