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.
“So much must be said against the man of fashion. But, in fairness to him, it must be admitted that he is not alone in being frivolous: other classes of men share the reproach. Thus for instance, bishops are generally frivolous, moral teachers are generally frivolous. Philosophers and poets are often frivolous; politicians are always frivolous. For if frivolity signifies this lack of grasp of the fulness and the value of things, it must have a great many forms besides that of mere levity and pleasure-seeking. A great many people have a fixed idea that irreverence, for instance, consists chiefly in making jokes. But it is quite possible to be irreverent with a diction devoid of the slightest touch of indecorum, and with a soul unpolluted by a tinge of humour.... To say a thing with a touch of humour is not to say it in vain. To say a thing with a touch of satire or individual criticism is not to say it in vain. To say a thing even fantastically, like some fragment from the scripture of Elfand, is not to say it in vain. But to say a thing with a pompous and unmeaning gravity; to say a thing so that it shall be at once bigoted and vague; to say a thing so that it shall be indistinct at the same moment that it is literal; to say a thing so that the most decorous listener shall not at the end of it really know why in the name of all things you should have said it or he should have listened to it – this is veritably and in the weighty sense of those ancient Mosaic words to take that thing in vain. The Name is taken in vain many times more often by preachers than it is by secularists.”
G.K. Chesterton “The Frivolous Man” reprinted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 # March-April 2022
“We are in the strict sense conservatives; because we hold that the old creed and culture of Christendom realized for men, relatively to all that is reasonable and possible, the great art of life which we call liberty. The truth has made us free; The tradition has given to men the sort of liberty they really like; Local customs, individual craftsmanship, variety of self expression, the presence of personality in production, the dignity of the human will. These are expressed in a thousand things, from hospitality to adventure, from parents instructing their own children to children inventing their own games, from the village commune to the vin du pays, from practical jokes to pilgrimages an from patron saints to public-house signs. The mark of all these things is variety and spontaneity, the direct action of the individual soul on the material environment of mankind. The result is a rich complexity of common things, a wealth of work and worship, a treasure which we refuse to abandon at our resolute to defend.”
G.K. Chesterton in the 3rd edition of G.K.’s Weekly March-September 1926 quoted by Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #2 (Nov.-Dec. 2021)
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 Epoch Times column I say the Trudeau administration’s plan to fix the cost of living crisis by more government handouts is a classic case of trying to dig your way out of a hole
“Look, I love [his] work. But have you seen the man trying to communicate without a script? He’s about as articulate as a bag of potato chips. Warren Beatty couldn’t win a debate with a mime.”
Richard Roper in the Chicago Sun-Times regarding a potential Beatty presidential run quoted in Globe & Mail September 7, 1999
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say Pierre Poilievre’s overwhelming victory in the Conservative leadership contest, and Jean Charest’s hollow showing, demonstrates yet again that snobbery is no antidote to populism.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say we should be very wary of proposals from people who express angry ignorance about our Constitutional monarchy, including “republicans” who have no idea what a republic actually is.