In a talk to the 2024 Economic Education Association of Alberta "Freedom Talk" in Red Deer, AB on July 7 I argue that a radical commitment to truth-telling, including refusing to remain silent in the face of lies, is crucial to personal and to political freedom.

“Theological distinctions are fine but not thin. In all the mess of modern thoughtlessness that still calls itself modern thought, there is perhaps nothing so stupendously stupid as the common saying, ‘Religion can never depend on minute disputes about doctrine.’ It is like saying that life can never depend on minute disputes about medicine. The man who is content to say, ‘We do not want theologians splitting hairs’ will doubtless be content to go on and say, ‘We do not want surgeons splitting filaments more delicate than hairs.’ It is the fact that many a man would be dead today, if his doctors had not debated fine shades about doctoring. It is also the fact that European civilization would be dead today, if its doctors of divinity had not debated fine shades about doctrine.”

G.K. Chesterton in “The Story of the Statues” in The Resurrection of Rome, quoted in “Chesterton’s Mail Bag” in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 11 #3 (Nov.-Dec. 2007)

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say Canada’s federal government increasingly reminds me of that 1928 classic imaginary hobo’s paradise.

In my latest National Post column I heap scorn on the federal Liberals’ ability to stuff us all into standardized human-stacking units and on their desire to.

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.

“Cromwell was about to ravage the whole of Christendom; the royal family was lost and his own set for ever in power, but for a little grain of sand getting into his bladder. Even Rome was about to tremble beneath him. But, with this bit of gravel once there, he died, his family fell into disgrace, peace reigned and the king was restored.”

Pascal Pensées

“In other words, baseball’s highest value – at least during those hours on the field – is the ability to achieve a blend of intensity and underlying serenity which, in daily life, we might call mental health.”

Thomas Boswell How Life Imitates The World Series

“by chance, in 1971, I saw a feminist interviewed on the CBC, claiming a ‘right to her own body’ and a ‘right to abortion.’ In law school, I had learned that an unborn child could inherit property and could be the subject of a trust, and suddenly here was someone telling us that the unborn child had no rights and could be disposed of simply because it was inconvenient and unwanted. I was incensed over this injustice. Something had to be done. Shortly afterwards, I founded and became the first president of the Toronto Right to Life Association and was one of the founders of the political arm of the pro-life movement in Canada, Campaign Life Coalition.’”

Gwen Landolt, quoted by Michael Wagner Standing on Guard for Thee: Newly Revised Second Edition