Readers who have been following the often-heated debate on Capital in the Twenty-First Century are likely to be astonished by the mildness of the author’s tone, and by his relaxed rhetorical manner. Indeed, Professor Piketty’s book owes nothing to its famous namesake beyond its title, as well as, more substantially, its grounding assumption that economics...
A little-remembered provision of the U.S. Constitution: “No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States” (Article I, Section 9). By this proviso the Founding Fathers affirmed the republican principle that nobody is entitled to power merely because of who he is. Americans wanted to repudiate the hereditary privilege of the Old World...
In 1985, in the wake of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War, a plaque went up in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner, commemorating Richard Aldington, Laurence Binyon, Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brooke, Wilfrid Gibson, Robert Graves, Julian Grenfell, Ivor Gurney, David Jones, Robert Nichols, Wilfred Owen, Herbert Read, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Charles...
The Independent Orders of Zhukov, Lenin, and October Revolution Red Banner Operational Purpose Division of Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia – yes, my friends, there is such a thing – has just been given back its old name. Now it will again be called the Felix Dzerzhinsky Independent Orders of...
Amid the disasters happening in America today, there’s some excellent news. Homeschooling has won a solid place among roughly 1.5 million children and is mostly protected by law. It has become a refuge for families sick of their local public schools and the many copycat private and parochial schools. Even where decent private and parochial...
If a man breaks into your house while you and your family are sleeping, intending to steal your things, and you catch him, you have the right to shoot him dead. Seems simple, no? Everyone but a grasshopper-worshiping Hindu would agree, wouldn’t he? After all, “A man’s home is his castle.” Clearly, that widely accepted...
cynic (’sin-ick) n.—One who no longer believes in the comforting illusions and protective half-truths that others use unreflectively to get through their lives. A administration, n.—An abstract concept that disguises a concrete problem of government; an administration of 4.4 million people, such as the United States has attained, has been found to be incapable of...
I always look eagerly for Thomas Fleming’s article when my latest issue of Chronicles arrives, but I was shocked and disappointed to read his cavalier dismissal of “seriously retarded people” and the “lowest” in the August Perspective, “And All Shall Equal Be.” Fleming bemoans the “trillions of dollars” spent on “hopeless and useless projects to...
This summer’s border crisis—the near total collapse of any controls or security at our southern border, especially in South Texas—was manufactured by the Obama administration as a means of forcing through a mass amnesty, either via Congress or by executive fiat. Legalizing millions of illegal aliens now resident in these United States is the immediate...
Rick Perry, believe me, is no more going to prison than I’m going to bounce into his office one fine day to sign him up for an Obama fundraising dinner (an occasion prospectively disadvantageous to the health and well-being of both statesmen, should they meet in the receiving line). The ins and the outs of...
Alabama Republican congressman Mo Brooks generated outrage among the usual suspects in early August by telling radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham that the Obama administration’s push for amnesty for illegal immigrants is “a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war...
Havilah Babcock was a teacher who was once one of the best-known educators in South Carolina and a writer who had a national audience. Today, few remember him. This is partly because of the passage of time—Babcock died in 1964. It is more owing to changes in American life and literature. Babcock was a proud...
An American friend who is very well connected in Washington, D.C., was telling me he’s worried about Europe. “So what else is new?” I said. “No, I really mean it. Future generations could grow up under Islamic rule.” It was a John McEnroe moment, as in You can’t be serious. He assured me he was. ...
A police officer stops two black teenagers sashaying down the middle of a public street. According to law enforcement and at least one noninvolved witness, one of the two—a six-foot four-inch, 300-pound behemoth—charges the cop and goes for his gun. Fighting for his life, the policeman shoots and kills the “gentle giant,” who, as it...
In the final days of August the stage seemed set for a major escalation of America’s air war against the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL). The operation, which started with limited tactical strikes between Mosul and Erbil—initially to save stranded refugees, then to help the Kurds defend their capital—was about to...
Post-Christian beliefs permeate the culture. A stroll across the majority of university campuses, five minutes of channel surfing, the U.S. Supreme Court’s First Amendment case law, popular behavior and that of the American elite—these are proof positive that Christianity in the 21st century bears little resemblance to the Christianity of America’s not too distant past. ...
Born in 1905 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, Joseph Timothy O’Callahan was reared in a devout Irish Catholic family. He took to learning with a passion and earned his bachelor’s degree by the time he was 20, and his doctorate at the age of 24. Shortly afterward, he joined the faculty of the physics department at Boston...
Excerpts from Dr. Trifkovic’s lecture hosted by the Institute for Public Planning’s Russian Debates program in Moscow on September 25, 2014. Some commentators have called the events of the past eight months “a new Cold War,” but they are wrong: the Cold War has never ended, as manifested in two rounds of NATO expansion after...
For many Catholics of a certain age, Joseph Sobran will forever be remembered as one of the greatest literary defenders of the Catholic Church’s teaching on life over the past 40 years. From contraception to abortion, from euthanasia to just-war doctrine, Joe was an eloquent voice in the popular press for the teachings of the...
In his U.N. address, President Obama listed a parade of horrors afflicting our world: “Russian aggression in Europe,” “terrorism in Syria and Iraq,” rapes and beheadings by ISIL, al-Qaida, Boko Haram. And, of course, the Ferguson Police Department. That’s right. The president could not speak of war, terrorism and genocide without dragging in the incident...
The Big Burrito (formerly known as the Big Bagel) is infamous for its harsh restrictions on legal firearm ownership. To legally own a handgun in the five boroughs, a mere civilian, with no background in law enforcement, needs to jump through the proverbial hoops that include a visit to police headquarters with a stack of...
Srdja Trifkovic interviewed by RIA-Novosti news agency MOSCOW, September 27 (RIA Novosti) – The weapons supplied by the United States to Syrian rebels have reached the Islamic State (IS) militants, while US allies’ position toward IS doubtful, Professor Srdja Trifkovic, Serbian-American writer on international affairs and foreign affairs editor for Chronicles magazine, told RIA Novosti....
The Center for Immigration Studies reports this morning that the number of immigrants, both legal and illegal, in the United States is now 41.3 million, the highest it has ever been. Even as the American economy continues to sputter and many Americans face unemployment or underemployment, an additional 1.4 million immigrants entered the country between...
“Why go to the Greek islands? Why go to Greece? Why not sit for a few minutes under a sunlamp, nip over to the supermarket for a slab of plasticized feta, and get some sirtaki going on your iPod?” The question is not entirely rhetorical, I said to Andreas. With his wife Evagelia, Andreas Petrakis...
William J. Quirk, long-time professor of law at the University of South Carolina and a writer very familiar to Chronicles readers, passed away on September 22. Bill was 80 and had been quite active until the last two years or so. Professor Quirk was a favourite of several generations of law students, who marveled at...
I’m starting something new here: Chronicles’ by the Numbers Dept. ™ 1. Branches of government An Annenberg Public Policy Center survey found only 36 percent of Americans correctly can identify the “three branches of government” in the United States. And 35 percent could not name a single branch. But I’m sure Chronicles readers know the...
“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.” Jefferson’s brutal verdict comes to mind in the fierce debate over inversions, those decisions by U.S. companies to buy foreign firms to move their headquarters abroad and renounce their U.S....
“Congress must now vote to support the first steps of what will be a long march toward victory,” said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Following this clarion call, 71 House Republicans bolted to join 85 Democrats in voting no to U.S. funds to train and arm Syrian rebels. Why the hesitation? Because our strategy in Syria...
Vitali Klitschko, former heavyweight boxing champion and one of the Brown Revolution’s Terrible Trio (the other two being Arseny “Yats” Yatsenyuk and neo-Nazi former urologist Oleg Tyahnybok) became mayor of Kiev in June in a quiet, almost unnoticed election, that was overshadowed by bloodshed in Novorossiya. Recently, the opportunistic “Dr. Ironfist” made some waves in...
I hope I’m not mangling the French in my title, “Vive l’Écosse Libre!” It’s a gloss on de Gaulle’s shout at Montreal City Hall on July 24, 1967, “Vive le Québec libre!” Canadians sure would have been better off if Quebec had separated in 1967. Then the odious socialist and politically correct Pierre Trudeau never...
Russians have bragged to themselves about their souls for ages, but for the past hundred years or so – roughly since Nietzsche discovered Dostoevsky, Henry James discovered Turgenev, H. G. Wells discovered Tolstoy, and the assorted Bloomsbury folk discovered Chekhov – other European nations, Britain foremost, have been pitching in as well. The dubious outcome...
“French aircraft were due to begin their first reconnaissance flights over Iraq,” France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced on September 15. Britain is already flying reconnaissance missions over Iraq. Several other countries – Arab ones included – say they are willing to support the air campaign. None seem interested in pledging any ground troops, however....
No matter how the vote turns out on Thursday in Scotland, either for independence or continued union with Britain, the disintegration of the Old Continent appears almost inevitable. Already the British government has conceded that, even if the Scots vote for union, Edinburgh will receive greater powers to rule itself. Cheering for the breakup of...
My friend, former Canadian ambassador in Belgrade James Bissett, published a noteworthy article in last Tuesday’s Ottawa Citizen (“NATO at the Heart of the New Cold War,” September 9). He starts by reminding us that NATO was born at the mid-point of the 20th century, which by that time had already seen two world wars...
Waist deep in the Big Sandy And the big fool says to push on. Waist deep in the Big Sandy? And the big fool says to push on. Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a Tall man’ll be over his head, we’re Waist deep in the Big Sandy! And the big fool says to push...
Both Dr. Fleming’s column “Thinking Outside the Boxes” in the current issue of the magazine and John Seiler’s “Welcome Back to the Slammer…er…School” blog on our website inspired me to share some of my personal experiences with the 12 years of torment known as school. I began my grade school education in the last months...
“What did you think of the President’s speech” I have been asked more than once only to reply, “Not much, in fact, nothing at all.” “But, surely you’re interested in the details of his plan to stop ISL in its tracks!” The short answer is, “No,” and, though the reasons for my lack of interest...
In my childhood there was a soi-disant “Armenian” joke that we used to tell, and it went more or less as follows. Is it true, one Armenian asks another, that Sarkisyan won a million in the state lottery? “Yes, it’s true,” replies the other Armenian, “but it wasn’t in the state lottery, it was at...
Over the past week a number of articles have appeared in mainstream Western publications, penned by respectful Western authors, which are (in all likelihood unwittingly, I must add) out-Trifkovicing Trifkovic in their assessment of the tragedy in Ukraine. Having made many of the same points over the past nine months, I am glad to say...
President Barack Obama announced on September 7 that he will make public a plan for fighting the Islamic State (IS) militants on September 10. “I’m preparing the country to make sure that we deal with a threat from ISIL,” he said. (“ISIL” – the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – is the old...
American public schools are prisons. They even look like prisons. See the nearby picture of Century High School in Santa Ana. Even hoity-toity schools in Newport Beach look like that, although the facades are ritzier. And consider this Sept. 3 report from my old newspaper, the Orange County Register: “SANTA ANA – Santa Ana Unified...
Back in 2011, President Barack Obama said this about the possibility of using executive action to legalize illegal immigrants: “there are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not...
“. . . there are three things that last for ever: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them all is love.” 1 Corinthians, 13:13 (The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, 1970). On February 7, 2011, Art Livingston posted to this blog a discussion of the early Hollywood talkie, Liliom (1930), based on the...
The beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff by ISIS led to outraged declarations by this country’s leaders. “When people harm Americans, we don’t retreat, we don’t forget. We take care of those who are grieving. And when that is finished, they should know: We will follow them to the Gates of Hell, until they are...
Born in a Cadillac in Beverley Hills Raised on gin and vitamin pills, Robbed him a bank, when he was only three Now he’s locked up in the penitentiary, Willie, Willie Sutton.. Someone taught me this parody of “Davy Crockett,” when I was ten years old, I am not sure I remember the concluding words...
By releasing the grisly videos of the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, ISIS has altered the political landscape here and across the Middle East. America is on fire. “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen,” said Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, “ISIL is as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that...
A problem with having to find “hate” wherever you look, and then blog about it in breathless, apocalyptic prose, is publishing a major gaffe. Thus did the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog offer this gem on Aug. 20 about conservative activist Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch: Right Wing Watch: Larry Klayman wants...
The defeat in June of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the GOP primary by a conservative challenger with little money was one of the most encouraging developments in American politics in a long time. This week’s announcement that Cantor now has a $3.4 million job with a Wall Street investment bank, however, is a...