In a piece in C2C Journal that I forgot to post at the time, I argue that social licence sounds good, or did until we discovered you couldn’t get one. But in fact it’s just another way of saying “tyranny of the majority” which is bad in principle and worse in practice because it means mob rule by a fanatical minority

In my latest National Post column I remind commentators that Notre Dame is a Paris “tourist attraction” and historical landmark because it’s a very beautiful church, and suggest that it’s beautiful because of the faith that built it.

In my latest National Post column I say we should have seen chaos coming in Libya when we moved to oust Gadhafi.

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say if Theresa May’s record 432-202 thumping over Brexit, the most important political issue not just of her Prime Ministership but of this generation in Britain, is not a loss of confidence forcing her resignation, then the British Constitution as we have known it for at least 250 years no longer exists.

“The state is not the source of individual rights or of social community. It presupposes that these exist and are worth protecting, and that individuals reciprocally benefit from their interactions with one another…. The state becomes a moral imperative precisely because there is something of value that is worth protecting from the unbridled use of force by those who forsake tradition, family, and friends. A set of forced exchanges from existing rights does not create the original rights so exchanged… A forced exchange does not create culture and sense of community, it protects them by removing the need for compelling or allowing everyone to act as a policeman in his own estate.”

Richard Epstein, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain