Wednesday, February 27, 2013

WHOA, NELLIE.

Mark Steyn has something out about how much he hates homosexuals. Oh, wait, sorry, there's a MacGuffin -- gay people are oppressing him, or somebody. For instance:
By contrast, Canada’s GSA is the Gay-Straight Alliance. The GSA is all over the GTA (the Gayer Toronto Area), but in a few remote upcountry redoubts north of Timmins intolerant knuckle-dragging fundamentalist school boards declined to get with the beat. So the Ontario Government has determined to afflict them with the “Accepting Schools Act.” 
“Accepting?” One would regard the very name of this bill as an exquisite parody of the way statist strong-arming masquerades as limp-wristed passivity were it not for the fact that the province’s Catholic schools, reluctant to accept government-mandated GSAs, are proposing instead that they should be called “Respecting Differences” groups. Good grief, this is the best a bigoted theocrat can come up with?
While he's frothing, let's look at the bill. It's long-winded and bureaucratic, but the net effect seems to be to keep kids from being bullied in school, and to require that if someone's getting bullied in school, the school has to talk to the bully's parents, which hardly seems like the thin end of any wedge to me.  The bill does mention gayness as a casus bully, which is what seems to have set Steyn off.

Also the frostbacks apparently have both a Pink Shirt Day in February and a Day of Pink in April for the kids, both about not bullying gay kids. This doesn't seem any more or less objectionable than the 100th Day of School shirt thing, and who knows, the little thugs might learn something from it; doubtless if any of them feel put upon, they will bear with it as we did back in my day, and develop Bad Attitudes. Maybe Steyn is eager to regain his youth, and is doing so vicariously by writing this:
That’s great news! Nothing says “celebrate diversity” like forcing everyone to dress exactly the same, like a bunch of Maoists who threw their workers’ garb in the washer but forgot to take the red flag out... 
What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario? You’re still into ponies and unicorns and have no great interest in the opposite sex except when nice Prince William visits to cut the ribbon at the new Transgendered Studies Department. What if the other girls are beginning to mock you for wanting to see Anne Of Green Gables instead of Anne Does Avonlea? Is there any room for the sexual-developmentally challenged in the GSAs?
In and among these paranoid delusions there's a lot of yap about "soft totalitarian, collectivized, state-enforced, glassy-eyed homogeneity" and such like. But I get the sense Steyn's not serious about that. (Who could be, apart from religious maniacs ululating about Sodom and Steve? And for all his faults Steyn doesn't seem to swing that way.) I'm told he wrote a whole book about how the West is doomed because Mooslems, and another about how America is doomed because debt, but if this is the order of evidence he offers, I'd say he's just looking for some high school drama. Has no one told him about Glee?

118 comments:

  1. I know a mooslem who's in debt.

    Apocalypse now?

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  2. Another Kiwi10:46 PM

    Gayer Toronto Area? Haw haw haw That Mark Steyn is such a card ain't he?
    Steyns SCARY MOOSELIMS!! shtick is all based on the out breeding bollocks wherein every mooselim family has 20 children or so. Never mind that no one in the countries he blubbers about collects birth figures with religious affiliations connected to them. Steyn JUST KNOWS!

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  3. bulletsarepeopletoo10:46 PM

    He didn't read the bill, did he? Or maybe he just willfully miscomprehended so he could act the drama queen. Because those questions he asked about the sexual-developmentally challenged are answered, I believe, at the beginning of the preamble where it states "...Believe that all students should feel safe at school and deserve a positive school climate that is inclusive and accepting, regardless of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status or disability..."

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  4. Oh my! Schoolkids being forced to wear uniform items of clothing! Such a thing is unheard of!

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  5. Oh my! Schoolkids are being forced to wear uniform items of clothing. Such a thing has never happened before outside of the Soviet Bloc and Nazi Germany!

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  6. montag211:11 PM

    "That’s great news! Nothing says “celebrate diversity” like forcing
    everyone to dress exactly the same, like a bunch of Maoists who threw
    their workers’ garb in the washer but forgot to take the red flag
    out... "

    This from a guy who's probably all in favor of school uniforms, as along as they're appropriately conservative. And is likely all in favor of this sort of storm-troopery.

    But, ohmigod, a flimsy anti-bullying law is a major violation of religious conservatives' kids' right to be assholes. What is wrong with Canada?! And why won't they fall into line and become more like their bigoted and militarized (and superior, and in every way more conservative) neighbor to the south? Because they're Maoists, natch.

    I don't want to take a tour of the interior of Steyn's head, but I'm betting that it's like the intellectual equivalent of an episode of "Hoarders."

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  7. What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario?

    Then you need to go to a Father and Daughter Dance, as soon as humanly possible. Because if you don't learn that you're beautiful from your father, who will you learn it from?

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  8. MatthewMikell11:25 PM

    Has no one told him about Glee?

    Screw that! Has no one told him about Rainbow Dash?

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  9. wileywitch11:26 PM

    Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.

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  10. XeckyGilchrist11:26 PM

    You’re still into ponies and unicorns


    Plus, I'm not seeing how this is necessarily "non-sexualized."

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  11. Just want to point out to non-Canadians that the Catholic schools in question are part of the Public school system, fully funded by all the taxpayers of the province of Ontario.

    For historical reasons, Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan set up separate Protestant and Catholic public school systems. The "Protestant " systems have become secularised and operate as normal public schools, but the catholic ones are still supposed to promote Catholic morals and values, but are (theoretically)not run by the Church, are not supposed to push Catholic doctrine, and are open to all

    http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2011/01/20/its-time-for-catholic-schools-to-get-off-the-public-dollar/

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  12. AGoodQuestion11:52 PM

    What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario?


    When a column starts off by ragging on the Church for not being homophobic enough and comparing anti-bullying campaigns to the Cultural Revolution, it may seem strange to say "... and then it got creepy." With the above segue and the ensuing paragraph, Steyn manages to clear that bar.

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  13. AGoodQuestion11:55 PM

    Those membership dues for Al Qaeda must be something else.

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  14. AGoodQuestion11:59 PM

    finding stuff out = liberal mind control

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  15. You gotta respect the balls on that guy. For Mark Steyn, using the power of the state to capriciously overthrow legitimate governments all over the planet, engage in a perpetual forever war against races and creeds, profile and wiretap citizens without cause, and generally trample all over everyone's constitutional rights in order harass and oppress minorities = awesome.

    Allowing kids to wear colored T-shirts to school in order to combat bullying? Oppressive statism!

    Orwell is spinning in his grave so hard you could wrap his casket in copper and get current.

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  16. Spaghetti Lee12:13 AM

    What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario?



    Hey, you leave Rob Ford out of this!

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  17. montag212:33 AM

    I think it's because the conservatives, enamored as they are of right-wing Catholicism, have taken the Jesuits' dictum, "give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," very, very seriously, as in, "all yer children are ours!"


    I mean, however will they be able to perpetuate the myths, stereotypes, bigotry, bald-faced lies and dark magick that have sustained rabid conservatism all these years without free, unfettered access to the malleable minds of children?


    I leave it to Steyn to explain, in his own inimitable way, how t-shirts are a commie plot, and how teaching tolerance and providing universal health care are sapping and impurifying our precious bodily fluids....

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  18. montag212:35 AM

    Hey, the worldwide caliphate doesn't run on pocket change, y'know.

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  19. The Dark Avenger12:41 AM

    And Adam Yoshida!

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  20. I can't say I've ever heard the phrase "tween schoolgirl" outside of the darker corners of erotic fiction sites...

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  21. Or maybe he just willfully miscomprehended so he could act the drama queen


    That's basically how rightbloggers and conservative pundits make a living.

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  22. Mark's a coldhearted bastard:

    Yes, there have been a small number of bullied teens driven to suicide,
    and these particular deaths are tragedies for the families involved that
    blow a great big hole in their lives that can never be repaired. But
    they are not a cause for wrongheaded public policy.

    He's also completely bonkers:

    What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in
    Ontario? You’re still into ponies and unicorns and have no great
    interest in the opposite sex except when nice Prince William visits to
    cut the ribbon at the new Transgendered Studies Department. What if the
    other girls are beginning to mock you for wanting to see Anne Of Green Gables instead of Anne Does Avonlea? Is there any room for the sexual-developmentally challenged in the GSAs?

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  23. This makes me almost... almost... ALMOST want to check in on the blog of a certain friend-of-a-friend who is the most aggressively lunkheaded reactionary "Real Liberal" I ever met. "The Democratic Party left me, 9/11 changed everything, Muslims are the real enemy of liberal values," etc... and yet his one remaining non-wingnut brain cell remained sincerely devoted to LGBT rights (despite being occasionally co-opted for the "Muslims are the real enemy because they're even more anti-gay" shtick which you may have heard of). The point at which I decided maybe it wasn't helping either of us for me to talk to this person any more was when, in support of some anti-immigrant tirade, he cited articles from two infamous wingnut sources... and to my timid suggestion that perhaps he was getting somewhat inaccurate information from right-wing media, he told me that only a crazy San Francisco Maoist would label those two sources as "right-wing." The very idea! Well, one of those was the National Fucking Review Onfuckingline; the other was Mark Fucking Steyn.

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  24. montag21:19 AM

    Geez, there's American identity politics for ya. In parts of Europe, the ACLU would be described as "center-right." And, the NRO and Steyn, well, they'd be dismissed as Stalinist throwbacks.


    Yup, 9/11 did change everything. It made some crazy people much, much crazier.

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  25. I'm just going to guess that he has a wee issue with allowing Muslim girls to wear headscarves in school.

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  26. Clearly, Steyn has not heard of the Internet.

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  27. I'd say that's odd, but it's not like the US doesn't find all kinds of ways to send taxpayer dollars to religious schools.

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  28. Ah, yes, that old conservative standard: This is a threat to Western civilization! If you don't let us bully the queer kids, how will we teach the yunguns that homosexuality is wrong?

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  29. What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario?

    My god, and with only manly Mark Steyn to protect her!

    So much of right-wing blogging is just fantasy or horror fiction. Really, really bad fiction.

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  30. BigHank537:29 AM

    Back in '97, when it was still possible for a human being to actually look at a measurable portion of the web pages out there, I came across a page devoted to the proposition that God had destroyed the shuttle Challenger in order to demonstrate his ire with humanity's refusal to breed quickly enough. He (and there was no way it was written by a woman) had come to the conclusion that God had ordered us to be fruitful and multiply so that he would have a sufficient quantity of prophets to distribute to all the inhabited worlds of the galaxy. A hundred billion of us ought to do.


    9/11 was more like the Stonewall riot: afterwards, there were a lot more people willing to let their freak flag fly.

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  31. Freshly Squeezed Cynic7:40 AM

    Dear Penthouse Forum,

    I am writing to complain about your continual rejection of my submissions. This kind of statist, totalitarian assumption of "creepiness" is just another example of the Marxist-Alinskyite complex that...

    (cont. pg 94)

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  32. Freshly Squeezed Cynic7:44 AM

    My Little Commie: Maoism is Magic!

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  33. Tudor Jennings7:49 AM

    At least the Catholic Church has the good, wholesome sense to allow their priests to wear different colour dresses, depending on how far up the corporate ladder they are...

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  34. Halloween_Jack8:06 AM

    I haven't read of any of Yoshida's fulsome basement troll mutterings for quite some time now, actually, for which I'm quite thankful. Let's just not say his name three times just in case, OK?

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  35. Halloween_Jack8:07 AM

    What they're really afraid of is that the T-shirts will replace those Catholic girl school outfits that they're very, very, very fond of.

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  36. Halloween_Jack8:10 AM

    Really, since Gerard van der Leun lost his gig as the Forum's ghost writer, it's been hard out there for a sticky-fingered wingnut belles-lettrist. Or not hard enough, as it were.

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  37. to distribute to all the inhabited worlds of the galaxy


    So really he blew up Challenger because it wasn't ambitious enough. "Where's the warp drive, dammit?! You'll never get to the rest of the galaxy this way!"

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  38. Halloween_Jack8:32 AM

    Still trying to pick apart how Steyn equates "knowing about same-sex intimate relationships" with "sexualized." Does knowing the facts of life (at whatever level) automatically make kids sexualized? (Even in a bygone, more innocent era--that is, the seventies--me and my tween group were very interested in that subject, even though we were in no rush to act things out.) Or did Steyn have to include the line about "Anne Does Avonlea" because he thought it was unutterably clever, or out of some deeper need? He does cite, of all the fucking things, Tom Brown's Schooldays and its public thrashings earlier.

    Man, it's hard to write about people like Steyn when I feel like constantly washing my hands.

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  39. BigHank538:50 AM

    Rarely has the phrase "flogging it" been able to use both its definitions simultaneously....

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  40. It's one of the peculiarities of moralistic conservatives: pretending that children exist in a state of innocence, which by their definition of course also includes complete ignorance about sex. But what makes it even more baffling is that in their minds, this state of ignorance extends to ages like 12 or 13. Anybody who believes that their 12 or 13 year old child has no sexual thoughts or desires whatsoever is either delusional or ridiculously naive. (Or, by coincidence, they have an asexual child, but asexuality isn't something such people tend to grasp or accept.)

    It comes up a lot in discussions of gay children. Observe.

    Does this person really believe this about 12 year olds? I don't know and I don't suppose it matters. It's all just a mask to prevent him/her from having to come out and say, "Homosexuality is a perversion and gay kids are terrible people, okay?!" Because even in many not terribly progressive circles that comes across kind of hateful.

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  41. MikeJ8:58 AM

    I leave it to Steyn to explain, in his own inimitable way, how t-shirts are a commie plot,
    George Will said it was jeans.

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  42. Bizarro Mike9:07 AM

    You've gotta admit that there's no issue that better defines the conservative than his anti-anti-bullying. It's perfect in its meanness, contrariness, and disrespect. Personally, I think Steyn's real beef is that the future stormtroopers he's counting on to march across the globe for brand Freedom (tm) may not be up to snuff if they aren't allowed to terrorize their peers. All his plans for the Greater Middle-Eastern Co-prosperity Sphere will be in shambles!

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  43. montag29:08 AM

    "... in their minds, this state of innocence extends to ages like 12 or 13."


    Well, that's the age when, according to our most knowledgeable wingnutz, they're supposed to take an interest in Atlas Shrugged and forever have their minds preoccupied with greed, sociopathy and learning to treat people like cardboard cutouts, just like the characters in the book.


    It's all part of The Plan.

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  44. sharculese9:12 AM

    John Derbyshire is on the case!

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  45. Haystack9:26 AM

    Remember that party? The one where the friend's cousin somehow got an invite and made it his mission to "shock" (by which, I mean, bore) the other guests with his special brand of contrarian assholery.


    Well, Conrad Black was also at that party. He decided he liked the cut of the obnoxious guy's jib and gave him a job writing for his newspapers. The rest is bad history.

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  46. Uncle Kvetch9:47 AM

    WHOA, NELLIE.


    I see what you did there.

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  47. Does knowing the facts of life (at whatever level) automatically make kids sexualized?


    They should ban children from living in idyllic rural settings, doing chores on the farm and such. I would guess farm kids learn about sex much, much earlier than the typical city kid.

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  48. Alexander von Humbug10:55 AM

    a perpetual forever war


    Of course, I'm sure you remember what happened in Joe Haldeman's The Forever War: All the soldiers turned ghey!

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  49. glennisw10:58 AM

    Also, too - learning about the existence of gay is "sexualizing". But learning about the existence of heterosexuality is not? Steyn's innocent tween has been indoctrinated to believe in sleeping princesses awakened by manly princes fighting through thickets of thorns since she was six years old.

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  50. Provider_UNE11:09 AM

    There is an "upskirt" joke in there somewhere...I'm just too lazy to look for it.
    ...

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  51. Force, encourage . . . same thing, really.

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  52. Steyn's love of musical theatre may come into play here.

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  53. Provider_UNE11:18 AM

    Yes, there have been a small number of bullied teens driven to suicide,
    and these particular deaths are tragedies...



    Had he stopped here, he might have demonstrated the ability to possess a simulacrum of humanity. He was unable to help himself, the dark monsters of his soul had to crawl out of his skin.
    ...

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  54. Haven't you heard? He's taken up novel writing. Really bad ones, too.

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  55. Steyn's considered the "funny one," you know. You ever read America Alone? It's chock full o' half-assed gags, the biggest one being that it was ever published.

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  56. D. Sidhe11:24 AM

    Also in its sad attempt at feeling oppressed.

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  57. This may explain a lot.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsQ7iz9WkeA

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  58. Oh no, this one's meant to be humor. I can't emphasize this enough - Steyn is the "funny one" in conservative circles. In this case, I'm guessing he miscalculated how deeply disturbing making sex jokes about eleven year-olds would be.


    At least, I hope it was just a miscalculation . . .

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  59. Guestington P. Gorcestershire11:34 AM

    Some kids get bullied for perceived sexual orientation, and some of those kids commit suicide because of it. If you're a teacher or school administrator, you have to deal with that - the empty desk that once held a living, breathing, student, the guilty suspicion that you might have been able to do something to prevent this, and didn't.
    So you try something, anything, because you don't want this to happen again, Maybe the thing you try will work, maybe it won't. Maybe it will look silly to newspaper columnists. Do you care? Probably not, you've got more serious problems - like dead 16-year-olds - to deal with.
    To Mark Steyn, none of this means anything, Nobody he knows lost a child to suicide caused by school bullying, so why not get some cheap laughs and a column out of it?
    It's astonishing how much of "conservative" media is like this. Somewhere, some very smart and hard-working people are trying to build a viable electric car because they're trying to avert a global climate catastrophe, but Har De Har Har because Al-Gore-Is-Fat-Granola-Mobiles, etc.

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  60. According to the Toronto District School Board’s own survey, the most common type of bullying is for “body image” — the reason given by 27% of high school students, 38% of Grades 7 and 8, and yea, back through the generations.


    You might read this and, forgetting the source for a moment, think that it might lead to understanding. Yes, it begins as a stupid clobber statistic. But maybe it will awaken some sense of authentic empathy for the high school kids who are victimized for petty, superficial reasons. Maybe it that little bit of knowledge can lead to greater understanding.


    Or it can lead to a joke about "fat chicks." Either way.

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  61. KatWillow12:04 PM

    "Nothing says “celebrate diversity” like forcing
    everyone to dress exactly the same" I think the point of the shirts was not to celebrate diversity but to take a stand against bullying.

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  62. I never could figure out if Haldeman was attempting to portray the homonormative (I just made that word up, ngl) society of the future as a form of progress, or a bit of homophobic scaremongering, or perhaps making some kind of point about sexual orientation being a fairly arbitrary social construct. Or maybe he wasn't making a political point at all. Maybe he was just demonstrating that his protagonist, by virtue of skipping centuries of human history at a time, will always be a regressive stick in the mud whether he wants to be or not.


    Shit, I just admitted that literature can have value beyond current political talking points. There goes my gig at the National Review.

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  63. Maybe I should rephrase - Steyn considers himself the funny one.

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  64. Bullying is as old as the schoolhouse. Dr Thomas Arnold, one of the
    great reforming headmasters of 19th century England, is captured in the
    most famous novel ever written about bullying, Tom Brown’s Schooldays in
    what, by all accounts, is an accurate summation of his approach to the
    matter: “‘You see, I do not know anything of the case officially, and if
    I take any notice of it at all, I must publicly expel the boy. I don’t
    wish to do that, for I think there is some good in him. There’s nothing
    for it but a good sound thrashing.’ He paused to shake hands with the
    master … ‘Remember,’ added the Doctor, emphasizing the words, ‘a good
    sound thrashing before the whole house.’ ”



    Steyn is a sick man.

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  65. I don't think that's restricted to conservatives. There are a lot of people who are really uncomfortable with the idea of anyone under high school age having dirty thoughts. Most of these people have just blocked out middle school, I guess. In real life, middle school is gross - no one understand sex, everyone wants to talk about it anyway. But to those who are creeped out by sexuality, it's better to imagine that middle school is totally sanitary and everyone experiences an instant awakening (complete with full knowledge of everything involved) at age 14. Much easier that way.


    The difference between most people who feel this way and social conservatives is that the cons feel 14 is still much too early. To them, no one should have sexy thoughts until they're old enough to be married off. Ironically, this is even true among certain evangelical groups who don't believe in adolescence - you might be considered an adult at 12, but you'd better not have those thoughts until 17.

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  66. BigHank5312:33 PM

    My gorge was already rising at the repellent portmanteau "Steynamite". Thank god the web site itself is dead now, or I'd do myself an injury. No, I'm not clicking on those helpful YouTube suggestions. Never.

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  67. tigrismus12:37 PM

    Hmm, so reading about sex is OK as long as it's rapey enough?

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  68. zencomix1:10 PM

    "Or not hard enough, as it were."

    That's where the "soft totalitarian" comes into play.

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  69. The Kenosha Kid1:25 PM

    If it's wingnutty to be turned on by Catholic schoolgirl outfits, then by god, I just became outraged at Chappaquiddick.

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  70. Halloween_Jack1:40 PM

    I never grokked the "thickets of thorns" symbolism before now. I bet that prince went right through them with his big sword.

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  71. smut clyde2:10 PM

    Does the narrative still work if the manly prince's ordeal is to stroll across a Brazilian beach?

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  72. Alexander von Humbug2:17 PM

    I've always read it as a device he used to maximize the main character's alienation, as in, "My god, these kids today!"


    BTW, Ridley Scott is allegedly producing a film version.

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  73. sophronia3:06 PM

    Tried to read this and just couldn't get past the roiling, blubbering misogyny barely hidden behind every one of Steyn's examples of evil. Fat chicks! Pink shirts! Periwinkle ribbons! Ponies and unicorns! Menstruation! Just come right out and say it, Mark: you hate girl stuff and you don't want girl cooties all over your little boys. Boys should be beaten and caned until they are Real Men, just like you like them.

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  74. ColBatGuano3:27 PM

    Hey, if you can't bully the gay kids, what's the point in being a straight white guy?

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  75. The Dark Avenger3:31 PM

    That's not surprising:

    Adam Yoshida was arrested for lewd conduct, shoplifting, and assault at Classy & Sassy ladies boutique, on Reid street.

    Authorities documented in a police report that Adam Yoshida entered the Classy & Sassy boutique at approximately 11:15 a.m. After failing to emerge from a ladies dressing room stall, store clerks knocked on the door asking if he was 'ok' or needed assistance. Adam Yoshida was then reported to have exited the dressing room wearing high heel shoes, women's thong underwear and matching bra along with a dress wrapped around his head as a hat.

    Adam Yoshida allegedly began dancing and skipping around the store shouting "I'm a pretty princess" over and over, according to witness reports. When asked by the manager
    to leave the store, Adam Yoshida squatted in the front lobby and defecated on the floor. He then picked up his feces with his hand, took a bite, and asked store patrons if they wanted a bite of his cake to celebrate his birthday.

    Clearly becoming a threat to others, one of the female clerks tackled Adam Yoshida, and with the assistance of two other women he was restrained until police arrived at the scene.

    Mary Smith, one of the store clerks told UJ reporters, "I only weigh 105 pounds and didn't think I could tackle him, but he went down really easily. He's very weak, and very disturbed."

    Initial toxicology reports indicate that Adam Yoshida was high on a mixture of narcotics and prescription drugs at the time of the incident. Results of a psychological exam to determine if he will face possible jail time or be institutionalized are pending.

    http://adam.yoshida.swellserver.com/news/top_stories/arrested.php

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  76. Mark Steyn: Bullying is as old as the schoolhouse....

    Uh huh. By this principle we may as well throw up our hands and say:

    "Rape is as old as the hills...."

    or

    "Slavery has existed since the dawn of time…"

    Funny that for all his resignation in the face of age-old violence and injustice that doesn't affect him, Mark Steyn singles out the perennial behaviors of homosexuality and (certain) religion(s) as in dire need of being battled, squelched, and stamped out.

    I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe this guy isn't as principled as he makes himself out to be....

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  77. Has no one told him about Glee?

    I'm sure someone, probably Brent Bozell, has; it's nothing but gay propaganda to suck our young people into the gay lifestyle and ram homosexuality down their throats ... excuse me, I think I had better have a lie-down.

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  78. It'll almost certainly be de-gayed.

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  79. Pope Zebbidie XIII3:39 PM

    He's used homosexuality in other books as a fairly unremarkable thing. I think he just likes the idea of his characters being fluid and unexpected.

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  80. Roy - must of us north of the 49th would love to see the Catholic schools utterly defy this law - not because there is anything wrong with the law, but the result of such defiance would be the schools would lose their public funding which is exactly what should happen. Resentment of the connection between church and state is building and the sex abuse scandals and coverups by the Catholic Church, in Canada and abroad, have certainly helped to foment that discord.

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  81. D. Sidhe4:19 PM

    Wait, is there actually *not* a place in GSAs and other tolerance programs for asexual and not-yet-sexual kids? Because as far as I've seen, people who work for the acceptance of the broad spectrum of sexuality and gender potential are not actually sneering at the people who just aren't sexual. There are exceptions, God knows as a bisexual woman and a poly relationship, there are a few people who have Had Issues with us, but mostly? Asexuality is just another way people can be. If I were an asexual kid, or one who just hadn't found herself yet, I'd be a lot happier around the GSA than around the bullies.

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  82. smut clyde4:35 PM

    Biblical values, tigris!

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  83. smut clyde4:36 PM

    I am upticking this comment just for the cromulent use of 'fulsome'.

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  84. tigrismus4:50 PM

    I hope you're not bald, because I'm laughing but I'm scared of bears.

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  85. XeckyGilchrist4:54 PM

    That's basically how rightbloggers and conservative pundits make a living.

    And the occasional political party. Like, one that had as the theme of its whole convention "We built it."

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  86. RogerAiles5:08 PM

    What, no "thin edge of the wedgie?"

    Stain looks more like a swirly recipient.

    ReplyDelete
  87. philadelphialawyer5:10 PM

    "What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario? You’re still into ponies and unicorns and have no great interest in the opposite sex except when nice Prince William visits to cut the ribbon at the new Transgendered Studies Department. What if the other girls are beginning to mock you for wanting to see Anne Of Green Gables instead of Anne Does Avonlea? Is there any room for the sexual-developmentally challenged in the GSAs?"

    All kidding aside, wouldn't the "other girls beginning to mock" such a "non sexualized tween girl" count as bullying under the very statute Steyn opposes?

    From the linked bill.....

    "'bullying' means aggressive and typically repeated behaviour by a pupil where,

    "(a) the behaviour is intended by the pupil to have the effect of, or the pupil ought to know that the behaviour would be likely to have the effect of,

    "(i) causing harm, fear or distress to another individual, including physical, psychological, social or academic harm, harm to the individual’s reputation or harm to the individual’s property, or

    "(ii) creating a negative environment at a school for another individual, and

    "(b) the behaviour occurs in a context where there is a real or perceived power imbalance between the pupil and the individual based on factors such as size, strength, age, intelligence, peer group power, economic status, social status, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, family circumstances, gender, gender identity, gender expression, race, disability or the receipt of special education; ('intimidation')."
    Sooo, a group of sexually active or otherwise precocious (or "developed") girls mocking a more "babyish," sexually innocent/"undeveloped" girl would, it seems to me, indeed constiute bullying, under the very statute the author is criticizing, because it would be behavior intended to have the effect and/or likely to have the effect of causing (at least) "social...harm" to an individual and/or creating a negative environment for an individual, and the behavior occured in a a context of real or percieved power imbalance based on "peer group power" and/or "social status."
    So, to answer Steyn's question, yeah, there is room for the sexual developmentally challenged (sic) in the GSA, and the schools, and the bill.
    That being the case, what's his beef?
    I find it telling that he didn't even bother to figure this out. His meant-to-cute, supposedly cutting, intended rhetorically question is actually quite easily answered, and in a way that totally undermines his whole purpose in asking it.
    Moreover, even if this was not the case (and it seems clear to me that it is), wouldn't the more intelligent critique of the bill be that it was underinclusive, rather than completely wrong?
    No one should be bullied at school. Not for being gay, lesbian, bi, or transgendered. And not for being less sexually developed than one's peers either. Not for any reason at all.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Halloween_Jack5:38 PM

    My farm cousins certainly did. Hell, they were driving pickups and multi-ton farm equipment when they were tweens.

    ReplyDelete
  89. AGoodQuestion5:39 PM

    God only knows the kind of nasty cookies and malware you pick up at nationalpost.com. On your eyeballs, if not your computer.

    ReplyDelete
  90. Halloween_Jack5:41 PM

    "The prince touched down on the landing strip..."

    ReplyDelete
  91. AGoodQuestion5:43 PM

    as in, "all yer children are ours!"
    Is this related to that "all your base are belong to us" meme from a dozen years ago?

    ReplyDelete
  92. AGoodQuestion5:47 PM

    I would vote for the "arbitrary" interpretation. By his own account Haldeman was inspired by his own sense of disconnection on coming back from Vietnam, having missed some pretty seismic social changes. The uniracial gay soldiers aren't evil, from what I remember. They're just not what the protagonist recognizes.

    ReplyDelete
  93. Halloween_Jack5:51 PM

    I honestly don't want to check to see if some whackjob out there is claiming that Challenger blew up because the crew wasn't 100% Christian. Things might get broken.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Halloween_Jack5:53 PM

    ...the hell?

    ReplyDelete
  95. gocart mozart5:56 PM

    "glassy-eyed homogeneity". Beware the glassy-eyed homogeneity Mafia!

    ReplyDelete
  96. gocartmozart6:00 PM

    That's different. The catholic cchurch makes the girls wear that outfit so that they won't be looked upon as sex objects. Wait what?

    ReplyDelete
  97. Tybalt6:02 PM

    Here the Catholic school boards persist because there are Constitutional guarantees that they will remain so. It's our Second Amendment.


    Steyn is a disgrace, but entertaining in a screaming-queen-with-mascara-running-down-his-face-disgrace way.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Tybalt6:05 PM

    "Also the frostbacks apparently have both a Pink Shirt Day in February and a Day of Pink in April for the kids, both about not bullying gay kids."


    Actually, Pink Shirt Day is just about not bullying, full stop. But Steyn, who sees homosex everywhere from the lunchroom down at the plant to the closet in his bedroom, has interpreted it as all about gaygaygaygaygaygayGAY.

    ReplyDelete
  99. gocartmozart6:05 PM

    A victim of oppression? I await Mr. Steins outrage.
    http://www.courant.com/community/wolcott/hc-wolcott-plymouth-arrest-0301-20130228,0,3589424.story

    ReplyDelete
  100. BigHank536:26 PM

    "Lazy" isn't the word I'd use to describe the act of not peering up a priest's robes. "Prudent" or "rational" come to mind...

    ReplyDelete
  101. The Dark Avenger6:27 PM

    It's a fake news generator site, someone put Adam in one of their story generators or was a little imaginative.

    ReplyDelete
  102. hells littlest angel6:29 PM

    "...no great interest in the opposite sex..."


    You'd hate to see kids like that made aware of homosexuality.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Sgaile-beairt7:36 PM

    no but there was a guy claiming that it blew up bc it was Eco Friendly, once....one of the very early WND articles i think....

    ReplyDelete
  104. Tehanu10:18 PM

    This screed about ponies and unicorns is about the false idea that pre-pubescent girls don't know anything about sex, don't have ideas about sex, and shouldn't be exposed to information about sex to "preserve their innocence." The idea being (apparently) that ignorance = purity. As a grown woman I have to say that purity is a really, really stupid goal -- at least, the kind of purity Mark thinks is good for the, uh, penis-challenged.

    ReplyDelete
  105. redoubt8:18 AM

    What about if you're the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario?
    Then John Derbyshire really, really wants to meet you.

    ReplyDelete
  106. D. Sidhe10:04 AM

    In some versions he did. In others, because he was the right man, the thorns wilted away or turned to roses before him. It's actually a pretty sick story, but so are most fairy tales. They were the horror movies of their time, with all that entails in terms of misogyny and Fear Teh Sexual Wimmens subtext.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Spaghetti Lee11:33 PM

    Oh? Then which one's 'the quiet one?'


    Wait a minute...none of them are the quiet one.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Interrobang2:33 PM

    Oh, christ, the National Post actually gave room to that bag of winds and waters? There's only one thing for it. On behalf of every sane person in Canada (which is most of us, despite what Stephen Harper wants you to think), I'm truly sorry.


    Personally, I think the reason Steyn is pro-bullying is that he was the guy the bigger kids liked to dribble like a basketball when *he* was in school, so he's working off the usual conservative "I went through hell, why should it be any different for anybody else?" crap.

    ReplyDelete
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