In a wide-ranging discussion with David Leis of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy we talked about the Middle East, the rot in Canadian academia, the collapse of governance, the revolt of the elites against Western civilization and more besides… including how to fix things.
“It is perfectly obvious that in any decent occupation (such as bricklaying or writing books) there are only two ways (in any special sense) of succeeding. One is by doing very good work, the other is by cheating.”
G.K. Chesterton quoted without further details in “News With Views” “Compiled by Mark Pilon” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 6 (July-August 2023)
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.
“Antisemitism is both a sort of mental impairment and a barrier to learning. If you think that ‘the Jews’ control the banks, you don’t understand finance, and will never understand it because you have this happy conspiracy theory and you think you already know everything. If you think ‘the Jews’ control the weather with their space lasers, you’re not going to bother to study meteorological science. A society in which this kind of antisemitism is prevalent is not going to be a sign of a society on the cutting edge of science or business or economics or anything else. In our society, these beliefs are toxic. They’re terrible for Jews, but they are actually poison to what makes America, America.”
Walter Russell Mead in conversation with Bari Weiss on The Free Press October 31, 2023 [https://www.thefp.com/p/are-we-tipping-into-world-war-three].
“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 Epoch Times column I say the Bank of Canada’s one feasible and important job is to control inflation and it should not fall into the old Keynesian ditch and try to manage the economy instead or as well.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I argue that the City of Ottawa’s increasingly restrictive garbage policies underline that politicians and bureaucrats think the rest of us are distasteful refuse.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I cite the Bank of Canada’s inability to make a $20 bill featuring King Charles III in under five years as evidence that government in Canada is broken.