Stephen Roney's Blog, page 140

Charest Lights Himself on Fire, Hoping to Bring Down the Conservative Party with Him?

 

After this interview, it is clear that if Jean Charest wins the Tory leadership, the party will split. He is actually falsely accusing Pierre Poilievre, Candice Bergan, and Andrew Scheer of breaking the law. They and their supporters could hardly stay in the same party with him.
What is he thinking? Is he only in the race as an agent provocateur or Fifth Column?

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Freedom Convoy Vidicated

 

It was non-violent, and, I believe, perfectly legal.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Vance Affair

 

Vance

It seems to me there is something wrong with how we are looking at the General Vance affair. It takes two to have sex. This was a longstanding consensual relationship. Why is it all his fault, and the other party, Major Brennan, a victim? There is an obvious injustice here.

The argument, no doubt, is that there was an imbalance in power. He was illegitimately trading power for sex. But why is this wrong, yet it is okay to trade sex for power, as the woman was doing? Why is one immoral, and the other admirable?

Since sex is rather easy to obtain in our present society, I doubt Vance was even doing that. More likely trading power for intimacy, for an emotional bond, for the illusion of being loved. And how much power did he actually have over his “victim” in the relationship? Given that society at present always blames the man, the woman has absolute control: if she did not get what she wanted out of the relationship, she could blackmail him at any time. As, it seems, she ultimately did. Apparently, she was recording his phone calls.

While paternity tests show that one of Brennan’s two children is Vance’s, these same tests show that a second, that she claimed was his, was not. In other words, we also discover she was not being faithful to the relationship, and was trying to get him to pay support for a child who was not his.

Apart from who is to blame, or more to blame, in this case, this is all an illustration of why it is best to avoid sex in the workplace. Traditionally, we did this by segregating the sexes. Now by integrating the sexes we have opened a hogshead of worms. Given human nature, there is now no way to avoid these exploitative relationships and special dealings. The problems of influence peddling, sex peddling, and blackmail are probably also reasons why homosexual sex was traditionally frowned on: it introduces the same problems.

Brennan

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Great Indian Explorers

 

The text from which I am currently teaching has a short model passage on tr he topic of “great explorers on land, in space, and under the sea.” Neil Armstrong for space, Jacques Cousteau for sea, and, for the land—Sacajawea.

So far as we know, Sacajawea was not an explorer. She accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expedition, and sometimes acted as an interpreter. Her main value was as an indication that they were not a war party.

An ugly example of affirmative action history.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Memories of English Montreal

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Matt Walsh on Slapgate

 

I think Matt Walsh has it exactly right.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

This Is Full of Unsanitary Language

 

But it is interesting as a reflection of popular opinion of Trudeau now even in a supposedly left-leaning place like downtown Toronto.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

MPP Randy Hillier Arrested and Charged

 

Randy Hillier

For the survival of Canadian democracy, the government’s pressing of charges against Ontario MPP Randy Hillier is extremely dangerous. I cannot believe any longer they are simply being reckless. The Canadian government, in the broadest sense, is either hysterical, incompetent, or genuinely trying to destroy Canadian democracy.

It is a grave matter to charge an opposition politician with a crime related to his political activity. That obviously looks like an attempt to intimidate opposition. Democracy functions only so long as we all observe a gentleman’s agreement that those in power will not go after those out of power. If and when that agreement is violated, opposition and peaceful alternation in power becomes no longer possible. You have a dictatorship.

As far as I have heard so far, the charges are not even plausible. Hillier is being charged when an ordinary citizen would not be. This is a politically-motivated prosecution. And timed to silence him, by the bail conditions, for the next Ontario election.

Canada has been a model democracy. We have never had to earn this through any great struggle or suffering, as other nations have. As Ukraine is now. It was all bequeathed to us by the British.

 I wonder if, put to the test, we have the mettle to defend it.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Urge for Going

 

I just had the immense pleasure of going through Joni Mitchell's lyrics for "Urge for Going" with a student.

Mitchell is an excruciatingly good poet. I think it is possible "Urge for Going" is actually the best poem ever written in Canada. And the most Canadian.

I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town

It hovered in a frozen sky, then it gobbled summer down

When the sun turns traitor cold

And all the trees are shivering in a naked row

I get the urge for going but I never seem to go

I get the urge for going

When the meadow grass is turning brown

Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I had me a man in summertime

He had summer-colored skin

And not another girl in town

My darling's heart could win

But when the leaves fell on the ground

And bully winds came around pushed them face down in the snow

He got the urge for going and I had to let him go

He got the urge for going

When the meadow grass was turning brown

And summertime was falling down and winter was closing in

Now the warriors of winter they gave a cold triumphant shout

And all that stays is dying and all that lives is getting out

See the geese in chevron flight flapping and racing on before the snow

They've got the urge for going and they've got the wings so they can go

They get the urge for going

When the meadow grass is turning brown

Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I'll ply the fire with kindling and pull the blankets to my chin

I'll lock the vagrant winter out and I'll bolt my wandering in

I'd like to call back summertime and have her stay for just another month or so

But she's got the urge for going so I guess she'll have to go

She gets the urge for going when the meadow grass is turning brown

And all her empires are falling down

And winter's closing in

And I get the urge for going when the meadow grass is turning brown

And summertime is falling down

And winter closing in.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Wisdom of Magpies

 

The proverbial thieving magpie

Friend Xerxes believes magpies can teach humans a thing or two. In an Australian experiment, magpies fitted with tracking devices pecked them off one another. This, to Xerxes, was a display of altruism, shaming humans, who fetishize competition instead. We ought, like the magpies, to learn to cooperate.

He blames the human love of competition, surprisingly, on Darwin, not on Adam Smith.

What the magpies did was cooperation, but not true altruism. Cooperation is not altruistic, as it implies a quid pro quo. As Darwin himself could no doubt point out, herd animals derive a survival benefit through cooperation. By cooperating, they increase each individual’s chance of survival.

Altruism: OED: “Behaviour of an animal that benefits one or more others (typically of its own species), but which carries a cost for the individual concerned.”

True altruism would therefore be conduct that actually reduces the ability of an individual organism to survive, while increasing the ability of another organism to survive. Such cases have been found in nature, but the Australian magpies do not qualify. A magpie incurs no significant cost by pecking something off a fellow. He might do as much out of curiosity.

Xerxes’s larger point is to claim that cooperation, which he identifies with collectivism, is more moral than individualism, which he identifies with competition.

This does not work when you realize that, in microeconomics, cooperation or collectivism means a cartel in restraint of trade. 

Sometimes cooperation is more moral than competition; sometimes competition is more moral than cooperation. Do you cooperate with a rapist? With a bully?

On the other hand, individualism, which can involve either cooperation or competition as circumstances require, is reliably more moral than collectivism. Collectivism is the central premise of fascism, expressed in the fasces itself. A lynch mob is a collective endeavor.

Flag of the Italian Fascist Party

The problem is that only individuals have a conscience; groups or collectives do not. The pull of the group—peer pressure—is a force operating against conscience. Altruism, when it occurs, almost necessarily occurs at the individual level. Even if a moral leader leads a group to act for the greater benefit, he or she is not acting morally: it is not moral to demand self-sacrifice of others.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.