Category: Polemics & Exchanges

I love to argue controversial issues—and even argue with myself.  On occasion I’ve found both of me wrong.  I strongly dislike having my position misrepresented, though.  Allen Mendenhall (“Atomic Anniversary,” News, August), in arguing against the use of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mentions my piece on the subject (Sins of Omission, July 2009)...

Although I know well all the disclaimers—a writer’s statement does not reflect the journal’s official position, a writer is entitled to his opinion in a “free” society, etc.—I must express my dismay at Justin Raimondo’s gratuitous and mean-spirited insult against a people who, at least on many social and not a few political issues, are...

I am the author of the books They Were White and They Were Slaves and Judaism Discovered.  After accurately stating those facts in the June 2010 Chronicles, Scott P. Richert proceeded to pen a farrago of pseudobiography (“You Say Ásátru, I Say Shoresh,” Rockford Files), stating that this writer received a $40,000 contract from “School...

Tom Piatak’s contrarian view of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision (“Obama Versus the Supreme Court,” Vital Signs, May) is convincing and well stated.  It is useful, however, to realize why conservative headline readers, those who probably did not peruse the actual decision or Justice Stevens’ dissent, are likely to think it a good ruling. ...

I’m not certain that intellectual snobbery is not inconsistent with a Christian mind, but I’ve never been much bothered by the undercurrent of it that hums along noticeably in a lot of the articles in Chronicles.  Forty years ago, when I, then a small childish high-school student in Houston, would take a packed, gloriously smoke-filled...

Bobbing about in the eddies of “choice” as we proles of the “Inclusition” are wont to do, how bracing it was to read Christopher Sandford’s piece on Stravinsky (Vital Signs, April)!  Consider this quotation from the composer himself: The stained-glass artists of Chartres had few colors, and the stained-glass artists of today have hundreds of...

Catharine Savage Brosman’s critique of The New Yorker (“The New Yorker Under the Glass,” Vital Signs, March) is a welcome respite from the nasty, nonsensical scribbling of today’s cultural critics.  I’m sure Dr. Brosman is aware that infantilism and mediocrity prevail not only among popular literary editors and “American consumers of print, electronic media, and...

Thanks to F.W. Brownlow for an informative article in the February issue (“Of Genes, Vowels, and Violence,” Correspondence), which was a rebuttal to a previous article by Philip Jenkins.  It has become increasingly obvious that the traditional story of the evolution of the English language—that a small, all-male military caste of Anglo-Saxons quickly imposed their...

As a not-quite-recovered semiprofessional nitpicker, I feel compelled to point out that a 3,000-pound automobile at $15 per pound totals $45,000, and even $5 per pound totals $15,000.  Out of the goodness of my heart in these tough economic times, I have a 4,000-pound 67 Ford Bronco that I’d be willing to sell to Nicole...

Taki Theodoracopulos’s nondefense defense of Roman Polanski (“The Limits of Compassion,” Under the Black Flag, December 2009) reads like the deluded ramblings of a washed-up bon vivant who desperately needs to be back in the good graces of the popular but poor soul who drugged and anally raped a 13-year-old girl.  Did the early tragedies...

In “Race and Racism” (Views, November) Tom Landess states that a seismic shift occurred in race relations with Strom Thurmond leading the Dixiecrats out of the Democratic National Convention in 1948.  Now, in 1948, blacks were paying taxes (federal, state, and local).  They saw that money used by politicians to foster second-rate education, housing, and...

In her short piece “Men in Power” (Vital Signs, September) Nicole Kooistra describes a men’s organization at the University of Chicago that grew out of a satirical article, and then proceeds to berate the organization for its pursuits (such as developing professional contacts and learning about prostate cancer), the appearance of its members (“perfectly groomed,...

I usually find Roger D. McGrath’s Sins of Omission to be the most interesting column in Chronicles, and “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (July) was no exception.  However, I wonder why defenders of our use of the A-bomb seem always to present us with a false dilemma: Either we use the bomb or suffer hundreds of thousands...

In “Now He Knows the Rest of the Story” (Rockford Files, May), Scott P. Richert wrote that Paul Harvey “reversed course on the Vietnam War” in 1970, having previously been a supporter.  I remember distinctly that he made this decision as he drove his son to Canada to avoid the draft.  But I am sure...

One reference in Scott P. Richert’s article on Rod Blagojevich (“Meet Rod Blago,” The Rockford Files, April) to the disgraced governor’s Serbian origins would have sufficed to inform Chronicles readers of a somewhat relevant detail. Two such reminders would have been superfluous. Three or more amount to making a point, however, of the kind unworthy...

When I first read a derogatory comment by Scott P. Richert about Dr. Alan Keyes in the May 2008 issue of Chronicles (“Tan, Rested, and Ready,” The Rockford Files), I was moved to write—but am glad I waited.  At the time I found it to be very uncharacteristic of the magazine, in general, and certainly...

Abraham Lincoln is thrashed in a series of articles in the February issue of Chronicles (“The Legacy of Lincoln”) as a man of low morality and character who took his actions for the worst of reasons—e.g., to usher in an era of kleptocratic state capitalism; to bring an assembly of free state republics into a...

Why was Christ put to death?  Because Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, had told the Sanhedrin, “Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people.”  Literally, Caiaphas was inviting the Pharisees to reason through—logizesthe is the Greek word—to calculate, or to...

In his review of Darwin Day in America by John G. West (“Man on Holiday,” Reviews, December), Fr. Michael P. Orsi’s concerns and opinions are unassailable.  Yet in the course of representing the book’s statements, he repeats an outrageous falsehood that should not go uncontested.  Father Orsi writes that “West points out that there is...

Kudos to Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, whose “New Grand Strategy” (American Interest, December) tells us what sensibly ought to be.  The stooges inhabiting Foggy Bottom will never look up from their feed troughs to show half the intelligence of your master diplomat.  I wish him Godspeed on his new ventures, and wish that Obama had the...

I don’t subscribe to Chronicles to read simplistic misogynistic trash like Aaron D. Wolf’s “Pro-Choice Christians” (Views, November 2008), in which he reduces Sarah Palin and all women to a “function”—that of wife and mother.  This article is written in the same redneck spirit as the effigy of Palin hung in West Hollywood (see CBS...

In “The Obama Presidency” (Views, October), Doug Bandow warned that Democrat Barack Obama and his leftist policies will bring us some undesirable things, including big government and socialized medicine.  Of course, during the presidency of Republican President George W. Bush, even when the Republicans controlled Congress, government got much bigger and much more intrusive.  And...

I greatly appreciated Dr. Clyde Wilson’s fine article in the September issue (“Beginning With History,” Views) and located all of the works cited on the War Between the States.  They should be arriving at my politically incorrect home (I have a full-service shooting range out back and harvest deer and turkey on my property regularly)...

I wish to thank Chronicles for the insightful parts of Derek Turner’s recent “Letter From Rumania” (“What Civilization Remains,” Correspondence, June).  Some portions are extremely lively and convey a vivid picture of his experiences there. As an informed reader, however, I was struck by the one-sided view the article imparts in several ways to the...

I am an admirer of Derek Turner’s writing and his work as editor of Right Now! and Quarterly Review.  Yet I sense that he cuts John Gray undeserved slack in his review of Gray’s book, Black Mass: Religion and the Death of Utopia (“The Skeptical Mind,” Opinion, June).  I have not read this book, nor...

The June issue of Chronicles (“Surviving the Global Economy”) was simply outstanding.  This is really saying a lot, since every issue is superb.  I especially liked Jack Trotter’s article on the Abbeville, South Carolina, Christmas celebration (“Christmas in Abbeville,” Correspondence).  While certain elements of our society feel compelled to demand hatred and shame for their...

R. Cort Kirkwood’s article, “Jack Bauer, Agent of Anarcho-Tyranny, U.S.A.,” (Views, May) is the best article on the subject of encroaching tyranny I have ever read, bar none. Frankly, when I first glanced at the May issue’s cover, and the title of the article itself, I thought, “Not another yahoo condemning a great edge-of-your-seat show,...

It is fitting that one of the signal events of what will likely become the second Bush recession has been the Federal Reserve’s propping up of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns.  For years, Wall Street has opposed similar bailouts of old-line manufacturing firms being swept away by the tsunami of free trade and has...

In “The Curious Career of Billy the Kid” (Views), Gregory McNamee writes that, “For most of the 19th century, the American West was a fairly tranquil place,” adding in the same paragraph that, “In cities such as Denver, Seattle, and even Tombstone, few citizens knew how to use a firearm, owned a gun, or had...

While I greatly enjoyed reading Roger D. McGrath’s “Westerns” (View, February) and R. Clay Reynolds’s “The Death of the Western” (View), I was rather surprised by the absence of Sergio Leone’s name in both pieces.  Leone’s four Italian Westerns from the 1960’s had an immeasurable impact on the genre; it can be argued that his...

In his review of Joseph Pearce’s Small Is Still Beautiful: Economics as if Families Mattered (“Big Is Still Ahead,” Reviews, January), Kirkpatrick Sale writes, “True enough, Schumacher became a Catholic just before Small Is Beautiful came out in 1973 and remained devout until his death in 1977 . . . But his classic book has...

In “Freedom of Conscience” (Perspective, December), Thomas Fleming states that Thomas Jefferson’s “‘Wall of Separation’ existed only in his mind.”  This phrase, of course, was included in Jefferson’s 1802 letter to a group of Baptists from Danbury, Connecticut, as Dr. Fleming has pointed out in previous Perspectives.  Rather than implying exclusionary intent, the “Wall of...

Though I agree with it on the specific topic of Iraq, whatever faint tinge of camaraderie I might once have had with the liberal antiwar movement has long since faded.  The critiques of the Green Movement in your November issue (“Wanted! Enemies of the Planet”) inspire a similar reaction in me.  Environmentalism does not even...

Mark Shea’s “Some Thoughts on Motu Proprio Mania” (Vital Signs, October) misses the point.  The Holy Father did not issue this as a counterfoil to the abuses of the Novus Ordo Mass.  He issued this decree because he wished to restore that which was summarily taken away: the unbroken tradition (up to Vatican II) of...

As much as I appreciated Tom Piatak’s  upbraiding of the pathetic Christopher Hitchens (“Hitchens’ Hubris,” Opinion, October), I take issue with his statement, “Jesus believed He was the Son of God . . . ”  Such a statement is ambiguous and does a disservice to Christ and to Christianity. The Catholic Church teaches that, by...

Harry Nicolaides, in “Letter From Saudi Arabia: The Year of Teaching Dangerously” (Correspondence, September), recounted an experience that an acquaintance found to be farfetched.  Although I have never lived in Saudi Arabia, I experienced almost every element of Mr. Nicolaides’ story while living in France and Germany. While studying and working in France in 1997,...

The cynical tone of Thomas Fleming’s disparagement of “modern” education and its theories from the point of view of the classicist (“Counting People, and People Who Count,” Perspective, September) is entertaining reading with a moral of sorts to boot.  He describes the generally bad lot of contemporary educational theory and practice and posits the saving...

If I read Doug Bandow’s “Social Security’s War on Families” correctly (Views, August), the high-end projection of the cost of Social Security and Medicare would be $50 trillion.  If privatization of Social Security is accomplished, we could expect a $20-trillion decrease over the next 75 years.  This is using high-end figures, which generally become lower-end. ...

I found Andrea Crandall’s “Serbia in Our Own Image” (Correspondence, July) very informative.  Her article brings to mind two subsidiary points. Why has the U.S. bombing in Iraq destroyed much of the infrastructure of the country?  This, to me, seemed unnecessary if the aim of the war was merely to defeat the enemy.  Applying Miss...

Sean Scallon’s “Letter From Quebec: Talking About Culture” (Correspondence, July) is an excellent report on the recent provincial elections in Quebec.  As explained by Mr. Scallon, the ADQ has attempted to reintroduce the question of Quebec culture into the political arena.  This emphasis on cultural identity by M. Dumount and the ADQ raises a generally...

According to William R. Hawkins (“A COM for Africa?” Cultural Revolutions, July), the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, Ryan Henry, claimed in an April 23 briefing that “Africa represents 35 percent of the world’s land mass” and “about 25 percent of the world’s population.  Each of these figures is off the mark. The...

My thanks to Derek Turner for his generous and insightful review (“The Decivilizing Century”) of my book The Strange Death of Moral Britain in the June 2007 issue of Chronicles.  There are, however, two minor points that need to be corrected. First, Mr. Turner suggests that I avoided ascribing the extremely large rise in crime,...

I am puzzled by one brief passage in Joseph Sobran’s generally unimpeachable demonstration that George Will is no conservative (“Was George Will Wrong?” The Bare Bodkin, May).  In the third paragraph, he points out that Will covertly implies that conservatives should “get over” certain things they do not like, including apparently the FDR quasisocialist legacy...

In Thomas Fleming’s otherwise excellent article “Dead Monkeys and the Living God” (Perspective, April), he makes a couple of minor missteps that add undue credence to the modernists’ case.  I have not read Steven Weinberg’s books, so I am only going on the evidence presented in Dr. Fleming’s column, but, if Weinberg does lump Intelligent...

In his “Letter From Cork” (“The Polonization of Ireland,” Correspondence, March), Christie Davies hopefully predicts that recent Polish immigrants will reevangelize postmodern Ireland.  From his lips to God’s ears, although I doubt that the Almighty will be listening.  I, in turn, predict (but do not hope) that what is now a sizable Polish community will...

In the March issue, Ted Galen Carpenter makes a strong case for why we should “Reject False Prophets” who have led us into war in Iraq (View).  He lays it all out starkly and succinctly: “Iraq has never come close to being a war for America’s survival.  Even the connection of the Iraq mission to...

While I share some of the concerns expressed by Leon Hadar in his February View (“It’s the War, Stupid!”), his analysis of the 2006 election is short on facts, as when he says that Virginia Sen. James Webb’s victory over former Sen. George Allen could only be explained by Webb’s success in “accentuating a consistent...

After reading Roger D. McGrath’s review of Clint Eastwood’s movie on the Battle of Iwo Jima (“The Good, The Bad, the Ugly,” Vital Signs, January) and his article on Eastwood’s Letters From Iwo Jima (Sins of Omission, February), I decided to see who was right—Eastwood or McGrath. Although I was at Iwo from start to...

I concur with William J. Quirk in his discussion of the jurisdiction of federal courts (Cultural Revolutions, January).  However, he missed a related strategic point. In truth, the judiciary is no “final arbiter” of what the Constitution means.  If it were, one branch of government would be supreme rather than coequal.  So-called judicial supremacy is...

In his review of Gordon S. Wood’s Revolutionary Characters (“Founders, Keepers,” January), James O. Tate avers that “we need to recover a vital connection to the spirit of the Founding Fathers . . . ”  He notes that Wood identifies that spirit, but nowhere in the review does he describe it.  That spirit was anti-Catholic—a...