Category: Polemics & Exchanges

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...

For many years, I have subscribed to and enjoyed your excellent magazine.  I always immensely enjoy the writing of Thomas Fleming, Roger McGrath, and George McCartney.  Dr. Fleming’s January Perspective, “Two Oinks for Democracy,” was superb.  Dr. McGrath’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (Vital Signs) was likewise superb, as was Dr. McCartney’s review...

In the December issue of Chronicles, Edward Dutton writes about the peculiar self-censorship that characterizes Finnish political and cultural life (“Letter From Finland: Finland, Democracy, and Those Cartoons,” Correspondence).  This reality was confirmed as the magazine was likely going to press, when the Finnish prime minister told journalists that they should not ask government ministers...

While I found Aaron D. Wolf’s “Solemn Joy and Hot Gospel” (Heresies, December) lively and diverting, in one small point I beg to differ.  Larry Norman took the title for his song “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” not from Martin Luther but from Salvation Army founder William Booth.  However, Norman would...

Srdja Trifkovic’s call to exclude “Mecca from America” (“To Lose a War,” American Interest, November) brings to mind Protestant-nativist attempts to “exclude Rome from America” a century ago.  Dr. Trifkovic’s reasons for excluding Islam from American society can be applied to the case of pre-Vatican II Catholicism in the United States.  Anti-Catholic literature often expressed...

In “Don’t Blame Bryan!” (Reactionary Radicals/Radical Reactionaries, October), Jeff Taylor takes Michael Kazin to task for identifying William Jennings Bryan as the man who built the ideological bridge between 19th-century laissez-faire government and the modern liberal welfare state birthed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Dr. Taylor writes: “[Kazin] offers no detailed evidence to support this claim...

Christopher Check’s review of W.G. Simms’ A City Laid Waste: The Capture, Sack, and Destruction of the City of Columbia (“Total War,” September) was an excellent consideration of that volume’s importance in current topical terms.  If Southerners were allowed to know the true story of the invasion and burning of the civilian South by U.S....

Robert Stacy McCain’s main point in his review of Ann Coulter’s Godless: The Church of Liberalism (“Is Ann Coulter Among the Prophets?” September) seems to be that those of us who are not blonde and blue-eyed should not envy those who are.  (“But we all cannot be blue-eyed blondes, and, in the Age of Media,...

While Ted Galen Carpenter makes some valid points about the situation today in Afghanistan (“America’s Other War,” News, August), his attempt to blame everything on an alleged shift of focus from Afghanistan to Iraq is nonsense.  This is an old, tired charge made mainly by antiwar Democrats in the last election but abandoned when it...

After describing the account of Reconstruction offered in an episode of PBS’s The American Experience (Breaking Glass, July), Philip Jenkins concludes that, “Were we to sit down amicably with the producers of American Experience, or the academic experts they consulted, I am confident we would not encounter a gaggle of hard-faced Stalinists.”  His confidence is...

I wish respectfully to raise a strong objection to Clyde Wilson’s analysis of the culture war in his July View: “The culture war is not of our choosing.  We did not seek it or declare it.  We really only wanted to be left alone to live by our patrimony in the normal human way.” This...

I would like to add another fact in support of R. Cort Kirkwood’s article “The New Reality” (American Proscenium, July). From 1980 to 1986, I served in Military Sealift Command (civilian-crewed support vessels for the U.S. Navy).  From January to May 1982, I was enrolled in a class to upgrade to Able-Body Seaman.  One of...

Having read Steven Greenhut’s editorial in the June issue (American Proscenium), I must ask: Why is Mr. Greenhut not against all immigration?  In order to be consistent with the general tenor of his article, he should be totally against any kind of immigration right now, as am I.  I often hear people say that they...

While it was gratifying to see you take note of George Packer’s important book The Assassins’ Gate, Ivan Eland’s tepid review (May) gives only grudging praise to perhaps the most incisive reportage so far of our involvement in Iraq. Packer’s book is not, as Eland suggests, merely an exposé of the Bush administration’s incompetence.  It...

Thomas Fleming’s reflections on the Schiavo case (“New Wine in Old Bottles,” Perspective, May) disappointed but did not surprise me, since, a few years back, he defended our government when it handed over Elian Gonzalez to the tender mercies of a totalitarian government.  In both cases, the crux of his argument seems to be the...

In his article in the March issue on property takings (“Does the Federal Government Protect Private Property?” Views), Stephen B. Presser exhibits the fuzzy thinking that prevents our side from gaining traction.  He equates corporate property with personal property when, in fact, corporate property, like government property, is nearly the opposite of personal property and...

In his review of my book, The Strange Death of Marxism (“The Two Faces of Marxism,” April), Paul Belien writes that I have overstated the hypothetical distance between Marxism and post-Marxism.  The “cultural Marxists” in the Frankfurt School were supposedly right to claim for themselves a Marxist pedigree because of their hatred for Christian and...

It was a great surprise to me to find something in the February issue of Chronicles with which I disagree.  (Normally, I find myself nodding vigorously in assent while reading each new issue.)  In his piece in Cultural Revolutions, R. Cort Kirkwood argued that the recent defeat of the intelligent-design crowd in Dover, Pennsylvania, should...

I agree with much of the premise of Clay Reynolds’ piece “The Real Crisis of Higher Education” in the February issue (Vital Signs): Certainly, as he indicates, education at all levels in the United States is failing.  High schools no longer prepare students for life and work but “to take standardized tests” for advanced learning....

Aaron D. Wolf’s defense of the Byzantine or Majority Text of the New Testament, which he calls the Ecclesiastical Text (“A Trip to Smart-Mouth College,” Views, February), was thoughtful and well written. There are errors in the Alexandrian tradition and unique true readings in the Majority Text. For in- stance, the two standard critical editions,...

Once again, Joe Ecclesia has written a “Letter to a Bishop” (Correspondence, January) that resonates on the other side of the Atlantic. English parishes have been warned that they can no longer assume that they will have a resident priest. English Catholics have been told to be prepared for the number of Masses cel- ebrated...

For the most part, the flourishing of self-governing cities of the kind Prof. Donald W. Livingston describes in “Aristotelian Worms in the Leviathan” (Views, January) took place in northern Italy, central and western Germany, and the Netherlands, where the absence of a strong central authority was decisive, but the rights of the cities in Germany...

The articles in the January 2006 issue of Chronicles (“The Promise of American Life: Small Is Beautiful”) concerning eminent domain and corporate development in the name of public good are characterized by political acumen and cogent cultural observations.  Their strong criticisms are warranted.  I recall Charles Péguy’s reply when someone quoted to him the Gospel...

The lead pieces in the December issue (“The Beauty of Holiness”) are more mystifying than enlightening.  Much of this issue consists of supercilious ridicule of poor souls who try to honor God with imitative architecture and inadequate art, followed by sympathetic words for moral and social degenerates who were prudent enough to repent before dying—or...

I truly enjoyed Scott P. Richert’s excellent review of Remembered Past: John Lukacs on History, Historians, and Historical Knowledge: A Reader (“Truth of Blood and Time,” December 2005)—a compendium of some of Professor Lukacs’s most insightful work. As noted by Mr. Richert, ISI, the publisher of this tome, has produced a terrific primer on the...

I was glad to see Chronicles dedicate its November 2005 issue (“Reviving the American Dream”) to the Southern Agrarians.  Thomas Fleming correctly pointed out that the Agrarians were not simply idle romantics.  Their vision was political, defending organic communities against the ravages of communism and capitalism. Unfortunately, most of the Agrarians later abandoned this vision...

In his discussion of Bill Clinton’s “mini-General Assembly” (Cultural Revolutions, November 2005), Dr. Srdja Trifkovic claims that Thabo Mbeki’s assertion—that such “traditional attitudes” of African men as violence against women and promiscuity do not play a significant role in spreading the disease—is highly controversial.  Actually, Mbeki’s assertion is justified.  Dr. Trifkovic should read “The Chemical...

For the first time, for nearly an hour, the sting of the death of Dr. Samuel Francis subsided. The ointment was in your October number—the “Letter From Charleston: The Flamingo Kid” (Correspondence) by Mr. jack Trotter. That essay alone is worth more than the cost of the entire issue. I realize that it should not...

Christopher Check, in his recount of a visit to Edinburgh (“An Instinctive Jacobite,” The Best Revenge, October), describes his glee at learning that the grave of John Knox is lost under a parking lot as well as his urge to urinate on the approximate site. The passage indicates that his glee and the urge are...

I must take strong issue with Michael McMahon’s “The Communion of Saints” (Views, September), which cast aspersions on the biographies of Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Cecelia, and Saint Barbara. Such sentiments are best reserved to the Soviet-era Krokidil. Devotion to these saints has less to do with the unlikely nature of their biographies and...

Doug Bandow does a very good job in his article “The Republican Party’s Welfare Queens” (Views, August) of detailing all the various queens and their courts in the Republican Party, all of which are parasites on the taxpayer.  What he does not do, however, is to detail the cultural circumstances that have turned the GOP...

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic’s “Getting China Straight” (The American Interest, August) is, for the most part, an intelligent and thorough analysis of the looming presence of China on the world stage.  Unfortunately, Dr. Trifkovic concludes with a suggestion—admittedly only one among many that he brings forward—that is fraught with peril. In his final paragraph, he writes:...

In “A Place to Stand” (Views, July), Wayne Allensworth asks, “How will our sons become men in the bureaucratized, risk-averse, feminist post-America our elites envision for us?”  Certainly, this is a grave concern for anyone thinking clearly about our nation’s future.  One can add a concern about how our daughters will become women, and how...

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic’s “Iraq: The Way Out” (American Proscenium, August) is the most promising piece I have seen since it became apparent that our initial military victory marked the beginning of our warfare in that country, not the end.  For more than a year, I have been advocating to those (precious few) who would listen...

I am perplexed by Aaron D. Wolf’s omission of any reference at all to the Eastern Orthodox Church in “Effeminate Gospel, Effeminate Christians” (Views, July), particularly since he is identified as a Church (capital C) historian.  Coincidentally, the same issue contains Scott P. Richert’s article about the consecration of an Orthodox monastery in Montenegro, which...

Chronicles carries informed and very interesting articles.  You have literate and intelligent authors, and I look forward anxiously to the arrival of each issue.  I want to compliment you particularly on the article on the judiciary by William F. Harvey (“An Appointment to the Supreme Court,” Vital Signs, June).  It is a tragedy that Judge...

As a paleoconservative and traditional Catholic, I greatly enjoy Chronicles and look forward to every issue.  I am, however, increasingly disturbed by the consistent and growing demonization of Muslims in the magazine.  I think it is quite reasonable to accept that Islam has some extremely rough edges.  It has bloody borders, most terrorists are Muslims,...

In a letter to the editor (Polemics & Exchanges, May) Henry Heatherly says that, in my March Sins of Omission column, “A Hero Among Heroes,” I refer to Audie Murphy firing a .50 caliber machine gun from “a German tank destroyer” and thus made a mistake, because the caliber of German machine guns on their...

Once again, Church historian Aaron D. Wolf slanders evangelicals with his essay “The Christian Zionist Threat to Peace” (Views, May).  Using the classic ploy of quoting from a dictionary-type source in his introduction allows him to set up his own dispensationalist straw man to knock down in the rest of his polemic. Mr. Wolf does...

I first met Samuel Francis more than 30 years ago, when he was a graduate student in Chapel Hill and a stalwart member of the Carolina Conservative Society—subsequently, the “Orange County Anti-Jacobin League” when it lost its university recognition on a point of principle.  I was a brand-new faculty member, a refugee from Columbia University,...

The passing of James Moses, after a long battle with cancer, is sad news for many in the Chronicles circle.  Jim was an occasional contributor to Chronicles, a John Randolph Club member, and a longtime foot soldier in Old Right causes. A native of northern New Jersey, Jim was a graduate of the legendary Bergen...

Josef Schüsslburner’s “The Yoke of Democracy” (Correspondence, March) makes valid comparisons between the brutal Stalin and Hitler regimes.  His explanation of the relative lack of prominence in Germany of the 60th anniversary of the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt against Hitler is interesting within the context of this comparison. Why was Stalin more successful than...

In “A Hero Among Heroes” (Sins of Omission, March), Roger McGrath wrote, “Ever since the late 1960’s, the cultural Marxists of academe have worked assiduously to destroy American heroes.”  I surely agree with him; however, he uses the term cultural Marxist, which sounds to me like an oxymoron, since Marxists have no culture in the...

Scott P. Richert (“Bleeding Red, Feeling Blue,” The Rockford Files, January) refers to the loss of “higher-paying manufacturing positions with decent benefits” in Ohio and the Midwest generally, blaming the Bush administration and greedy multinational corporations. I am no fan of the Bush administration.  However, Mr. Bush is damned if he does and damned if...

Thomas Fleming’s “Love the One You’re With” (Perspective, January) is the kind of writing that first attracted me to Chronicles and The Rockford Institute.  It is for this caliber of discussion that I return every year to the Summer School.  When I read Dr. Fleming, I can be sure that English is being properly used,...

Michael McMahon’s otherwise insightful article on the sad state of the public schools in England (“Education and Authority,” Views, January) is marred by a wrongheaded conclusion.  Mr. McMahon avers that the decline in the quality of education in England is the result of education having become a commodity.  In his final paragraph, he laments that...

Did I read aright the piece on “Gay Marriage” by Prof. William J. Quirk (“What’s Next for the Imperial Judiciary?” News, January)?  When he puts forth his solution, it turns out to be the passage of a bill that will give the “last word” to “[e]ach state’s high court.”  But as he himself points out...

In his article “Out on a Limb: America’s Pledge to Defend Taiwan” (Vital Signs, December), Ted Galen Carpenter does not discuss whether it is in America’s national interest for Taiwan to fall under the control of the Beijing regime.  Instead, he argues that our Asian allies may not support our defense of the island.  To...