thoughts in and out of season
Dear Mr. Kalb and Fellow Readers,
I intend to research whether El Presidente, Bush, is guilty of treason or sedition. The result might be reflective of Bush’s embracement of official Mexican policy to retake the Southwest and abrogate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Paul Henri
I’m wondering if anyone has read or is reading Michael Burleigh’s new book on the French Revolution and the modern political religions, entitled _Earthly Powers_. I’ve started reading it and it so far is pretty good, detailing the atrocities committed in the name of “reason” by the revolutionists. Burleigh builds upon the theories of Erik … More ...
The following essay appeared in the Spring, 2005 issue of The New Pantagruel.
Liberalism has enormous power as a social reality. When liberals call themselves “progressive” they make it stick. Their views dominate all reputable intellectual and cultural institutions. Judges feel free to read liberalism into fundamental law, even without historical or textual support, … More ...
Steve Sailer has in interesting comment on a question I’ve thought about from time to time, why multicultural societies are less creative. Basically, he says that necessity is the mother of invention: if there had been a lot of black musicians in early-60s Liverpool, the Beatles wouldn’t have had to come up with their … More ...
The following essay appeared in the December 11, 2002 issue of FrontPage magazine. It is also available in Spanish.
The fountainhead of the modern human rights movement is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Today, when so much is up for grabs in the … More ...
The following essay appeared in the July 1997 issue of Pinc.
… More ...Most objections to civil rights laws have to do with their empirical basis, with things like affirmative action that can be seen as abuses, or with libertarian principle and abstract economic reasoning. However cogent those objections are, they get shrugged off. It remains
There is a conception of identity that grows up and takes hold in liberal society, if only because we can think about ourselves and our actions only by reference to what we are. As always, we define our identity by reference to the common goods the community recognizes. If I say I am American the … More ...
The following essay appeared in the December 1998 issue of Pinc. It is also available in Czech.
No one treats a policeman like any other man. The response is elemental; we can not help but feel the force he represents. Our attitude is not simple fear of consequences, which rationally would usually lead … More ...
The following essay appeared in the April 2000 issue of Pinc, and has also in large part been published in Danish. It may be of some interest because general discussions of anti-racism as an outlook and phenomenon are so exceedingly rare, given the importance of the subject.
… More ...“Racism is the worst of sins,