Opinion
The Eternal Quest: What is Truth?
Mankind, from time immemorial, has been a seeker of Truth.
Civilizations from the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, and the Mesopotamians to the modern roman empire have searched their world for Truth. While earlier civilizations sought simpler Truths in their limited world view, our advanced ‘modern,’ society seeks more complexities using far different tools with the same boundless curiosity.
Before the modern era, men and women looked for truth in different ways. Young men would set off with the armies and sea traders of their time in search for the answer to the burning desire in their souls, are the stories true? Is there really a whole world to explore? Are their great sea monsters as my grandfather told me?
Others, somewhat less adventurous and more academic, looked to the mysteries of alchemy or spiritual quests and tempted God by turning base lead in to Gold, worshiping false idols or seeking solace in the quiet spaces of monasteries and remote faith communities; all with an eye to Truth. Can gold be made from base metals? Is God, Allah, or Yahweh found in the wilderness or among men in our world? Can we hear the voice of God? How do we reconcile God in our lives?
Amidst the spread of civilization and the rise of the ages or reason and industrialization and technology, the quest for knowledge was not easily satiated with the greater good not always lining up with Truth but rather diversion and deception with Truth often being a casualty.
Most significantly the rise of the internet and information technologies has led to an increased pace of extremism with the left and right seeing greater division and the perceived requirement that there can be no reason or good discussion betwixt the ends of the spectrum.
We have seen this in far greater concentration since 2001 after the events of 911 with so-called conspiracy theories rising immediately. Building on the momentum of the discoveries during that time, previous histories for events dating back to the great depression were released through various sources and previous ‘Truths,’ were contradicted and influenced by current global motivations.
If we consider the current Covid19 crisis, our sources of information can be mainstream media like CNN, ABC, NBC or the BBC or Al Jazeera or Fox. Online, websites like beforeitsnews.com or outofmind.com or web presences of regular news broadcasts can inform readers in many ways. In Canada, we look to the Rebel, CBC, CTV, or regular web news from browsers.
Our newspapers are no longer the haven of true current affairs. Due to shrinking subscribership and advertising, there is no longer space to present multiple viewpoints for decision making. The issue of news bias is also a concern in many countries with censorship rising its ugly red pen.
Our social media world is rife with censorship. YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook now all regularly delete content not in keeping with ‘community’ standards. In the US election, many news items from both parties are not given equal treatment while in Canada, many anti-corruption and scandal news items are also given less than fair access to the public or have been deleted.
In the US, Q Anon has been teasing readers with more than 1500 entries filled with coded information seemingly educating readers on current affairs filled with details accurate enough to suggest an inside source.
The BIG questions are simple: Is Covid 19 a hoax? Is it real? Has it been created by the mythical illuminati? Do masks work? Will a vaccine come in our lifetime? Who is responsible for the patients care or payments IF the proposed vaccines do not work? Or is it as dangerous to humanity and the draconian measures imposed are necessary to protect mankind? Is the total makeover of society required to protect us? Are lockdowns and economic control the answer to a biological condition?
Closely tied to the pandemic question is that of the politicians who want to see those behind the scenes brought to justice for their parts in various international crimes including Child trafficking, international drug trafficking, influence peddling, population control and other crimes against humanity.
The question of truth remains, and those with left leanings will incline their ears towards leftist ideologies and the rightists towards the right. Centrists are often criticized for their balanced views and considering both sides of the discussion.
We have witnessed and will continue to witness the great cost to our communities of the divisive nature of the legislation and changing coping strategies suggested by health officials. Families, church congregations, company work forces, sports team fans and employees and many associations have been shattered by our varying reactions to the conflicting ‘facts.’ We can’t forget that we are now also encouraged to report our friends and neighbours who do not follow the ‘rules.’
The sheer financial cost to economies being locked down, global, regional and local is beyond calculation. Couple that with the social cost of the monetary turmoil and the resulting mental illness, overdose deaths, divorce rates, suicide, ‘natural’ deaths due to delayed medical treatment and future potential respiratory conditions triggered by improper and un-necessary mask usage and we have financial numbers that are nearly beyond belief.
This brings us back to the original premise.
We, as human beings who live in our communities, political leaders who lead our cities, states, provinces, and countries want one thing. Mankind, throughout history, all over the world, has searched for ONE thing.
Truth.
Truth about our faith issues. Truth about our politicians and their place in our world. Truth about our future-will our children be able to survive? Truth about our economies and the political policies that affect them. Truth about everything.
The funny thing is that Truth cannot be relative because while times have changed, Truth would have changed and if that is true than we are probably all wrong and if I am right, you may be wrong and one of us is going to face eternity paying for poor decisions. Not much hope there. Therefore, Truth cannot change and moreover, it is not relative, it is absolute. It just IS. No options. And for Truth to be consistent for millennia, it cannot be based on circumstances, but rather something or someone who IS eternal and DOES NOT CHANGE.
Those who live their lives based on relative truths waiver like a ship on the ocean.
It has been said that there are no atheists in foxholes. Throughout the world, light is dispelling the darkness.
What is Truth
Just as Pontius Pilate asked Jesus when he stood before him prior to crucifixion, the question is the same and always will be be…
What is Truth?
Answer the question carefully. Your life depends on it.
From the Brownstone Institute
You might think these are quite rare but not a bit of it; 13,200 of these were recorded in the last 12 months, and that’s around 36 a day, and they go on your record and sometimes mean you end up with no job. They also have new laws planned to control misinformation and disinformation, something not just confined to the UK. Similar laws are planned for Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the EU.
I’m envious. The US has something the UK doesn’t have, namely a First Amendment. Yes I know there are those who wish the US didn’t have it either, including, I understand, John Kerry and that woman who still thinks she beat Trump the first time around. Kerry kind of wishes that the First Amendment wasn’t quite so obstructive to his plans. But from where I stand, you should be thankful for it.
Not only does the UK not have a First Amendment, it doesn’t have a constitution either, and that makes for worrying times right now. Free speech has little currency with Gen Z and the way it looks, even less with the new UK Labour government. Even Elon Musk, who takes a surprising interest in our little country, has recently declared the UK a police state.
It’s not surprising. Take for instance the case of Alison Pearson, who had the police knocking on her door this Remembrance Sunday. They had come to warn her they were investigating a tweet she had posted a whole year ago which someone had complained about. They were investigating whether it constituted a Non-Crime Hate Incident or NCHI. Yes, you heard me right, a ‘non-crime’ hate incident and no, this is not something out of Orwell, it’s straight out of the College of Policing’s playbook.
If you haven’t heard of them, you can thank your First Amendment. In the UK you can get a police record for something you posted on X that someone else didn’t like and you haven’t even committed a crime. NCHIs are a way they have of getting around the law in the same way John Kerry would like to get around the First Amendment, except it’s real where I live.
Alison Pearson is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, but that doesn’t mean she can write what she likes. When she asked the police what the tweet was which was objected to, she was told they couldn’t tell her that. When she asked who the complainant was, they said they couldn’t tell her that either. They added, that she shouldn’t call them a complainant, they were officially the victim. That’s what due process is like when you don’t have a First Amendment or a constitution. Victims of NCHI in the UK are decided without a trial or a defense. They asked, very politely, if Pearson would like to come voluntarily to the police station for a friendly interview. If she didn’t want to come voluntarily, they would put her on a wanted list and she would eventually be arrested. Nice choice.
It’s true that there has been a public ruckus over this particular case, but the police are unapologetic and have doubled down. Stung into action by unwanted publicity, they are now saying they have raised the matter from an NCHI to an actual crime investigation. Which means they think she can be arrested and put in prison for expressing her opinion on X. And of course they are right. In the UK that’s where we are right now. Pearson tried to point out the irony of two police officers turning up on her door to complain about her free speech on Remembrance Day of all days, when we recall the thousands who died to keep this a free country, but irony is lost on those who have no memory of what totalitarianism means.
The way things are looking I would say things can only get worse. The new Labour government has made it clear that it wants to beef up the reporting of NCHIs and make them an effective tool for clamping down on hurtful speech. You might think these are quite rare but not a bit of it; 13,200 of these were recorded in the last 12 months, and that’s around 36 a day, and they go on your record and sometimes mean you end up with no job. They also have new laws planned to control misinformation and disinformation, something not just confined to the UK. Similar laws are planned for Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the EU. Germany in particular is keen to remove all misinformation from the internet, I understand.
Whenever I see the word ‘misinformation’ these days I automatically translate it in my head to what it really means, which is ‘dissent.’ Western countries, former champions of free speech, the bedrock of liberty and individual choice, en masse it seems, now want to outlaw dissent. What is coordinating this attack on free expression, I don’t know, but it’s real and it’s upon us. We are slowly being intellectually suffocated into not expressing any opinion that others might find objectionable or that might contradict what the government said. If you had told me that would happen in my lifetime, I would have called you a liar.
I live in the UK, the home of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta, and the mother of parliamentary democracy. I was proud that we produced men like John Milton, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Paine, that we understood the importance of the Areopagitica, the Rights of Man, and incorporated On Liberty into our social thinking. But those days seem long gone when police knock on your door to arrest you for an X post.
So I’m glad someone somewhere has a First Amendment even if we don’t. It may be your last defense in that republic of yours, if you can keep it.
Author
From the Fraser Institute
Recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced several short-term initiatives related to tax policy. Most notably, the package includes a two-month GST holiday on certain items and a one-time $250 cheque that will be sent to all Canadians with incomes under $150,000.
Unfortunately, the Trudeau government’s package is a grab bag of bad ideas that will not do anything to get Canada out of the long-term growth rut in which our economy is mired. There are too many to list all in one place, but here are four of the biggest problems with Prime Minister Trudeau’s tax plan.
- It reduces the wrong taxes. When it comes to economic growth, not all taxes are created equal. Some cause far more economic harm per dollar of government revenue raised than others. The government’s package creates a holiday on the GST for some items (only for two months) which is a mistake given that the GST is one of the least economically harmful components of the tax mix. Canada’s recent growth record is abysmal, and boosting growth should be a primary goal of any changes to tax policy. A GST cut of any duration fails this test relative to other tax cuts.
- Temporary tax holidays shift consumption in time, they don’t boost growth. The government’s GST reduction is actually a short-term tax holiday on certain items that will last two months. There are decades worth of economic research showing that when governments create short-term tax breaks, they may change the timing of consumption, but they won’t contribute to actual economic growth. Shifting consumption from the future to the present won’t help get Canada out of the economic doldrums. This is particularly true of the Trudeau tax holiday since purchases that Canadians may have made after the two-month holiday period will simply be shifted forward to take advantage of the absence of the GST. As noted above, there are better taxes to cut than the GST, but no matter what taxes we are talking about permanent reductions are vastly superior to temporary tax cuts like short-term holidays.
- One-time tax rebates don’t improve economic incentives. Perhaps the worst element of the Trudeau government’s announcement was a plan to send $250 cheques to all Canadians earning under $150,000. One-time tax rebates are a terrible way to provide tax relief. When you cut income tax rates, you improve incentives for people to work and invest because they get to keep a larger share of their earnings. This helps the economy grow. One-time rebates that you get regardless of the economic choices you make has no similar effect. This means that the rebate with its $4.7 billion price tag won’t help Canada’s poor growth performance.
- It borrows from the future to give to the present. The federal government is currently running a large deficit. This raises the question of who will have to pay the $4.7 billion bill for the one-time payments announced today. The answer is that the government will have to borrow the money and therefore future taxpayers will have to either pay it off or service the extra debt indefinitely. The money the Trudeau government will send out won’t come out of thin air, it’ll have to be borrowed with the burden falling on future taxpayers.
The Trudeau government got one thing conceptually right, which is that there are advantages to reducing the tax burden on Canadians. Unfortunately, the policy package it has put forward to provide tax relief gets everything wrong. It reduces the wrong taxes, shifts taxes temporally rather than cutting them, does nothing to improve economic incentives, and burdens future taxpayers. With the holiday season around the corner, this attempt at a gift to Canadian taxpayers is the economic equivalent of a lump of coal in the stocking.
Authors:
Health Care Update: Province will deliver health services regionally in seven “health corridors”
What Will Be the Future of the Keystone XL Pipeline Under President Trump?
Another Mass Grave?
The Most Devastating Report So Far
-
Aristotle Foundation2 days agoToronto cancels history, again: The irony and injustice of renaming Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square
-
conflict2 days agoUS and UK authorize missile strikes into Russia, but are we really in danger of World War III?
-
Business1 day agoCBC’s business model is trapped in a very dark place
-
armed forces1 day agoJudge dismisses Canadian military personnel’s lawsuit against COVID shot mandate
-
conflict2 days agoPutin Launches Mass-Production of Nuclear Shelters for his People
-
Alberta19 hours agoAlberta fiscal update: second quarter is outstanding, challenges ahead
-
Energy1 day agoWhat does a Trump presidency means for Canadian energy?
-
International1 day agoElon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy Outline Sweeping Plan to Cut Federal Regulations And Staffing