“Will you permit the sacred fire of liberty, brought by your fathers from the venerable temples of Britain, to be quenched and trodden out on the simple altars they have raised?”
Joseph Howe [in appealing to a jury Halifax in 1835 to acquit him on libel charges because what he’d published was true even though at that time truth was not a defence in British law, which they did, thus engaging in “jury nullification” to uphold that liberty] in Dennis Gruending, ed., Great Canadian Speeches
In my latest Epoch Times column I say there is much to celebrate on Canada Day/Dominion Day, as well as much to fix, and say let’s do it.
In my latest National Post column I say Calgary’s current water problems are emblematic of how progressive politicians don’t just engage in zany symbolic antics, they wreck cities and countries in zany ways.
In my latest Mercatornet column I ask how the United States, of all places, could have become vulnerable to tyranny.
“I do not seriously propose to interpret Distributism in the sense of One Man One Musket: or even to go to the country with a programme of Three Acres and a Machine-Gun. But I do think that, for any one with a historical imagination and sense of symbolism, there is a certain connection between the old notion of private weapons and the true notion of private property. In that aspect, the other name of Distributism is Self-Defence.”
G.K. Chesterton in G.K.’s Weekly April 4, 1931, quoted in “Chesterton’s Mail Bag” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 6 (July-August 2023)
In my latest Loonie Politics column I can no longer avoid asking a question that once seemed crazy: Is the Prime Minister of Canada actively assisting powers hostile to this country, from ideological or personal motives?
In a talk to the Augustine College Summer Seminar I argued that the American Revolution brought liberty and prosperity because it looked back to the solid foundations of Magna Carta, Christianity and the Western tradition, while the French Revolution brought misery and death because it looked forward to a utopian future unconstrained by the past.
“In 390 BC, an army of Gauls led by Brennus attacked Rome, capturing all of the city except for the Capitoline Hill, which was successfully held against them. Brennus besieged the hill, and finally the Romans asked to ransom their city. Brennus demanded 1,000 pounds (327 kg) of gold and the Romans agreed to his terms. Livy, in Ab Urbe Condita (Book 5 Sections 34–49), recorded that the Gauls provided steelyard balances and weights which were used to measure the amount of gold. The Romans brought the gold and noticed that the provided weights were fixed. The Romans complained to Brennus about the issue. Brennus took his sword, threw it on to the weights, and exclaimed, ‘Vae victis!’ The Romans were forced to bring more gold to fulfill their obligation.”
Wikipedia entry on “Vae victis” as of Sept. 8, 2014