Former President Bill Clinton declared his strong support for the Ground Zero mosque in an interview broadcast on September 12. He also suggested a clever new spin to the promoters of the project. Much or even most of the controversy, he said, “could have been avoided, and perhaps still can be, if the people who want...
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Dead Weight
“A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.” —Benjamin Disraeli It may speak volumes about American conservatives that David Frum’s critique of “big government conservatism” permitted William Buckley—or so Buckley claims on the dust jacket—to enjoy “the most refreshing ideological experience in a generation.” To a conservative movement led by advocates of national uplift allied with...
Storming the Castle Doctrine
Americans have been captivated by the February incident in Sanford, Florida, that resulted in the death of Trayvon Martin and the eventual arrest and charging of George Zimmerman. If the case could be resolved today, Trayvon Martin’s family would still be without a son, George Zimmerman—even if exonerated—will never live a normal life, Sanford Police...
The War on Blight
If you live in an older section of town, this may already have happened to you. You wake up in a cold sweat. For the past 15 years, you and your husband have lovingly restored an old Victorian house. It was pretty decrepit when you started; now, it is an object of pride and beauty. ...
A Ghost Awakens
In the closing years of the 19th century, Indians throughout the American West began to dance. Dervish-like, they danced for hours and days on end, in the belief that their ecstasy would call forth the gods, bring back the dead, and banish the conquering Europeans from North America. A Paiute elder named Captain Dick explained...
The Strange Case of the Missing Constitution
Some acute scholar of future times, should there ever be such, will perhaps ponder over the very strange career of the United States Constitution—how it came, without changing a word, to be understood almost universally to mean things it did not mean and to be used for purposes other than, and sometimes the opposite of,...
Moonstruck Morality Versus the Cosmos
“Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon . . . terrible as an army with banners?”—Song of Songs 6:10 “Si direbbe che persino la luna si è affrettata stasera—osservatelo in alto—a guardare a questo spettacolo.” (“One might almost think that the moon—just look at him up there—hurried up tonight to...
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...
Are Liberals Anti-WASP?
“A chorus of black commentators and civic leaders has begun expressing frustration over (Elena) Kagan’s hiring record as Harvard dean. From 2003 to 2009, 29 faculty members were hired: 28 were white and one was Asian American.” CNN pundit Roland Martin slammed “Kagan’s record on diversity as one that a ‘white Republican U.S. president’ would...
Political Trust-Busting
In the “nihilistic politics of the 1990’s,” warns a newswriter for the Wall Street Journal, “party loyalty counts for almost nothing.” The writer means obeisance to the two major parties, which the civics books imply are ordained by God to rule us. In fact, America needs a breakup of this two-party system, which looks more...
Marx’s and Engels’ Illegitimate Offspring
If someone is overheard referring to the system of U.S. public finance as “socialist,” most Americans within earshot will write him off as a conservative crank who is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. After all, Karl Marx is long gone, and so is his most ardent American disciple, Franklin Delano Roosevelt,...
Nixon and Trump, Then and Now
For two years, this writer has been consumed by two subjects. First, the presidency of Richard Nixon, in whose White House I served from its first day to its last, covered in my new book, Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. The second has been...
On Gunowners
Ronin Colman’s aptly subtitled “The Second War Against Gunowners” (“Back From the Brink,” December 1995) is likely to be considered “a bit paranoid” by those who love liberty yet see no harm in “reasonable gun control laws.” But there is no such thing as a “reasonable gun law” if it focuses on an inanimate object...
Iran: No Escalation, No War
In his latest interview for Serbia’s top-rated Happy TV channel, Dr. Trifkovic dwells on the geostrategic and political dynamics behind the current crisis in the Middle East. The first question was whether we are at the threshold of a major war. [Interview transcript below, translated from Serbian and abbreviated.] ST: The odds of...
“Outside the Box, but Never Outside of the Constitution”
Is the Ashcroft Justice Department busily engaged in shredding the Constitution under the cover of September 11? We are, the President tells us, at war, and in war, we are often told, the first casualty is civil liberties. Some feared that this was the case when Attorney General John Ashcroft, in July, unveiled his TIPS...
Democrats and Republicans: An Election Meditation
Earnest readers want to know what the difference is between the two major political parties. I have tried to provide some helpful guidance. Democrat. Someone who believes that when people who have enjoyed a wealthy life but behaved badly get into trouble they should be rescued by non-wealthy people who have worked hard and played...
The Folly of À La Carte Immigration Enforcement
America’s political leaders are obligated to enforce all the laws on the menu, whether they like them or not.
Missed Opportunity
Last November, South Dakota’s pro-life community was a united force. Conditions had changed significantly by the end of February, when the effort to ban almost all abortions in the state suffered its second major defeat in less than four months, this time through the votes of eight state senators who killed a bill in committee...
Fire the Nanny
Even under a “conservative” President, government entitlements continue to grow. President George W. Bush’s expansion of Medicare to include prescription drugs will add billions to the already overinflated budget. And, despite warnings from Alan Greenspan that Social Security is on the verge of default, neither political party is willing to address the issue. Americans have...
The Myth of the Atomic Bomb
Japan feared the Soviets, not the bomb For a generation after the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on Sept. 2, 1945, the standard narrative remained fairly straightforward. By deciding to use nuclear weapons—against Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and on Nagasaki three days later—President Harry Truman enabled the realists in Tokyo, also called the peace faction,...
A Corrupt Governor
George H. Ryan, Illinois’ Republican governor and bona fide “compassionate conservative,” has borrowed one from the Clinton playbook: He seems to think that a vast right-wing conspiracy has been out to get him since he took office, forcing him to decline to run for a second term. The real reason, of course, is that—due to...
Trump and the Pro-Life Dilemma
Pro-lifers upset with Trump mistake their situation. They're not missing an opportunity to declare a universal right to life; they're rather in a pitched battle to stop the other side from reestablishing a universal right to abortion.
Feminism Left and Right Drove America’s Permissive Abortion Laws
Although the U.S. seems to be as woke and post-biblical as any other transformed Western country, our abortion laws since Roe v. Wade (1973) have been wildly out of line with those of the rest of the West. Betsy Clarke, writing in Chronicles’s sister publication, Intellectual Takeout, offers this well-considered observation on the subject: ...
Remembering Jim Traficant
Donald Trump made headlines when he warned of illegal-immigrant drug runners and rapists pouring across the U.S.-Mexico border. But he wasn’t the first to do so. Ohio Rep. James Traficant, Jr., was well-known for voicing similar comments on any given morning from the floor of the House. Before there was Trump, there was Jim Traficant—the...
The Saudi Presence in the United States
For all the investment the United States has made in prosecuting the “War on Terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Saudi presence in the United States has gone largely unnoticed—although it may be the most lethal terror front of all. U.S. politicians have been intoxicated by Saudi petrodollars for decades. Saudi greenbacks led Spiro Agnew...
New Faiths for Old
Religion is a very sturdy creature. For two centuries, various atheist regimes have tried to eliminate religious practice in their societies and, without exception, have ended up restoring the forms of the old worship, but with newer and far lamer excuses. The French revolutionaries who tried to free their subjects from the curse of Christianity...
The American Exception
A favorite exhortation of those seeking to further restrict or remove the private possession of firearms in the United States is to “look at other countries,” where lower murder rates are supposed to be a result of gun control laws. The underlying presumption beneath these laws is that guns cause crime. Getting rid of guns,...
From One Assault on the Constitution to Another
The U.S. Constitution has few friends on the right or the left. During the first eight years of the 21st century, the Republicans mercilessly assaulted civil liberties. The brownshirt Bush regime ignored the protections provided by habeas corpus. They spied on American citizens without warrants. They violated the First Amendment. They elevated decisions of the...
Call Me Simple . . .
But I don’t understand: Why the government spends billions on welfare but people keep saying hunger is a big problem. Why the government spends billions on education and the population gets dumber and dumber. Why the government spends billions on “intelligence” and defense but could not prevent September 11. Why pointless filthy language ...
The Body’s Vest
Casting the body’s vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide. —Andrew Marvell (1621-78), “The Garden” Browsing through the poetry section at Borders, I came upon a sole copy of a new book of poems by Fred Chappell, Shadow Box. I have been an admirer of Chappell’s fiction for years, especially his novel I...
A Client State Pushes Eighty
The U.S. occupation and reconstruction of Japan began nearly 80 years ago and is considered by many to be an unqualified success. But Japan's national character was hollowed out in the process; what remains is a shell of a country still obedient to its conquerors.
The American Exception
From the October 1993 issue of Chronicles. A favorite exhortation of those seeking to further restrict or remove the private possession of firearms in the United States is to “look at other countries,” where lower murder rates are supposed to be a result of gun control laws. The underlying presumption beneath these laws is that...
Paul Ehrlich, the Real Founder of Environmentalism
It’s become an accepted opinion that marine biologist Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring (1962), was the founder of the modern environmentalist movement. But this may very well be a myth. Recent historical scholarship suggests that this title more likely applies to controversial Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 best seller...
Guns, Matrimony, and Jihad in San Bernardino
The December 2, 2015, killings of 14 people in San Bernardino, California, by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, is the sort of story that garners the label “only in America,” with plot twists that include arranged marriage, Facebook jihad, and irrelevant gun laws. It also includes Enrique Marquez, Jr., an Hispanic-American. Farook...
Schizophrenic Citizens
The very idea of dual citizenship is downright absurd. It’s a contradiction that cannot be resolved. The concept of citizenship is based on the expectation of loyalty to the country, and this, in turn, means that citizens owe their exclusive allegiance to the community in which they live. So how is it possible to have...
Remembering Robert E. Lee
Forbearance is a moral principle from which General Robert E. Lee rarely if ever wavered, and his unflinching practice of that virtue is the primary reason that he should be remembered today.
Impractical Separation
An interesting debate on the right concerning the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution neglects to consider that the founder’s Constitution may no longer be our framework of government.
Campaign Finance Reform
Jack Tawil proposed a daring solution to balance campaign finance reform against the constitutional right to free speech: disconnect campaign contributions from sordid influence.
Polemics on Polemics
When I delivered Liberty: The God That Failed into the hands of my publisher, I did so with no little trepidation. Supported entirely by Protestant, secular academic, and other non-Catholic sources, including the work of numerous historians of the first rank, its detailed, 700-page counternarrative of the rise and fall of what the moderns call...
Voting Behind the Veil of Ignorance
Every four years our political intellectuals kick off the presidential campaign season by putting forward proposals to reform the system by which Americans choose their leaders. The will of the people has been frustrated by all this elaborate machinery of voter registration, party primaries, and media hype, so they say, and those few who have...
Can the GOP’s Shotgun Marriage Be Saved?
Wednesday morning, Nov. 9, 2016, Republicans awoke to learn they had won the lottery. Donald Trump had won the presidency by carrying Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. All three states had gone Democratic in the last six presidential elections. The GOP had won both houses of Congress. Party control of governorships and state legislatures rivaled the...
A Confederacy of Dunces
The death of a social movement is an instructive and sobering phenomenon. After years of greatness and influence, an idea eventually sickens and dies, until its adherents are reduced to a pathetic handful. Somewhere in history, there must have lived the last Albigensian, the last Ranter, the last native practitioner of ancient Egyptian religion. Somewhere...
It’s Time to Change Our Constitution
Conservative reluctance to change the Constitution cedes ground to the left and allows the progressive drift of the nation.
Execution Not Delayed
“Viva Mexico! Viva Mexico!” As he spoke those words, murderer and rapist Humberto Leal felt the gush of pentobarbital run into his arm. Like the late, lamented Mexican hero José Ernesto Medellín, whom Texas executed in 2008, Leal and his legal backers, including the Mexican government, argued that his guilty verdict was null. The Vienna...
The E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights: A New Totalitarianism
The E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights, approved in Nice on December 8, 2000, sets forth the principles upon which the future European constitution should be based. Drafted by a commission of experts from various countries, the document consists of a preamble and 54 articles. It was presented to the E.U. Council as “unamendable”: The charter...
Enter Stage Right
In the past, Republican primaries in Texas were won and lost on a wide variety of issues—taxes, ties to the community, money, education, abortion, agriculture. Usually, candidates who can unite a handful of major GOP donors (most of whom own large businesses in the state) have a major advantage in the primaries. Then, in 2006,...
The Rule of Lawfare
Lawfare is the manipulation of the legal system to get Donald Trump. But more broadly, it's the use of existing law, in a manner not intended by its framers, to neutralize or destroy enemies of those in power.
Democracy and God
Since at least the 1960’s, federal judges in the United States have overturned a number of state and federal laws dealing, broadly speaking, with marriage, sexuality, and the family—most notoriously in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion. And numerous commentators have pointed out the constitutional absurdity of these decisions, based on no clear...
Divided Loyalties, Misplaced Hopes
“By their fruits, ye shall know them,” our Lord once warned. Too often, however, when it comes to the promise of power or the allure of success, Christians are easily swayed to align themselves with those who cry, “Lord, Lord,” yet are, in Jesus’ words, the “workers of iniquity.” “Do men gather grapes of thorns,...
A Free-Minded
Douglas Young was a tall man, six feet six inches; with his beard he looked like a Calvinist Jehovah. At St. Andrews, he acquired the nickname “God” by eavesdropping on a political discussion about the Balkans. (In the 1930’s, the Balkans were full of angry ethnic factions, fighting and killing one another.) The group was...