A Conversation with Myself

As a reporter, I frequently interviewed ordinary people, businessmen and politicians to get their views on specific events and sometimes on their philosophy or world view. I never got asked similar questions in return, so I thought today I'd rectify that. 

A Conversation With Myself,

by Frank Hilliard

Q: Do you believe in God?
A: Yes.
Q: Why, exactly?
A. We're surrounded by the Universe; that's incontestable. Like anything else, it must have been created by someone or some thing; some entity. I'm happy with that idea both intellectually and emotionally.
Q: Emotionally?
A: Yes. With so much beauty all around us, I need someone to thank. I have a need to express my gratitude, and I suppose that's an emotional rather than a logical reason to believe in God.
Q.Do you do so as a Christian, or through some other faith?
A. That's a good question. My father was a United Church minister and a Christian missionary; I attended Sunday School and Church all through my childhood and for years I would have simply answered yes to your question. Now, I think I have to say no.
Q. Why is that?
A. Well, for a number of reasons. First I think Christ's message was specific to his time and place. He was speaking to followers during the Roman occupation and was trying to get Jews to follow a peaceful path rather than to fight as the Zealots proposed. The Sermon on the Mount is basically a political speech given to get Jews to play along with the authorities. Blessed are the meek and all that. I think the Christian church made a mistake when it expanded that message to every person and the whole world. The whole world was not being subjugated.
Q. But . . .
A. No, let me continue. Secondly, whether Jews realize it or not, the actions of the official Jewish community in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in the 1930's was, essentially, to follow Christ's teachings: turn the other cheek, render onto Caesar, don't fight back. I realize the Jews weren't Christians, but they acted as if they were and it led to the deaths of millions. The Zionists, on the other hand, and the brave resistance fighters in Warsaw, took the view of the Zealots, if I can mix my eras, and decided to fight back.
Q. But look what happened to them when they revolted against Rome.
A. Churchill was right on this one; it's better to fight and die than to surrender and die. And so, to get back to my point, I find the Christian message of accepting the unacceptable, in a word, unacceptable. I'm much happier with the Old Testament.
Q. Why is that?
A. Well, it has the Noahide Laws, the Ten Commandments and the moral justification for self-defence (Exodus 22:2) among other things. I'm pretty comfortable with that; certainly a lot more so than with the Beatitudes. It also has the justification for the nation of Israel which seems more relevant than ever today.
Q. So you are Jewish?
A. I wish I were that smart; no what I'm saying is that I'm comfortable with the moral certainties of the Old Testament, particularly when they're opposed to the moral-relativism of the current brand of Progressives running Britain, Canada and the United States. 
Q. But I believe you're a member of the Christian Heritage Party. Isn't that a contradiction?
A. In some ways, but the Party is really founded, and admits this, on Canada's Judeo-Christian cultural and religious heritage. The party is opposed to abortion, or more bluntly killing fetuses, and supports the traditional family rather than homosexuality. As I've gotten older I've found both these issues more important politically than ever before.
Q. How is that?
A. Well, for two reasons. I think killing children is morally repugnant and to do so when we have a declining birth rate is culturally suicidal, a point that Mark Steyn makes in America Alone.  It makes no sense morally, economically, or culturally. And the second reason is that I trace much of the current trouble in our cities back to the single-parent family, or to families that lack the balance of a man and a woman. And, in these beliefs, I find only the CHP fighting the fight. The traditional parties wouldn't touch either issue with a barge pole.
Q. You said earlier you weren't a Christian for 'a number of reasons'. What are the others?
A. Thank you for getting back to that. One of the most significant, at least to me, is the relationship between Methodism, a Christian denomination, and Progressivism. The Methodists were fully behind the drive to pass Prohibition, which was an early Progressive concept. They felt that if you got rid of booze, you'd also get rid of domestic violence and irresponsible husbands. Of course it did nothing of the kind; they had confused the means with the reason. You can see the same thing motivating Medicare and Peacekeeping, both brought to us via the Christian Church. Tommy Douglas was a Baptist minister who spearheaded the drive to create Medicare in Canada and Lester Pearson, who invented United Nations 'peacekeeping' was the son of a Methodist minister and went to a Methodist College at the University of Toronto.
Q. I see what you mean about Prohibition, but explain your criticism of Medicare and Peacekeeping.
A.The problem with Medicare is that everything we do in life has some effect on our health.What we eat, what substances we indulge in, what sports activities; it all affects our health. With Medicare, the Government can argue, and does argue, that we are costing other taxpayers money if we do anything out of the norm. So it regulates tobacco, automobiles, food and much else in our lives using this as an excuse. The upshot is that Medicare severely restricts personal freedom. Regarding peacekeeping, well, the problem there is that the idea is nonsense. If two countries want to go to war, they will, ignoring the peacekeepers. So there is no peace. And, as we saw in Rwanda, peacekeepers can't even stop genocide even when it happens right in front of them. The whole idea is based on a false premise. The only real way to create peace is to defeat the side that starts a war; force is the only true peacekeeping concept.
Q Is that it; have you exhausted your criticism of the church?
A. Alas, no. The Christian church, which used to see Islam for the threat it is to Western civilization, now views Islam as a benign religion, despite the many inroads it has made in Europe and America, in spite of its rejection of Christianity in Muslim countries, and in spite of the many Muslim-inspired terrorist incidents in the past few years. It seem totally unable to see what its early members saw very clearly when they went off on the Crusades. I'll give you one example. In a church I used to attend in Kelowna, the altar has two Crusader knights carved into it. They're both holding broadswords. At the back of the church are plaques commemorating soldiers who died in battle. In between there are new banners, sewn in the past few years proclaiming peace, showing the dove and the lamb and describing the fellowship of man. I think that's a great mistake. It shows the Church is a vacant shell; an institution no longer capable of making moral choices. The sacrifice of the knights at the front and the soldiers at the rear are ignored and a kind of Utopian schmaltz is poured over the congregation.
Q. Which Islam will take advantage of.
A. Of course. They see right through this nonsense and who can blame them.   
Q. You've touched on politics. What are your political views?
A. Well, they're conservative, and let me explain that term. I mean conservative in the original sense of trying to conserve the liberal democratic values central to Western civilization. These days both small 'l' and large 'L' liberals are really progressives; once famously called 'Socialists in a hurry,', who seem quite happy replacing personal freedoms with state power. The Obama administration in the U.S. is showing us how rapidly that can be accomplished. So, as I say, I oppose statism, Progressivism and tyranny in general, which puts me on the right.
Q. With the Tea Party Movement and Sarah Palin?
A. Absolutely. One hundred percent.
Q. I notice from your writing you oppose immigration. Do you do so because you're a racist?
A. I'm sure my enemies would call me that, but I prefer to say about myself I'm a cultural absolutist. That is to say I believe some cultures are better, more worthy, more moral and promote more freedom than others. I believe this can be easily demonstrated by comparing, for example, North and South Korea, and so I reject the idea that all cultures are the same. I think the inability some people have to understand this is a serious threat to world peace and individual liberty.
Q. How so?
A. Well, failing to understand the enormous difference in personal freedom and innovation between almost any Muslim culture and that of Northern California is what I mean. If we allow Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to dictate future science and technology in the world, we can kiss goodbye to visiting Mars. That's what I mean. And as for freedom for women; that will be gone as well. Some times, in my dreams, I imagine what will happen in North America when Sharia law is imposed and all those women who have been reading the glamor magazines are forced to wear burkas, stay at home and be driven around by their teenage sons. It'll be quite a comeuppance, as middle class women in Iran found our to their cost. But when I wake up, I realize we have to stop this from happening, even if most Canadian women could care less.
Q. Well some care
A. Yes, I know. Unfortunately, you can count them on the fingers of one hand: Kathy Shaidle, Kate McMillan, Barbara Kay, Christie Blatchford and Danielle Smith. Who have I missed?
Q. I don't think you answered my question about immigration.
A. I did really. If you support your traditional Judeo-Christian culture, which I do, you don't want to see it overwhelmed by some other culture, be it Latino, African or Middle Eastern. I don't think you can assimilate some cultures and I see no reason to try. Indeed, I think an open immigration policy is an open door to civilizational suicide.
Q. But if they all abide by Canadian law, what's the problem?
A. The problem is that law is derived from culture, not the other way round. The reason Christmas is a holiday is because most Canadians were Christians when the law making Christmas and Boxing Day statutory holidays was passed. If a large minority become Muslim, you can expect to see Sharia law adopted in the same way. Since I oppose that future for Canada, I have to oppose Muslim immigration into Canada.
Q. You've gone even further than that.
A. Yes, I've said I believe Muslim imams should be vetted as well as Islamic texts and if they contravene Canadian ideas of liberty and personal freedom, ideas about the separation of church and state, and ideas of women's rights, they should be changed and updated.
Q. Or banned?
A. Absolutely. The so-called 'war on terror' isn't against extremists, it's actually against, or should be against, the philosophy they espouse; namely traditional Islam. What the world needs is a reformation of Islam and so far there hasn't been one. This is a very serious problem and it's getting worse, not better. We need to act sooner, rather than later, but I'm afraid we won't.
Q. Do you see a conjunction between these two forces?
A. Exactly. The Progressives want to remake the world into a Utopia and the Islamists want the same sort of thing, with the same basic structure; control from the top. The Progressives weaken the West at precisely the same time as the Islamists attack it. The combination is extremely dangerous, and yet a very few people seem to be aware of the threat.
Q. You must find all this very discouraging.
A. Challenging. I think very challenging is a better way to put it. It's hard to be discouraged when you feel you have the right on your side, when you admire your colleagues, love your family and when you believe in God.