Essays in Idleness

Ah, gentle reader, what a wonderful summer we are having up here in the Canadas. It is overcast for seeming weeks at a time, and rains six days in seven. This prevents the heat from accumulating in my elevated, west-facing apartment. It pleases me — verily, I am chuffed — that the Weather Fairies would arrange things for the comfort of the Denizen of the High Doganate, and the inconvenience of everyone else. And even when the “muggy” heat doth rise (in this anniversary year, let us call it “lutherish”) I may take a stroll in the fog and endless drizzle, and imagine myself in Halifax, or perhaps in glorious old colonial Singapore, before the stupid British gave it away.

*

Now, I have preserved the heading from the piece I draughted this morning, which came out much too long and mouthy. Often my Idleposts end like that, in which case I toss them in psychic recycling, and the electrons are composted in an environmentally friendly way. Instead, the piece should have been short and mouthy.

*

I meant to write comfort to such as the parents of Charlie Gard — the innumerable who find themselves on the spear side of a legal and bureaucratic crusade, to enforce the statutes of the Culture of Death. Many, many people get cornered like that, today, in the equivalent to Great Ormond Street, though without the publicity that has happily attended this case; find themselves in a place where no reasonable argument is going to work; where ancient Common Law has itself been murdered, and they are in the power of men unambiguously evil. The authorities cannot be satisfied until they have killed your child, and driven you to despair. Every “single payer” system is designed to do that: to entrench the Fiends in positions of authority.

Rather, they cannot be satisfied at all, and will continue to seek victims. They derive no joy from what they are doing, for Joy has never been among the Devil’s rewards. We may pity the unhappiness of their miserable lives, from now through perpetuity. We may pray for their conversion, but without reasonable hope.

We can argue with no one who does not share our premisses; in this case “Choose Life!” — the premiss of Isaiah. We can only proclaim the truth to deaf ears. So do that until you have lost the battle; and then with Saint Paul, knock the dust off your sandals and proceed, along the Roman road. The liberals and progressives will do unspeakable things to you and to yours, but they have not the power to kill your soul. God will sort them out in due course; our business is to keep on the right side of Him.

Where argument fails, and reason has no standing, we fall back in a prayer. The one to Saint Michael is peculiarly apt.