“It must be remembered that, though concord is in itself better than discord, discord may indicate a better state of things than is indicated by concord. Calamity and peril often force men to combine. Prosperity and security often encourage them to separate.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay The History of England
“Liberty is traditional and conservative; it remembers its legends and its heroes. But tyranny is always young and seemingly innocent, and asks us to forget the past.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News December 30, 1911, quoted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #5 (May/June 2022)
In my latest Epoch Times column I parse modern efforts to hide what we celebrate on Dec. 25 behind “Season” and “Winter” greetings, lights and other obvious clues.
“It is one of the most interesting principles of ancient and modern warfare (one of the few reliable laws of history) that ‘the nation which commands the sea is also the nation which commands the land.’ So far this law has never failed to work, but the modern airplane may have changed it.”
Hendrik Van Loon The Story of Mankind
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the proposal to exempt Quebec MNAs from an oath of allegiance to our actual Constitution in favour of some pompous make-believe is a dangerous relativist attack on the rule of law.
“More than 1,500 pieces of graffiti were preserved in Pompeii when that Roman city was buried in volcanic ash 1,922 years ago. They include: ‘Aufidius was here.’ ‘Marcus loves Spendusa.’ ‘I am amazed, O wall, that you have not collapsed and fallen, since you must bear the tedious stupidities of so many scrawlers.’ Source: The Washington Post.”
Globe & Mail July 12, 2001 p. A16
On Monday I spoke to the Royal Canadian Military Institute about a number of surprises regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some of which should not have been surprising.
“But history is no respecter of Congresses. For some reason or other (it may be an historical law, which thus far has escaped the attention of the scholars) ‘nations’ seemed to be necessary for the orderly development of human society and the attempt to stem this tide [post-1815] was quite as unsuccessful as the Metternichian effort to prevent people from thinking.”
Hendrik Van Loon The Story of Mankind