In my latest National Post column I say compassionate, intelligent, constructive discussion of Confederate monuments must begin with forthright recognition that they celebrate racial slavery and bigotry.
"Some people have such open minds that their brains fall out."
Flannery O'Connor (according to various sources)
"Only through scrutiny of the past can society descry the limitations of human nature.”
Russel Kirk The Conservative Mind
“in all their actions all men do in fact aim at what they think good.”
Aristotle The Politics
“If you want to succeed, it would be wise for you to choose your beliefs carefully, rather than walking around like a piece of flypaper, picking up whichever belief sticks.”
Anthony Robbins Unlimited Power
"Man’s most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe."
Euripides, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail April 17, 2013.
"The open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth."
G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Jim Hurlbert in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 7 # 7 (June 2004)
"Our new prime minister recently apologized for the Irish famine. I didn’t know he had caused it. And since we know he didn’t, we can only conclude that he accepts the monstrously dangerous, stupid, and incidentally racist concept of inherited racial guilt. This is political correctness run barking mad."
George Macdonald Fraser in National Review January 26, 1998