AN ENEMY

The Red Ensign Brigade has an enemy, to which I say Excellent!

I'm happy to have an opponent. It helps to create debate.

I discovered Canada's 5th Column because he visited my comments section today and left the following:

I'm astounded that none of you red-ensign brigaders are aware (or seem to be aware) that the most popular use of this flag is by Ernest Zundel and his camp, as well as neo-Nazi's in Canada at Stormfront!

I don't visit neo-nazi websites, so I wasn't aware of that. However, given that the Red Ensign was the flag that Canadian troops served under when they were fighting the Nazis, I'm highly offended that such groups would chose to fly it.

Further, I think the most popular uses of the flag would be at Memorial Day events and Royal Canadian Legion halls.

I was simply going to post this response in the comments section until I realized the poster had defamed the Brigade on his blog. Apparently, the anonymous author of Canada's 5th Column (hereafter shortened to 'dork') has decided that we are a group of immigrant-hating racists.

I've noticed of late that a great number of canbloggers of the so-con persuasion particularly have been swarming together to rally around "The Red Ensign" - a flag that formerly flew over Canada.

To a man, the Red Ensign brigade is anti-multi-cultural. I've noticed that Mark Steyn started this trend of being disparaging towards Multi-Culti as he calls it. When I have tried to figure out what these so-con right-wing can-bloggers who are opposed to multiculturalism are driving at with their remarks the usual response is that they don't like:

a)immigration laws
b)the moral relativism of treating different cultures with the same respect and defference as we would like our culture to be. (this seems to particularly apply to muslim culture)

I was never asked my opinion on immigration laws. Nor, to my knowledge, was anyone else in the Brigade. Still, if the dork had bothered to read our blogs he may have discovered:

My saying:

Cultural relativism is bad, but multiculturalism isn't necessarily a negative. The UK, for instance, would have benefitted quite a bit from an influx of enterprising Hong Kongers had they not been so stingy with handing out passports.

or this:

I love multiculturalism and diversity. Homogeneity is boring. But I worry that political correctness, often carried out in the name of multiculturalism, is crushing the diversity of opinion that is required for a functional society.

Also, the Raging Kraut noted here:

But my parents came to Canada looking for a better life from a shattered Europe, and by God they found it. Canada was and still is one of the only countries on this planet where success and security is still an output of how hard you work when you arrive. I truly believe this.

And upon creating the Brigade, - and on a page noted by the dork - the Flea said:

I am proud to say this is one of a handful of countries in the whole world where you can arrive, work hard and send your kids to school in the hope of a better life. No matter your accent or appearance you will be Canadian.

Beyond that, the more offensive part of the dork's argument was this:

Anyways... I was busy doing some web research about neo-jacobins when I happened to find myself at the "StormFront White Nationalists Community" message board.

And what do you think I found?

The Red Ensign is flying proudly there as well.
An Aryan calling himself "Unconditioned Canuck" and spewing vile hatred towards non-white people has chosen The Red Ensign" for his personal avatar.

Are all these Red-Ensign types racist boobs? No... that's not the impression I have gotten from reading their ravings against Canada. They know in the very least that their anti-multi-culturalism would be seen as racist and are very touchy about that.

However, it does strike me as a little bit.... oh.... I don't know creepy that the White Arayan Nationalist Racists seem to make the same anti-multi-culti comments.

So, in summary, the dork alludes that because a racist has chosen a Red Ensign as his avatar, all those who respect the flag therefore must also be closet neo-nazis.

Well, that's a pretty good argument, bub. Here's another one you may like: Socrates was a man. Socrates was a Greek. Therefore, all Greek men were Socrates.

(Yes, I am aware that I am feeding a troll. I won't do it again (especially if he doesn't learn how to hyperlink).)

UPDATE: There has been some recanting and apologies by the Fifth Columnist. There probably should be a bit more, however the author does not seem to deserve the 'troll' label. The 'dork' thing still stands though - lumping us in with neo-nazis without a review of the blogroll was deeply offensive and uber-dorkish. It simply should not have been done in the first place.