In my latest article for Convivium, a Cardus publication, I argue that whatever the merits of Canadian government today, and the society it has sought to create in its image, we are not now where Canada was always intended and indeed destined by History to end up for the edification of all humankind.

Earlier today, while on the road to Philadelphia, I talked about my latest column and other topics with Mark Sutcliffe. (Don't worry, Brigitte was driving.) Click here to listen.

So there's this story out of France where the "top court", the Council of State, has suspended various bans on the burkini, an arguably excessively modest form of swimwear popular among some Muslims. In a characteristic leading paragraph, NBC said "France's top court on Friday suspended a controversial ban on full-body burkini swimsuits that has sparked heated debate both inside the country and abroad." And I wonder: Why so much attention to this one? Now I could write at some length about the way "controversial" is used in the press to mean "thing you should disapprove of". Or the logic of the ban itself. Or the extraordinary French way of doing things, including that freedom of association is a largely foreign concept as opposed, in the English-speaking world, to a core right that is fast disappearing. (To give another remarkable example, this "top court" of which stories speak, the Conseil d'État, is at once the supreme court for administrative law, that is, for settling disputes about the behaviour of executive agencies, and the legal advisor to the executive branch. In the Anglosphere such an arrangement would be an unthinkable conflict of interest; in France it is seen as commendably efficient in empowering the state to run people's lives for them.) But for now I want to ask a different question.

Why all this hoo-hah about the French ban, and not a peep about the legal and social restrictions on "immodest" swimwear and indeed clothing generally in much of the Muslim world, including extralegal violence to enforce it? Why are so many people calling the French intolerant on this issue and saying nothing about what goes on elsewhere? Where's the "heated debate" on bans on infidel attire?

To ask this question is not to suggest that the French ban should not be debated, or that there are not reasonable arguments on both sides. Quite the reverse. And for what it's worth, as I've written elsewhere, I favour considerable freedom of dress provided it isn't obscene or likely to cause justified public alarm. But I also favour, and indeed regard as inseparable from the former, freedom of association; if I do not like how you are dressed I should be free to shun you personally and, yes, professionally. Especially if you cover your face on the grounds that if I see you, one or both of us will be soiled, which I find deeply offensive. But again, that's not really the point here.

The point is that we seem to be holding France and the French to a much higher standard than, say, Jordan and Jordanians, let alone Iran and Iranians. For instance, a recent Daily Telegraph Travel/Advice piece said that in Jordan generally, "Women should wear loose fitting clothes, covering the arms, legs and chest area, while T-shirts are best avoided for both sexes. Women’s hair should be dry, as wet hair is said to suggest sexual availability..." What? Are you kidding me?

Obviously I would not want to be judged by that standard. I think we can do better. And the French, for all their foibles and fondness for state direction, generally do better. But for the sake of perspective about such things I also think we should be clear, in going after the French for responding to the menace of radical Islam in their own characteristic way and sometimes getting it wrong, that we are holding them to a higher standard. We might even want to fumble toward an explanation of why.

See, they're a Western country. And while it's politically correct to despise Western arrogance, cultural imperialism and so forth, just about everybody knows deep down that... that... that public policy in Western countries is broadly rational and tolerant whereas elsewhere it too often isn't.

If that's a "controversial" thing to say, well, I said it anyway.

I was on 1310 News this morning. You can listen to the interview here. 

I was on Danielle's show this afternoon to discuss one of my recent columns. You can listen to it here.  

In a National Post debate my editorial board colleague Jen Gerson, Matt Gurney and Jesse Kline and I discuss the meaning and limits of “press freedom” when police and courts seek information from journalists.

An amusing item from the latest Landowner magazine on how government works... or tries to.

Brigitte writes:

As some of you may know (and if you don’t, you can find out more about it here), CFRA radio in Ottawa redesigned their morning show and the new format did not include John. So after 17 years, that gig is off, and that means we are increasingly making our living online.

You may also have heard that the Ottawa Citizen was merging with the Ottawa Sun. This does not affect us, except insofar as it is yet another sign that traditional media outlets are slowly and painfully dying.

It’s not a very surprising development to anyone who’s been paying attention. The invention of the Internet made ad-supported media appear suddenly very lumpy and expensive. Why would advertisers pay to have their ads seen by fewer and fewer people who do their shopping online via search engines like Google or sites like Craiglist or Kijiji or whatever the kids use these days.

I strongly believe there is a bright future for news reporting, analysis and commentary, but not in the old traditional format that’s heavily dependent on ad revenues. I believe the future (well, at least for the next few years) is in user-supported media. That’s media that users pay for – either by buying the product or by sponsoring the creators, or both.

When Sun News went kaput last year John and I decided to devote ourselves to documentary film-making and to finance our films through crowdfunding. We also set up our websites to take monthly contributions from people who like what we do so we could keep doing more of it. (Something our friend Nick Vandergragt is also doing – you can sponsor his work here.)

It’s still a relatively new model, especially in Canada. So much so that there is still no option to work in Canadian dollars – only USD at the moment. But I trust someday soon demand from Canadian content creators for a system that accepts loonies will make it happen.

It’s a new funding model for creators and so far we’re very pleased by the response and grateful for the wonderful support we’re getting from our supporters.

We did also try last year to generate some revenues by putting ads on our websites and our videos. We got rid of the website ads a few months ago and this week I decided it was time to pull the plug on the YouTube ads as well. Not because they’re not working; they are. But personally when I want to watch a video or read an article I strongly dislike having to navigate around the ads and I’m assuming our readers and viewers feel the same… (By the way, if you come across an ad I somehow missed anywhere on my YouTube channel, please let me know.)

So there. Now we are patron-supported, and we find this a very dandy arrangement indeed. You get the product you want, you decide how much it is worth to you, and because we have lots of patrons who each give us small amounts of money each month, we feel we have the independence we need to keep doing our thing without having to worry about upsetting a big advertiser or angel investor.

There, I say, is the future. And I like it.