Blog Archives - Page 18 of 21

Our Great Philosophical, Literary, and Aesthetic Tradition

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:February 23, 2017
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Here, I beg indulgence. I was trained as a professor of English and Comparative Literature, and I enjoy most the study of the History of Ideas, as it is called. The contributions to human life, understanding, and enrichment by many…

Our Faltering, But Still Great Legal System

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:February 21, 2017
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It needs criticism and ongoing improvement (and I outline some improvemets in Chapter Fifteen of The Trouble With Canada …Still!, on the Law and the Constitution). But compared to the legal systems of other cultures? – No contest. Down wiht…

Dollar Democracy

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:February 20, 2017
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Much of the first part of my book The Trouble With Canada …Still! (2010) explains and praises what I have called “the tools of freedom and wealth creation,” and the remarks apply to the US and all other free societies.…

Canada’s Great Political System

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:February 19, 2017
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My next few blogs will describe some of the things that make Canada great – and better than most other countries and cultures ( hope I do not get arrested for writing something so politically-incorrect!) *******************…

Romanticism & Multiculturalism: The Roots of Our Soft-Fascism

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:February 16, 2017
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Romanticism – the Root of Fascism Romanticism began by favouring emotion over cold reason and particular local identity and experience over universal experience. It was especially keen to repudiate the sort of French rationalism that was being imposed on most…

Canada’s Phony Refugee System

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:February 9, 2017
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There is currently much agitation in the USA over immigration and refugees. Canadians are prone to judge the American dust-up with a certain supercilious air, while knowing very little of the situation at their own doorstep. What follows is an…

How I Reversed My Vascular Disease

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:January 30, 2017
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Let me begin with what will strike anyone familiar with the matter of vascular disease as an heretical statement: I am fairly certain that my vascular disease is in the process of reversing, as the numbers at the end of…

Tom Wolfe and “The Kingdom of Speech”

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:January 16, 2017
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Yesterday, I read Tom Wolfe’s 185-page book, The Kingdom of Speech (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2016). It’s a curious but apt title for such a book, implying, as becomes apparent by the end, that the human ability to…

Mill’s Limits on Liberty

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:January 2, 2017
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This is the last blog-installment taken, slightly revised, from chapter Eight, “The Road to Hyperdemocracy,” in The Trouble With Democracy (Stoddart, 2001, and BPS Books, 208).…

Mill’s “Good” – Only a Personal Good

Post author:William Gairdner
Post published:December 30, 2016
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Only A Personal Good The central message sent by Mill to the modern democracies has been his insistence that we must be left free for “framing the plan of our life to suit our character” (1), and that “the only…