Whether certain practices are "barbaric" or merely "unacceptable."

From Brian Lilley:

Last week I wrote about our immigration system, so messed up we can’t even kick out convicted terrorists. For that I was called racist.

This week we have Justin Trudeau, the Liberal immigration critic, blasting the federal government for calling female genital mutilation, forced marriages and “honour killings” barbaric.

“There’s nothing that the word ‘barbaric’ achieves that the words ‘absolutely unacceptable’ would not have achieved,” he said.

He also called for the government to show “responsible neutrality” when discussing issues like this.

Trudeau has retracted those comments after a barrage of abuse and added he was sorry if his words had been “interpreted by anyone as dismissing or diminishing the serious and appalling nature of honour killings and other gender-based violence.”

How did we get to the point where the first reaction on the part of an elite member of the political culture is to shudder at the sight of a blunt word to describe the brutal murder of women whose behaviour is deemed dishonourable (such as when they get raped) and the barbaric practice of mutilating young girls’ genitals to keep them “pure”? What on earth is a “neutral” response in such cases?

If the government had issued a guide on good old-fashioned Canadian spousal abuse, Trudeau and the Liberals would probably have complained the government’s language was not strong enough. The only reason they wanted to mince words in this case is because the government guide in question, Discover Canada, is aimed at newcomers as a way to help them study for citizenship.

On Twitter, while still defending his comments, Trudeau mused that using the word barbaric gave the impression the government was saying, “us civilized, you not.” I’d have to disagree. The government was saying, “us civilized, you better be as well if you want to come here.”

Trudeau’s qualms over the use of a blunt word betray a mindset that has swallowed multiculturalism so fully that it doesn’t know what to do when confronted with cultural practices that don’t jive with Canada’s core values.