thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb Is turning America into a religion the original sin of modern American conservatism? As a pre-1968 schoolboy I was taught faith in America. It wasn’t altogether clear what that meant, but it’s what I was taught and it’s what the revolution of the ’60s attacked. Popular American conservatism and neoconservatism are still mostly a defense … More ...
The ever-useful Paul Craig Roberts on a couple of recent books, one by Rothbardian Hans-Hermann Hoppe on monarchy and one by a Finnish Darwinian on ethnic conflict as genetic nepotism writ large. Libertarians and Darwinians can be single-factor ideologues, but they’re not always at their worst and there’s a lot to be learned from … More ...
An interesting issue: Catholic campuses head for showdown over episcopal certification for teaching Catholic theology. Most academics object, on the grounds that would make them subject to the judgment of someone other than colleagues (Catholic or otherwise), their school’s administration, accrediting agencies, professional associations, various civil rights and equal opportunity authorities, etc.
Presumably the bishops … More ...
Some numbers from the 2000 census on how things are going in the Southwest: In Texas, 31.2 percent said they speak a language at home that is not English, up from 25 percent in 1990. 6.4 percent of the state’s entire population entered the United States between 1990 and 2000. In Arizona the number … More ...
The saga of multiculturalism in Europe continues: Michel Houellebecq charged with inciting racial hatred. The reporter’s a nitwit, but the facts seem reasonably clear: a leading French writer says Islam is “the most stupid of all religions,” so he has to answer in court to charges of “inciting racial hatred.” In a way, Houellebecq … More ...
Here’s a factually well-informed account of what the author calls “transnational progressivism” but I’d simply call contemporary liberalism: The Ideological War Within the West. The author underestimates the degree to which the bad guys have won already, and also the degree to which their bad theory is the natural consequence of his good theory, … More ...
Amnesty International discusses their mission in their current annual report:
… More ...Amnesty International urged that respect for human rights encompass not only the universality, but also the indivisibility of all rights, economic, social and cultural as well as civil and political. As globalization spreads, bringing greater wealth to some and destitution and despair to others,
I keep seeing references to this sort of thing, but it never seems to amount to anything: Second and Third Wave Feminists Clash Over the Future. All those luminaries come together for a conference and only 100 people show up.
The problem is that once feminism achieved its glorious victories there was nowhere to … More ...
When people seem tenaciously irrational it’s usually a sign that basic philosophical presuppositions are in play. Paul Greenberg finds it “impenetrable, if not just plain contrary” that the Department of Transportation won’t arm pilots. The reasons they give do sound unbelievably stupid: “Pilots need to concentrate on flying the plane,” or “We have just spent … More ...
You can’t beat something with nothing, so what do traditionalist conservatives put up to oppose the liberals? The answer is clear enough. Politics is the art of living together, so the basic political question is what kind of life is best. Liberalism is based on the liberal notion of the good life—in theory doing your … More ...