thoughts in and out of season
For those interested, First Things has published a useful rebuttal of the factual basis of Daniel Goldhagen’s notorious essay in The New Republic, “What Would Jesus Have Done?” [The Goldhagen essay is not available on-line.] The author’s final point seems well founded: “The New Republic owed its readers, and more importantly the Catholic … More ...
It may be true—I believe it is—that American society is mostly good, if only because no society could last a day that wasn’t mostly good. Still, if that’s true then it must be possible for a society that’s mostly good to be pointed in a radically wrong direction and to adopt a fundamentally evil system … More ...
Autonomy means “self-rule,” and liberalism makes it the supreme political goal. The coherence of classical liberalism depends on its ability to find a meaning of autonomy that promotes discipline and small government. On the face of it, that should be easy. After all, ruling yourself is a discipline, and external government is its negation. The … More ...
Paul Craig Roberts has a useful column summarizing recent studies on the relationship between guns and violence. Not surprisingly, the studies show that widespread gun ownership reduces violent crime by enabling law-abiding citizens to respond appropriately—that is, immediately and forcibly—to violence and the threat of violence.
So why the widespread vehement opposition to private … More ...
In the course of a somewhat rambling discussion of the ways of bureaucrats Gary Aldrich tosses off an interesting observation: “TIPS is what the federal government does when it knows what to do, but cannot do it out of fear of being accused of racial profiling.” I think there’s something to that. The Feds can’t … More ...
The science of family life continues to make huge strides: Study Looks At Women, Marriage And Divorce and discovers that shacking up and premarital pregnancy make for shaky marriages. How revolutionary! Similar findings may eventually lead scholars to propose sophisticated theoretical concepts like “commitment and integrity” and “moral orientation,” or maybe eventually even “virtue and … More ...
Those eager for one more essay, comment or whatever on what liberalism is may want to know that my note Liberalism: Ideal and Reality, from the Winter 2002 Telos, is now online. It was published with a reply from Paul Gottfried, to which I’ll reply in some forum in due course.
Another effort in Britain to bring cultural institutions into line: Racism in British Theatres. I look forward to future reports on indecency, lack of patriotism, doubts about the work ethic and who knows what else in the British theater. The reports on racism in the theater follow reports on racism in British universities and … More ...
Here’s a useful survey of family life in the West. They don’t give links or footnotes, but at least they mention where they got the information.
What else can you expect under the current regime? A UK government White Paper on criminal justice proposes to limit jury trial, keep dangerous and sexual offenders in prison indefinitely if judged a risk to the public, abolish the “double jeopardy” rule for serious cases, and allow “hearsay” evidence in court.
As the author points … More ...