Henry Adams, about whom Garry Wills has written at length, concluded upon observing politics up close that "power is poison." Garry Wills appears to have reached the same conclusion regarding Barack Obama.
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Harry Reid's only offense (in this case) is that he told the cold, hard, truth. Those who are convinced that this is indeed a "war" should take the first indispensable step toward "the Victory" for which they long by at least understanding who "the Enemy" is and what "the war" is about. Republicans and others who decry the monetary costs of this contentious program inadvertently, and in spite of their protestations to the contrary, prove that their difference with the Democrats is one of degree, not of kind. A tribute to IC's brother Nathan Alexander who passed away from leukemia on May 24, 2009. Emily Ham was one of his favorite students and most talented writers. A memorial service is being held at Troy University at 5pm on August 24, 2009. To most whites the phenomenon of affluent and privileged blacks like Henry Louis Gates, Jr. harboring racial grievances toward the United States is a baffling curiosity. The phenomenon is best explained by the twin concepts of White Ignorance, which demands a post-racial or trans-racial world, and Black Guilt, which, in glaring contrast, demands an enlivened racial awareness. How can this self-professed Catholic institution embrace the most visible proponent of "abortion rights" the world over while simultaneously maintaining its identity? The term "racism" should be called out for what it is and retired. {The following is based on an FBI strategy report sent to the 14,000-member National Association of Chiefs of Police.} The "liberal solution" to America's conflict with the Islamic world, Dinesh D'Souza argues, is doomed from the outset because it imagines that American political values may be absolutely abstracted from its cultural values. Most Americans, according to D'Souza, have cultural beliefs that give them much more in common with the "family values" of Islamic culture, [...] Mexico continues to be the source or entry point for the vast majority of the narcotics that are consumed in the US. Mexico is the leading transit country for cocaine and heroin consumed in the US. It is also the leading source country for marijuana and now methamphetamine. The ideas of liberalism currently have effective control of America, so the conservative movement must deliberately instigate a war of ideas, with the aim of retaking intellectual control of the country. While some Republican politicians profess to advance certain foundational principles, the principles amount to nothing more than a few mixed-up policy proposals. Low taxes and small government, the most often advanced Republican/conservative principles, are not actually principles. William F. Buckley, Jr. was arguably the most conspicuous intellectual lightning rod on critical political and intellectual issues for nearly three decades. The deeper you explore his life and the people with whom he conversed, debated and corresponded, the more you realize the remarkable reach of his enterprise. Though William F. Buckley, Jr. was hardly a member in good standing in the environmental movement, he deserves credit for dealing with the issue seriously, if infrequently. While he was not hostile to environmental concerns, he positioned himself more in opposition to the fad of modern environmentalism than as a proponent of legitimate public policies around [...] William F. Buckley, Jr. and John Kenneth Galbraith agreed on virtually nothing in the public sphere. Whereas Buckley celebrated the free market and the anti-collectivist views of Hayek and Nock, Galbraith was an unrelenting critic of an economic system that left, in his view, millions of Americans vulnerable to capricious circumstances. The traditional American zeal which accompanied settlement — and the evangelistic crusade to tame and purify it — is being channeled into modern Environmentalism. In Noam Chomsky's world, there is a pro-American capitalist exploiter behind every tree. He is the ultimate ideologue, devoted to explaining history, or at least American history and foreign policy, through a single prism. For Chomsky, to even engage in a discussion about Vietnam was to lose one’s humanity. But that didn't prevent him from going on William [...] To oppose “rationalism” is not to oppose reason; rather, it is to oppose a particular conception of reason, a conception according to which the intellect is “omnicompetent,” judge, jury, and, if need be, executioner of all traditions, institutions, customs, and laws that fail to vindicate themselves before its bar. The notions that nations can be [...] The cultural impact of the 1960s was sobering: divorce, pornography, drug use, single-parent families, infidelities, unwed mothers and teen-aged pregnancies all exploded, contributing to enclaves of dysfunctional and destructive behavior that constituted a national disaster. Norman Mailer, for all his (occasional) claims of being a social conservative, played a prominent role in ushering in this [...] If you are sure there is no miracle-working God, then something like Darwinian evolution must be correct. But if there is even a chance that such a God exists, then basic intellectual integrity demands that you take seriously the criticisms directed against Darwinism. Michael Harrington helped ignite The Great Society and all the benefits and problems that were associated with that effort, and made the elimination of poverty a staple of Democratic politics. Natually he clashed with William F. Buckley, Jr., who viewed Johnson’s war on poverty as an exercise in futility. Forty years ago, Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. gave the nation one of the most infamous moments of incivility in television history. Buckley got over it; Gore Vidal never did. Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action: The Pursuit of Racial Equality in an Era of LimitsA credible argument can be made that Richard Nixon's implementation of affirmative action undermined the American tradition of liberal individualism, transformed the individual citizen into a member of a race or ethnic group, and gave birth to our modern racial identity politics. A review of Kevin Yuill's Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action. Like William F. Buckley, Jr., Dwight Macdonald attended Yale and the men shared a common concern regarding the state of popular culture and the dumbing down of American education and letters. But Macdonald considered National Review glib, non-traditional and anti-intellectual, and he clashed with Buckley over the Vietnam War and the role of civil disobedience. |
 
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