A Wee Weasel and His Weasel Boss

Further to Justin Trudeau's mock "apology" for criticizing the use of the word "barbaric" to describe "honour killings" in a government booklet (Justin thought the mot, though juste, might be taken the wrong way by, er, barbarians), fearless leader Iggy adds this "clarification":

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said: "Let's not play word games with this stuff . . . There's no such thing as an honour killing, there's only killing and it's a crime everywhere," he said.

Spoken in true weasel fashion by a man who's playing games with Western civilization in a desperate bid to curry favour with those who, for their own reasons, would also like us to ignore the barbaric religio-cultural practice and collapse it into the larger category of murder, plain and simple.

Jason Kenney, recently banned from the PC precincts of York U, has no patience for such mealy-mouthed equivocations:

Kenney said the government deliberately chose "very strong, very provocative" language to denounce culturally based violence against women. "Trudeau believes the government should use 'responsible neutrality' in addressing culturally based violence against women," Kenney said, calling the concept "absurd."

The brochure "is deliberately blunt and deliberately provocative and if they offend some people, so be it," he said.

Give offense? In Pierre's Trudeaupia? I thought that was against the law, or the Charter, or something.

Update: A National Post editorial opines:

Multiculturalists do newcomers no favours when they soft-pedal their denunciation of customs that cannot be tolerated in civilized nations. Mr. Trudeau and other more-tolerant-than-thou souls might remind themselves that only 150 years ago, slavery was widely practised on this continent. We are sure that no multiculturalist would hesitate to call slavery a barbarism, and rightly so. Our culture changed to meet our evolving standards of social morality. To suggest that other cultures are incapable of doing the same is the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I don't think it's about that at all. I think it's a question of whether we will "evolve" in the direction of "other cultures," or they end up changing in keeping with our Western values. And it's the doctrine of multiculturalism itself--a doctrine that falsely claims that every culture is equally cuddly and wonderful--that's put the brakes on their evolution and introduces their barbaric practices here, thereby changing us. (And if you don't believe me, consider this: what used to be called "female genital mutilation," truly a barbaric practice, has been made to sound far more innocuous by calling it "cutting"--and Western feminists don't seem to mind one little bit that their sisters from other cultures are having their little bits excised for reasons of ingrained cultural misogyny and fear/horror of female sexuality. Go figure, eh?)

Update: There's at least one Liberal MP who knows Iggy is full of crap.

Update: Margaret Wente explains how "honour" murders differ from run-of-the-mill murders. (Listen up, Justin, Iggy, because there will be a quiz on this later.)

Intense conflict between conservative immigrant fathers and their modern daughters is nothing new. But this kind of violence – often premeditated, and condoned by the community – is driven by a cultural belief that fathers ought to be able to control their daughters. Daughters who act immorally – by talking to boys, or going to the mall, or wearing immodest clothes – bring shame and humiliation onto their entire families. Whatever punishment they suffer is widely thought to be their fault.

Part of the cultural belief is that the family's "honour" resides between the daughter's legs, a portion of her anatomy to which she has no proprietary rights whatsoever.