Essays in Idleness

The advantage of shooting looters is that it solves a serious problem, and quickly, rather than simply “discouraging” the crime, as may be promised by high-tech anti-theft devices. (One sees these advertised more and more.) For shooting will eliminate the looter directly, or when it misses, will nevertheless prove a more effective discouragement tool. Indeed, merely having a reputation for shooting looters is often prophylactic.

On the other hand, as Machiavelli probably observed, it comes with a downside. In a democratic political order — and virtually all polities are democratic at their lowest level — shooting looters will only be popular at first. One’s polls may decline if one keeps it up too long, or if, as so often, leftist trash is in control of your media.

This is where shooting journalists comes in, though as a journalist I have never recommended it. Moreover, shooting people too numerously and persistently could easily devolve into a tyrannous habit, to which I would be opposed.

Still, I would like to contribute to problem-solving, in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago for instance, or in the several dozen others where “Demoncrats” are in power. The consistent and prompt enforcement of legitimate rules of law, with fairly severe punishments against corruption, has apparently encouraged even economies to flourish. Justice need not apologize for itself, when it is applied justly. The human animal is, as it were, programmed (by the programming gods) to appreciate justice; only a few perverts are exceptional.

However, with sentimentality, and the loss of an ardent manliness, justice and trade soon go into recession.

Once upon a time, I delivered a few informal lectures to aspiring financial journalists at Thammasat University in Thailand. This school was in an earlier phase of a transition into a batty, shrieking, left-wing nuthouse; but some were still sincerely teaching the little that was known about development economics. (Note, this involves supply and demand.) Today, the economic students at Thammasat and elsewhere are taught instead how to permanently disable and impoverish venerable nations, enslave unthinking populations, and spread chaos and violence in the cause of fashionable “revolution.”

Well, I was then young and naïve. I already knew that economic faculties in the West were under siege from what I call (accurately) “communists and perverts.” I was just learning that this is a universal phenomenon. The whole self-appointed “intellectual” world is on the left, and indeed, throughout the universities — probably since they replaced cathedral studia in the Middle Ages — they had not been a source of sober seminary training, but of dangerous revolutionary notions. We might think of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas as representative of the new academic institutions of the West. But rioting by spoilt, godless rich children was more commonplace, from the XIIth century, forward; and the young rioters then grew up into the professorial idiots who people the faculty associations. (Or perhaps I am being excessively sardonic.)

The example that is teasing me at the moment is the formula for calculating Gross Domestic Product. A whole Seyfert galaxy of cumulative evils, implicit in government spending, now counts as contributing to national wealth; and tax money is scornfully wasted that could have been spent productively. Inflation is everywhere.

The challenge I encountered then was not to advance this mad and maddening statistical game of GDP calculation, but to replace it with something meaningful.

Operation Overlord; Tian-En-Min; the First Crusade. These events had absolutely nothing to do with one another, except that each of them is, or was, very big, and intended to put the world back in order. The world has since again strayed, dirorderward.

True, Nazi Germany, once its defeat was completed, did not revive; but the jury is still out on most other events in history. For instance, the Chinese students’ appeal at the Gate of Heavenly Peace has not yet been decided; it could go either way. My prayer is that Communism will be extinguished in China. Thousands of lives were expended in putting down the risings of 1989; and for a moment, the tanks were stopped on Chang’an Avenue in Peking. The man who stopped them, on international television, was a brave, anonymous hero. He was probably shot just afterwards.

For that matter, we cannot know just yet if the “reconquistas” will succeed, over the three-quarters of Christendom that fell to the VIIth-century Arab-Islamic invasions, and were brutally overrun. (The Sasanian Empire in Persia went down completely.) At the moment, our chances for recovery of these lands and peoples does not look good; the Crusaders are not even trying! And the sword proves mightier even than Joe Biden’s automatic pen.

Ten thousand were killed on the Normandy beaches, during D-Day; about five thousand on each side (Allies versus Germans). This was one of the more economical attempts to reverse the history in which the peace of Europe had somehow slipped away. In other theatres of war, millions of lives were wasted. All credit to Mr Eisenhower’s administrative skills.

Something of (not unmixed) good comes from all the other attempts to put the world back in order. But in the nature of things, this is an impossible task for the planners.

For you see, heavenly peace is Divinely arranged; it cannot be obtained by human enterprise.

From Ed West’s big, beautiful blog I have learnt that, when asked for his quo warranto, John de Warenne, sixth Earl of Surrey, drew his rusty sword and replied: “‘My ancestors came with William the Bastard, and conquered their lands with the sword, and I will defend them with the sword against anyone wishing to seize them.”

This was a suitable response, at the time, in the days before “stand your ground” was replaced by a pant-wet liberalism. Today, we start every bureaucratic meeting with a ridiculous land acknowledgement to some gawdforsaken Indian band, who themselves took it from some other tribe in farther antiquity. But to this worthy ancestor, “the buck stopped here.”

John de Warenne was not, in point of fact, my ancestor, from eight centuries ago; but my grandfather, an accomplished illuminator, once told me that he was, and grandpa was capable of forging mediaeval evidence. I doubt even this would, however, be recognized for a retrieval of the earldom of Surrey through the English courts, and something bolder will have to be attempted.

What the reactionary Englishman gave the world, and the revolutionary Frenchman has been trying to take away, is our “Anglo-Saxon” tradition of voluntary association. I should mention that Old French was used by these new Englishmen to convey the voluntarist terms: words like address, majority, minority, and parliament. But I will leave such details, perhaps, to a future Idlepost. For the world has been around for longer than England and France; and the terms ideologue, and doctrinaire, will meanwhile give some idea where I am going.

I was present for the French revolution, at least in American journalism. I was a copy boy in the Toronto Globe & Mail at the time, around 1969, that the executives of that paper resolved that all new hires must have a journalism degree or equivalent. Previously, all they needed was ability. More broadly, across the continent and around the world, the journalistic trade was, as the first profession, about to be turned over. Like its parallel, which is cheerless paid sex, it could be avariciously professionalized. Today, almost everywhere, this trade has become “professionally” devoted to shoving stupid ideas down people’s throats, in the trite, professional way.

It is not a trade any more, except for the few amateur operators who write things like blogs, and have managed to avoid arrest. Canada, where the entire mass media is under paid, Liberal-party direction, is among the most extreme examples.

Yet it is not only journalism, which we could probably do without. Medicine has also been converted from a trade into a “profession.” Not only have professional qualifications replaced ability as the standard for entry into a medical career. It is now five years since the medical men (and even women) acquired dictatorial powers in law. Or were you not at home during the Batflu “pandemic”?

No longer do doctors give advice we may blissfully ignore; having come to our back doors, as other tradesmen. Indeed, you are summoned to see them, and wait interminably in their “clinics.”

Rather than exhaust gentle reader with particulars, I will idly place this idea with him, as part of my mischievous writing “trade.” The reason both journalism and medicine have become leftwing and “evil” — to use the Old German word — is that the respective trades have been made into (very well-paid) professions.

Capitalism was not to blame. That only became a word, the negative for socialism, when the timeless business of trade was professionalized by the “Marxists” (i.e. commies and perverts).

It is now precisely five years since we confirmed that the medical authorities throughout America and the West are seriously deluded. This was not “an argument”; the facts of the case were put dramatically before us by the George Floyd riots, and the instruction from doctors and nurses to ignore the “pandemic” they had been promoting and go out into the streets en masse to protest (with Black Lives Matter and other violent revolutionaries) because “racism is a public health issue.” Nothing they had told us about “social distancing” was to be taken seriously.

Yes, just five years, although it seems longer from the attempt to wash away these memories, by the public health “experts,” who were either mistaken or lying on apparently every point. If anyone continued to have faith in the validity of bureaucratic methods it was, or should have been, completely shattered. All those who followed “progressive” instructions were proved to be dupes.

Alas, I do not overstate.

In my own case, I had learnt not to trust bureaucrats half a century ago, and watched this lesson being repeated many, many times. In other cases, there were some slow learners. Those who have voted, ever since, for any of the “progressive” parties — which include the Liberals in Canada, Labour in Britain, and Democrats in the States — have played a part in our civilizational decline; but too, so have most “conservatives” who have tried to compromise with them. Intelligent people should have learnt, by now, what wickedness is; within a few years of childhood one ought to realize that bureaucracy is evil, and that the good man will do what he can to resist its ministrations. Perhaps refusing to vote is the initial step to freedom.

Sick, and frequently embedded, I have had the opportunity to read sections of the Summa Contra Gentiles — the old Hanover House edition from the ‘fifties, which was portably compact and well-translated. It was an opportunity to refresh my understanding of error. For Saint Thomas made this book an extraordinary directory to error in every facet of the life of mind and the corporal. It ends in literary sight of salvation, and the condition of those who are risen. I recommend that readers at least consult the “Summa Contra” for its cogent accounts of the “official” heresies.

For bullshit is basically the same as it ever was, as if one needed reminding.

As a diplomat, and a politician, I think Mr Trump should try harder not to offend the morons.

For the record, I agree with his policy tendencies, although I would say they are too progressive, require too much administration, and are publicized too loudly. Lest I cause confusion, this is what I have been advocating for a half-century or so, ever since I first took an interest in national and worldly economic issues, thanks to employment by a business publication in good old British Hong Kong. I try not to prefer one political personality to another, but treat them all quite equally, as filth. My exception for Mr Trump is thus only temporary.

Let the politicians do anything they want, so long as they do it with their own money. Otherwise, let them be restricted, as follows:

I recommend that all governments be supported by a domestic sales tax of, say, five percent, rising to ten percent in wartime — on all goods and services. Also, a tariff on imports for an identical amount, so that importers will not enjoy a competitive advantage. Otherwise, entirely free trade and free ports, with no income tax, nor any other kind of “special” taxes, no public statistics gathering, and the politicians compelled to balance their books, or face grievous physical punishments.

Of course, a few things would be banned, outright, such as fentanyl, & suitcase-sized nuclear weapons. But apart from these, no bureaucratic favours to any constituency. The Church does charity, not the State.

It is evident, indeed, less than nine days after his election, to me and to some others whom I entirely trust, that suddenly, we have a “real” pope again. All the former Robert Prevost of Chicago (and Peru) has said and liturgically done in this short space of time has conspired to make this argument; and I, for one, have been so surprised that I have had a little ischaemic attack. (Which I hope will prove as transient as others previous; it made me tumble comically on the sidewalk, and now suggests that I recover some coherence, even before resuming these idleposts.)

About the papacy, over the last twelve years, I had resolved that the less I had to say, the better. Now it seems I shall have more to say; but the reader is granted at least a fortnight’s silence.

I am told that I will probably dislike Pope Leo XIV, by a person who generally knows what I will dislike, and that I try to be predictable. My preference doesn’t matter, however, because even if I did not approve, the world’s couple billion Catholics would have to live with the conclave’s selection. Pope Benedict XVI usefully explained that God does not choose the pope. This is a superstition, and I think not a very nice one, for were it true, man would not be free. (Think it through: the pope is not the Christ.) To contradict the late Pope Francis, God — and thank Him — is not in the habit of surprising us, and does not make a mess, yet He allows men to sink into disorder. But God may choose to be more or less active in the guidance of this and every other man, and we, for our part, are guided to bless and to love All Souls.

Pope Leo’s appearance with traditional name and vestments suggests he will return to where Pope Francis instinctively departed. That Leo XIV chose his name after Leo XIII, the author of that novel treatise, Rerum Novarum, is “interesting.” His promotion of the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and of Thomist scholasticism as the starch holding Catholic philosophy, theology, and schools together, in full integration, was signal. It is not “a system,” as every clever philosopher proposes one, but a Catholic system; his encyclical Aeterni Patris ought to be revived and refreshed. For not everything from 1879 is dated; faith and reason are still linked.

Nevertheless, his dress gives promise that we may rely on him to be more stable than his predecessor, thus more papistical, even though certainly with progressive swish. Like too many others, he was recently elevated to “the highest pay grade” — to the cardinalate, alas. May we at least hope to hear less about “Vatican II,” and more about the immortal Catholic doctrine? For this is what we need.

Probably, Pope Leo XIV will be a disaster, like Pope Francis. … But you know me: “Always look on the bright side.”

“There will always be an England,” my mommy and her friends used to sing, with tears in their eyes, and some may sing today, eighty years after the Victory Europe celebrations. Too, there will always be a France, &c — or the “Franks,” or “Franj,” as the Saracens used to call them, when, as Crusaders, they were trying to recover the most Holy Christian lands, between the XIth and XVth centuries. England, being afloat on an irremovable island, will not be overrun except by the ice, when the northern glaciation reasserts itself — whenupon France and England will once again be joined together, as the seas recede around Europe. But this is to look too far ahead. On present demographic trends they will much sooner be conquered by Islam.

Then, we may sing, perhaps, “There will always be an Anti-America,” even as the opposition to America from Europe dies away, to be replaced by something more forceful from the Ummah.

But it was seeing off the Nazis that we were toasting on the 8th of May, 1945.

My mommy, an unmarried nurse in Halifax at the time, had to be rescued from our allied drunken louts when she came off shift. (Our great Atlantic port was crawling with sailors from everywhere.) Without time to explain what they were up to, chivalrous Canadian military toughs threw my mother in the back of a truck, with other ladies, and drove her several miles out of town. Thanks to this precaution, she was not raped.

The Haligonian licker stores had been, as a further precaution, locked down tight. But they were all trashed and looted by the sailors and soldiers, in a memorable show of international solidarity.

Yes, there will always be an England, and a Canada too, and we will always win, unless we don’t.

Because he is a “populist” (i.e. give the people the stuff they want, which includes parades, incidentally), Mr Trump does not, and possibly cannot, grasp the appeal of “sovereignty,” or its expression in nationalism. This has already cost him, politically, outside of the USA and the anti-American forces at home. It is why Greenland, Canada, and now Australia have been going farther over onto their dark side, and making ruinous alliances instead with Red China.

One could go into those cases individually, but in Mr Mark Carney we see it most unambiguously. For the new Canadian prime minister is notoriously as pro-Sinitic as he is anti-carbon, and is willing to make huge sacrifices at the expense of Canada in order to line the pockets of his masters in Peking, and caress the pleasures and pretensions of the World Economic Forum. Nor is he entirely dishonest; he really believes in selling out. He also acknowledges the hard-left principle of universal multiculturalism, over against both nationalism and populism. His Liberal Party is filled, too, with traitors of that sort.

In order not to be a traitor, or some other kind of criminal fool, one must be loyal to something. This should not be to something arbitrarily assigned, but rather to principles rationally and viscerally true. In particular, we should pursue a foreign policy that combines all the higher allegiances — as Canada and Australia once did — and in which a civilized population (if one can be made to exist) will find its best features represented.

This is why I recommend that the Summa Contra Gentiles should be the basis of our foreign policy — not, perhaps, exactly as it was written in the XIIIth century by Saint Thomas, but updated in the same spirit. It gives, without directly depending on Christian revelation, a comprehensive view of the world, and of what is wrong with all non-Christian viewpoints. Our collective approach to this world must be founded in a natural theology, and this Summa, in its first three books, safely guides us to what that should be.

____________

POSTSCRIPTUM. — Sprayed by news from Washington this morning, in which (according to the CBC, &c) Carney says repeatedly, “Canada is not for sale.” Who, I wonder, was proposing to buy it? If someone is, I would at least like to look at their offer. Mr Trump certainly hasn’t mentioned a price, and he is too sensible a businessman to do so. I would guess his “51st state” blather is just positioning himself for when we break up, and the larger, chocolate pieces will be available for free.

The case becomes confusing in domestic politics, where virtually all the politicians lie, cheat, and steal — those on the left, such as Liberals and Democrats, much more than those on the right — and yet, it is painful to choose between one brand of fraudulence and another. My personal preference for the party on the right is because they need not lie, cheat, or steal necessarily; whereas, if you are on the left you have no choice. In this sense, we could afford to be more merciful to the diehard leftists, but of course, not so merciful that they will survive.

In diplomacy, the matter is more obvious. The choice is between basically normal, Westernized regimes, and their Imperial offspring; and ideological regimes. It is complicated only because ideology proliferates, when making compromises with the Devil. But there are regimes in which there is no compromise: for instance, Communist regimes. These do not sometimes violate diplomatic agreements. They always do. The Red Chinese economy, for instance, has been built entirely upon intellectual theft, and ugly forms of exploitation. The idea that “free trade” with them would moderate their commercial practices did not, and would not, prove true.

I was writing about this long before Tiananmen, in columns commonly received as radical and crazy. And yet, they were entirely correct. This is because Communists are communist: they have no morals, even in principle.

An intelligent person will not deal with those who are consistently dishonest.

Pietro, good to hear you are still alive, too. I continue to be unhealthy.

My chief source is long observation; I do not have any surprising contacts in contemporary Trumpland. But the humour with which that gentleman for instance sets up his old friend Carney! Yes, they’ve been an item for a long time, & they both use the globalist camp to advance their self-interests. Mr Carney will now usefully take credit for the final Canadian disintegration.

The joke was Mr Poilievre, successfully smeared in Liberal propaganda, was perfectly sincere in his opposition to the experimental Trump tariffs, as well as rather naïve and foolish. Carney, by contrast, is not sincere at all; his “outrage” at them was entirely a performance, which he knew he would discard right after the election. His continuing, belief-based but asinine support for “net zero,” advances both Carney’s & Trump’s agenda — by eliminating Alberta gas & oil, the Ontario auto industry, & general “free trade” Canadian competition. The rest of our economy will now move to the United States.

You just have to smile! … Of course Trump was pulling strings for Carney!