“Deal with a thing while it is still nothing;/ Keep a thing in order before disorder sets in.”
Lao Tzu II.LXIV
“As the Chinese proverb says: Unless we change direction, we will likely end up where we are headed.”
Diane Francis in Maclean’s March 21, 1994
“We say we must ‘forgive ourselves’ - but no one can really forgive himself, because he is not the one who is principally concerned by his wrongdoing. Instead one should confess wrong and seek forgiveness from that person – and from God.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“John Diefenbaker once compared the Trudeau government to a cemetery run by its occupants.”
John Ivison in National Post October 28, 2003 [obviously the reference is to Pierre Trudeau]
In my latest Loonie Politics column I complain that voters throughout Canada and the Western world are not just letting politicians give up on fiscal prudence, they’re indifferent to our plunge toward insolvency.
“There is more than one kind of intelligence, and I am a fool if I dismiss the kinds I don’t have as unintelligent.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.”
Edmund Burke, quoted in Federalist Patriot No. 04-28 12 July 2004 from Federalist.com
“One man, John Hampton, refused to pay [the “ship money”], and his case went to court. The question was how far the king’s ‘discretionary power to act for the common good’ extended. The lawyer for Mr. Hampton argued that ‘If the king alone was the judge of whether an emergency existed, and also the sole judge of the scope of his prerogative in that situation, then no English subject had any rights.’ But the king said, in effect, ‘I get to say if there’s an emergency, I get to say what is necessary to address the emergency, and I get to keep secret how I act and spend during the emergency. And no one gets to challenge or question my prerogative.’ Sir Edward Crawley, the king’s lawyer, argued that ‘necessity, as assessed by the king, was always superior to the law of the land.’ How did the court respond? Lord Justice Berkley, writing for a majority of the court, said that if Mr. Hampton’s arguments were accepted, the result would be a ‘king-yoking policy.’ He then declared he ‘never heard that lex was rex but rather the reverse, for the king was lex loquens, a living, speaking, acting law.’ As legal historian Ryan Alford notes, following the Court’s logic in this case, ‘Parliament could never bind the king, since he could operate above the statutes whenever he declared an emergency, even in peacetime. On this logic, [the king] was not even bound by Magna Carta.’ Parliament was furious.”
André Schutten and Michael Wagner, A Christian Citizenship Guide 2nd edition