It is a dangerous thing to go around smugly correcting facts. Via Path of the Paddle, David Frum wants to make sure his fellow Canadians know their place, which is 30% behind his chosen place. The fact posed which I thought most odd was this:
...Canada, a society uncursed by slavery, now has an out-of-wedlock birthrate as high as that in the United States.Slavery was abolished in Ontario in 1833, just one generation before the end of the US Civil War. A brief web history of slavery in Nova Scotia can be found here - a bit cursed, I'd say. If he gets this well known fact wrong, how trustworthy are the rest of his facts?
Comments
Rusty - October 9, 2003 10:51 AM
And are we supposed to believe that there is some kind of connection between slavery and high rates of out-of-wedlock births? i can't imagine what the two have to dowi one another in 2003.
Alan - October 9, 2003 10:58 AM
Indeed. ...and it is not politically correct to ask why that was included. It is pointing out an odd premise implicit in an argument. If there is a link, explain it. If not, it is both an error and an irrelevance.