In my latest National Post column I list the sorts of questions journalists should be asking party leaders in the current federal election if they (politicians or journalists) thought elections were a time to discuss serious issues seriously.
“The improvements in transportation do not cut down travelling time but merely increase the area over which people have to travel."
Bertrand Russell, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail December 12, 2003
If you’re worried about how things are going in Canada, and want to make sure we keep our country united, prosperous and free, join the Economic Education Association of Alberta in Red Deer on Nov. 15 and 16 for a “Freedom School” on the topic “Meeting the Challenge of Western Separatism”. Hope to see you there.
“Nobody had nothin’ and we all shared it.”
A “poignant comment of a tough old settler” unearthed by one of his students in some old book, quoted by my old high school English and History teacher Stewart H. Bull in his unpublished biography Happy Warrior: Adventures in the Classroom
“After the gleam of exaggerated hopes, what Kipling called the Gods of the Copybook Headings have come back to croak out their ancient saws, whose only merit is that they happen to be true.”
The Economist December 22, 1990
In my latest National Post column I say it was a waste of time for the Alberta government to commission an expert report that made trite suggestions, declared the situation complex and did not ask why good policy is so hard to implement.
“The main difference between capitalism and socialism is this: Capitalism works.”
Dr. Mark J. Perry, Director of Center for World Capitalism at James Madison Institute, in The Freeman June 1995
“The influence which writers of history thus exercise on public opinion is probably more immediate and extensive than that of political theorists who launch new ideas.”
Friedrich Hayek, quoted in appendix to R.M. Hartwell, “The Unfinished Agenda: Some Reflections on Completing the History of the Mont Pelerin Society”, September 1992