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.
“An acquaintance, hearing someone speculate that some of the advocates of defunding the police may be less than transparent about their motives, asked, ‘Isn’t that just a conspiracy theory?’ Another fellow I spoke with reacted to someone’s suggestion that not all sexual acts are morally equivalent by demanding, ‘Isn’t that just homophobia?’ And a student responded to the reasoning of a religious author by sneering, ‘Isn’t that just a religious argument?’ What’s I find interesting is that although all three persons thought they were heading off fallacies, actually all three were committing them. The kinds they committed were fallacies of distraction. Each one deflected the question instead of considering it, then considered the deflection a rebuttal. My acquaintance didn’t inquire into whether the people in question really were concealing their motives – much less whether someone who suggests concealment is necessarily suggesting cooperation in the concealment – much less whether anyone ever does conceal his motives – much less whether anyone ever does cooperate in the act – much less whether that could have been happening in the case at hand. The second fellow didn’t consider whether the motive for making a suggestion automatically disqualifies it – much less whether the only possible motive for making moral distinctions among sexual acts is a pathological fear or ‘phobia’ – much less whether all such acts really are morally equivalent. And the student didn’t reflect upon whether the religious writer’s argument really was premised on his faith – much less whether an argument might be valid even if it were premised on faith – much less whether the argument at hand was valid. I sometimes hear that people need more training in formal inference. Maybe so. But we have a much greater need to learn about ‘informal’ fallacies, errors that occur not because we violate the rules of inference but because we are distracted from the point we are discussing.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” December 9 2021
In my latest Loonie Politics column I insist that the mainstream media didn’t do Canadians or themselves any favours during the truckers’ convoy crisis by failing to alert us that no adults were in charge of the government response.
“For all you good folks who think Islam is just Christianity in funny hats, or that Islam is the ‘Religion of Peace’, or that ‘we all worship the same God’ .../ ... nope. None of those are true in the slightest.”
Tweet from Willis Eschenbach 20/4/22 [https://twitter.com/WEschenbach/status/1516845836566626304] commenting on tweet about “Islamic Republic of Iran gives converts to Christianity five years prison for ‘deviant propaganda’ https://wp.me/p4hgqZ-14wY”
In my latest National Post column I take readers on a guided tour of the dismal wasteland that is Xi Jinping Thought.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the inquiry must avoid getting sidetracked into whether the convoy or the mandates were obnoxious and remain focused on whether invoking the Emergencies Act was justified because other forms of law enforcement were demonstrably non-existent, unavailable, or inadequate to the situation.
In an interview with Barry W. Bussey of the First Freedoms Foundation I discuss why Magna Carta is still relevant to our liberties and Constitutional order today, including religions freedom.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say it would actually be desirable for the CBC to drop its threadbare pretense at neutrality, provided it also gives up its subsidy and sees whether there’s a significant audience that actually wants full-bore wokeness.