In my latest National Post column I ask whether the purpose of "uniting the right" in Alberta was to implement conservative policies or to bury them.
"it is characteristic of political philosophers that they take a sombre view of the human situation: they deal in darkness. Human life in their writings appears, generally not as a feast or even as a journey, but as a predicament..."
Michael Oakeshott “Introduction to Leviathan” in Rationalism in politics and other essays
"To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man."
G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Andrew Coyne in Maclean’s Jan. 21, 2008
My latest piece in MercatorNet, based on a speech to the Augustine College Summer Conference (and an earlier National Post column and upcoming Dorchester Review article) asks how a society as devoted to "choice" as our own can at the same time so relentlessly restrict choice.
"Looking for fish? Don’t climb a tree."
Chinese proverb (according to "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail March 31 2011
In my latest National Post column I say, from hearing a series of outstanding talks at Moses Znaimer's ideacity conference, that the future is here now.
"Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful."
Aldous Huxley, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail July 8, 2004