The Need to Counter Trump's Lies

 

The Guardian, more often fondly known as the Grauniad for the quality of their copyediting and proofing, has proposed using a “truth sandwich” whenever reporting on Trump. That is, they report the truth, then report what Trump said, then repeat the truth, which presumably contradicts him.

Friend Xerxes, uncharacteristically for a leftist, objects. The problem is, he is a trained and experienced journalist. 

And the Grauniad proposal is a brazen violation of journalistic ethics.

All politicians lie; it comes with the job. The job of a journalist, on the other hand, is to doubt everyone. It is deeply corrupt that a journalist would treat Trump differently than other politicians. We rely on reporters to report, not comment. Opinon is for the editorial page.

The proper approach, of course, if some controversial assertion is made, is to seek and quote a spokesperson from the other side. It is not permissible for the referee to stride to the centre of the ring in the middle of a round and throw a sucker punch.

Sophie Zeldin-O'Neill, the editor recommending the practice, asks otherwise “how to responsibly cover him [Trump] without unwittingly providing the coverage he so expertly manipulates.”

Strip that partial sentence down to plain language: “how to cover Trump without giving him coverage.” In other words, how, as a journalist, to do your job without doing your job.

She laments that Trump tries to use media to his advantage. Just like every other successful politician or campaign manager who ever lived. And every successful company or organization of any kind. If he does it better than others, that warrants admiration, not subversion. 

Xerxes ponders one possible cause for this wholesale abandonment of journalistic ethics. That it is necessary because we now live in “a time when a lie could go viral. When a single inaccurate assertion could go without contradiction to 7.62 billion smart phones.”

We do not live in such a time. Our time is the opposite: a world in which no statement any longer can go forth without risking contradiction by 7.62 private individuals with smart phones, each of which gives them a printing press, a broadcasting studio, and a 7.62 billion-person reach. Lies can no longer go halfway the world, as Mark Twain once lamented, before the truth could get its boots on. Now the truth will show up within seconds; it will be the next triumphant tweet.

The Nazi success with their “big lie” technique depended on being able to control the media. That is no longer possible; although big tech companies and governments are fighting a rearguard action.

So why the unprecedented need to police Trump’s speech? It cannot be because he lies. It can only be because he speaks the truth.

But the attempt to silence him is surely doomed to fail. Truth can no longer be suppressed by silencing any one man. Governments and big tech are trying so hard they are getting blatant, as in this Guardian piece, about it. There are too many smart phones out there. People now hear and see immediately, for example, the riots in Guangdong or Shiraz.

What I Know about What Is Happening in China

 

I teach some Chinese students by distance. I get a hint of what is going on there. One student says that others at his school are posting things critical of the government online. He is afraid to write an assigned essay on “the effects of Covid.” He feels it might be too “politically sensitive,” and I must substitute a different topic.

The odds, no doubt, are that the Chinese government will survive this upheaval. But if they do not, it will change the direction of the world. It seems that other governments everywhere have been looking to the Chinese model and seeking to emulate their “basic dictatorship.” Just as years ago, everyone was looking to Japan for their economic model. It would change everything, and for the better, if the Chinese system were suddenly shown, like Japan’s economy, to hit a wall.

Mankind’s hopes, for the moment, are on the shoulders of the people of China.

The Limits of Private Property

 

My friend Xerxes posts a comment from a Muslim reader, advertising it as “a different value system, for most of us.” The Muslim explains that, according to shariah law, it is not illegal to steal food if you are starving.

It is a sad commentary on how we’ve lost touch with our moral traditions, in the modern era, that this should appear to be “a different value system.” This is traditional Christian morality. The right to life trumps the right to property, and God put food here for us all. An ancient Christian maxim: "If I have two coats and my neighbor has none, I am a thief." St. John Crysostom: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs." 

You have to realize this to understand Les Miserables. Valjean is persecuted for stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving child. He is in the right, the government is in the wrong, and is thereby shown to be oppressive.

Exonerating Goneril and Regan

 

Looking for discussion questions online for a class on MacBeth, I came on this, in paraphrase: if MacBeth is the villain of the play, who is the hero? Is it Banquo, or MacDuff?

False premise. Looking for heroes and villains makes sense in the main them of the tale is man versus man. But that is one of several, traditionally seven, possibilities. Tragedies are not man versus man; they are always man versus fate, or man versus God/the gods, which is the same thing. Witness the Three Witches in MacBeth—the Three Fates.

There can be villains in tragedy—Iago—but usually the case is unclear. Often deliberately unclear, so as not to obscure the main conflict. Given the notion of hubris, technically, the same main character is both hero and villain. And more villain than hero in the end. He is always responsible for his own fate.

This made it occur to me that I too have been misreading King Lear. I had always taken Regan and Goneril as the villains. They treat their father so disrespectfully, right? In contrast to the good and dutiful Cordelia. “Sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” as Lear laments, and all that.

Still, it always struck me as a little confusing that Shakespeare has Lear at first unreasonably favour Cordelia, before then unreasonably favouring Regan and Goneril. 

“I loved her most, and thought to set my rest…”

His favouritism is apparently notorious, and it is his fatal flaw. The play begins by pointing it out:

“I thought the king had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.”

He didn’t have to invent that, were he trying to affirm Lear’s claim. It is not so clearly a case of favoured children being ungrateful; for most of their lives, Regan and Goneril were apparently less favoured.

And Shakespeare shows the same pattern in Gloucester’s family. Edgar was first favoured, then Edmund.

This makes Regan and Goneril’s treatment of their father seem more reasonable; even if they are flatterers, and opportunists. Their sin is refusing to allow their father a standing army. No responsible government should allow a standing, independent army. It is axiomatic that, to keep the peace, the government claims a monopoly on force.

This is all the more important since we and they know Lear’s judgement is unreliable and capricious. He might at any time, in some fit of anger, rise up and start a civil war. Governments exist to prevent just this sort of thing. 

Wise of them, therefore, to agree on one common front to handle Lear. Lear might otherwise throw his weight at any moment on one or the other side of an evenly divided country, giving those who want insurrection an ideal opportunity.

"You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of it hath not been little: he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly."

Regan and Goneril are unsympathetic characters, no doubt, but, in the mold of the classic tragic hero, Lear is responsible for his own troubles.

It is his own pride and rage, and not his two daughters, who drive him out onto the heath:

"REGAN: For his particular, I'll receive him gladly, but not one follower.

GONERI: So am I purposed."

China Erupts

 

Woke up this morning to things suddenly happening in China. Protests everywhere, demanding the resignation of Xi Jinping, even the end of the CCP. I hear Wuhan, Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Urumqi, reputedly every university and college campus. This has happened so suddenly there is no telling how far it might spread. My favourite China experts are saying this is the most significant event since Tiananmen Square. I’d say, if it persists, it is more significant than Tiananmen Square. That, after all, had a single focus, and so was easier to suppress. Yet it came very close to overthrowing the government.

As always, the tipping point, if it comes, will be when security forces refuse to fight, and join the crowds. Then the mandate of heaven has passed.

Imagine if the Chinese government falls; and the Iranian government; and the Russian government; in rapid succession. It would be as epochal as the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Revolutions are usually a bad idea. Any government is better than none. Yet some succeed. There was no reign of terror after the fall of the Berlin Wall; The Philippines transitioned well from Marcos, and Portugal from Caetano; America turned out okay. 

There is hope here for a better world.

True Love Ways

 

Jesus and the woman taken in adultery

The Catholic Church attracts a lot of hostility for condemning abortion; not to mention this, that, or the other peccadillo. This is supposedly “hypocrisy.” Didn’t Jesus say “Judge not, lest ye be judged”? Didn’t he say “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”?

He did; this is an illustration of Shakespeare’s principle that Satan himself can quote scripture to his advantage. This is “proof-texting,” pulling quotes out of context to distort their meaning. Perhaps the perfect example is the fact that the Bible says in so many words that there is no God. “There is no God.” Psalm 14:1.

Of course, the full verse reads “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.”

Context matters.

Of course, even without any context, we can see that this strict "judge not" interpretation of Jesus's words is impossible. If it is wrong to judge anyone, then it is wrong to judge the Catholic Church for judging you. You are ipso facto a hypocrite.

Let’s look at the immediate context of these verses, so often quoted by atheists and evildoers against Christians.

In the NIV: Matthew 7:

“1 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

It ends with the obligation to, in fact, judge. And the analogy, of removing a speck from your brother’s eye, shows judgement as an act of kindness. The issue is that you must be able to “see clearly,” to judge clearly.

The caution is against hypocrisy, meaning judging another by a different standard than yourself, applying different rules to them.

Now let’s look at the woman taken in adultery, and casting stones:

John 8

3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

It ends with Jesus judging her, referring to her life of sin. He is simply refusing to enforce the legal punishment, which I think we can agree to be extreme.

Our attention is drawn to another detail, because it is so odd: asked a question, he looks down at the ground, and appears to be writing something. He is deliberately looking away. Then he looks up, and all the men are gone, but the woman is still standing there. 

Although she faced death, she did not take the opportunity to slip away.

It shows that the woman admits her fault and accepts punishment, even one we might consider extreme. She is prepared to sacrifice her life if that is what is just. 

This is what is essential to forgiveness; it is the same in the sacrament of confession. It is what keeps us out of hell. In order not to be punished for one’s sin, one must fully admit it, and be fully prepared to accept justice. Only then can one receive mercy.

Rather than hypocrisy, pointing out that another is doing or has done wrong, to you, to themselves, or to a third party, is both a virtue and an obligation. 

See Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1829:

The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction…

For “charity” one can also read “love.” Pointing out the faults of others is an act of love. If we do not do it, we do not love them. We want them to go to hell, and we are prepared to frog-march them there for our own benefit.

Consider the case of an alcoholic. That is a vice we all can understand. Who is it who loves the alcoholic, the one who warns him he is drinking too much, or the one who smiles, slaps him on the back, joins him in a toast, pours him another drink?

The Catholic Encyclopedia gives the following definition for “fraternal correction”:

“Fraternal correction is here taken to mean the admonishing of one's neighbor by a private individual with the purpose of reforming him or, if possible, preventing his sinful indulgence.”

It goes on to say:

“That there is … an obligation to administer fraternal correction there can be no doubt. This is a conclusion not only deducible from the natural law binding us to love and to assist one another, but also explicitly contained in positive precept such as the inculcation of Christ: ‘If thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother’ (Matthew 18:15). Given a sufficiently grave condition of spiritual distress calling for succour in this way, this commandment may exact fulfilment under pain of mortal sin.

It can be a mortal sin, if someone is sinning, not to tell him so. It is always a virtue to tell him.

Madness and MacBeth

 

Erinyes

Going through MacBeth with a student—the play that made me first love Shakespeare. And it occurred to me this time through that Shakespeare’s theory of madness is quite different from that of modern psychiatry. 

They treat it as if a physical illness. He thinks it is a spiritual, a moral, problem.

“Unnatural deeds

Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

More needs she the divine than the physician.”

“Consider it not so deeply….These deeds must not be thought

After these ways; so, it will make us mad.”

Shakespeare must be listened to, because he is the greatest psychiatrist who ever lived. His greatest accomplishment as a writer is how he gets into the minds of all his characters, even the darkest villains, and expresses so clearly and sympathetically how they think. He knows the human soul.

MacBeth and Lady MacBeth go schizophrenic in classic fashion. MacBeth starts hallucinating as soon as he contemplates the crime. Lady MacBeth eventually sleepwalks and talks to herself. I once stayed in a schizophrenic’s apartment. He did too.

Not to say all schizophrenics go mad due to a guilty conscience. Shakespeare himself suggests not all. “Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.” 

The reason this particular sort of schizophrenic goes “schizophrenic” is from a guilty conscience. They have committed a sin so serious their conscience will not leave them alone. This conforms too with the Ancient Greek idea of the Erinyes. They will track you down for vengeance no matter where you go and what you do.

Of course, in a Christian world, there is no sin as such so serious. Lady MacBeth, or MacBeth,  are Christian, and presumably know this. The problem is that they have so committed their very fate to the sin; they cannot accept the consequences of repentance. It would mean, in their case, by law, losing the crown, and losing their lives.

That is perhaps how narcissists feel. This particular type of “schizophrenia” comes from narcissism. Whether or not literally so, the typical narcissist cannot admit fault, for in their own mind it would mean losing their imaginary crown, having crowned themselves, and losing their life, their settled self-identity.

What modern psychiatry calls narcissism is really vice. Formulaically pride, the chief of all the vices, but it could also be any of the others. This is how vice works. The perp gets so committed to the sin they decide there is no way out. Then they start to hear footsteps, Erinyes, behind them.

“Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?”

“No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.”

There is fear in that statement.

MacBeth when he hears Fleance, Banquo’s son, has escaped his assassin:

“Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect;

Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,

As broad and general as the casing air:

But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in

To saucy doubts and fears.”

And he promptly begins to hallucinate the ghost of Banquo. Fear and doubt are the triggers.

The same thing happens to King Lear. Lear is obviously a “narcissist,” in modern psychiatric terms. When his self-image as king is rocked, he goes mad. Here too there is, or ought to be, a guilty conscience. He has grossly played favourites among his children.

That too is perhaps, in cosmic terms, so great a sin it commonly cannot be admitted.

The Know Nothings

 

It is interesting to scan the comments on the latest column by Xerxes, my leftist columnist friend. They are a window into the leftward mind.

The first reader writes, most revealingly, “I cannot see any MAGA Republicans subscribing to your columns.”

This shows us that leftists only read opinions and columns with which they agree.

This means they can be easily led about by the nose. They do not want the truth, they want whatever comforts them. They risk being easily blindsided.

I am not a “MAGA Republican”: I do not live in the USA. But I read Xerxes’s columns precisely because I disagree. This is typical of those on the right; you need to know both sides of an argument.

Next comment:

“I think Biden will go down in history as one of the most successful Presidents ever. …. He brought in policies that people liked, like increases in health care and forgiveness of student loans. He got things done.”

It does not occur to this commentator that these policies could have been disliked by anyone. Another artifact of selective reading. After all, it’s free money. Right?

Instead, of course, it has to be taken in taxes. The government takes it from one pocket, deducts some of it as operating expenses, and returns the remainder to the other pocket.

Apparently the left does not grasp or want to grasp this simple dynamic. “Free money” is more comforting.

            “I think that most Americans were tired of the drama and divisiveness of Politics.  They voted for quiet efficiency and national unity instead. I think they’re telling their politicians to scrap the divisive rhetoric and get on with the job they were elected to do.”

The shambolic evacuation of Afghanistan does not look like quiet efficiency. Neither does a government that boosts spending to unprecedented levels during a supply chain crisis, and denies that inflation is possible. Wars, fuel shortages, and recessions do not seem quiet or efficient.

As for national unity, it is not much helped along by pitting ethnic group against ethnic group, gender against gender, class against class; or by declaring those who support your chief opponent a “threat to democracy.”

Spending endless time and resources on impeachments and collusion investigations against your opponent, all of which turn out to be based on false accounts and trivialities, instead of spending that time on legislation, does not look like getting on with the job they were elected to do.

Another reader writes: “I don’t understand why so many on this planet continue in awe of a nation that is so destructive, that pretends to have other nations’ well-being at heart when it is the exact opposite.  We need to realize that, even without the U.S., the world continues to rotate.”

This is akin to the leftist drive to “Defund the police.” For the sake of world peace and prosperity, it is a good thing for one power to be dominant, for the same reason it is better to have any government than anarchy. A dominant power enforces peace: Pax Romana, Pax Britannica, Pax Americana.

Given one dominant power, there is no luckier choice than the USA: a nation uniquely founded on the principles of human rights and human equality. With no modern territorial ambitions.

As Leonard Cohen observed, “You’re not going to like what comes after America.”

Another respondent wrote of Trump’s making another run, “Trump isn't interested in anything except himself. Any political operative would seek other's opinions before announcing a run for office.”

This assumes that Trump asked no one for their opinion before declaring. Why?

Another artifact of the leftist refusal to read anything they disagree with. This writer presumes that “everybody” was saying Trump should not run. Those blinders never come off.

Guilty Silence

 

I count as a professional communicator. I have written professionally for many years. I teach students how to write. I have some success as a poet, having won international prizes. That counts as communication on an especially deep level. I am a past president of the Editors’ Association of Canada.

Indeed, challenges in communication are my special joy. I have lived abroad, and prided myself on establishing deep and honest communications with people of diverse cultural backgrounds very different from my own. I also do well at deep and honest communications with small children; and even with schizophrenics.

This is what comes from growing up in a family where there was no honest communication. But that is a story for another day.

Yet there is still forever one group with which I am never able to communicate. Those who fear communication, due to a guilty conscience. Here, there is nothing I can do.

Any attempt to speak openly and honestly with such people will lead to being personally attacked, either openly or subtly or in the back; or, if you are lucky, the other party will only cut off communications abruptly. They will, in the social media context, “unfriend you.”

The alert reader, will realize that this is a growing problem in our society. This is cancel culture, deplatforming, shouting speakers down, and all that. This is also "denial."

Anyone who resorts to that is admitting their own guilt over the issue; they have something they desperately want to hide.

Nobody demands a contrary view be silenced, or refuses to listen, because they think it is wrong. Nobody gets upset about claims that black Africans built the pyramids, the Chinese discovered America in 1442, the earth is flat, or the sun revolves around it. All these theses are merrily published without objection. One only seeks to silence views one cannot counter.

This being so, what do we know?

The left’s insistence that claiming fraud in the 2020 election, or the 2022 election, is “attacking our sacred democracy,” an “insurrection,” and must be banned on social media platforms, is proof that, if the 2020 and 2022 elections were not stolen, the left at least did their best to steal them, and do not want this investigated. Conversely, the fact that the Republicans did not become agitated when Hillary Clinton claimed the 2016 election was stolen from her, or Stacey Abrams the governorship of Georgia, shows the expected reaction from someone who has not in fact been engaged in fraud.

Similarly, the insistence by “Trans” people that they be referred to by their preferred pronouns, and they not be “dead maned” is proof they know they have not changed their gender.

Other examples are ready to hand: the extreme overreaction to the trucker convoy by the Trudeau government shows they know their vaccine mandates and vaccine passports were unwarranted and done through an ulterior motive.

And so it goes; we must not be naïve here.

This issue of guilty consciences and the resultant attempt to prevent communication is an especially serious problem for the arts; for the arts are all about deep and serious communication. This is why the arts these days are moribund. Anyone who dares to say anything deep and honest, interesting or important is sure to face severe headwinds at every level. And there is no art without this.

Why is this a growing problem? One reason, I expect, is that thanks to Alice Miller and other psychiatrists and psychologists, or the past several generations we have raised our children to be narcissists. But that piggybacks on another fatal problem: abortion; which rides in turn on the move to uninhibited recreational sex that started in about the 1950s.

Perhaps we have the psychologists and psychiatrists to blame for that as well.

The way past this, individually or as a society, must be an initial admission of having done wrong. When it is your conscience condemning you, you cannot receive absolution by silencing others. And there is nothing they can even say or do to absolve you. This follows the formula familiar from the Catholic rite of confession. You must admit that you did wrong, sincerely repent, and make every effort at reparations if possible.

How likely is that to happen? On an individual level, it can happen. Ask Alcoholics Anonymous.

It seems likely to be harder on a social level. Yet perhaps Germany is an example. They seem to have mostly gotten past their guilt in the Nazi period; even if the Nazi period itself was prompted by a refusal to accept guilt for the first Great War. The US seems to have gotten past their guilt for slavery; even if the era or segregation in the South was a refusal to accept that guilt for a century.

This, at least, is something to pray for. Perhaps hope for, for our grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

Canada and the Irish

 

The Black Rock, Montreal

Enjoying reading Apartment Seven, a collection of essays—partly memoirs—by Canadian poet Miriam Waddington. She writes at length about her alienation from the Canadian mainstream, growing up as a Jew.

It makes me think of my own ambiguous relation to the Canadian mainstream, as an Irish Catholic. 

Significantly, I notice being invisible to Waddington. To Waddington, other than Jews, there were two groups in Canada: the French and the English. Both were “Christian.”

Yet since before Confedertation, and up until her time, there would have been more Irish than English in “English Canada”; and the last thing they would have seen themselves as is “English.” Even if most of them spoke the language--as Waddington herself did. Not to mention the 25% or so of “French-Canadians” who were Irish.

And to them—to us—the dividing line between Protestant and Catholic was far more significant in our thoughts, in our lives, and in our politics than Christian and Jew.

Waddington here is typical. It is the signature experience of the Irish in Canada. We are not acknowledged to exist. We are the invisible people.

There is a Black Rock in Montreal, dredged up during the construction of the Victoria Bridge. It now marks the unmarked mass grave of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Irish immigrants who died there and were hastily buried where they died in 1847, without service or acknowledgement; as they did in Quebec, in Ottawa, in Kingston, in Toronto, where there are similar mass graves. The Black Rock is now considered the premiere monument to the Irish experience in Canada.

And on it, the Irish are not mentioned. Just “immigrants.” It was consecrated by an Anglican bishop. No Catholic priests were invited to attend.

Most Canadians are oblivious to this; including the Irish themselves. But growing up in Quebec, the Francophones always identified me as “Anglais.” An outsider. The English were, at the same time, generally well aware that I was Irish, and Catholic, and therefore not one of them, and suspect. In either case, an outsider in my own country.

Widely dispersed and largely in the countryside, without cultural power, we had little intercommunication. Therefore our actual numbers were largely invisible even to ourselves. Most of us probably assumed we were a small minority. And at the same time, most of us probably identified optimistically as "Canadian," not "Irish."

But it is also true that being Irish in Canada has always meant keeping your head down and often hiding or denying your ethnic ties and trying to “pass.” The English openly despised us, and they were in command. As we and they read of constant rebellions against English rule in Ireland, and as the Fenians raided, it did not do to admit you were Irish or openly fly that ethnic flag.

Yet the Irish in Canada did not rebel. They agitated for representative government, but the moment that took on the character of rebellion, the Irish, to a man, withdrew. They kept silent, and tried to appear model citizens. For they had nowhere else to go if Canada did not work out. They had escaped a hellish condition in Ireland. They had no money for further immigration. Most came over on “coffin ships,” followed by sharks hoping to dine on the next Irish corpse jettisoned. Those who did not die on the docks had to seek any paying work they could get. 

In Canada, while not treated as equals, while still facing “no Irish need apply” attitudes, they could own land, could vote and run for office, could build churches, educate their children, practice their faith, pass inheritance to their children; and they probably would not starve. Some who managed the money moved on to the US, but those who did found anti-Catholic attitudes stronger there; in Canada they were protected in part by the need for the British to keep quiescent the large French Catholic presence.

Knowing far worse, this was not an applecart the Canadian Irish wanted to overturn. They kept their mouths shut and heads down, and sought opportunities, as in World War I, to prove their loyalty.

Their inevitable strategy was to seek here a distinctive new identity: not Irish, not French, and not English. Canada was largely their project. This was the great project of D’Arcy McGee, and this for him and them was the ultimate objective of Confederation.

This project always struggled against the colonial mentality. Waddington laments that, in her day, members of English faculties were always either English or American, not Canadian, and they scoffed at the idea of including Canadian writing on the curriculum. They looked down on anything produced by mere locals. I experienced the same going through English Lit at Queen’s in the seventies. There were no courses available in Canadian literature, even as electives, and no Canadian writing was included in any of the courses offered. The message was that no decent literature had been or could be written in Canada, by Canadians.

Yet at about that time, it looked as though we might soon break through. We had a generation of writers who seemed to be getting things going: Waddington’s generation. We had almost-famous names like Irving Layton, Mordecai Richler, Al Purdy, Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Timothy Findlay, Alice Munro, W.O. Mitchell, … A distinctive Canadian literature in English seemed to be emerging.

And then the empire struck back. The colonial mentality is hard to overcome. Now the only writers allowed on the curriculum are indigenous, or, again, have been born abroad. And they do not write about Canada; they write only of their own ethnicity and its differences and difficulties. No “mainstream” Canadian culture is recognized to exist.

The Irish still seem, as always, to get it in the ear.

I had a chat with a relatively prominent Canadian poet recently. He had never heard of Emile Nelligan or Al Purdy. He might have known of other Canadian poets of a previous generation; I do not know. These are the only two Canadian poets who happened to come up.

He wrote mostly about Iran, the country of his birth.

As a Canadian, as an Irish Canadian, I still wait for Canada to be born.

 

So Trump is running for president.

I’m sorry to hear that. I think he was a great president, and he has every right to run again, and expect support. But I don’t think he can win.

While many folks love Trump, many people loathe him. He probably has a hard ceiling for his support, and 2020 and 2022 suggest it is less than a majority. 

And there are almost no undecideds who might simply sit on their hands.

And if they were prepared to cheat to ensure he was not president in 2020, why wouldn't they prevent it at all costs this time?

Then again, I thought Trump was a disastrous choice for the Republican nomination in 2016 as well, and was proven wrong. 

The Distinction between Republicans and Democrats: Two Views

 

The Political Zoo: Courtesy of Pew Research

Friend Xerxes introduces me to the work of Jonathan Haidt, who defines the innate tendencies of “liberals” and “conservatives.” Haidt found that what he called “liberal” voters were mainly influenced by two social values: “fairness” and “care”. Haidt’s “conservatives” had three core values: authority, purity, and loyalty.

Haidt’s analysis makes some sense, but not if you try to identify his “conservative” and “liberal” with current political parties in either the US or Canada. What Haidt calls “liberal” is really the Marxist-socialist position, and closer to classic conservatism than to classic liberalism. For “conservative,” Haidt is indeed describing the classic conservative position, but the modern Republican party, or the Conservative party in Canada, is actually more classically liberal. 

Pretty confusing, granted. Politics, as George Orwell noted, is largely about falsifying terms to get away with murder. We need to keep the terms straight to prevent this.

The modern Republican party is no respecter of authority. It is in more or less open rebellion against the “elites.” So too with Poilievre ‘s Conservatives in Canada. It is the Democrats, or the Liberals in Canada, who regularly appeal to authority and oppose questioning it. “Follow the science.” Don’t doubt the integrity of the mainstream media. Don’t doubt the integrity of the academics, or the climate scientists, or the teachers and ed schools; of the professions generally.

Purity? Nobody believes in racial purity as a value, but last time anyone did, it was the Democrats. Or, in Canada, the Liberals and Clear Grits. It is also the Democrats who are concerned with ideological purity: with “political correctness.” Political views in the Conservative or Republican parties are much more diverse, and diversity is much better tolerated.

If by “purity” Haidt actually means morality, he is right that morality is a classic conservative value, and it is also a modern Republican and Canadian Conservative value; and not a Democratic or Liberal value. Fair enough. But Christian morality is not “purity.” It is acknowledgement and remorse for sin when committed, not never sinning, and especially not claiming to have never sinned. Innocence ended in the Garden.

Loyalty? The Republican primary voters in 2016 rejected loyalty to their party leaders in nominating Trump. They were supposed to vote for Jeb Bush. In Canada, the Conservatives have ousted two leaders in about four years. Look, too, at the Conservatives in Britain.

By contrast, the Democratic primary voters obediently accepted the backroom deal to hand the nomination to Biden, four years after accepting the backroom deal handing the nomination to Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party has always been the party of machine politics, party bosses, and client groups who will vote for a yellow dog out of party loyalty. Or are expected to, out of group loyalty, or “you ain’t black.” 

Haidt does not seem to even be aware of classic liberal values, but those are the values of the modern Republicans or Canadian Conservatives: freedom, the rights of the individual, free markets, equality. He misses half the political equation.

Remembrance Day

 

Remembrance Day Reflections

 

For Remembrance Day, a friend of mine, who declares herself a pacifist, posted a photo of her father, who fought with distinction in WWII and returned with severe PTSD.

The post garnered a couple of comments worth comment:

“Unfortunately War is a direct result of Greed, without Greed there would be no Wars !”

“Yes, but maybe not just greed - maybe also simply a lust for power too, and a belief that your beliefs/God/way of living is THE right way and all other ways are evil and must be stomped out.”

Sounds good; not so. Here is an example of the need to educate one’s conscience.

War is caused by greed? War is expensive. Most times nations lose money by going to war. No doubt war is good for the armaments industry, the “military-industrial complex”; but not for most businesses For most businesses, it will mean a shortage of labour and labour becoming more expensive as workers are drafted. It will mean being cut off from suppliers and markets; often it will mean a destruction of physical plant. More generally, businesses thrive on predictability, reliable profitability, and suffer from any instability. War is the ultimate disruptor of business.

“War is caused by greed” is Marxist delusion. The subtext there is, get rid of capitalism, and you get rid of wars. Seductive to anyone who does not consider themselves a rich capitalist: provides a convenient scapegoat. Better yet if the capitalists are Jews.

“A belief that your beliefs/God/way of living is THE right way and all other ways are evil and must be stomped out.”

Live and let live, right?

On that basis, should the northern states in the US have left the South to their preferred way of life? Of course, it involved the enslavement of others. Whose business was that? If Hitler had not attacked Poland, should the world have looked on in silence as he exterminated all of Germany’s Jews? When he did invade Poland, was Chamberlain right, and Churchill the guilty party, for not letting Hitler well enough alone, and instead starting a World War?

This pacifism is the same idea as that there would be general peace in society if we just abolished all laws and defunded the police. Why mess with Ted Bundy’s or Charles Manson’s recreational opportunities?

This is the atheist argument: get rid of religion, and there will be no more wars. This is seductive, because religion tells you there are things you want to do that you should not do. So there is always a lobby for getting rid of religion.

But one of the things—the main thing—that religion tells you not to do is to harm your neighbour. 

Wars are caused by the same thing that causes all interpersonal conflicts: someone has violated the categorical imperative, to treat others as you would be treated. Wars are caused by selfishness, usually on one side and not the other.

And pacifism is immoral; in a way, the worst immorality. None so guilty as the innocent bystander.

Depression Truths

 

Kurelek, "The Maze"

A middle school student I tutor has done a competent job of detailing the cause of depression as popularly understood. It is worth going through it to identify the major errors in the popular understanding of depression. This includes the understanding not just of most people but of most psychiatrists and psychologists, although the more honest ones will admit that they are just thrashing about in the dark, and “nobody knows.”

The essay:

“Depression is a mood disorder that can make people feel sadness, hopelessness and loss of interest. It can make you feel, think and behave differently and can lead to serious emotional and physical problems. It is basically a type of mental illness that can make people start not interacting with other people and feel hopelessness and become sensitive. … Depression comes from 3 major reasons, genetic vulnerability, severe life stressors, substances you may take (some medications, drugs and alcohol) and medical conditions. 

We need to be nice and friendly to people who have depression. They can get in bigger trouble if you say some sensitive words to them. Lasty, depression is an illness to take seriously. We need to find correct solutions to cure depression. We need to help people that have depression, instead of hurting them with words we say.”

Let’s take these points in turn.

“Depression is a mood disorder.” No, the mood, sadness, is a symptom. This is like saying cancer is a pain disorder. 

Why would we imagine there is no cause for the sadness? That is like supposing there is no cause for pain. Sadness is a warning that something is wrong. To only treat the mood is to leave the problem to fester and grow.

Depression is a loss of meaning, direction, and clear values. One cannot discern right from wrong, good from bad, and so does not know what to do. It is a loss of esprit, or, in Africa, “loss of soul.”

“that can make people feel sadness, hopelessness and loss of interest,”

Anxiety is at least as common as these, but ignored or treated as a separate problem.

“It is basically a type of mental illness that can make people start not interacting with other people.”

This is perhaps the most harmful misconception: that wanting to be alone is a part of the disease. It is the proper and instinctive cure. When one has lost one’s sense of values, of meaning, the urgent need is to retreat and meditate.  To seek company at such a time is no better than to seek alcohol or drugs.

Unfortunately, the treatment most commonly recommended is to get back into one’s social life as quickly as possible. Perpetuating the problem, probably making it worse.

“Depression comes from 3 major reasons, genetic vulnerability, severe life stressors, substances you may take (some medications, drugs and alcohol) and medical conditions.”

That’s four major reasons; but there is really only one.

Symptoms mimicking depression can be caused by drugs or physical illness; sure. The symptom is not the disease. 

The idea that depression is genetic was fashionable back in the eighties or nineties. Back then, the structure of DNA had been relatively recently discovered, and the big rush was on to decode the human genome. Because it was the latest thing in science, genetics was thought of as miraculous. This is always the way with science: each new discovery is first thought of as the answer to everything. When electricity was discovered, it was supposed to be the essence of life. See the story of Frankenstein and his monster. When computers came in, “running it through the computer” was thought to be a sure proof of anything—a delusion that survives in climate science. So too with genetics: it was the cause of everything for a while, of criminality, of alcoholism, of homosexuality, of depression, of schizophrenia.

Further evidence that depression was genetic was that it tended to run in families.

Over the intervening years, however, as we have isolated the entire genome, and multiple genomes, we have found no gene for alcoholism, no gene for homosexuality, no gene for schizophrenia, and no gene for depression. Wrong tree, dog.

Something other than genes runs in families. Politics does too; religion, world view, culture, values, personal habits, and parenting styles.

Depression comes from bad parenting and miseducation. “Abusive” parenting, if you like; but that term as commonly used is misleading. The issue is not blows to the body, or sexual exploitation as such, but blows to the mind, soul, and conscience. Confusing children as to values, right and wrong, the rights of self and of others, the point of existence.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.” 

This is also what original sin is all about; it is these distorted values that are visited by the father to the son unto the fourth generation.

Severe life stressors can come into play once the distortion of values has been instilled. But only stressors of a specific kind: if issues of right and wrong again become ambiguous. Some people, and not others, are vulnerable to breakdown in such cases, because their moral roots are not as firmly planted.

“We need to be nice and friendly to people who have depression. They can get in bigger trouble if you say some sensitive words to them.”

Notwithstanding this vulnerability to life stressors, this idea that the depressed are more emotionally fragile than the rest of us seems to be the opposite of the truth. Aristotle pointed out that great war leaders and heroes are commonly depressive. Grant, Sherman, Lincoln, Churchill… Yet the prime requirement to be a great war leader is to keep your head under intense stress—to the extent that someone is trying to kill you.

Because the abused grow up under constant threat and stress, they generally learn to bear stress better than the rest of us. So long as right and wrong are clear, they tend to have great personal courage. A situation of open war can bring renewed energy: now the sides are clear. This, however, is more true of a military commander than of a soldier in the trenches; who lacks the strategic view and only sees the moral dilemma of being asked to kill people he sees no reason to kill.

At a minimum, the depressed are particularly able to bear any level of insult without flinching. This is just what they are used to, and, sadly, they can be drawn to a similar such abusive situation like moths to the flame.

The US Midterms

 

The midterm election results down in the US were quite a shock. Not that they strayed so far from the polls; people were discounting polls. More that the logic of a first midterm in a president’s term almost always means major gains by the opposition party, plus the disastrous economic news and the growing signs of Biden’s senility. And John Fetterman. And growing signs that the public is no longer embracing the woke agenda. Regardless of polls, people were expecting a “red tsunami.”

Why didn’t it happen?

It seems to me the only plausible reason is Donald Trump. As unhappy as folks might have been with Biden and the Democrats, they did not want Trump back. So they did not want to vote for his candidates.

The overwhelming public urge seems to be to get back to the time before either Trump or Biden, or to get beyond it.

You might have expected this to cause a low turnout, as voters were unhappy with either alternative. Instead, it caused a high one: half the country rushed out to vote for anybody but the Biden Dems, and the other half to vote for anybody but Trump.

Taylor Swift's "The Man"

 

The great advantage of art is that it is the one place one is permitted to speak truth. The disadvantage is that most people either misunderstand or misrepresent what you say; usually to mean the opposite. The classic example is the parables of Jesus.

But another example that has come to my attention recently is Taylor Swift’s music video “The Man,” which one of my grad students has been asked to comment on. Everyone reads it as a criticism of male gender roles and a complaint about the oppression of women by the patriarchy.

“It's a thinly-veiled attack on the disparity between how men and women in the same roles are viewed by society,” explains the BBC. The Washington Post calls it a "symbolism-packed takedown of the patriarchy."

I don’t discount the possibility that Taylor Swift herself believes so. That is not relevant, for it is the intentional fallacy. Artists are not necessarily aware of or in agreement with what they are saying. They are inspired; they are speaking, ideally, for a higher being. As Cohen writes in “Going Home”:

But he [Cohen; God is speaking] does say what I tell him

Even though it isn’t welcome

He just doesn't have the freedom

To refuse

The video indeed seems to be doing this. Superficially, Taylor Swift’s video is a feminist lament about the advantages of being a man. Examples of traditional complaints include “manspreading”; the sexual double standard that men are permitted to be promiscuous, while women are criticized for it; that men are the bosses in the work force; that men are more free to express anger, while women must always be “nice”; that old men get to marry younger women. Even that men get to pee standing up. Each familiar claim is portrayed in a brief tableau.

But the whole thing seems subverted at the end of the video by the big reveal: that the man being portrayed is not a man at all, but Taylor Swift in masquerade.

What is the point of this, if not to suggest that the image of the male life being portrayed is not real, but a woman’s fantasy of what it might be like? As if demanding of us that we question its accuracy. The more so since the final scene knocks down the fourth wall and demonstrates this was all a video as well, all “made up.”

Also subverting the superficial interpretation are hints throughout the video that woman are actually in control “behind the scenes.” Most obviously, at the end, Taylor Swift is revealed as the director, giving orders to the man and criticizing his performance, while he humbly defers and promises to do better. When the credits run, everything was done, they say, by Taylor Swift, and “no men were harmed in the making of this video.” Suggesting a status for men equivalent to that of a trained animal, or a pet.

In an earlier scene, of a man competing in a tennis match, on the rear wall we see the legend “Womens’ Charity.” That id, all the effort being put out by the man is for the benefit of women. A shot on a subway displays, on the rear wall, a fake movie poster titled “Man versus Master.” Which surely implies that the man is not the master. Another scene features a poster that reads ““Missing. If found, return to Taylor Swift.” 

In light of these background references, we have a right to assume irony. Now go back and look at the visual examples of male privilege. Are they not actually mocking these claims? Beginning with their chilche’d nature. The man manspreading on the subway has his legs spread absurdly wide. He is wearing a business suit and smoking a cigar—not the sort of person you would see in a subway, and not something you could get away with in the real world. Images of men throwing bills in the air; stepping over women lounging in bikinis on a private yacht. 

More irony: the imaginary man is seen throwing a tantrum on the tennis court, on the ground and banging his fists. Is this meant to illustrate a male right to express anger? But it seems most obviously to refer to a recent such outburst by Serena Williams. A female line judge rolls her eyes in a brief reaction shot: men are not allowed to get away with such behavior.

A gentleman of obviously advanced years is shown marrying a younger woman. If this is meant to suggest male privilege, her big smile as she flashes a huge diamond ring to the camera is not the best way to do so. It implies instead that she is getting just what she wants here.

A woman has to work twice as hard as a man to get ahead? The video shows the very opposite: immediately after criticizing her male lead, Taylor Swift as director heaps praise on a female actor for doing no more than rolling her eyes at the camera. The scene is too obvious to be without meaning.

The reality Taylor Swift is portraying is that feminism is all wrong. Men do not get the better end of the social bargain, and never did. Women are always in control; for the simple reason that men do everything they do in hopes of pleasing women in the mating dance. A pretty young women gets whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. She simply says, “try to be sexier—try to be more likeable”; as Swift does to her male alter ego at the end of the movie; and any man will react like a cowed but devoted dog. 

Men are whatever they are because that is what women tell them to be.

Excess Deaths

 

Canada did not do well in managing the pandemic.

Sweden did best.

Moral: lockdowns and mandates caused more deaths.

A Path for DeSantis

 

 I see a path for Ron DeSantis to the Republican nomination. 

Donald Trump has begun attacking him. A day or two ago, in a speech, Trump referred to DeSantis as “DeSanctimonious.”

Trump is being roundly criticized for this by conservative commentators. First, because he was attacking a fellow Republican and conservative on the eve of an election. Second, because it was a lame insult. Not up to Trump’s standard.

I smell blood in the water.

The commentariat is implying that Trump is past it. They are implying also that he is disloyal. These are deadly criticisms if they stick.

The same people who like Trump like DeSantis. The same people who like DeSantis like Trump. I think this means that, whoever atttacks first, loses. They immediately become the bad guy.

Trump has already started firing.

Maybe all DeSantis needs to do is keep his powder dry, keep smiling, and refuse to attack Trump in kind, and he wins. He is showing respect for the old duffer; while implying he is no longer really relevant. In fact, the base for the two is so similar that, if DeSantis can hold his tongue for just a short time, Trump’s support may crumble and move over en masse.

People want to support Trump because they feel he got a raw deal in having only one term, and one term crippled by the “Russia hoax.” His advantage over DeSantis is this call on his followers’ sympathies and sense of loyalty. Without it, DeSantis looks like the better candidate. He is younger, and so contrasts better with the doddering Biden. Even if Biden does not run again, people will fear electing another dodderer. He lacks a lot of Trump’s baggage. After the turmoil of the Biden presidency, people will crave a sense of normalcy; not a return to the prior turmoil of the Trump presidency. It will not help to be reminded of Trump’s chippiness.

By going after DeSantis without being fired upon, Trump surrenders his moral claim to sympathy and loyalty. He is being unsympathetic and disloyal himself.

There will probably be other candidates for the nomination. They will probably do enough to keep Trump’s feet to the fire. 

DeSantis’s best play is to stay above the fray and look presidential. It even looks then like an easy win.

Racial Prejudice in Canada

Racism is a relatively modern problem, since the concept of race has only emerged in the last few centuries. But fear and suspicion of strangers, xenophobia, is instinctive; we are herd animals. It should therefore be no surprise to encounter it anywhere, including Canada.

I have certainly witnessed discrimination in Canada against East Asians; and against Jews. And I have experienced it myself—prejudice against “whites” is particularly common.

But I have also experienced prejudice on the basis of ethnicity in most other countries in which I have lived. Prejudice and discrimination against non-Chinese is quite overt, for example, in China. In the Middle East, there is a rigid racial hierarchy: Arabs at the top, Europeans (“whites”) below, but above Filipinos, who are above South Asians.

 On the whole, Canada has to be one of the least prejudiced countries in the world. The multi-ethnicity you encounter on a typical city street or in the subway suggests this. Most countries are ethnically based, and if you do not have the requisite physical characteristics and pedigree, you are forever an outsider. Not so Canada.

Friend Xerxes persists in asserting that “only the person experiencing prejudice knows it.” This is exactly wrong. Prejudice is an attitude in the mind. Unless motive is stated, only the prejudiced person can know for certain they are prejudiced. For anyone else it requires mind-reading. 

Granted that people can often not know, or not accept, that they are prejudiced. I had a discussion just yesterday with a man who insisted he was not anti-Semitic; it is just that Jews really are all like that. He had a good argument, too; he claimed that the principles of dishonest business dealing were Jewish values. I might have had to buy it, had I not read the Old Testament and much of the Talmud.

Given this uncertainty, the only sensible way to detect and root out prejudice is in laws, statutes, contracts and government policies. And, that, of course, is also the place it really matters. Rudeness you shall have always with you. 

And the statutes and laws in Canada, when they are not, as they should be, race neutral, actually always favour designated “non-white” ethnicities over “whites.”

As for social prejudice, the concept of “white privilege” is a fine example. It is impossible for anyone to know, by looking at the colour of someone’s skin, whether they have experienced a privileged or underprivileged life to that point. It is impossible to know either whether their ancestors have. The concept of “white privilege,” or any actions taken based on this assumption, is or are a classic example of prejudice. One must, as Martin Luther King said, judge not by the colour of someone’s skin, but the content of their character.

There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio...

A Japanese ghost

 

“Those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age

and to the resurrection of the dead

neither marry nor are given in marriage.

They can no longer die,

for they are like angels;

and they are the children of God

because they are the ones who will rise.

That the dead will rise

even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,

when he called out 'Lord, '

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;

and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,

for to him all are alive."

- Today’s Mass reading. Luke 20:30-38

Xerxes, my muse, observed in his latest column that it is a bit absurd that we continue to celebrate Hallowe’en, because no one any longer believes we commune with the dead, that the dead participate in our lives.

I called him on that. No one? 

All Catholics are supposed to believe it. That is what the communion of the saints is about. I think of Chesterton’s definition of tradition as true democracy, because it includes a vote for the dead. Chinese folk religion also believes the dead remain in contact—the famed “ancestor worship.” All shamanic systems believe so—that is who the shamans talk to. 

We are getting up to a large chunk of the world’s population by this point—quite possibly a majority.

I begin to suspect Xerxes does not get out much. Perhaps he speaks only with mainstream Protestants and atheists.

But I want to go further. One of the biggest lies of modern life is that only the physical world is “real,” that spiritual beings do not exist. I remember in first year philosophy, a visiting professor dismissing some branch of philosophy with the comment that it would allow that unicorns exist. In other words, the non-existence of unicorns was insisted on a priori. No arguments allowed.

That bugged the heck out of me at the time, and has bugged me ever since. That is not philosophy. That is blind faith.

But a grossly materialist blind faith.

In the real world of philosophy, Berkeley has demonstrated that the very existence of the material world is an arbitrary hypothesis, and one that violates the principle of Occam’s Razor, which we take as given in science. Plato posited and argued, I think convincingly, that the material world is just a reflection of an “ideal” world, a world of ideas. Were this not so, mere sense perceptions could never spontaneously form themselves into ideas.

It seems to me that unicorns exist. They exist as a coherent image, which we can discuss. Everyone knows what I mean when I say “unicorn.” They exist as an idea; and a transpersonal idea, an idea that exists objectively.

So too with other spiritual beings: the classical gods, fairies, djinn, and the souls of the dead.

To be seen is not to exist. To exist is not to be seen. Otherwise love too does not exist. Neither does justice, or happiness, or freedom, or any other of the important things of life.

So suck it up, unicorn-deniers.

Touche

 

Pierre Poilievre is a master.

Tamara Lich on the Stand

 

I feel this is historic.

Human Rights Hypocrisy

 

Justin Trudeau is slamming Pierre Poilievre in the Commons for failing to condemn Doug Ford’s use of the notwithstanding clause to force Ontario teachers back to work after years of school closures over Covid. This, according to Trudeau, is an assault on charter rights.

Trudeau is vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy, as he recently suspended all Canadians’ charter rights by declaring the Emergency Act. He has also failed to object to the use of the notwithstanding clause by the government of Quebec. So his sudden selective concern for human rights is obviously political and insincere.

But is Poilievre also being disingenuous? Should he be condemning Ford, as he did Trudeau, for suspending human rights?

First, it does not seem to be a federal politician’s business to criticize the provinces on what they do in their own jurisdiction. In Canada, doing so could provoke a constitutional crisis. Which is why nobody goes after Quebec for using the notwithstanding clause.

Second, the notwithstanding clause is a part of the Canadian Constitution. It makes no sense to simply object to its ever being used—why is it there? The question is whether it is justified in this case. The same question applies to use of the Emergency Act. There is a need for an Emergency Act--for emergencies. The question is whether there was an emergency.

I submit that Ford is using the notwithstanding clause as intended. Trudeau used the Emergencies Act illegitimately.

By the definition given in the statute, there was no emergency when Trudeau invoked the Act. That makes it an illegal action.

But Ford’s use of the notwithstanding clause is necessitated by judicial overreach. This is why it exists, to ensure the continued supremacy of parliament and the will of the people over a possible cabal of judges.

In recent years, Canadian courts have grown increasingly irresponsible and autocratic, abrogating to themselves legislative power. In the present case, they ruled a few years ago that workers had a right to strike that prevented governments from forcing them back to work in any circumstances, even for essential services.

This cannot be allowed in an orderly and civil society. It means those in essential services can force whatever deal they choose on the public. It gives them dictatorial powers.

Accordingly, Ford must use the notwithstanding clause.

Given the current Canadian situation in general, a more aggressive use of the notwithstanding clause is long overdue. Just as stronger restrictions on invoking the Emergencies Act are clearly required—ideally, specific penalties for any government using it improperly.

Really, in a just and ordered society, Trudeau shoud be behind bars.

Hopeful Signs

 

A rainbow violates the night.

There are promising signs out there. 

The ‘publicans down in the United States look likely to sweep their midterms.

The US Supreme Court looks poised to possibly outlaw racial quotas—“affirmative action.” This does not affect Canada, but whatever big brother does, little brother always wants to also do.

Elon Musk has taken over Twitter. And begun firings.

Russia continues to lose ground in Ukraine.

The protests in Iran continue at strength.

The government of Canada looks increasingly bad in the Judicial Inquiry into the imposition of the Emergency Measures Act. The truth is being heard.

If the Republicans take both houses, they can launch investigations into big tech-government collusion to suppress speech; into Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and their dirty dealings. Into FBI corruption. Into Pfizer, the drug companies, the vaccine; into where the virus came from. Musk may reveal some dirt in the Twitter backrooms; in any case, the national dialogue should now be restored. If Twitter refuses to censor and cancel, other platforms will soon have to do the same, or lose their audiences to Twitter.

The end of affirmative action may have ripple effects throughout society, in the US first, but maybe also elsewhere, ending the worst racism and the anti-equality doctrine of “equity.” It is officially unconstitutional. That is an important moral argument to be used against it; and it will influence related decisions coming to lower courts.

Putin may be out in Russia, and replaced by a less aggressive figure. This seems almost the necessary outcome. What is someone coming in promising to win the war in Ukraine going to do that has not already been done? Russia’s only honourable escape is withdrawal and peace, blaming it all on Putin. This discredits Putin’s policies generally; as a result, there may then be an opening to the West. There is no reason other than delusions of imperial grandeur for Russia to put itself in opposition to the West; Germany or France do well enough as part of the broader coalition of democratic nations. Wanting territory rather than prosperity is old thinking.

The protests in Iran seem now likely to take down the government. Once women are in the street, it is probably over. The collapse of the Iranian regime is quite liable also to end the civil wars in Yemen and Syria, which largely rely on Iranian funding of one side. Israel’s security may improve—the Shah was once an ally--and the threat of an Islamist bomb may be gone. The fall of both Iranian and Russian regimes, if it happens in fairly quick succession, are likely to trigger some serious protest in China. That regime too is shaky, probably hanging by a thread because of economic troubles fought with increased repression, and may fall in turn. Imagine how the world might change then.

Meanwhile, here in Canada, while the judicial inquiry into the Emergency Act has no legal force, it should be valuable for several court cases proceeding against the government. Pressure will also be strong on the NDP to stop supporting a government convicted of an illegal grab for power. They may already be looking for a way out of their support agreement. If so, this would be it. If not, at a minimum, surely now, with such a judgement or popular conclusion, there is no way the Liberals could win another election.

Covid? As I expected, we have already almost forgotten. The fundamentals are surely still there. In a couple of years, all will be back to normal. 

In sum, I predict a collapse of a number of deserving regimes within the next year or so. A movement significant enough to look like a new birth of freedom. Something on the level of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Russel Brand's False Religion

 

https://rumble.com/v1qlgp8-god-war-cancel-culture-and-more-with-russell-brand.html

For a long time, I’d been hoping someone would ask Tulsi Gabbard about her faith. Gabbard is a Hindu; I wonder if the Hindu concept of ahimsa, for example, is behind her strong stance against foreign engagements.

Russel Brand finally asked her. But he got the essential concept of religion wrong. He seems to think, or claims to think, it is about tolerance and forgiveness. On this basis, he blames both right and left for not getting along.

This is a common but sinister claim. Religion is about righteousness and justice. It is a struggle against evil; not an accommodation with it.

Hitler and the Jews did not get along. So you would blame the Jews? Somebody raped and stabbed Kitty Genovese in a Brooklyn stairwell. So you would blame Kitty Genovese for not being able to get along?

To insist that religion is or ought to be about forgiveness is the sure and final refuge of the scoundrel. It is what you fall back on when you are caught red-handed. A recent example: an article in the New Yorker suggesting it is time to “declare an amnesty” on everyone’s mistakes during the pandemic. Convenient for those authorities that now have been shown to be wrong, on masks, on lockdowns, on the origin of the virus, on the side effects of the vaccine, on its efficacy; but they offered no amnesty so recently to those refusing the vaccine, or masks, or lockdowns. Putin now wants peace talks in Ukraine. Sure—now that he stands to otherwise lose the land he’s purloined.

You see how this works.

The proper Christian principle, made clear in the New Testament, is a duty to extend forgiveness and reconciliation if and only after the guilty party has both admitted wrong and done their sincere best at restitution. The aggressors always leave out that part.

If you do not stick to this principle, you are not just aiding and abetting evil; and joining in harming the victim; you are frogmarching the person you forgive into hell.