In my latest National Post column I say we can’t rationally decide whether we want “strong” mayors for our cities until we decide what mayors are for, and what they are.
In my latest Epoch Times column I explain why we talk a lot less about free speech than we used to, and a lot less convincingly.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say it’s predictable that the latest expensive troubles for Ottawa’s megaproject O-Train weren’t predicted.
“You don’t have to be cruel to be tough.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, quoted as standalone “WORDS OF WISDOM” in Epoch Times email February 4, 2022
“The most common doubt about economists stems from their apparent inability to agree, best captured by George Bernard Shaw’s line that ‘if all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. But economists’ hard-core detractors recognize the superficiality of this complaint. They know that economists regularly see eye-to-eye with one another. A quip from Steven Kelman directly contradicts Shaw: ‘The near-unanimity of the answers economists give to public policy questions, highly controversial among the run of intelligent observers, but which share the characteristic of being able to be analyzed in terms of microeconomic theory, reminds one of the unanimity characterizing bodies such as the politburo of the Soviet Communist Party.’ It is not lack of consensus that incenses knowledgeable critics, but the way economists unite behind unpalatable conclusions, such as doubts about the benefits of regulation.”
Bryan Caplan, “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies,” Cato Policy Analysis #594 (May 29, 2007)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say people arguing over whether government in Canada is “broken” should devise a checklist of the attributes of a genuinely broken government and then see how many of them we’ve got.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I draw on the wisdom of G.K. Chesterton to unravel the attitudes of populist and their opponents to accountability.
In my latest Epoch Times column I note the tragicomic contrast between the cosmic aspirations and vaulting self-regard of our politicians and their incapacity to discharge even basic functions of government.