“It was a wise instinct by which heaven was symbolized by wings that are free as the wind, and hell symbolized by chains.”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News February 15, 1930, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 2 (Nov.-Dec. 2022)
“Unless there is a good reason for its being there, do not inject opinion into a piece of writing. We all have opinions about almost everything, and the temptation to toss them in is great. To air one’s views gratuitously, however, is to imply that the demand for them is brisk, which may not be the case…”
William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White Elements of Style [I totally disagree; all writing is an attempt to persuade someone of a point of view.]
In my latest National Post column I argue that the same libertarian-libertine qualities that made social media appealing across normal partisan lines, and addictive, are now making them hugely and rightly unpopular and we must make the platforms legally “publishers” to put a stop to the raging indecency.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say we must not succumb passively to the constant brain-numbing Canadian jedi mind trick where on any issue of public importance we’re smugly told this isn’t the scandal we’re looking for.
“The two great natural goods of marriage – the turning of the great wheel of the generations, and the union of a man and woman who cooperate in turning it – cannot be separated without damage to each of them. To suppress either one for the sake of happiness is to poison the very roots of joy.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“History sometimes rests on narrow shoulders.”
Paul Wells in National Post December 11, 1999
“Previous civilizations have degenerated. Previous ages have marched into the dark not knowing that they were marching into the dark. But in any previous time, were artists, scholars, and thinkers so eager to explain that degeneration was really progress?”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” April 17, 2023 [https://undergroundthomist.org/antipasto]
In my latest Epoch Times column, I describe how our universities are unraveling financially and academically as part of a cascading set of policy disasters in which the one thing we never do is go back and reverse previous mistakes instead of piling on fresh ones.