“there is little reason to believe that this socialism [that he saw coming in Britain and the U.S.] will mean the advent of the civilization of which orthodox socialists dream. It is much more likely to present fascist features. That would be a strange answer to Marx’s prayer. But history sometimes indulges in jokes of questionable taste.”
Joseph Schumpeter Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
In my latest Epoch Times column I say we should be very wary of proposals from people who express angry ignorance about our Constitutional monarchy, including “republicans” who have no idea what a republic actually is.
“I personally view punditry as Nero’s art – playing the fiddle while Rome is burning – but, as the fine Australian commentator, Walter Murdoch, pointed out years ago: ‘If everyone had refrained from fiddling when Rome was burning, what would have become of the noble art of music? For when has Rome not been burning?’”
George Jonas in Ottawa Citizen June 24, 2006
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the goal of Parliamentary redistricting should be improving government not indulging a penchant for regional bickering. Happily, adding a lot more MPs will help achieve the former and avoid the latter.
“As the historian Forrest McDonald pointed out, Filmer never persuaded anyone by eloquence or logic, since he possessed neither.”
Richard Brookheiser in National Review February 22, 1999 [Filmer being the 17th-century English Tory essayist Robert Filmer, the target of John Locke’s now mostly unread First Treatise of Government, which is now mostly unread in significant measure because it demolished Filmer so completely that nobody now remembers him]
In my latest Loonie Politics column I praise Mikhail Gorbachev for the fundamental decency that led him to permit the peaceful dissolution of Soviet Communism. But I insist that he was no statesman, and no thinker, and that credit for ending the Cold War properly belongs with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and their supporters.
“As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.”
James Madison, quoted by Christopher Buckley in National Review November 22, 1999
“He [Arnold Toynbee] observes that one of the consistent symptoms of disintegration is that the elites – Toynbee’s ‘dominant minority’ – begin to imitate those at the bottom of society.”
Charles Murray in Wall Street Journal February 6 2001