Peter MacKay - Dumberer

Canada's current Justice Minister (and former Defense Minister) is a guy from Nova Scotia who is dumb as a brick.  The guy is a medical miracle in that his cranium is as dense as diamond but still used for what can be loosely defined as a form of cognition.  And he is thoroughly untrustworthy.  He was the last leader of the venerable Progressive Conservative Party and he took the opportunity to murder his charge.  He was the leader who put the old girl to sleep by merging with the then Alliance Party. 

I mention this because I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time talking about people who I deem to be stupid.  Rather than spending too much time on Mr. MacKay's obvious lack of capability, I'd like to clarify exactly what I mean when I called them dumb. 

I don't mean that they have a less than average capability to learn.  I have no idea what Mr. MacKay's actual IQ might be.  What I know is that he and his like are intellectually lazy.  What he knows or thinks he knows is what is advantageous to him politically and financially.  When information is hard to learn or politically disadvantageous, the easiest thing to do is just be against it.  That way you never have to actually learn anything.  Lazy and dumb. 

George Bush and his ilk destroyed the world's greatest democracy with that sort of facile idiocy. 

I fear for Canada with this variety of professional imbecile in charge.  It's a studied, learned incapability.  If you can make things easy for the rich and for the socially unevolved, there's money and power in it for you. 

MacKay's latest public evidence that he just doesn't get it is his handling of the (happily) prevented Halifax attacks by some "murderous misfits."  Quoth MacKay:  "The attack does not appear to have been culturally motivated, therefore not linked to terrorism."  Huh?

Canadian law says nothing about 'cultural motivations' in their definition of terrorism.  Moreover, the statement clearly shows a deliberate misunderstanding of 'terrorism'  Again, it's a misunderstanding that profits MacKay and his fellow travellers.  If 'terrorism' only mean 'Islamic terrorism,' that magically makes it okay to increase spending on spies and defense.  It's okay to step on civil liberties once people are afraid of the right things.

But domestic terrorists are no fun.  Lots of conservative voters don't mind a bit of right-wing extremism for the cause.  Even if they don't believe in the violence part of it, they may understand a bit of the motivation.  Bad politics.  Bad for the social conservative vote.  Bad for the types of extreme conservatives that MacKay killed his party to join. 

So when MacKay denies that this was a 'terror' attack, he's playing to the money and politics that have been his watchword for his entire career.  He has no credibility - and maybe that's what bothers me so much.  There was a time when - even for simple self-interest - politicians would speak truth over self-interest.  But in today's Fox News world, MacKay's fact-less statements are just boring. 

Too bad.  Canada deserves better.