In my latest National Post column I say what should be solid in Canadian government, like our Charter rights, is generally blown away while what is vapid, like the Liberal-NDP deal, lands with a thud.
“Of all political ideals, that of making people happy is perhaps the most dangerous one. It leads invariably to the attempt to impose our scale of ‘higher’ values upon others, in order to make them realize what seems to us of greatest importance for their happiness; in order, as it were, to save their souls.”
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2
“Well, if that’s what you call being at peace, for heaven’s sake just warn me before you go to war, will you?”
The main character in Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt
In my latest Epoch Times column I challenge would-be federal Conservative leaders Jean Charest and Patrick Brown in particular to show that they stand for something beside office, on practical and moral grounds.
“Idleness… is the holiday of fools.”
From a fortune cookie I got c. 1993 - the Internet says it’s actually from Philip Dormer Shanhope, Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773). I originally had it without the elision but while that version circulates, I’m credibly informed that the proper full quotation is “Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools.” (Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/299455-idleness-is-only-the-refuge-of-weak-minds-and-the)
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battle fields besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
Martin Luther, quoted among many other places by https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/657155-if-i-profess-with-the-loudest-voice-and-clearest-exposition
“He’s so morally bankrupt they repossessed his conscience.”
Another of my would-be witticisms, from November 1, 1991
Last Friday I was on theZoomer Round Table to explain how we got into this crisis and why starting World War III over Ukraine isn’t a good idea despite all the important humanitarian and strategic reasons for helping them defeat Putin’s invasion. (In the panel discussion starting 16 minutes into the video.)