Conservative economist and public intellectual Glenn Loury recounts his own struggle for political and personal responsibility in a new autobiography.
Author: Alexander Riley (Alexander Riley)
Study Blames Americans for Stressing Out Immigrants
Researchers discover that immigration to the U.S. is harmful to immigrants, but only because we’re so terrible that we ask them to assimilate.
Pew’s Untrustworthy Spin of Its Social Trust Survey
Pew’s latest survey of social trust correctly measures the indicators of growing social distrust but, predictably, filters the interpretation of the data through a bogus and dated lens.
Bureaucratic Masters
A recent book by USAID Insider Mark Moyar shows how bureaucracy works in predictable and corrupting ways—especially when it came to sabotaging the agenda of President Trump.
War Is With Us Forever
Richard Overy argues in 'Why War?' that war is an inevitable effect of causes deeply embedded within human nature.
Bruce Springsteen May Be a Woke Loser, But His Art Is MAGA
It is fascinating to see how the musician’s political opinions diverge so greatly from the art that made him rich and famous.
The Sad and Beautiful Death of the Modern Man of the West
Michel Houellebecq, in his final novel, grapples with the struggle to find meaning in the meaningless contemporary West.
The Commercial Cultural Revolution Is Upon Us
If you’ve noticed that commercial representation of whites and heterosexual couples has significantly decreased in recent years, at least as compared to their actual numbers in the population, you’re not alone.
Pets of the English Department Activated to Stem the Deep Decline in English Majors
Dogs and cats step in where professors fear to tread.
Citing Scripture for a Progressive Purpose
'The Progressives’ Bible' shows how leftists over the ages—from abolitionists to abortionists—have distorted scripture to build a rhetorical foundation for their political causes and movements.
The Religion of Secular Doomsayers
"American Spirit or Great Awokening?" carefully decodes the hidden religious elements of wokeism’s fascination with climate apocalypticism and trans identity. This little book, however, makes some significant missteps.
The Striking Silence Surrounding July 13
There is a wall of silence surrounding both the unknown and the known lessons of the Trump assassination attempt last summer.
Reparations Are Indefensible on Factual and Rational Grounds
An examination of the real consequences of American slavery do not demonstrate what the proponents of reparations say they do.
The Last Acceptable Prejudice
'White Rural Rage' alleges hatred, bigotry, and utter depravity of white, rural, Christians with no real evidence. Of course, there is not a forthcoming 'Black Urban Rage.'
If You Can’t Debate, You Ought Not to Vote
Self-righteous college students who are frustrated in real debate should also consider whether they are suited to vote.
My Own Brush With Abortion
As an “inconvenient” child born before Roe, I was lucky that there was no notion of a “right to an abortion” then.
The Christmas Season Is a Time to Recall the Finitude of Our Days
It is not morbid thinking to remember that Christmas is a call to love one another as we reflect on our mortality.
The Follies of ‘Centrists’ on Academic Freedom
The defense of academic freedom offered by those who wish to position themselves as centrists on the question is no help at all.
Judith Butler, Gender Sophist
Judith Butler has made out of her gibberish a lifelong, well-paid gig, and she endeavors to advance her own radical worldview through her sophistical skills.
Freedom of Political Expression Only Goes One Way
Despite Donald Trump’s victory last week, supporters and voters on the right remain less likely than those on the left to be open about their political leanings.
The One Big Reason I Can’t Vote for Harris
Kamala Harris’s open contempt for Western civilization and the culture that built America is disqualifying.
Guns of Delusion
Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware partake in academia's mass handwringing over the indigenous “right-wing terror threat”—allegedly represented by the Jan. 6 riot.
What the Left Calls Voting Rights Cheapens Your Vote
The left’s incessant call to make voting easier is really about making it trivial and unimportant.
Against Self-Mutilation: Tattoos and Body Piercing
The increase in tattoos and piercings cuts across the political divide in America. But it is an indication that something is deeply wrong with our culture.
On Not Forgiving or Forgetting 9/11
You do not do something like this to my people and expect me ever to get over it.
The ‘All the Smoke’ Presidential Candidate
Light one up as Kamala Harris and her interlocutors take us on a ride to the bottom of America’s political barrel.
What We Are Reading: October 2024
Short reviews of Phenomena: Doppelmayr’s Celestial Atlas by Giles Sparrow, and Charlotte's Web by E. B. White.
No Terrorism to the Left
'Terrorist Minds' illustrates a consistent blind spot on the part of terrorism scholars—left-wing terrorism.
The University of Pennsylvania Strikes a Blow Against Free Speech
The university’s decision to suspend law professor Amy Wax for politically incorrect statements should concern all Americans who care about free expression.
College Sports Are Essential
Despite the resentful envy most academics have for athletes, sports are critical to a balanced education.
Yard Sign Disunity and Cognitive Dissonance
The Harris campaign of “joy and unity” might want to have a few words with its enthusiastic yard-sign-posting supporters.
White Guys and 9/11
Whiteness and maleness lately have been under constant attack. It’s worth remembering that 23 years ago our culture celebrated four white male heroes who stopped a terrorist attack in the skies above Pennsylvania.
The Same Old Brilliance and Blind Spots
Thomas Sowell's latest work offers a remix of his greatest hits on race, economics, the "expert" class, but he misses things of interest to those of us on the paleo-right.
Books in Brief: September 2024
A World Safe for Commerce: American Foreign Policy from the Revolution to the Rise of China, by Dale C. Copeland (Princeton University Press; 504 pp., $31.30). Woodrow Wilson’s April 1917 plea to Congress to “make the world safe for democracy” launched America on a futile messianic crusade that plagues us even today. Nowadays, “safe” includes...
Allen Ginsberg, Pedophilia, and the Corruption of the American University
The fact that our educational and literary institutions do not recognize the corrupted nature of Ginsberg’s and other “artists’” work is evidence of their own corruption.
What We Are Reading: August 2024
Short reviews of I Believed by Douglas Hyde, and Primal Screams by Mary Eberstadt.
Doubting Dawkins
Coming to Faith Through Dawkins provides a dozen accounts of former adherents of the Dawkinsian view who became apostates precisely because they looked closely at that dogma.
Christianity over Buddhism, Objectively
The life-affirming nature of Christianity seeks to overcome death while Buddhism, properly understood, embraces it.
What We Are Reading: June-July 2024
Short reviews of Who Are We?, by Samuel P. Huntington, and Lost Horizon, by James Hilton.
Ding, Dong! The Public School Is Dead
Cara Fitzpatrick chose fear over facts in her account of American public schools. The title, itself, fails living up to reality.
The Cop-Murdering Extremist Who Inspires Pro-Palestinian Campus Radicals
The celebration of Wesley Cook, aka “Mumia Abu-Jamal,” a cop-killing thug and member of a lawless cult of child abusers and anti-social criminals, by today’s campus radicals is telling.
What We Are Reading: May 2024
Short reviews of The Unheavenly City by Edward C. Banfield, and Beethoven: His Spiritual Development, by J.W.N. Sullivan.
A Pastime Made Politically Correct
Joe Posnanski gets out his sackcloth and ashes and mournfully chants the litany of baseball’s historic racist sins.
What We Are Reading: April 2024
Short reviews of On Resistance to Evil by Force, by Ivan Ilyin, and Sentimental Education, by Gustave Flaubert.
The Expanding Civil Rights Bureaucracy
American Multiculturalism and the Anti-Discrimination Regime is the definitive study on the transformative ramifications of the 1960s civil rights legislation.
What We Are Reading: March 2024
Short reviews of Vergil: Father of the West, by Theodor Haecker, and The Sociological Tradition, by Robert A. Nisbet.
The Winding Passage Back to Plato
In The Narrow Passage, Glenn Ellmers reminds readers of the need for a robust understanding of nature in any well-grounded conservatism.
What We Are Reading: February 2024
Short reviews of The Life of Samuel Johnson, by James Boswell, and How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, by Batya Ungar-Sargon.
What’s Wrong With the Intellectuals?
The intellectual classes and the Gnostic revolution.
Out of the Toxic Fog of Feminist Anger
Domestic Extremist is a book we desperately need, hitting all the right keys and in the breezy, entertaining tone familiar to anyone who has read its author online.