“The beneficial effect of State intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and, so to speak, visible, whilst its evil effects are gradual and indirect, and lie out of sight.... Nor… do most people keep in mind that State inspectors may be incompetent, careless, or even occasionally corrupt… Hence the majority of mankind must almost of necessity look with undue favour upon governmental intervention. This natural bias can be counteracted only by the existence, in a given society, as in England between 1830 and 1860, of a presumption or prejudice in favour of individual liberty—that is, of laissez faire. The mere decline, therefore, of faith in self-help… is of itself sufficient to account for the growth of legislation tending towards socialism.”

Albert Venn Dicey Law & Public Opinion

In a speech to the Augustine College Summer Seminar in June (sorry, I’m a bit behind in my video editing) I argue that the calamities of the 20th century derived, fundamentally, from a rejection of the notion of truth.

In my contribution to the National Post’s 20th anniversary section, I celebrate the freedom the paper has given its writers to express conservative opinions and respect the intelligence of our readers.

“It is a pleasant and consoling thought to think that our posterity will find sufficient entertainment in the contemplation of the enormous blunders that you are making at this moment. That will be a continuous source of laughter and joy to them.”

G.K. Chesterton in “Culture and the Coming Peril” in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #5 (March-April 2005)

In my latest National Post column I warn that the largest lesson of the Christine Blasey Ford-Brett Kavanaugh confrontation could easily be seen as: Avoid the opposite sex entirely.

Ask the Professor - Thomas Sowell's Philosophy - October 3, 2018

John Robson

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In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the Ontario Tories must speak and act boldly to get out of the hole they dug for themselves by not believing their own warnings about the state of provincial finances under the Liberals.

By shopping at the local butcher who knew their names “we were personalizing commercial transactions, and, at the risk of sounding like a goony theorist, we were nurturing the economy of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, the little patch of the planet where we lived, and over which we had been given responsibility because of our having chosen to be there. By ‘economy,’ I don’t mean strictly commerce, but the inchoate and complex system of human relations that bound us together as a community, and made Cobble Hill the kind of place worth living in and caring about…. And by choosing to shop at those places, we chose to conserve that rare and precious thing, a sense of beloved community, a sense of beloved place, in a world where the quest for efficiency and the monetary bottom line served only to annihilate tradition and atomize families and communities.”

Rod Dreher Crunchy Cons