In my latest National Post column I urge media, observers and citizen-voters to devote less attention to partisan ephemera and more to deep structural problems that will bring self-government crashing down if not addressed and fairly soon.
“Remember we're talking about revolution, not revelation; You can miss the target by shooting too high as well as too low. First, there are no rules for revolution anymore than there are rules for love or rules for happiness, but there are rules for radicals who want to change the world; there are certain central concepts of action in human politics that operate regardless of the scene or the time. To know these is basic to a pragmatic attack on the system. These rules make the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one who uses the tired old words and slogans, calls the police ‘pig’ or ‘white fascist racist’ or ‘m*&^&^$@#*&^’ and has so stereotyped himself that others react by saying, ‘Oh, he's one of those,’ and then promptly turn off.”
“Prologue” in Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals
“You know the old saying, that rogues are generally fools also.”
Mr. Ball in Silas K. Hocking, “A Perverted Genius,” in Douglas G. Greene, ed., Detection by Gaslight
“the Yiddish proverb that all cats like fish, but few are prepared to get wet.”
Deirdre McMurdy in Maclean’s March 10, 1997
Angela “Merkel, when she insisted that Islam belong in Germany just as much as Christianity, was only appearing to be even-handed. To hail a religion for its compatibility with a secular society was decidedly not a neutral gesture. Secularism was no less bred of the sweep of Christian history then were Orbán’s barbed-wire fences. Naturally, for it to function as its exponents wished it to function, this could never be admitted. The West, over the duration of its global hegemony, had become skilled in the art of repackaging Christian concepts for non-Christian audiences. A doctrine such as that of human rights was far likelier to be signed up to if its origins among the canon lawyers of medieval Europe could be kept concealed. The insistence of United Nations agencies on ‘the antiquity and broad acceptance of the conception of the rights of man’ was the necessary precondition for their claim to a global, rather than merely Western, jurisdiction. Secularism, in an identical manner, depended on the care with which it covered its tracks. If it were to be embraced by Jews, or Muslims, or Hindus as a neutral holder of the ring between them and people of other faiths, then it could not afford to be seen as what it was: a concept that had little meaning outside of a Christian context. In Europe, the secular had for so long been secularized that it was easy to forget its ultimate origins. To sign up to its premises was unavoidably to become just that bit more Christian. Merkel, welcoming Muslims to Germany, was inviting them to take their place in a continent that was not remotely neutral in its understanding of religion: a continent in which the division of church and state was absolutely assumed to apply to Islam.”
Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
“Any car will last your lifetime if you are careless enough.”
“American Eagle” quoted in “Other Suspects I Quotes not by GKC” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #2 (Nov./Dec. 2024)
Today on behalf of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms I delivered a petition to the Prime Minister’s office urging him not to proceed with this aggressive infringement on our digital privacy. Watch the video here: https://vimeo.com/1194808661
“Fred Durkin, big and burly and bald, knows exactly what he can expect of his brains and what he can't, which is more than you can say for a lot of people with a bigger supply.”
Archie Goodwin’s internal monologue in Rex Stout Might As Well Be Dead