a giant concession, one with which thenempire still could cope within its confinesnat a more propitious time, as longnas its global affairs were safeguardednby Carter’s policies.nBlessed ComplacencynThe Libertarian Party was noticeablynin the running during this election, andnits theorists will find a multitude ofnexcuses to explain its meager showing.nWe, however, were quite impressed bynits foreign-policy theory, which seemednto be based on a comfortable historicalnilliteracy. Mr. Ed Clark, Libertariannpresidential candidate, when asked duringnthe campaign about his proposednforeign policy, explained that we shouldnno longer try to be the world’s policemann(as if we ever had). And he added:n[The U.S.S.R. is]… a cautious predatornrarely making bold or sweepingnmoves from its own borders. It is anlarge backward country, still onlynsemi-developed and not even able tonfeed itself.nThat’s exactly what the last Roman emperrgrs—fromnTheodosius to JuliusnNepos and Romulus Augustus—saidn#D0ut the Visigoths, Ostrogoths andnHuns, and that’s how medieval Europeansnspoke about Batu Khan and hisngolden hordes: just backward, semidevelopednpeople who were not able to feednthemselves. Which is precisely why theynbecame predators. And—as zoologynteaches—a predator unopposed is seldomna cautious predator.nThe Nobel PrizenThe Nobel Prize in literature thisnyear was given to Czeslaw Milosz, anPolish poet of eminence in his nativenculture and presently a professor ofnSlavic at the University of California atnBerkeley. Many have read political overtonesninto this honor being awarded tona Polish writer: after all, the events ofn1980 have certainly been influenced bynPolish achievements in the never-endingnshowdown between the forces ofnfreedom and the forces of tyranny innEastern Europe. The distinction of annemigre intellectual opposed to oppressionnin his country does have significance,nbut the stature of Mr. Milosznhimself cannot be denied. His is not anso-called regional award, so often bestowednby the Swedish academy on annauthor who is representative of a particularnnational culture and heritage.nMr. Milosz is a poet’s poet, a mentor,na teacher, a pioneer in certain areas ofnreflective poetry whose importance andninfluence upon modern European poeticnworkshops cannot be discounted.nHe is perhaps better known as a philosophernof culture and an essayist ofnconsequence. A social democrat whoninitially wished to compromise with thenvictorious communist authorities innpost-World War II Poland, he was re­nIn the Mailnwarded with high diplomatic posts innParis and Washington. In 1951, havingnconcluded that the totalitarian grip overnmen, societies and conscience had becomenunbearable, he defected and joinednthe Polish political exiles in the West.nHe then wrote and published a volumenof literary essays, The Captive Mind,nwhose impact on the collective consciousnessnof Western intelligentsia isncompared to that of Orwell’s 1984,nKoestler’s Darkness at Noon, the novelsnof Silone and the political tracts of MilovannDjilas.nOne should notice that all recentnNobel laureates from the Eastern Europeanncultural realm—a Russian, a PolishnJew and a Pole from Lithuania (Mr.nMilosz was born there)—are now residentsnof the United States. There can benno more telling argument to emphasizenwhich political and cultural entity inntoday’s world is the only genuine refugenfor independent thought, the only gener-nVie-w from the Capitol Dome (Looking Right) edited by John H. Rousselot andnRichard T. Schulze; Green Hill Books, Caroline House Publishers; Ottawa, Illinoisnand Ossining, New York. Ideas and analyses by twenty members of the HousenRepublican Study Committee on the Congress, economy, bureaucracy, foreign policynand environmentalism.nPornography: A Christian Critique by John H. Court; InterVarsity Press; Dow^nersnGrove, Illinois. An investigation and evaluation of the arguments used to supportnpornography, and an informed and practical Christian response.nA-mazing Grace by Robert Drake; Wm. E. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; Grand Rapids,nMichigan. Says Cleanth Brooks, “His genuinely comic (yet genuinely sympathetic) storiesnof life in the rural and small-town South also afford a sound picture of life in an older America,nnorth or south.”nThe Economic Responsibility of Government by Milton Friedman and Paul A. Samuelson;nThe Center for Education & Research in Free Enterprise (Texas A&M University);nCollege Station, Texas. Transcript of an “interesting, enlightening, and intellectuallynstimulating” program featuring these two Nobel Laureates.nThe Anti-Redlining Rules by George J. Benston; Law and Economics Center (Universitynof Miami School of Law); Coral Gables, Florida. An analysis of the Federal HomenLoan Bank Board’s proposed nondiscrimination requirements.nThe Perils of Regulation: A Market-Process Approach by Israel M. Kirzner; Law andnEconomics Center (University of Miami School of Law); Coral Gables, Florida. Ancritical assessment of economic regulation including Austrian arguments against socialistncentral planning and a discussion of the “market discovery process,”nnni49nIVovcmbcr/Decembcr 1980n