Well, you can say what you want about Mark Steyn, and call him many things (and I have), but the appellation dull is not one of them. I can’t resist reading his off-the-wall column, though at times it gives me palpitations.
This time (again) he is pillorying gays; the “left”; “statism” and all things liberal; while singing the praise of the Christian “right” and the far-out wing nuts that parade under the “relighteous” rightwing banners. God save us from that kind of salvation.
Of course, intermingled with his anti-left rhetoric are some nuggets of truth. His reference to “the Eurowelfare gravy train” had me in stitches; though the abuse of the welfare system is not just endemic to Britain and Europe; we have our own welfare-bums (private and corporate). People will find ways of abusing well-intentioned support systems whenever there is a loophole; and there are many “holes” in our system; big enough to drive a busload of illegal immigrants through. Any social system will, unfortunately, be rather inflexible and rule-bound. To have it otherwise, would require civil servants to make personal judgments about who deserve our help, with the concomitant opportunities for discrimination and abuse. Unless, of course, we made all civil servants Christians fundamentalists, in which case we would have Heaven on earth and would not need a social welfare system.
Ditto for his criticism of the gay community; though I must say I have my reservation about Toronto’s annual circus, the “Gay Parade”, marching down Yonge Street, more or less in the buff. I am thinking of organizing a heterosexual “Happy Parade”. This way we can all partake in collective debauchery, and who knows, perhaps even get government support.
