Salem-News.com Articles written by Daniel Johnson

Behind the Blue Door

The conclusion for me is that we are all part of a universal flow and often times objects and events that have meaning to our particular life will line up and appear to us, either in consciousness or in the outside world.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Last July, I wrote a piece called "Freedom's Just Another Word for, Nothing Left to Lose” and at the end I said it was to be continued in a future installment. Well, this is the future installment but I hope you will read it first, before going on here.

What I am about to share with you I call an intellectual bummel, a bummel coming from a German word meaning a journey, long or short, with no specific destination or time of ending.

Facts Do Not Speak for Themselves

Lack of goodwill is the underlying factor in America’s extreme cultural polarization.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - “The facts speak for themselves” is commonly heard when there is a disagreement or dispute between people or groups. But do they? Here is a fact that does, indeed, speak for itself. But do you know what it says?

Unless you have a background in physics, you almost certainly don’t. And I am not talking advanced physics, but just a good layman’s grounding.

Guns in America

America is a gun culture sui generis; but also a culture based on several false interpretations or presentations of history.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Every few years I find a book that changes my entire paradigm about the world—sometimes just a significant part of my world; sometimes my total worldview. The last such book was The User Illusion Tors Nørretranders which I found (by accident) in a book store in May, 1998.

Much Ado About Nothing

Nothing can really be everything.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - We were sitting on a park bench watching the joggers go by when my friend remarked: “You know, all these people who jog, go to the gym, eat granola, don’t drink and don’t smoke, are going to be mighty embarrassed one day when they are lying in a hospital bed dying of nothing in particular.”

After I finished laughing, I was intrigued by the topic of “nothing” and decided to check (through the wonder of computer technology) my research notes, only to discover that “nothing” covers “everything”.

Conservatives are Made, not Born.

Conservatism is not what it used to be. The conservatism of Barry Goldwater died with him and has been replaced by a faction that has no interest in the commonweal.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - In The Federalist No. 10, James Madison defined a political faction as a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

This fits the modern conservative definition of itself. Law professor John O. McGinnis once wrote in The National Review that..

America: Four Hundred Years of Bread and Water

The Canadian Comparison: Part 3.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - “The United States is broken,” said Bob Herbert in his December 1, column A Tragic Mistake, going on to say:

“school systems are deteriorating, the economy is in shambles, homelessness and poverty rates are expanding—yet we’re nation-building in Afghanistan, sending economically distressed young people over there by the tens of thousands at an annual cost of a million dollars each”.

The Canadian Comparison: Speaking Truth to U.S. Power

What goes around, comes around and it looks like America has returned to its individualistic selfish roots which benefit only a favoured few.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Bank robber Willy Sutton was allegedly asked why he robbed banks. He reportedly answered: Because that’s where the money is.

If you were to ask the tens of millions of immigrants—legal, illegal and aspiring, why they want to go to America, they would answer in a chorus: Because that’s where the money is; nothing to do with the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but simply because that’s where the money is. Poor people have a gratuitous need for money.

Afghanistan, the Unlearned Lesson

The Russians were in Afghanistan for about nine years at great cost in blood and national wealth. Now Americans (and others, including Canada) are there trying to civilize the uncivilizable.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Unless you were born in Afghanistan and lived there all your life, you would certainly know about James Michener. After a December, 1979 invasion, by February, 1980, the Soviets were having their military adventure in Afghanistan. I was editor of the Airdrie Echo then.

This was before the internet and before detailed information (and misinformation) was at everyone’s fingertips. In an attempt to inform my readers, I published a review of James Michener’s 1963 book Caravans–a novel that took place in 1946 Afghanistan. Here’s my book review, unchanged, with a 2009 update.

Descartes` Disaster

All Science and no Spirit makes life sterile, meaningless and pathological. It's long past the time for Mankind to reclaim the essence of his humanity.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Have you ever looked back on your life and thought how much different, better perhaps, it would be today if you had done A instead of B, or B instead of A? Can humankind do the equivalent? We can’t redo, but we can undo.

Before you can solve a problem, you must first understand it. When we look at the evolution of the human race, at the history of violence, warfare, and man's inhumanity to man, there seems to be no pattern or a single thing onto which we can place our focus.

The Canadian Comparison: Part 1

There’s an old joke: The definition of a Canadian is an unarmed American with health care.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Over the past few months I have been asked about Canada—about atheism, health care and gun control in particular. None of these issues can be addressed in isolation, so a comparison benchmark is required.

Americans, as the primary readers, understand America best, so America becomes the benchmark.