“For if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that no Lie can live forever. The very Truth has to change its vesture, from time to time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written down against them, in Heaven’s Chancery itself…”
Thomas Carlyle The French Revolution
“When bad things happen, they are never the bad things that were inevitable. You may be quite certain that, if an old pessimist says the country is going to the dogs, it will go to any other animals except the dogs.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News April 17, 1926, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 7 #6 (April/May 2004)
“From his $1,200 haircuts to his personal war on poverty, proclaimed from the porch of his 28,000-square-foot home, purchased with the proceeds of preposterous lawsuits exploiting infant cerebral palsy, [US Democratic Senator, presidential contender and John Kerry’s 2004 running mate, John] Edwards is living proof that history can play out as tragedy and farce simultaneously.”
Theo Caldwell in National Post December 27, 2007
In my latest National Post column I say the cycle of COVID lockdowns is like a bad remake of Groundhog Day, where no lessons get learned
“Our greatest yet with least pretence,/ Great in council and great in war,/ Foremost captain of his time,/ Rich in saving common-sense,/ And, as the greatest only are,/ In his simplicity sublime.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington”
In my latest Epoch Times column I say Canada is especially vulnerable to the chronic global phenomenon of oversold, over budget, underperforming megaprojects because a widespread conceit that our public sector is world-class leads us to neglect mundane public-sector accountability.
“If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it.”
Marcus Aurelius, quoted on Instagram by “dailystoic” September 15, 2021
In my contribution to the National Post’s defence of capitalism, I say economic freedom is the victim of its own success, having delivered the promised prosperity but not the freedom from personal responsibility some misguided zealots thought it should, allowing them to rush us along the Road to Serfdom by blaming capitalism for not doing something it never attempted and never should have.