Only lucky strikes and a pitcher of Tanqueray martinis could resolve the cognitive dissonances of the Clinton administration. One newspaper I saw on March 25 carried a story about hearings on regulating tobacco alongside another story about Dr. Jocelyn Elders’ opposition to banning tobacco products. Since then FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler has been ranting...
10959 search results for: Post-Human Future
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Ugly Lessons from Katrina
What are Americans thinking these days? So many seem surprised by what is happening in New Orleans. How could they be? Last year, when hurricanes raked the Gulf Coast, a rural store offered free ice and water and a serious riot erupted in the parking lot where people refused to wait in line. Or take...
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Olmert’s Bombshell
Israel’s outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Israel will have to give up almost the entire occupied West Bank, including most settlements and East Jerusalem, as the price for peace with the Palestinians. “What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader before me,” he declared—and he was right. ...
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What Makes Biden So Pugnacious?
President Biden has a history of painting himself as heroic in personal encounters where few contemporaries recall him that way.
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In a Precarious Condition
The NATO airstrikes against the Republic of Yugoslavia have suddenly precipitated us 60 years back. We find ourselves faced with events which strangely resemble the aggression directed by Germany, first against Czechoslovakia, then, with the aid of the Soviet Union, against Poland. It was striking to hear President Bill Clinton compare his “essentially humanitarian” action...
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Feeling the Effects
Caribbean immigrants in New York City are feeling the effects of several new immigration reform laws. Although New York’s immigration problems are acute—as the rage seen in the Abner Louima torture scandal attests—reform had to come from the federal level, since Mayor Giuliani continues to welcome massive immigration as a boon to the local economy....
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Campaign Finance Reform
In accepting the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1908, this century’s greatest populist warned: “How can the people hope to rule if they are not able to learn, until after the election, what the predatory interests are doing?” The man was, of course, William Jennings Bryan, and he offered a “complete and effective” solution...
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The Return of Ethnic Nationalism
In Africa last week, President Bush deplored the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s, defended his refusal to send U.S. troops to Darfur and decried the ethnic slaughter in Kenya. Following a fraudulent election, the Kikyu, the dominant tribe in Kenya, have been subjected to merciless ...
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Sophistory
Two thousand fifteen was the year that we Americans broke history. By “breaking history,” I do not mean something like “breaking news,” or “breaking records,” or even “breaking the Internet” (though the Internet certainly played a role). Yes, the “historic moments” of the Summer of #LoveWins and #HateLoses—the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v....
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Battle of the Narrative
When a manufacturing company is confronted with the reality of a huge drop in product sales, the initial reaction on the part of the managers is to blame the marketing department and to demand that it come up with a new and more effective advertising campaign. After all, the notion that their air-conditioning units are...
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Alive and Well
The Tenth Amendment is alive and well in Ohio. On June 28, right before the state legislature recessed, Representative Michael Wise and Senator Grace Drake introduced into the Ohio General Assembly “House Concurrent Resolution No. 44” with 27 house cosponsors and 3 senate cosponsors. The resolution was referred to the House Committee on Economic Affairs...
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Calculated Acts of Goodness
How could this be? In a Catholic school? Here? This is what they’re teaching our kids? I stopped, transfixed. I had parked my car and sauntered into the Catholic middle school in search of my son. I was about to turn down the hall that led to his math class when I was struck by...
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Race, Aids, and Sexual Behavior
For the past decade or so, my research has focused on assessing racial differences in brain size and intelligence, sexual habits and fertility, personality and temperament, and speed of maturation and longevity. Startling and alarming to main people is my conclusion that if all people were treated the same, most racial differences would not disappear....
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Reagan’s Rhetoric
It may well be indicative of real progress in America that we are now able to read the Presidential speeches of a man that leading commentators frequently declared unelectable a decade ago. But now that Ronald Reagan’s electability is established beyond doubt, the national media have been busy tagging him as the “most ideological” of...
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Putting Policies Before Personalities
A candidate’s character matters, of course, but what matters most at this moment in history is which candidate proposes policies that will build a better America.
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On Paleoconservatism
Although I agree with most of the ideas expressed in your round table “What Is Paleoconservatism?” (Views, January), I believe it is a serious mistake to call this persuasion by such a name. The liberals must love you for so hobbling yourselves. To the average person, the name brings one of two things to mind:...
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Proposition 187
Proposition 187, California’s famous (or infamous) proposition to deny public services to illegal immigrants and their offspring, encouraged at least one member of Virginia’s General Assembly to propose similar legislation in this year’s session. The stout-hearted fellow’s name is Warren E. Barry, and he represents Fairfax County in Virginia’s Senate. For some time now, the...
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Bringing Down Brussels
As everyone knows, Greece became a member of the eurozone on the back of a lie. The colonels’ regime had collapsed, Greek politicians were nervous, and that pseudo-French aristocrat Giscard promised entry to a country that is more Middle Eastern than European, but with olive oil. Entry meant no more tanks surrounding Parliament at midnight—rather...
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What Is America’s Mission Now?
Informing Iran, “The U.S. is watching what you do,” Amb. Nikki Haley called an emergency meeting Friday of the Security Council regarding the riots in Iran. The session left her and us looking ridiculous. France’s ambassador tutored Haley that how nations deal with internal disorders is not the council’s concern. Russia’s ambassador suggested the United...
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If We Cared About “Democracy”
Democracy is under attack, we now hear regularly. While Donald Trump, the GOP, and (if you ask Rachel Maddow) the weather have all been identified of late as “threats” to our democracy, the Great Satan is, of course, Russia, pop. 144,498,215. Vlad Putin directs, or winks and nods at, a Red Army of hackers who,...
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Remembering Kingsley Amis
Queen Victoria’s corpse had hardly cooled before modernism in the United Kingdom rebelled against Victorian styles, attitudes, and mores. The ideas of arguably the four most important thinkers of the modern era—Darwin, Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud—were written during Queen Victoria’s lifetime but only gained influence after her death. So too did the literary high...
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Crime and Moonshine
The jurors who tried the 14-year-old black boy who shot and killed three widows last year, one of them my own dear neighbor, found him guilty and gave him several life terms. By law, he got the maximum. He is too young for the death penalty. It is beyond me. If you are old enough...
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The Neocons’ Palin Project
Will the neocons who tutored George W. Bush in the ideology he pursued to the ruin of his presidency do the same for Sarah Palin? Should they succeed, they will destroy her. Yet, they are moving even now to capture this princess of the right and hope of the party. In St. Paul, Palin was...
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A Wal-Mart in Every Town
Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton used to claim that he would never build a store in a town that didn’t want one. Whether true or not, it was at least the right thing to say. Since Walton’s death in 1992, however, Wal-Mart has largely dropped the pretense, forcing its way into Vermont (the last state to...
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A Letter from Switzerland: Alpine Redoubt Stays Neutral
Switzerland provides a model for a morally neutral foreign policy based on pragmatic interests rather than “defining values” and self-proclaimed exceptionality. Americans need to learn from the Swiss.
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Putin Reset
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will return to the Kremlin as president in 2012, ending speculation on the fate of the “national leader” and of the “tandem” he had formed with current President Dmitri Medvedev. Medvedev nominated Putin on September 24 during the congress of the ruling United Russia party, dashing the hopes of reformers...
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Light Slander, Heavy Artillery
Both of these books are written by young, self-styled conservatives; both demonstrate indisputably the unfounded charges made against the “right” by the media and academics; both easily devastate the biased and factually inaccurate statements about Republicans, conservatives, and the American past and present that emanate from the cultural left. The TV personalities Ann Coulter goes...
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Love and Grace
This is a remarkable book by a remarkable man. Mr. Marcolla is well known to many conservatives in Europe and the United States for his observations on modern philosophy contributed over the years to Osservatore Romano. He is a keen student of Anglo-American conservative thought as well as having been a friend and translator of...
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But Why the “Red Flag” of Revolution?
I have never been a flag-waver, nor felt much sympathy for howling mobs, particularly when bent on destruction. But since this year, 1989, marks the bicentennial of the world’s first and most influential revolution (there is hardly a revolutionary notion or motif that cannot be traced back to Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Babeuf, and their spiritual...
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Breast-Beating and Myth-Exploding
The wavering course of United States foreign policy and our fumbling initiatives in the world’s trouble spots have turned a brighter spotlight upon governmental decision-making in this vital area. Our performances in Iran, Lebanon, and Nicaragua have raised questions about the capacity of our open government to deal with these recurring problems. And neither our...
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The Unbeliever
Suppose you are tired of hearing about roulette. Suppose the very thought of gambling, despite the metaphorist’s efforts to depict it as the great commonwealth of epochal disillusionment and hence universalize the experience, strikes you as tedious. Suppose you are the sort of man who insists that the only thing duller than watching people take...
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Journalism – Syndicated King Lear
The jeremiads were not devoid of a certain poignancy. Anchormen and columnists filled their “spaces,” both the psychological ones and those allocated to them during the prime time or on editorial pages, without bursts of the most righteous anger witnessed since Lancelot went on rampage and King Lear filled theaters with the outrage of sorrow....
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Episcopal Follies
We have heard many debates recently about the undermining of moral and cultural traditions in contemporary America, a trend sometimes epitomized by the phrase “political correctness.” Conservatives often issue dark warnings about the ills that befall a society that cuts itself off from its roots, though few go so far as to predict total destruction,...
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Election Hangover
Your Excellency, I don’t know about you, but I am ready for this campaign season to be as dead as Scrooge’s doornail. For the last month, political commercials have crowded television screens and websites, interrupting even Mayberry reruns and the latest scoop on Paris Hilton. Despite their promises to avoid negative campaigns, all candidates have...
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Autocracy vs. Democracy or China vs. America?
“I’ve known Xi Jinping for a long time. … He doesn’t have a democratic—with a small ‘d’—bone in his body,” said Joe Biden in his first press conference as president, and then he ambled on: He’s one of the guys, like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, who thinks that autocracy is the...
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Texas Rebellion
You must have noticed that the National Education Association, the New York Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, left-wing bloggers, and even the Dallas Morning News went ape in March over the outcome of textbook deliberations in Texas. It seems that the state board of education, dominated by political and social conservatives, prescribed changes in model curricula...
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In Trouble Again
Jean-Marie Le Pen is in trouble again. Imagine if Pat Buchanan had just scored a major political success, which had put him within reach of real political power—and then, just as he was reaching out to taste the fruits of years of hard work, political opponents threw a minor legal charge at him. Conviction on...
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SPLC Restrains Itself On Bundy … Daily Kos Smears Him
The “range war” in Sen. Harry Reid’s Nevada between hardscrabble rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government appears to have ended. The Bureau of Land Management has retreated, having seized Bundy’s cattle and tasered and arrested his son. Bundy and the BLM are fighting over his refusing to pay fees to use federal lands for...
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Obama at the Rubicon
If the aphorism holds—the guerrilla wins if he does not lose—the Taliban are winning and America is losing the war in Afghanistan. Well into the eighth year of war, the Taliban are more numerous than ever, inflicting more casualties than ever, operating in more provinces than ever and controlling more territory than ever. And their...
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A Cynic’s Dictionary
cynic (’sin-ick) n.—One who no longer believes in the comforting illusions and protective half-truths that others use unreflectively to get through their lives. A administration, n.—An abstract concept that disguises a concrete problem of government; an administration of 4.4 million people, such as the United States has attained, has been found to be incapable of...
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Adieu to the “Adults in the Room”
President Donald Trump’s announcement last December 19 that he would immediately withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria (and one-half of the Afghan contingent) is the most important single decision of his presidency. The mission in Syria had never been about “regime change” in Damascus, or “eliminating Iranian influence,” or establishing Kurdish autonomy. Two years ago...
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Remembering Robert E. Lee
Forbearance is a moral principle from which General Robert E. Lee rarely if ever wavered, and his unflinching practice of that virtue is the primary reason that he should be remembered today.
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The Death of the Amateur
When college athletics abandons the spirit of play for the reality of pay.
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The Celtic Heritage of the Old South
Southerners are not like other Americans. Significant cultural differences have always separated them from the North. Even today cultural variations between Southern black and white people are fewer than those between white Southerners and white Northerners. In other words, the population of the United States is more divided culturally along regional lines than along racial...
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Trusted Most—Men with Guns
Public confidence in Congress has plummeted to the lowest level of any institution since Gallup began asking the question in 1973. One-half of all Americans have little or no confidence in the Congress. Only 11 percent have a
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Unit 731
Every time I ask my college students if they are familiar with Nazi atrocities, the collective reply is “Of course.” Nearly all of them have also heard of Dr. Josef Mengele and his horrific medical experiments conducted at Auschwitz. The “Angel of Death” has been the subject of countless lectures, articles, books, movies, and documentaries. ...
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This is Not Your Grandfather’s Country
Years ago, during the First Gulf War, I asked one of our editors whether he objected to the protestors who burned American flags. He replied, “It’s not my flag, it’s not my country.” I respected his opinion, though I wondered at the time if it was not a bit extreme. But every day...
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Lincoln’s Legacy: Foreign Policy by Assassination
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” For proof of this axiom, we need only look at the foreign policy pursued by the U.S. government since the end of World War II. The United States emerged from World War II militarily victorious but politically deformed. Instead of a republic, it was now a...
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The Palin Doctrine
On U.S. military intervention in Syria’s civil war, where “both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line ‘Allahu akbar’ … I say let Allah sort it out.” So said Sarah Palin to the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference. And, as is not infrequently the case, she nailed it....
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With DVD and Remote in Deepest Filmland
Remember Nick and Nora Charles, the movies’ Thin Man and wife? Of course, you do. How about Larry and Kay Wilson? Embodied by the same actors, William Powell and Myrna Loy, they’re a bush-league Babbitt and his divorce-bent wife in 1940’s I Love You Again. Larry’s pretty insufferable, alright, but after a conk on the...