“Do you realize now what you have done?” So Vladimir Putin in his U.N. address summarized his indictment of a U.S. foreign policy that has produced a series of disasters in the Middle East that we did not need the Russian leader to describe for us. Fourteen years after we invaded Afghanistan, Afghan troops are...
10957 search results for: Post-Human Future
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Defending the Real America
It was about 1969. I had published a few small pieces in Modern Age and National Review. I remember well Sam Francis calling me out of the blue, flattering me as “the best-known conservative writer” on campus, and urging me to attend the discussion group of which he was the spearhead. I had a family,...
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The Country Against the Empire
A prophet and a polemicist, David Gelernter displays anything but a light touch in this attack on “imperial academia” and what it has wrought. Like most prophets, Gelernter the polemicist hopes to be proved wrong. Perhaps, with our culture dismantled and the “Obamacrats” in charge, the contest is over—game, set, and match. Tennis was once...
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Rising Diversity Is Joe Biden’s Worry, Too
Is her racial diversity America’s greatest strength? So we are told. Yet, even before America becomes a majority-minority nation, 25 years from now, recent changes in the composition of the country are going to impact both parties in 2020. According to Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, between 2010 and 2020,...
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Back to School, Back to Hell
Both Dr. Fleming’s column “Thinking Outside the Boxes” in the current issue of the magazine and John Seiler’s “Welcome Back to the Slammer…er…School” blog on our website inspired me to share some of my personal experiences with the 12 years of torment known as school. I began my grade school education in the last months...
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Obama on Osama—a Volcano of Lies
Barack Obama, who pledged to restore ethical honor to the White House after the Bush years, is now burying himself under an active volcano of lies, mostly but not exclusively concerning the assassination of Osama bin Laden. There was scarcely a sentence in the president’s Sunday night address or in the subsequent briefing by...
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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 End of Innocence
“‘Aren’t there any grown-ups at all?’ ‘I don’t think so.’” William Golding, Lord of the Flies In an inner-city school beset by truancy, the presence of a 13-year-old pupil an hour before the first lesson suggests something is amiss. “Good morning, Kim,” I said. “What brings you in so early?” Kim didn’t answer immediately. ...
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Learning, Larning, and Schooling
“All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.” —Sir Walter Scott Educate, educare, Latin, from educere “to lead out.” Education is thus, etymologically, a leading out of young minds from inherited prejudices and superstitions. That, or something like it, has been included...
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The New Fusionism
“In the government of Virginia,” said John Randolph in 1830, “we can’t take a step without breaking our shins over some Federal obstacle.” Randolph’s metaphor was a minor exaggeration 160 years ago; today, it would be a gross understatement, because today that federal obstacle has been erected so high, so deep, so strong, that we...
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Election 2024: The Revenge of the ‘Fascist’
Considering his record, Donald Trump is a strange kind of “fascist.”
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A Fire Bell in the Night for Norway
“Like a fire bell in the night,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1820, “this momentous question … awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.” Jefferson was writing of the sudden resurgence of the slavery issue in the debate on Missouri’s entry into the Union, as...
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The Life of an ‘Old Republican’
Nathaniel Macon (Dec. 17, 1758- June 29, 1837), “Old Republican” statesman, the foremost public man of North Carolina in the early 19th century, was the sixth child of Gideon and Priscilla (Jones) Macon and was born at his father’s plantation on Shocco Creek in what later became Warren County. The Macons were French Huguenots in...
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Bursting the Wineskin
Novitiate Produced by Maven Pictures Written and directed by Maggie Betts Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics Growing up in the 1950’s, I was regaled with many stories about nuns and their punishing ways. Having attended Roman Catholic grammar school through the third grade, I did some regaling myself despite knowing full well that my tales...
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Requiem for a Patriot
“Conservative Tycoon … Dies at 95,” said the New York Times headline on New Year’s Eve about the death of Roger Milliken. Clearly, the headline writer did not know the man. For Roger Milliken exemplified the finest in American free enterprise. He cared about his workers. He cared about his industry. He cared about his...
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Black Hole Singing
There are three basic types of complexity a reader encounters in contemporary poetry. The first type arises when inexperienced poets have not yet developed sufficient intellectual and emotional depth to understand their subject matter or have not yet developed an adequate command of language. The resulting product is muddled rather than deep. The second is...
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Would War With Iran Doom Trump?
A war with Iran would define, consume and potentially destroy the Trump presidency, but exhilarate the neocon never-Trumpers who most despise the man. Why, then, is President Donald Trump toying with such an idea? Looking back at Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, wars we began or plunged into, what was gained to justify the...
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The Mystery of Thomas More
Why didn’t More simply flee when his life was threatened by King Henry VIII? Both his obedience to God and his patriotism forbade it.
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Yes, We Have Bananas… in All Shapes and Sizes
“Yes, we have no bananas” was a hit song from the 1920s. Here a Greek fruit vendor answers all questions with “yes,” even when the answer is negative. In today’s America, we have lots of bananas. First, of course, are the curved yellow fruits sold in bunches. You may be living in Alaska or Massachusetts, with a...
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Sicced on Citizens
Nowadays, the federal government is the closest thing many Americans have to a religion, with those employed by it regarding themselves as a priesthood. Blind faith, if not dependency, tends to take over from observation. But there are other likenesses: sanctimonious cardinals and government functionaries, grandiose department-cathedrals that suck up money from believer and infidel...
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Nelson Mandela Idolized?
Nelson Mandela idolized? Am I the only one who didn’t do a spastic street dance over his arrival in America? Tell him to take “power” in the wrong African language? California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown said being with Mandela was like “being in the presence of God.” A worshiper along the parade route in New...
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Back in the News
School uniforms are back in the news. The school board of the nation’s largest school system, that of New York City, voted unanimously this March to recommend uniforms for elementary school students. President Clinton endorsed the notion, though Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York City Civil Liberties Union, predictably threatened to sue if...
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Corporate Responsibility: An Indecent Proposal
This past semester a group of bored yet curious students at my university invited faculty to participate in a lunch-hour debate. When the organizers first contacted me they referenced several of my former students who praised my heretical outspokenness as key to my selection. They hoped I might provoke their classmates into actions more meaningful...
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Honor to Whom Honor
“Render to all what is due them,” writes Saint Paul, “Tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor” (Romans 13:7, NASB). When a zealous Christian offered to help Mark Twain understand the difficult things in the Bible, Twain said something like this: “It is not...
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To Brighten Your Day
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Commendables – Of Prose and Piety
James J. Thompson, Jr.: Christian Classics Revisited; Ignatius; San Franciso. Among the ends to which writers may put their words is that of leading the reader toward the divine Word of Christian belief. In the secularized world of modernity, such efforts, even when practiced with subtlety, insight, and creative intelligence receive remarkably little attention, however....
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Banking on Boris—Part II
The news for both the “Father of Russian Democracy” and his “friend Bill” was equally bad in the second week of September. A wave of bombings had killed some 300 Russians, murdered by an elusive terrorist gang as they slept in their beds (with some people pointing an accusing finger at the Kremlin; see “Banking...
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The SLA and the Child Experts
If there ever was a case to be made against the therapeutic approach to childrearing—packaged as “parenting” by three decades of child psychologists—the pathetic image of four aging, 1970’s-era radicals, who gave themselves the silly name “Symbionese Liberation Army,” was it. I cannot help but wonder how differently the lives of Michael Bortin, William Harris,...
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White Guys and 9/11
Whiteness and maleness lately have been under constant attack. It’s worth remembering that 23 years ago our culture celebrated four white male heroes who stopped a terrorist attack in the skies above Pennsylvania.
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Cross-Cultural Follies
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Produced by Everyman Pictures Directed by Larry Charles Screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, and Dan Mazer Distributed by 20th Century Fox Babel Produced by Anonymous Content and Zeta Film Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu Screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga Distributed...
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The Bankrupt PIGS of Europe
They are called the PIGS—Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain. What they have in common is that all are facing deficits and debts that could bring on national defaults and break up the European Union. What brought the PIGS to the edge of the abyss? All are neo-socialist states that provide welfare for poor people, generous unemployment,...
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Two Cheers for Howard
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” said Yogi Berra at his most Chestertonian. Charles de Gaulle, in more meditative style, observed: “Les fins des régimes sont toujours tristes.” Both maxims are relevant in the context of Australia’s general election on November 24, 2007, which saw John Howard—prime minister since 1996—crushed by an untried but personally...
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Field of Schemes
Except for the filming of 61¤, the upcoming movie about the home-run race between Yankees Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in 1961, there was no action last summer at Tiger Stadium. The Detroit Tigers have ditched their historic home at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Trumbull and are entering their second season at their...
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Turkey and Trannies
I don’t blame you for not being up on the very latest from Broadway, that gayest of entertainment venues. And I’ll admit that I’m not about to enrich your cultural life by bringing you up to speed. Unfortunately, however, this has broader implications. I write of Kinky Boots, the current Tony-winning Broadway smash about a...
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West Point Gives in to Creeping Liberalism
By abandoning its traditional motto of “Duty, Honor, Country,” West Point has given into the liberalizing trend within American society. As Samuel Huntington warned, to remain effective a military must maintain an ethos distinct from the liberal society it defends.
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Prodigal Son
“Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.” —Oscar Wilde Louis Simpson stands as an easy example of the poet divided, whose best talents and strongest predilections are at odds with one another. He takes Walt Whitman as spiritual father and his relationship with...
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Missed Manners and Creeping Laws
All societies regulate personal behavior: That is part of what makes them societies, instead of mere aggregations of isolated individuals. Societies differ enormously, though, in just how they perform this regulation, how much they rely on law and the state, rather than informal or private means. If I walk into a crowded room wearing a...
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Campus Rebellion
It’s a story told regularly in the conservative media. A student pleads for advice: The professors at his college or university are left-wing, and he must choose between regurgitating the leftist propaganda in class discussions, term papers, exam answers, and essays for an A, or telling the truth for a low grade. What to do?...
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Live Free! (Kill Your Lawn)
Americans love their lawns. They spend $40 billion per year—more than the gross national product of most countries—to create the perfect lawn. Taken together, all these lawns would cover the entire state of Kentucky. Lawns are everywhere, from trailer parks and executive mansions to businesses, churches, and recreational areas. American agronomists have created so many...
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Vindicated
All In The Family, the 1970’s TV series in which Norman Lear sought to convince the world that Middle Americans were ignorant bigots like Archie Bunker, recently had its twentieth anniversary special on CBS. It brought back fond memories. Sure, the show was always—as Archie would have put it—your basic pinko propaganda through and through,...
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What Civilization Remains
We once had a book about Eastern Europe at home, in between the encyclopedias and Robinson Crusoe. I do not remember its title nor the author’s name, but it contained highly atmospheric black and white photographs of Rumanian scenes. There were baroque chateaux, sturgeons, eagles, wolves, bears, wild boar, bends in the Danube, flowered meads...
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Lincoln, the Antiwar Congressman
The only time before his presidency when Abraham Lincoln held national office was a single term (1847-49) in the U.S. House of Representatives. During that time, while debating the Mexican-American War, Lincoln zealously defended the constitutional prerogative of Congress to declare war and enact legislation against a perceived usurpation of ...
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Great Minds
I found Scott P. Richert’s article “Taking Back the Culture” (The Rockford Files, December) very interesting. It brings to mind Robert Nisbet’s central thesis that the medieval was an era of higher civilization, since it had power spread over a wide field, rather than the concentration of everything in one institution. Nisbet, as I understand...
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Afghan Disinformation
During the Second World War the German High Command issued regular bulletins about the situation on various fronts. They had a triumphalist tone in 1940, when France fell, and in 1941, when it looked like the Red Army would collapse, but the core information remained reliable throughout the war. These Wehr machtberichten adopted a sober...
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You Say FIFA, I Say WWE
Ah, glorious soccer. The sport where fat and tall and tough guys don't get a pass, unlike those other statistic-driven, 'roid marinated, jingoistic sports Americans love on a more regular basis. But what really makes FIFAball the sport of conservative spectators is that it combines the Grecian ideal ...
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The Mexican War
It’s popular in academe today to describe the Mexican War as an example of an aggressive and expansive colossus beating up on a weak neighbor, but that was not the case in 1846. The war was really a second phase of the Texas Revolution. Most people don’t understand that Mexico never recognized Texas independence. It...
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Hillary on the Right to Vote
Those Republicans! Here’s the lowdown on ’em—and on their lousy, lowdown approach to governing. They don’t want the wrong people voting. They’re “scared of letting citizens have their say.” They’re engaged in “a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the...
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Viktor’s Spetsnaz, John’s Southwestern
Last September, some readers may recall, my letter was devoted to Viktor Suvorov, the pseudonymous writer and former GRU officer who now lives in England under yet another assumed name. It has taken me nearly a year to track down the author of Spetsnaz. Soon after our conversation begins, he recites in Russian: In ’41...
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Erratic Entrepreneurs
Writers of worthwhile biographies must not only research their facts carefully, they must also highlight the moral, imaginative, or philosophic significance of their subjects’ lives. Both James Grant’s Bernard Baruch and Stanley Jackson’s J.P. Morgan are well researched and clearly written, but both fail to tell us why we should care about either of these...
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A Passing Phase
Russian-American relations, commentators warned, would be damaged by NATO’s war in Yugoslavia, but the Clinton administration dismissed the idea. Russian anti-Americanism seemed a passing phase that would dissipate when media attention turned to the next international crisis. Events like Boris Yeltsin’s August 25 meeting with Jiang Zemin, in which Russia’s president accused NATO of “trying...