Author Topic: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name  (Read 4418 times)

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Offline cybercoma

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2018, 11:41:31 am »
I’m so outraged over people’s outrage!!! My outrage is okay though. Yours is not.

Offline wilber

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2018, 11:47:55 am »
One person's outrage is another person' "meh"; aka we are all "they" sometimes.
s

Not so much "meh" as I am continually struck by the one dimensional thinking of these supposedly educated SJW's. Did anyone teach them Canadian history or do they choose to ignore important parts of it just so they can be outraged. Sir John A was an A hole in some respects. On the other hand, but for him this country would not stretch from sea to sea to sea and my province would be a US state. To me, that counts and for that reason alone I would never boycott something with his name on it. Guess that doesn't mean anything in Ontariariario though.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2018, 12:03:54 pm by wilber »
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #17 on: January 11, 2018, 03:10:07 pm »
Okay. What’s your point then? Should he change it to appeal to more people or not?

Yes, that's capitalism.  My point is...should we voice our opinions for him to have the owner change it back to the old Sir John name?

This goes to the larger question of what do we do with Sir Johnny Mac and everything we've named after him?  Should we name new bridges and streets after him?  Is Sir John A Mac a national hero, or a national disgrace?  I think he's both.  But he's our history, for Canadians including aboriginals, and comes with the good and bad.

It's complicated.  He was a man of his times, the residential schools were supported by Parliament and the different Christian churches across Canada at the time, who meant well in their minds but yet were terribly patronizing & colonial to natives and didn't take many of their views on the matter seriously.  Over the decades the school system became something even worse it seems.

Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi were great leaders, but they also (allegedly) cheated on their wives and were not the best fathers...so should we be venerating any political figures by naming things after them? We're all human, good and bad.  What to do... so it's a larger question of what do we do about even publicly owned buildings etc named after Sir John A?

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Offline SirJohn

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #18 on: January 11, 2018, 04:18:07 pm »
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/01/09/kingston-pub-changes-name-to-remove-reference-to-sir-john-a-macdonald.html

Owner has just changed the name of the historic pub, a heritage site, due to protestors:

Sir John A wasn't perfect like any politician, far from it.  But he is our history, he was the leader in uniting Canada's separate provinces into one country immediately after

Anyone who won't go there or feels 'unsafe' because of the name is certainly someone whose patronage you shouldn't want. In fact, they sound like people most of us would like to slap for being such brainless snowflakes.
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Offline SirJohn

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #19 on: January 11, 2018, 04:27:42 pm »
Not so much "meh" as I am continually struck by the one dimensional thinking of these supposedly educated SJW's. Did anyone teach them Canadian history or do they choose to ignore important parts of it just so they can be outraged.

This is the most coddled generation in the history of mankind. Read some of the talks Jonathan Haidt gives on youtube. He's a social psychologist, and he talks about how young people born since 1980 grew up with ever-present adults never letting them out of sight, never letting them learn how to cope with problems or disagreements on their own, always having an adult to referee and complain to. The SJWs are small in number but their outrage is real - at anything that contradicts or offends the world view they've been given by an almost entirely progressive teaching staff. And since most university students have better things to do with their time than get involved in activism and student unions and the like they have a greatly disproportionate influence. Haidt makes the point in a number of talks that the diversity of opinion and ideology on university campuses is largely missing. There are very few conservatives among academics, especially outside areas like economics and engineering, and the few that are there are shouted down and keep quiet for their own good.
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Offline Omni

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #20 on: January 11, 2018, 04:34:39 pm »
Anyone who won't go there or feels 'unsafe' because of the name is certainly someone whose patronage you shouldn't want. In fact, they sound like people most of us would like to slap for being such brainless snowflakes.

Oh I imagine if you owned the joint and the bottom line headed into the dumpster because people decided the name of the place was celebrating a racist, you'd be scurrying up a stepladder with a paint brush in hand tout suite as well.

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #21 on: January 11, 2018, 05:03:50 pm »
Oh I imagine if you owned the joint and the bottom line headed into the dumpster because people decided the name of the place was celebrating a racist, you'd be scurrying up a stepladder with a paint brush in hand tout suite as well.

The owner is keeping the inside the same I believe, with all the references etc to MacDonald his bust etc, so it doesn't sound like he's making it unsafe.  From the sounds of it he just wants to change the name to avoid all the negative attention he's been getting from protest groups, while he can keep the inside the same for regular patrons and himself.  I imagine all the negative attention has been annoying more than anything, and bad PR among the Queens university folks.  Then again, he's been getting a lot of negative attention from other Canadians PO'd he changed the name.
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Offline wilber

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #22 on: January 11, 2018, 05:53:55 pm »
Oh I imagine if you owned the joint and the bottom line headed into the dumpster because people decided the name of the place was celebrating a racist, you'd be scurrying up a stepladder with a paint brush in hand tout suite as well.

I guess the money of the brainless is as good as anyones but it doesn't make them any less brainless. John A probably wasn't more or less racist than most people of his time so lets get rid of everything that refers to Canadians before the 20th century.
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Offline SirJohn

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #23 on: January 11, 2018, 06:11:06 pm »
I guess the money of the brainless is as good as anyones but it doesn't make them any less brainless. John A probably wasn't more or less racist than most people of his time so lets get rid of everything that refers to Canadians before the 20th century.

Progressives would be fine with that. They despise this country's history and everything about it and its founding and development. If it were up to them the only history taught would be on the horrible things white people did and require every student to cry on the floor and beg forgiveness for the crimes of our ancestors in order to demonstrate their repentance.

"When liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals won't do." David Frum
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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #24 on: January 12, 2018, 09:47:43 am »
I guess the money of the brainless is as good as anyones but it doesn't make them any less brainless. John A probably wasn't more or less racist than most people of his time so lets get rid of everything that refers to Canadians before the 20th century.

I agree.  Judging people in history by the morals of our time makes no sense.   

I think the situation in the States was different because Lee lost and many of the statues were erected as a direct challenge to equality for Black people.

Offline JBG

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #25 on: January 12, 2018, 11:26:21 am »
Yes, we live in an era when everyone feels the need to be outraged over something and takes a sanctimonious delight in it. Oh look at me, I’m outraged. They will invent something if they have to.
I think we should seek to solve real problems, not problems from a mandate that started in 1867 and with interruptions continued until his death. I am more concerned with modern rather than 19th Century problems.
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Offline wilber

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #26 on: January 12, 2018, 12:08:23 pm »
I agree.  Judging people in history by the morals of our time makes no sense.   

I think the situation in the States was different because Lee lost and many of the statues were erected as a direct challenge to equality for Black people.

I wonder how many of these SJW's would like to be judged by whatever standards exist a century from now. No doubt some of them are arrogant enough to believe they would be above reproach. In the light of history, no one would argue that residential schools were a good idea but they were not out of step with the public sentiment or morality of the time. Even though they were initiated by Macdonald's government, they were a result of the Davin Report which studied the US system of boarding schools and used it as an example, The legislation was enacted by Parliament so there is plenty of responsibility to be spread around. Macdonald also cannot be held responsible for abuse under the system that continued for decades after his death under prime ministers from both parties.
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Offline wilber

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #27 on: January 12, 2018, 12:18:05 pm »
Progressives would be fine with that. They despise this country's history and everything about it and its founding and development. If it were up to them the only history taught would be on the horrible things white people did and require every student to cry on the floor and beg forgiveness for the crimes of our ancestors in order to demonstrate their repentance.

Maybe a bit extreme. The issues they raise are worthy of discussion to better understand our history but the reaction of many of these people to any dissent that does not follow their dogma is worthy of a Trump rally, or worse. Is the degree of what they can get away with the only difference between them and the destruction of historical sites and objects by the likes of the Taliban and ISIS? One wonders.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 12:30:18 pm by wilber »
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Offline SirJohn

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #28 on: January 12, 2018, 02:19:06 pm »
Maybe a bit extreme. The issues they raise are worthy of discussion to better understand our history but the reaction of many of these people to any dissent that does not follow their dogma is worthy of a Trump rally, or worse. Is the degree of what they can get away with the only difference between them and the destruction of historical sites and objects by the likes of the Taliban and ISIS? One wonders.

Jonathan Haidt, in one of his lectures, talks about how clear thinking fades away in the light of sacred beliefs. The Right has sacred beliefs, of course, and so does the Left. It's just that the Left's sacred beliefs have nothing to do with mainstream religion and more to do with ideology, values and morals. To a lot of the Left now that sacred belief is focused on inclusiveness and equality, which are great beliefs. But as Haidt said, quoting Aristotle, I believe,  any virtue taken to extremes becomes a vice. To a lot of the Left, particularly 'progressives', the fact our ancestors were neither inclusive nor believed in equality makes them horrible, immoral people worthy only of contempt and rejection.
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Offline cybercoma

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Re: Pub named after Sir John A changes its name
« Reply #29 on: January 12, 2018, 02:22:19 pm »
Wouldn't a modernist conception of history also be a sacred belief? Historians haven't worked this way for the better part of a generation now.