In my latest Epoch Times column I warn that we must rearm intellectually before we can rearm materially or do anything with our Armed Forces if we somehow conjure one up.
“Benito Mussolini, an erstwhile socialist whose reading of Nietzsche had led him, by the end of the Great War, to dream of forming a new breed of man, an elite worthy of a fascist state, cast himself both as Caesar and as the face of a gleaming future. From the fusion of ancient and modern, mounted by the white-hot genius of his leadership, there was to emerge a new Italy. Whether greeting the massed ranks of his followers with a Roman salute or piloting an aircraft, Mussolini posed in ways that consciously sought to erase the entire span of Christian history. Although, in a country as profoundly Catholic as Italy, he had little choice but to cede a measure of autonomy to the Church, his ultimate aim was to subordinate it utterly, to render it the handmaid of the fascist state. Mussolini’s more strident followers exalted nakedly in this goal. ‘Yes indeed, we are totalitarians! We want to be from morning to evening, without distracting thoughts.’”
Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
“Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.”
Emailed without attribution by a friend
“His [Cicero’s] incredible vanity appears more amiably here [in his letters] than in his orations, where he seems to be carrying his own statue with him wherever he goes…”
Will Durant Caesar and Christ
“The danger to [country X] is not [the incumbent], but a citizenry capable of entrusting a [person] like [him or her] with the [office]. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of [his/her time in power] than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a [person] for their [leader]. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than [the incumbent], who is a mere symptom of what ails [the country]. Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a [name of incumbent], who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their [president/prime minister/etc].”
This item circulates online claiming to be “From a Prague newspaper” and targeting various leaders from Barack Obama to Justin Trudeau and has been doing so since at least 2009. But while I deplore fakery of all sorts, I quote it because I do think the warning it contains is valid and important across a wide range of countries
In my latest Epoch Times column I warn that politicians becoming too slick for words is a classic example of improving something until it is utterly ruined.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I argue that Musk’s flameout as a deficit and waste cutter reveals just how hard it is to rein in overspending, especially because people give so little thought to why it really happens.
In my latest Epoch Times column I call growing skepticism about vaccination a logical if deplorable consequence of governments trampling our rights while insulting our intelligence over COVID.