In my latest Epoch Times column I argue that you have to understand why Canada, the UK, Australia and France recognized a non-existent Palestinian state to grasp just what a disastrous decision it was.
“Montcalm had brought artillery, and within six days had partly smashed the fort [“Fort William Henry, on Lake George” in August 1757], which, after a respectable fight, surrendered. Montcalm allowed the British to retire, leaving an officer behind as a prisoner for security, and with a guaranty not to return to the area for 18 months. Montcalm took all the stores in artillery and arms, and promised to return the wounded as they recovered the ability to travel. This did not conform to the Indian notion of how to treat defeated enemies, especially the notion of it they entertained after getting well into the spirit issue, both authorized and looted. The Indians chased after the retreating British, killing 200 and capturing 500. Montcalm personally led the parties of retribution to compel the Indians to honor his promises, and he got back all but about 200 prisoners, who were killed or dragged off by the Indians, including the boiling and eating of an English soldier in a public ceremony near Montreal.”
Conrad Black Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present [file it under “vibrant”]
“Nigel Farage stood up in the House of Commons yesterday to ask how many British troops will be promised to Ukraine. A reasonable question. He was dismissed as being a ‘Putin apologist’ by both Conservatives and Labour. The uniparty are still two cheeks of the same ugly old arse.”
A post on X from someone I am not familiar with on March 4, 2025 [https://x.com/darrengrimes_/status/1896864773389869349] and yes, it bends my rule about vulgarity in public discourse but it’s funny and apposite enough to deserve it.
“Far more renowned than Strabo in his time was Dio Chrysostom – Dio of the Golden Mouth (A.D. 40-120)... Dio left behind him eighty orations. For us today they contain more wind than meat; they suffer from empty amplification, deceptive analogies, and rhetorical tricks; they stretch half an idea to half a hundred pages... ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said the honest Trajan, ‘but I love you as myself.’... Probably what drew people to him was not his fine Attic Greek, but the courage of his denunciations. Almost alone in pagan antiquity he condemned prostitution; and few writers of his time so openly attacked the institution of slavery. (He was a bit vexed, however, when he found that his slaves had run away.)”
Will Durant Caesar and Christ
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the reason Mark Carney can’t pull us back from the left-wing idiocies of Justin Trudeau is that he holds substantially the same views and doesn’t even know it.
“For as long as people have been writing, there have been other people that want to prevent that writing from reaching the public. Around 600BC King Jehoiakim of Judah burnt a scroll containing a prophecy he did not like. Plato supposedly loathed work by Democritus, another philosopher, and sought to have it destroyed. (Ironically in his dialogues he warns of ‘the danger of becoming misologists’—ie, people who hate reasoning or ideas.)”
Rachel Lloyd, “Deputy culture editor” in “The Economist this weekend” email Feb. 22, 2025 [the big point here being the word “misologist”].
“The strong minded governor of Massachusetts, William Shirley, took to emulating Cato about Carthage: ‘Delenda est Canada’ (Canada must be destroyed).”
This re the New France militia in the War of the Austrian Succession, in Conrad Black Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present
In my latest Epoch Times column I say from coast to coast Canada is turning away from trusting the people and abandoning self-government for meddlesome ineffective presumption.