The Ultimate Homeschool. “ . . . redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”—Ephesians 5:15 “Go day, come day. Lord, send Sunday.” My paternal grandmother could be counted on to say these words at least once per week. Whether burdened with some mundane task or confronted with the evidence of human frailty, the prospect...
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Killing Due Process in the War on Terror
One striking feature of the U.S. Constitution is the number of procedural rights guaranteed to individuals accused of criminal behavior before they can be deprived of life, liberty, or property. The overall guarantee of due process of law contained in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments constitutes the basic foundation, but there are many other protections. ...
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Washington Post Shake Up Should Shake Out Ruth Marcus
The Post’s op-ed page deputy editor is a dishonest hack and if Jeff Bezos wants to save his paper, she should go.
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Puppets and Their Masters
A naked boy runs down a crowded Italian street, chased by an angry old man. Grabbing the boy by the back of the neck, the old man shouts: “Just wait till I get you back home.” The crowd quickly takes sides against the old man, and when the carabinieri arrive, they take him off to...
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Redistricting Apartheid
Elbridge Gerry’s infamous salamander district pales in comparison to the monster- like menagerie birthed in redistricted states that fall under the preclearance requirement of Section Five of the federal Voting Rights Act. Although Virginia’s state constitution requires that “every electoral district shall be composed of contiguous and compact territory,” the feds overruled it and mandated...
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Leave the Scalia Chair Vacant
It is a measure of the stature and the significance of Justice Antonin Scalia that, upon the news of his death at a hunting lodge in Texas, Washington was instantly caught up in an unseemly quarrel over who would succeed him. But no one can replace Justice Scalia. He was a giant among jurists. For...
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How Conservatives Could Win
Republicans, after their comprehensive defeat on November 6, have been going through an identity crisis. Defeated Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said, “We need to be a larger tent party.” A Republican aide adds, “We need candidates who are capable of articulating their policy positions without alienating massive voting blocs.” The Economist advised that, if the...
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A Legal Execution
A legal execution occurred last summer in South Carolina, the first in about two years. Donald (“Pee Wee”) Gaskins, a rural Bluebeard credited with 16 murders, was embraced by the electric chair amidst general public relief and the usual candlelight vigils by opponents of capital punishment. The public satisfaction, however, if it rests on a...
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Betting Against a Blue Wave
Democrats are likely to face insurmountable partisan, demographic, and policy challenges during the final weeks of midterm election campaigning.
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How Far Will Trump’s Enemies Push to Drag Him and America Down?
As he completes his third week in office Donald Trump has already stunned the world with his “shock and awe” campaign to keep promises made when he was a candidate. The mere fact of a politician doing what he said he would do seems to have unsettled the nerves of his opponents. What is called...
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Killing Due Process in the War on Terror
From the October 2013 issue of Chronicles. One striking feature of the U.S. Constitution is the number of procedural rights guaranteed to individuals accused of criminal behavior before they can be deprived of life, liberty, or property. The overall guarantee of due process of law contained in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments constitutes the basic...
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The Lavender Baboon
“O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.” —Walt Whitman I first heard about “brain freeze” from an amiable fellow who was vending Italian ices. He pointed out that, if the ices were not consumed carefully, the freeze would penetrate the palate into the brain. In fact, I did experience brain freeze that way. But...
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The Constitution Knows
What is the justification for abortion? Is abortion a moral or therapeutic concept? Medical or legal? Sociological or personal? These considerations underlie Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, a narrative of the comprehensive criminal enterprise of Kermit Gosnell, M.D., Philadelphia’s notorious baby killer and drug trafficker, by the Irish journalists Ann...
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A Politically Incorrect Beatification
Few people have been so hated that their enemies have disrupted their funeral processions in an attempt to throw their coffins into a river, but that is precisely what happened to Pope Pius IX on the night of July 12, 1881. Amid the heated debate surrounding Pio Nono’s beatification this past September 3, a few...
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Obama’s Trampling on God’s Turf Now
Yes, Virginia, there is a religious war going on. It is for the soul of America. And traditional Christianity is besieged. In a January visit to the Vatican, American bishops were warned by Benedict XVI that
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A Storm in a Korean Teacup
On April 4 the Pentagon announced that it was sending a mobile missile defense system to Guam as a “precautionary move” to protect the island from the potential threat from North Korea. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) comprises ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, as well as naval vessels capable of shooting down...
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Good Country People
Loving Produced by Raindog Films Directed and written by Jeff Nichols Distributed by Focus Features Hacksaw Ridge Produced by Cross Creek Pictures Directed by Mel Gibson Screenplay by Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight Distributed by Summit Entertainment I first learned about miscegenation in 1958. A student in my high-school religion class asked our teacher, Father...
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Polemics & Exchanges: February 2024
Chronicles readers discuss Taki's controversial December column on Palestinian misery, also, some praise for Stephen Presser's recent review, "Scalia Gets the Biography He Deserves."
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How Can You Befriend a ‘Semi-Fascist’?
President Joe Biden recently accused Trump voters of embracing "semi-fascism." Friendships can be forged across partisan lines, but it's rather difficult to befriend a "semi-fascist," isn't it?
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Politics Is the New Religion
The term “political religion” designates the infusion of political beliefs with religious significance. Political religions involve grand plans to transform society into a new sacral order unrelated to how humans have lived beforehand. Political religions also typically divide people into the righteous and the evil based on whether they conform to its transformational vision. They...
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Territorial Bliss
One consequence of the Cold War has gone unnoticed. Before the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States had already ceased to exist. To fight the Cold War and in the name of national security, Washington had destroyed the political structure created by the U.S. Constitution—the well-defined union of states, which...
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Buchanan 92 ‘Culture War’ Speech Still Provokes
I can’t think of a political speech in recent decades that more rattles around the back of the conscious of the American mind than Pat Buchanan’s “Culture Wars” speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston. It even overshadows Reagan’s last major speech at the same convention before he slipped into the night of...
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Americans’ Right to Own Firearms
While it allows many controls, the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees to every responsible, law-abiding adult the right to own firearms. To the political philosophers who influenced our Founding Fathers, arms possession by good people was crucial to a healthy society. Thomas Paine foreshadowed current gun-lobby slogans (e.g., “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws...
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Champion of American Believers
Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the Texas state comptroller, has become the new champion of American believers. Her office is charged with determining what groups qualify for exemption from state taxation (including sales taxes, property taxes, and other state levies) as religious organizations. My ancient Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “religious” as “Imbued with religion, pious, god-fearing, devout...
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The Roots of America’s Mentally Ill Homelessness Crisis
The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill has intensified the homelessness crisis across American cities.
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Abortion Letters
I would like to add three comments about Chronicles Editor Paul Gottfried’s acute analysis of America’s historical conflicts over abortion (“Feminism Left and Right Drove America’s Permissive Abortion Laws” January 2022 Chronicles). First, as I have documented in numerous publications, while I would never discount the influence of the women’s rights movement of the...
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The (New) Ugly American
The regime we live under—the regime of the United States Constitution—began with a set of clear understandings. One was that the federal government was to be the servant of the people. It was to be confined to the specific powers the people “delegated” to it, pursuant to the general welfare and common defense of the...
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Excluding Muslims: Facts and Fictions
Donald Trump’s call for a moratorium on Muslim immigration has drawn fire from the establishment right. “It’s a violation of our Constitution, but it also undermines the character of our nation,” Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina told the Des Moines Register. National Review’s Jim Geraghty opined that Trump’s plan created a forbidden “religious test for...
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Undercover Big Brother Is Watching You
Not only does the U.S. government spy on everything we watch on websites, say on the phone or write in emails or messages. At least 40 agencies use Undercover Big Brother agents to infiltrate everything we do. The Washington Post, itself long the company newspaper of the D.C. autocracy, reported: “The federal government has significantly...
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On Quebec Separatism
I appreciate the extraordinarily well-informed commentary by Sean Scallon on the current political scene in Canada (“CRAP Happens,” Correspondence, October 2000). As I learned 20 years ago when I visited Quebec and met my French-Canadian wife, Anglo-Canadians are fond of pulling the wool over the eyes of Americans on the actual situation in Quebec. The...
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Gay “Marriage” Fantasy
You really can’t have “gay marriage,” you know, irrespective of what a court or a legislature may say. You can have something some people call gay marriage because to them the idea sounds worthy and necessary, but to say a thing is other than it is, is to stand reality on its head, hoping to...
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Falling In (and Out of) Line
As I write, we have reached the stage of the Republican primary cycle that, since at least 1988, requires a pronouncement from the highest levels of the GOP: Now is the time for other candidates to back out and for all Republicans to support the frontrunner. Continuing the battle for the nomination will serve no...
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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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Private Faith & Public Schools
A Martian attending Inauguration Day ceremonies might be curious about the book upon which the President lays his hand as he takes the oath of office. “That,” we would tell him, “is the Bible, a book of Scripture sacred to most American citizens.” “I see,” our alien friend responds, “and therefore your President is obligated to...
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Islam in France
When the French historians of our epoch apply their magnifying glasses to the momentous developments of the first two months of this year, most of them, I think, are likely to conclude that the decisive factor leading to the historic National Assembly vote of February 10—when a massive majority of 494 deputies, compared with only...
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Begging the Question
The Defense of Marriage Act is history—a development that should have surprised no one. I’m tempted to say, “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” but the fact that passing DOMA in the first place was one of the most disastrously stupid moves the Republican Party has made over the past 20 years does not change the...
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The Surveillance State Turns Twenty
Fifty-three years ago, in the fall of 1968, I was among a gaggle of idealistic first-year students sitting in a classroom at the Harvard Law School, where a crusty old professor advised us to study international law. In that discipline, “the dew was still on the grass,” he said. In those days, when many budding...
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Limited Hangout
Donald Rumsfeld has produced, four years after his departure from government, a memoir of no stylistic distinction. It contains few if any interesting revelations, save, perhaps, those relating to President Nixon’s choice of vice presidents. For what it does contain, it is at least twice as long as it should be. There is a great...
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With the GOP—Or Without It
Donald J. Trump is the political issue of our time. Yet Mr. Trump is, in a very real sense, peripheral to present events. He is a result, not the effective cause; a symptom, not the disease. The significant thing is not the rebel candidate but the crisis of the Republican Party, so long arriving, which...
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The Final Choice: Civilizational Arson Versus Civilizational Sanity
It is not an exaggeration to say that everything is on the line this Tuesday.
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Sacred Texts ’98
As readers of this delightfully passionate work will infer, the U.S. Department of Education is unconstitutional. Nevertheless, before it does the country a great service by abolishing itself, the department ought to issue a mandate requiring every secondary school in the nation to adopt the next edition of Reclaiming the American Revolution as required reading. ...
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The Pacific Legal Foundation
Only a few years ago prospects for the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, the country’s oldest “conservative” public interest law firm, hardly seemed promising. In 1986, PLF president and CEO Ronald Zumbrun decided to indulge in deficit spending to continue unpopular land use and takings litigation. The legacy of judicial activism from the 1960’s and 70’s...
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The Cam Newton Republicans
Cam Newton’s petulance after the Carolina Panthers lost to the Denver Broncos largely eclipsed the splendid season Newton had had before the Super Bowl. Since Donald Trump essentially clinched the GOP nomination after winning over 50% of the vote in seven consecutive primaries, a number of conservative pundits and Republican politicians have begun emulating Newton’s...
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Power, Legitimacy, and the 14th Amendment
The justification for the vast, intrusive, and coercive powers employed by the government of the United States against its citizens—from affirmative action to hate-crimes legislation, from multilingualism to multiculturalism, from Waco to Ruby Ridge—is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution adopted in 1868, or, more specifically, the authority conferred upon Washington, explicitly or implicitly,...
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Recall Election
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals surprised most conservatives and even a few liberals when it ruled that California’s recall election could not go forward on October 7 as scheduled, overruling a district judge and effectively overruling the California courts, which had rebuffed all legal challenges to the recall, and California...
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How, When, Do We Come Together Again?
America suffers from a great divide that goes far beyond our clashing views of Jan. 6 and the Mar-a-Lago raid. Americans need to find common ground again.
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The Biggest Issue in This Election
Harris has been an enemy of the First Amendment throughout her career.
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The Constitution: Hate Crimes’ Latest Victim
New federal hate-crimes legislation is on the way. Never one to miss an opportunity to expands its powers, the national government has capitalized on a perceived rash of hate crimes in order to increase federal jurisdiction, and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 (HCPA) will probably become law in the near future. When confronted...
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Our Constitution: Alive or Dead?
“Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.” —T.B. Macaulay Consensus on the benign motives of our Founding Fathers and the nature of the Constitution that had persisted through the 19th century began to crack at the beginning of the 20th under assaults from the Progressives. It has disintegrated at an accelerating rate since, so...
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The Politics of Life—and Politics
“If a woman of her own accord drops that which is in her, they shall crucify her and not bury her.” —The Assyrian Code, c. 2000 B.C. Ancient history is worth keeping in mind when confronting the claims of the pro- and anti-abortion and euthanasia camps, since both tend to couch their arguments in terms...