Remembrance / Veteran's Day

With admiration for brave freedom fighters, living and dead. Read more

Inverted Morality Yeilds Backward Questions

Some readers may know that, since 2002, I have been the leader of Freedom Party of Ontario, in Canada. In that capacity, I have been responsible for electoral platforms, whereas the party executive is responsible for the party policies upon which the platforms are founded. The other day, I received a letter in relation to the party, and its writer asked:

You mention [in the 2007 Freedom Party election platform] how you want public health care and education to be paid for by those who use it, and have a private option for everyone else. How about those who cannot afford either, those who have been born into cyclical poverty through no fault of their own. Now i understand that these people can break the cycle, but isn’t access to health care and education necessary for them to break this cycle. This is a question that still bothers me….What becomes of those who cannot afford access to basic services for survival?

I answered that part of the writer’s letter as follows: Read more

The Right Economic Direction for Ontario's Government

Over at the National Post’s “Full Comment” blog today , the Post is doing its darnedest to prop up Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leader Tim Hudak as someone who…is known to exist. In the second of two National Post op-eds in (has it been?) as many weeks, Hudak resorts to the tactic of criticizing the other guy but offering nothing unequivocal or unambiguous as an alternative. In the midst of a much-deserved bashing of the Liberals, the best (and only thing) Hudak can offer, in terms of an alternative is this: Read more

A Blasphemous Question: Is Religion Anti-Freedom?

A Speech Given by Paul McKeever
to the September 30th, 2009 Meeting of the Durham Region Freethinkers

Today is the fourth anniversary of the publication of the famous 12 cartoons which many Muslims regarded as blasphemous. In response to the publication of those cartoons, many Muslims acted out violently, destroying property and even attempting to murder one of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard (who created the famous bomb-in-a-turban cartoon). It is my understanding that, for this reason, International Blasphemy Day was scheduled for this day. Read more

The Verdict Is In on Obama

Designed by Paul McKeever
Definitely in the Public Domain

Paul McKeever’s Minimal Maxims and Bon Arrows, volume 1, issue 7

Truer words have never been said, even in response to a lie.

Godly fire never shone
For brilliant spark fell but on stone.
Where hid paper, where slid pen?
What distraction stunted ken?
What grand wonders failed to be
For lack of mark or memory?

The Folly of the Tax Department: in many jurisdictions, the penalty for keeping the wealth that you produce peacefully is worse than the penalty for turning yourself in for mass murder.

O Beard
It’s not so plain to see.
Do I hide you or do you hide me?
Are you this man’s soul, in manifested form?
Or does my soul shine only when you’re shorn?
Fine blades
drawn across my face:
Virtuous slice or bloody disgrace?
If I take you off, what then may one infer?
That I’ve naught to hide, or cherub mask prefer?
O Beard
Let’s make it plain to see.
Sometimes show you, always show just me.
So I’ll groom you now, and leave me as I be,
But we’ll sever relations in a month or three.

Laying Blame for the Economic Mess: Milton Keynes or John Maynard Friedman?

On September 2, 2009, the Financial Post published an opinion piece by Penn Bullock that asks whether or not the current economic crisis was the result of Milton Friedman’s monetarism. Casting him rightly as someone held up as a hero by libertarians, Bullock concludes:

For two libertarian champions of free markets and limited government, this legacy has the ring of a world-historic irony.

In response, I submitted the following letter to the editor of the Financial Post. From what I can tell, it was not published by that paper. Read more

McKeever on McParland on Conservatives on Obama

The National Post is one of Canada’s two national newspapers. The “Full Comment” blog of the online component offers some good reading material. It is edited by Kelly McParland, a seasoned journalist.

Prompted by an AFP report about American conservatives criticizing a speech that Barack Obama will be giving to school children, McParland today writes that, if conservatives can condemn Obama’s remarks as socialism, it is no wonder they cannot embrace socialist health care. The essence of McParland’s submission is that Obama’s speech just tells kids to work hard and do well in school, so conservatives who criticize the speech are holding back things like socialist health care because they see practically anything as a socialist plot. Read more

Democracy, Dale Goldhawk Style?

As some of you may know, I am the leader of Freedom Party of Ontario, which is an officially-registered political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. There is currently a by-election in the riding of St. Paul’s to fill the seat recently vacated by Michael Bryant, and I am Freedom Party’s candidate in that by-election.

Today, I received the following e-mail from Kelly Todd, the producer of “Goldhawk Live” (Rogers TV – Toronto): Read more

Socialized Medicine, Economic Catastrophe, and Morality

Capitalism Magazine yesterday ran a column by John Lewis, an historian and an Objectivist associated with the Ayn Rand Institute. Lewis reports on the economic predictions made by David Walker, who is the former Comptroller General of the United States, and former head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Read more

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