Article contentArticle content‘STATE APPARATUS’ ON DISPLAYArticle contentArticle contentSimply expressing disgust with the court system’s official position is not quite enough. In order to properly analyze the meaning and significance of this action it becomes necessary to look to the system from which it originates. For this action was not merely a one-time aberration. It represents a pattern we have come to expect from the state apparatus, ever concerned, as it is, to tell us how best we should behave in order to better ourselves.Article contentArticle contentGovernment officials are increasingly operating in a virtually hermetic environment. Oblivious to the realities of everyday life, they revel in their separation from the very public they are hired to serve. They are functionaries, consumed with false notions of how not to offend, how best to demonstrate tolerance and forever jostling and rearranging amongst themselves in order that they appear fair.Article contentArticle contentArticle contentThe truth is fairness has nothing to do with it. It’s all about appearances It’s a cheap form of theatre designed to play up to the denizens of professional grievance and victimhood. In the process, the genuine public interest is squeezed out.Article contentArticle contentSuggesting that wearing a poppy expresses a lack of neutrality. Could any action be any more obscenely obtuse ? So out of touch with reality or even the basic norms of a mature and civilized society? Not in their world, however. In it the greater the attack, the more piercing the blow against the common-sense interpretation of our nation’s values, the greater the reward to be expected from the narrow and effete dominating chattering class who consider themselves enlightened. Herein lay the background to the attack on the poppy.Article contentArticle content‘RIDICULOUS ABANDONMENT OF CUSTOMS AND VALUES’Article contentArticle contentIn one sense, a limited one, mind you, I understand how the court reached its decision. I say so because its action reveals an intellectual limitation and altogether narrow scope on its part. For this we can provide it our pity but certainly not our respect.Article contentArticle contentArticle contentWhile in other nations and among other cultures the poppy is regarded with derision, representing a form of colonial subjugation, this is not the case in our country. We have had enough of the ridiculous abandonment of our customs and values, all to assuage what might be the grievances of the unassuageable. We have had enough of denigrating our symbols and surrendering the decency and benefits of our history, all in the misdirected name of tolerance and, as here, the ludicrous suggestion of neutrality.Article contentArticle contentFor those of us who cannot summon the words to express our thoughts to those who have offered their every measure of devotion, the poppy speaks for us. Its eloquence cries out from every lapel; its dignity knows neither boundaries nor limitations. It is a quiet and entirely honourable means for us to share what all we feel. It summons for us a time and moment of unique contemplation, of commemoration and of hope.Article contentArticle contentThis form of remembrance is its meaning to Canada and Canadians. Be honoured to wear it in all places. The Court is out of order in suggesting otherwise.Article contentArticle contentDavid Delaney’s column appears regularly in the Cape Breton Post and on capebretonpost.com. He can be contacted at david2308@msn.com.Article content
COMMENTARY: Shame on Nova Scotia court system
