In my latest Epoch Times column I say the recent riots in Ireland are a warning sign about what happens when normal people feel that their core concerns are deliberately excluded from the political process.
“GKC: Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I say that to take away a poor man’s pot of beer is to take away a poor man’s personal liberty, it is very vital to note what is the usual or almost universal reply. People hardly ever do reply, for some reason or other, by saying that a man’s liberty consists of such and such things, but that beer is an exception that cannot be classed among them, for such and such reasons. What they almost invariably do say is something like this. ‘After all, what is liberty? Man must live as a member of a society, and must obey those laws which, etc., etc.’ In other words, they collapse into a complete confession that they are attacking all liberty and any liberty; that they do deny the very existence or the very possibility of liberty. In the very form of the answer they admit the full scope of the accusation against them. In trying to rebut the smaller accusation, they plead guilty to the larger one. This distinction is very important, as can be seen from any practical parallel. Suppose we wake up in the middle of the night and find that a neighbour has entered the house not by the front-door but by the skylight; we may suspect that he has come after the fine old family jewellery. We may be reassured if he can refer it to a really exceptional event; as that he fell on to the roof out of an aeroplane, or climbed on to the roof to escape from a mad dog. Short of the incredible, the stranger the story the better the excuse; for an extraordinary event requires an extraordinary excuse. But we shall hardly be reassured if he merely gazes at us in a dreamy and wistful fashion and says, ‘After all, what is property? Why should material objects be thus artificially attached, etc., etc.?’ We shall merely realize that his attitude allows of his taking the jewellery and everything else. Or if the neighbour approaches us carrying a large knife dripping with blood, we may be convinced by his story that he killed another neighbour in self-defence, that the quiet gentleman next door was really a homicidal maniac. We shall know that homicidal mania is exceptional and that we ourselves are so happy as not to suffer from it, and being free from the disease may be free from the danger. But it will not soothe us for the man with the gory knife to say softly and pensively, ‘After all, what is human life? Why should we cling to it? Brief at the best, sad at the brightest, it is itself but a disease from which, etc., etc.’ We shall perceive that the sceptic is in a mood not only to murder us but to massacre everybody in the street. Exactly the same effect which would be produced by the questions of ‘What is property?’ and ‘What is life?’ is produced by the question of ‘What is liberty?’ It leaves the questioner free to disregard any liberty, or in other words to take any liberties. The very thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to do. If he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in profane swearing, or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against his going on the spree, he can still be satisfied with saying ‘After all, what is liberty? Man is a member of, etc., etc.’”
“News With Views” compiled by Mark Pilon in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022) p. 37 [with the comment afterward “Justin Trudeau is rumored to be taking notes”].
In my latest Epoch Times column I say we’re in a heap of trouble now that Justin Trudeau has promised that his fall fiscal update will give us more of the fiscal restraint he thinks he’s delivered all along.
In my latest Epoch Times column I warn aspiring politicians, and voters, that the biggest problem with government is that the people who undertake it make no effort to learn how it works until it’s far too late.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I note the ominous apparent paradox in which as the federal government spends and hires ever more recklessly, the national police force totally fails to attend to its core duty of protecting that government and its citizens from subversion, espionage and so on.
In my latest Epoch Times column I condemn the edict that military chaplains should not pray to God rather than the state on November 11.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say we need to face the fact, and the implications, of large-scale pro-Hamas demonstrations in Canada and other Western nations by recent immigrants from places where horrific anti-Semitism is routine.
In my latest National Post column I say the best way to get universities to stop promoting malevolent radicalism and start teaching again, and to promote actual social justice as well, is to privatize them and see what kind of education the young adults who will supposedly benefit from it are actually willing to pay full price for.