Essays in Idleness

The idea that human affairs should be governed by just relationships, at every level from small to where God takes over — rather than by democratic voting by the mentally and morally infirm — was one I felt bound to defend during my years as a sleazy journalist.

There are degrees to sleaze, however, and I generally preferred “responsible” or accountable government, in defiance of progressive, “liberal” sham and deceit, which has been usually in the ascendant throughout my adult life. In the extreme we had (and still have) “people’s republics,” which carry progressivism and liberalism into the theatre of the absurd.

Whereas, Lady Justice does not consider, and generally despises, the latest fashionable thing, when it is admitted to her judgement; promoted as it will invariably be by government officers, “dressed in a little authority.” (The phrase shows Shakespeare’s absolute contempt for bureaucrats.)  “Equality,” another word for democracy, is opposed to freedom; Her Ladyship is not, and will accommodate honest disagreement.

But even within a “democracy,” we must be on guard against cheating. For justice does not cheat. Mr Trump’s proposal to the American governors, that they must restore paper ballots and same-day elections, did not have to be made to the governor of Canada, because the true-north-strong-and-free has always used paper ballots. Apart from making fraud easy to demonstrate and prove (by consulting watermarks, &c), this reduces the cost of an election to a small fraction of what it will be when expensive machinery and elaborate rules are introduced to manufacture a result.

The American Democrats have flourished by such cheating, but also, like Canada’s NDP-Liberals, they have benefitted from shameless misrepresentation of the facts of life to low-intelligence electorates. The “Conservatives” and “Republicans” do this reciprocally, too, but in support of progressive views, one must become a pathological liar.

Sixty years ago, today, Canada received her new flag, the so-called “Pearson Pennant”; and I do not remember it because my family were settled in Asia at the time. Of course, being Canuckistanis, my father and I had produced several proposed draft versions in various hues and patterns, not all of which included the brand identifier: a Norway maple leaf, in Pantone matching colour 032. Norway maples grow only in a few parts of the country; but so does any tree, for we have much surplus geography. My preference would have been for a beaver, the original Canadian lumberjack.

I missed the premiere, in which the winning entry was displayed: a superior example of monochromatic graphic art from the Liberal Party’s advertising agency. Several greeted it by singing the “Internationale.” (Was Pearson a Communist?) But I read about this controversial event only later, on the front page of the Montreal Star, when it arrived by sea.

The best part was when the Liberal minions tried to hoist their new banner in the Senate Chamber, over the objection of partisans of our traditional Ensign, with Union Jack next the flagpole in the canton. Some members of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition had come prepared for a rumble. It was a fine brawl, such as we seldom get to enjoy except during hockey games. But it was the last scrap of British North America, torn from its mast, and a preview of the fifty-first state.

It is also the sixtieth anniversary of Lament for a Nation, by the metaphysical Tory, George Grant.

Alexander Hamilton argued at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that the U.S. president should be elected for life, which would make him, in effect, the King. I’ve often found Hamilton’s political judgement to be very wise, although his personal judgement was sometimes rather weak, for instance when he agreed to duel with that “profligate and voluptuary,” Aaron Burr.

Mr Hamilton was the first American Secretary of the Treasury, and the last successful one.

Without entering overmuch into details, I am an enthusiastic monarchist, and see it as the solution to many little problems; that, and an appointive legislature. I think this would appeal to that sizeable majority of Americans who approve Mr Trump’s policies, on immigration and everything else, and might also assuage the minority of voters who worry what might happen if he were ever deposed. For with democratic practices, the future is always unsound.

Immediately we have the lovely Queen Melania, and a very plausible, impressively tall heir in Prince Barron, together with an extensive royal family. But more to the point, Canada and Greenland could join this American Union uncontroversially, together with other entities including Panama and Gaza, for our own various monarchical traditions (British, Danish, Spanish) could be easily revised.

Mr (surely, Lord?) Vance would make an excellent Prime Minister — a job he already has de facto — and any one of Mr (surely, Lord?) Elon’s youthful staff could be given the Treasury to mind, assuming the rocket-man himself wouldn’t have time.

I think this is a more practical alternative than any that has been suggested, and I make it out of my home and native love, on Saint Valentine’s Day.

The most consequential act the new Trump administration has brought upon the American Republic, is its (declared) war on secrets. After several weeks we see that this extends beyond free public enquiry into the Kennedy assassination, the killings of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, Sr., the 9/11 incidents, UFOs, the Batflu origins, and the Jeffrey Epstein client list. Much ugliness will likely be released for each of these tabloid stories, and I say this not with any special knowledge but by observing how tightly the secrets have been held. (Investigations into assassination attempts on Donald Trump himself will also prove interesting.)

But the inspections by Mr Elon Musk of more recent secrets, with his clever young cybernetic accomplices and their latest algorithms, is already bringing us so much truth. The reader who has made himself aware of only the USAID payments will understand what may, or rather will, be revealed as the Musketeers survey the remaining ninety-nine-one-hundredths of the U.S. government, with not only presidential but majority congressional approval.

That the Democrats, and their allied “uniparty” Republicans, are appalled — shrieking bloody murder in defence of secrecy, corruption, fraud, deceit, and abuse — is part of the common instruction. I have long supposed the Devil’s “fan base” is to be found overwhelmingly on the political Left. The cause is obvious: they are the godless parties.

One bites oneself, for this is a dream come true. … “DEI, die, die.” … Let us recite the Prayer of Saint Michael, the way we imagine that good Catholic, Tom Homan, is doing this morning.

Deafening hype is coming from both sides (there are only two) of American politics at the moment. I find it hard to think of any other topic, even though I long for quietude and inner peace. Given my preference for peace over war, freedom over slavery, and strength over ignorance (some subtleties are being concealed here) — and, more generally, for good over evil — the reader will understand that I have associated with the “Far Right” of the current political spectrum. I take a reactionary and controversial position.

There is considerable confusion, however, of just the sort that the Party was trying to bestow upon the public in Nineteen Eighty-Four. I realize this at every demonstration of what we call “Trump Derangement Sydrome,” and now “Musk Derangement” and many related syndromes. Our (mildly) right-wing politicians tend to argue vaguely for free-tradism, are sensitive to minor points of liberty, and recall supposed religious traditions. Almost all are mediocrities. For these reasons, they are frequently smeared as “fascists” by their opponents. They share nothing with the actual fascists, however.

These fascists, and national socialists, and communists, have and had approximately interchangeable policies, along with a propensity to savagery, violence, murderous rage, and oppression. They are (and were) idealists, in other words, obeying charismatics (i.e. crazy fanatics).

Mao, Stalin, and Hitler slaughtered millions, in that statistical order. Each was hero-worshipped by the left, in his season, and Mao Tse-Tung is still on the PRC banknotes. Queen Elizabeth II is still on Canadian banknotes, yet wasn’t charismatic in that kind.

Like many another, my introduction to the “intellectual” life came with the purchase of a “beuk.” It was not my introduction to reading, per se, for I had learnt all about this, almost involuntarily, at the age of three. (I can date this because it was when my sister was born, my mama almost “doyed,” and I was left for several weeks in the charge of a babysitter whom I despised, and a Pookie beuk. My attempts to read it began, positively, from my typographical delight with the letter “g,” which resembled a pair of spectacles hung vertically from their side. Negatively, it began with my clever tactic, to escape the attention of this nanny, by concealing myself behind this beuk, which had large pages. I had the other twenty-five letters down in no time. Soon I discovered that reading was a means to be left alone, by everybody.

I had years of reading “for pleasure,” which led from Pookie through Kipling to other story-tellers, and I was able to avoid what was given me to read, for “education.” But I was not reading, nor thinking, philosophically.

This I attribute to Mr Huntington Cairns, and Miss Edith Hamilton, and the others who assembled the edition of Plato, in English, for the Bollingen Foundation. It was a thick, wide book (the text is 25 picas), with nearly 1,800 pages of thin paper, whose physical design commanded, “Care for me.”

All of my knowledge of things, or more precisely, of what I know I don’t know, began there and continued in beuks — to Aristotle, quite naturally, and then to Aristotle’s brilliant exponent, Thomas Aquinas, and thus from paganism to the Catholic religion. But all of this was continued at leisure, which is to say, it took a long time. I was twenty-two before I discovered Christ, the real person, or rather He discovered me. But all of this began, I think, with Plato and typography.

The recovery of the West may proceed in the same way — aesthetically, and then philosophically — and then, eventually, we may find that we have been rediscovered, by Christ. Deus vult!

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POSTSCRIPTUM. — You see, this was the first of many gifts from my wee little sister. By dawdling in the maternity ward, and delaying my mama, she made it possible for me to learn the alphabet; and this would prove (on balance) useful in later life. Though as you may have noticed, passim, I do not think literacy an unambiguous blessing.

It wasn’t really necessary to give Elon Musk a job recommending savings to the U.S. government. For he has a job already, or at least some $56 billion of personal income via “SpaceX,” formerly incorporated in Delaware. (“Meta” and various other corporations have also fled that state.) While Mr Musk is piling up his, and his shareholders’, winnings in the new space age, he shouldn’t waste his time unknitting the American bureaucracy (as “Doge,” named presumably after the Chief Magistrate of Venice). He is doing this charitably, apparently for free.

By simply cancelling all of the one-fifth of the American budget that is already identified as “discretionary” spending, the deficit could be eliminated immediately; and as 100 percent of this spending is essentially corrupt, there would be no need for regret. (Canadian spending is much more nebulous, even than American, so this would be incalculable up here.) Of course this is not real money, but electronic play money, that could not possibly be exchanged for gold, silver, platinum, or coal to keep us warm through the winter.

A more suitable financial topic for this morning, in the Canadian news, is “Trump tariffs.” (He is settling the score for decades of smug, Canadian abuse of American generosity.) I mentioned in a previous post that his intention is, incidentally, to destroy our government, and implied that this would be a good thing. The Canadian government is cooperating, by counter-tariffing, and the voters, especially in Ontario, are confirming their reputation as malicious idiots. I could explain how the trade war they are demanding will accomplish Trump’s end, by accelerating the tailspin of the Canadian economy (“drill baby drill”) — but why throw pearls before swine?

My advocacy of potholes goes back at least half a century, to jeepney-riding in the remote Philippines. The vehicle was bouncing around wildly, and my companion of that moment complained about the construction of Philippine roads. I, however, recommended them, because if they weren’t so uneven, our driver would be trying to go much faster. Our lives were already in as much danger as we could wish.

Asphalt had been invented a hundred years before that, by some Belgian, and I’m sure that road has now been asphalt-covered as part of the progress of the “tiger economies.” Rather foolishly, if they have retained any jeepneys. Indeed, the number of fatal road accidents that may be blamed on this Belgian inventor (his name was “de Smedt”) has possibly exceeded even the number who perished of disease, as the result of banning DDT (credit “Rachel Carson”). But the modern takes such cold-blooded slaughter in his stride.

Travelling, today, on foot along the back lanes of Toronto, I am often appalled by the waste of paving materials, even where human life may not be endangered. I watch armies of workmen lay down smooth asphalt in these narrow passageways, and then, because the elimination of pedestrians by speeding vehicles in tight spaces would be inconvenient to automotive traffic, the workers go back to install “speed bumps” at regular intervals to slow traffic down. They also like to place them across residential streets in the more affluent neighbourhoods. This method of “traffic calming” is second only to the insertion of bicycle lanes along major freeways.

But I am most offended by the replacement of the quite serviceable, free potholes by expensive speed bumps. The multiplication and spread of potholes is, after all, a requirement of civilized life, as one may determine by inspecting any depiction of an ancient road in art.

Now that we are in the “age of science” (i.e. scientism), we are harassed by its many “health experts.” Or rather, this is the “advertising age,” and it only appears to be medically obsessed. The advertisements can sometimes be muted, by turning off the Internet, and choosing one’s walks carefully; except there is an “Internet of things.” The “advertising industry” — a voracious evil — has bought up most of the viewing angles, indoors and outdoors; and those which are exceptionally attractive are used as a lure.

“I think that I shall never see,” — my papa used to quote Bennett Alfred Cerf — “a billboard pretty as a tree. Perhaps if billboards do not fall, I shall not see a tree at all.”

Given the worthlessness of most commercially available products, the advertisers of them must still leave a fragment of our attention to what is uncommercial, in order to catch our attention with constant interruptions. Mindfulness to what is good, true, or beautiful, is invaded by their audio and video noise, using the various techniques of attention-grabbing.

With each passing year, the governments’ share of this advertising increases. Each government warns us against more and more things, ranging from the obvious to the imaginary. This reduplicates the noise.

Truly, every bureaucracy, both public and private, is staffed with snake-oil salesmen, and their administrative staff.

There is a lady who reminds me, each year on the 24th of January, that it is the Feast of Saint Francis de Sales, as celebrated in the present-day Church. But it is rather today, the 29th, in the Church of the Ages; the date was shifted in one of those Bugnini “reforms,” which I am in the practice of ignoring.

“In the midst of the Church he opened his mouth: the Lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding: He clothed him with the robe of glory,” it sings in the Book of Ecclesiasticus. … “Lying men shall not be mindful.”

Bishop of Geneva, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, Saint Francis de Sales is patron of Catholic writers and journalists everywhere. His Introduction to the Devout Life (4th edition, 1619) is perhaps the most adequate book that could be written under that title. The reader who throws himself into it, will find it is more current than any newspaper or website. Gentle yet lively, it is a last word for the conversion of Calvinists and Leftists; a true “crucible” (melting container) of sweetness and light.

The last time I revisited Hong Kong (“Be brave, be water, be ready,” 2019), it had still an infinitesimal chance of liberty, and its people were apparently rebelling against the obscenity of Chinese Communism. Now I visit the old Crown Colony again, as pure idea.

As I wrote then:

“The British approach was finally, live and let live; but it had an administrative basis. From the 1950s, Hong Kong was an experiment. What would happen if they deregulated almost everything, and cut taxes to match? If they consciously de-politicized the colonial administration? If they shrank police functions to what was needed only to direct traffic, and defeat crime? The result was, as ever, unprecedented prosperity, but more: a people who forgot the habit of kow-towing to men ‘dress’d in a little brief authority’.”

One must also question the advantages of too widespread wealth. It goes to people’s heads:

“For unfortunately, in a broader view, prosperity also kills, as people use their freedom only for material gain, and a new jackboot state grows around the need to protect against” losing stuff. But now Hong Kong gets kicked by both boots — the obscenity of communism, plus the oppression of ease and affluence.

I shouldn’t say anything to encourage politicians, even the undemocratic monarchist types, yet I will do it again, to confute the prospective tariff regimes of The Donald, Polly-ever, and unfriends. This may come about because tariffs are a large-scale option, and large-scale states and federations invariably settle on the stupidest plan.

But if they wanted only to get rich, and quickly, radical free trade would be their best option. Note my use of “radical.” Such arrangements are only suitable for small, independent, city states, in the time before Obscene Communists move in. Freedom works in nation states, too, but not nearly so well, because these are politically awkward: “the peeple” insist on corruption and legislative interventions, to imbalance the playing field and promote special interests. (They always have.) There is a large economy for the politicians to “protect,” and politicians aren’t shy.

In a radical free market, there are no taxes or tariffs, or almost none (perhaps some modest royalties on natural resources, and of course, voluntary patronage). There are no retaliatory tariffs, either. Your free marketeers sell to anyone who will buy, and not to others. You simply don’t buy what foreign powers have marked up. Because you are a city state, you are small, and easily specialize. Only intelligent people will buy from you, because only intelligent people buy beautiful and well-made things, and don’t like over-paying for them.

And you avoid an unbending law of the universe: that those who retaliate (and start wars) soon get destroyed. (But so does every state, eventually, and all the “peeples.”)

Thus in no time, a city once dirt poor, becomes a raging success, like Hong Kong. For as a beleaguered Hongkongois shouted, during street demonstrations in 2019, about the promises of grand nation states:

“Don’t trust China. China is asshole!”

C. G. Jung is an acquired taste, but only for those who have not yet acquired it. For everyone else, it is a natural condition. You don’t have to hate Sigmund Freud to begin to entertain Jungian insights, but it helps. The chief obstacle is something like belief in flying saucers (or whatever the latest term the authorities have assigned). This exists at the intersection of scepticism and faith, where much of interest may be found. Jungian psychology is another example. The intersection includes scientism, and many other things that should be discouraged, but Jung is okay.

In his tract on Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky, Jung is indeed too clever to give a judgement on if they are “extra-terrestrial.” Written in the late 1950s, during one of the recurring flying saucer crazes, he does not provide technological speculations about how fast they fly and how they turn corners. Were he alive today (he wasn’t, by 1961) he would be unsurprised and unperturbed by the reports of air force pilots. He would accept their reports as we will soon be accepting new information on the Kennedy assassination.

Both sky phenomena and shootings can be located in the “collective unconscious,” although assassinations merely pass through. Jung saw that the reality of flying saucers belongs in that realm which is both real (offering hard evidence), and unreal. When flying saucers crash, they leave dimples in the earth but no sign of what caused them. Similarly, they buzz in and out of radar, but do not collide with other aircraft. Perhaps they might cause accidents, as hallucinations do. They thus, in themselves, are examples of things that both are and are not.

That they are “demonic,” would follow. People who become obsessed with them, and insist that they are real, or claim kidnappings, or take rides in the saucers, quickly become mentally diseased, even if they were not already. But it is a condition that can be cured. One must transfer one’s faith instead to something substantial, such as Jesus Christ. The flying saucers will then leave you alone.

For whether or not they are “real,” flying saucers are not substantial.

It is getting more and more difficult for me to dislike Donald Trump, for he seems intent upon destroying everything I want destroyed, including, most particularly, the Government of Canada. I hesitate over the man’s Republicanism, however, because I remain a dyed-in-the-wool Monarchist. But it doesn’t have to be the British monarchy; and I understand that our American cousins still “have a problem with” George IIIrd, and his being “mad,” and everything. I, rather, enjoyed his eccentricities, although King Alfred was more to my tastes, and his location in history — eleven-plus centuries into the past — is more comforting.

I am an economics hobbyist, and one of the greatest appeals of Trump is his businesslike approach to taxes. He wants to put an end to them, as soon as possible, and would extinguish the Income and Corporate Taxes sooner. Perhaps it is true, that America could get by with a few juicy tariffs, and now that aircraft carriers are proving unnecessary (the world can be controlled with drones), considerable savings come into view. Indeed, the only bills Trump really needs to pay are the instalments on the 36 trillion of U.S. national debt, and he has invented a crypto coin to take care of that.

But I promised to discuss politics in my title for today’s post, and as the reader will know, modern politics means, exclusively, elections.

In the last moments before our sovereignty is surrendered to the United States, I am looking for a “net zero” race up here. (Jordan Peterson has patented this phrase.) That means, net zero seats in the Canadian House of Commons for the N.D.P., and net zero for the Liberals. I think about five for the Bloc Québécois, and maybe one for the Greenies in British Columbia. That will leave 332 seats for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, or only 331 should the Liberals retain the one seat in Ottawa they have never, ever lost, no matter what the species of their candidate.

Note, I was the only “journalist” who correctly predicted that Kim Campbell’s party would be reduced (from a large majority) to precisely TWO seats in the 1993 general election. And yet I don’t charge for my prognostications.