“Attempts must be made to modify the institutions (legal, political, social, economic) with the objective of matching these more closely with the empirical realities of man’s moral limitations.”
James Buchanan What Should Economists Do?
“Armen Alchain once made a very important comment. He said, ‘You know, there is one thing you can trust everybody to do. You can trust everybody to put his interest above yours.’”
Milton Friedman “Economic Freedom, Human Freedom, Political Freedom.” (Inaugural address of The Smith Center November 1 1991”
“After my warning order to the company that we would be moving off in a couple of hours I said that I was going to the communion service first. I set off by myself. Half-way there, I looked back to see if anyone else was coming and found to my surprise that virtually the whole company was following me in single file.”
My high school English teacher Stewart Bull, then a major and company commander with the Essex Scottish in Normandy in July 1944 (from his unpublished memoir Happy Warrior: Adventures in the Classroom).
“Human rights cannot exist without God.”
Montes de Oca, a Cuban dissident and Pentecostal, in an interview with Jay Nordlinger quoted by Nordlinger in National Review June 11, 2001
In my latest National Post column I say John Le Carré’s novels were morally rotten and dangerous in practice.
“We must take human nature as we find it. Perfection falls not to the share of mortals.”
George Washington to John Jay August 8, 1786, in W.B. Allen Washington, George. A Collection.
“Most people most of the time find it impossible to argue for any sustained period against their own manifest best interests.”
William C. Mitchell and Randy T. Simmons Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, and the Failure of Bureaucracy
In my latest Loonie Politics column I give thanks that Canada is blessed with sages capable of devising the brilliantly original solution to our health care crisis of spending tons more cash from Ottawa’s magic money tree.