Pasquinade in E

<p>Pasquinade is a satire or critical comment traditionally posted in a public place in ancient Rome; in particular on the statue of Pasquino. <em>Pasquinades in E</em> is my contribution to this waning tradition. These essays are exercises in critical thinking. They aim at exorcising a number of mental prisons about aspects of governing and at denouncing pathologies in our ways of thinking and governing ourselves by exposing their toxic nature. Silence on such matters connotes tacit agreement with toxic nonsense and therefore guilt by association for the ensuing mal-governance.</p><p></p><p>Four ensembles of pathologies are considered. First institutional pathologies: the toxic effect of the Charter of Rights of certain special commissions of inquiry of the creeping power of super-technocracy and of the rampant invasion of legal corruption. Second impostures and sophistry that have derailed the democratic conversation: weasel words academism fundamentalisms demonization and psychosis. Third toxic trends that are crippling the democratic process: the rhetoric of promiscuity oikophobia hyper-toleration and the politics of guilt. Fourth a sample of redesign challenges dif?ult to meet because of social blindness and powerful interest groups standing in the way: the National Capital Region higher education in Ontario the Armed Forces the RCMP the Of?e of the Auditor General the culture of the federal public service and the notion of stationary population policy as fata morgana.</p><p></p><p>I will be delighted if the reader is provoked and amused by this attack on doxacracy - a democracy dependent on ill-founded opinions - and saddened if the reader is not.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p>