thoughts in and out of season
The possible EU dispute with the bible (see below) shows the problem with the attempt to set up an international community among people with very different views by agreeing on a list of basic human rights and basing the community on that.
The problem is that whatever principle is authoritative in the highest political community … More ...
It’s somewhat good news of course that UN Child Summit negotiations are stymied. “Permanently dead” would be better, though. Do you want the UN looking after any young people you know?
Distributing the bible could be a criminal offense under a proposed EU antiracism law.
There’s something terribly wrong with Arab public life. I’ve liked most of the Arabs I’ve met—better, in fact, than most Israelis. Whatever human weaknesses and vices the Arabs have though they seem to turn into political theories. It has nothing to do with intelligence or education. Here, for example, are the comments of the Chairman … More ...
A possible exchange:
… More ...Alter: So why do you say there’s a liberal tyranny in America today? So far as I can see you can pretty much do or say what you want.
Ego: But am I free to live the way someone ought to live?
Alter: What do you mean? Whatever you
Do the best things always come first? Every movement seems to produce its classics at the beginning like Athena springing full-grown from the head of Zeus. (Sorry if that’s too high-flown!)
That applies to modernity too. For us the seventeenth century is the century of genius, because it was when modernity achieved full development in … More ...
What kind of conservatism is needed today? Whatever it is will have to be different from that of the past. Conservatism as such is simply the desire to keep what’s good in an existing way of life. Conservatives today, however, have seen liberalism transform the world they once loved beyond recognition. What can there … More ...
What kind of conservatism is needed today? Whatever it is will have to be complicated, or at least different from that of the past. Conservatism as such is simply the desire to keep what’s good in an existing way of life. Conservatives today, however, have seen liberalism transform the world they once loved beyond recognition… More ...
Apparently, Le Pen said on one occasion:
… More ...Do you want me to say it is a revealed truth that everyone has to believe? That it’s a moral obligation? I say there are historians who are debating these questions. I am not saying that the gas chambers did not exist. I couldn’t see them myself. I
The Left continues all-victorious because the serious issues were conceded long ago. “Inclusiveness” and “tolerance,” taken seriously, radically weaken all institutions other than universal markets and universal rational bureaucracies. Nonetheless, it is now fundamental that they are necessary basic standards for any tolerable society. Rejecting them has become unspeakable, and for most people unthinkable; all … More ...