In a talk to the Augustine College Summer Seminar I argued that the American Revolution brought liberty and prosperity because it looked back to the solid foundations of Magna Carta, Christianity and the Western tradition, while the French Revolution brought misery and death because it looked forward to a utopian future unconstrained by the past.
“In 390 BC, an army of Gauls led by Brennus attacked Rome, capturing all of the city except for the Capitoline Hill, which was successfully held against them. Brennus besieged the hill, and finally the Romans asked to ransom their city. Brennus demanded 1,000 pounds (327 kg) of gold and the Romans agreed to his terms. Livy, in Ab Urbe Condita (Book 5 Sections 34–49), recorded that the Gauls provided steelyard balances and weights which were used to measure the amount of gold. The Romans brought the gold and noticed that the provided weights were fixed. The Romans complained to Brennus about the issue. Brennus took his sword, threw it on to the weights, and exclaimed, ‘Vae victis!’ The Romans were forced to bring more gold to fulfill their obligation.”
Wikipedia entry on “Vae victis” as of Sept. 8, 2014
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the trendy ritual elite “land acknowledgements” that Canada is an illegitimate settler-colonial land-stealing oppressive patriarchal nightmare are socially destructive, hypocritical and false.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the Bank of Canada’s one feasible and important job is to control inflation and it should not fall into the old Keynesian ditch and try to manage the economy instead or as well.
“We are so rooted in open and systematic morbidities, in inhuman prejudices, in respectable monomanias, that a sane man terrifies us all like a lunatic.”
G.K. Chesterton “Robert Louis Stevenson” in A Handful of Authors quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)
In my latest National Post column I say historical amnesia seems to be Canada’s new national policy and slogan, driven by politicians who know they cannot withstand comparison with figures from the past.
“There is no better proof of human vanity than to consider the causes and effects of love, because the whole universe can be changed by it. Cleopatra’s nose.”
Pascal Pensées
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the ICC going after Israeli leaders shows why world government is not a dream but a nightmare.