It's All a Cock-Up at Queens University

Something very queer strange in going on the North country — that vast expanse of niceness known as The Land of You Can’t Make This Stuff Up has come up with even more Orwellian stupidity.

Poor Canada. The country which serves as an example of what happens when your major virtue is Being Polite. Oh, to think I was almost born there; it curdles the soul — sorry, the inner self — to think on what might have been my fate had I lingered there beyond the in utero status I acquired in Toronto. Wait — somebody find a hall monitor. Ask them if I can say “utero”. Ask them if it’s on “The List”.

How sad that this once valiant country has been reduced to squealers, speech parsers, and the poor victims they afflict. Don’t try anything naughty — such as perhaps discussing “gay Paris” with your best friend. It’ll be into the outer darkness with you, boyo (oh, wait — in November it’s all “outer darkness” up there).

Just think of it: a new bogeyman to use on the children. “Watch your mouth, darling, or the Speech Squad will come and get you. Wouldn’t that be terrible? Mommy wouldn’t get to see you until after your re-education. So talk nice, dear or think how sad I’d be without you.”

Okay… you get the idea. I’m sorry for the dalliance but this juicy bit of “news” works on so many levels that it’s difficult to get around to revealing the hard little kernel of truth here without interrupting each unintentionally hilarious sentence.

Some excerpts from The Globe and Mail:

Students at Queen’s University who sprinkle their dialogue with an assortment of “homo” or “retarded” could find out the hard way that not everyone finds their remarks acceptable.

The Kingston university has hired student facilitators to step in when they overhear homophobic slurs, remarks bashing women or racially tinged insults, along with an array of other language that could be deemed offensive.

“If people are having a conversation with offensive content and they’re doing it loud enough for a third person to hear it … it’s not private,” said Jason Laker, dean of student affairs at Queen’s.

The initiative, believed to be the first of its kind in Canada, is part of a broader program begun at the school this fall to foster diversity and encourage students to think about their beliefs.

Yeah, try getting your mind around this brain-blower of a story. It’s not hard to put yourself in the position of the poor sod who says something to his friend that the “facilitator” sitting next to them finds offensive. Off to re-education camp for you, buddy. Maybe your friend gets to accompany you for listening and not reporting you immediately?

Let’s consider the devils in all these details:

First: What academic bureaucrat retard dreamed up this mindless scheme? That’s one job right there which could be trimmed immediately, saving the school lots of money, not to mention avoiding the worldwide shame Queens University will garner as the story spreads. And it ought to spread as far and wide as possible.

Second, What kind of person would willingly take on a paying job that required spying on their fellow human beings? I mean, imagine showing up for your paycheck. Is your income based on the number of students you manage to expose? Do you get a bonus for particularly un- p.c. words? Is “homo” worth a dollar (oops, a loon), while “bimbo” only gets you half that? What’s the prize word that each of these cheesy hall monitors lusts to hear so they can hightail it to administration with the hapless sheep in tow?

Third: Why is the student body at large not holding a candle-light vigil commemorating the death of free speech at Queens College? Where is the indignation? Ummm… based on rants I’ve read, many of them are too drunk to even know about this, much less care. As one person said bitterly in the comments here:

They’ve done NOTHING for years about the violence, lawlessness, noise, rowdiness, keg parties, etc in the community… but now they are going to lecture them if someone over hears a private conversation they don’t like. What the heck is wrong with that place???

He’d better be careful. The Hate Speech Police will be arriving soon if he doesn’t tone down that hate rhetoric. Those drunken bozos are not in school to learn. They occupy a space that is designed to keep them off the streets and out of trouble long enough for most of them to mature past binge drinking. The ones who die of alcohol poisoning? Just unfortunate statistics in some Human Relations Office file.

Fourth: Do the parents of these six “speech facilitators” know what their children are doing? Have they disinherited the little morons yet?

Fifth: Here’s a conundrum for the Speech Police. What happens when they come upon someone who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and this unfortunate bursts out with streams of “inappropriate” speech? They sure can’t send a disabled person to re-education class, can they? That would be more offensive than the sufferer’s outbursts. Besides, just contemplate the disruptions his eruptions would cause the idjit whose job it was to re-educate the bad students.

Sixth: Explain in what way “diversity” is promoted by an intolerance of others’ speech.

Just to demonstrate how far these kids have sunk, here’s another quote from the story:

Some students fear the university’s program borders on oppressive.

Well, duh! They fear the program borders on “oppressive”? What part of mind rape do these poor sheep not feel? Someone pass the smelling salts… I grow faint in the presence of such migraine-inducing petrifaction. I want to open up their crania, look at the empty space and ask them where the cerebrum went.

But who can awaken these dimwits long enough to permit them to smell the moral rot that eats at the foundations of their culture? The spell of intimidation is so strong by now that they are zombie-fied fodder for the vast bureacracy to mold into model citizens — Model A, Model B, Model C, Model C-1a36 (a modified model).

But it’s not any better in Baja Canada. In fact, it may be worse: kids here will turn others in for free; they don’t need no stinkin’ pay to squeal about things being “unfair” or to turn in students who mutter about the stupidity of affirmative action or the vapid vapors arising from the Gender Studies Department.

In fact, in the good ol’ American tradition, which is not hindered by Canadian courtesy, students will self-righteously bash you around for wearing the wrong political button in public. The nerve of you!

Did you know there is a special circle in Dante’s Hell reserved for speech police and their minions?
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The souls (“Welcome to our circle, folks. Surpriiise! And yes, you do have souls after all so deal with it…”) who end up there will have no tongues. In compensation, they’ll grow super large ears, all the better to hear the non-stop politically incorrect FREE speech they tried so hard to stamp out whilst they still walked the earth, peeping and peering into other people’s affairs. Giant loudspeakers, set on eternal replay will echo the sounds of “gay” and “fat” and “dumb” and “blind”. Not to mention “deaf” and “idiot”…you can make up the rest of the vocabulary that the tiresomely offended will be forced to hear. Suggestions are welcome…just keep them PG-13.

Personally, I think Chazzer should consider applying to Queens College as their Supernumerary Speech Control Poobah. He could ride around campus on his snazzy bike, carrying his little green banning stick, his pony tail whiffling in the breeze as he whacks offenders when they step out of line… kind of like the Puritans did to members of the congregation who nodded off during those interminable Sunday services.

See, those Puritans were determined to whack the miscreants back into something resembling a wakeful state. You didn’t know Chazzer’s job had such a long and venerable lineage, did you? Must wear the poor fellow out, having to maintain his level of vigilance.

Stick around. You’ll learn a little history and we’ll say wicked things like “gay Paris” and “hey, look at the cute buns on that hunk” (said by Dymphna to the Baron, not vice versa… though as his vision dims, who knows?). We’ll talk about babe lawyers or women who decide to become policemen. Maybe we’ll rummage around for a better word than “honky” — now that is one lame epithet. How about “pale slime face”? It has a certain je ne said quoi, n’est-ce pas?

Which reminds me: if you are monolingual and your mono is English is “merde” really off limits? The first French I ever learned was from a little boy from Avignon who spit out “tais-toi!” with great vehemence. It sounded so much better than “shut up!” — the latter phrase likely to earn a lecture from Sister Benignus. “Tais-toi”, though, passed right by her Irish ears. So Gabriel taught us things like “merde” and… well, I’ve forgotten the others. There was simply no reinforcement for the verboten vocabulary Gabriel bestowed upon us before he left us after fifth grade. But now all those words formerly forbidden or whispered — the English versions, anyway — are spoken openly now. As in, “wha’ the fu’, who gives a fookin’ shit, man? No shit.” And other such delicacies.

Thus, I come to the reason for the existence of the Speech Police. Since there are no more profane words considered out of bounds ( as they once were) we are left with the microscopic dregs of politically incorrect speech. Someone is allowed to assault your ears with his loud foul mouth, but you may not dare utter the single syllable, “queer” — even if you’re referring to something that has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

The Victorians would have understood. They were Speech Police much like the ones who harass us in the present. They just chose different words with which to offend themselves.

Plus ça change, y’all.


Oh, if you want to send an email to Queens University’s administration telling them what you think of their unutterably dumb idea, here’s the contact page. See if you can remain courteous while being as politically incorrect as possible.

For example, you could tell them they were intolerant. That’s a mortal sin in p.c. land, and it’s exactly what they are teaching their speech police and the victims — to be intolerant of one another.

Buncha loony tunes up there. They wouldn’t know an ethical violation if they fell over it while hurrying to the re-education camp.


Thanks to JD for the tip