“Terminos propriae potestatis egressus in aliam messem perperam mittit falcem suam.”
“*[Ed.: He who wanders outside the boundaries of his own ability wrongly puts his sickle into another’s harvest.]”
2nd of 2 epigrams on the title page of “The Fourth Part of the Institutes” in The Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke Volume II [also expressed by Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry Callaghan as “A man’s got to know his limitations”].
“Stereotyping – how like an Anglo.”
Me regarding Quebec reactions to RoC reactions to the Adscam scandal, March 2004.
“The two strategies for ending the culture war – incremental restrictions, and ‘leaving it up to the states’ – have a history. In the 1800s, the Democratic Party wanted to leave slavery up to the states. In those days too Democrats were ‘pro-choice,’ but about slavery, not abortion. In those days too they thought ‘leaving it up to the states’ would end their culture war. That hope was futile. It didn’t end the culture war over slavery, but only prolonged and inflamed it. Eventually we had a real war which nobody wanted. ‘Leaving it up to the states’ won’t end the culture war over abortion, any more than it ended the culture war over slavery. As slavery exercised a malignant influence on our politics and culture then, so abortion exercises a beastly influence on our politics and culture today. Ironically, in our time the mantle of ‘leaving it up to the states’ has been taken up not by Democrats, but by the Republicans. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision is treated as an excuse to drop the whole issue. I am not surprised that the Democrats of our own day take ‘joy,’ as they say, in the liberty to kill children, but I am gravely disappointed that the Trump/Vance campaign is repeating the mistakes which the other party made over slavery. One would have hoped that they would take their inspiration not from Stephen Douglas, but from his opponent Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance, we are listening.”
J Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” September 9, 2024 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/ending-the-culture-war-over-abortion]
In a piece for the Aristotle Foundation in the Epoch Times I assess claims that the extent of open anti-Semitism in Canada today resembles the period right before World War Two, and conclude that it’s actually worse now.
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.
In my latest Epoch Times column I unearth and reprint a set of principles I outlined when the 21st century was young and fresh to guide is through an uncertain future, and claim that I have been largely vindicated. I also challenge my fellow pundits to do likewise (and scoff at politicians’ forecasts) because I say you should listen to the person who gets it right not the one who offers soothing but inaccurate platitudes.
“There has been, as every informed Canadians knows, an avalanche of ludicrous judicial decisions, and the Supreme Court of Canada, because of inappropriate appointments to it from successive prime ministers, has become an almost constant source of absurd judgments. In one case a few years ago, the high court determined that the Charter’s right of assembly guaranteed the right of employees of the government of Saskatchewan performing essential work to strike. The upper courts have allowed judges to make an incoherent smorgasbord of our laws, with a shrinking number of reliable precedents and highly idiosyncratic lower court interpretations that pay no attention to the normal meaning of the language or intention of the legislators. This means that when the courts have finished, the legislators haven’t been legislating at all-just putting forth thoughts for the delectation of the bench. But even more sinister, the courts as a whole have followed the legislators into complete abdication in allowing the administrative state to function as it wishes without any apparent reference whatever to the text of law. In the case of Jordan Peterson, his freedom of expression counts for nothing in the face of churlish and self-righteous students or even a few frequenters of the Internet.”
Conrad Black in National Post August 17, 2024
In my latest Epoch Times column I urge candidates in the upcoming federal election, between bouts of mud-slinging, to take a firm stand on things government cannot do, should not do or both.