As a young college student, I accepted implicitly all the goals of the Civil Rights revolution. I believed firmly that schools should be integrated, even though the nearest thing to integration I had ever experienced was going to school with a part-Ojibwe in Superior, Wisconsin, a lily-white town in which black people were not allowed...
1128 search results for: Forgotten%2BHistory
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Likud’s Long Con
Here we go again! Scary sofa-samurai Robert Kagan, a neocon foreign-policy “scholar,” is also an expert on war, having watched a lot of Hollywood movies. Kagan says that, if Obama were to use force against Iran, the election would be over—he would win overwhelmingly. Kagan and his brother are inside-the-Beltway hucksters, always hustling and doing...
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Just Win, Baby
In 1968, George Wallace said that there wasn’t a “dime worth’s of difference” between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. Implicit there was the suggestion that Americans were not satisfied with echoes and preferred choices. As it happens, Wallace was the last third-party presidential candidate to win Electoral College votes. Besides 14 percent of the popular...
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What the Editors Are Reading
It’s easy in this business to read too much journalism at the expense of books. Every morning I go through the New York Times (faster and more selectively with each week that passes), the (London) Daily Telegraph, and Le Figaro (it has some strong conservative writers, like Luc Ferry, and interesting essays and well-done interviews...
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The End of American Exceptionalism?
Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz have written a book entitled Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America. The Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt on August 29, with the headline “Restoring American Exceptionalism.” In the excerpt, Cheney sought to identify his views on foreign policy with those of Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan. That...
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The (Politically) Supreme Court
The great sound and fury over the nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court included many grand proclamations from all sides concerning the original intentions of the constitutionalists and the relevance of those intentions to our society today. It is clear to anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the great issues involved...
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John A. Howard, R.I.P.
John Addison Howard, founder of The Rockford Institute, which publishes Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, has passed away at the age of 93. A decorated soldier of the First Infantry Division in World War II (two Silver Stars, two Purple Hearts), Dr. Howard was president of Rockford College for 17 years, then founded The...
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On ‘Germany’
Jacob Neusner, in his “Letter From Germany” (December 1991), assesses the academic apathy of Germany, pointing out that “the National Socialists got rid of the talent as well as the entrenched mediocrity.” Which is to say that Nazism destroyed not just the “drags” of the old Germany, but also the society’s protected classes, and the...
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Secessionist Fantasies
Throughout the first half of the present year, “secession” became the new watchword for a growing number of people on the American right. Economist Walter Williams has written at least two newspaper columns openly advocating secession. Jeffrey Tucker of the Ludwig von Mises Institute describes secession as “the cutting-edge issue that defines today’s anti-statism,” and...
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A Lot to Be Desired
As an orthodox Bible-believing Christian, I find that much of what is said by the so-called “religious right” and “religious left”—to put it charitably—leaves a lot to be desired and is, ironically, un-Christian. This summer, on NBC’s Today program, the head of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, said: “What we’re trying to do is not...
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Immigration Moratorium Now
There is no MAGA without immigration sanity—including limited H1-B visas.
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The Hole in the Heart
Morphine puts you to sleep, explains a pompous savant in Moliere, because it is a soporific. By this tautology is the great dead void at the core of Western civilization exposed, finally and, I dare say, mercilessly. What vitality, what resistivity, what transcendent stubbornness our spiritual truth once possessed (“Even if it were proven me...
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Requiescat In Pace Domini
In any age, Samuel Francis would have been a remarkable man for the penetration of his mind, his unflinching pursuit of truth—regardless of current cant or personal consequences—and the gravity of his style. In our age, he is peerless, and his death represents an irreplaceable loss. Sam and I were friends and allies for over...
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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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In Film, the Political Is the Personal
A reporter once asked Tyrone Power if he thought his next movie would be a hit. “That depends,” Power replied, pointing to his face, “on how many close-ups of this make the final cut.” Another case of celebrity vanity? Perhaps, but I prefer to think Power was on to something essential about the nature of film. ...
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Remembering Michael Oakeshott
Michael Oakeshott warned that rationalism in politics leads to rigid, rule-bound governance, and to the imposition of the state's enterprise over and against the free association of individuals.
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Ray Bradbury, R.I.P.
On June 5, we lost not only one of our finest writers but a true American storyteller and one of the last of the book people. For Ray Bradbury, who passed away at the age of 91, was, like the remnant that Montag joins at the end of Fahrenheit 451, a book person, a walking...
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Deo Vindice
No sooner did Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell issue his proclamation declaring April Confederate History Month than the ideological canister fire began. The proclamation is “incendiary,” huffed the Washington Post. “Obnoxious,” sniffed historian James McPherson. “Mind-boggling,” griped former governor Douglas Wilder, the grandson of slaves and the first black governor in America. And it was all...
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A President at Golf
The confusions of our day are so many and so inherent that we have no time or attention to spare for empty issues or nonproblems. The remarkable situation of President Barack Obama is one that deserves some restraint in judgment, for we may soon find that certain difficulties are part of the deal, not individual...
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A Hallucinogenic and Unrepentant Rant
Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser in the infamous 2018 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, has written an unrepentant and incoherent book while showing no remorse for the ordeal she caused others and the nation.
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Forgotten Strippers
In 1994, the Republicans, for the first time in 40 years, took control of both Houses of Congress. In 2000, after some controversy, the GOP secured the presidency. Now, they have lost both houses and look to be well on their way to losing the presidency in 2008. Parties lose when they don’t give their...
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Democrats and Jihadists: A Love Affair
The Beltway Right is a comical farce. But like the blind squirrel that occasionally finds an acorn, it is right about one thing: Liberal Democrats simply cannot be trusted on national security. That truth was no more apparent than in early April, when an A-list of Virginia Democrats ...
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Worse Than a Neocon
Until March 22, when the White House announced that John Bolton would replace H.R. McMaster as national security advisor, it was still possible to imagine that President Donald Trump’s many compromises with the globalist-hegemonist establishment had been made under duress. This may have been true once, but it is not true now. Bolton’s appointment indicates...
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The Reign of Grantham
“The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear.” —T.H. Huxley Media commentators covering David Cameron’s incumbency as Tory leader have remarked—often gleefully—on how unpopular Cameron’s Labour-like policies are with the “traditional right.” By this, they mean the Thatcherite rump of the party (probably still the numerical...
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Cultural Conservation
A few years back, when the air was fresh and the world was new, some of us thought that the election of Ronald Reagan was only the beginning of the beginning of “morning in America.” It is a common mistake. Some decades have an identity for those who set their mark upon them. In periods...
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Is Putin Right? Has Liberalism Lost the World?
“The liberal idea has become obsolete. … (Liberals) cannot simply dictate anything to anyone as they have been attempting to do over the recent decades.” Such was the confident claim of Vladimir Putin to the Financial Times on the eve of a G-20 gathering that appeared to validate his thesis. Consider who commanded all the...
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A Ride Into the Sunset
At the age of 83, Wallace Stegner is the éminence grise of Western American literature, a man responsible for shaping the writing not only of the region but also that of points eastward, thanks to the scores of graduates from the Stanford writing program that bears his name. Stegner’s work, regrettably, sells far less than...
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Remembering John T. Flynn
A relentless critic of FDR, John T. Flynn fought tooth and nail against the New Deal, corporatism, foreign interventionism, and the welfare-warfare state.
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The American Proscenium
Politics and Prayer One of the high points of this fall’s campaign season was the vigorous debate over the place of religion in America’s public life. In retrospect, it may some day be regarded as the most meaningful public discussion of the question in this century. The exchange began early in the campaign when...
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The Western Way of War From Plato to NATO
When I first began reading of the ancient world as a child, I was mystified by the collapse of the Greek city-states and the fall of Rome. How could such a thing come to pass? It seemed perfectly reasonable that Egypt, Sumer, and the Hittite kingdom should have come and gone, but not Periclean Athens...
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The Revolution in Civil Rights Law
It has been nearly 30 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By banning discrimination in employment and public accommodations the law was meant to minimize the role of race in the daily lives of Americans. Its result has been the opposite. The doctrine of “disparate impact” has had the astonishing...
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What We Wish Donald Trump Would Say to Prime Minister Netanyahu
A transcript of the conversation Donald Trump ought to have had with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Mar-a-Lago.
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The NFL, Clean and Low
The latest brouhaha about professional football players beating up their little wimmen has me shocked, shocked! that such a thing could take place in modern-day America, Home of the Depraved. But before I go on about why black football multimillionaires don’t get enough violence on the playing field but have to bring it home with...
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Getting Back to Nature
“Human rights are fictions—but fictions with highly specific properties.” —Alasdair MacIntyre In 1960 John Courtney Murray, S.J., warned of the possibility that America was slipping into a new barbarism. In his best known work, We Hold These Truths, Father Murray said that barbarism “threatens when men cease to talk together according to reasonable laws.” Argument...
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The Impending Triumph of Marine Le Pen
The Front Nationale is expected to get at least 18% of the vote in the ongoing European Parliament elections and with eleven new cities in France resulting from a “breakthrough” (the BBC’s words, not mine) in the recent local elections. The best forecast of Le Pen’s triumph is the change of the mainstream European media’s...
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Books in Brief
The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics, by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler (New York: Basic Books; 448 pp., $32.00). Andrew Jackson ran for President in 1824 and was defeated by John Quincy Adams, the son of former President John Adams. In 1828 he tried again and...
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How the Crusades Were Won
The Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages are today deployed for a wide range of political and rhetorical purposes—to make claims about the Church’s betrayal of Christ’s teaching, the evils of European imperialism, or the inextricable link between intolerant religion and ghastly violence. Any or all of those claims might be justified. One problem, though,...
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Free Speech Is Under Attack On the Nation’s Campuses With Too Few Willing to Defend It
The following article by Allan C. Brownfeld is reprinted with permission. Free speech used to be highly valued, particularly on the nation’s college and university campuses. Academic freedom demanded a respect for a diversity of views. During the Vietnam War years, this writer taught at the University of Maryland. The campus was alive with debates...
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On Russia
I agree with Professor W. Bruce Lincoln (“The Burden of Russian History,” March 1994) that Russia’s economic and political system is prone to break society into two parts: “them,” those responsible for making decisions and managing the country, and “us,” the simple people deadly indifferent to everything that doesn’t touch them immediately—i.e., high politics. I...
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Victims of Blunt Force Trauma
Even before the end of the trial of Los Angeles police officer Mark Fuhrman for the crime of white racism, the percentage of black Americans who believed that Officer Fuhrman’s most celebrated victim was innocent had risen from 60 percent before the trial to a whopping 78 percent by the time the prosecution rested. It...
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Gradgrind in Love
Richard Posner has a complaint against many of his fellow judges. Owing to their lack of up-to-date information and their conservative backgrounds, his colleagues often decide cases that touch on sex in an ignorant and benighted manner. Judge Posner aims to remedy matters with this comprehensive treatise, which offers both a theory of how sexual...
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The Good Things in Death
It has been argued that, of all human deeds, only the act of conception is selfless, since, for the briefest of instants that consummate it, neither the man nor the woman ever thinks of himself or herself, but always of the other. And it can further be said that this is precisely where our lifelong...
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The Republic We Betrayed
A republican government is an exercise in human optimism, and patriotic republicans must engage in an unremitting struggle against that human entropy we used to know as Original Sin. Any American citizen today can quote, or at least dimly recall, Washington’s declarative challenge in his Farewell Address: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead...
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Bork v. Bork
Two of the most vilified judges in US history have probably been Judge Robert H. Bork and Chief Justice Roger Taney. Both gained notoriety early in their appointments by demonstrating their willingness to fire opponents of a domineering President’s policy (Taney, when in the Jackson administration, fired directors of the Bank of the United States...
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Blubbering
Body of Lies Produced by De Line Pictures and Scott Free Productions Directed by Ridley Scott Screenplay by William Monahan Distributed by Warner Brothers Director Ridley Scott and his scenarist William Monahan adapted Body of Lies from David Ignatius’ novel of the same title. The narrative is yet another sorry tale of our military presence...
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Gentlemen Prefer C’s
According to a recent front-page story in the New York Times, the latest innovation of a particularly ambitious segment of the upwardly mobile American middle class is the replacement of the old-fashioned summer camp with getting-into-college camp. In proportion as the Times is ignorant of One Big Thing, its editors are highly knowledgeable about many...
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Trump Pulls It Off
He did it. Billionaire reality TV star Donald Trump has pulled off the most stunning upset in U.S. political history. Some of us did not buy the false narrative the media was feeding the public—and understand that the fight is just beginning after Trump’s election as the 45th president, but all of us who have...
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Democrats and Jihadists: A Love Affair
The Beltway Right is a comical farce. But like the blind squirrel that occasionally finds an acorn, it is right about one thing: Liberal Democrats simply cannot be trusted on national security. That truth was no more apparent than in early April, when an A-list of Virginia Democrats were named “invited guests” on a flyer...
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Good Grief
Poetry has to me never been what I have so often heard called a problem, and that was so for the simplest of reasons: It was never presented to me as a problem until I was advanced in school, after which it was reformulated as a target of incomprehending odium by students whose insensibility had...
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Updike’s Grandfather
“Our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish.” —President James Buchanan, 1860 A poll of American historians, not long ago, chose James Buchanan as “the worst”...