Kipling should be a fascinating subject for literary history. He was enormously gifted and successful, the child of a modest, nonconformist Anglo-Scot family that, besides producing him, also produced his cousin, the conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin. One of his aunts married Edward Burne-Jones; another married Sir James Baldwin, chairman of the Great Western Railway,...
Every definition of masculinity into which our Lord Jesus Christ does not fit belongs in the rubbish heap. Indeed, there could be no greater example of a man than He. Contrary to modern portrayals, Jesus was neither a sensitive metrosexual nor a macho-macho man. The tenderness that He displayed toward those whom He loved (including...
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.
As recently as 1882, Neasden in north London was an obscure hamlet of several large houses, a few cottages, and a smithy. Then the Metropolitan Railway and, later, the North Circular Road went through and thousands of often jerrybuilt houses sprang up along their lengths, as London bit ravenously into Middlesex. Although Neasden rapidly became...
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...
The “Prince of Darkness”—aka Robert Novak—who died this week of a brain tumor, was the Hunter Thompson of the right, albeit with predictable differences. Thompson, like Rimbaud, espoused a total disordering of all the senses—with materials as varied as ayahuasca, LSD, cocaine and tequila whereas Novak stuck to booze. Thompson blew his brains out, whereas...
Recently, I returned to dear old Cork after exactly ten years’ absence. What 50 years ago had been a poor town on the periphery of Ireland is now a big, thriving, growing, wealthy city. As I was conveyed from the airport to the city center, I asked the driver, “Anything changed round here recently?” “Immigrants,”...
Andrei Navrozov’s newest book of reminiscences is intended to be the literary and photographic proof of his “internal exile.” By this term, he underscores his distance from the present age, in which philistine housewives have seized control of our social and political institutions and mass culture has become increasingly degraded. In this present time of...
There are hundreds of Mexican restaurants in the United States named for the revolutionary Pancho Villa. Photos of the Durango native line the walls, and his raid on the small American hamlet of Columbus, New Mexico, is celebrated. Nowhere is mentioned the many atrocities Villa and his forces regularly committed. Torture, rape, and murder were...
The death of Adm. James Stockdale on July 5 robs America of one of the best men of our time. A soldier and a patriot, Admiral Stockdale also possessed the kind of inquiring mind and thirst for virtue that is the mark of a true philosopher. Born and raised in Illinois, Stockdale attended Monmouth College...
Michael Lind was a good fit for Compact magazine’s first event in New York City. Neither Lind nor the magazine has shied away from confrontation and challenging the managerial state.
In June 2017, the European Union fined Google a record-breaking €2.42 billion for abusing the dominance of its popular search engine while building its online shopping service. Brussels found that Google illegally and artificially endorsed its own price-comparison service in searches. (In plain English, Google’s search results were biased in favor of its own services.) ...
Inspired by Harry and Meghan [Note from the editors: The following piece is satirical. (We hope!)] On January 8 Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, issued a significant statement on Instagram announcing plans to change their roles within the British royal family. Further details are available to the curious. In view of the...
Secession, or at least political subdivision, is looking increasingly attractive to many Americans. Both ideas were long considered outre, even unacceptable. But as the Civil War, our last such great experiment, recedes into history, the cries to break away, or at least to break up, are growing louder. CALIFORNIA: Lalaland is the home of full-spectrum...
Thinking Clearly About War by Gary Jason James Turner Johnson: Can Modern War Be Just?; Yale University Press; New Haven. There is nothing quite so fatuous as the nuclear pacifism currently fashionable among leftist theologians and their ilk. Visions of mushroom clouds (brought on by repeated viewings of On the Beach and Dr. Strangelove)...
If there's going to be any democracy in the 21st century—in America, Europe, Israel or anywhere—there must be nations and nationalists willing to stand for them.
[Lewis: Painter and Writer, by Paul Edwards (New Haven and London: Yale University Press) 584 pp. $75.00] Professor Edwards has set himself to a daunting task in taking on Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957). Lewis the painter is a difficult task for many reasons: first, because he attacked the British art establishment early on, trashing Roger Fry...
NAFTA—the North American Free Trade Agreement—is not unlike the notorious star chamber, where the king and counsellors of medieval England secretly meted out justice without concern for precedent. If Congress approves NAFTA, George Bush’s proudest diplomatic achievement, Americans can expect a heavy dose of star-chamber-style justice in the 21st century. For the average citizen, NAFTA...
Last year, President Clinton, who has rarely found a conflict that lie did not want to join, complained to the Veterans of Foreign Wars that Congress was cutting foreign aid, “the very programs designed to keep our soldiers out of war in the first place.” He threatened to veto the foreign-assistance appropriation hills passed by...
Since the origins of the Swiss Confederation in 1291, it has been the duty of every male Swiss citizen to be armed and to serve in the militia. Today, that arm is an “assault rifle,” which is issued to every Swiss male and which must be kept in the home. During Germany’s Third Reich (1933-1945),...
If you’re old or sick and have a lot of money, I suggest taking a trip out of the country, away from your heirs, until January 1, 2011. And don’t tell them where you’re going. On that date, the death tax for rich folks goes from the current 0 percent to 55 percent. So your...
When we view the monumental seats of government, the palaces and temples of ancient and medieval civilizations, we are awed by their architectural grandeur, the art and culture to which they testify, and the sheer effort they represent. While they are indeed a part of our cultural heritage, these edifices are better understood as monuments...
What is the meaning of the election of 2004 for the American Hard Right? The question, of course, presupposes that there is such a thing as a “Hard Right” distinct from the Mossad’s Station Pentagon, or the “moral values” evangelicals, or the Girly Boys’ Jamboree. By “Hard Right,” in this context, I mean neither what...
Originally published in Catalan in 1490 and now newly translated by David H, Rosenthal, Tirant Lo Blanc is a prose masterpiece written by the Valencian nobleman Joanot Martorell and completed by Marti Joan de Galba after Martorell’s death. Written when the Catalan influence in Sicily, Rhodes, and other parts of the Mediterranean was still significant,...
United Airlines’ December 9 bankruptcy filing came as no surprise to those who understand the airline industry, in which even America’s most successful living investor, Warren E. Buffet, could not turn a profit. Buffett once observed, “In a business selling a commodity-type product it’s impossible to be a lot smarter than your dumbest competitor.” Mr....
Recently while driving from town to my house, I was running through some radio stations when I landed on the Glenn Beck show. His guest was Lara Logan, a journalist and commentator unfamiliar to me, and I was sickened and horrified by what I heard. I wish I were exaggerating, but what that woman had...
Angela Merkel’s unprecedented 16 years in power came to an end on Dec. 8 when Olaf Scholz was sworn in as the new German chancellor, symbolically breaking with tradition by omitting “so help me God” from the oath. Scholz steered his Social Democratic Party (SPD) to the dominant position in last September’s general election by presenting...
It is a strange experience, after an absence of 25 years, to revisit a city with which one was once linked by ties of solidarity. Stranger still was it to discover that Berlin, while it has been extraordinarily transformed in many respects, has remained extraordinarily unchanged in others. Probably in no other European capital today...
I would like to wish all Chronicles readers a Very Merry and Blessed Christmas. And, as a Christmas present, here is a link to a piece I wrote two Christmases ago for Takimag, about some of the things I like about Christmas, including Polish Christmas carols. Since the piece is two years old, most of...
Presbyterians have a particular reputation. We are a rather staid bunch, more comfortable in the environs of the country club than those of the chicken farm, more atuned to the hoity-toity, less to hoi polloi. We’re called the frozen chosen, more for accuracy’s sake than for endearment. We read old and dusty books about doctrines...
In the course of this year President Donald Trump will improve America’s relations with Russia. He will also start purging the irredeemably politicized U.S. intelligence apparatus. The hysteria of recent weeks will be seen—a year from now—as a bizarre footnote to a failed presidency. The “dossier” concocted by a British dirty tricks purveyor hired to...
Arrival 21 Laps Entertainment Directed by Denis Villeneuve Screenplay by Eric Heisserer based on Ted Chiang’s novella Distributed by Paramount Pictures Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk Produced by Film4 and TriStar Pictures Directed by Ang Lee Screenplay by Jean-Christophe Castelli from Ben Fountain’s novel Distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing When is the last time you...
Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Taiwan ignited Chinese war games against Taiwan. A message was sent from both D.C. and Beijing.
“Pay the soldiers. The rest do not matter.” This was the deathbed counsel given to his sons by Roman Emperor Septimius Severus in A.D. 211. Nicolas Maduro must today appreciate the emperor’s insight. For the political survival of this former bus driver and union boss hangs now upon whether Venezuela’s armed forces choose to stand...
President Bush announced in September that he would partially support key proposals for intelligence reform made by the September 11 Commission, which, in its final report, recommended a sweeping restructuring of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The commission called for the appointment of a National Intelligence Director (NID) who would have full authority over the personnel...
I want to apologize to my readers, although I can only hope for forgiveness. I certainly don’t deserve it. OK, Justin—I can hear you now—what have you done this time? The sin of which I am guilty is optimism of the most fatuous sort—or, rather, projecting an inauthentic optimism onto a most unworthy object. The...
It sounds presumptuous, but I wish I had written this column in October 2002, and some eagle-eyed George W. Bush assistant would have noticed it and shown it to his moron boss. Let’s just play the What If game for a minute. Had the moron read it and taken what I’m about to write into...
Ravens over North Berwick Law—could any phrase be more hyperborean? I turned the words over lazily as I watched them 50 feet above, circling and diving on one another, flicking expert wings, commenting incessantly on their sport as they alternately dropped or upheld the thin blue vault. Below the volcanic cone of its Law, the...
Not long ago, while reading A.J.P. Taylor’s impressively turgid English History: 1914-1945, I found, suspended in the tepid depths of all the fussily annotated tables and statistics, a sentence that all but knocked me out of my chair. It read, “Until August 1914, a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could cheerfully grow old and hardly notice the...
Does the United States Constitution still exist? There is one simple way to answer this question. Read any article or section of the 200-year-old document written to provide the citizens of a free republic with a short and simple guide to what their government can and cannot do and ask whether the language you have...
I was born and raised in the North. I didn’t like their Yankee culture when I was there, and I like it even less the more time I spend in the South. —Al Benson, Copperhead Chronicles There is such a thing as imperial fatigue, and servitude seems a light burden after the exhausting weight of...
The civil rights movement is often placed on a pedestal today with an almost religious fervor, with its own Christ-like figure in the form of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Such an attitude is on display in a recent, generally incisive critique by Victor Davis Hanson on the breakdown of lawfulness and the eruption of crime in...
The Republican Party of Mr. M, my parents’ 94-year-old neighbor, and of novelist Henry W. Clune no longer exists. This became clear to me while talking to Mr. M in the garden he has kept since before the Flood. He cut some rhubarb stalks and remembered his 20th birthday, on Armistice Day, 1918. He was...
I live in amity with the Southern Baptists, whose general tolerance for my fellow “Whiskeypalians” I take kindly. I wouldn’t dream of joining the media whoop-de-do over who among the Baptist faithful did what to whom, and when, and what to do now. You have read it all; I will not recount the imputations of...
Jack Cashill’s “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6” exposes the weaponization of the law against citizens.
Faisal Shahzad sought to massacre scores of fellow Americans in Times Square with a bomb made of M-88 firecrackers, non-explosive fertilizer, gasoline and alarm clocks. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a U.S. airliner over Detroit with a firebomb concealed in his underpants. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot dead 13 fellow soldiers at Fort...
In the first line of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson speaks of “one people.” The Constitution, agreed upon by the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia in 1789, begins, “We the people . . . “ And who were these “people”? In Federalist No. 2, John Jay writes of them as “one...
The Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) has been in the forefront in devising the new paradigm of strategic trade and industrial policy. This set of essays by BRIE members articulates the group’s view of how the major national economies grow, innovate, and compete with one another and examines the various alternative world orders...
“Studying” philanthropy is a new academic enterprise, and one riven by various interests. Though a growing camp of scholars is following grant money, their studies, even when critical, generally confirm the conventional wisdom of foundation leaders. As a permanent supplicant, the academy approaches organized philanthropy with either a tugged forelock or an upraised list. Ellen...