Leave it to Yale to hoist itself by its own snoot—the snootiest college in the country has finally given itself its own comeuppance. Yale has declared promiscuity, or at least exposure to aggressively promoted public promiscuity, to form an integral part of “the Yale experience.” They’ve told some nice Orthodox Jewish boys that, if they...
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Lost in the 50’s
It was about 1965, in Jimmy Dengate’s “club” in Charleston, when I got my first clue to what the 50’s had been all about. I met an unusual sportswriter. Let us call him Jack, if only because it was his real name. Jack was unusual, because he could write decent prose, knew something about sports,...
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Collateral America
The Mirror Test is John Kael Weston’s testament and witness to seven years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Weston worked as a State Department political officer alongside U.S. Marines and Army soldiers in some of the most dangerous areas of both countries, advising—and sometimes overruling—American military commanders in what became political nation-building operations growing...
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There Is a More Beautiful Melody Than Fear
“Why Is All COVID-19 News Bad News?” is a working paper by Bruce Sacerdote, Ranjan Sehgal, and Molly Cook recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The authors found that media coverage of COVID-19 has been much more negative in the U.S. than in international media. They found, “Ninety one percent of...
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Living With the Questions
It was hot out there, the sun glaring down on us in our suits and ties. The air was sort of smoky, the way it usually is down here near the Gulf Coast. A parade of suits and uniforms marched behind the fire truck. The casket was sitting in back, and the sun glared off...
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The Lion of Idaho
From the November 1998 issue of Chronicles. The latest fad among leftist historians, according to the New York Times, is the study of the conservative movement. “By marrying social and political history,” the Times announced, “this new wave of scholarship is revising the history of Americans on the right”—a prospect that is at once depressing...
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Osama in Pakistan
Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs, announced on May 1, gives (theoretically, at least) Washington the opportunity to make an exit from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it most certainly underscored the surreal nature of Washington’s relationship with its “ally” in the region. Bin Laden was hiding in plain sight in...
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Russia’s Chechen Crisis
Russia’s ill-fated decision to intervene in the Chechen civil war has precipitated a political crisis at least as heated, and far more bloody, than the 1993 presidential-parliamentary showdown. Consider the following; all the major “democratic” parties, including former prime minister and Yeltsin backer Yegor Gaidar’s “Russia’s Choice,” have denounced the intervention and called for a...
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Americans Don’t Die!
Americans do not believe in death. At least, they live as if they will never die. This has been the case from colonial times. It is a consequence of seemingly limitless opportunity and a drive for upward mobility, denied to generations of Europeans. Indentured servants, laborers, persecuted minorities, and peasants tilling the soil of the...
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The Mendacity of Hope—October 2008
PERSPECTIVE The Audacity of Hateby Thomas Fleming VIEWS The Obama Presidencyby Doug BandowThe triumph of (lots of) experience over (a little) hope? Boogaloo Down Broadwayby Tony OuthwaiteThe charade of liberal change. The Revelations of the Obama Planby David A. HartmanChange we can’t afford. Obama on Foreign Policyby Ted Galen CarpenterA mysterious work in progress. ROUND...
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Russia’s Demographic Crisis
On May 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised his audience during his annual address to the Federal Assembly. Most of his hour-long speech had gone as expected: He spoke on economics, technological innovation, and the need to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Then the former KGB officer shifted tack: “And now for the most important thing.” ...
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Nobody’s Bagboy
Something curious happened in South Carolina on June 10. While Sen. Lindsay Graham easily prevailed over his challenger, Buddy Witherspoon, garnering two thirds of the vote in the Republican U.S Senate primary, the Democrats (voting on the same day) chose a candidate who everyone admits is well to the right of Graham himself. Of course,...
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What if Trump wins?
For months, we’ve seen stories on polls being cooked to boost Hillary Clinton’s numbers and demoralize Trump voters. Others have noted the possibility of a “Brexit” type surprise on election day. Meanwhile, in the wake of the re-opening of the FBI investigation of the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal, the race is tightening, according to numerous...
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Hard Bargaining
A U.N. resolution concerning weapons inspections in Iraq made October a month for hard bargaining among Washington, Paris, and Moscow. Washington and London both desired a resolution that would allow the automatic application of force should Iraq obstruct any proposed arms inspections. Paris and Moscow balked, but by mid-October it appeared that both the French...
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Bear
We were driving back to Michigan after a conference on Herbert Hoover that I had organized for the Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa, in 1984. After you get past Hammond and Gary, Indiana is flat but quite nice. Our beautiful Buick 225 Ultra blew the head gasket on the Indiana Toll Road near...
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Breivik: No Patriot, No Christian
As of this writing, stories describing the horrifying bombing and shootings committed in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik are still coming in, but there is enough information available for an attentive reader to draw some preliminary conclusions about the self-identified mass-murderer. Breivik’s actions and certain sections of his lengthy manifesto belie the mainstream media’s portrayal...
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People From Nowhere
Virginia, the cradle of the American Republic, has proved to be a particularly tempting locus for the designs of the capitalist Utopians. Our own conservative Republican governor, George Allen, with the general support of the state party and Washington’s Republican press organ, has led the charge of the developers’ earth movers on the state’s countryside,...
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On Secularizing the Faith
As always. Rabbi Jacob Neusner’s February article (“Letter From Inner Israel: Christmas, That Winter Festival“) is of interest to this hard-shell, pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic. The attempts to secularize the synagogues that Rabbi Neusner discusses could have come from a page out of Call to Action and from various dissenting groups intent on “desacralizing” the...
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Influx of Illegal Aliens
The European Union will set up rapid-reaction teams to deal with an increasing flood of illegal African immigrants on Europe’s southern flank. The decision was made by the European Commission at a July 19 meeting spurred on by complaints from Spain, Italy, and Malta. Illegal immigration to Spain via the Canary Islands has increased sharply...
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The Shape of Sicilian Water
When Metternich famously dismissed Italy as “a geographical expression,” the peninsula was divided into states ruled by (to name only the principals) Austrians, the Vatican, and Spanish Bourbons. Yet even 150 years after the Kingdom of Piedmont united Italy by conquest, the truth of Metternich’s description remains perceptible to anyone who travels from Torino to...
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Trump Pulls It Off
He did it. Billionaire reality TV star Donald Trump has pulled off the most stunning upset in U.S. political history. Some of us did not buy the false narrative the media was feeding the public—and understand that the fight is just beginning after Trump’s election as the 45th president, but all of us who have...
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Borders
About 20 years ago, there was an interesting left-handed pitcher for the Duluth-Superior Dukes, a very bad team in a league beneath the status of “minor”—minuscule, I might call it, though I am glad to know that there are still a few small-town baseball teams not in serfdom to the majors. The pitcher’s name was...
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Cancelling a Contract
Saddam Hussein, a Kremlin source told the Russian Information Agency (RIA-Novosti), “isn’t so nice that you would want to defend him just for his own sake.” Following the December 12, 2002, announcement by the Iraqi government that it had cancelled its contract with Russia’s Lukoil, which held the rights to develop Iraq’s vast West Kurna...
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A Gentleman and a Scholar
The call came just before dinner on a Wednesday in April—a bright, windy day when spring was just taking hold and seemed so full of possibilities. Coach had died the previous Friday in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. I hoped that he had not been alone. I’m told that a close friend, a man who...
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Rebranding the Gun Culture
During the five years of the 1990’s that I served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, one other member and I would occasionally upset the others by asking why the ACLU did not defend the Second Amendment rights of individuals. My colleague asked because he was an 80-year-old Hollywood...
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Murder in the Wasteland
The mystery novel, to borrow a line from Original Sin, has all the virtues of its defects. “The mystery,” Baroness James explained in a recent Washington Post interview, “deals with the planned murder” and is thus confined to a certain formulaic structure in which a detective protagonist confronts an often unsavory lot of suspects, all...
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On Pat Buchanan and Trade
Kudos to Chronicles for “Sovereignty for Sale? The Free Trade Debate” (July) and high praise to Brother Pat for “Toward One Nation, Indivisible“! One thing, though: the Buchananite fair trade “Long March Back” will only come via the third-party route. The Republicans are but the Fabian wing of the Socialist Party, the Democrats being the...
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DUE PROCESS: FROM JOE FRIDAY TO JACK BAUER—May 2008
PERSPECTIVEBeastie Boysby Thomas Fleming VIEWSFederales, Gringo Styleby Roger D. McGrathThe exponential growth of federal police. Do We Want a Federal Police Force?by William J. QuirkThe Supreme Court and Congress versus the people. Jack Bauer, Agent of Anarcho-Tyranny, U.S.A.by R. Cort KirkwoodAmerica’s most wanted. NEWSThe Surge “Success”by Ted Galen CarpenterTriumph of hope over experience. REVIEWSTowers of...
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A Broad Path to Destruction
Public and private interests are joining forces to build a massive transportation “corridor” through the middle of Texas—threatening property rights, wildlife, and the historic landscape of the Lone Star State. The Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) would be the initial U.S. portion of a complex of highways and rail lines from the interior of Mexico to the...
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Wild Thing
A new kind of animal stalks the land these days. If you listen closely, you can hear its strange call: chest-thumping roars alternating with keening wails and abundant sniffles. And if you look carefully, you’ll doubtless soon spot one, for they clone faster than jackrabbits. This new critter is now all around us, and the...
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The Theft of an American Classic
Country music has never been shirked in the pages of Chronicles, as any faithful reader knows. John Reed’s June column concerning the Far East’s fascination with country music, however, left out one pertinent mention: the story of Torn Mitsui. Mr. Mitsui is a fifty-year-old professor of English at Kanazawa University; he is also Japan’s foremost...
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A Manner of Speaking
On a hot day in late June, looking to buy some cheap tires for an old car of mine, I pulled into a tire shop on a stretch of highway near Fort Worth. We’d recently had a lot of rain, and the sun was glaring, seeming to draw a screen of haze off the pavement...
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Running the Psychosocial Gauntlet
To prepare couples for the sacrament and life of matrimony, Roman Catholic canon prescribes sensible requirements for “Pastoral Care and What Must Precede Celebration of Marriage.” According to Canon 1063, “Pastors of souls are obliged to see to it that their own ecclesiastical community furnishes the Christian faithful assistance so that the matrimonial state is...
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Paying the Price
Iraqi Christians are paying the price of the Bush administration’s desire to remove Saddam Hussein. The Iranian Revolution and the rising influence of militant Islam have already forced the secular Iraqi dictatorship to make concessions to proponents of Iraq’s Islamicization, but the threat of a U.S. attack, together with a widespread feeling in the Arab...
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Raw Bits
Some undigested odds and ends this month. Let’s see—let’s start with some survey research on regional differences, real and perceived. From California comes word that the Stanford Research Institute has come up with a typology of Americans based on their (excuse the expression) life-styles. Not surprisingly, the types are not distributed uniformly across the U.S....
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Unspoken Questions
We live in interesting times. In June of this year, the U.S. national soccer team played an “away” game against Mexico—in Los Angeles. Many of the 93,000 fans in the Rose Bowl booed the U.S. squad, chanted obscenities directed at the U.S. goalkeeper, and blew air horns during the U.S. national anthem. After Mexico won...
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The Nationalist Imperative
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” —Albert Einstein When James Bowie took his considerable reputation as a brawler and duelist, along with the famous knife his brother Resin had fashioned for him, to Mexico, married the daughter of the vice-governor of the province of Texas, and became a respected citizen...
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Athens and Jerusalem V: The Germanization of Christianity
Some Tedious but Necessary Preliminaries The title of James C. Russell's The Germanization of Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation does not sound like the opening shot in a war against Christianity. However, ever since Sam Francis' apparently glowing review, conservative neopagans, atheists, and Nordicists have trumpeted the book ...
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Islam, Immigration, and the Alienists Among Us
In his Introduction to Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith, G.K. Chesterton casts himself as a man on a yacht seeking the world and finding home. The seeker, he writes, may have entertained us with his efforts to find “in an anarchist club or a Babylonian temple what I might have found in the nearest parish...
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Edward Abbey: Conservative Conservationist—and Controversialist
Edward Abbey never met a controversy he didn’t like. Philosopher of the barroom and the open sky, champion of wilderness, critical gadfly, fierce advocate of personal liberty, Enemy of the State writ large: For 40-odd years, Ed roamed the American West, a region, he wrote, “robbed by the cattlemen, raped by the miners, insulted by...
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Never and Always
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. —T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” Precious memories, unseen angels Sent from somewhere to my soul How they linger, ever near me, As the sacred past unfolds I...
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Reproductive Tyranny
Absolute control of women over fertility has been the unparalleled dream of radical feminists for decades. Millions of women now view this aspiration as their sacrosanct right and have, with the advent of anti-fertility and other reproductive technologies, exercised this new right vigorously. This feminist dream, however, is fraught with irony. Many of the very...
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Memorial Day
We used to go there on every Memorial Day—a small national cemetery off the road a piece in the woods. It was usually warm; the woods, deep, green, and moist. We would walk down a dirt path to the stone wall encircling the graves, sometimes passing others who had just visited there before us. My...
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Gary, Martin, and John
I started this letter back when David Garrow’s biography of Martin Luther King appeared, with its revelations about Dr. King’s sexual habits, just in time for Christmas 1986. I put it aside because I wasn’t happy with it. In the summer of 1987, the Hart and Bakker scandals made me dust it off and try...
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The Best Are Not the Brightest
Some years ago, in a discussion with the late Joe Sobran about the motivations of those managing our vastly overstretched empire, I pointed out that, for certain strata of the bureaucracy (the people who meet with E.U. officials in Brussels and attend cocktail parties in Georgetown, for example), as well as think-tank warriors theorizing about...
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American Citizens or Tribal Members of Sovereign Nations?
American Indians compose a nation within a nation. They enjoy American rights and privileges, but also tribal rights and privileges.
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Radical Populism on the Volga
On May 8, 1995, President Boris Yeltsin addressed an auditorium filled with gray-haired war veterans, their chests bedecked with rows of ribbons and medals, and told them of the cost of victory in the Great Patriotic War. Citing new archival research, Yeltsin revealed the “terrifying figure” of 26,549,000 Soviet citizens “lost” in the war against...
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On Propoganda and Piety
Reading Chronicles has provided me, in equal parts, education, philosophic inspiration, and new words to add to my vocabulary—until now. Justin Raimondo’s review (“The British Were Coming!” December 1998) of Thomas Mahl’s Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-44 is one of the best examples of misinformation, damning indictments unsupported by facts,...
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Goodbye, Mr. Bond
Casino Royale Produced by Barbara Broccoli, Andrew Noakes, and Anthony Waye Directed by Martin Campbell Screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis Based on the novel by Ian Fleming Released by Columbia Pictures It is with great trepidation and some sadness that I must announce that James Bond is dead. Granted, there is...
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Rockin’ in the 50’s
When the mode of music changes, Plato remarked, the walls of the city shake. When the mode of music changed back in the 1950’s, the denizens of Plato’s Pad—sorry, but there are so few opportunities to get in an allusion to The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis these days—and their peers saw more fingers than...