In my latest piece for The Rebel I argue that Rome’s long-ago victory at the Battle of the Egadi Islands, ending the First Punic War on March 10, 241 BC, was surprisingly important to the rise of liberty under law, Christianity, and the whole of Western civilization. https://youtu.be/CM5G0B8QdCA

We were in Lloydminster on February 29, at the Vic Juba Theatre, to talk history, Magna Carta, and how to reclaim our institutions. Below is the video of the event. Many thanks to Danny Hozack and the Economic Education Association of Alberta for putting together this event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxtc7hflVhM

Conrad Black does me the honour of responding to my column on Donald Trump with a splendid example of polemics done right. His piece pulls no punches but throws them all above the waist. As Chesterton says “People generally quarrel because they cannot argue” and Conrad Black can certainly argue. I still respectfully disagree. When he says “Foreigners like Robson should remember that Americans, unlike most nationalities, are not accustomed to their government being incompetent and embarrassing” I respond that “People with Ph.Ds in American history like Robson remember that Americans are thoroughly accustomed to their government being incompetent and embarrassing, under presidents from John Tyler to Andrew Johnson to Warren Harding.” Remember Henry Adams’s quip in The Education of Henry Adams that “The progress of Evolution from President Washington to President Grant, was alone evidence enough to upset Darwin.” What distinguishes Americans is their commendable determination to keep government small because they understand that it is usually incompetent and often sinister.

Regrettably Donald Trump does not share this understanding. Indeed, he himself would be both incompetent and sinister in office. That is why I continue to maintain that while he taps into legitimate anger, he does so in ways that are profoundly illegitimate.

In my latest Rebel media commentary, I welcome Bulgaria achieving independence in 1878 as a result of the Russo-Turkish War. But I warn that geopolitical vacuums, like the one created as the Ottoman Empire crumbled, are dangerous to international stability even when they have many good results. https://youtu.be/rNFT0TqtGyc

In my latest Rebel piece, I discuss how J.P. Morgan and Elbert Gary pretty much buried American free enterprise by creating the behemoth U.S. Steel. At least, that's what they tell us. In fact, steel markets remained competitive to this day... even though government charged in, declaring that it had to rescue us. https://youtu.be/MFaJQiRUCr4

Here we are!

Two documentary filmmakers are hoping to generate interest in the Magna Carta and in Canada’s constitution.

Presented by the Economic Education Association, Magna Carta: Good Then, Good Now features authors and journalists John Robson and Brigitte Pellerin doing a presentation on the Magna Carta and the importance of telling inspiring stories at home.

Robson and Pellerin, who are married, will each be giving their own talks throughout an evening at the Vic Juba Theatre.

“We will be talking about this project, reclaiming Canada’s heritage, so it will be partly about the Magna Carta, it will be partly about fixing the constitution, which today is a complete mess and we can do better than this,” Robson said. “My wife will be talking about reclaiming it at the dinner table, about how it’s so much more important to tell stories in the home than it is to run political ads and political campaigns.”

In addition to being a documentary filmmaker, Robson is a columnist with the National Post, a commentator-at-large for News Talk Radio 580 CFRA in Ottawa, and an Invited Professor at the University of Ottawa. Pellerin has over 15 years of experience in Canada’s media environment as a writer, producer, filmmaker, and multimedia entrepreneur.

Robson and Pellerin started working on a project about the Magna Carta two years ago, which resulted in the crowd-funded documentary Magna Carta: Our Shared Legacy of Liberty. Their presentations will be focused towards the third annual Essentials of Freedom Conference, which they will be attending on Feb. 26 and 27 in Edmonton.

“We’ve been letting the other side tell all the stories, and their stories aren’t very good, they’re not very attractive stories, but if they’re the only ones telling stories, then they are winning over the culture,” Robson said. “This is all connected with the documentaries and also with the conference and then we thought, well lets have a more public event and lets talk about this because there are a lot of people right now in Alberta who I think are getting an uneasy sense that something is wrong, very wrong in public policy in this country, and these are the people who often haven’t paid a whole lot of attention.”

Robson and Pellerin have collaborated on projects before, such as the radio show Thinking Aloud on Ottawa Radio in 2004, and have also worked on each other’s documentaries in the past. For the documentary on the Magna Carta they travelled together, did a lot of the editing together, while Pellerin did a lot of the shooting.

“She’s now the lead camera; it’s very much Robson/Pellerin production,” Robson said.

In addition to their Magna Carta project, Robson and Pellerin are working on a documentary on Canadian’s right to self-defence, which Robson said is all part of their reclaiming Canada’s heritage project, and to say Canadians are independent, self-reliant, and creative people.

Magna Carta: Good Then, Good Now will be presented on Monday, Feb. 29 at the Vic Juba Theatre at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 each, or $10 for students (18 and under). Tickets are available through the theatre box-office, online at www.vicjubatheatre.ca, or by calling 780-872-7400.

“We want them to tell the story of Canada with a smile,” Robson said what he hopes people will takes away from the Magna Carta presentations. “We want people to understand that the situation is difficult, but not to become discouraged or angry, to say Canada is a great nation, we have a great history and we need to recapture this history, be proud of who we are, and that way we can reclaim our future and we should look upon this as hard work worth doing, we should be happy about this.”

My latest Rebel piece: February 18 is the anniversary of the “bloody Sunday” at the Boer War Battle of Paardeberg in 1900, when the British and Canadians took 1,100 casualties including 280 dead. At the time a huge number, it would rapidly be eclipsed by the “accomplishments” of the 20^th century from Loos to the Somme and on, because of the new deadliness of modern smokeless powder firearms artillery that could have tipped us off to what progress would soon bring.

https://youtu.be/U-Wh1hbCpac

In my latest Rebel Media piece I say it’s no coincidence that a regime as evil as Stalin’s, which broke off diplomatic relations with Israel on Feb. 11, 1953, could not get along with the Jewish state. Anti-Semitism has deep and appalling roots. https://youtu.be/kdSA-fuK3xo