Friday, July 29, 2011

My Reply To Tyler Shipley

There was a classic SNL skit where Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtain did a point counter point show. Jane went on a long diatribe and when she was done, Dan replied with “Jane you ignorant slut.” It’s a skit that I was reminded of when reading Tyler Shipley’s editorial on rabble.com. http://rabble.ca/news/2011/07/save-our-jets-new-winnipeg-jets-logo-sacrifices-nostalgia-militarism

Let’s be honest, the main premise of Mr. Shipley’s piece is that the men and women of our Canadian armed forces to don’t deserve our respect. When you cut away all the scathing rhetoric that’s really what the piece is built on. What Mr. Shipley and other pseudo intellectuals don’t get, is that the men and women that sign up for the Canadian armed forces, don’t sign up to fight for Stephen Harper. Nor do they sign up to fight for Jack Layton or Bob Rae. They sign up to fight for the idea of Canada.

The idea of Canada says that everyone is welcome. The idea of Canada says that when you’re in trouble your neighbours will help you. The idea of Canada is that if you’re another country searching for a road to peace, we will punch through the darkness and help you find it! These men and women knowingly sign up for what may likely be their own death, just so that they can defend and promote this idea. Would Mr. Shipley do the same if given the opportunity? I’m not sure, but what I do know is that the men and women in our service do in fact deserve our respect. Let me be clear, you can disagree with the politics of deployment all you want; I have no problem with that, and would actually encourage it. I do however have a problem with fiery statements implying that these same men and women somehow enjoy killing innocent people.

Lets’ get to the real meat of the matter though. I don’t think Mr. Shipley really actually cares if there’s a new NHL club in Winnipeg. Nor do I think he even cares if the logo where to be a swastika emblazoned on a skull and crossbones. You need to understand, Mr. Shipley is playing an old game; he is using what should be an apolitical issue to draw people into his own political agenda. You see reader, without using your emotion as a lever to blind you, his statements would seem childish and extreme. Writers like Mr. Shipley need an angle, a hook, to get the reader enraged, because their arguments never stand up in the light of civil discourse.

I simply don’t understand why Mr. Shipley needs to hide behind the veil of sports commentary to further his points. I mean obviously when he looks down his nose at the rest of us poor souls, duped by the military industrial complex, it should be easy to convince us of the error of our ways.  And who needs facts when you have rhetoric at your disposal.

If Mr. Shipley would have simply written a well thought out and factual piece on why he doesn’t agree with our troops fighting in Libya and Afghanistan, I would respect him, and may even agree with him to some extent. Instead he chooses denigrate both the game of hockey and our people that put themselves in harm’s way. For that, all I have to say is, Tyler you ignorant A-Hole.

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