After breakfast this morning at Lowcountry Produce & Market, we punctuated our afternoon idleness with a leisurely meander through the neighbourhood. Though substantial, breakfast did not immediately induce drowsiness. However upon returning home to the drawing room, we lingered long enough to peruse the news and collect our thoughts before gathering ourselves for more productive pursuits. This endeavor first required a wardrobe transition —from the “formal” casual pants and cardigan worn at breakfast to the more agreeable “comfortables” of sweatpants, a long-sleeved silk shirt, and a nylon undergarment, well-suited for tricycling. The relentless pursuit of comfort is imperative.

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Contradiction, as a personality trait in the manner of gainsaying, is often associated with those of Highland heritage, where conflict and denial have historically played a fundamental role in its emergence, existence, and continuation. This predisposition stems from a deep-seated conviction that opposition must be met with unwavering refutation and defense. Often, the mere perception of an intrusion—whether upon oneself, one’s bloodline, or one’s tribe—is enough to provoke immediate resistance. To do otherwise might be seen as an unfavorable concession, an admission of impropriety or inadequacy.

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In a recent fire dampening epistle from our financial advisor, he quoted, “AI won’t take your job, but people who know how to use it will.”

Americans are on the threshold of understanding what is happening in Congress, the seat of national government (the Senate and the House of Representatives).  The relevancy of this uncharacteristic attention (normally confined to election trumpeting) has arisen because of a new and similarly unprecedented conflict. The complexities of government are being overtaken by an unresolved candidness which surpasses the rhetoric of bipartisanship and standard opposition bashing.  The attempt of Trump to colour and fly his royalty of conduct for widespread federal price cutting by firing federal employees, by pursuing drug traffickers, by expulsion of illegal immigrants, by wiping the intellectual slate clear of uncomfortable esoteric (aka “woke”) conversation, by adopting popular religious themes against minority models – and expressing it all in the equally blunt language of accusation – has unwittingly entered into sharp opposition to the appetite of the public for flavourless commonality and prejudice.

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As I move through the cadence of my day, I recognize that nothing new awaits me yet I persist, unraveling what is before me, shifting my perspective ever so slightly. Not in pursuit of novelty, but of reinterpretation. To touch upon what has always been there, yet somehow escaped me. It is the long way home. And I know I shall be home soon. Forever, inescapably home. The ocean reshapes itself with the tides, erasing footprints at low tide, leaving a fresh slate upon which new steps will tread each carrying the same quiet peril of moving on. Sandcastles dissolved by the unheeding sea.

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This cool, rainy morning on Hilton Head Island, I received a broadcast email from an alumni representative of my former prep school, St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ontario, from which I graduated in 1967. Strangely, I vividly recall both the day I arrived and the day I left.

I first arrived at 14 years old on a similarly dreary rainy September afternoon in 1963. I had just returned from a summer in Europe where my parents and sister were living in Stockholm, Sweden. A uniformed driver in a black sedan dropped me off—mistakenly—at the front of MacDonald House, the junior school dormitory, rather than Fourth House of the senior school, where I properly belonged. Four years later, at 18, I was one of the last to leave, alone in the nearly empty school with our small Upper Six graduating class after completing the requisite provincial examinations. More memorably, I had narrowly escaped Bobbie Ball’s infamous surreptitious water bombing while asleep in my room.

It was a long, long time ago.

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Yesterday I received an email from a Canadian friend who posed a question;

So, I’ve been wondering:  what’s it like being Canuks in the US right now?  I was speaking to some friends who winter near West Palm Beach in Florida last week and they say, while most of the time, one just carries on as usual, if people know they are Canadian, there have been a few unpleasantnesses.  Not to the point where they’d come home early, but they do feel a bit on edge.  I suspect that you’re probably not encountering any issues, but would love to know.

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At my advanced age, one might assume that unqualified leisure is both a welcome respite and an earned entitlement. In truth, it is neither. It is not readily embraced, nor is it a given right, for I find myself without any apparent resource upon which to claim such a privilege. The two—leisure and entitlement—are inextricably linked, each dependent on the other. This is not a limitation of my own making, nor one I have willingly accepted. And yet, its resolution (or at least its alleviation) is as self-evident as it is fundamental. Like so many advantages in life, even those as seemingly innocuous as leisure, one must earn it.

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The calibre of my day is invariably shaped by a set of identical characteristics: physical well being (sleep, exercise, nutrition), mental improvement (reading, writing), artistic features (photography, geography, material refinement) and social engagement. I hesitate to put society last on the list when it is probably my supreme endearment, the one without which I could least survive.  All the others are but additives to and interpretations of the central social theme.

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The British North America Act received Royal Assent on 29th March 1867 and went into effect 1st July 1867. The Act united the three separate territories of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into a single dominion called Canada.

The creation of our country was in essence no more than the collective act of a number of people.  The governance of the country was determined to divide between general and specific matters, highlighted as Ss. 91 and 92 of the British North America Act (what later became the Constitution Act).

s-91 It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate and House of Commons, to make Laws for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada, in relation to all Matters not coming within the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces.

s-92 In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,

• 13

  Property and Civil Rights in the Province

I have chosen to highlight Subsection 13 because it is the basis of most argument (strategy) between the federal (S. 91) and provincial (S. 92) governments.  I am guessing the United States of America has a similar constitutional prescription which distinguishes the rights of Congress (federal) and the rights of States (provincial).

An example of Canadian debate arose upon the discovery of oleomargarine. Its use as a butter substitute precipitated enormous interest from commercial sectors across Canada. The governance or control of its use was hotly argued between federal and provincial authorities, prompted by the provincial profit interests and contradicted by the federal Peace, Order and Good Government (POGG clause) interest; that is, a conflict between general (federal) well being and specific (provincial) profit interests.

This article examines the rhetoric employed in the 1917-1924 debates over oleomargarine’s legalization in Canada, noting that health, extending from the individual to the collective body, emerged as a key battle cry. Oleomargarine was at once a tool of citizenship and a nexus for new theories of food science, anxieties about race and otherness, women’s emerging political influence, and contention about the roles of both industry and government in dictating food choices. As both sides promulgated their respective products’ contributions to personal and national welfare, health and citizenship stood as entwined ideals, inviolable but not uncontested.

By comparison matters relating to ownership of land and disposition of one’s estate were deemed to come clearly within the provincial legislative ambit of “Property and Civil Rights”.

Betwixt these two levels of constitutional authority (general/specific or federal/state) there exists untold interpretation.  There is nothing particularly strategic about Trump’s actions unless and until he seeks by virtue of popular mandate either to change the governing law or simply step over it. As a confirmed litigator he also knows the value of prolonged and expensive litigation, a reflection not of any legitimate authority other than bloodymindedness and refusal to compromise. But hot button issues such as those captured by MAGA (immigrant felons, widespread drug use, unconventional sexuality, overspending nationally and internationally) inspire ready ammunition for advancement of what is determined to be within the bailiwick of the federal government (which, in the case of Canada, is for the Peace, Order and good Government of the whole).

Accordingly if I were attribute anything to “The Strategy Behind Trump’s Defiance of the Law” it is no more than a debating tactic to employ the ready nutrition of a good argument which conveniently enjoys the applause of the American majority (and therefore embellishes the strength of the argument without corrupting the law). If, on the other hand, he were to go beyond what the Supreme Court (the highest court in the land) determines to be the most compelling argument, then he dangerously invades the true marshland of oligarchy and autotocracy. It wouldn’t be the first civil war in the United States of America.