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You've Got to be Kidding, Girls
by Christopher Chantrill
A DECADE or so ago we all laughed about political correctness. It was so stupid that nobody could have been taken in by it. But here we have, in 2007, a program of deliberate indoctrination of college students, political correctness run wild at the University of Delaware, according to Mike S. Adams. The University of Delaware has just become one of the most Orwellian campuses in America. Students in its residence halls are unfold
Stuck on Stupid? Dems Want Carter Era Tax Rates
by Christopher Chantrill
THE CENTRAL idea of the Reagan revolution was that punitive tax rates, like the 70 percent top rate on “unearned” income, was a jobs killer. Greedy entrepreneurs just won’t go out and risk capital when the government is going to claw back up to 70 percent of their earnings. Liberals sneered at the Laffer Curve and called it “trickle-down” economics. But they pocketed their TIAA-CREF pensions swollen with the gains from a stock market that went from 1,000 to 10,000 in 20 years with nary a unfold
NYT Hoping Religious Right Will Go Away
by Christopher Chantrill
IT’S as regular as clockwork: the article in The New York Times reporting that the religious right is about to go away. This time it’s David D. Kirkpatrick’s turn. The old warhorses of the Religious Right are dying off, and many church communities are tired of hearing about politics from the preacher’s lectern. They are also tired and conflicted about the Iraq War. And what unfold
"Limited Lives" of Media Professionals
by Christopher Chantrill
HOW CAN we best understand the Scott Thomas mess? Why did the editors at The New Republic not realize that the “Baghdad Diaries” of Scott Thomas Beauchamp didn’t pass the smell test? It’s because they only “saw it in a movie,” writes Peggy Noonan. You remember, the great anti-war movies of “Kubrick and Coppola and Oliver Stone.” Shall we say that those movies were a little too unfold
What is the Difference Between Kerry and Beauchamp?
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT’S the difference between John Kerry and his Winter Soldier accusations and Scott Thomas Beauchamp and his Baghdad Diarist (cached) accusations? Both of them unfold
Government Worsens Hard Times
by Christopher Chantrill
REMEMBER the story of the Great Depression. Michael Medved does. It goes something like this: Capitalists and speculators went wild with greed in “The Roaring Twenties,” leading to a stock market crash and hard times. Banks closed, once prosperous workers sold apples on street-corners or became hobos in shanty-towns, while the Republican President Herbert Hoover did nothing for unfold
The End of Socialized Medicine?
by Christopher Chantrill
JUST AS Hillary Clinton is about to get her hands on the nation’s health-care system, Peter W. Huber reckons it’s too late. Universal health care is a “superstructure,” to use the Marxian term, built upon germ theory medicine. You can eradicate cholera and neo-natal deaths with a universal one-size-fits-all program. The problem is fairly simple and the solution is within the capabilities of government bureaucracy. But the new unfold
Not By Age, But Life Expectancy
by Christopher Chantrill
THE GOVERNMENT’S entitlements like Social Security are based on age entitlements. At age 62 you can get early retirement on Social Security. At age 65 you start Medicare. But government researchers are looking at another approach, writes Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution. The current practice of measuring age as years-since-birth, both in unfold
Will The Atheists' Plan Work?
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT WITH Governor-elect Bobby Jindal’s win in Louisiana (yes, they are celebrating back at his village in India) and Dinesh D’Souza’s new book out his month, race manipulators may start to wonder if South Asians are becoming overrepresented unfold
A Tale of the Times
by Christopher Chantrill
AS WE BATTLE on in the culture wars, trading barbs and op-eds back at headquarters, it is good to pause and find out what is going on at the front lines. I was struck recently by this report on a cohabiting couple by Sandra Parsons. She writes about the experience of a thirtysomething woman of her acquaintance. I’ll call her Anna, who for the past ten years has lived unfold
Civil Society in Iraq?
by Christopher Chantrill
WHEN THE United States first invaded Iraq you could tell that the Iraqis only knew to obey. When will “security” be restored, they asked. It’s possible, top-down peace and security, but it’s not the best kind. It’s the difference between “society” and the “state.” The state is the agency of force and compulsion. Society is the medium of peace and reconciliation. Now it looks like the Iraqis are finally fed up and they are taking responsibility for peace and unfold
Understanding the Risks We Take
by Christopher Chantrill
HOW DO YOU know what risk you are taking? That’s the subject of a book by Riccardo Rebonato, Plight of the Fortune Tellers unfold
Coercion in the Liberal University
by Christopher Chantrill
WE ALL SHAKE our heads at the absurdities of the movement ironically called political correctness. But, the problem is that it impacts real lives, as George Will reminds us. Quoting from a report from the National Association of Scholars, “The Scandal of Social Work Education,” he writes: In unfold
Who's Phoney Now?
by Christopher Chantrill
EVER SINCE the invention of the steam-driven printing press wise heads have advised hot-blooded youngsters not to tangle with the media: Never fight with a guy who owns his own printing press. That’s what they said. But recently prominent Democrats decided to mix it up with Rush Limbaugh on the question of who is the bigger patriot. It’s beginning to look as if the old rule still applies: Son, never mix it up with a guy who owns his own Golden EIB Microphone. A couple of weeks ago Senator unfold
"But Critics Say"
by Christopher Chantrill
IT WAS IMPRESSIVE to watch the network news on Friday as they marked the announcement of Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize for climate change advocacy. Among other things, they celebrated the number of hybrid cars bought and the number of fluorescent light bulbs installed. While nobody would want to rain on Al Gore’s victory parade, one cannot imagine that if President Bush had won an award the reports would lack the all important “But Critics Say” paragraph. Yet there was not a breath of a suggestion that unfold
Damning Hillary with Faint Praise
by Christopher Chantrill
MANY CONSERVATIVES must be mulling over the same thoughts as ACharles Krauthammer. If Hillary Clinton is going to be elected president what does it mean for me? Writes Krauthammer: I could never vote for her, but I (and others of my ideological ilk) could live with her — precisely because she is so liberated from principle. Her liberalism, like her husband’s — flexible, disciplined, calculated, unfold
Their Jihad and Ours
by Christopher Chantrill
EVER SINCE the seven century, we are all constantly reminded, jihad has been a one-way ticket to Islam. The jihad warriors conquered the ground, sweeping out of Arabia, westwards along the south shore of the Mediterranean and north through Spain, eastwards across the ancient lands of Persia and the great civilization of India. But they were not just nomad bands, strewing destruction in their wake. They offered a remarkable proposition to the peoples that they conquered, as
Now We Are Six
by Christopher Chantrill
USED TO be there was childhood and adulthood. Then there was old age. Then, about a hundred years ago they invented adolescence. Now they’d added a new one. So now David Brooks, emerging from behind the Times Select wall of silence, can write: There used to be four common life phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Now, there are at least unfold
Check the "Back Story" of every Dem Sob Story
by Christopher Chantrill
THE RIGHT-WING blogosphere has been having a grand old time with the Democrats’ latest poster child. A 12-year-old boy gave the Democrats’ weekly radio address a couple of weeks ago and used the opportunity to advocate for the S-CHIP program, a government health program for not-so-poor children. Democrats have recently passed an expansion of S-CHIP and President Bush has vetoed it. So Democrats have been hauling out the sob stories to develop the political momentum to override the president’s veto.
Mendacity, the Mark of Decline
by Christopher Chantrill
REMEMBER the good old days when Tennessee Williams wrote about the mendacity of the white South? In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof the corrupted South had to lie. They lied about the shameful homosexuality of Brick, the star college athlete and heir. They had to lie about Big Daddy’s cancer. And they made a virtue of it. As Big Daddy tells Brick: Boy, I’ve lived with mendacity. Now why can’t you live with it? You’ve got to live with it. There’s nothin’ to live with unfold
Democrats' Pretzel Patriotism
by Christopher Chantrill
THE FUSS over Rush Limbaugh and the “phoney soldiers” (is it phoney or phony?) flap is all about patriotism and the questioning thereof. Jonah Goldberg gets deep into the subject. [L]iberals routinely and righteously condemn the “questioning” of anyone’s patriotism — until they have a chance to do it themselves. For example, in the debates over the formation of the Department of Homeland unfold
Understanding the Left
by Christopher Chantrill
IT’S A week in which leading Democrats have determined to demonstrate that in spite of the pressing nature of the Social Security crisis and the Medicare crisis the most important use of their time is to send letters to the head of Clear Communications to complain about Rush Limbaugh. And for a United States Senator to threaten to censure someone who isn’t a member of the Senate. Did he or didn’t he? Call honest Democrats “phoney soldiers?” Did he or didn’t he call Brian McGough, unfold
Paying for Health Care -- and Education?
by Christopher Chantrill
FOR A CENTURY we have lived with the idea that things like education and health care were too important—and too complicated and expensive—for ordinary people to do on their own. That’s why we have the government spending about 0.85 trillion dollars a year on health care and 0.75 trillion dollars a year on education. You could look it up. Here’s a fearless prediction. We are going to have to give up the whole idea of government-run education and unfold
Is Rush Limbaugh That Important?
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT’S the point? That’s the question I have. Why would Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) come back to Washington DC on Monday and get right onto the floor of the United States Senate to blast—not Al Qaeda, not the revolutionary government of Iran, but—talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, the jaunty conservative optimist of the air-waves? Now we know that the “phony soldier” issue, the idea that last week Rush Limbaugh criticized all members of the armed forces opposed to the war, was raised by
Obama revises plan on tax cuts
by Christopher Chantrill
ALL THE Democratic presidential candidates started out firm in their determination to repeal the evil Bush tax-cuts-for-the-rich. You know the kind they mean. The kind of tax cuts that Paris Hilton gets (whatever that is). Apart from the fairness issue, for of course it is only fair for rich people to pay a higher tax rate than the middle class like you and me, the candidates needed the money to pay for universal health care. But now Sen. Barack Obama isn’t so sure, according to
Chappies
“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie
that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.”
—Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison
Hugo on Genius
“Tear down theory, poetic systems… No more rules, no more models… Genius conjures up
rather than learns… ” —Victor Hugo
César Graña, Bohemian versus Bourgeois
Education
“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State
Faith & Purpose
“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990
Conversion
“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh
Postmodernism
A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ’merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy
Faith and Politics
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable...
[1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006
China and Christianity
At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing
Religion, Property, and Family
But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family.
Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
Conservatism
Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity
US Life in 1842
Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
Society and State
For [the left] there is only the state and the individual, nothing in between. No family to rely on, no friend to depend on, no community to call on. No neighbourhood to grow in, no faith to share in, no charities to work in. No-one but the Minister, nowhere but Whitehall, no such thing as society - just them, and their laws, and their rules, and their arrogance.
David Cameron, Conference Speech 2008
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