Joerge Dyrkton

Thoughts on Canadian Political Culture: Criticisms, Reviews and the Poverty of Parliament

Excavations

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

- David Hume

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

In this world nothing can be said to be more certain, except Donald and his Tariffs ...

Posted by Joerge Dyrkton at 2:03 PM

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Joerge Dyrkton

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Why Hitler invaded Russia, and why Trump will not invade Canada

Popular Posts

A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants, or "Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos" (1579): Sixteenth-Century Calvinist Resistance Theory

Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos was an infamous French Calvinist (or Huguenot) work of resistance theory published in 1579 during the period of...
"A Fair Country"? Just ask John Ralston Saul: A Review

John Ralston Saul has finally written a thoughtful and interesting book – A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada (2008). However, I am...
Canada and John Locke's "Two Treatises"

The Cambridge political scientist John Dunn, who, in his classic work The Political Thought of John Locke (1969), sees his subject follow...
The Magna Carta of 1215 - and Article 61. Building the case for clause consciousness

What is the Magna Carta? And what is its significance? In order to answer these two questions we must also raise the question: which Magn...
'The Rights Revolution' by Michael Ignatieff - A Critique in the Light of Events

The second time I read Michael Ignatieff’s 'The Rights Revolution' it had occurred to me I had read it a first time – it had made su...
Lawrence Martin's "Harperland" -- A Review

It takes about a day to read Harperland , and so Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin serves Canadians well chronicling the abuses of p...
Calvinism, Puritanism, and Harper's Canada - Historical Dimensions to "The Armageddon Factor"

Puritanism is historically significant as an “ideology of transition”, and it has radical origins in Calvin’s sixteenth-century Geneva. [1...
Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age" - A Review

Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2007), hereafter noted as SA , with almost 800 pages of written text, is ...
Montaigne on Torture: Renaissance Thoughts on Guantanamo (plus Osama bin Laden's death)

Montaigne’s thoughts against torture would put a number of North American public figures to shame, including Stephen Harper and Michael Ign...
Mel Hurtig's "The Truth About Canada" - A Review

Mel Hurtig’s recent bestseller, The Truth About Canada (2008), is reminiscent of a number of different books, for example Naomi Klein’s The...

Book Reviews

Things That Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China
Two Accounts of Schizophrenia, plus thoughts on assisted dying for the mentally ill. Review of "The Center Cannot Hold" and "After Her Brain Broke"
Wuhan Diary: A Book Review
Self-Isolation Reading List for China Watchers: From Mao to Trump. Review of "Two Tears on the Window" and "Claws of the Panda"
21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act. A Review in light of Wet'suwet'sen voices
Native Born Son (or, arctic memoirs with a paradigm). A Book Review
The Ghost Garden: A Book Review
Welcome to Everytown - A Brexit Comment
The People vs. Democracy: A Comment
Stalin's Daughter - A Comment
A Concise History of Euthanasia: A Review
"None is too many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948"
Flanagan's "Game Theory and Canadian Politics"
Hobbes's "Leviathan" and Harper ...
"Democratizing the Constitution" and "Lowering Higher Education"
Saul's "The Collapse of Globalism": A General Comment
Canada and John Locke's "Two Treatises"
Jan Wong's "Out of the Blue" - A Comment
Calvinism, Puritanism, and Harper's Canada - Historical Dimensions to "The Armageddon Factor"
Fearful Symmetry
Northern Spirits
Ethical Oil
A Secular Age
Harperland
The Truth About Canada
From World Order to Global Disorder
A Fair Country
Two Cheers for Minority Government
The Rights Revolution

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Letters

MP James Moore: the importance of knowing him - really
Canadian Democracy is Overruled: More on Moore and the CBC
An Open Letter to MP James Moore
On Senate reform
James Moore (Stephen Harper) and the CBC
Letter to my MP, James Moore, Minister of Heritage (via Canada Post)
A Response to the Prime Minister's Christmas Message Jan 2011
Letter to Michael Ignatieff (via Canada Post) Jan 2010
Letter to the Prime Minister (via Canada Post) Jan 2010
On Senate reform

Of Interest

The Parti Quebecois and Article X
Calvin's Geneva and Harper's Canada: some more thoughts
Quebec's Charter of Values: from Huguenots to the Hijab
On Conservatives, Roman History and the "Gothic balance"
CBC Freedom - or else
On Harper and Hobbes, Trade Secrets with China, and Ancient Canadian Wisdom
Pandas over People: The PM's Dilemma
Blog Stats for January 2013
New Year's Rule book for Canada's Conservatives
Ashley Smith v. Canada
"Free" trade with China?
China in the oil sands (and provincial Canadians)
Canada and The Russian Disease: Omnibus Budget Bill C-38
New Year's 2012 Blog Vital Statistics
Our not-so-benign Dictatorship: A Response to Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan on the Vote Subsidy
Why Harper won - and Canada's Parliament Lost: A Letter to the Globe and Mail
Blog "Election Results" 2011 - A Statistical Review and Thanks
"I Love CBC" Petition
The Case Against Canada: Easier Said Than Done (2010)
The Harare Principles and the "Harper Government"
"How Stephen Harper met George Orwell in High School" Feb 2010

Quotables

St. Peter tweets Pauline Marois, PQ Leader
"A Song of the Harper" for Canada
On Alberta's Flood, Harper and climate change: learning to face 'the facts' - a tweet
Collingwood tweets on Harper's Senate, etcetera:
On the CBC and Civil Disobedience
To Duffy on Dues and Duty (with help from Collingwood)
Montesquieu on political liberty - and Harper
Schopenhauer tweets Chief Theresa Spence and Idle No More
Canada's Parliament - not
Winston Churchill speaks to Harper on prison reform
Harper and Omar Khadr read Kant: A Tweet
Ricoeur critiques Harper: some tweets
Stephen Harper speaks on the Nexen Deal in China
Madame de Stael tweets a Letter to the Globe and Mail
George Grant on Stephen Harper
Canada and John Locke's "Two Treatises"
J.K. Galbraith meets Harper (and others)
Shakespeare tweets on the Alberta oil sands
Harper and History: "Essential Weapons in Government"
Stephen Harper Meets Benjamin Disraeli
Huguenot Resistance Theory in Sixteenth-Century France (continued)
St. Augustine on"robo-calls" in Canada. Reflections on justice, community and the loss of 'the common sense of the right'.
John Locke tweets on "robo-calls"
Puritanism on Culture and the CBC: Max Weber decodes James Moore and Stephen Harper in 1904
A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants, or "Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos" (1579): Sixteenth-Century Calvinist Resistance Theory
Five Different Philosophers and their Response to Stephen Harper's Omnibus Crime Bill
Hobbes and an inside tweet on Harper
William Shakespeare tweets on Stephen Harper
Reasons to protect the CBC - the case as put in 1579
On Canada's "Royal" Forces
"On Voluntary Servitude" - Catholic Resistance Theory from 16th-century France
Cicero tweets on the death of Gadhafi
Montaigne on Libya circa 1580
"The Culture of Fear" and Related Thoughts: Excerpts, Questions and Answers
David Hume - and the Right of Resistance: Canadian Implications of the Arab Spring
Montaigne on Torture: Renaissance Thoughts on Guantanamo (plus Osama bin Laden's death)
"How the worst gets on top" - or How Harper inverts Hayek
"How to Make the Right Decisions" by Cicero
The G20 Summit in Toronto ... and Hegel (and Harper)
Inside Harper's Mind: A hyper critique of liberalism
Cicero on Prisoners and Fair Dealing in War: Words of advice for Stephen Harper

British Columbia

Math Counts Too: The Semester System and the Demise of Core Curriculum
School Act 82 and the B.C. Ministry of Education - Attention: George Abbott
The Fate of B.C.'s Riverview Hospital

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About Me

Joerge Dyrkton attended Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario where he graduated with an Honours B.A. in History. A Governor General’s Gold Medal winner and Commonwealth Scholar he earned his doctorate in Intellectual History at the University of Sussex under the supervision of S. Beynon John, John Cruickshank and the inimitable J.W. Burrow, F.B.A. (also his M.A. supervisor), later Chair in the History of European Thought at Oxford. He has taught across British Columbia and at the University of the West Indies (Jamaica).

http://jdyrkton.wordpress.com/

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