“Such is the quality of many of the ‘experts’ presented to the public in recent years; buffoonish, delusional, and wrong. Experts are not neutral players, and nearly all have an agenda that they want to see advanced. The cult of the ‘expert’ is an epidemic that must be rooted out like a weed, for their frequently wrong predictions have exposed that their credentials have not made them any less clueless than the rest of us about the future. In an ideal world, we can rely upon experts to provide measured advice to help guide and shape policy. When they fail in that consistently, their credibility is shot, and right now, a good deal of them could use a few slices of humble pie.”

Geoff Russ in National Post August 29, 2024

In my latest Epoch Times column I say the chronic resistance to systemic principled thought in Canadian public policy means we have protectionist politicians who think they’re for free trade, as they’re censors who think they favour free speech.

In my latest Loonie Politics column I deplore the Canadian habit of windy high-minded speeches and empty measures in a dangerous world.

In my latest National Post column I point to a troubling pattern of Prime Minister Mark Carney lying constantly, brazenly and recklessly about things big and small, including his personal conflicts of interest, without thus far facing any consequences.

“The flexibility of the ius gentium facilitated the transmission of Roman law to medieval and modern states. It was a happy accident that while the chaos of barbarian invasion was mutilating the legal heritage in the West, the Code, Digest, and Institutes of Justinian were collected and formulated in Constantinople, in the comparative security and continuity of the Empire in the East. Through these labours, and a hundred lesser channels, and the silent tenacity of useful ways, Roman law entered into the canon law of the medieval Church, inspired the thinkers of the Renaissance, and became the basic law of Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, even – within the British Empire – of Scotland, Quebec, Ceylon, and South Africa. English law itself, the only legal edifice of comparable scope, took its rules of equity, admiralty, guardianship, and bequests from Roman canon law. Greek science and philosophy, Judeo-Greek Christianity, Greco-Roman democracy, Roman law – these are supreme inheritance from the ancient world.”

Will Durant Caesar and Christ

In my latest Epoch Times column I say that when our finance minister claims a call for efficiencies he doesn’t even realize he has no idea how to find represents “a long-term transformation of government” it confirms that those in power think words are deeds and wishes are horses. Which is why they never actually study how government works.

In my latest Epoch Times column I follow up on the question of where the feds expect to find $150 billion a year for defence alone by warning that the overall fiscal situation is far worse than they think including, crucially, how little time they have to fix it.

In countries they invaded in World War I “the Germans generally insisted on the right to requisition and to demand docility from a population under occupation. They were not alone in this, but they were virtually alone in positing an extreme version of the argument – the idea of Kriegsverrat. According to this view, the disruption of the war effort by civilians in occupied territory is as treasonous as disruption by one’s own nationals. The German occupation of Belgium was consistent with this proposition, and while as a whole certainly not as monstrous as Allied propaganda made it out to be, the occupation policy was nevertheless draconic. If babies were not systematically snatched from mothers’ arms and smashed against brick walls, if nuns were not deliberately sought out for sodomy, rape, and slaughter, if old people were not made to crawl on all fours before being riddled with bullets, considerable numbers of hostages were shot, including women and children and octogenarians. Louvaine was razed, together with its library, founded in 1426, with its 280,000 volumes at its priceless collection of in incunabula and medieval manuscripts. Schrechlichkeit, or frightfulness, was pronounced official policy in the occupied areas, initially in Belgium and then in France in Russia. The term furor teutonicus was used by Germans with pride.”

Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era