Essays in Idleness

From Argentina we learn that my controversial views on Rent Control — that we should retire it, “with extreme prejudice,” and snuff it along with everything like it — is actually being tried by the government of the “dangerous” Javier Milei. Even people who consider themselves to be rightwing nutjobs find nice words to say about Rent Control, which they assume is why they can afford to live in big cities.

Myself, in addition to “rent commissioners,” I am opposed to Bed Bugs.

And now I read (in John Loeber) what the terrible consequences of Milei’s reckless act has been. “Rent has dropped by 40 percent in real terms, and the supply of rental properties in Buenos Aires has increased by over 300 percent.”

The Argentine economy is meanwhile growing at around 8 percent. America’s will grow at 4 per cent, once Trumpery is fully engaged. Our Canadian economy is, of course, contracting.

It is true, I adore Trump, but only half as much as I love Javier Milei. If we are going to utterly crush “The Left,” we need, in the colloquial expression, to “grow some balls.” Do not compromise, and do not pause: our job is to smash, smash, and smash. Take a fire axe to every well-meaning bureaucracy — or a chainsaw, if there is somewhere to plug it in.

I don’t know anything about cars, or some other topics, and most of what I do know about gets me into trouble with the humourless scolds. My attitude to automobiles is like my attitude to apartment blocks; I’d rather be in one, than looking at it from the outside. In that sense, we might say I am an “insider,” on vehicles and flats, like other people who grow opinions about “the environment.”

Should cars all go electric?

My anarchist sensibility says, it doesn’t matter. It is like the question, Should people have cars at all? Or, Should I own one? I do know the answer to this last is, No. And not because I do not have a licence, for as I explained to Kate McMillan, licences are for cissies. I first piloted my papa’s Volkswagen bug, around a disused airfield, entirely without licence, at age nine.

It’s like needing a licence to own a gun. If you are carrying one, people don’t ask.

It is a similar question, should one practice poetry, or painting, or journalism? Yes, if you want to do it, and No, if you don’t. You may eventually learn whether or not you know how. (I didn’t found my Comet Express until I was ten.)

Should one make electrical vehicles, like Elon Musk? No, in that case definitely, because you are not Elon Musk, and were precluded by birth, as Lia Thomas was precluded from being a woman. As well, perhaps, one does not have the facilities, for like poetry, painting, and journalism, everything requires equipment. Do you own a brush, or guitar? (Well, some use an imaginary guitar, and you might consider an imaginary manufacturing plant, as an economy.)

The idea that some government, especially the lunatic one that runs this country, should have an opinion about who should make what; let alone pass laws on the matter; or decide if it should be electrical, or must not use petrol; touches very near to the obscenity of liberalism and democracy. All democracy is tyranny, as we have known for a very long time.

National pride, or more specifically pride in one’s nation, can be, but often isn’t, an innocent affair. Canada gives an example of this pride at its worst, and most debilitating. At least in the spaces east of Wawa, Ontario, and many of the spaces West, it takes a negative and evil form. It is almost purely anti-American. By no coincidence, this is a country which absolutely depends on the United States, for its defence and prosperity. Our national cultures and “multicultures,” including the French Canadian element, are copied and adapted from American models, and we have nothing that is original (except the vestiges of Crown-in-Parliament). Our “dignity” consists of a landscape that is extraordinarily beautiful and inspiring; but we do proportionally more to destroy it than the U.S. and most other countries.

However, it’s not all bad. I was asking myself last Tuesday, which was Dominion Day (before the Liberal government of the demonic Pierre Trudeau stripped it away), what was the last time I felt real pride in a Canadian achievement? Unmistakably, it was the Canadian truckers’ convoy in early 2022, when our highways were lined with the fearlessly truthful. Canadians, for the first time in a long while, stood up against a vicious government, and set an example which was celebrated in Bolivia and most of the other countries in the world. I cannot describe the government of Mr Trudeau’s “cutest” child without using vocabulary I try to avoid. But the suppression of this exhilarating “strike” on Justin’s watch was the counter-example of stinking corruption.

We found that while there were still examples of the “old” Canadian virtues in the rural retreats, where real and necessary work is done, in urban life “our” Canada is, morally, a dead loss. I became filled with shame, at these depraved “gliberals” — the flip side of the pride I had been feeling.

The revival experiment, now being attempted next country over under Donald J. Trump, is a mixed bag. Much that he is trying is vulgar, or worse. But that it is working, economically, overall, and has contributed to many admirable things, is undeniable. Most important, he is reducing the tyranny of government and its bureaucracies. Rather than indulge our envious hatreds, we should resolve to copy whatever is good from the Americans, and try not to be played again by the Liberal Party, exploiting our incredibly low intelligence.