thoughts in and out of season
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 ...
A rather interesting comparison of priestly pederasts and treasonous Englishmen: James Hitchcock on Subversion through the Old Boy Network. One point he touches on, referring to C. S. Forster, is the tendency of homosexuality to dissolve social loyalties into personal relations. It’s a persuasive point—the homosexual’s most intense connections to others do not point … More ...
Diversity and global capitalism march on: The New Color of Money, from New York Magazine. Smart kids from the third world with plenty of energy and no interest in anything outside business are taking over the big investment banking houses. While Bombay-born Fareed Zakaria announces in The New Yorker that what we see … More ...
It may not be right to point out unusually disgusting things about the opposition, but still, what’s thought worth publishing in what passes for a high-toned publication must reveal something: Julie Burchill in The Guardian on Abortion: still a dirty word.
A puzzling and annoying feature of the left-wing rhetoric that passes for mainstream thought today is its tendency to reduce everything to immediately personal likes and dislikes. If you think immigration should be reduced or homosexuality is a moral disorder then you’re “anti-immigant” or “anti-gay,” and your attitudes are examples of “hate.” The rhetoric may … More ...
A cry from the heart from a Korean-American woman: Living in Fear of Racism. It’s certainly unpleasant to visit a town and get screamed at by one of the local crazies, but isn’t it obvious from Miss Wong’s comments that the sensitive, multicultural society she wants is an all-consuming task that can never be … More ...
It’s all one struggle: Violence Against Women Leads to Major Health Problems Globally. “Health” turns out to require doing something about “violence against women,” and that, we already know, will involve doing something about “pervasive patterns of gender inequality.” Since the world is so simple, there’s always the same answer to everything. If the … More ...
The fruits of political correctness and congressional grandstanding: FBI Culture Blamed for Missteps on Moussaoui. The Minneapolis office knew exactly what the risks were, but Washington didn’t want to deal. How could they possibly have investigated these things, after all, without profiling young Arab men? Even after September 11 there were complaints about … More ...
I’ll agree that who your parents were is part of who you are, and for that and other reasons every child has a right to both a mother and a father. But doesn’t that show that it’s wrong to do things—like use sperm donors—that intrinsically deny a child that right and force him to construct … More ...