“Politics are now so corrupt that everything they touch is corrupted. We are long past the point of protecting our government from the degrading influences of trade or professionalism. If anything, we have to protect our trades and professions from the degrading influences of government.”

G.K. Chesterton in New Witness November 5, 1920, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #1 (September-October 2024) [and I need hardly add that we did not and it has therefore gotten far worse in the intervening century]

“The whole book, indeed, is a picture of the Tree of Life – a sappy and golden book, full of buoyancy and confidence. We cannot, I admit, appropriate all its confidence today. We cannot point to the high virtue of Christian living and the gay, almost mocking courage of Christian martyrdom, as a proof of our doctrines with quite that assurance with Athanasius takes as a matter of course. But whoever may be to blame for that, it is not Athanasius.”

C.S. Lewis’s 1944 “Preface from the First Edition” in John Behr’s translation of Saint Athanasius On the Incarnation

“‘Realistic’ books are generally written from one or both of two very vile motives; the more pardonable is an ugly itch to excite our appetites, the much less pardonable is an ugly itch to depress our spirits.”

G.K. Chesterton in Daily News April 27, 1912, quoted in “The Ugly” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #1 (September-October 2024)

“This growth of arbitrary government in our country is a very real thing. The power of the Censor is a strong example of it, but not necessarily even the strongest. Judicial equity has become more and more a question of the judge and less and less a question of the statute. The very phrase ‘judge-made law’ either means nothing or it means personal despotism. If anyone said ‘King-made law’ we should start. The very importance of the legal mind is an instance; for lawyers necessarily thrive upon the absence of law.”

G.K. Chesterton quoted, without further attribution, in “News with Views” (“compiled by Mark Pilon”) in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 28 #1 (September-October 2024)

“SORRY ABOUT THE TRAFFIC / I HAVE TO GO TO WORK TO GET ON VIDEO CALLS”

Bumper sticker on car in front of me November 21, 2024

In my latest Loonie Politics column I lampoon the Procurement Ombud boast that in seeking value for money the Canadian government no longer seeks value for money… and add that it couldn’t if it tried. And while I’m at it I ridicule “Ombud” as a job title.

In my latest Epoch Times column I call it the height of mendacious hypocrisy, not to mention fatal to national self-confidence, for Canadian elites to keep insisting that the country is on stolen land they have no intention of giving back.

In an appearance with Ezra Levant on Rebel News I say the real tragedy of Canada’s new federal cabinet isn’t who the PM picked, it’s how little it matters.