“I have very little doubt myself that, somehow or other, an inspiring and compelling creed will return to our country, because religion is really a need, like fires in winter: where there is no vision, the people perish, and perish of cold. The nation that has no gods at all not only dies, but what is more, is bored to death. But if ever a faith is firmly founded again, it will be at least interesting to notice those few things that have bridged the gulf, that stood firm when faith was lost, and were still standing when it was found again. Of these really interesting things one, in all probability, will be the English celebration of Christmas.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News, January 9, 1909, quoted in “GKC on Scripture – Conducted by Peter Floriani” “Proverbs Part 2” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the G.K. Chesterton Society Vol. 25 #3 (Jan.-Feb. 2022)

In my latest Epoch Times column I contemplate the painfully familiar task of finding comfort at Christmastime despite everything.

“I began listening more carefully to what my father had to say after the Churchill speech, for my father was clear in his own mind about where his loyalties lay. Having known persecution in Poland [he was Jewish], having served with his brothers in the British Army during the First World War, and having been a fierce patriot in his land of adoption, my father was an outspoken advocate of British freedom. ‘This is the one place where people are still free,’ he would tell me. ‘If you have to choose between giving in and fighting, fight; just remember that. Fight with everything you’ve got.’”

Jack Maurice Nissen Winning the Radar War

In my latest Epoch Times column I say efforts by House Republicans to replace their Speaker in the United States aren’t pretty, but at least there are principles involved… unlike what happened in Canada.

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say if a typical MP could not pass a pop quiz on World War II or almost any subject, and voters and journalists don’t notice, it’s way past time we stopped letting the state run our education system.

“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.”

“Thomas Jefferson (Summary View of the Rights of British America, August 1774)” quoted as The Federalist Patriot “Founder’s Quote Daily” for July 8, 2005 from Federalist.com

“The point is, however, that the West [in the Cold War] got the ‘big thing’ right and the lesser matters right enough. Many of history’s losers, not excluding Nazi Germany and the USSR, failed to get the really big things right although they did perform some ill chosen missions extremely well. If one had to choose, it would be preferable to pursue the correct policy inelegantly than the incorrect policy elegantly.”

Colin S. Gray Canadians in a Dangerous World

In my latest Epoch Times column I argue that political party conventions are more interesting, and more useful to voters and parties alike, if they are not tightly scripted.