Liberal Majority Incoming?

 

The latest Canadian polls show the Liberals leading, and perhaps on the road to a majority government. A spectacular turnaround over just a couple of months, reversing a historic Tory lead of 20 points. 

I for one, did not see this coming. I did not think replacing Justin Trudeau would do much for the Liberals.

But that was before Trump’s tariffs. This is a dramatic “rally round the flag” effect.

It is also due to a collapse of the NDP vote, and to some extent the Bloc vote, not the Conservative vote. It is the NDPers who are rallying to the Liberals.

As with the Kamala mirage last summer in the US, I don’t think this Liberal surge will last. It is based on hype of Mark Carney as the man on a white horse, to voters who do not yet know him.

His popularity is bound to deflate. The party brains have oversold him. Bad command of the narrative.

I have heard it said that, in court, the side that wins is the side that tells a better story. 

This is unnerving for anyone hoping for justice. But it is human nature. Most people live entirely in delusions.

And the same principle holds with the media and the news cycle. Reporters want to spin the best story; drama sells papers or clicks. The public will usually accept this and act accordingly.

The most exciting story for now is Carney and Carney’s rise— because the Conservative lead had been so large. But as soon as Carney is well-established, the obviously more interesting story will be Carney’s fall. Fads are like this—nobody can stand pink flamingos, because everybody bought them, and now they feel foolish.

We have seen this totter and possible fall already in an exaggerated reaction to his getting one word wrong in the French debate Monday evening. He said “avec” instead of “dans”!  “Carney disappoints!” “Carney cannot speak French!” “He is sure to lose to Blanchet and Poilievre in Quebec!”

We should expect more of this. Carney has a target on his back that looks like the CBC logo.

Add to this that Poilievre is a historically good campaigner. Carney, having spent his career as a bureaucrat, is bland and charisma-challenged. History tells us campaigns matter.

I’d put money down on Poilievre still. 

Living in Interesting Times

 

Fascist headquarters in Rome: Hope and Change

How you would have reacted had you been a German in the 1930s? As Hitler rose to power? Would you have been one of the good guys? Even at personal risk?

No need to wonder. We are in a comparable time. Have you even noticed? Will you be proud of your role when, one day, your grandchildren ask?

We have a much larger Holocaust, of the unborn. Seventy million a year and counting.

We have the moral relativism that backstopped the Nazis. As with the Nazis, we have decided that morality is purely cultural and subject to choice. All we think about now is power and the triumph of the will. If I say I’m a woman, I am a woman. You must submit.

We have learned to see one another as ethnicities, rather than fellow humans. As “whites,” or “indigenous,” or “people of colour,” or even as the “gay community.” We have embraced the concept of corporate ethnic guilt, of blood libel. Moreover, if morality is purely a matter of cultural convention, all other ethnicities are immoral. 

We have established the same close collusion between government and large corporations that defined Nazism as an economic system. Big businesses are increasingly protected from competition by regulation, their profits guaranteed. In return, they enforce government policies. They have become, in effect, an arm of government.

We have seen totalitarian measures and the suspension of liberties: in the Covid and vaccine crisis; in the draconian response to the trucker protest in Canada; in the crackdown on “hate speech” and “misinformation” online. Governments keep pushing this envelope.

We have seen the police and courts subverted to political ends, as enabled the rise of Hitler in the Weimar Republic. We see eager prosecution and severe penalties for those on one side of the political aisle, while overlooking or barely punishing offenses on the other side.

And we have seen the Reichstag fire, in the reaction to the January 6 riot. Trudeau tried it in Canada as well, claiming the Freedom Convoy was subversive and the product of “foreign influence.” 

We have also seen the antisemitism, expanding rapidly, increasing in intensity, since October 7th. Now it is even okay again to kill Jews. Hamas did, and everyone on the left supports Hamas. The Jews are always the canaries in the mine. They are the first targets when morality breaks down.

All that is yet missing is the Fuhrer principle, the impulse to hand dictatorial power to a supposed “genius,” bypassing conventions and established systems.

Those on the left are actually accusing Trump and Musk of this. They are calling them Fascists or Nazis. 

Musk’s concentration of powers of all kinds has to be worrying, on Lord Acton’s principle that all power corrupts. And Trump is not good on keeping to social conventions.

But there is a critical element of Nazi leadership that they lack. The Fascist dictator is a narcissist, not a real genius. He only plays one in his own mind, and seeks to impose that illusion on others. This is why he seeks power. You expect him therefore to emerge from nowhere, without significant prior accomplishments. Like AOC, Bernie Sanders, Jacinta Ardern, or Justin Trudeau. Like Muammar Ghaddafi, or Stalin, or Saddam, or Putin.

Trump and Musk are, instead, actual known geniuses. They had achieved distinction before entering politics. 

It takes strong leaders, after all, to combat Nazism: a Churchill, a DeGaulle, a Tito.

And so the course for good men is clear.

What will you tell your grandchildren? Assuming they have not been aborted?

Stop the Carney-val

 

Mark Carney

The polls in Canada are suddenly tightening. This is not because Conservative support has waned; it has held pretty steady. The big factor is a collapse of the NDP vote, and all of it going to the Liberals.

This is not strategic voting to keep the Conservatives out of power. That was as much of an issue two months ago.

I think it is because, now that Trudeau is gone, it is the NDP the voters want to punish for Trudeau. 

The NDP supported him voluntarily until the very end.

They do not blame the Liberals, at least yet, because Trudeau made that party so much about him. Now that he is gone, the voters see it as a new party under Carney. This is especially true because Trudeau’s own caucus revolted against him, and his chief lieutenant in cabinet. The general public can see them as his hostages, and sympathize.

I do not think the current Liberal support will hold up for long. To my eye, Carney has “beta” written all over him. He is a career bureaucrat. One is rarely challenged in any way in the government bureaucracy. It’s about blandness and staying inconspicuous and unimpressive. He is unlikely to blossom outside that hothouse. He is unlikely to be talented.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul Reparations

 

Sunny Hostin: Black Like Me?

Sunny Hostin, who has loudly called for reparations for slavery, discovered on air that her ancestors were Spanish slaveowners. 

So were those of Kamala Harris in Jamaica.

This illustrates the illogic of reparations. The likelihood is that most “African-Americans” are ethnically mixed, and descended from slaveowners as well as from slaves. It is not likely, after all, given human nature, that slaveowners back then denied themselves sex with female slaves. 

By contrast, few living “white” Americans will have descended from slaveowners. Most probably trace their ancestry through Ellis Island in more recent years. Even most who don’t will have ancestors who lived in the non-slave North, with four times the population at the time. Their ancestors fought to end slavery. And even those whose ancestors came to the US South, will probably bear no blood guilt. Only 1.4 percent of the white American population owned slaves.

All those Scots-Irish rednecks and hillbillies, the stereotypical white Southerner? Their own ancestors were probably slaves, at least temporary slaves, brought over, often against their will, as indentured servants. That was the common fate for Irish, Scottish, or Acadians (Cajuns).

So “African-Americans” are more likely to be descended from slaveholders than “white” Americans.

Who should pay reparations to whom?

The concept is nonsensical, obviously unjust, and patently ahistorical.

The Empire Strikes Back: Dhalla Disqualified

 

Ruby Dhalla has been disqualified from the Liberal leadership race. We are not being shown the details, but this looks illegitimate. Only $22k is questioned; a trifling amount in the scheme of things. According to Dhalla, this is just a case of six couples who shared credit cards, so that both husband and wife made contributions—legitimately. According to the party brass, there is something about a foreign national being involved. It might be hard for a campaign to screen for such things.

It smells bad to me that the party declared ten “very serious” breaches of campaign rules. That sounds like the lady protesting too much, without details.

It is also suspicious that this disqualification came three days before the scheduled leadership debate. It looks like the backroom feared having Mark Carney face Dhalla before the cameras.

She was not likely to overtake Carney, but she was likely to tarnish his image, and embarrass him and the party establishment with her level of support.

It seems obvious that Carney has been chosen by the invisible power brokers, and the public vote is just for show.

Indeed, Carney must be much weaker than we have so far seen, for the party to take this step. It looks like a public relations disaster. As Dhalla has been quick to point out, they are excluding a minority woman. Worse, it is the second candidate of South Asian background that they have disqualified. And this after scandals involving other minority women being supposedly mistreated: Jody Wilson Raybould, Celina Caesar-Chavannes. And the party is risking alienating and infuriating Dhalla supporters; she is charismatic and has been getting a lot of interest. Hearts will be broken.

They must have been desperate to take this risk. They must have felt the public relations disaster would be worse were Dhalla allowed to debate Carney, and her support were revealed. Even if the Dhalla campaign had genuinely been cheating at this level, it would have been wiser otherwise to overlook it.

Should we be surprised or alarmed? The Conservative race that selected Erin O’Toole was also a sham, intended ironically to coronate Peter MacKay, with O’Toole running as controlled “True Blue” opposition. Jim Karahalios was disqualified, despite showing much early support. MacKay was given privileged access to party information. A series of strong candidates all dropped out within a week or two of one another: Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest, Rhona Ambrose. The word was out and the fix was in.

It went awry when O’Toole ended up winning; but not too far awry. He was a good soldier, and implemented the establishment platform, in defiance of his own voting base.

The last three Democratic Party presidential races were also obviously manipulated, to force the nominations of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris respectively. With deals cut, caucus counts cooked, sudden withdrawals, and Bernie Sanders being in the end obedient controlled opposition.

This is all undemocratic; but nothing new. Candidates always used to be chosen primarily in the backrooms, with a few primaries in the US system, and nobody really thought there should be a general vote. In the Canadian parliamentary system, party leaders were chosen by vote of the caucus in the House, not the general party membership. Democracy came later. If you did not like the candidate offered, you voted for the other party.

The problem comes, of course, if there are only two viable parties, and both parties are controlled by the same small cabal. As seems generally to be the case.

In the US, the idea of opening it all up to a general vote came mostly after the campaign of 1968, when Humphrey was chosen by the Democrats without running in any primaries. There was violence in the streets, and of course the Democrats lost the subsequent election. So the Democrats overhauled and democratized their process, and other parties in other countries have followed suit.

The party establishments have been challenged often by insurgent candidates since. This tends to mess things up from the point of view of the career politicians. They have a brand to protect. In Dhalla’s case, she did not speak French; this could hurt their historic Quebec base. With her more centrist views, she might attract many new members to the party who would, in the end, not vote Liberal anyway. Conversely, they fear a radical candidate like Sanders, or McGovern in 1972, could attract majority support within the party, but alienate the majority of voters in a general election.

So of course the politicos have rigged the process. 

Trump slipped through the net. In Britain, Jeremy Corbin slipped through the net. Liz Truss slipped through the net, but they responded quickly.

And candidates really can cheat, and then the party must have recourse and referees. Patrick Brown took the Ontario Conservative leadership under suspicious circumstances, without real popular support, and looked as though he has using the same tactics in the 2022 federal leadership race. There has been foreign interference in nomination meetings.

I cannot therefore get too upset over Ruby Dhalla being disqualified. Perhaps it would be best just to keep it honest by having the caucus choose the leader, as originally envisioned. Or, in the US, having each state send unpledged delegates to brokered conventions. All systems are imperfect; politics is always about making the best of it.

A Book List

 

The first step to rescue our civilization is to fix the education system. And, as Lord of the Flies suggests, the essence of civilization is literature. After or along with the basic skills, reading, writing, and arithmetic, our schools need to teach the classics. This is the furniture of the mind.

And a sure sign of the decline of our civilization is that the canon is not taught any more, often  suppressed.

Here is my own essential reading list for saving civilization. Nothing just for entertainment, nothing that is just excellent writing, nothing extra, nothing unnecessarily verbose. These are the books that convey the great ideas, that form a healthy world view and summarize the civilizational discourse. Listed roughly by appropriate age, young to old.

Fables (Aesop)

Cinderella (Perrault)

Snow White (Grimm)

Sleeping Beauty (Perrault)

Rapunzel (Grimm)

The Princess and the Pea (Andersen)

The Emperor’s New Clothes (Andersen)

The Ugly Duckling (Andersen)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)

Through the Looking Glass (Carroll)

The Odyssey (Homer; in modern translation)

Genesis

Exodus

The Gospel according to Matthew

The Gospel according to Luke

The Nicene Creed

Anne of Green Gables (for Canadian students); Little House on the Prairie (for the USA)

“In the Country of the Blind” (H.G. Wells)

The Declaration of Independence

Animal Farm (Orwell)

Metamorphosis (Kafka)

Lord of the Flies (Golding)

1984 (Orwell)

Heart of Darkness (Conrad)

MacBeth (Shakespeare)

King Lear (Shakespeare)

The Tempest (Shakespeare)

Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)

Meditations (Descartes)

Plato’s Cave

At least, this is the advice of an old guy who has read a lot. Consider this list if you are homeschooling.

Lead Us Not into Temptation

 

I hear Pope Francis has changed the words to the Lord’s Prayer in the Italian mass. “Lead us not into temptation” is now, in English translation, “do not abandon us to temptation.”

Francis has spoken of this before. I recall him saying years ago that “lead us not into temptation” is a bad translation. God, after all, would never lead us into temptation.

But it is not a bad translation. The words in the original coine Greek, and in the Latin of the Vulgate, do translate to English as “lead us not,” and cannot be made to mean “do not abandon us.”

And this wording is given us by Jesus himself. Francis is presuming to correct Jesus. If that is permissible, what is forbidden? Is self-will  and our own judgement sovereign in the universe?

I also think Francis is theologically wrong. Although it is a mystery, some of us clearly are led into temptation, in a way others are not. This has to be God’s will, since God is all-powerful. God tempts us. 

He tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He need not have created that particular tree, of forbidden fruits. He need not have given them free will. He need not have allowed the serpent. It was a setup.

Some of us are patently tempted to have homosexual sex; some are not. Some are tempted by alcohol, or gambling; others are not. Say this is from the Devil, and not God; nevertheless, the Book of Job tells us, God gives permission. If he does not tempt us himself, he leads us into temptation. As with Job, he is testing us.

When I was a kid in Catholic school, I understood the prayer well enough. I feared martyrdom, the temptation to renounce the faith in the face of torture and death. Some are put to that test. I did not want that temptation. 

And that, of course, is the temptation Jesus himself faced. 

Please make it easy for me if you can, Lord. Take this cup from my lips, if it is acceptable to your will.

And consider this. If the meaning is “do not abandon us to temptation,” this asserts that, at the moment of temptation, God abandons us. 

This thought is nightmarish. And it implies that, if tempted, one cannot, need not, resist.

Lord of the Flies

 

Back when I was going through high school, Lord of the Flies was a staple of the curriculum. It seems it still is, at least where it has not been replaced by the latest indigenous author. But I think the book is widely misunderstood.

It is commonly contrasted with Catcher in the Rye. The premise is that Catcher sees mankind as intrinsically good, but corrupted by adult society; the view of Rousseau and Marxism. Lord of the Flies sees man as intrinsically evil, but civilized by adult society. Supposedly the traditional “conservative” view.

One can see why educational authorities would therefore like the book, and this interpretation of it. It validates their authority. Even if they are Marxists, they are going to see themselves as the “vanguard of the proletariat.”

Yet neither view is coherent. If man is intrinsically good, how could they become evil when in groups? Where does evil get in? How can individuals not be greedy, yet corporations and governments are? 

Conversely, if man is intrinsically evil, how can people become good simply by joining in groups? Or by getting older, growing up? And as this obviously makes no sense, how does he ever become good?

Lord of the Flies expressly denies that society or government civilizes. There is a nuclear war going on; that is the context for the book. The strife among the abandoned boys only echoes what is happening in the adult world of governments. Ralph’s parents are divorced. Piggy’s mother is unaccounted for. 

The conch, symbol of authority on the island, is also the source of all the troubles. It is almost like the apple in Eden. If disorder and “fun” is deadly, social order in turn, seems inevitably bound in with the quest for power over others. Neither Ralph nor Piggy are immune from this; they both crave superiority and power over others, just as Jack and Roger do. The best organized and disciplined group on the island, the choir, becomes the most troublesome. The boy chosen by adult society for leadership turns out to be the most power-hungry and irresponsible.

And the role of the choir seems also to discount organized religion as a possible source of morality. These are the boys who would have been most thoroughly grounded in the faith.

The one truly good, altruistic character is Simon. Simon is “batty.” Simon sees visions. Simon likes to go off on his own and meditate. Simon can apparently read minds, and has intimations of the future. 

Morality and truth must come to us, then, deus ex machina. Which is to say, from revelation, from grace. Some few among us are prophets, in contact with a spirit world. They occasionally come down from the mountaintop, emerge from the wilderness, to deliver important truths from beyond.

They are likely to be ignored or considered mad.

Where do we find such characters in our present world? 

We know of the prophets in the Bible; and no doubt the Bible is a civilizational source of guidance and morality. 

But also in the works of solitary artists. In books like Lord of the Flies.

This is what civilizes us; this is what brings us what goodness or truth we find in this fallen world. It is literature and culture that dulls the power of the carrion impulses, the Lord of the Flies.

Where Bad Poetry Comes From

 

Wordsworth

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, I attended a poetry group. Each meeting, we decided on a theme for the next meeting. 

This one week, someone suggested “memories.”

And met with immediate objections.

I would not expect that. Poetry itself, after all, is all about memory. Memory is the medium of poetry, as text is for prose, or the human voice for drama. “It takes its origin,” Wordsworth said, “from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

But the immediate objection was that memories were “triggering.” They could cause “trauma.”

Another participant chimed in that he had no memories, and so could not participate. He had, he said, a form of amnesia called “anaphasia.” This was due, he explained, to a terrible childhood.

Another participant said that she could not discuss Dylan’s lyrics as poetry, because her abusive former husband used to play Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” when threatening to leave her.

This does not add up. The essential concept of psychotherapy has always been that reliving memories of trauma is healing. “Memory” is the essence of the Buddhist practice commonly referred to in English as “mindfulness.” It heals the soul. Poetry is the medicine that heals old wounds. 

I took the trouble to look up “anaphasia,” and find there is no such form of amnesia. I find the term online only in “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,” meaning “the fear that your society is breaking apart into factions that have nothing left in common with each other.” He might have misspoken, and meant aphasia, the nearest medical term. But this is “a comprehension and communication (reading, speaking, or writing) disorder resulting from damage or injury to the specific area in the brain.” Nothing to do with memory.

And the Dylan story doesn’t make too much sense either. An abusive partner is not someone threatening to leave. An abusive partner wants control of the other, wants to nail the door shut, to ensure they do not leave. If an abusive partner leaves, the victim should rejoice—especially in memory.

Nor is there anything abusive in the tone of the song: “I ain’t saying you treated me unkind. You could have done better, but I don’t mind.” A rather gentle way to say goodbye to a lover, on the whole.

The next oddment is that anyone afraid of their own memories would take to writing poetry as a hobby in the first place. Poetry is intrinsically involved with memory, as Wordsworth says. And in the case of these poets, their own poems are most often talking about their personal past—memories. 

How does this make sense?

I imagine that recalling memories, although cathartic and healing, may be scary in prospect. 

But methinks these reactions are beyond the reasonable. Methinks they do protest too much. 

Who is most likely to be afraid of their memories?

Not be the abused, but the abuser. In the typical dysfunctional family, everyone else but the abuser is proverbially “walking on eggshells,” avoiding any mention of “the elephant in the room.” Memory is dangerous when one has a bad conscience.

That seems just what we see here. Obviously, these poets are not afraid of what memories they might stir in their poems. They are in full control of that. They are afraid of what others might say. 

They are in desperate need to control their memories, to ensure that the “narrative” does not drift to something they are actually writing to repress. So they write poems as a fabricated narrative of their past.

They are fleeing a guilty conscience.

Good poetry is written to reveal truth, especially hidden truth. Bad poetry is written to conceal it.

What Is Success?

 

A friend in Japan is depressed because he never became a success.

What is success? I remember asking my Chinese students long ago, and none came up with what I considered a good answer.

Making more money than those around you? That hardly seems worth a life. As Steve Jobs put it, “I’m not interested in just dying the richest man in the cemetery.”

Worse than that, studies show that having more money than those whose company you enjoy leads to unhappiness. And this makes obvious sense: they may envy you. Conversely, they may only be flattering you in hopes of largesse. You can never know, and can never feel secure in their company.

Becoming famous? Anyone famous tells you that’s a nightmare. You have no privacy, and other people stop seeing you as a human being. You can’t make friends. You can’t even take a stroll to the corner store.

Having lots of sex? That’s emotionally deadening.

This was the Gospel reading yesterday:

‘And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”’

To be clear, being rich is not a sin. Too many want to jump to that conclusion, out of envy. But it is a misfortunate. It is not something you should seek. It will make it more difficult for you to enter heaven. Like a camel passing through a needle’s eye.

This passage also means that we will be rewarded in heaven not just for good deeds, but also for any and all suffering we experience in this life. And our reward will be exponentially greater than the suffering.  God sends us suffering as a special grace; he has an important role for us in heaven.

So a success is someone who is poor, hungry, sad, and generally reviled.

I figure by that measure I’m a great success.

We’re not supposed to just sit around feeling sorry, though. Otherwise, what’s the point of being born? Jesus goes on, in the other version of the Beatitudes, in Matthew:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

So true success, beyond avoiding sin and cultivating virtue, is letting your light shine. 

Not just doing good deeds. "Good works" cannot be read here in this way. Jesus goes on immediately to say, 

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

But bringing light is bringing truth and beauty to those around you. To your wife, to your kids, to your friends, and beyond that to your community and the world, as your talents allow.

And artists know one monumental secret: beauty comes from suffering. 

God sends us suffering that we may transform it into beauty and truth. He has chosen us, as he chose the Jews.

The Ordo Amoris

 

There is a firestorm raging in the Catholic church on Trump’s policy of deporting illegal aliens. J.D. Vance cited the principle of ordo amoris: that one owes one’s greatest love to family, then community, then country, then mankind. This is indeed, as many conservative commentators have confirmed, traditional Catholic doctrine, supported by Augustine, Aquinas, several recent former popes, and even Pope Francis himself, in his past writings. Vance argued that modern leftism has turned this on its head, elevating the alien, demeaning the family, and condemning the USA. Pope Francis himself then chimed in, insisting Vance and Trump are wrong, that we must love all equally. An American bishop has proposed excommunicating any Catholic who follows Trump’s orders in deporting aliens.

I am personally torn here. Who is right? Before listening to J.D. Vance, I would have taken Francis’s view. However, I am disturbed by the fact that Francis is contradicting himself and prior popes. This suggests that for him, politics is trumping doctrine—and ethics.

We owe greatest love to family? But then, who is our family? See what Jesus says in the Gospel:

And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven, that person is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46–50)

We owe greater love to those of our own community? But then the Good Samaritan, from a different community, is declared by Jesus to be the true neighbour, and not the Hebrew priest or scribe.

True love, caritas, is a love extended to all. Love restricted to family, or to nation, is too often only shared egotism. Once could cite Hitler’s Germany.

And yet, in defense of Trump and Vance’s position… anyone who has lived in or even visited a Third World country must realize that it is impossible to treat everyone equally. Give of your substance to all who are in need, and you would give away everything you have while doing almost no measurable good to anyone. Seven billion pennies. The poor you shall have always with you.

And, of course, your own children would starve. Does that sound right?

The principle must be this: you help whomever God sends to you, whomever you encounter on your life path, who is deserving, who does the will of God. The Samaritan is your neighbour, because he is good. “Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven.” This is also the lesson of Dives and Lazarus: Lazarus is a good man, and he is on the rich man’s doorstep, within his sight. 

This will usually mean a duty to help deserving members of your family, then your community, then your nation. But not because they are family members or physical neighbours. Because these are the ones God has presented to you for help. This also means you must support a deserving stranger before an immoral member of your family or your community.

How does this translate to government immigration policy? A government has their own population most immediately on their doorstep, literally already present. This means they must be favoured over foreigners, all else being equal. Moreover, the government owes a greater loyalty to the law abiding than to people of known bad moral character, i.e., those who enter the country illegally.

So whether or not he has the reasoning right, Vance is right on policy, and Francis is wrong. Illegal aliens are owed human dignity, but not entry.

It is harder to say how this applies to applicants for legal immigration. Those of good character should be preferred, but other than excluding known criminals, this is hard to establish. And a wealthy nation must restrict immigration in some way; otherwise you have the problem of giving away everything while benefitting no one. So the sensible thing is to choose immigrants for the most benefit brought to those already present. Which is how most nations operate. What skills are in short supply? Who is young and healthy and likely to add by their efforts to the general wealth?

Francis messed up. He is first and foremost a politician.

Happy Valentine's Day from Canada

 

Mark Carney

The mood everywhere on the left seems to verge on hysteria. Or perhaps this is “narcissistic rage.”

People are claiming that Trump’s tariffs and proposed unification are “an existential threat to Canada.” Those who welcome annexation are supposedly against Canada. Some point out that these are often the same people who supported the Freedom convoy, and claimed to be defending Candain culture against mass immigration. But they were traitors all along!

If the proposal to unite with the US is an existential threat to Canada, New Brunswick must have ceased to exist in 1867; British Columbia died in 1871. And all those blackguards we call Fathers of Confederation were traitors.

To the contrary: unification when possible with a larger body is the essence of Canada, beginning with union with the now dissolved British Empire. It is why Canada has always been a joiner when it comes to international bodies of all kinds.

And next to that, according to Laurier, the essence of Canada is freedom: “Canada is free, and freedom is its nationality.” If, therefore, Canadians preserve freedom in union with neighbours—or even increase their freedom—this is the perfect expression of the Canadian identity.

If one’s “Canadianness” consists only in not being American, this is not a nationality. It is merely a prejudice. In all the normal senses of the word, Canadian culture is American culture. Same language, same religion, same ethnicity, same political ideology, same history. If you reject American culture, you are rejecting Canadian culture. You are the one who is unpatriotic.

If Trump is an existential threat to Canada, moreover, then a man is an existential threat to a woman if he asks her to marry him. Were we not hysterical, we would at least be gracious, and appreciate the offer.

Instead, our embarrassing leadership, including Mark Carney, respond with threats and insults. These seem calculated to harm, first and foremost, Canada. They cannot seriously harm Trump or the US. At best, they are hysteria. At worst, they are treason.

Trump's Grand Strategy

 

A map of the contiguous 55 states.

Trump’s foreign policy moves—wanting to annex Greenland, wanting to annex Canada, wanting the Panama Canal returned, wanting to take Gaza—might seem random outbursts, back of the envelope ideas. But they all make sense on one strategic principle.

Trump is preparing for war with China or perhaps a China-Russia coalition. He is not inclined to be caught flat-footed, as Britain was in 1939.

This is just as well, since China seems to be preparing for war, and Russia has already started.

Trump needs Greenland as a source of rare earth minerals, necessary for chip production. China has the other great cache of rare earth, and the US as well as the rest of the world is currently reliant on them. Doom in case of war.

Denmark is just not big or strong enough to protect Greenland and its sea lanes if China or Russia struck first. Perhaps the US could take it back, but that’s a much more difficult proposition than defending it well in the first place. And taking it back is not enough. Mines must be developed and a supply chain set up in advance of conflict. Otherwise American will not be able to make the weapons needed to take it back.

The same applies to Canada’s North. It too is rich in minerals, including strategic oil and uranium. Like Denmark, Canada is not strong enough to defend this vast territory. And on top of oil and minerals, the Northwest Passage may soon become more navigable—if not due to global warming, due to improved icebreaking technology. This could then become a critical supply route for both the US East Coast and Europe—a shorter route than the Panama Canal. But a route vulnerable to Russia nearby.

Supply routes become critical in time of war. Britain defeated Germany in both past wars largely due to blockade; while Germany’s best hope was cutting off the North Atlantic convoy with their U-boats. Britain always pursued a similar strategy of owning the choke points for trade: Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore, Quebec, Aden, the Cape of Good Hope. America cannot rely any longer, as it once could, on a strong Britain to keep trade routes open.

And so too the importance of the Panama Canal. The US needs to hold that choke point, and keep it away from China. Panama cannot defend it. It connects the American East and West coasts.

And now look at Gaza. Note how close it is to the Suez Canal. A US military base in Gaza is at least in easy striking distance—across good flat tank terrain, let alone in bomber range. The US does not need Suez for its trade—but Europe does. Thus Trump should want to control it, both to protect Europe and, if necessary, to keep Europe in line.

This is also why Trump has just declared 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. These are strategic materials, needed for tanks, artillery, airplanes, ships, shells. America cannot import their steel from China, fostering that industry, while their own withers. And it is better not to rely on vulnerable and not entirely reliable Canada either—unless Canada joins the union, with the US armed forces to build and maintain strong defenses.

Canada not entirely reliable? No; Justin Trudeau has demonstrated that to the Americans. Canada can elect governments with Chinese and totalitarian sympathies; and Americans remember Cuba. Canada has proven vulnerable to Chinese and Indian espionage and influence over its electoral process. Canda is letting in a lot of immigrants who may not be democratic or pro-Western in their allegiances.

I used to be a firm believer in free trade. But its advantages are gone in case of war. America’s great advantage has always been its massive industrial production and self-sufficiency, protected behind oceans from sudden attack. It could always win a long war. Trump must restore that massive industrial production and security of resources to make America safe again. 

Once we see the strategy, we can perhaps predict Trump’s future moves. One can expect him to act quickly and decisively to bring chip production onshore from Taiwan and Indonesia. Expect big tariffs here. I would not be surprised if he offered Denmark statehood, during Greenland negotiations, in order to control the entrance to the Baltic Sea.

Other ideas are welcome in the comments.

The Liberal Resurrection

 

Mark Carney

I fear Trump has put a stick in the spokes of the Poilievre bandwagon. Bad news for Canada. 

Six months ago, I thought the future looked sunnier for Canada than for the US. We had a strong opposition leader in Poilievre, and our system looked capable of managing the impending populist revolution in an orderly fashion. Things looked darker in the US, with lawfare, riots, and assassination attempts. It seemed that civil war or revolution in the streets might break out.

Now the situation seems reversed. Trump is upstaging Poilievre. The radicalism of his program makes Poilievre look less exciting by comparison, and more like controlled opposition. Enthusiasm flags.

Without a truly radical option to vote for, the choice between Poilievre and (presumably) Carney now devolves to who looks more competent to manage. And Carney’s resume beats Poilievre, whose expertise and experience is limited to parliament and politics.

Poilievre has always been good at sticking to one message, as one should on rhetorical principles. “Axe the tax.” His calculation was that the Liberals could not abandon this central plank of their platform. But his attack has been so successful that they, Carney and Freeland and Dhalla, actually have. And now the carbon tax looks incidental in comparison to the threat of tariffs and annexation.

And the Liberals can now run against a foreign adversary instead of Poilievre, and benefit from a “rally round the flag” effect. If he says anything against the current government, or dissents in any way from their proposed program, Poilievre can be accused of disloyalty in the face of the enemy. Is he on Trump’s side? But if he agrees with everything they are doing, and Carney has a reputation for competence, why switch leaders?

The best hope now is that Carney will stumble or blunder in such a way as to look incompetent. Not impossible; but also not to be expected.

If Carney does manage to pull things out for the Liberals, I think this will hasten the dissolution of Canada. Trump will have won. Alberta will opt for independence and join the Union, in frustration. Others will follow. Poilievre is Canada’s only chance of staying united and independent.

The Roots of Racism and Prejudice

 

The sinister Christian women of the Deep South

In a recent poetry group, one participant composed a poem ending with a wish that “deep South evangelicals” would “pray for forgiveness for their myriad sins and continual hypocrisy.”

I felt obliged to send her a private note pointing out that this is hate speech. Something published, outside private conversation, that could promote hatred of an identifiable group. Would it sound all right if it read:

“I hope the Jews will pray for forgiveness for their myriad sins and continual hypocrisy.”?

“I hope the Muslims will pray for forgiveness for their myriad sins and continual hypocrisy.”

Or substitute Buddhists, or Hindus, or followers of “aboriginal spirituality.” 

It would be acceptable, true, if written by an evangelical from the Deep South about evangelicals from the Deep South; Christians are good at accusing themselves. But this poet was a Canadian secularist.

I warned her she could conceivably get herself in legal trouble here. And it is worth remembering that anything you put out on the Internet is forever. The political climate can change, and things that are socially acceptable now may not be in the future. What you say now can and may be used against you. 

It is unfortunately currently socially acceptable in Canada to express hatred towards Americans, people from the “Deep South,” and evangelical Christians. She managed to hit all three. That does not make it right. It was similarly socially acceptable to hate Jews in Hitler’s Germany.

Not that I believe there should be “hate laws”; but hate speech is nevertheless an ill thing.

This was her response:

“Yes, I'm aware, and I specifically said "deep south" and not all Evangelicals. And since the re-election of the felon, I am so angry that I don't even care what people think about that. The religious right in the deep south have been planning Project2025 for years, just waiting for the right guy to help them achieve it. Transactional Trump gave them what they wanted, including on SCOTUS, in exchange for votes - and now many millions are and will suffer because of it: the LGBTQ, women in general, pregnant women with complications and will die (and already have), legal immigrants to the US - yes, I've read from credible sources that even legalized citizens from South America have been getting their papers ripped up and they're carted out of the country like criminals ... by the biggest crooks are in the WH, who released the Capital Hill criminals who killed police officers and security personnel - here he is, carting out Venezuelens, many of whom are hard-working, tax-paying folks who lived in the US for many years. 

“I could go on, but I won't. … I appreciate your advice. I am just too mad right now to be sorry about my activist poetry. 

“So, yes, although I have always been against hate speech, I find myself hating the religious right of the US south. But my poem pales in comparison to much that comes out of the felon's mouth.”

Let’s take a closer look.

To begin with, this, surely, is a perfect example of just what she accused the evangelicals of: hypocrisy. She is opposed to “hate speech,” but she has a right to it, because she is angry. Assuming she also shares the view on the left that hurting someone’s feelings is a serious crime, here she nevertheless reserves the right to herself to say what she likes, and “not even care what people think about that.”

She thinks her criticisms are fair, because she said “Deep South,” not all evangelicals. Yet “Deep South evangelicals” is just as much an identifiable group as “evangelicals.” I wonder if she actually has no concept of individuality or individual responsibility. So she has no concept of why racism or prejudice is wrong. This seems possible on the modern left.

“The religious right in the deep south have been planning Project2025 for years.”

Project 2025 itself claims it is a “broad coalition of over 100 conservative organizations.” Not just the “religious right,” then. Its primary sponsor is the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. Not the Deep South. Of course, they might be lying. These could all be front organizations. We could get into conspiracy theories here.

“Transactional Trump gave them what they wanted.” 

It is not clear whether Trump is influenced by the proposals of Project 2025. He says he is not. On the one hand, why wouldn’t he be? He’s a conservative, and the Heritage Foundation is a leading conservative think tank. Think tanks exist to give policy advice. On the other hand, conservative policies are conservative policies; it also seems reasonable to assume that Trump’s policies would be about the same whether or not Project 2025 existed.

Our correspondent must next explain why there is something wrong with the concerns of the religious right, and why there is something wrong with the policies proposed by Project 2025.

She proceeds:

“Including on SCOTUS.” So she is referring to Trump’s appointment of “originalist” justices to the Supreme Court.

Originalism means you interpret the text of the constitution in light of what the framers must have intended, based on historical knowledge.

This applies to abortion, for example: since abortion was medically possible when the Constitution was written and adopted, and was illegal, and such matters were reserved to the states, it seems unreasonable to assume they intended to make abortion a human right. Therefore, no more Roe v. Wade.

She objects to originalism because it leads to a conclusion she does not like.

Here’s a logical problem: our correspondent laments that Trump appointed these judges “in exchange for votes.” First, doing things for votes is more or less what happens in a democracy; so what’s the objection? Other than that the vote went against her own desires. Which must supersede both the popular will and the constitution?

One begins to suspect that narcissism is the key to the modern left.

Second, “Deep South evangelicals” are a relatively small proportion of voters. Many other groups must have consented. Including large numbers of women, an absolute majority of the population. Why not blame women?

There must be some other special reason to hate “Deep South evangelicals.”

“The LGBTQ” will suffer from “it.” 

It is not clear what “it” is—the Supreme Court or Project 2025 or Trump. She does not specify how LGBTQs will suffer. And I would question whether there is any such group.  L’s have no particular interests in common with T’s, for example, and are commonly at loggerheads over washroom use. G’s worry that the current T push is castrating G’s. Many refuse to identify themselves with their sexual preferences or as “LGBTQ.”

Without elaboration, I cannot reasonably guess what she’s on about.

“Women in general” will suffer.

Again the impending oppression is unarticulated. But as noted, women form a majority of voters, and have the power to save themselves if this is so awful. 46% of them, according to exit polls, voted for Trump.

“pregnant women with complications … will die (and already have).”

She does not specify how this will happen. Presumably because states are now free to pass laws that make it illegal to treat women who have ectopic pregnancies and the like. 

This claim appears to be true. I used Grok to check, presumably not a left-wing source. Some women in Texas have been refused treatment by doctors afraid of possible legal liability; some have died. Maternal death rates have apparently risen in states with restrictive abortion laws.

This is alarming. But it is also obviously not the intent of such laws. Presumably it can be addressed by redrafting the laws, and educating doctors as to their legal responsibilities. 

You might be able to put some blame here on overzealous evangelicals in the “Deep South” who pressed for such laws, too hastily drafted. I’d be more inclined to blame the legislators and the doctors.

“…legal immigrants to the US - yes, I've read from credible sources that even legalized citizens from South America have been getting their papers ripped up and they're carted out of the country like criminals.”

Grok, which synthesizes all net sources, says this has never happened. Some US citizens have been mistakenly detained, until their citizenship was established. None have been deported.

Trump “released the Capital Hill criminals who killed police officers and security personnel.”

Grok confirms that no police or security personnel were killed at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. This is a commonly repeated falsehood on the left.

“Here he [Trump] is, carting out Venezuelens, many of whom are hard-working, tax-paying folks who lived in the US for many years.”

No doubt there are Venezuelans in the US who are illegal immigrants, have been here for many years, have paid taxes, and are being or will be deported. However, they are still criminals; they are in the US illegally. Paying taxes does not permit or waive punishment for crime.

“My poem pales in comparison to much that comes out of the felon's mouth.”

She gives no examples. To say that some Mexicans are rapists, or that some Haitians eat cats or dogs, or that Covid came from China, is not hate speech. These are simple statements of fact, even if erroneous, and provable. 

So can we understand from all this where the hate is from? Given its incoherence, I think the real key must be something left unspoken: I say it is a hatred of Christians. Everything else is constructed to justify it. This springs from the same font as the eternal hatred of Jews: because either represents the morality as divine mandate, and so is anathema to a guilty conscience.

Scapegoating always follows this pattern. 

Trump's Gaza Idea

 

Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza, remove all the Palestinians, and develop it as a “Middle Eastern Riviera” is astonishing.

Unfortunately, this looks like ethnic cleansing. It seems to me that it is, by common definition, and therefore a “crime against humanity.”

On the other hand, it also looks like the only way to achieve peace in the area. Supposedly 80% of Gazans support Hamas. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and vows eternal war. “From the river to the sea.” So long as there is this hostile population right next to Israeli settlements, like a knife alongside Israel’s throat, war and atrocities and bombings and civilian deaths will continue.

Separating the parties looks like the only way; just as, when you find two dogs fighting in the alley, you pull them apart.

There is too little land in either Gaza or Israel for a buffer zone; especially with both sides possessing rockets.

In any real world, there is no place to move the 9 million people of Israel. Put the Jewish state anywhere else, and you have all the same tensions as here.

On the other hand, the 1.7 million Gazans are culturally identical with a dozen countries nearby. Same language, same religion; historically one country, up until 1917, with continuing dreams of reunification. They are just one small neighbourhood in a vast Arab and Muslim world.

Is moving the Gazan Arabs substantially and ethically different from expropriating for a new shopping centre?

Is moving the Gazan Arabs substantially and ethically different from the Israeli government requiring Jews to move out of Gaza some years ago, in an earlier attempt to separate the two sides?

By itself, Israel had no way to move the Arabs. Israel had little land, Israel is just Israel, with no other place to put them.

But the US may have the wasta to use with some nearby nation. Most obviously, Egypt: Egypt owned the Gaza strip up until 1967, and so up to then accepted the Gazan Arabs as Egyptian citizens. Egypt gets especially large sums in foreign aid from the US. It should be easy for Trump to buy Egyptian compliance. With some investment in desalinization, it should be possible to make some part of the Egyptian desert bloom, as has been done in Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Presto: a nice new home for the Gazans.

At the same time, why does it make sense for the US to take ownership of Gaza?

So that the enterprise can be self-financing. The US pays for relocating the Gazans, and for building a tourism infrastructure; but it is an investment. The place has tourism potential. The US makes the money back in taxes on the revenue. Never mind a Middle Eastern Riviera. It can be a Middle Eastern Monte Carlo. There is a lot of money in the nearby Persian Gulf. Beirut used to profit from such tourism: a place where Muslims could indulge in many pleasures not available at home. Why not Gaza, with its beaches?

Secondly, the US gets an inalienable military base in a strategic and unstable part of the world. Britain has done well with its bases in Cyprus.

Why does it make sense for Israel?

It removes the knife at their throat, which they cannot do for themselves, either as a practical matter or because of international disapproval.

Without owning the property, the Israelis stand to benefit as much as if they did. The people actually living and working and investing in the revamped Gaza strip and making the money from the new developments will inevitably mostly be Israelis.

And a permanent American presence is a further guarantee of Israeli security. Like the American troops permanently stationed in South Korea, Gaza becomes a “trip wire” in case of attempted invasion. If anyone attacks Israel henceforth, the US is almost automatically militarily engaged. It is a peacekeeping force.

And it makes sense for the Gazans, even if this is the hard sell. Reputedly polls even before the present conflict showed at least 44% of young Gazans sought to emigrate. They have been artificially sealed off in this narrow strip by the closing of the Egyptian border, and the refusal of other Arab lands to take them.

It really looks like a win-win-win situation.

This is what happens when you elect an entrepreneur as president. Business is all about spotting such opportunities.

I think we need to change international law.

The Rise of Antisemitism

 Simon Sebag Montefiore:

"To call October 7 a wake-up call is an understatement. People that we trusted—professors, journalists, charity workers—suddenly started celebrating the killing of civilians, the murder of grandmothers, the rape of girls, and the stealing of people as an act of war. And that was a terrible moment. I think we all went through it, and it was astonishing. That day, I remember watching professors who were at Harvard and Yale and Princeton suddenly saying, This is just a wonderful act of resistance. And that was terrifying, wasn’t it?"

We live in a nightmare moment of history. Montefiore believes the period of peace between 1945 and 2023 was a historical anomaly; and we are about to go back to the business of mass murder. 

I fear he may be right.

However, there is a concurrent rise of renewed faith and vigour. It is not that the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. In fact, I see the passion of the worst flagging, and the best gaining confidence, in the various populist movements around the developed world.

Tariffs Postponed

 

The Trump tariffs on Canada and Mexico—and their counter-tariffs—have been averted for at least a month. But I am sickened now by the endless posts I see on X saying “Trump blinked,” or “Trudeau backed down,” “Trump got nothing,” “Trudeau bent the knee,” and on and on. It seems to me a display of pure human evil. These people want to dominate others. 

The proper understanding is that Trump and Trudeau have managed to reach a deal satisfactory to both. Thank God,l for both our countries.

We should not want to fight. We should not be so eager to turn on our friends.

Beauty, Eh?

 

I tried to explain recently to a friend who describes herself as “spiritual, but not religious,” and a “cafeteria Catholic,” why I take my Catholicism seriously.

I know where she is coming from. The speaker at a recent Life in the Spirit seminar argued that original sin is passed on through bad parenting. That is, we project our experience with our own parents onto God, and this makes us mistrust him. “Daddy issues.”

That seems to me spot on, and just what the Bible itself suggests. All the families in the Old Testament are dysfunctional, as if to make this point. The sins of the father are passed on to the sons unti the fourth generation.

In the immoral words of Philip Larkin:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
    They may not mean to, but they do.   
They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you. 

But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats. 

Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

The last two lines of course defeat the purpose of creation. And “soppy-stern” and “at one another’s throats” are not the only dysfunctional options. There is neglect, abuse, scapegoating, deliberate or mistaken bad advice and bad example, causing a child to stumble, and pampering.

But the only protection against false authority is true authority. 

As Mr. Robert Dylan put it, you’re gonna have to serve somebody. “It may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” 

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” – Revelation 3: 14

Neutrality is not an option. If you leave the God-seat vacant, a demon will come in and take it. 

And the instant you are aware of God, this requires immediate submission. As the ground of being, of all that is, the perfect good, truth, and beauty, he deserves absolute reverence. You must, in conscience, love him with all your heart, all your mind, and all your energy. Not to do so is intrinsically an act of rebellion. A rebellion we are all guilty of to some extent, but never creditable.

if we do not submit entirely to his authority, we are repeating the error of Eve. 

You will say, but all those religious people are hypocrites. That’s the usual excuse. Of course they are. We are all sinners. But that is not a valid argument; it is the “ad hominem” fallacy. If a thing is true, it does not matter who said it. 

All right, so how do we do the will of God? What does God want from us anyway?

Jesus told us. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” That means we have to get in harness. We can’t just go on fulfilling our own will.

Okay, so how do we know which religion represents his wishes?

To my mind this is an entirely secondary consideration. So long as we are acting in good faith, it does not matter. And so long aas we are acting in bad faith, it does not matter.

God is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. If we seek Truth, Justice, and Beauty with every fibre of our being, with our whole heart,  mind, and energy, despite the possible consequences to us, we are worshipping God and following his commandments. If we do not, we are not.

I trust the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I trust them because they contain the distilled wisdom of the ages; one must have a pretty high opinion of one’s own intellect to question them, rather than your own assumptions, when they differ. I trust tradition unless I have a strong argument against it.

But then ultimately I only trust them because they seem confirmed by my own reason and conscience. If they were obviously wrong, I’d leave the church.

One warrant that the Catholic Church is the truest path is Jesus’s repeated injunction, “by their fruits you shall know them.” What path has produced the most visible knowledge, the most just societies, and the most artistic beauty?

I think it is clear that “Western civilization” has. In other words, Christendom. Christendom has brought us science, and democracy, and human rights, and Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, da Vinci, Michelangelo, and the rest. The Catholic Church in particular has always been intimate with the beautiful and has always fostered beauty. To become a practicing Catholic is to make your life a work of art.

Do you fear submitting yourself to the authority of priests? The Protestants and the Muslims will say so.

I do too. I too do not trust priests, or bishops, or even, sadly the present pope.

Humility before men can easily be, and usually is, idolatry. How humble was Jesus himself? Declaring himself the Messiah, which is to say, the rightful king of the world, then actually declaring himself God? Surely that sounds a bit cheeky to the casual observer.

How humble were the prophets, to their fellow man, denouncing the king, their countrymen, and the government relentlessly?

I like William Blake’s slogan: “humble before God, not before men.”

How to Respond to the Trump Tariffs

 

Daniel O'Connell achieved Catholic emancipation by following the Gospel
advice to "turn the other cheek."

A friend has asked me what I would do in response to Trump’s tariff threats were I the government of Canada.

Making threats, talking tough and retaliating with counter-tariffs is insane. Canada is sure to lose in a trade war. I fear Ford and the Liberals are actually prepared to destroy Canada for the sake of getting themselves re-elected one more time.

This is a perfect example of where Jesus’s advice to turn the other cheek applies. When one is dealing with an opponent of overwhelming superiority, the only hope is to appeal to their conscience. Luckily, Americans have a good conscience and are already well-disposed to Canada.

1. Call Trump’s bluff in a dramatic fashion. Declare a referendum, to be held in a year, on Canada joining the US. As a government, stay strictly neutral, if you cannot openly favour the idea. Do nothing to restrict American money or influence from getting involved in the campaign.

The referendum would almost certainly fail: current polls suggest only 10-15% of Canadians would support annexation. If it passed, I doubt the Americans would let us in anyway. And if they did let us in, frankly, not a problem. They’re a democracy; we’d be fine.
The referendum campaign would, one hopes, inspire a lot of American speakers and opinion leaders to talk up Canada, in hopes of getting Canada to vote for annexation. And this would influence other Americans to be more sympathetic to our plight. Overall, this will impress on the Americans that we are love them, are a part of them, not “other.”

And it would make many Americans feel responsible for letting us down if they refused us entry. We would be building moral capital.

2.       A charm offensive. Enlist a real “Team Canada” of Canadian celebrities with a large following in the US, and ideally cachet with Trump’s base, to go on talk shows and podcasts talking about how close Canadians and Americans have always been. And about growing up in Canada. Comedians are especially good for this, because people generally love anyone who makes them laugh, and Canada has many comedians popular in the US. We want to win the hearts and minds of the American public. We want them to identify with us and our lives, to see us as the same as Americans, growing up with Captain Kangaroo, the Muppets, and so forth, admiring American culture. Maybe pining for things they had in America that we did not get.

We should also develop our own ads, tugging at the heart-strings, with swelling music and nostalgic video clips, reminding Americans of times when Canadian hockey fans sang the American national anthem, when Newfoundlanders welcomed stranded American air passengers, when the Canadian embassy in Iran sheltered American diplomats, scenes of fighting together in Afghanistan, Korea, WWII, WWI; sharing joy at VE Day. How baseball, football, and basketball all have Canadian as well as American roots. There’s a lot of material available.

3. Regardless of Trump or the Americans, we ought to want to stop all fentanyl traffic and keep terrorists out. Canadians are dying. We should immediately offer to set up a high-level joint task force with the USA, like we once did with NORAD.

The Americans also want us to spend more money on defense; but this is also in our own national interest, and our NATO commitment. We need to be able to defend our Arctic. Why fight over it? Let’s do it.

4. Trump goes on about the trade deficit. There are a number of major “trade irritants” the Americans have long complained about. But what they want is actually, in many cases, also what is best for Canadians. Our own government, pandering to special interests, is the problem. They are suckering us by appealing to patriotism, the last refuge of a scoundrel.

a.       We should want to drop “supply management” for dairy and eggs: it is not just unfair to US farmers, it is a cruel levy on the Canadian poor, a huge transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

b.       We should lift restrictions on US investment in Canada. These are good for a few oligarchs, because they limit competition. But refusing investment is obviously bad for the Canadian economy, hobbles job growth, limits choices, and raises prices. We should have the courage to compete openly in the entire North American market.

c.       We should end all “Canadian content” regulations. Americans see these as unfair trade practices, and in the age of infinite information over the internet, they are unenforceable, intolerable restrictions on freedom of speech, and only cripple Canadian media outlets in the market.

d.       We should limit the use of any Chinese parts in Canadian manufactures resold on to the US market. It is more in our interests than in those of the US to ensure that anything labelled “made in Canada” is actually made in Canada.

e.       We should stop subsidizing any companies or industries. Any such subsidies are trade irritants. They look like unfair competition to the Americans, because they really are unfair competition. They are also almost guarantees of graft and government corruption, distorting market forces, and transferring wealth from the poor to the rich.

We probably don’t want to do all this unilaterally, instead of holding them back as bargaining chips in trade negotiations. But we should be negotiating right now: on the 25% tariffs. Throw some meat on the table as an immediate offer in exchange for removing these tariffs.

By doing all this, we will win the American public over to our side. And they will also see thir prices rising due to tariffs. Together, these should make keeping the tariffs on politically unsustainable for an American government.