Category: Polemics & Exchanges

There was a remarkable oversight in the otherwise wonderful piece by Eugene Girin (“Elena Chudinova: Telling the Truth,” Vital Signs, June) on the work of the Russian novelist, when the author states that Madam Chudinova wrote her royalist novel to counteract the “pro-Jacobin novels of Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac.”  Balzac never wrote any...

I was delighted to see that the May issue was focused on Ukraine, the largest European country.  While there is no point in polemicizing with those of your contributors who believe in an amoral Realpolitik—after all, if force trumps ideas, what is the point of words?—most of their analyses of Ukraine merit a response.  I...

R. Clay Reynolds’ “From Castro to Cancun” (Correspondence, May) presented a number of observations that contradict much of what has been documented with regards to Cuba.  For the sake of brevity, I am only highlighting some of the most glaring. First, the claim that there is “no urban blight” in Cuba ignores the crumbling reality. ...

In his review of Mark R. Levin’s The Liberty Amendments (“Impractical Solutions, February), William J. Quirk emphasizes the novelty of an Article V convention, calling it “a constitutional-amendment process that has never been used before” and criticizing Mr. Levin for proposing that, “for the first time,” we use an Article V convention to amend the...

Catholics and Protestants sometimes remind me of Captain Quint and Chief Brody on board the Orca.  While they are at odds with each other, a monstrous thing is circling their beat-up old boat and threatening to swallow them whole, to paraphrase Quint.  Pretty soon we mackerel-snappers and our Protestant brethren may very well find ourselves in...

In “That Special Relationship” (Vital Signs, February), Christopher Sandford compares British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s attitudes toward communism with those of President John F. Kennedy.  I hope that Mr. Sandford’s upcoming book on the subject will provide some crucial historical context by discussing Macmillan’s role in the forced repatriation of Slovenian freedom fighters (Domobranci) to...

When I delivered Liberty: The God That Failed into the hands of my publisher, I did so with no little trepidation.  Supported entirely by Protestant, secular academic, and other non-Catholic sources, including the work of numerous historians of the first rank, its detailed, 700-page counternarrative of the rise and fall of what the moderns call...

Scott P. Richert (“Returning to Reality,” Views, December) says he’s a Catholic.  He doesn’t write like one. What distinguishes Catholics is possession of a Deposit of Faith given 2,000 years ago.  No, saith Richert.  What’s important is a “lived relationship with the Risen Christ from which those doctrines flow . . . ”  Lived relationship? ...

Because it’s reasonable to assume that Gerald Russello (“The Agrarian Burden,” Reviews, October) is highly knowledgeable of his chosen subject, the Southern Agrarians, I must conclude that his avoidance of their intellectual hypocrisy (or worse) is by choice and not by accident. I’ll Take My Stand was written by a dozen academics, most comfortably ensconced...

I am grateful to George McCartney for his articulate and fascinating review of Copperhead (“Reason’s Enemy,” In the Dark, September).  Unlike most reviewers, he concentrates (at least this time) on the plot, theme, historicity, characters, and atmosphere, instead of the usual pointless ramblings about the previous work and personal history of the director, or technical...

A few points on “Of Presidents and Guns,” by Egon Richard Tausch (Vital Signs, June). After the French and Indian War the British crown gave George Washington some large land grants in Western Pennsylvania for his service.  The Indians (part of the Iroquois Confederation) living there didn’t think the British king had any authority to...

In William J. Quirk’s essay “How Goldman Sachs Is Swindling America’s Cities” (American Proscenium, July), Professor Quirk evidences profound misunderstanding of what is happening in an interest-rate swap. An interest-rate swap for a borrower is a way to remove or reduce interest-rate risk from a transaction.  This was described adequately in Professor Quirk’s article.  The...

Englishman Michael Stenton’s article “Margaret Thatcher” (Correspondence, June) never once mentions Thatcher’s hatred of the Irish, especially Catholics, which caused her to commit war crimes in Northern Ireland—crimes for which she should have been tried at The Hague. These include gladly allowing ten IRA hunger strikers to starve themselves to death at Long Kesh prison...

Joseph E. Fallon’s assertion (in “The North’s Southern Cash Cow,” Vital Signs, June) that the reason the South seceded “was the tariff, not slavery” is simply wrong.  The loss of revenue from the American System of tariffs may have been one of the reasons the North waged war against the South.  But the South’s main...

I enjoyed Dr. Thomas Fleming’s “Topsy-Turvy” (Perspective, June).  But I thought his gratuitous denigration of Jakob Dylan both unnecessary and ill informed.  I am not some Jakob Dylan “fanboy”; in fact, the only album I had owned is the Wallflowers’ 1996 Bringing Down the Horse, which is a fine piece of pop music.  Dr. Fleming’s...

As a friend of many years, who has often disagreed with Thomas Fleming, I especially appreciated his perspicacious article, “Topsy-Turvy” (Perspective), in the June issue of Chronicles.  For in that article, amid his varied historical analogies and references, he prompted me not only to reconsider in a new light the formal constitutional language of Soviet...

With reference to Clyde Wilson’s “Civil War Cinema” (Vital Signs, May), I have to admit that I liked the movie Lincoln, in spite of its 21st-century sensibilities.  Still, even I thought it was straining credulity to the breaking point when the black soldier started lecturing Lincoln on the various racial inequities in the Union Army. ...

Having been married to a Venezuelan and a resident of Caracas for nearly 25 years, I was extremely disappointed in Justin Raimondo’s “A Revolutionary Who Wasn’t” (Between the Lines, May).  Hugo Chávez was indeed a revolutionary, from his initial attempt at a coup d’état in 1992 through his interminable hours-long speeches, his friendship with and support of...

I did learn some things from Aaron D. Wolf’s piece “Adam Lanza’s America” (American Proscenium, February).  But there is a glaring, unsupported assertion.  How do we know that “the next Adam Lanza” would for sure try to kill children with a knife, or a can of gasoline?  A semiautomatic weapon is so much easier.  And...

I have no desire to defend President George H.W. Bush or his execrable appointment of David Souter to the Supreme Court, but I was confused by the chronology of the Turnock v. Ragsdale case laid out by Scott P. Richert in the February issue (“Robert Bork, R.I.P.,” Cultural Revolutions).  In December 1989, when that case...

I was thrilled to see that Aaron D. Wolf was poised to address the “ugly reality” behind the murder-suicide perpetrated by Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher (“Handgun Culture, Cultural Revolutions, January).  Unfortunately, instead of confronting the real problem, Mr. Wolf went on a puritanical tirade against cohabitation. The “ugly reality” that the mainstream media...

Bravo to Roger D. McGrath for his perceptive defense of John Wayne against liberal snipers (“John Wayne and World War II,” Sins of Omission, December).  As Sergeant Stryker said to Pfc. Benny Ragazzi after he called up a Sherman tank to blast a Japanese pillbox in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), “Ya did all right.”...

I am a longtime subscriber and have always enjoyed your happy-warrior approach to our absurd political and social situation.  However, I must commend you all for the November (“The Failure of Democracy”) and December (“Classical Liberalism: Enemy of Christianity”) issues.  The articles on democracy and liberalism were absolutely brilliant.  They were all insightful, extremely well...

In his review of Roosevelt’s Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War, by Frank Costigliola (“Diplomacy, Good and Bad,” December), George W. Liebmann writes, “Czechoslovakia had outflanked Poland in 1939 . . . ”  Fascinating.  It is especially fascinating in view of the fact that the Munich Pact of 1938 had dismembered...

Christopher Sandford’s laudatory biographical article on Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (“The Soldier’s Soldier,” Biography, October) concentrated mainly on Montgomery’s victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein.  It does not mention that Britain’s Eighth Army outnumbered the Axis forces almost two to one, 220,000 versus 115,000 troops, and 1,100 to 559 tanks.  In addition, the...

When reading Prof. James O. Tate’s review of Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun (“Caring About the Glock,” September), I kept hoping that he would have recited the key statistic that makes guns so beloved and embedded in America’s history and culture: Each year guns are used some two million times to prevent a crime...

It will perhaps not become me to quibble with a review (“Little Jimmy Rides Again,” August) that says my new book, James Madison and the Making of America, may justly be “billed as the new standard on its subject.”  Yet I hope that Chronicles readers will accept a reply to Clyde Wilson’s very amusing, insightful...

Has Mark Brennan any evidence of Wal­mart getting monopoly privileges in the United States, as he claimed in “Anarcho-Tyranny Versus . . . Walmart?” (American Proscenium, July)?  Is there any evidence for the truly grotesque accusation that Central American sex slaves end up in Walmart stores north of the border (or south of it for,...

I fear that Chilton Williamson’s column in the June issue (“Neither ‘Gay’ Nor ‘Marriage,’” What’s Wrong With the World) loses its point about a third of the way through—and conveys an uncharitable impression of the author that I know to be untrue.  While the gay issue often provokes conservatives to have an instantaneous emotional reaction, perhaps...

Leon Hadar, in his article “Bombing Iran” (Cultural Revolutions, April), could not be further from the truth when he states, “A radical regime is projecting its military power, trying to destabilize the pro-American governments in the Middle East, threatening the state of Israel, and aiming to achieve regional supremacy.” Unlike Israel, Iran has not invaded...

In “An Unjustified War” (Views, February), Srdja Trifkovic brilliantly summarizes the Iraq war as being “a disaster for the United States, for the Iraqis, and for the stability of the region.  All putative justifications were based on outright lies or gross errors of judgment.  It was an unjust and unjustifiable war.” Given the truth of...

Chilton Williamson, Jr.’s column “Pragmatic Destruction” (What’s Wrong With the World, December 2011) attacks American democracy with a vengeance.  He seems to be bothered by the fact that Southern blacks were “freed” (his quotation marks) by civil-rights laws through the negation of “states’ rights” (my quotation marks).  I don’t see how restricting a certain class...

Would you please edit Tom Landess (“Communities and Strangers,” Views, December 2011) for historical accuracy?  Such a serious libel of anyone, even a dead man, distracts me from the argument. Squanto could not have betrayed his original tribe even if he had wanted to; they were already extinct when he finally got back from England. ...

It is impossible not to agree with Chilton Williamson, Jr.’s deep insight into the nature of modern democracies (“Contradiction and Collapse,” What’s Wrong With the World, September), all the more as it is enhanced by clear and rigorous phrasing. I have, however, an issue—maybe only semantic—with his initial assertion that there may be such a...

I am not sure who is more ignorant of John Calvin: Robert H. Nelson, who wrote The New Holy Wars, or Tobias Lanz, who reviewed it (“Calvinism Without God,” August).  Since I haven’t read Mr. Nelson’s book, I will address Mr. Lanz’s review. I was more than a little taken aback to read that “Calvin...

I was puzzled by Chilton Williamson, Jr.’s “Who Cares Who’s Number One?” (What’s Wrong with the World, May).  No reasonable person can disagree with his contempt for our country’s endemic America Number One philosophy, especially when we routinely fall so short.  But given the decadent reality of life in most of Europe these days, it’s...

I greatly enjoyed and appreciate Tony Outh­waite’s recent tribute to George Shearing (“No Apologies for Jazz,” Cultural Revolutions, April).  Well done. In late 1954 or early 1955 I twice traveled from my assignment at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois, to the University at Champaign-Urbana to hear some live jazz. The first time, it...

Thomas Fleming’s “To Save One Child” (Beyond the Revolution, March) reminds me why everyone who still values a reasoned and ethical perspective on family values, and many other aspects of contemporary living in America, should read Chronicles. After pointing out how easily a well-intentioned individual, professing a spiritual nature, confuses values with virtues, Fleming then...

I was pleasantly surprised to see an article about a boxer in Chronicles.  Roger D. McGrath’s “The Fighting Marine: Gene Tunney” (Sins of Omission, January) describes a great champion and an admirable American who should be better remembered.  Dr. McGrath alludes to Tunney’s fights with Harry Greb, a five-fight series that is also unfortunately forgotten. ...

I have received only one copy of your filthy magazine, but that is enough. I based my decision to subscribe to Chronicles on an ad you mailed me.  The ad made it appear that Chronicles is a serious, conservative publication similar to those I already subscribe to: the Wall Street Journal, Human Events, National Review,...

I read with great interest R. Cort Kirkwood’s review of Christopher Ferrara’s The Church and the Libertarian (“Anarcho-Utopia Revisited”) in the November issue of Chronicles.  Mr. Kirkwood does a great service by pointing out the pitfalls, from a Catholic perspective, of some of the thinking of some adherents of the Austrian School. While Mr. Kirkwood...