In my latest piece in C2C Journal I say that while "legislating morality" has a distinctly Victorian and reactionary feel we actually do it all the time, often on "progressive" grounds, so we need to think clearly about why and how we do it.
In my latest National Post column I choke on "raw water".
"What beats me is how any body of men can delude themselves into thinking that they can abolish war as an instrument for settling international disputes. No sane person wants wars; that is a recognized fact, but we have them just the same. No one wants jails, hospitals, insane asylums, murders, robberies, etc.; but we have them just the same. Why? Well, in my opinion it can be given in just two words – human nature, a condition which is the same today as it was when Noah built the Ark, as it was when Julius Caesar enlarged the Roman Empire, and as it was when the Princess Pats marched down Bank street, many years ago, on their way overseas."
Letter from a G.H. Giles of Ottawa in Ottawa Citizen Sept. 4, 1931, reprinted in Ottawa Citizen Oct. 19, 1999
An excellent Mercatornet piece by Margaret Harper McCarthy on how religious freedom must mean far more than the right to indulge certain opinions in private, reprinted from Humanum Review.
"People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness."
John Wanamaker
In my latest National Post column I ridicule McMaster University's policy of banning all smoking on campus, of anything, any way, as infantilizing and unscientific, two odd qualities for an institution of higher learning.
In my latest National Post column I argue that the quantity of antidepressants we now take, with shockingly little understanding of their direct or indirect effects, is not cause for complacency about progress.