In my latest Epoch Times column I say there is much to celebrate on Canada Day/Dominion Day, as well as much to fix, and say let’s do it.
“The true modern cowardice is that no one has the courage to pronounce truisms. Consequently the chief evil of all modern argument is that it will not begin, like Euclid, with the things that are quite obvious; Euclid is dull during the first four or five pages; not before the third book does he begin to become even feebly brilliant. In short, the characteristic modern controversy has this defect, that those partaking in it have not the courage to be dull, have not the courage to state the things which are only evident to some.”
G.K. Chesterton in the Morning Post Oct. 18, 1906, quoted in “Chesterton For Today” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 6 (July-August 2023)
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.
“Current fashion among history teachers affirms, in the teeth of the evidence, that individuals count for little; that history’s iron laws are all but unaffected by them.”
The Making of Tyrants by Alan Bullock, quoted in The Economist July 20, 1991
“Irresolute men are sometimes very persistent in their undertakings, because if they gave up their design they would have to make a second resolution.”
“Leopardi” quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 18, 2007
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say sending an underarmed Arctic patrol vessel to Cuba to greet a Russian flotilla, then babbling a shifting set of unconvincing and inconsistent explanations, is one more example of the plague of incompetence engulfing us.
“Cleopatra’s nose: if it had been shorter the whole face of the earth would have been different.”
Pascal Pensées
In my latest Mercatornet column I ask how the United States, of all places, could have become vulnerable to tyranny.