Posts in Ideology
Wish I'd said that - November 14, 2019

“All serious political and moral philosophy, and thus any serious social inquiry, must begin with an understanding of human nature. Though society and its institutions shape man, man’s nature sets limits on the kinds of societies we can have. Cicero said that the nature of law must be founded on the nature of man (a natura hominis discenda est natura juris).”

James Q. Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein, Crime and Human Nature

Magna Carta for modern conservatives

In my latest National Post article, part of the “Right Now” series on “What does conservatism mean in Canada today?”, I argue that it must mean serious attention to the deep constitutional and historical roots of our rights, our security, our prosperity and our open society. And yes, by that I mean Magna Carta.

Wish I'd said that - October 31, 2019

“the best assumption with regard to the men and women of the fifteenth or any other medieval century is that in essentials they were like-minded with ourselves. We should not be deceived by different conventions, or by contrasts which may be only superficial. Both the pomp and artificiality of court life in the fifteenth century, and the extravagances of the baronial households, often commented on, had a logic of their own in the circumstances of the times; they were far from being the product of men and women whose motives were very different from our own. Life may have been more colourful, unrestrained, and uncertain, in the fifteenth century than at later times; but this did not really change the inner nature of the men and women of the age.’”

Bertie Wilkinson Constitutional History of England in the Fifteenth Century 1399-1485 (Wilkinson was my grandfather)