Quotulatiousness

December 5, 2021

Will publishers move back to actually printing their own books?

Filed under: Books, Business, Economics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the latest SHuSH newsletter, Kenneth Whyte explains some of the issues publishers face in getting their books printed, as most publishers outsourced the actual physical work of printing and binding many years back:

Offset printing.
Image from Wikimedia Commons.

I had a serious conversation with another publisher this week about the need for publishers to start printing their own books.

Those familiar with publishing history will know that from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, most publishers printed their own books. Ownership of a press, as much as anything, was what made a publisher a publisher. In the course of the twentieth century, it was decided that publishing books and printing books were different businesses. Virtually all publishers outsourced their printing to high-volume printing specialists who were constantly upgrading their equipment, and who, theoretically, at least, were better, faster, and cheaper than in-house printing operations.

[…]

Apart from that handful of artisans, today’s book publisher can no more operate a printing press than a backhoe. He or she outsources printing to specialists on a project-by-project basis.

The options for large-scale quality printing are increasingly scarce, thanks to a lot of consolidation in the printing business. Smaller shops (like the artisans) only do paperbacks; hardcovers require a lot of expensive binding equipment. If a publisher wants a big run of a hardcover title, the most likely printers are the industry giants: R.R. Donnelley (above) or CJK Group in the US; Friesens and Marquis in Canada. These companies all use huge offset web presses that are big as gymnasiums and only economically efficient at higher quantities (i.e., in the thousands). The technology involves metal plates and rubber mats and massive rolls of paper (if you’re interested, read more here) and the quality is first rate.

I should have said that the only options for a big run of hardcovers in Canada are Friesens in Altona, Manitoba and Marquis in Montmagny, Quebec. There are no hardcover printing options in Ontario, where so many publishers are concentrated (although Marquis does have a plant in Toronto).

[…]

The reason publishers are now talking about doing their own printing is that it is increasingly difficult to get time on any kind of press. Friesens, when Sutherland House started a few years ago, could usually do a job for us in eight weeks. There were seasons — the dead of winter, the height of summer — when they could deliver even faster and we’d get a discount because their presses weren’t especially busy. COVID-19 changed all that.

People have been buying more books during the pandemic, and publishers have been printing more. Friesens is now fully booked six to eight months out; its fall 2022 schedule is already crowded. The US printers we use as alternatives to Friesens are similarly backed up.

It’s making the decision to print in hardcover hazardous. It used to be that if you printed a few thousand copies of a new book in hardcover and it was in danger of selling out, you could get back on press in six to eight weeks, maybe less, and continue to fill orders. Now, if that original press run is selling fast, you might have to wait six to eight months to print a second edition. You’ll be out-of-print for most of that time, and all momentum will be lost. Some publishers are thus moving immediately to digital paperback formats (none of the digital printers have hardcover binderies) for their second editions, even if it’s only weeks into a book’s life. There is more availability at digital printers, so resorting to the digital paperback format allows you to keep your momentum.

MAS 44: The French Adopt a Semiauto Rifle

Filed under: France, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 May 2019

The French Army had been planning a semiauto infantry rifle since 1921, but indecisiveness and bureaucracy delayed its development. A major trial was held in 1931, and elements of two experimental rifles were chosen to be combined into what would eventually become the MAS 1944. It was put through field trials in late 1939, and passed with flying colors — but too late to get into production before the 1940 armistice with Germany. The project was hidden from the Germans at St. Etienne, and would be revived upon the factory’s liberation in the fall of 1944. By late 1945, rifles were coming off the production line.

The MAS 44 was a direct gas impingement operating system with a tilting bolt, and was a remarkably rugged, dependable, and simple rifle. It was initially adopted by the French Navy, and only 6200 were made before a number of improvements were made and a new model was designated; the MAS 1949. When those 6200 rifles were ultimately surplussed in the 1980s, the vast majority of the surviving examples came to the United States, where their scarcity is not well appreciated.

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

QotD: The oddity about online ads

Filed under: Business, Quotations, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I’ve often thought it odd that many companies and publications seemingly believe that the way to charm customers, or ostensible customers, is to make them resent pretty much any interaction with their websites.

David Thompson commenting on “Thrilling Content Goes Here”, DavidThompson, 2021-08-30.

December 4, 2021

Things I never expected to read on the CBC website — “…frantically firing up the gaslights and moving the goalposts on COVID restrictions and vaccinations”

Canada’s state broadcaster has been — as you would expect — a staunch supporter of every government initiative to limit free speech and the rights of Canadians in tackling the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic. They’ve consistently portrayed any concerns or doubts about draconian government action as irrational, anti-science conspiracy theories and the people raising such concern as effectively “enemies of the people”. As such, I never expected to see anything like this CBC Opinion piece by Allan Richarz:

Listen closely and one might be able to discern the unmistakable sounds of our elected and unelected officials frantically firing up the gaslights and moving the goalposts on COVID restrictions and vaccinations.

It was a precipitous but inevitable shift from “two weeks to flatten the curve” to get the jab or lose your job, and unsurprisingly, there is still more to come.

Met the provincial vaccination targets? Great; but now it’s time for a booster. Ready for the “temporary” vaccine passport system to expire? Sorry, we need to extend it through spring; proving once again that if you give the government an inch on your rights, they will go for the mile every time.

Less than a year ago, government and public health officials touted vaccination as a panacea to end the pandemic. It’s safe, effective and will allow the country to put COVID behind us, we were told. To that end, citizens were encouraged, prodded and eventually threatened to get their shots, with holdouts demonized by politicians at all levels. Yet, in Ontario, even as the province exceeded by weeks its vaccination and case number targets of the government’s phased reopening plan, citizens were offered only breadcrumbs in return: moving up Phase 3 reopening by just a few days, with no plans at the time for a complete reopening.

And now, with new case numbers in Ontario essentially split evenly between the unvaccinated and fully vaccinated and questions about waning vaccine efficacy, the goalposts shift again with the rollout of booster shots elsewhere in the country and calls for expanded eligibility.

One does not need to look hard to guess what the next step will be across Canada. In Israel and France, the definition of fully vaccinated was changed to include boosters; those six months out from their second dose, or first booster, are now considered unvaccinated, and their vaccine passport privileges suspended.

H/T to SDA for the link.

Pope Fights — Frederick II: History Summarized

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 3 Dec 2021

GET YOUR PINS HERE: crowdmade.com/osp

pope fight. Pope Fight. POPE FIGHT. P O P E F I I I I I G H T!!!!
In this episode, Holy Roman Frederick II wants to hang out in Sicily, but gets dragged kicking and screaming into The Plot. Despite his palpable disinterest in playing diplomatic footsie with the Vatican, he becomes one of the most dangerous opponents the Papacy ever faced.

SOURCES & Further Reading: Sicily: An Island at the Center of History by John Julius Norwich, Great Courses Lecture “Emperor Frederick II” from The High Middle Ages by Philip Daileader.

This video topic was requested by our patron Dr Angela J Black. Thank you Angela!

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP

PODCAST: https://overlysarcasticpodcast.transi…

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/osp

MERCH LINKS: http://rdbl.co/osp

OUR WEBSITE: https://www.OverlySarcasticProductions.com
Find us on Twitter: https://www.Twitter.com/OSPYouTube
Find us on Reddit: https://www.Reddit.com/r/OSP/

From the comments:

Overly Sarcastic Productions
2 hours ago
1:15 Wow emperor Henry sure did live for a long time, I had no idea. I could have sworn he actually died in 1197, but nope, the man lived right up through German Reunification. Wild.
-B

When King James VI became King James I and VI

Filed under: Britain, History — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In his latest Age of Invention newsletter, Anton Howes discusses how the King of Scotland succeeded to the English throne as well:

King James I (of England) and VI (of Scotland)
Portrait by Daniel Myrtens, 1621 from the National Portrait Gallery via Wikimedia Commons.

It’s late March 1603, and an exhausted messenger arrives in Edinburgh bearing a sapphire ring. He has ridden for over two days straight, over hundreds of miles, and his hair and clothes are matted with blood — on the way he had fallen from his horse, a hoof striking him directly in the head. It’s a miracle he’s alive, but he knows it has been worth it. He is the very first to tell you that your childless first cousin twice removed — the killer of your mother, whom you never knew — is finally dead. You, King James VI of Scotland, are James I of England as well.

[…]

James’s accession was a frenzy. From the very moment of Elizabeth’s death, her entire patronage network was turned on its head. Her chief ministers, the Privy Council, were relatively safe. Some of them had been corresponding with James for years. But they could only look on, anxiously, as a rush of would-be cronies went north to meet their new king. The exhausted messenger with the sapphire ring, Sir Robert Carey, was just the first. Carey had been related to Elizabeth I on her mother’s side — he was her first cousin once removed. (Carey’s grandmother was the “other Boleyn girl”, played by Scarlett Johansson in the 2008 film — although there’s no solid evidence, it’s not totally impossible that Carey was actually related to Elizabeth on her father’s side instead …) But that family connection meant nothing now that the queen was dead.

The sudden reset of the source of all patronage meant that the earlier the access to the new king’s person, the greater the chance of gaining his favour. Carey may have angered the Privy Council by riding ahead of their formal letters to James, but his exertion won him an on-the-spot appointment as a gentleman of the bedchamber, and his wife became a lady in waiting to James’s queen. The Careys were soon charged with the care of the royal couple’s younger sickly child, and when that child eventually became Charles I, Carey was made Earl of Monmouth. Not a bad result for a head wound and a two days’ ride, though I’m sure the horses would disagree. An old proverb about England was that it was “a paradise for women, a purgatory for servants, and a hell for horses” — something that James’s accession really put to the test. One teenage noblewoman reported how she and her mother killed three horses in a single day, pushing them hard despite the heat, in their rush to meet the new queen.

Just as courtiers flocked to James, however, the king wanted to win friends and allies too. So he handed out favours like confetti. Before he had even reigned a single year, he had created 934 knighthoods — already more than the 878 that Elizabeth I, her generals, and her lord deputies in Ireland had created over the course of her entire 45-year reign. One morning, during his journey down to London, James knighted more people than Elizabeth had in her first five years — all before he’d even had his breakfast. The sheer volume of new knighthoods prompted Francis Bacon — one of about 300 to be knighted in London ahead of the coronation — to call it a “divulged and almost prostitute title”.

The same went for peerages. Elizabeth, over her long reign of almost half a century, had created only 18 new titles. James, before he had even been crowned, had already created 12 — mostly turning knights into lords, and raising some lords into earls. Along with the honours came grants of land, annual pensions, and one-off gifts — not only to James’s new English courtiers, but to his old Scottish favourites too. James’s arrival was an explosion of largesse. (Not all were happy about the relative loss of favour, of course […] at least one pro-invention courtier got involved in a treasonous plot against the new king and ended up losing his head.)

James’s largesse even extended to policy. As he triumphantly marched into London, he issued a proclamation to immediately suspend all of Elizabeth’s patent monopolies, to be re-granted pending review. (This did not apply to patents for trading corporations or guilds.) Rather than leaving the validity of patents to be tested in the common-law courts, at great legal cost to those affected, he would have his Privy Council systematically examine them first, only allowing them if they were in the public interest. He characterised it as a continuation — even a “perfecting” — of Elizabeth’s partial measures a couple of years earlier, which we discussed in Part II. With his proclamation also condemning various other unpopular things, like high court fees, his new subjects were overjoyed.

But the honeymoon was not to last.

How mail trains collected letters without stopping – Post Trains

Filed under: Britain, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Train of Thought
Published 3 Dec 2021

In this video, we take a look at how post trains would collect and deliver mail without the need to stop, mostly by yeeting the post out of the train

This video falls under the fair use act of 1976.

QotD: Still making dystopia

Filed under: Architecture, Books, Education, History, Quotations — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

It is now three years since James Stevens Curl’s Making Dystopia was first published. Professor Curl’s book revised the history of architecture in the 20th century, exposing the standard curriculum taught to students as a poorly-conceived fabrication. The truth, backed by the mountains of evidence he cited, was frightening.

Curl’s critique of the theory and practice of modernism demolished the economical-ethical-political arguments put forward for decades that justified forcing people to live in inhuman environments. It was all a power-play, to drive humane architecture and its practitioners into the ground so that a new group of not very competent architects and academics could take over.

Alas, after three years, the situation is much the same as it was before 2018. Whoever practised humane architecture continues to do so today. Practitioners who have always applied Curl’s philosophy include Classical and Traditional architects, and followers of Christopher Alexander (who do not necessarily use a Classical style, but reject the modernist design straightjacket so as to create a more living structure). Those who produced image-based inhumane architecture have not changed tack or been influenced in any perceivable way.

Curl’s book covers human-scale developments that were allowed at the margins of the profession during several decades, as long as they didn’t threaten the core where the spotlight shines. Practitioners the world over, most often working in isolation, produce excellent and humane buildings. That work is hardly ever seen in the media, certainly never in the architecture journals. I’m sure that those architects now feel vindicated. It is possible that Curl’s book provides a rallying point for those who desire a new, humane architecture.

Nikos A. Salingaros, “Still making dystopia”, The Critic, 2021-08-30.

December 3, 2021

French Breakout Attempt During The Siege of Paris 1870 – Battle of Villiers-Champigny

Filed under: France, Germany, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Real Time History
Published 2 Dec 2021

Sign up for Curiosity Stream and get Nebula bundled in and SAVE 26%: https://curiositystream.com/realtimeh…

The Siege of Paris has been going on for months in November 1870 and the population is starving. The French Army has previously tried and failed to break out but this week they are starting their biggest attempt yet — not knowing that it has been doomed from the start.

» THANK YOU TO OUR CO-PRODUCERS
John Ozment
James Darcangelo
Jacob Carter Landt
Thomas Brendan
James Giliberto
Kurt Gillies
Albert B. Knapp MD
Tobias Wildenblanck
Richard L Benkin
Scott Deederly
John Belland
Adam Smith
Taylor Allen
Jim F Barlow
Rustem Sharipov

» OUR PODCAST
https://realtimehistory.net/podcast – interviews with historians and background info for the show.

» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018

Ders.: “Rogerowski oder Rasumowsky? Überlegungen zur nationalen ‘Meistererzählung’ in Fontanes ‘Kriegsgefangen’“, in: Fontane-Blätter 105 (2018). S. 61-86

Ders.: “‘… dazu find ich keine Worte’ – Der Blick auf den Krieg von 1870/71 in Erinnerungsbüchern deutscher Veteranen“, in: Nation im Siegesrausch. Württemberg und die Gründung des Deutschen Reichs 1870/71, hrsg. u. bearb. von W. Mährle. Stuttgart 2020. S. 85-98

Bourguinat, Nicolas and Gilles Vogt: La guerre franco-allemande de 1870. Une histoire globale. 2020

Gouttman, Alain: La grande défaite. 1870-1871. Paris 2015

Lecaillon, Jean-François: Les Femmes et la Guerre de 1870/71. Histoire d’un engagement occulté. Paris 2020

» SOURCES
Hérisson, Maurice d’: Journal d’un officier d’ordonnance. Paris 1885

De Trailles, Paul et Henry: Les femmes de France pendant la guerre et les deux sièges de Paris. Paris 1872

Fontane, Theodor: Der Krieg gegen Frankreich. Bd. 3. Berlin 1874

Fontane, Theodor: Kriegsgefangen. Erlebtes 1870. Briefe 1870/71. Berlin (Ost) 1984

Kühnhauser, Florian: Kriegs-Erinnerungen eines Soldaten des königlich bayerischen Infanterie Leibregiments. Partenkirchen 1898

N. N. (Hrsg.): Bismarcks Briefe an seine Gattin aus dem Kriege 1870/71. Stuttgart, Berlin 1903

Schikorsky, Isa (Hrsg.): “Wenn doch dies Elend ein Ende hätte”, Ein Briefwechsel aus dem Deutsch-Französischen Krieg 1870/71. Köln, Weimar, Wien 1999

Wöllwarth, Julie von: Unter den Verwundeten von 1870/71. Aufzeichnungen aus einer großen Zeit. o.O, o.J. (1890)

Zola, Émile: La Débacle. Paris 1892

» OUR STORE
Website: https://realtimehistory.net

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Battlefield Design
Research by: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand
Fact checking: Cathérine Pfauth, Prof. Dr. Tobias Arand

Channel Design: Battlefield Design

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2021

A bureaucratic mandate for never-ending intervention — induced offensensitivity

Theodore Dalrymple notes the increasing reach of the bureaucracy in policing everyday language in a supposed attempt to protect the easily offended feelings of minority groups, but really in yet another way to increase the role of bureaucrats (and their staffing and budget allocations):

Original infographic from Treetopia – https://www.treetopia.com/Merry-Christmas-vs-Happy-Holidays-a/304.htm

Underlying the bureaucratic desire to reform language are two assumptions: first that it is the duty of bureaucrats to prevent offense to people occasioned by the use of certain words, and second that they know what words will give offence to people.

Of course, there are only certain categories of people who needed to be protected from taking offence: that is because, in the estimate of their would-be and self-appointed protectors, they are very delicate and can easily be tipped into depression or states of mind even worse than depression.

Whether it is flattering, condescending or downright insulting to consider people so delicate that they cannot hear certain words that were hitherto considered innocuous, I leave to readers to decide. For myself, I think that to regard people as psychological eggshells is demeaning to them, but other may think differently.

But the question still arises as to whether the people supposedly in need of bureaucratic intervention actually do take offence at the allegedly offensive words, such as Christmas, when they are uttered.

This is not as straightforward a question as might at first appear, for people can be taught or encouraged to be easily offended, especially if they will derive certain advantages, political, social or even financial, from being, or claiming to be, offended. If you pay someone to be ill, he will be ill; if you pay someone to be offended, he will be offended.

It is in the interests of bureaucracies that the population should become hypersensitive, for then it will run to the bureaucrats for so-called protection from offensiveness.

A hypersensitive population creates endless work for the bureaucrat to do: he will have constantly to adjudicate between the claims of those who have taken, and those who have allegedly given, offence. Conflict and stoked-up anger are to him what fertilizer is to corn.

For much of the population, hypersensitivity becomes a duty, a pleasure and a sign of superiority of mind and moral awareness. In addition, it is an instrument of power. And, of course, habit becomes character. What may have started out as play-acting becomes, with repetition, deadly sincerity.

People who have had to be taught what microaggressions are because they have not noticed them eventually come to believe in their reality and that that they have been subjected to them. Then they start to magnify them in their minds until they seem to them very serious: they become self-proclaimed victims.

There are two things that victims seek in our law-saturated world: revenge and compensation. Neither of these things can be achieved without the aid of a large apparatus of bureaucrats (civil-litigation lawyers are bureaucrats of superior intelligence who are usually endowed also with a modicum of imagination).

Australian-American War of 1942 – The Battle of Brisbane

Filed under: Australia, Britain, History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 2 Dec 2021

America shares a language and large parts of its culture with Britain and Australia. But when tens of thousands of US troops arrive in 1942, things will be far from smooth. While the alliance remains firm, their soldiers will spend almost as much time fighting each other as they do the Axis.
(more…)

“Power corrupts and absolute power …” is something governments are not eager to give up, post-pandemic

Filed under: Australia, Britain, Europe, Government, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Miguel Castaneda quotes Lord Acton’s famous aphorism (which I truncated in my headline) and warns of the consequences of giving governments too much power:

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The words of Lord Acton, a fierce opponent of state power, are sadly no less relevant today than they were at his time of writing.

Over the past 20 months, the authoritarian approach of Western leaders has been justified by our representatives as a necessary response to a global emergency. Whether that’s true or not is up for discussion, however, one thing remains clear: such attitudes have handed governments a level of power that, left unchecked, severely curtails individual rights.

This path is not unique to the UK, nor is it unique to Europe. We’re seeing a near global normalisation of state overreach. Lockdowns in many liberal democracies have been brought in suddenly and without thorough scrutiny.

In this country, at no point were other methods to address the pandemic tested. They were barely even suggested. And with little counter from the mainstream media, the UK and others have normalised shutting down the country for the purpose of virus control.

It was only a few months ago that Australia locked over 5 million people after identifying a single case. A severe overreaction which likely contributed to the dramatic fall in Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrisson’s approval ratings of the handling of the pandemic, which fell from 85 per cent at the start of the pandemic to 47 per cent in the latest poll in August.

A commonly overlooked consequence of these authoritarian practices is the precedence it sets for how governments can and should act when faced with novel challenges. It has been predicted that future pandemics will become more frequent, and perhaps more deadly. Are we going to react again by shutting entire populations in their homes?

Looking to the continent, the ease at which governments are bringing in authoritarian measures should be an international scandal. Take Austria, where a national lockdown has just been extended until at least December 11th. Or Germany, which has announced today a de facto lockdown for the unvaccinated, and is debating bringing in a policy of mandatory vaccinations.

This extreme way of thinking is a new virus spreading across the Western world. Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Australia have all seen similar policies introduced.

The Battle of the Trebia River (218 B.C.E.)

Filed under: Africa, Europe, History, Italy, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Historia Civilis
Published 12 Jun 2015

Patreon | http://historiacivilis.com/patreon
Donate | http://historiacivilis.com/donate
Merch | http://historiacivilis.com/merch
Twitter | http://historiacivilis.com/twitter
Website | http://historiacivilis.com

Music is Beethoven’s “Sonata No. 11 in B Flat Major Op. 22” – I. Allegro con brio. Performed by Daniel Veesey

QotD: Questionable legal tactics

Filed under: Humour, Law, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

This is what I like to call a “reverse insanity defense”. You raise the defense in the hope that the judge is certifiably out of his friggin’ mind and grants it. Sadly, it rarely gets clients off the hook. It is, however, an excellent method of destroying your credibility with the court.

Conrad, “The Reverse Insanity Defense”, The Gweilo Diaries, 2004-09-28.

December 2, 2021

If there are no restrictions on voting age, what other expansions of the franchise might amuse the Supreme Court of Canada?

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In Wednesday’s NP Platformed newsletter, Colby Cosh suggests that, given the SCC’s demonstrated preference for getting rid of restrictions on voting rights, we may be in for some interesting legal times:

A band of plucky teens, we are told, are suing to have Canada’s voting age lowered. They are not the first to try, and it goes without saying that the youngsters are a front for a gaggle of do-gooder groups who think that it would somehow purify our democracy in the fires of justice if 16-year-olds could vote. NP Platformed thinks this is a terrible idea that has logical problems on its face. If the age-18 voting limitation can’t be defended, how can any such limit be defended?

Rest assured that the grown-up lobbyists who have a sore bum about the voting age won’t be recruiting four-year-old boys to articulate their cause or serve as litigants. It will all be photogenic, politically sophisticated, fantastically unrepresentative teenagers.

But let’s set the snark aside for a moment. You may be asking, as we here at NP Platformed world headquarters did, how a charter challenge to the voting age can happen at all. Surely there’s solid caselaw about this? If you look into the matter, as we did, you might find yourself saying “Uh oh.” As we did.

The most revealing discussion we could find is tucked away in a footnote in a 2019 paper by University of Ottawa Prof. Michael Pal. Within this wad of small print, Prof. Pal outlines the whole issue. The charter says flat out that “Every citizen of Canada” has the right to vote in elections, and various species of legal voting disability have been removed over time, leaving persons under 18 as the only citizens within Canada who cannot exercise this right.

[…]

“The analogy between youth voting restrictions and inmate disenfranchisement breaks down because the type of judgment Parliament is making in the two scenarios is very different. In the first case, Parliament is making a decision based on the experiential situation of all citizens when they are young. It is not saying that the excluded class is unworthy to vote, but regulating a modality of the universal franchise. In the second case, the government is making a decision that some people, whatever their abilities, are not morally worthy to vote — that they do not ‘deserve’ to be considered members of the community and hence may be deprived of the most basic of their constitutional rights. But this is not the lawmakers’ decision to make.”

We’re just gonna say it: “regulating a modality of the universal franchise” is drivel. If this is the bedrock on which age restrictions on voting rest, age restrictions on voting are in trouble.

The constitutionality of a voting age was also discussed in the Supreme Court’s 2019 Frank case, which annihilated the voting eligibility restrictions for Canadian citizens living abroad. In that case it was dissenters, specifically justices Suzanne Côté and Russell Brown, who brought the matter up. If legislatures can’t restrict the voting rights of Canadians who have been living in Cucamonga or Timbuktu, how can they impose any limit at all?

The dissenting pair quietly pointed out (at paragraph 144) that the phrase “regulating a modality” is gaseous nonsense, and that the Supreme Court, in its endless lust for making the franchise more inclusive, seems to have made any restrictions at all untenable. (Why, indeed, should the franchise be limited to citizens? Municipalities are already asking this question!)

« Newer PostsOlder Posts »

Powered by WordPress