Author: Clyde Wilson (Clyde Wilson)

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Memories: Glimpses of Notables

In my senior year I was editor of the high-school newspaper.  (We even won a prize from the Columbia University School of Journalism.)  What I remember most is the literary progeny on my staff.  It included the daughter of Burke Davis, a well-known writer of the time; the daughter of the historian Richard N. Current;...

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It Won’t Be Long Now . . .

There was some things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. —Mark Twain Those who are still addicted to the useless and indeed pernicious vice of following U.S. politics—let me urge you to go into recovery now. The habit of abstinence must be well-established soon  or you will be tempted by the hoopla...

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Liberalsim and Its Discontents

Barack Hussein Obama’s triumphal progress to the presidential mansion was fueled by   the utopian sentimentality that dominates the political thinking of large segments of the U.S. population. Here was a dream combination—dark (but not too dark) skin with the manners and platitudes of a classic Midwestern liberal. It was like lackluster Hubert Humphrey or George...

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Guvment Lookin’ Out for Me and You

Recently  I ordered a bit of merchandise from a  Carolina town about 30 miles away.  It took some time to arrive. With a little research I discovered that the package had been sent by the USPS  to Baltimore! And then to Charlotte, 90 miles from its destination and 120 miles from it place of shipping....

True Tar-Heel Tales
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True Tar-Heel Tales

Uncle Bud “Now take this here Trayvion business,” said Uncle Bud.  He stopped and took a sip, just like he always done before delivering his wisdom.  Uncle Bud worn’t axtually my uncle.  In fact, he worn’t no blood kin at all.  He had once been married to Mama’s cousin.  She had run off with a...

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Who’s the Boss?

The local “authorities” and the corporate media have tried to hide and then minimize the facts, but the blessed “alternative” sources got the news out. In the urban county just over the river, the sheriff’s department has been having “joint maneuvers” with elite Army units from Fort Bragg. The curriculum includes helicopter insertions and home...

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Who Decided? And When Did They Decide?

That collecting “the wretched refuse of the earth” was a good thing for the country?  (Certainly, the Founders of the U.S. did not think so.) That some people should receive special rewards and  preferences because of the assumed sufferings  of their ancestors? (Most of our ancestors suffered. And many of the beneficiaries, not surprisingly, are...

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State of the Union

Your last three Presidents are liars,  war criminals, and completely lacking in any of the necessary qualities of statesmanship.   The first is a pathological rake; the second a fool (“useful  idiot”);  the third is barely American (foreign father and expatriate mother). Such perspectives as liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism,  Catholicism,   may each have something valuable to contribute...

Updike’s Grandfather
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Updike’s Grandfather

“Our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war.  If it cannot live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish.” —President James Buchanan, 1860   A poll of American historians, not long ago, chose James Buchanan as “the worst”...

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Forlorn Hopes

Writing your Congressperson. An unindicted Illinois governor. The American people ever understanding that government debt does not exist to cover necessary expenditures but to provide risk-free, tax-free income to capitalists. American leaders ever understanding the difference between defense and aggression. American leaders ever understanding the concept of “blowback,” that what goes around comes around. President,...

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Relax: It’s Under Control

  For half a century an enlightened, progressive mentality has dominated the information and entertainment media, the educational system at every level, the courts, the clergy, and the corporate elite.  No need to get upset or act surprised that many young people are ignorant, lazy, lack moral standards, love rap music, and vote for Obama. ...

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Enormities and Other Irritations

  Presumably like every live being in the U.S. 65 or older, I recently received from the government a 152-page paperback book explaining to me the glories and the ins and outs of Medicare.   Being of a perverse nature, I became interested in the numerous photographs of happy Medicare recipients and caregivers that were spread...

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Looking for Mr. Republican

  Previously here I impertinently suggested a revision to Sam Francis’s brilliant and justly famous description of the Republicans as “the stupid party.”  Republicans always abandon their positions and surrender to the enemy.  This behavior is presumably stupid because it damages and weakens the party  by betraying its base.  This happens to some degree but...

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History and the Mime

  Emperor, directed by Peter Webber, 2012, 98 minutes Hyde Park on Hudson, directed by Roger Mitchell, 2012, 94 minutes   Anything not older than a half century past is not history but current events, a fact often lost on Hollywood.  So perhaps we should be grateful for these two interesting though flawed dramatizations of the World...

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Amnesty, for the Record

It is not a stretch, perhaps, to regard the Senate vote of over two thirds (68-32) in favor of a mass amnesty of illegal immigrants as signaling the eclipse of the historic American people, those brave and liberty-loving folk who created the United States out of a continental wilderness.  The bill has the Orwellian title...

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Pardon, Sam: A Slight Amendment

Our lamented friend Sam Francis scored big when he labeled the Democrats as “the evil party” and the Republicans as “the stupid party.” These telling characterizations have appealed to many later observers, as have other of Sam’s apt phrases, like “anarchotyranny.” Sam was always in earnest but his comments were often laced with humour. He...

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Citizens, Then and Now

There was a time, within living memory, when the label American was highly respected—perhaps the most respected term of nationality in the world.  Probably most Americans have yet to take note, but that is no longer the case.  A libertarian writer complains that the Boston bombers are referred to by government and media as Chechens. ...

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The Revolution Is

  It is all too easy to get lost in the hurly-burly of contemporary politics, which is mostly about appetite, and miss larger and more fundamental changes that are taking place. Ideas we have long been told were characteristic of the American regime no longer have any place in the body politic.  For instance, the...

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Film Review: The Sweeney

  The Sweeney, directed by Nick Love, 2012, 112 minutes. British crime dramas are often well done, but that is not the case with this movie knockoff of a popular 1970s television series about an elite London police squad.  This is one of the most unintentionally (I think) silly films I have seen in a while. ...

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Home Truths Again

  “Liberalism” is the predominant form of snobbery in our time. A child molester is more likely to be a Democrat.  A closeted homosexual is more likely to be a Republican. Nothing fails like success.  But the opposite is not true—unless you have affirmative action. The USPS will discontinue Saturday mail in August.  I can...

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Demonized

Right-wing extremists are a threat to the peace and safety of good Americans.  Hateful gun-toting Southerners are riled up again and want to invade Massachusetts and New York and deprive people of their rights to abortion and atheism.  So one must conclude from a recent piece in The New Yorker and an article on Patheos,...

Blood Will Tell
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Blood Will Tell

In Tom Wolfe’s America the Northern WASP elite is shallow and cowardly, the most sacrosanct minority groups seethe with ingratitude toward the majority and snarl at one another, culture is dominated by the conspicuous vulgarity of new and ill-gotten wealth, and manners and morals are in a catastrophic nosedive in which the relation of man...

Civil War Cinema
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Civil War Cinema

Life is short.  Although I am a devoted, if amateur, student of Hollywood’s treatment of the great American War of 1861-65, I intended to spare myself the ordeal of Spielberg’s Lincoln.  However, the honored editor of America’s bravest and best journal instructed me to go.  I have always found such instruction to be wise.  And...

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More Random Home Truths

  America has a severe educational problem: It is full of people, many of them in prominent positions, who have been educated beyond their intelligence. In fact, such people are more prominent as leaders in most American institutions  than people of knowledge and character. Another educational problem: several million people who have been made unemployable...

America the Redeemer
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America the Redeemer

Jesus’ words to his followers about the city on a hill, coming between references to salt without savor and the futility of hiding a light under a bushel, are admonitory, not congratulatory.  Those upon whom the light has been bestowed are not to regard themselves as elevated, nor are they instructed to build a city. ...

America’s First and Best Economist
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America’s First and Best Economist

Practice free trade.  Avoid government debt.  Keep the government and the banking system separate from each other.  These quaint and long-rejected policies were Condy Raguet’s prescription for American peace and prosperity.  Now largely forgotten, Raguet (1784-1842) was one of our earliest and best political economists.  Unlike some later advocates of a free economy, Raguet was...

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Some Things to Think About

  Morally responsible people sacrifice in the present to invest in the future.  Irresponsible people impoverish the future to enjoy more of the present.  Which describes the United States today? Voting decides nothing.  It does not prove that the people rule.  It merely makes a selection of which politicians will get the opportunity to pursue...

Getting the Scoop
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Getting the Scoop

“All we want are the facts, ma’am.” —Sgt. Joe Friday Not long ago I was sorting through old papers for disposal.  I came across a clipping saved for some forgotten reason.  On the reverse was this headline: “NAACP Chief Says More Assistance Needed.”  This headline might have appeared in my hometown paper today (though I...

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So Much for Democracy

  Americans seem to think that they are citizens of a self-governing democracy.  Actually, democratic self-government is not possible in a regime where immense wealth and influence are concentrated in a few hands an unelected, irresponsible, and heavily biased mass media control public discourse the political process is dominated by advertising men the population is...

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The Drone of Conquest

There has been considerable discussion lately about the  federal government’s potential use of the U.S. Army against American citizen civilians.  It might be worth a moment to pause and remember February 17, 1865.  On that winter day, the U.S. Army, with malice aforethought,  robbed, raped, and burned out the white and black people of the...

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More Fallacies

Dubious ideas that are taken for granted as true in American public discourse: Government and Big Business are enemies. The U.S. practices a free-trade policy. Wars are bad except those carried out by the U.S. because our intentions are always benevolent. It is good that our daughters now have equality with our sons in the...

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The Reds and the Blues

It has become commonplace to observe that the American people are now divided into two distinct camps, roughly approximated by the opposing voters in the recent presidential election.  The Blues, concentrated in the Northern tier and Pacific states, are the progressives, marching on into the brave new world of polymorphous hedonism and limitless ethnic transformation. ...

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Fallacies

  Probably all societies work better with a certain quantity of comfortable delusions, but America seems to operate with nothing but delusions.  Large policies have been and continue to be based on an imaginary view of the world which trumps common sense: • You can have a First World economy and military with a Third...

Portrait of Lincoln, With Warts
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Portrait of Lincoln, With Warts

The publication of the last volume of William Marvel’s four-volume history of “Mr. Lincoln’s War” completes one of the more remarkable historical works of our time.  Marvel is an “amateur,” nonacademic, historian.  That is not a remarkable, but rather an old and honorable, thing.  This is what is remarkable: I can think of no active...

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Election Explained

  Reasons for voting Democrat: More freebies, welfare, government jobs, grants; satisfaction of leftist ideological malice; if you are a minority, the pleasure of sticking it to Whitey. Reasons for voting Republican: Unless you are a big capitalist, a defense contractor, an employer of illegal immigrants, or a politician hoping for the perks of office,...

Destroyers and Keepers
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Destroyers and Keepers

On becoming an historian long ago, I was most attracted to the period of American history from Jefferson to the great conflict of 1861-65.  Were I a young historian today, rather than one well over the hill, I think I would take up instead the Progressive Era—historians’ convenient label for a period covering roughly the...

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Did You Ever Think You Would See … ?

  Questions for people of my venerable age or even younger, down to about 50. Did you ever think you would see . . . Arrogant or sullen foreigners swarming everywhere you look in your own hometown? Obscenity and vulgarity beamed into every home 24 hours a day? Large numbers of people walking and driving...

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More Dubious Notions

  Immigration is enriching our American economy and culture.  The falsity of this proposition has been demonstrated so often and so conclusively that it belongs in the same category as 1) Islam is a religion of peace, 2) politicians don’t lie and steal, and 3) Elvis is alive and well in a monastery in Bolivia.  It...

Nonconformist Historian
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Nonconformist Historian

Eugene Dominick Genovese, r.i.p.  Gene Genovese, 82, one the more important and controversial American historians of the 20th century, passed away quietly at his Atlanta home on September 26.  A dockworker’s intellectually precocious son, who came up through Brooklyn College and Columbia University, Genovese embraced Marxism early in life, almost inevitably.  And there was a...

The Imperial and Momentary We
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The Imperial and Momentary We

“O Fame, O Fame!  Many a man ere this Of no account hast thou set up on high.” —Boethius “It is a kind of baby talk, a puerile and wind-blown gibberish. . . . In content it is a vacuum.” —H.L. Mencken on Warren G. Harding’s speeches Americans are a practical people.  They don’t want...

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Doubtful Notions

    ”Fighting does not solve anything.”  A saw made up to persuade people toward pacifism.  In fact, the only potential virtue possessed by fighting is that it sometimes does solve things.  Did the Americans and their allies fighting from D-Day to Berlin not solve the problem of European fascism, at least for the time?  Do...

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Which Ones are the Enemy?

  For Southerners, the hatred of so many of their “fellow Americans” comes so steadily and predictably that it is usually best simply to ignore it and let the heathen rage. We are an easy-going, non-ideological, and Christian people, so most of us don’t even notice. However, the Washington Times has usefully exposed a particularly egregious example, an...

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The One Over the Water

  The latest scandal among the British royals will doubtless reenergize the long-running argument over the usefulness of monarchy in these times. Surprisingly often, here and in other fora, one encounters Americans so affronted by the manifest defects of “democracy,” that they declare themselves to be “monarchists.”  This has always seemed a little strange to...

Little Jimmy Rides Again
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Little Jimmy Rides Again

Books that refer in their titles to “the making of America” should generally be avoided.  The phrase is meaningless, except in the realm of nationalistic mysticism.  “America” was not made—she grew.  She certainly was not “made” by James Madison, who only officiously tinkered with her surface.  And which “America” is meant?  There have existed a...

The Cassandra of Caroline County
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The Cassandra of Caroline County

“A crocodile has been worshipped,” wrote John Taylor of Caroline, “and its priesthood have asserted, that morality required the people to suffer themselves to be eaten by the crocodile.”  Such was his final judgment on the central government of the United States and the advocates of its power.  This prophecy, if such it may be...

Neither Devil nor Mystery
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Neither Devil nor Mystery

Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was no more a devil than you or I.  He was an arresting character, a powerful leader of men, and one of those natural-born military geniuses who appear from time to time in history, which is not the same thing as a devil.  The “devil” label was given to him by...

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Evil Lessers

If you had bet me six months ago that the grassroots disaffection in the Republican Party, as demonstrated by the “Tea Party” movement, would guarantee a responsive nominee for president, you would have lost.  I am no prophet, just an observer with some historical perspective.  I would have bet on Romney against all comers.  The...

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It’s All Over

Yesterday was not a good day. I got the word about the new birth ratio and realised that the local Chinese restaurants are now advertising in Spanish.

Sesquicentennial Sidelights
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Sesquicentennial Sidelights

Despite all that has passed since, the war of 1861-65 arguably remains the central event of American history.  In proportion to population no other event equals it in mobilization, death, destruction, and revolutionary change.  We are into the Sesquicentennial, and one would like to think that Americans will take the opportunity to contemplate where we...

Big Surprise
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Big Surprise

“When we gained power, the country was at the edge of the abyss; since, we have taken a great step forward.” —unnamed African government minister Tocqueville in the 19th century, and Solzhenitsyn in the 20th, noted that conformity of thought is powerfully prevalent among Americans.  I have always thought that a strong justification for freedom...