Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Seneca on Trump


Natural desires are limited; those which spring from false opinions have nowhere to stop, for falsity has no point of termination.[1]

-          Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, circa. A.D. 64.


[1] Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, tr. Robin Campbell (London: Penguin, 2004), p. 65.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Wireless communication: then and now


As everyone knows Marconi played the central role in the development of wireless communication, and when he died in 1937 Mussolini ordered a state funeral for him.  Hitler, who made radios more affordable to the German people after he came to power in 1933, sent the largest wreath for Marconi’s hearse, complete with Nazi swastika.

Today, since 2006, we have Twitter, and chief among its over 100 million users is Donald Trump whose every putative thought is readily communicated to the world.  Similarly, Trump would not wield as much authority over the Republican Party and in the U.S.A. had it not been for his obsessive twittering, which makes his “base” feel connected to its leader.


Größenwahn

To have ... Größenwahn – megalomania, delusions of grandeur
To be … größenwahnsinnig - megalomaniac

Translation: Langenscheidt’s Concise German Dictionary
Published 1959, 1961, 1967.
New Edition 1973, Langenscheidt KG, Berlin and Munich.

On the national interest


President Trump’s tirades against Justin Trudeau and by implication the Canadian people raises the issue again of our “national interest” something our prime minister had already been trying to bring forward before he was left with no other option but to nationalize the Trans Mountain Pipeline.  Alberta oil is sold at a discount to the U.S.A., and our neighbours to the south will always have the upper hand over our oil sands development as long as it remains land-locked and as long as we are unable to get our resources to tidewater.  In other words, it’s in the national interest to diversify and open up new markets across the Pacific. Of course, it’s vital that we do so safely, and with an eye on the environment.

But Trump’s tariff threats actually demonstrate the vulnerability of Canadian sovereignty.  I am afraid that the BC Green MLA’s, federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, and BC NDP Leader Andrew Horgan – all of whom represent idyllic Vancouver Island ridings - suffer a twofold separation from the concerns of the rest of Canada.  They are out of touch with core national interests because the Strait of Georgia removes them from the continent.  And they, along with the rest of BC, including the Lower Mainland which suffers from a terrible case of NIMBY, are cut off from the rest of Canada because of the Rocky Mountains.
 
Given the degree of separation, and looking “back East” (as opposed to south of the border) British Columbia is more like Quebec, which former prime minister Stephen Harper recognized as a distinct society, or better yet, like Newfoundland, which is surrounded by water.  But because of this both the BC NDP and the BC Greens are a bit tone deaf on the “national interest” when it might be wiser to be more afraid of Washington than Ottawa.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Idiot realpolitik

Image result for donald trump
See: Alexandre Lacroix, "Donald Trump, inventeur de l'Idiotrealpolitik," Philosophie magazine (June 2018), pp. 20,21.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

The Eyes Have It: Hitler and Trump

Hitler was short sighted, but he never wanted to let the public know that he needed glasses.  In fact, all his briefing papers in his Berlin Bunker were retyped with a special, large font so he could read them.  Similarly, Trump pretended he was invincible when he stared at the eclipse in August 2017 without proper protection, but the President would never admit publicly that he might now have weak eyes.  Besides, it’s always easier to watch television than to read.