It’s tempting to respond, “Oh, bugger off, you ridiculous poseur,” and pass on to something more rewarding, like Paris Hilton’s Twitter feed.Mr. Ignatieff's brand of smarmy socialism puts me in mind of yet another fuzzy-bunny policy in effect at my young son's public school.
But the sedating pretentiousness of Mr. Ignatieff’s prose style shouldn’t disguise the fact that this may be the most morally contemptible statement by a Canadian party leader since Confederation.
Actually, I probably shouldn't single out just one school, it is likely that in Dalton McSlippery's infamous socialist paradise, this directive has been implemented county, or even province wide.
Apparently... if a student is caught offering any sort of offense to a fellow traveller, he is then obligated to offer three "builder-uppers" to right the scales of justice.
Now, I'm not sure about anyone else... but, back in the day, this would have pretty much precluded any classroom learning time, for males anyway... as basically all of our spare time was spent pushing, teasing and jockeying for social status of one sort or another.
The policy has become quite a source of amusement to newly teenage Neophyte, who regularly informs me, if I so much as comment on his incredibly underdeveloped organisational skills (yeah, sloppy teen) or his penchant to couch-surf... that I now owe him 1,743 "builder-uppers".
For Iggy to suggest that we... Canadians at large... are somehow responsible for the actions of a hopeless drunk who killed his two young children... is simply beyond the pale.
Perhaps Iggy should stick to commenting on the effects of abandoning his own two children at an early age... a topic which seems to be curiously off-limits to members of the Canadian media.
Oops... I guess I owe Mr ignatieff a half-dozen "builder-uppers".
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