Of Mice and MPs

http://www.warrenkinsella.com/musings.htm

December 6, 2004 - On the fifteenth anniversary of the massacre of 14 young women in Montreal, we are still being forced to listen to clowns like this, saying they are prepared to take down the government to defeat gun control.

Okay, tough guy, consider this: I have called around this morning. I can advise you that I have the war-roomer team ready, willing and able to defeat you, and all of your like-minded Parliamentary ilk, in every riding where a Liberal votes against his or her party to kill the registry. I'll have the dough lined up by this time tomorrow morning, too.

Your move.

(Thanks to thoughtcrimes.ca for putting me on to this commentary.)

Back in the early 1970's I worked on Parliament Hill for a good and honourable member of parliament by the name of Norm Cafik. Yes, there were, and are, such MPs. After Norm managed to shake me from his staff he was elevated to the Trudeau cabinet, but at the time he was a parliamentary secretary and chairman of the Ontario Liberal caucus. I didn't work that long for Norm, and the truth is I wasn't necesssarily the most effective political staffer in the world. But, as a young man interested in politics I learned a great deal and owe him much.

One of the things I learned was to beware of people with the temperment that Mr. Kinsella displays above. You see, there are two types of people in political Ottawa. The first are doing their best to turn things from what they are into what they ought to be be. These people of integrity may be found in all of the political parties and they are to be cherished and supported in public life.

Then there are those who go to Ottawa because the sheer exercise of power turns their crank. They are not so much interested in the pursuit of the good, but in increasing their personal status and weilding power over others. Again, every party possesses this type of person. Unfortunately, one of the truly lamentable things in Ottawa is that this latter type appears to have prospered and proliferated at the expense of the idealistic type.

I don't know Warren Kinsella and leave it to you to determine where you think he sits on the John the Mad political continuum. I can say that I find it reprehensible that an unelected party hack feels so comfortable bullying an elected representative of the people in so public a fashion.

Back when I served on the Hill, the average MP would have thrown such sludge from their offices without breaking sweat. I saw Norm Cafik, when threatened with such tactics by someone more wealthy and much more powerful than Warren "Hear me Roar" Kinsella, do precisely that. It was a heartwarming experience. I pray that Mr. Galloway recognises Mr. Kinsella for what he has revealed himself to be. No public office is worth having to crawl before that sort of cretinous bullyboy.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart;the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming