The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart
Calgary, Canada
Joined July 2010
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Caylan Ford retweeted
At this time of year, when tombstones and plastic skeletons litter the neighbours' yards, I think of my friend Sun Yi.
I had the honour of telling his story in the film "Letter from Masanjia." Here, he recalls making halloween decorations in a reeducation-through-labour camp.
Caylan Ford retweeted
“I think too often schools just fail to provide students with anything that is or should inspire that sense of reverence, of awe,” says Caylan Ford (@caylanford), founder of the Alberta Classical Academy on Forum Dialogue with @TheNewsForum_.
MLI’s Managing Director Brian Lee Crowley (@brianleecrowley) sits with Ford to discuss how and why education should shape character and not only job skills, and why multicultural Canada still needs a shared civic culture.
Currently listening to closing arguments from the CBC in my $7M+ defamation trial against them.
Their counsel have admitted that the following statements about me (several of which were news headlines) were not true:
"Star UCP candidate who resigned over white supremacist comments also questioned value of Pride parades’"
"Ford lamented that white supremacist terrorists face a double standard compared to Islamic terrorists."
"UCP finds replacement for star candidate who resigned after white supremacist comments"
"White supremacist and homophobic posts force UCP candidates out"
"two candidates have resigned from the United Conservative Party over Islamophobic, white supremacist, homophobic and transphobic messages on social media"
“[Ford] said some things that were really really really hard to defend. Stuff that was quite literally sympathetic to white supremacists.”
"Over the past several weeks, there have been high-profile controversies involving UCP candidates making sexist, homophobic, or racist remarks. Two of those candidates, Caylan Ford and Eva Kiryakos, have since resigned"
And more.
CBC now says that their assertions about me were actually just comments or expressions of opinions, rather than objectively true facts.
They say that readers would understand that the statements and news headlines in question are actually editorial opinions, rather than factual reporting.
CBC receives about $1.3 billion in taxpayer funding annually.
They take pains to remind the court that, under the "fair comment" defence, statements of opinion need not be reasonable, balanced, proportionate, or fair in an ordinary sense. They can be "over the top" and still be protected.
The jurisprudence on which they are relying (and which they imply is analogous to the case at bar), involved a notorious shock jock radio host with a known propensity for extreme and provocative opinions.
If CBC believes its news division should be held to the same standards as a shock jock radio host, maybe they shouldn't receive billions of dollars in public subsidies.
Or: progressives will only concede the collapse of blank slatism when the technology exists to confidently genetically engineer the desired traits at scale.
It’s not the loss of the blank slate itself that they fear; it’s the loss of the illusion of control.
I.e., blank slate ideology is appealing because it explains all human difference as being attributable to environmental factors that appear to be within man’s control. It gives progressive license to remake society to level those differences in the name of equality and social justice. But if human differences are largely attributable to genetic factors, progressive must deny this fact until such time as they can wrest genetics under their control.
The erosion of the blank slate would be as devastaing a blow to progressives as Darwin was to many Christians. It would cause too much psychological distress to contemplate xitter.gq/ATabarrok/status/21071…
I've tried to steel-man this argument, and I just can't, so I'm asking for help. Why does Canada need more immigrants to stave off economic stagnation or decline? I mean, I get that it benefits business owners who want to depress wages, or people who invest in asset management companies or real estate and are happy to pull up the ladder behind them and screw over younger generations. Is that the whole of it? What am I missing?
Credible explanations must account for the fact that most immigrants now entering the country will never make a net fiscal contribution. This was evident even 20 years ago, when we took in far fewer immigrants, when a higher proportion of them were classified as 'skilled,' and when the 'skilled' stream still meant something. Explanations must also account for the ways that mass migration exacerbates collapsing birth rates, rather than compensating for them.
I see some people still think immigration is a solution for sub-replacement fertility rates. This should be obvious, but apparently isn't. So...
- Immigrants also age. And they often bring their aged parents over too.
-Canada's Total Fertility Rate has plummeted over 25% in the last two decades of mass migration.
- The fertility rates of immigrants coming into Canada are comparable to those of the native population, and are often even lower by the second generation. Children of immigrants don't correct the top-heaviness of the population pyramid, because no one is having enough children.
- The strain on our housing stock caused by mass migration has priced young Canadians out of the market and delayed family formation, further depressing the TFR
- The type of housing "units" we're building to accommodate unnatural population growth is very anti-family: small, aesthetically offensive sky boxes that are built on top of what should have been parks, schools, and community amenities. (right @BuildCanHomes?)
- More importantly: mass migration is both a cause and a symptom of an atomized culture that valourizes hyper-mobility and economic status seeking over organic, stable communities. All of that strongly militates against high fertility.
Press Progress claims my lawsuit is a frivolous SLAPP action. Here are the facts.
caylanford.substack.com/p/pr…
I need to know whose lovely and idiosyncratic marginalia I am reading in this second-hand copy of Order and History.
“Psychic deracination has concealed the golden cord” — indeed.
I have not seen Nolan's Odyssey and don't intend to, but I did enjoy reading Daniel Mendelsohn's excellent translation last year, and wrote a short meditation about a passage that has haunted me ever since.
open.substack.com/pub/caylan…
A sad consequence of last summer's water shortage is the entrenchment of the state of exception: coffee shops, in a bid to save dishwashing water, grew accustomed to serving only in paper cups. Many have embraced this labour-saving, environmentally destructive throwaway culture on a permanent basis.
There is no joie de vivre in a paper cup, but there are lots of endocrine disruptors.
Caylan Ford retweeted
Inject these paragraphs straight into my veins.
If you, as an adult with mainstream standards for your own life, think that someone is too pitiable to seriously punish for serious crimes, you do not view him as a member of the moral community that you and your peers belong to.
Caylan Ford retweeted
“People have lost sight of what education is supposed to be,” charter school founder Caylan Ford told me. In 2022, she founded Canada's first tuition-free classical charter school with little more than a dozen teachers.
Since then Alberta Classical Academy has grown to 1,500 students across three campuses in Calgary and Edmonton, with thousands more on the waitlist.
“We typically have enough applicants for kindergarten that we could fill 30 to 50 kindergarten classes per year. We just don't have the facilities to accommodate that at this stage,” Ford said.
Canadian parents crave the classical education Alberta Classical Academy provides: A lot of the parents who come to us are absolutely desperate. … The existence of this school is like an answered prayer.”
@caylanford
My defamation trial against the CBC, Broadbent Institute (Press Progress), Toronto Star and others is now nearing the halfway point.
Over the last 7 weeks, we've heard testimony from 31 witnesses. Next Wednesday the media defendants will begin testifying, starting with Press Progress editor Luke Lebrun.
If you'd like to follow along or get caught up on the proceedings, my 87-year-old father (a retired trial lawyer) has been keeping a detailed blog, from which a live link to the proceedings is also available: cancelcultureontrial.com/