Shakespeare tweets on the Alberta oil sands

Now o’er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead.[i]

~ Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1

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[i] William Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed., Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (New York:  The Modern Library, 2009), p. 27.

Canada and The Russian Disease: Omnibus Budget Bill C-38

The fact is that Harper’s  425-page omnibus Budget Bill C-38 takes apart the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and makes questionable changes to the Fisheries Act.  Shouldn’t a Budget Bill be confined to finances?  Shouldn’t these be separate Bills before Parliament?  Did we not just have an omnibus Crime Bill? Harper’s “Budget,” which does everything it can to promote Alberta oil, and much more, raises better comparisons with Lenin’s N.E.P. (New Economic Policy) and Gosplan (The State Planning Commission). This, of course, helped pave the way for Stalin’s later Five-Year Plans.  Maybe Canadians need to budget for  more historians  - to better preserve the memory of our democracy.

Jan Wong's "Out of the Blue" - A Comment

Only Jan Wong has succeeded in having (different) works by her proscribed by the Communist Government of China and Canada’s parliamentarians in Ottawa.  Her latest book, Out of the Blue, is well worth reading. 

Harper and History: "Essential Weapons in Government"

Ever wonder why The War of 1812 figures so highly with Harper and Canada's Minister of "Heritage"?  The Cambridge historian, Sir Jack Plumb, offers an explanation in his classic work, The Death of the Past (1969):

The past was constantly involved in the present, and all that enshrined the past, monuments, inscriptions, records, were essential weapons in government, in securing the authority, not only of the king, but also of those whose power he symbolized and sanctified.  The purpose, the maintenance of authority, was simple, not complex, and it moulded the explanation: defeat was the scourge due to a god’s neglect; failure to attend to a god’s wants could lead him to turn his back on his people as the god Nidoba had done on his city of Lagash. In such a world the defeated were always wicked and the successful righteous.  The past cannot be more simply used than this, yet its simplicity has never hurt its popularity.  The same historical methods, hoary with age, were used by Cyrus, in 539 B.C., when Babylon’s turn came.  Yet primitive as this type of method may be in handling the past, it was, in various forms, to last not only for centuries but millennia.  Annalistic history, until very recent times, has been, with hagiography and biography, the dominant method of dealing with the past.  It is true that the activities of the gods have been pushed further and further into the background, but the general purpose of annals, whether they be written by Livy, by Tacitus, by the ancient Chinese sages, or by Baker, Holinshed or Fabyan, or Macaulay, Bancroft or Bishop Stubbs, have the same fundamental purpose: to explain the past in order to strengthen and to serve the authority of the ruling powers.  Disasters, setbacks, even defeats, conspiracies and rebellions, can be contemplated so long as the result is right.  But obviously, as societies become more complex, more sophisticated in their traditions, and more varied in their class structure, and more diverse become the sources of social and political power, so does the problem posed to the annalist become more difficult to solve, calling on greater powers, not so much of historical analysis as of literary ingenuity.  The differences between the Annals and Histories of Tacitus and the Book of Chronicles are at first sight staggering; the highly sophisticated  contrasts sharply with the simple. Yet the purpose of both is the same.  As Hugh Lloyd-Jones has reminded us, ‘All ancient history – perhaps all history – is the history of a ruling oligarchy.’  But it is more than this; it always contains, as indeed the Annals and Histories of Tacitus do, a justification of the authority of the state.  History as criticism of the basis of power and authority, rather than history as criticism of the way men have used it, is of very recent origin in the history of human society.  This method of dealing with the past by narration of events of particular peoples, nations or communities in order to justify authority, to create confidence and secure stability, opens up a huge complex of ideas that is far too vast to deal with here in the detail which it deserves.  And I only wish, at this point, to emphasize one aspect of it.  I have used the example of Ancient Mesopotamia because of its simplicity, because, like the cleaned skeleton of an animal or bird, it displays the obvious.  But every literate society which has so far existed has needed to use the past for the same fundamental purpose.  The past has always been the handmade of authority.[1]

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[1] J.H. Plumb, The Death of the Past. Preface by Simon Schama. Intro by Niall Ferguson (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004),  pp. 37-40.

On Senate reform

The Editor:

Re: Face to Face: Should Canada’s Senate be reformed or eliminated? (Friday April 13, 2012)[i]

Both Face to Face columnists Andy Radia and Jim Nelson think of the Senate in its current form as “proof- readers”.  This may well be the case today since Harper has appointed almost no one who merits attention, save for a skier, a number of journalists – and an illiterate sports figure.  Multiplying the number of elections at the federal level will not increase our democracy, especially since Harper’s moves are not exactly constitutional in the first place, a point Mr. Radia misses.  Harper’s changes mean we will be bogged down in endless court challenges.  Such is a Strong and Stable government, indeed.

And if Harper’s vision of the House of Commons as having “stand alone” supremacy over an elected Senate ever succeeds, then the significance of the Senate will again diminish in the eyes of Canadians.   I foresee elections for the Senate will be about as popular as the Civic vote – with incredibly low turnouts.  An elected body at the federal level can only be equal to another elected body at the federal level, and this has fundamental implications because it overturns the whole of the Canadian Constitution.  In other words a Triple-E Senate is for those who think of our Constitution as some sort of comic book, as if any government with a majority can change it at a whim.

More elections, increased partisanship, and marketplace competition are not the answers to all our public problems.  Look to the United States today with all its checks and balances – and intractable politics. Who wants that? I would say an element of considered thought is desirable.   And Canada’s Senate achieved just that in 2006 with its ground-breaking document Out of the Shadows at Last, which made the persuasive case for a national approach to mental health and addiction.  Such an initiative could not have been made with everyone vying for elections.  Here the Senate was doing far more than mere “proof-reading”.

Scrapping the Senate is again comic-book stuff, but I do foresee meaningful changes to the institution in the future.  Once Harper retires from politics (about 20 years from now) a wise legislator will introduce the rule (because there will be no effective opposition) that the Prime Minister is required to appoint a proportion of Senators who do not belong to the ruling party.  Paul Martin appointed at least three Senators who were not Liberals – and these were people generally recognized for their competence.  Let’s just hope that in 20 years there will still be persons of public virtue – unsullied by government market mantra - and meriting an appointment.

Joerge Dyrkton

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[i] Published Wednesday April 18, 2012 in the Tri-City News.

Stephen Harper meets Benjamin Disraeli

Here is Stephen Harper as Leader of the Opposition writing in the Montreal Gazette about a year before coming to power:

Information is the lifeblood of a democracy.  Without adequate access to key information about government policies and programs, citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions and incompetent or corrupt governments can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.[1]

Here is Benjamin Disraeli, upcoming Conservative British Prime Minister, speaking in the House of Commons to the existing Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, March 3, 1845:

Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament whom you have betrayed, and appeal to the people whom I believe mistrust you.  For me there remains this at least, the opportunity of expressing my belief, that a Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy![2]

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[1] Lawrence Martin, Harperland: The Politics of Control (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2010), pp. 254,255.

[2] E. Royston Pike, Britain’s Prime Ministers from Walpole to Wilson (Feltham, Middelsex: Odhams Books, 1968), p. 274.

Huguenot Resistance Theory in Sixteenth-Century France (continued)

The notion of a constitutional right of resistance first emerges from the French Religious Wars (1562-1598) but most notably after the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572 when perhaps 10,000 Protestants were chopped to pieces by Catholic mobs in as many as a dozen cities across France.[1]  The pope gave Mass in honour of the Catholic achievement, and France’s wily regent Catherine de’ Medici forever sealed her reputation. French Protestants (known as Huguenots) were forced to develop theories of resistance which can also be found in John Locke, a century later, leading some to think of his Two Treatises of Government as the “classic text” in this radical Calvinist tradition.[2]

Selected below are excerpts from two texts: François Hotman’s Francogallia (1573) and Theodore Beza’s Right of Magistrates (1574).  Looking to Francogallia we see the clear influence of Cicero (long the detractor of Julius Caesar) and of St. Augustine, with an appeal to moderation – and representative intermediaries – hidden in the concept of the Trinity: “three marks of tyranny”, “Assembly of the Three Estates”, “three simple types …”, “a third component”, “mixture of three elements”.  Resistance is not about popular revolution; rather it is guided by representative institutions, where a “triple form of commonwealth” is shared in the interest of “balance and fairness”.[3]

    

Looking to Beza’s Right of Magistrates, we see the emergence of a “political theory of revolution”[4] that recognizes popular sovereignty, only as guided by lower magistrates or legislators, while restricting any individual person or  the people considered as a whole from taking initiative.[5]   These notions are carried forward in Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos (1579), (see my blog).   Huguenot resistance theory is also significant to today’s readers because it carves out notions of a “public space”, something which the Genevan tradition in Calvinism (which one finds in the Conservative Party of Canada) has great trouble recognizing (again, see my blog).  Needless to say, Huguenot resistance theory - and its historic context - has great relevance to the bloodbaths in today's Syria.

François Hotman, Francogallia (1573)

Chapter X: The form in which the kingdom of Francogallia was constituted.

Now that these matters have been briefly taken up, we should next explain the form in which the kingdom of Francogallia was constituted.  We have already shown that the people reserved to itself supreme power not only to make but also to remove a king.  This is clearly the form of rule that our Gauls had before they were subjected to the power of the Romans, since the people, as Caesar says, had no less dominion and power over the king than the king had over the people.  But it is likely that our Franks derived this form of constitution not from the Gauls but from their fellow Germans, of whom Tacitus, in his book on the customs of the Germans, writes: “The power of their kings was not unlimited and free.” …[6]

The constitution of this kingdom then is the one which the ancient philosophers – including Plato and Aristotle, whom Polybius followed – declared to be the best and most excellent, a constitution, namely, which is a blend and mixture of all three simple types: the royal, the aristocratic, and the popular; which is the form of commonwealth that that Cicero rated above all the others in his On the Commonwealth. For since royal and popular dominion are antithetical by nature, a third component should be introduced which is between them and common to them both, and this is the nobility, or leading men, who approach royal dignity by the antiquity and splendour of their race and yet, because of their vassalage or, more colloquially, subjection, are not too distant from the commoners.  For, together with the commoners, they acknowledge one and the same person as magistrate of the entire people.  This noble moderation in a commonwealth has been praised by Cicero in a striking passage based on Plato’s Republic, and because of its unusual elegance we shall repeat it here: “With lutes and pipes and with singing and voices a certain adjustment of distinct sounds is needed which, if altered or discordant, is unbearable to trained ears; and this attunement, achieved by moderation of very dissimilar voices, creates harmony and congruence.  Similarly, the highest, lowest and intermediate orders of a commonwealth join, like sounds, in a consensus of highly dissimilar elements, when the principle of moderation is applied.  And what musicians call harmony in singing is called concord in a commonwealth, and it is the best and strongest bond of safety, which, without justice, cannot possibly exist.” (On the Commonwealth, II, xlii, 69). …[7]

In view of all of this, and since this, I say, has always been the practice of all peoples and nations that have known royal and not tyrannical power, it is completely evident that this splendid liberty of holding public councils is part of the common law of peoples, and that kings who scheme to suppress this sacred liberty are violators of the law of peoples and enemies of human society, and are to be regarded not as kings but tyrants.[8]  ….

Appendix to the Third Edition of Francogallia, 1586

Chapter XXV: The king of France does not have unlimited dominion in his kingdom but is circumscribed by settled and specific law.

It has been sufficiently demonstrated, we believe, that the kings of France have not been granted unmeasured and unlimited power by their countrymen and cannot be considered absolute.  It has been shown, rather, that they our bound by definite laws and compacts, the first and most important of which is that they must hold the authority of the public council sacred and inviolate and call it into solemn session in their presence as often as the public interest demands.  But since the laws to which the king is bound are very numerous, we shall expound only those which none will question unless he has lost his reason or has become an enemy to his country, parents, and children.[9] …

Theodore Beza, Right of Magistrates (1574)

Chapter VII.  What remedies are available if a tyrant prevents the states from meeting?

This is my opinion, then, on the rights of subjects of various degrees against a sovereign who has become a notorious tyrant.  But there is still another question of no slight difficulty.  What is to be done if tyranny has become so entrenched that action by the Estates is difficult to obtain owing to the connivance, fear, or wickedness of the majority of the leaders? To private persons, who have not been authorized either by the lesser magistrates or by the more sober part of the Estates (about which I shall speak directly), my answer is that they have no other remedy but penitence and patience joined with prayers, which God will not disdain and without which any other remedy, no matter how lawful it may be, involves the danger of God’s curse.  But this does not prevent private persons from going to the lesser magistrates and asking them to do their duty.  And when the lesser magistrates, or the more sober part of them, enlist the aid of private persons, the duty of the latter to God and to their country is clear from what has gone before.  As for the lesser magistrates, it is for them to join together and press for a convocation of the Estates, while defending themselves against flagrant tyranny insofar as they can and to the extent they should.  Finally, it is the duty of each estate to seek a common and lawful assembly – one in which the wicked will not obstruct the good, nor the cowardly hold back the zealous, nor the majority restrain the men of better judgement.  Moreover, I say that, in an emergency like this, it is the obligation of private citizens to follow the lesser magistrates, which is the duty of the subject, and that it is even permissible for the more sober part of them to seek aid from foreigners, if need be, especially from friends and allies of the kingdom.[10]

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[1] Robert M. Kingdon “Calvinism and resistance theory” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, ed. J.H. Burns with Mark Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 207.

[2] Quentin Skinner, The Foundations  of Modern Political Thought, Vol. II: The Age of the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 239.  See John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke. An Historical Account of the Argument of the Two Treatises of Government’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

[3] Cicero, On the Commonwealth and On the Laws.  Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. James E.G. Zetzel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 46.

[4] Skinner, Foundations, p. 338.

[5] Ibid., pp. 338,339.  Emphasis in the original.

[6] Julian H. Franklin, ed. and tr. Constitutionalism and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century: Three Treatises by Hotman, Beta,& Mornay (New York: Pegasus, 1969), p. 65.

[7] Ibid., pp. 66,67.

[8] Ibid., p.  70.

[9] Ibid., p. 90.

[10] Ibid., pp. 129,130.