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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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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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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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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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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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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The Straussian Sidestep
Dr. Germana Paraboschi’s Leo Strauss e la destra americana (Leo Strauss and the American Right) is one of the few serious studies of the American right to come out of Italy. Dr. Paraboschi is a young scholar, born in Milan in 1961 and now living just outside Pavia. She spent several years in the United...
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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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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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Denouncing ‘Imperial Congress’
“Imperial Congress”—many in the conservative movement are denouncing it these days. From all over the right, we hear worries about slipping presidential prerogatives, or denunciations of Congress’s “meddling” in foreign policy. But I would argue that it is the Imperial Presidency that threatens our freedom. Too often. Congress simply lays down in front of the...
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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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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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Setting a Standard
States’ rights suffered another blow last October, when President Clinton signed into law a $58-billion transportation bill. Tucked away amidst the election-year pork-barrel spending was a provision which, in effect, sets a nationwide drunk-driving standard. Under section 351 of the new law, state receipt of federal highway funds is made contingent upon adoption of a...
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Language Differences
Language differences figured prominently in rioting last spring in two largely Hispanic areas of the nation’s capital, Mount Pleasant and Adams Morgan. The violence in early May began after a city police woman arrested a Hispanic man. The officer spoke English; the man spoke Spanish. The police officer said the man brandished a knife; she...
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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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George H.W. Bush: An honest obituary
Praise, not precision, carries the day when a significant figure dies. But the eulogies extolling George H.W. Bush have so surpassed his performance that we run the risk of distorting historical reality. There is, no doubt, much to praise in the character of the forty-first president. George Bush served courageously in World War II. He...
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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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Unexpected Effect
Joseph Lieberman’s selection as the first Orthodox Jew to run for vice president may have the unexpected effect of making it respectable again to maintain that the United States is a Christian country. Picking Lieberman as his running mate was the single most interesting thing Al Gore has done in his campaign for the White...
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Source of Great Expectation
The Reagan Court has been a source of great expectation for conservatives. If only a few more superannuated justices would retire (or die), then we could have the court’s unchecked authority in our own hands. A favorite target of pious hopes and voodoo dolls is the apparently senile Thurgood Marshall. An example of tokenism at...
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It’s Just Business
A dozen years ago (give or take), I tried to commission a piece for Chronicles on how Big Business was increasingly pushing a leftist social and cultural agenda. For years, the conservative orthodoxy in the United States had been that capitalist institutions, from mom-and-pop shops up to the largest corporations, were essentially conservative. (In the...
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Robert Frost: Social and Political Conservative
Robert Frost published 11 books of poetry, won four Pulitzer Prizes, established himself as the unofficial poet laureate of the United States, and acquired a national and international literary reputation. Despite his fame as a poet and public speaker, and because of his friendship with such liberal Democrats as Vice-President Henry Wallace and President John...
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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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Vagrancy Law
San Francisco’s municipal palace looks like the Wicked Witch of the West might live there, only there aren’t any flying monkeys. But several years ago, the monkeys set up housekeeping right out front. Supplied with food, clothing, tents, and other amenities by “community activists,” hundreds of wild-eyed tramps extorted money from passersby, drank cheap wine,...
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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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Robert Frost: Social and Political Conservative
From the August 1992 issue of Chronicles. Robert Frost published 11 books of poetry, won four Pulitzer Prizes, established himself as the unofficial poet laureate of the United States, and acquired a national and international literary reputation. Despite his fame as a poet and public speaker, and because of his friendship with such liberal Democrats...
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Sweeping the Country
The term limit issue has been sweeping the country. Since 1990, voters in 15 states have used the petition and referendum process to impose term limits on their state legislators. Earlier this year in Illinois, term limit supporters filed 437,088 petition signatures from almost every county calling for a statewide referendum on term limits. 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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Who Gave Us Justice Ginsburg?
“Her mind is shot.” That was the crisp diagnosis of Donald Trump on hearing the opinion of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the possibility he might become president. It all began with an interview last week when the justice was asked for her thoughts on a Trump presidency. Ginsburg went on a tear. “I can’t...
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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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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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Ici On Parle Anglais
When Canada’s federal government committed the country to two official languages, it set the scene for the social revolution that has since been foisted upon the Canadian majority. That was in 1969, when Pierre Trudeau’s Official Languages Act declared English and French to be the official languages of Canada, possessing and enjoying “equality of status...
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Liberty’s Close Call
Americans view liberty as a birthright guaranteed by a written Constitution and Bill of Rights. Feeling overly secure in their liberties, most cannot imagine any branch of the federal government abrogating constitutional rights such as the freedom of the press or of assembly. These First Amendment guarantees are enshrined in the Bill of Rights in...
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The State Versus the American Culture
Prominent figures on the intellectual and political right are increasingly questioning the superiority of markets over government. In the cultural realm, that argument has a long history, with traditionalists arguing that market forces undermine morality and cause an ever-increasing vulgarization of culture and society. Libertarians agree that this is true but celebrate the outcomes, or at...
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Revolution
Times of crisis are not distinguished by respect for rights—although, paradoxically, all revolutions claim to be mounted in the name of rights. During our War of Independence, criticism of the patriot cause was an invitation to a lynching, and Jefferson defined the Tory as “a traitor in thought, if not in deed.” In 1773 George...
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On Marbury v. Madison
A college friend of mine once said that, when she walked out of her last American-history final, she thought she would never again have to wonder what all the fuss was about Marbury v. Madison. So when I saw Marshall DeRosa’s piece “Marbury v. Madison: The Beginning of Sorrows” (Views, May), I thought I would...
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The Real Clarence Thomas
Bitter attacks, tenacious defenses, and great promotion—not to speak of the best TV in a generation—have made David Brock’s book on The Real Anita Hill a best-seller. As Brock admits, he proves neither Clarence Thomas’s innocence nor Anita Hill’s perfidy. But by scouring the transcript of the Senate hearings, he does show that Hill’s reputation...
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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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The Reconquista of California
On February 6, 1998, the Mexican consul general in California, Jose Angel Pescador Osuna, spoke at the Southwestern School of Law in Los Angeles as part of a symposium on the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave the Southwest to the United States. Osuna proclaimed, “And even though I am saying this part serious,...
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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 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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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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The Real Meaning of Kim Davis
Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was jailed for refusing to give out marriage licenses to gay couples, is out of the clink at last. But in political and cultural regards, her nation and ours is not in the clear. Moral consensus has broken down, resulting in the empowerment of the strongest, the best connected,...
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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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March Against Middle America
In March, Americans braced for the nationwide “March for Our Lives,” and what they witnessed was the latest battle in the culture war, with children paraded through the capital as nouveaux Jacobins. “This is the beginning of a revolution,” declared anti-Second Amendment activist David Hogg, a teenage peddler of leftist propaganda who has taken on...