I can just hear Rick McGinnis tsking: “Now see, that was your first mistake — leaving the house.”
But all I was doing was going a few floors down to the gym; I was still in my own frickin’ building.
So I’m on the elevator, staring at the floor, and I hear a guy say:
“That’s something you don’t see every day: a Roots jacket with an American flag on it.”
He must be talking to/about me, because that’s my workout hoodie. I look up to see a Ted Bundy/American Psycho guy staring down at me.
And sneering.
“It’s from their 2004 Olympics line,” I mumble.
Ah, l’esprit de l’escalier — or in this case, elevateur. I should have said, “Hey, bozo, did you know that that great ‘Canadian’ company, Roots, was started by Americans who dug Canadian culture, because Canadians were too lazy/chickenshit/regulated/unimaginative to start a similar company themselves?'”
Or:
“Got an American flag on my Dennis Miller ballcap too, as you can see. Bub.”
Or even just:
“Whatsittoya?”
But my floor came, so…
Speaking of the dreaded, evil AMERIKKKA ™: I just had to respond to Damian Penny (godluvim) and his tin-earred, parochial, late 20th century “advice” to Ezra Levant:
Ezra, my friend, I’m on your side. But if you wanted to rally Canadians to the defence of human-rights commissions and hate-speech laws, you’d get the Americans to butt in.
I responded:
If Canadians really are that pathetic, Damian, then they can go screw themselves. But I repeat myself…
This is about protecting the blogosphere, not Canada, which is pretty much a write-off anyway for the reason(s) you inadvertently hinted at.
Ordinary Canadians only care about Timbits, lottery tickets and big screen tvs. If they don’t already know about the HRCs, that’s because they don’t want to know or care and never will, so any developments in the campaign (such as American support) won’t matter anyway. They are stupid/preoccupied/lazy and would be negative assets were they to get on side at this or any other future point.
Like Meech Lake and so forth, the campaign for and against the HRCs will be conducted by about 1% of the population while the rest are swatting black flies at the cottage or running the office hockey pool.
Ezra has so far proven himself to be quite successful by doing all the things Canadians “aren’t supposed to do”: being rude, fighting back, being a (gasp!) “shameless self-promoter”, getting litigious, and slaying sacred cows.
He’s ignored good little Canadians’ timid “advice” on how to behave — and now he’s the one addressing Congress, writing a book, etc.
Funny thing, that.
