“The citizens no longer listen to good advice, for the belly has no ears.”
Cato the Elder, quoted in Will Durant Caesar and Christ
In my latest Epoch Times column I suggest we could make party platforms less preposterous and ephemeral by insisting that the politicians explain to us what practical obstacles they see to implementing their focus-grouped visions.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I argue that while all the other major parties are manifestly unfit to govern for one reason or another, or several, the Conservatives’ chronic lack of the courage of their convictions is not a tactically brilliant meeting of the moment but a potentially fatal ducking of it.
In my latest Epoch Times column I explore the ongoing fascination with the Catholic Church on the part of people who scorn its teachings.
“Growing your own tomatoes is the best way to devote 3 months of your life to saving $2.17”
Emailed by a friend without attribution September 20, 2024
In my latest Epoch Times column I say instead of worrying about polls asking whether we think the decline in trust might mysteriously reverse itself, we should concentrate on reversing it by making sure we’re trustworthy. I know it sounds weird but it just might work.
“At dinner he [Nero Wolfe] started on automation. He has always been anti-machine, and on automation his position was that it would soon make life an absurdity. It was already bad enough; on a cold and windy March day he was eating his evening meal in comfortable warmth, and he had no personal connection whatever with the production of the warmth. The check that paid the oil bill was connected, but he wasn’t. Soon, with automation, no one would have any connection with the processes and phenomena that make it possible to stay alive. We would all be parasites, living not on some other living organisms but on machines, arrived at the ultimate ignominy. I tried to put up a stiff argument, but he knows more words.”
Archie Goodwin’s internal monologue in Rex Stout A Right to Die
In my latest Epoch Times column I warn that what benefits citizens and what benefits politicians is often different, and as rational utility maximizers politicians will dependably choose the latter if we let them.