Canada's National Anthem - PC changes

[SirJosephPorter]

The Conservative party of Canada secretly wants to adopt the American national anthem

Not the whole of Conservative Party perhaps, but no doubt some of them (the right wing of the Conservative Party) do.

 

[Machjo]

Only 3/4? You are too kind, JLM. And yes, in my opinion, the forum is dominated by conservatives.

What does conservatism have to do with changing the national anthem? I guess I could see it along a few lines:

Mainstream conservatives and liberals: Preserve the anthem as is.

Ultra-conservatives: Bring back an older version of the anthem.

Libertarians and maybe some liberals: de-officialize the Anthem.

The religious right, or religious left maybe too: Make the Lord's Prayer the official national anthem

The hard left: Make the Internationale the official anthem

Seeing that the Conservative Party was proposing a return to an earlier version, I guess that would make it a more conservative move I suppose. However, seeing that many of their supporters were not even aware that what they'd been singing was not even Weir's original version to begin with, it thus backfired giving the impression of being more liberal tripe.

 

[JLM]

Yeah, right. Are you ever going to quit trying to think with your head up PET's dried up, deteriorating, old a$$?

Methinks S.J. may have been rubbing off on him a bit.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Again - does it make a difference. Melting pot/mosaic - all the same.

The two are totally different models VanIsle, there is nothing the same about them. The melting pot model seems to be breaking down in USA, the new immigrants are not ready to lose their identity in the native white population. Especially Mexican immigrants very much want to keep their culture, their way of life, and that is causing conflicts over there.

 

[L Gilbert]

Only 3/4? You are being too kind, JLM. And yes, in my opinion, the forum is dominated by conservatives. Anyway, now I know a surefire way of p*ssing you off.

Impressive (negatively). So you take pride in your ability to piss other people off? That's pitiable.

 

[JLM]

Not only that, but the forum is not "heavily dominated" by conservatives. Most of the members that post regularly are pretty central. There are some hardcore Liberals as well as some hardcore Conservatives. Sir Porker is thinking from the same place Gliberalman thinks from except farther up the chute.

I'd go a step further and suggest most of the posters here don't think much about politics, except for the fact it's thrown in their faces about 47 times a day. :lol::lol::lol:

 

[L Gilbert]

The two are totally different models VanIsle, there is nothing the same about them. The melting pot model seems to be breaking down in USA, the new immigrants are not ready to lose their identity in the native white population. Especially Mexican immigrants very much want to keep their culture, their way of life, and that is causing conflicts over there.

So? The "mosaic" causes problems here. The result is the same either way: dysfunction.

 

[JLM]

Impressive (negatively). So you take pride in your ability to piss other people off? That's pitiable.

I got a thick skin Gil, sometimes I blow it but generally get over it in a month or so. :smile: Anyway p*ssing me off is just wishful thinking on S.J.'s part.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

The poll is an integral part of the thread, and the thread is about our National Anthem. It's not about conservatives or liberals, it's about O Canada.

And the poll says 87% of us would like to keep it, as is. I'm quite gratified to see that outpouring of opinion in favour of retaining the anthem and all its wonderful traditions.

I'm sorry you obviously disagree with the poll, but that's what living in a free society is all about. Sometimes you just can't have your own way on everything.

The suggestion by Harper to modify the national anthem was an oddball move. It was a liberal move by a conservative politician. I would expect most conservatives to oppose such a move (as I said before, conservatives want as little change as possible, they harken back to the Good Old Days), I would expect liberals (by and large) to support such a move.

The fact that 87% here want to keep it the same tells me that there are many more conservatives here than any other kind.

And sure the poll is an integral part of the thread, but that doesn’t mean that it is accurate, it is still meaningless.

 

[L Gilbert]

I got a thick skin Gil, sometimes I blow it but generally get over it in a month or so. :smile: Anyway p*ssing me off is just wishful thinking on S.J.'s part.

My point was that it's pretty sad that someone takes pride in pissing people off rather than being sociable, especially if the only gain is personal enjoyment. It's a small-scale psychosis.

 

[L Gilbert]

The suggestion by Harper to modify the national anthem was an oddball move. It was a liberal move by a conservative politician. I would expect most conservatives to oppose such a move (as I said before, conservatives want as little change as possible, they harken back to the Good Old Days), I would expect liberals (by and large) to support such a move.

The fact that 87% here want to keep it the same tells me that there are many more conservatives here than any other kind.

And sure the poll is an integral part of the thread, but that doesn’t mean that it is accurate, it is still meaningless.

You opinion. Hardly fact.

 

[Machjo]

The suggestion by Harper to modify the national anthem was an oddball move. It was a liberal move by a conservative politician. I would expect most conservatives to oppose such a move (as I said before, conservatives want as little change as possible, they harken back to the Good Old Days), I would expect liberals (by and large) to support such a move.

The fact that 87% here want to keep it the same tells me that there are many more conservatives here than any other kind.

And sure the poll is an integral part of the thread, but that doesn’t mean that it is accurate, it is still meaningless.

Wouldn't a truly liberal (notice the lower-case 'l') move be to simply de-officialize the anthem?

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Both the OP and the poll are somewhat misleading, and so I can't vote in the poll. The Conservative Party was not proposing to create new verses for the anthem, but rather return to Weir's original verses which happened to be more gender-neutral. I always thought going back was a conservative trait, so it would seem to me that going back to Weir's original verses would be very much in line with conservative thinking.

I didn’t vote in the poll either, I think the poll is meaningless. And you are probably right; Harper suggested the change in order to go back to the older version (and not because he had any love for the gender neutral language), which would fit in nicely with the conservative philosophy (the older the better).

However, it was also the gender neutral version, so I assume many liberals would support it. Anyway, my hope would be that the next Liberal government does something about it, they obviously wouldn’t care what conservative supporters think.

 

[Northboy]

It's a non-issue. The status quo applies so this is a mountain made from a molehill.

Thanks for that.

 

[Machjo]

Again, how do we define conservative, SJP? The CPC was suggesting we re-adopt an earlier version. That would seem not just conservative but even reactionary. Though their reasoning was that it was more inclusive of women. Of course that is likely what caused it to blow up in their faces; conservative supporters unaware that they were not proposing a 'new' anthme but rather going back to an old one led to a backlash against 'political correctness'.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Wouldn't a truly liberal (notice the lower-case 'l') move be to simply de-officialize the anthem?

I am not sure what you are getting at here. If by that you mean abolish the national anthem, I don't think that will ever happen, a country needs a flag and a national anthem.

At the same time, I am all for making it more inclusive and more relevant to today's time.

 

[Machjo]

I didn’t vote in the poll either, I think the poll is meaningless. And you are probably right; Harper suggested the change in order to go back to the older version (and not because he had any love for the gender neutral language), which would fit in nicely with the conservative philosophy (the older the better).

However, it was also the gender neutral version, so I assume many liberals would support it. Anyway, my hope would be that the next Liberal government does something about it, they obviously wouldn’t care what conservative supporters think.

Certainly there can be some overlap between conservatives and progressives. In this particular case, there was: the verses were both more 'traditional' than the current ones yet more inclusive too. It's just that the CPC had packaged it wrongly and so it blew up in their faces.

However, seeing that in my opinion, the government has more things to worry about than a national anthem's lyrics, I don't see why we couldn't solve the problem by simply de-officializing the anthem. That would fall in line with both liberal and libertarian traits, and so would allow us to consider all versions to be equally acceptable. this could also free us to explore and experiment with new versions too. Essentially, it would put the anthem back into the hands of the people.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

When has Canada's image ever been stable? It's been in constant evolution. First, the First Nations and Inuit, then the French, then the English, then other settlers, especially Loyalists, and before our identity had a chance to establish itself, we were then thrust into globalization with the advent of modern technology. We've been in a constant state of flux. So when do you propose we freeze frame?

Quite so, Machjo. Canada is a liberal, progressive nation, it always moved forward with the times. Even the conservatives here are comparable to the Democrats in USA, they are not really much further to the right of Democratic Party (otherwise they wouldn't get elected in Canada). There are some extreme nutcases of course.

So freeze the culture? Perish the thought. Our identity is always changing, always evolving.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Yes, and god Save the Queen had undergone an evolution too., with some offensive aspects dropped out over time.

No kidding. And of course, it changes to God Save the King when they have a king. As I said, change is coming to Canada, it is a question of when, not if.

 

[Machjo]

I am not sure what you are getting at here. If by that you mean abolish the national anthem, I don't think that will ever happen, a country needs a flag and a national anthem.

At the same time, I am all for making it more inclusive and more relevant to today's time.

No, I don't mean abolish it. I mean de-officialize it. This would mean that the government would no longer recognize any one anthem over any other. By the way, God Save the Queen is not official in the UK either, nor is the English national anthem (in fact, there are at least two contenders for that position at the moment). Sweden's Du Gamla Du Frieden is not offical either. And have those countries simply vanished nto thn air owing to the lack of an official verion of their anthem?

Another point: You say you want a more inclusive anthem. How can it be so inclusive when we have an official French version and an official English version but no official Cree version or Inuktitut version, etc. If we had no official version, then some people might be willing to explore indigenous-language versions, etc. How much more inclusive can you make it than simply de-officializing it?