Balderdash and Piffle

In more than two years of blogging I've never had to write a post like this, but I suppose it's finally time to face the unrelenting mischief of my accuser. J.J. McCullough means to level a piffle charge of racism against this blog, when he declares it guilty of celebrating "white pride", of indulging in "benign bigotry", of admiring "white men in top hats", of being interested in only the most Anglocentric aspects of the "white dominions", which, according to him, is a kind of "racism by ommission".

He attempts to substantiate this twaddle by preening that we have never missed an opportunity to order the "white realms" first and the "brown ones" last. He also cites the fact that we have never made an honest effort to champion the cultures, anniversaries and traditions of the non "Ethnically-British" countries like Jamaica and Papua New Guinea who also share the British monarchy, as if we are somehow morally obligated to do so.

Now it's true that I don't give one piddle whiff for the local habits and customs of the Papuans, nor do I profess to be all that interested in the indigenous traits of the Tuvaluans, Belizeans or Grenadians. He can call this smug indifference all he wants, this is not my hobby. Clearly the only reason why I mention these countries is because we all share allegiance to Her Majesty, because we all share something in common. It is not the things that separate us, but the thing that unites us. Our accuser is insincere and hypocritical when he feigns concern for the Papuans and the Solomons, but if he is genuinely interested in the annual feast day of the Saint Lucians, let him look it up. That is not why we are here.

To his preposterous claim that we are exaggerating the importance of "tiny New Zealand" when Papua New Guinea or the Crown Caribbean are marginally more populous, I say piffle again. As he must know, New Zealand with its wealth and aid is a much more geopolitically significant country, engaged as it is in expensive reconstruction efforts in such far away places as Afghanistan. It is to New Zealand that we look for assistance in Tonga and Fiji, for example, not PNG or the Solomon Islands, which have trouble enough looking after their own tribal and domestic affairs. On this blog there is a demand for a New Zealand perspective, and the scribes for the telling of it. I would hope for others, and other perspectives, but if not, so be it.

If tiny Tuvalu has a smaller font size it is because it is not as important as the United Kingdom, nor is Canada for that matter, and because there are 16 realms which I am trying to recognize in the small space chosen. Nonetheless, I have allotted more space for the 12 countries that have a combined population of around 10 million people, than I have for the four that have a population exceeding 100 million. Further down the sidebar he will notice them all mentioned again, only this time all the same font size where there is plenty of room, and all identified with their own unique flag. And yes, it just so happens that the historical order of these countries [UK (1801), Canada (1867), Oz (1900), New Zealand (1907), Jamaica (1962),...and the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis (1983)] has me listing the "white ones" first and the "brown ones" last.

To my accuser who levels this balderdash and piffle at me, let me just say that I have never read anything quite like the invective and hate spewed in his own essay on the British monarchy. While we are all perfectly free to make up our own minds about the Crown, the level of revulsion and enmity he displays towards something that is essentially benign and harmless suggests an unhealthy emotional incompetency, and explains why he has engaged in this undignified bit of race baiting. He simply hates the Queen, he hates our traditions and he hates this site for promoting it. It drives him crazy:

The fact that Canada still recognizes the Queen of England as our head of state embarrasses and disgusts me to no end. Every time I hear the term "crown counsel" or "crown land" I cringe. I find it offensive that my father was forced to take an oath of loyalty to the British monarch before he could work as a parole officer and that reciting this same oath is also the first act we ask of our nation's new immigrants. I hate the Governor General's stupid medals and the fact that she still has political power. I hate the Queen's face on our coins and the culture of our military, which still teaches our soldiers to worship a foreign monarch they will likely never meet. But most of all I hate how so many of my fellow conservatives in Canada eagerly line up to defend all this absurdity.

And he has the laughable temerity to call himself a conservative. What, pray tell us, does he wish to conserve? We can only hope his sanity.