“The Flat-Earthers may come into fashion, as promising leaders of the march of progress. Their party is small, perverse, unpopular, and probably wrong; and that seems to be all that is required to make a modern minority promising and progressive.”
G.K. Chesterton in Everyweek September 26, 1918, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #4 (March/April 2025)
In my latest Loonie Politics column I denounce the Canadian habit of putting up with meaningless rhetoric from politicians with nonsensical jobs.
“The first impulse of an enlightened person on hearing the proposal to broadcast the debates of Parliament is merely that it is one of the typical triumphs of modern science. It is telling us that everybody can listen to what nobody wants to hear.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News April 5, 1925, quoted in “Radio (and TV and Movies)” in Gilbert: the Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #3 (Jan./Feb. 2025)
In my latest Loonie Politics column I argue that even if our governmental overlords were a lot more impressive intellectually and morally than in fact they are, they couldn’t possibly cope with their real jobs given the flood of counterproductive trivial economic meddling they engage in.
“Il y a des folies qui se prennent comme les maladies contagieuses.”
La Rochefoucauld Maximes [Réflexions morales #300]
“Come join the party”
Slogan that came to me regarding the need to be cheerful in policy polemics and struggles during a conversation June 25, 2025.
“Fools can be found to support anything…”
Theodore Dalrymple in National Review November 20, 2006 [specifically re people who call the niqab liberating for women].
“Her [biographer Catherine Tsalikis’s] admiration for [Chrystia] Freeland’s ambition is obvious. She paints her political views as centrist pragmatism. I would define them as aspirational progressivism. A desire for power exists; she wants to be ‘in the room where the decisions are made,’ but we don’t know why. Freeland’s ‘values’ are a confection of tasteful platitudes that signify status. One might call hers the Audi of ideologies: multiculturalism, globalization, and woke capital, all in the slipstream of careerism. Her insatiable appetite for status is the defining feature and likely her Achilles heel.”
Brad McKenzie reviewing Tsalikis’s Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill in Dorchester Review #32 (Vol. 15 #2 Summer 2025)