A few weeks ago I was introduced to the divisive figure of Tommy Robinson by my nephew in England who had posted a Face Book page. The Face Book page concerned the appointment of a Muslim Sajid Javid as British Home Secretary. Along with this he posted a picture of Tommy Robinson with captions about the Radical Islamization of Britain. He asked for my opinion. I replied as follows

” I’m probably disappointing you here Paul but I read a number of articles on Sajid Javid and just find him an ambitious politician. He is a non practicing Muslim married to a Christian wife with four children. I assume if he doesn’t practice his religion then his kids will be brought up Christian. So I don’t see some grand design for Muslims to take over England in his being promoted to Home Secretary. I don’t believe in identity politics where the individual takes on the personality of the group. I hope that English parliament and rule of law are strong enough to withstand any one person. But of course the future will tell. As I said before I am still trying to understand the Muslim world which was founded on violence and has a propensity to mix politics and religion. But I do not lump 1 billion Muslims in with the extremists. It’s a complex faith. ”

I also looked up a bio of Tommy Robinson. He was born Stephen Yaxley-Lennon in 1982 in Luton, England. His parents were Irish immigrants. He changed his name to Tommy Robinson taking it from a prominent member of a hooligan crew which follows Luton Town Football Club. He has spent time in prison for disturbing the peace and forged documents. In the past he has been a member of far right groups but in December ,2015 he founded the British arm of PEGIDA ( Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) a group founded in Germany to protest against the influx of Muslims from the Middle East. In 2012 he was part of a BBC documentary ” When Tommy met Mo” discussing Islamism and the Muslim community. Mo Anwar is a political and social commentator.

I personally find Tommy Robinson’s character to be rough edged and in your face and is not the type of person I would associate with. But I am talking about his views not his character. He formed PEGIDA to combat what he saw as the political correctness and lack of frank discussion on the politicization of Britain by Muslims as they gained access to seats of power through democratic means. He suggested that  Islam is a political religion and their religious thinking would govern their decision making on local councils etc. He in particular took issue with the grooming gangs preying on 13-15 year old white girls which had been going on in Britain for 30 years. These grooming gangs usually hung around schools and institutions for homeless children to befriend them,offer them drugs and alcohol which eventually led to prostitution. There are a number of such cases before the British courts. These grooming gangs are mainly Muslim. In at least one instance the police withheld a report about gangs of Muslim men grooming children in case it inflamed race relation before a national election. Political correctness once again comes before justice. There are a number of articles on this subject on the Internet.

On May 25, 2018 Tommy Robinson was arrested and told he was breaching the peace because he was live steaming outside a court room where a grooming trial was taking place of a number of Muslim men. He was on public property. This is where is all gets hazy and in my view slightly sinister. He was arrested by a number of police officers put in a van and whisked away. His friends went to the police station where he was to be charged and was told he wasn’t there and had probably been released. They phoned his lawyer who confirmed this. However, subsequent events confirmed this was a lie as within hours he was dragged before the courts and sentenced to 13 months in prison for contempt of court. He was not allowed to retain his own lawyer who was familiar with the previous case which led to the contempt charge but a lawyer present in the court. Furthermore a publication ban was put on the whole proceeding so main street media could not comment on his situation. On May 29 these reporting restrictions were lifted after complaints to the judge. I’m writing this because I had , perhaps naively, stood up for the ” English Rule of Law”. I’m now rethinking this statement.

 

“This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill: the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill: you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

‘Red pill’ has become a popular phrase among cyberculture and signifies a free-thinking attitude, and a waking up from a “normal” life of sloth and ignorance. Red pills prefer the truth, no matter how gritty and painful it may be.

I opened a Twitter account on March 1 ,2018 and follow about 28 people, mostly journalists. I follow people from all sides of the political spectrum trying to achieve a balanced viewpoint. Two of the people I follow:

• Jordan Peterson a university of Toronto professor lecturing in psychology. Currently on a world tour with his best selling book ‘ 12 Rules for Life, an antidote to chaos’. He has also well documented his history with severe depression. His grandfather, father and daughter also suffer from severe depression.
• Michael Cohen a columnist, broadcaster and author of 16 books. He is currently studying for his Masters of Divinity at Trinity College, University of Toronto.

My red pill moment came last night when I read Michael Coren’s Twitter on Jordan Peterson. He wrote ” My kids mock me because I cried in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2. Fair enough I suppose but this is going too far”. Attached to this Twitter was a two minute YouTube video of Jordan Peterson crying before a computer screen trying to express how he felt about individual suffering. I found it a sly and hypocritical way of mocking Jordan Peterson in his moment of anguish. Michael Coren’s intent was to mock and denigrate Professor Peterson by ensuring the video was viewed by his followers.

This is some of the text that Jordan Peterson was crying over on the YouTube Video.

” In the 20th century there has been a loss of faith in the idea of the individual. It is only the individual that suffers, the group doesn’t suffer. Suffering is to be regarded seriously, without such regard there can be no motivation to reduce suffering”

The above are pretty simple and self evident words. But as in all things Jordan Peterson incorporates that belief into his speech and speaks with passion. He’s saying make up your own mind and don’t play identity politics. It’s you that will suffer not the group.

I Tweeted a reply ” So you mock someone who is crying over the suffering of individuals. Who has severe depression and understands suffering”.  I received no reply so noting that Michael Coren’s YouTube Tweet had received 12 likes I replied with a couple of tweets as follows:

1. “This video has received 12 favorites. Am I missing something here. I wonder how many favored Tweets a crucifixion would get”.
2. I then expanded on 1. by envisioning a scene at Calvary in the Twitter age and Tweeted as follows ” They’re putting him on the cross now. Look how he’s suffering.12 favorites.1 retweet. I do enjoy a good crucifixion.”
3. I prepared a third Tweet to further expand this theme. ”  I’m at Gethsemane and there’s this guy here writhing in sadness and anguish crying over some cup taken from him. What a whiner”.  But I thought this might be over kill so I deleted it.

Now we come to my red pill moment. Michael Coren is a political and Christian commentator currently taking a Masters of Divinity at the University of Toronto. A few minutes later he Tweeted on Bishop Michael Curry’s speech on love at Harry and Meaghan’s wedding. ” Speaking truth to power. What wonderful stuff” Except he hadn’t really heard a word on the sermon of love. He hadn’t digested it and taken it into his soul. They were just words. If he had truly heard them he wouldn’t have sent a YouTube video mocking Professor Jordan Peterson speaking on the suffering of the individual. So I’ve freed myself from the hypocrisy of major religious faiths and political parties. I would rather listen to an agnostic/atheist such as Jordan Peterson than a supposedly Christian, man of God, like Michael Coren.

 

 

 

 

On Thursday, May 10, 2018 I was watching a panel debate on CBC’s ‘ Power and Politics’ relating to the March for Life rally held that day on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. I noticed in the debate that CBC commentators always referred to the rally as anti choice rather than by its official Right to Life name. I also went on Twitter where, as expected, the Trolls were out in great numbers showering abuse and righteous indignation on the Right to Life marchers. Well, not only Trolls, but supposedly civilized commentators also used this news worthy event to denigrate pro lifers and to restate that a woman’s right to choose was the only option. There was a lot of name calling but no rational discussion on the anti abortion versus a woman’s right to choose issue. I’ve always had strong feelings on this issue and so ( gulp! ) here they are.

If I’m so quickly done for

What on earth was I begun for

It seems to me that the common sense way to eliminate abortions is for women to take more control of their bodies in regard to contraception. Speaking from a mans point of view, I have never really understood the term unplanned pregnancy. Surely it must be top of mind for a woman when having sex to be aware of the consequences of either party not using contraceptives. I put the onus on women because the whole pro choice argument is the women’s right to control her body. If that is the case then all efforts should be made by women to prevent the sperm from fertilizing the egg. The fusion of the sperm and egg produces a new cell type, the zygote. Within 30 minutes the zygote changes its state to block other sperm from binding to the cell surface. The cells then continue to divide while they travel and attach themselves to the uterus. If all goes well than this new human life only needs food and a suitable environment to flourish. So the abortion issue comes in when women do not allow their bodies to be used to sustain this new life. Perhaps unborn babies need their #MeToo moment to remind the universe that they are also innocent victims. Abortion rates, in Canada,  from 2007-2015 averaged approximately 100,000 babies a year. With 95% being aborted in the first 12 weeks. The following is taken from an article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen March 23,2012 talking about the feelings of a woman who had just experienced an abortion at a clinic:

Anna speaks about her consent to abortion in this way, “In that time of my pregnancy I had a lot of nausea and was on a real hormonal roller coaster. The difference between my decision process in my ‘normal’ state and that ‘state’ are two worlds. I think that when a woman is pregnant, from my experience, she is much more vulnerable, and thus can be ‘pushed around’ more easily. This should be taken into account when a clinic is looking to have consent from a pregnant woman.”

Abortion in Canada was decriminalized on January 28, 1988, following the trial of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, when the Supreme Court of Canada declared the old abortion section of the Criminal Code unconstitutional. The previous law held that an abortion was acceptable only when pregnancy endangered the woman’s life. Dr. Morgentaler’s challenge was that, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the criminal code restricted a woman’s freedom. There is no federal abortion law in Canada, so it remains a right protected under the Charter, but is unregulated. Fewer than 20% of hospitals in Canada now perform abortions.  Now, most abortions are performed by for profit clinics.

Of course the main justification for abortions is that the foetus is not yet a baby and is just a bunch of undeveloped cells. That the foetus is unfeeling and so cannot experience the pain of being sucked from the mother’s womb. I think the science would prove that once the embryo implants itself to the womb than life starts to develop and thus begins. When actual personhood begins is argued between the detection of a fetal heartbeat or brain development. There are exceptions when women have the right to terminate i.e. when the mothers life is at risk, rape etc. but generally women should not have abortions because its convenient which I suspect is about 95% of the time. So now you have my views on this emotionally charged and contentious topic.