York, Alabama, is a sad little Southern town. Though it is small, it lacks the typical charm of the South. Not much happens there, but what does happen happens in the typically Southern way. The wheels of justice grind not with something as tacky as money, but with the more genteel means of connections: It’s...
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The New Nationalism
During her short imprisonment for contempt of court, Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk who refused on religious grounds to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples, was compared with (among others) Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John C. Calhoun, Saint Paul, and even Jesus Christ Himself. Setting aside the propriety of...
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The Wall of Contentment
Reading all the various, though scarcely varied, opinions on the Ukraine “crisis” – after nearly 100 years of Russian misrule in Europe, one may think the word would be safely devalued, but no, they use it like St. James’s clubmen circa 1855 discussing the latest from Balaclava – one again becomes conscious of the political...
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A Besieged Trump Presidency Ahead
After a week managing the transition, vice president-elect Mike Pence took his family out to the Broadway musical “Hamilton.” As Pence entered the theater, a wave of boos swept over the audience. And at the play’s end, the Aaron Burr character, speaking for the cast and the producers, read a statement directed at Pence: “(W)e...
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Getting to Know the General
The rise to political prominence of former Airborne Forces General Aleksandr Lebed, and especially his emphasis on law and order as the only real basis for proceeding with reforms, has raised the specter in the Russian mind of the proverbial Man on a White Horse, the military savior whose iron-fisted rule puts the national house...
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The Future of the Christian Right
Like a cold front, you could feel the defeat coming; and you did not need Dan Rather or George Gallup to prepare you. You knew it in your bones as you listened to the sound bites on the evening news: Clinton saying nothing and saying it well; Dole saying nothing and saying it poorly. It...
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Living the Jacobin Dream
In 1793, the Jacobins, surfing the wave of Parisian mob violence, intimidated their less resolute colleagues into eliminating both the principle of monarchy and the existence of its politically superfluous incarnation, Louis XVI. Not content with killing a living king and pronouncing a death sentence in absentia on all the princes of the blood who...
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It Won’t Be Easy to Make America Great Again
Election 2024 will not end or save humanity. What’s at stake in a presidential election is something far different from the all-or-nothing outcome that the rival campaigns envision.
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Goodbye to Gold and Glory
“A crocodile has been worshipped, and its priesthood have asserted, that morality required the people to suffer themselves to be eaten by a crocodile.” —John Taylor of Caroline “The Father of Waters now flows unvexed to the sea,” Lincoln famously announced in July 1863. He was, according to a reporter, uncharacteristically “wearing a smile...
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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...
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On the Electoral Process
“The Impotent American Voter” by Richard Winger and some related essays in the November 1994 issue—such as Jeffrey Tucker’s on the third-party option—are seriously wrong. I would hate to see Chronicles get a reputation for political kookiness based on a poor understanding of American politics. Winger confuses political openness with openness to third parties. One...
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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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The Cataclysm That Was Roe
The pro-life movement today almost completely identifies with the Republican Party, despite its support by a few Democrats such as Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey (sometimes). It wasn’t always so. In 1972, at the age of 17, I worked against Michigan’s Measure B, which would have legalized abortion in the state. It lost, with 61 percent...
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The Evil Party Rides Again
There are many reasons to criticize the the Republicans as the Stupid Party, and I have often done so. But we need to remember that, in Sam Francis’ dichotomy, the other major party is the Evil Party. And some of what the leader of the Evil Party is doing has no real precedent in American...
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On Hard Cases
Thomas Fleming’s reflections on the Schiavo case (“New Wine in Old Bottles,” Perspective, May) disappointed but did not surprise me, since, a few years back, he defended our government when it handed over Elian Gonzalez to the tender mercies of a totalitarian government. In both cases, the crux of his argument seems to be the...
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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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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...
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Society Precedes Government: Two Counterrevolutions
A successful War of Independence established 13 free and independent states in North America in 1783. This was followed, unfortunately for us, by the French Revolution and then by the 19th century, preeminently a time of violent government centralization. Subsequent events, as well as nationalist emotion and propaganda, have seriously damaged our ability to see...
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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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New Politics in Old Virginia
It took 114 years, but by 2000, Virginia had become a Republican state. What brought about such a great change in the Old Dominion? Let’s take a look back. Reconstruction was the low point of Virginia history. In 1865, a defeated and gutted state lost not only its cities, towns, farms, and one third of...
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Mass Migration: Mortal Threat to Red State America
Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that his natural political instincts are superior to those of any other current figure. As campaign 2018 entered its final week, Trump seized upon and elevated the single issue that most energizes his populist base and most convulses our media elite. Warning of an “invasion,” he pointed...
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Books in Brief
In 1935, as president of France, Pierre Laval banned “weapons of war” and decreed that all firearms should be registered with the government. In 1945 he was tried and found guilty of treason for his collaboration with the German occupation. Between those two years, Hitler built his strong war machine, and in 1940 he invaded...
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Lilliput vs. Leviathan
There are lots of freckles, red hair, and Celtic names in Catron County, New Mexico. Though almost everyone in the county has some Indian or Mexican blood, this is home to the families and culture which David Hackett Fischer describes in Albion’s Seed as Scotch-Irish, double distilled, first by the Highland clearances and then by...
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Unjust Compensation
Twenty-five years ago, the village of Machesney Park, Illinois, did not exist. Today, it is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the state: This spring, the village will pay $143,000 for a special census to determine how far the population has risen above its 2000 Census level of 20,759. Village officials estimate that 1,400 people...
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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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The Ryancare Rout—Winning by Losing?
Did the Freedom Caucus just pull the Republican Party back off the ledge, before it jumped to its death? A case can be made for that. Before the American Health Care Act, aka “Ryancare,” was pulled off the House floor Friday, it enjoyed the support—of 17 percent of Americans. Had it passed, it faced an...
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Facts Are Stubborn Things
It took only 22 years after he left the White House for conservatives to turn Ronald Reagan into a totem. The celebrations surrounding his 100th birthday on February 6 made George Washington look like a back-bench legislator. Conservatives hailed Reagan as the apotheosis of political wisdom and prudent action. Liberals conceded that he had done...
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Moderate Islam?
“Teachers who teach Western education? We will kill them! We will kill them in front of their students and tell the students to henceforth [sic] study the Koran,” declared Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, which killed 46 students in a boarding school on July 6 (Time, July 19). Willingly or...
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Dirty, Dirty Dirt
“Dirt is dirtier than clean is clean,” observes one of John O’Hara’s characters—a history professor, I think—remarking on the human race’s observed partiality for darkness and grime in their news diet, rather than sweetness and light. Note the uproar over Brett Kavanaugh’s behavior—nice or nasty—at a high school party he attended at age 17, during...
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First Things Last
If the election of 1996 turned out to be an even bigger snore than most citizens anticipated, the fall of the year was nevertheless enlivened by a dangerous outbreak of something resembling actual cogitation on the American right. Given the mentally paralytic cast of the Dole-Kemp campaign and much of the party that nominated it,...
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Bill Clinton and the Ground Zero Mosque: A Perfect Fit
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...
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Against the Black Pill
We suffer an oligarchic, feminizing regime that is hostile to most of the defining elements of traditional American identity. But, we also enjoy a golden age of dissent. Now is not the time for despair.
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Decency Through Strength
“Ideas rule the world and its events. A revolution is a passage of an idea from theory to practice. Whatever men say, material interests never have caused and never will cause a revolution.” —Mazzini My grandmother, the daughter of a Confederate “high private,” always said that if someone had done something particularly good, you could...
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The Tragedy of Richard Nixon
Pat Buchanan’s new biography of Richard Nixon’s presidency is the first volume anyone looking at that tumultuous time should turn to. Having served as Nixon’s researcher and speechwriter starting in 1966, Buchanan, not yet 30, followed the victorious President into the White House in 1969. In Nixon’s White House Wars, Buchanan makes it clear that Nixon’s tragic...
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Bill Clinton and the Ground Zero Mosque: A Perfect Fit
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...
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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...
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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. ...
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Government of the People
The doctrine of states’ rights has returned to the American political scene. Leftist and liberal governors have been dusting off the arguments of John C. Calhoun and echoing the speeches of Strom Thurmond in preparation for their defiance of the national government. The battle is being fought on several grounds. In Massachusetts, the fight is...
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Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner
“Blacks for Gray, Whites for Fenty,” ran the nuanced headline on page one of the Washington Examiner. The story told of how black Mayor Adrian Fenty, who got rave reviews for appointing Michelle Rhee to save District of Columbia schools, was crushed six to one in black wards east of the Anacostia River, as he...
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The Sentinel
“Don’t mention the war,” my grandfather told me a few minutes before our guest, an old friend from the Business Administration faculty at the nearby university, joined us for lunch. This was in Tacoma, Washington, in the summer of 1975, and I was visiting from England, on vacation from college. In that particular summer, it...
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Band-Aids for the Corpse
In 1973 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., published The Imperial Presidency. He argued that the stretching of presidential power by Democrats Roosevelt and Truman had been necessary and benevolent, but that such behavior by Nixon was a dark threat to the commonwealth. Schlesinger’s childishly partisan and superficial tirade was soon forgotten. Time has moved on, and...
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The Tragedy of Richard Nixon
Pat Buchanan’s new biography of Richard Nixon’s presidency is the first volume anyone looking at that tumultuous time should turn to. Having served as Nixon’s researcher and speechwriter starting in 1966, Buchanan, not yet 30, followed the victorious President into the White House in 1969. In Nixon’s White House Wars, Buchanan makes it clear that...
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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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Another Impeachment Trial Aims to Banish Trump in 2024
Talk about a case of sore winners. Over at The New York Times opinion page, Neal K. Katyal and Sam Koppelman argue that a recent audio recording of President Donald Trump talking to Georgia’s secretary of state and asking him to overturn the state’s presidential election results should serve as grounds for new impeachment proceedings against the president. “But...
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The Equality Shell Game
“For there is no longer Jew nor Greek, neither free man nor slave, neither man nor woman,” says Pseudo-Paul, the apostle to the Americans, “but all are equal in Christ Jesus.” He has been studying his Pseudo-John, wherein the risen Lord says to Peter, “I have been praying for you, Simon, that you might strengthen...
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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...
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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...
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“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...
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Cosmopolitan Nation
The search for and, when it cannot be found, the construction of a usable past remains the overriding task of our official historians, who believe that we are forever on the cusp of a new age. The opposite could be said of Thucydides, who sought “an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to...