O Canada!
February 7, 2002

by Joe Sobran

     When President Bush spoke last week of Iraq, Iran, 
and North Korea as "an axis of evil," some of us reached 
the hasty conclusion that he was nuts. After all, Iran 
and Iraq are next-door neighbors and bitter enemies. 
Didn't Bush know they'd recently fought a long and 
exhausting war, with more than a million deaths? Didn't 
he know about their profound religious, cultural, and 
linguistic differences?

     As for North Korea, it's an isolated, lunatic 
Communist regime at the other end of the world's largest 
continent. The idea that it's on the same "axis" as 
either Iraq or Iran is daffy. It's hardly in the same 
universe.

     And what would an "axis of evil" be, anyway? Do 
wicked people say to each other: "Hey, why don't us evil 
guys get together!"?

     "Evil" is an evaluation, not a substance or a 
quality. In the language of Thomistic philosophy, evil is 
a "privation of good." It has no positive existence.

     And very few people, including mass murderers, think 
of themselves as evil. It's always the other fellow's 
fault. Check out Stalin and Trotsky, or Dean Martin and 
Jerry Lewis.

     So why is Bush talking this way? Well, we now have 
the answer. And we should have known it wasn't his idea.

     Whenever a dimwitted -- that is to say, Republican 
-- president utters a striking phrase, it's only a matter 
of hours before a speechwriter steps out from behind the 
curtain to take a bow. Why should the ventriloquist let 
the dummy get all the credit?

     In this case the ventriloquist was one David Frum, a 
Canadian Zionist journalist for whom "evil" means "enemy 
of Israel." The word "axis" was intended to equate the 
odd threesome of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea with the 
original Axis of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Never mind 
the minor distinction that the original Axis really was a 
working alliance, whereas the "axis of evil" trio aren't 
even on speaking terms.

     Frum's wife, Danielle Crittenden, who is also a 
journalist, expressed her connubial pride at the phrase 
in an e-mail to friends, one of whom forwarded it to 
Slate, which published it over her objections.

     So now we know the phrase "axis of evil" wasn't 
really coined by an American president. It wasn't even 
coined by an American! You have to watch those Canadians 
every minute. They're always trying to get this country 
to fight their wars for them, just like their British 
cousins.

     I realize that by saying this I may have made it 
impossible for me to take my next vacation in Quebec. I 
will probably be barred from Canada under their stringent 
hate-speech laws, and my rather innocuous remarks will 
probably fall under that heading in their hypersensitive 
minds. I'll be accused of fomenting hatred against all 
Canadians.

     Well, let the chips fall where they may. Canadians 
can go around calling other countries "evil," but if you 
suggest that they themselves have their little 
shortcomings, you're a bigot. The double standard is 
flagrant.

     I don't suggest that all Canadians are evil. I've 
known several who weren't -- Marshall McLuhan, Northrop 
Frye, and the Montreal Canadiens, for example. But they 
have their own angle, and you have to deal with them with 
due wariness.

     Canada is a lovely place to visit, but I wouldn't 
want to live there. For one thing, taxes are stupendous 
-- though it doesn't matter much, since the official 
currency is essentially counterfeit anyway. The value of 
the Canadian dollar shrinks so fast you need a stopwatch 
to time it.

     On the other hand, Canada is a democracy and our 
only reliable ally in the region. It's rich in natural 
resources and every year exports thousands of Newfie 
jokes, which are now considered hate crimes. Hate crimes! 
They are among Canada's chief contributions to Western 
culture. True, the premise of the jokes is that the noble 
people of Newfoundland have IQs somewhere in the Bush 
range. But every country has its seething ethnic 
tensions, and humor can be a healthy release. The whole 
problem could be resolved by giving the Newfies their own 
homeland.

     Call me a nativist, but I'm getting just a little 
weary of Canadians pouring into this country to dodge 
taxes, take our women, and get us into wars. Do they take 
us for a bunch of Newfies?

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