If you are looking for a reason to vote for Ralph Nader, the way both parties are handling the “gay marriage” issue should give you lots of data. John Kerry, when asked his opinion of “gay marriage,” looks like a dog getting a bath, as Chris Hitchens puts it. Kerry says he personally opposes “gay...
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Polemics & Exchanges: October 2023
J. Douglas Johnson, executive editor of Touchstone Magazine, critiques Tom Piatak's column in the August issue, and Mr. Piatak replies.
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Books in Brief: September 2023
Short reviews of Tearing Us Apart, by Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis, and Dollars for Life, by Mary Ziegler.
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“I’m Liberated; Free at Last!”
Pat Buchanan has taken more punches than Chuck Wepner, hut unlike the Bayonne Bleeder, Buchanan has a good right hook (or is it now a left?) of his own. The year began with Buchanan defending his feisty anti-interventionist manifesto A Republic, Not an Empire: Not since the days of Arkansas Sen. William Fulbright, the one...
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Do Androids Tweet…?
The America depicted in the news is every day coming closer to the dystopian future imagined by science-fiction novelists. I am not referring so much to the rising tide of violence and irrationality that has overtaken our society at all levels as to the systematic spiritual, intellectual, and social desolation of our public culture. One...
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The Lost Tribes of Israel
As Israel enters its 61st year, Israelis may look back with pride. Yet, the realists among them must also look forward with foreboding. Israel is a modern democracy with the highest standard of living in the Middle East. In the high-tech industries of the future, she ...
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The Democrats’ Bait and Switch
Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland told the Democratic convention that Barack Obama was an “economic patriot” and blasted Mitt Romney for being an “outsourcing pioneer.” That is certainly the theme of the Obama campaign in the industrial Midwest. Any television left on in Ohio for more than 15 minutes is likely to broadcast an attack...
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“Empathy” And The Court
The President wants an empathetic jurist to replace David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. He will likely get such a one. What the country will get in that event is one more senator or cabinet member—as straw boss, head knocker, high and mighty arbiter of high and mighty matters. A sort of modern Roman...
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My Vote Still Counts
Back in 2004, I was part of the 62% of Ohio voters who supported a referendum to amend the Ohio Constitution to define marriage as “a union between one man and one woman.” Last week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decided, in a 2 to 1 decision, that my vote—and those of some 3....
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Born Again Again
Abortionists are apt to be a mite diffident in speaking of their calling—hardly surprising, given the nature of their work and its attendant hazards. How many abortionists have you encountered socially? None, I’d wager. After all, open avowal of their daily labors would hardly invite exchange of further pleasantries. Picture the scene over the hors...
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Trump Keeps It Real at ABC’s Rigged Debate
Harris got under Trump’s skin, but she did nothing to alter the perception that she belongs to the status quo. She did not articulate a vision for the future, lay out an economic plan, or clarify how her hard-left views have changed.
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The Post-Abortive Culture
The recent passage of the Texas Heartbeat Act, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on May 19, has resulted in feverish alarums across the land. These came after the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to block the law in late September, following an emergency application made by over a dozen Texas abortion providers and their...
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Maybe It’s Not Time to Head for the Hills
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell recognizing a non-existent right to gay marriage in the Constitution, there have been numerous articles stating that America has accepted gay marriage and that social conservatives should now shut up. A variation of this theme has been taken up by certain social conservatives such as...
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Another Thurgood Marshall?
When Clarence Thomas, our newest Supreme Court Justice, asked to be sworn in a week before the official ceremony, so he could go on the payroll early, it summed up the whole affair for me. Why are conservatives cheering his ascent to the judicial oligarchy? Yes, it’s fun to beat liberal senators, but not with...
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Is There Hope for the Federal Courts?
In a radio address last year, President Clinton railed against congressional Republicans who were stalling on his nominees to the federal bench and had even threatened some sitting judges with impeachment. Their actions, he claimed, had endangered our tradition of judicial independence, and were an attack on the rule of law itself. The truth, of...
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Bookshelves
COMMENDABLES Nightfall for Liberalism? by Richard John Neuhaus George Parkin Grant: English Speaking Justice; Notre Dame; $4.95 paper. “Liberalism in its generic form is surely something that all decent men accept as good-‘conservatives’ included. Insofar as the word ‘liberalism’ is used to describe the belief that political liberty is a central human...
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Books in Brief: May 2023
Short reviews of Dollars for Life, by Mary Ziegler, and The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals, by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr.
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Abortion: Fetus Liberation Fronts
It is hard to see that much good has ever come from any of the various declarations of the rights of man. Such a declaration did not save the French from either Robespierre or Napoleon, and the constitution of the defunct USSR practically glows with liberal enthusiasm for human rights. For some strange reason, though,...
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Abortion’s Other Victims
The ideology of feminism makes otherwise good and decent people support the murderous practice of abortion.
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Abortion’s Triple Crown
For four decades now, pro-life voters have been wedded to the national Republican Party by the vows of politicians whose actions, upon election, have proved that they had no intention ever of fulfilling them. Every two or four or six years, they would swear to defend the lives of the unborn, and then, after taking...
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Is the Red Wave Back?
The red wave appears to be coming back. It is probable that toss-up races will break Republican. Republicans consistently lead Democrats on the generic congressional ballot.
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Marriage and the Law
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s 4-3 ruling, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, that the Massachusetts constitution—if not the federal Constitution—requires the state to allow same-sex marriages has thrown nearly everyone into a good old-fashioned tizzy. The Massachusetts court somehow discovered that it was “arbitrary” and “capricious” and therefore legally impermissible to limit the...
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USA Today’s Shoddy Statistical Analysis and Even Shoddier Morality
In reporting an infant mortality increase in Texas in the wake of the Dobbs decision, the newspaper suggests it would have been better had these children never been born.
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A Generation in Need of Editing
Many years ago, as the luncheon speaker at a meeting of the John Randolph Club in Rockford, Illinois, Tom Sheeley gave a thought-provoking lecture interspersed with a splendid performance of classical guitar. His main theme was the need for form in art; and all these years later, one line stands out in my memory: “What...
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Protestantism, America, and Divine Law
Since the time of the Founding Fathers, Protestantism appeared to be the default religion in the United States. At the end of World War II, when the United States began to enjoy superpower status, Mainline Protestantism (comprising the older denominations that sprang from the Reformation) began to drift away from its moorings. Then, in the...
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Angels to Govern Us
“If men were angels,” James Madison wrote, “no government would be necessary.” Or, “if angels were to govern men, no controls on government would be necessary.” Madison believed that men are about as good as they can ever be, and since no angels are available to rule, we need checks and balances. Thomas Jefferson added...
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Restore the Constitution!
In recent years, American politics has been preoccupied with moral questions, or what are now called “social issues”: sexual immorality, sodomy, abortion, pornography, and recreational drugs. Some conservatives want the federal government to play a role in opposing these evils. Many libertarians, on the other hand, want the government, state and federal alike, to treat...
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The Fourth Choice
If you are looking for a reason to vote for Ralph Nader, the way both parties are handling the “gay marriage” issue should give you lots of data. John Kerry, when asked his opinion of “gay marriage,” looks like a dog getting a bath, as Chris Hitchens puts it. Kerry says he personally opposes “gay...
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The Left Has Been Doing ‘Oppo Research’ on Conservative Justices for Years
Leftist “opposition researchers” are relentlessly concocting ethics complaints about the Supreme Court’s conservative justices to try to get them to resign or recuse themselves.
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Biden Pins His Hopes on Abortion
Democrats are desperate to make the election a referendum on Dobbs. Trump is right to refuse to resist that.
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How Thomas Rent the Seamless Garment
“Nor will this Earth serve him; he sinkes the deepe where harmless fish monastique silence keepe, who (were death dead) by roes of living sand might spunge that element and make it land.” —John Donne, “Elegie on Mistris Bulstrode” John Donne reminds us of a natural fact that most of us would rather forget: the...
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Kennedy v. Kennedy
On the last day of August, Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found for March for Life in its suit against the Department of Health and Human Services, among other agencies. March for Life is a secular, nonprofit organization, founded after Roe v. Wade, that opposes abortion...
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More on Roberts
I hate to disagree with Rick Oliver, but I think he is too optimistic about John Roberts. What Roberts’ decision today tells us is that he is unlikely to ever cast a decisive vote against the consensus of the Washington elite. This means that the Roberts court will never overturn Roe v. Wade, because such a...
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National Lawyers Association
Three years ago, the American Bar Association voted to abandon its neutral position on legalized abortion and to endorse Roe v. Wade. In response to this action, some 14,000 members of the ABA resigned in protest. Many attorneys felt it was impossible for them to remain a member of, let alone contribute money to, an...
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Public Enemy Number One
Every year, on or near the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, hundreds of thousands of Americans go to Washington, D. C., to join the March for Life and protest that infamous decision. The March for Life is peaceful and orderly, and every year the major media outlets contrive to pretend it doesn’t exist. Until this...
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Throwing the Sheep to the Wolves
The boys from Covington Catholic did a good thing by going to the March for Life. If what the Catholic Church teaches is true, Roe v. Wade marks a death sentence for roughly 1,000,000 innocent human beings every year, year in, year out. As John T. Noonan wrote decades ago, “No plague, no war, has so...
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Come, Sweet Death
In the spring of 1975, C. Everett Koop, M.D., addressed a conference of Christian laymen in New Orleans on the topic of abortion—more specifically, on the implications of Roe V. Wade. Among the changes he foresaw were a growing acceptance of infanticide as the “treatment of choice” for defective newborns and an increasing resort to...
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Ounces of Flesh
On the same day last year that the Supreme Court sliced a few ounces of flesh out of its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion, it also carved up an American tradition governing the public observance of Christmas. In the case of Allegheny v. ACLU, the Court held that Allegheny County in Pennsylvania could...
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Blowing Up the Base: An Abortion Strategy Revealed
The new Republican Congress already looks like a bunch of incompetent boobs. The legislatively meaningless vote for the perennial “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), which would prohibit abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, was scheduled for a vote today, on the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. (I...
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The Logic of ‘Laci and Conner’s Law’ is Undeniable
A society that treats the death of the unborn son of Scott Peterson at the hands of his father as an unspeakable crime but would have licensed his death at the hands of his mother will eventually be forced to confront its own incoherence.
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Will JFK’s Party Become Sanders’ Party?
Sen. Bernie Sanders may be on the cusp of both capturing the Democratic nomination and transforming his party as dramatically as President Donald Trump captured and remade the Republican Party. After his sweep of the Nevada caucuses, following popular vote victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has the enthusiasm and the momentum, as the...
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Unholy Dying
“In the midst of life we are in death.” The old Prayer X Book’s admonition has never been more true or less understood than it is today. Modern man, despite his refusal to consider his own mortality, is busily politicizing all the little decisions and circumstances that attend his departure. Death penalty statutes, abortion regulations,...
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The Angry Summer
Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight . . . —Psalm 144:1 According to the Washington Post, McAllen, Texas is an “all-American city,” albeit one “that speaks Spanish.” So it’s small wonder that “immigration isn’t a problem for this Texas town—it’s a way of life.” ...
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Why Some of Us Can’t Dine in Peace
The recent harassment of Supreme Court Justices is a continuation of years of abuse and violence against conservative public figures in both public and private spaces. Some of us can't even dine in peace.
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President Meets Pope
When President Obama met with Pope Francis, I was expecting a Walk to Canossa. It turned out the latest in a long line of reactionary disappointments. Afterward, the media people of pope and president conflicted on how much America’s latest church-vs.-state contretemps du jour was discussed. We fight a lot over religion for a country...
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Will the Catholic Bishops Call Out Joe?
As a cradle Catholic and recipient of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, Joe Biden is outspoken in declaring that the principles and beliefs of his Catholic faith guide his public life. “Joe is a man of faith,” was a recurring theme at the Democratic convention that nominated him to become our second Catholic president. Biden has...
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Mind Your Own Business
The murder of abortionist David Gunn in March of this year ought to sharpen the focus of the national debate on abortion, although partisans on both sides may be slow in getting the point. The New York Times, in a ponderous exercise of soft journalism, portrayed the event as a study in character contrasts. Michael...
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The GOP’s Clinton
During the Republican presidential debate on May 15, Ron Paul, the constitutionalist from Texas, flatly stated that the terrorist attacks on September 11 were retaliation for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Rudy Giuliani shot back a mendacious rejoinder: “That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that...
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Homosexuality, In the Cards
Homosexuality is either genetically or environmentally determined. Environmental influences are either intrauterine or postnatal. Behold the universe of possibilities! Sexual orientation probably results from the interaction of environment and genetic predisposition, but science, so far, explains only a little. Voluntarily choosing homosexuality cannot be discounted, although the more deeply embedded in genetics or early experience...
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Latest Symptoms of a Disintegrating Nation
America is disintegrating alarmingly fast in a manner not seen since the final years before the War Between the States.