On March 27 in a Christian Heritage Party webinar talk “Magna Lockdown: Canadian Liberty in a Medical Crisis” I argued that liberty isn’t a frivolous luxury or vague abstract ideal but a vital practical tool for creating and maintaining good government in crises as well as quiet times.
“Human nature red in tooth and claw.”
Again I quote myself, swollen in head and pride (from August 2000)
In my latest National Post column I say it’s fatuous to ask companies to stay out of politics; what they need to do, being collections of people, is seek to act morally in public as in private affairs.
“If a rule of the form ‘he who takes the benefit must pay the cost’ is at stake, then solving the problem means spotting cheats. People do this well. The mind is not following abstract reason; it is enforcing a social contract.... Given this view of man – a natural trader, ever concerned with social debts and an uncertain future – it is little wonder that human minds are interested in detecting cheats, not pursuing pure logic, and in sampling frequencies rather than making risky one-off guesses.”
The Economist July 4, 1992 [an article on so-called "Wason tests" some of which people solve far better than others though they are logically equivalent]
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the federal opposition parties should welcome an early election they won’t win, so the Trudeau Liberals will take the fall when their bad policies unravel.
“There are more foolish buyers than foolish sellers.”
“French saying” quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail April 19, 2012
In my latest National Post column I say Erin O’Toole’s position on climate change is driven not by what he thinks about global warming but by the fact that he does not think about it.
“I mean treasure is treasure, for heaven’s sake. What’s the difference whether the treasure is money, or property, or even culture, or even just plain knowledge?”
The heroine in J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, quoted by Edward Tingley in First Things January 2002