In my latest National Post column I say the state of the CPP is proof that we have been very foolish to let foxes guard the henhouse in Canada.
In my latest National Post column I express surprise at how often Gerald Ford said very wise things about limited government and social cohesion.
On Canada Day I was happy to appear on Ezra Levant's Rebel Media show to talk about patriotism, Magna Carta, our national identity and Justin Trudeau's postmodern incoherence. https://youtu.be/voMKblrlZ9s
OK, this is pretty grim. I just got this email from the federal NDP with the implausible subject line "One fun thing together". Fun? NDP? Intrigued, even baffled, I read on and after some tedious preliminaries this is the excitement on offer:
I want you to meet our fellow progressive Canadians fighting for equality with you, and I have a fun way to make that happen. When you take this one-question poll, you’ll let other Canadians know what issue makes you stand up and fight – and you’ll also see what your community is saying about their top issue.
Really? That's your idea of "fun"? That's how you kick back, loosen up and get jiggy in high summer? Evidently so. For after what I think was meant to be stirring prose about a "community of progressive Canadians", it wrapped up with this "gosh, how can I refuse?" thrill-o-rama offer:
let’s all do this one cool thing together – share your “big issue” with the NDP’s community of progressive Canadians and see who’s fighting with you.
Ooooh. Party time. Unfortunately political party time. I know the NDP can be a stridently serious bunch and that as a rule social justice is about as light-hearted as a root canal. But I thought when they actually tried to have fun, if they ever did, there might at least be hats and balloons, activities, forced merriment, maybe even beer. Instead there's a poll and fighting.
It reminds me of an observation by G.K. Chesterton, a profoundly serious person who found life enormously fun in the normal sense of actually having a good time, that:
Socialist idealism does not attract me very much, even as Idealism. The glimpses it gives of our future happiness depress me very much. They do not remind me of any actual happiness, of any happy day I have ever myself spent...
Exactly. This email certainly had me thinking if this is how they whoop it up I'd rather listen to them complain. Except it seems to be the same activity. So if your idea of "fun" is sitting alone at your computers saying what annoys you most, I do not want you designing my future.
It sounds awful.
In my latest article in C2C Journal I argue that citizens are right to be angry with the political system. But they need to look in the mirror and realize their habit of rewarding the wrong things in politics is the main source of the problem.
In my latest National Post commentary I say it is inexplicable that the Liberals were not ready with a plan to legalize marijuana. How hard can it be not to ban something in a free society? And who would repeatedly promise to do something and not bother pondering the details?
In my latest National Post commentary I argue that politicians are too keen to apologize for things in the past that they didn’t do, and too slow to apologize and make amends for things in the present that they did do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxPLLh0FrQ The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Ask the Professor, May 30"]http://www.thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2016/May/Ask_Professor_32.mp3[/podcast]