Essays in Idleness

“You can’t argue with stupid.” — This phrase, used recently by one of my favourite old ladies, is typical of her charity and kindness.

I, on the other hand, yield too easily to the “mendacious” analysis; for when anyone (Justin and Jagmeet come to mind) habitually destroys everything he touches, I too quickly assume he is doing it on purpose. Take Justin, for instance. I have granted him only a decade, but like my friend Stephen, I became aware that Justin was one of Canada’s stupidest public figures long before he came to power. But he had nice hair, a cherubic smile, and swept the woman’s vote, so his rise in Canadian politics was irresistible.

He is probably less evil than I have assumed. This is true of most presently or formerly popular politicians. Not having the ability to make “muchmoney” as an enterprising businessman, yet wanting to make a name for himself, he contrives to master what takes little brains, and fly quickly with the family name through the pedestrian ranks of party politics. Because the successful politician can more or less help himself to the taxpayers’ billions, he easily forms a retinue of low-intelligence bureaucratic types; but they must own to the reflexive greed. For they have just spotted a gold coin lying in a ditch, or loose in an unattended pocket.

The hereditary principle indeed comes into play. Justin actually inherited “muchmoney” from the start, as his father Pierre did from his (genuinely enterprising) father. Pierre, though a notorious skinflint with his own money, was unprecedented for his extravagance as a politician, and we (the humble, taxpaying Canadians) are still paying off his public debt. And just when the budget was finally balanced, after thirty-something years of great pain, Justin appeared, to revive the Trudeaumanic spending. He appears to be the new record-holder for irresponsible profligacy, helped by his subscription to the “climate” fraud.

To listen to him during Question Period in the House of Commons — and the many criminal scandals he is being asked to account for — one might form the wrong impression. His shrieking, womanlike, defensive postures might be mistaken for demonic inhabitation. But this would be unfair. The man is, more simply, a moron.