thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb Say what you like about the New York Times, their science coverage isn’t bad, at least as long as it’s not one of Natalie Angier’s chirpy little pieces. Every now and then they even have group photographs of particle physicists and such. When looking at such pictures I’ve always wondered why no one challenges … More ...
If it has to be asked, there’s no answer: What is Britishness anyway? What has made someone British has not been a single quality or small set of qualities that distinguishes him from foreigners. No such bright line was ever needed, because until very recently there hadn’t been demographically significant immigration to Britain for over … More ...
Politicians, like all promoters and salesmen, are optimistic by nature. Why else would they put so much effort into pursuing office when success is so doubtful and the rewards so dubious? A current version of the eternal story is presented by the World magazine cover story on Polyglot Politics—The GOP’s Latino outreach. The conservative … More ...
A Swede sent me a link to a fascinating but horrifying article he had written about the child-abducting Nordic social services state. From the article it appears that in Scandinavia the laws take seriously the liberal concept of the child as an independent subject of rights. As a result it becomes impossible to take … More ...
Melanie Phillips continues stumbling from the corruptions of liberalism toward traditionalist conservatism. While we’ve noted that her views on sex remain mired in the contradictions she notes in liberalism, her recent Dogma and the destruction of excellence shows a real gain in theoretical clarity. Standing back from the destruction of British institutions from marriage to … More ...
What does it mean that sixty percent of Berkeley students are children of immigrants? Apparently, that “‘Berkeley really is an integral part of the American dream'”—which now involves being an immigrant.
Isn’t it illegal to impersonate a black person? Essex woman rants against ‘whites’ as she takes over a snatched Zimbabwe farm.
The cure for the problems of the managerial liberal state is always more of the same. Europeans wary of ‘political Islam’ provide an example. European ruling elites have noticed that there are more and more Muslims in Europe, they cluster together and don’t assimilate, their presence means crime and terrorism, and ordinary Europeans are beginning … More ...
A little while ago I wondered aloud what an “expert on racism” is. Now we know: it’s someone who says “Slam them hard and slam them now” and can then testify as an expert at the trial of those to be slammed.
Why Nazism? Many of the theories proposed to explain something so horrible and bizarre have had an ulterior purpose—it was all about big business, Christian antisemitism, authoritarian child-raising practices, or whatever. Pick the thing you like least about European society, and that’s what caused the Nazis. A contemporary eyewitness account by a young German, “Defying … More ...