Blogs for 2007 - Road to the Middle Class

PRESIDENT Bush seems to understand what President Reagan understood before him. A president has a chance to make only two or three moves on the chessboard of history. So he’d better make them good ones.

Alternatively, he can engage in fancy footwork like Third Way dancers Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, serving up eye-catching initiatives every week.

However even the best chess moves don’t necessarily look good at the time. Many people are more impressed by fancy footwork.

In his end of year piece unfold

What Presidents Wear

by Christopher Chantrill

WHEN THE Duke of Wellington fought the Battle of Waterloo, he did not wear a resplendent uniform. He wore, as Paul Johnson reminds us, “dark blue civilian dress.” He was, you may say, sending a message about military might. Victory in battle is all very well, but after it’s over, we are going home to peacetime pursuits.

At the Potsdam Conference immediately after World War II, he relates

[Prime Minister unfold

Liberal Fascism. So?

by Christopher Chantrill

THE LIBERALS are already reaching the tipping point on Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Someone already vandalized the product page at Amazon. (Would that be an inside job?)

But what’s all the fuss about? Liberalism comes from the same stable as communism and fascism? Of course. They are all reactionary movements trying escape from an alienation towards the modern age. They unfold

Is There a Conservative Future?

by Christopher Chantrill

IN THIS time of conservative discontent, seers and pundits are peering into the future. Will there be a conservative coalition in the future, they wonder?

Conservative pundit Tony Blankley takes a look, and wonders what it would take to keep a majority coalition going.

It would have to hold almost all of its Reagan coalition plus gain the support of at least 40 percent of the growing Hispanic vote.

And that unfold

Xmas at the Party of Government

by Christopher Chantrill

YOU GOTTA LOVE Hillary’s Xmas Card. I refuse to watch it (ok, I did watch it when I went to get the link) but Jonah Goldberg says it’s about Hillary Clinton getting all her Xmas gifts together, the ones she is going to give to you, the voter.

One is labeled "Universal Health Care," another is "Alternative Energy," another is "Middle Class Tax Breaks." And then the unfold

Reconciliation In Iraq?

by Christopher Chantrill

OBVIOUSLY something has changed in Iraq in the last year. The question is what, and what will happen next.

Will the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq lead to a reconciliation between Sunni and Shia, or will the civil war resume once the US starts to reduce its forces in the year ahead?

Conservative commentators like Michael Ledeen are optimistic.

Meanwhile, the country’s leading religious leaders seem on the unfold

Why Is It So Cold? Maybe the Sun?

by Christopher Chantrill

EVERYONE knows that the polar bears are in trouble and Greenland is about to melt because of all the global warming.

In fact, though, the world is in the middle of a cold snap, according to geophysicist (and, presumably climate change denier) David Deming.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year unfold

Ripping the Republican Big Tent Apart

by Christopher Chantrill

FIFTY YEARS ago the US conservative movement began in a fusion between Burkean conservatives and libertarian conservatives. In the late Sixties they were joined by the “mugged by reality” neoconservatives.

Then in the 1970s the Supreme Court created the Christian Right with Roe v. Wade and added social conservatives to the movement.

These different factions in the conservative movement have not always got along, but they have learned to live with each other and to respect each other’s agenda. The poster boy unfold

Huckabee Sucks Up to Liberals

by Christopher Chantrill

THEY SAY that presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, despite his aw-shucks manner is a true product of Arkansas politics—like Bill Clinton.

So it’s not surprising that in his upcoming article for Foreign Affairs magazine he says just what the liberal Council on Foreign Relations would want to hear.

The Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been unfold

Hewitt Peels a Brokaw

by Christopher Chantrill

RADIO TALK-SHOW host Hugh Hewitt is a master of the interview. His particular skill is painting a picture of a subject’s political views when the subject refuses to be categorized.

No, they say, in answer to the question about voting for Reagan or Bush. I don’t tell who I voted for. So Hewitt spends the next 30 minutes—or 60 minutes—painting an exact picture of the subject’s world unfold

What is the Meaning of Change?

by Christopher Chantrill

WHEN THE DEMOCRATS talk about "Change," what do they mean? Mark Steyn wondered about that for the benefit of his readers. It’s puzzling, because, as he writes:

The Democrats are the party of stasis: on affirmative action, there can be no change; on abortion absolutism, there can be no change; even on a less cobwebbed shibboleth such as the Iraq war, there can be no change

The other day Barack Obama broke with the program and proposed on Social unfold

Michael Novak for Romney

by Christopher Chantrill

READERS of RMC will know that Michael Novak is one of our RMC Chappies. That’s because of his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism and its notion of the Greater Separation of Powers.

So when Michael Novak comes out for Mitt Romney, we listen. He says he’s been privately for Romney for some time but the egregious bigotry of Mike Huckabee forced him to go public. And unfold

Can Obama Really Solve Everything?

by Christopher Chantrill

MANY CONSERVATIVES have been annoyed by the intrasigence of Democrats during the Bush years. There’s no doubt it’s been effective and deflected Republicans from overdue reforms of the welfare state.

But the Dems have come to believe in a dangerous illusion that as Jonah Goldberg puts it:

If only Democrats ran things, there’d be no war, our allies would love us, global warming would be brought to heel, and we would unfold

We Interrupt This Message

by Christopher Chantrill

THE SHOCKING thing about the actions of New Life Church member Jeanne Assam’s takedown of assassin Matthew Murray is the break with the narrative.

There we were, worrying about “hate speech” and the NIE assessment, whether Hillary Clinton is slipping in the race for the presidency, and listening respectfully to all the important talking heads when suddenly the story changed.

Instead of the usual liberal narrative about “hate” we had a true hater knocking off Christians in Colorado. And all of a sudden a woman unfold

Is Huckabee a Liberal Plant?

by Christopher Chantrill

IF YOU ARE like me you haven’t been too impressed by Mike Huckabee. Just something about the guy. So now that the hit-jobs are coming out, I can’t say I’m that upset. Douglas MacKinnon even wonders whether Huckabee is a liberal plant!

If you are the eventual Democratic nominee for President in 2008, who would you like to run against? Answer: A Republican you can beat.

unfold

Libs Ante Up in War on Terror

by Christopher Chantrill

MANY CONSERVATIVES are angry about the naked political slanting in the latest National Intelligence Estimate. How do we suddenly know with high confidence that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003? But I am more sanguine.

With the NIE the opponents of President Bush within the administration have put a bet on the table. It’s one thing to be embarrassing the Bushies with embarrassing leaks. It’s another thing when you suddenly up and say: Hey, look, No Nukes! All of a sudden you unfold

Romney's American Creed

by Christopher Chantrill

YOU CAN read the MSM’s hostility to religion any time you open a newspaper or tune into a network news broadcast. Here’s CNN on presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s speech on religion and America December 6, 2007.

White House hopeful Mitt Romney on Thursday articulated his position on the role of religion in America, but avoided details about his personal faith.

What is it about these unfold

Gingrich pushes platform in Iowa

by Christopher Chantrill

NEWT’S in Iowa and running for VP. He’s also pushing his latest update on the Contract with America, a poll-tested set of issues called “Platform for America.” Here’s what he’s pushing, according to Ralph Z. Hollow.

The former speaker said his appearances in Iowa this week are "about a single-page flat tax" (82 percent), a "moment of silent prayer in school" (94 percent) and the unfold

Derb Admits He's Bored With Election

by Christopher Chantrill

THE FEDERAL government makes such a mess of everything that there’s not much any of the candidates can do. And they are good candidates. Writes John Derbyshire:

I even like some of these guys. War hero... confident and successful businessman/governor... tough no-nonsense mayor... laid-back, witty showbiz type with good conservative creds... There’s plenty to like, almost an embarrassment of riches.

unfold

Chavez Loses Vote--Just

by Christopher Chantrill

LET’S give one cheer for the failure of President Hugo Chavez to make himself president-for-life. Venezuelans voted down his proposed constitutional “reforms.” As Frank Bajak reports:

Foes of the reform effort - including Roman Catholic leaders, media freedom groups, human rights groups and prominent business leaders - said it would have granted Chavez unchecked power and imperiled basic rights.

It’s a sad fact unfold

TAGS

Moral Imperatives of Modern Culture

These emerge out of long-standing moral notions of freedom, benevolence, and the affirmation of ordinary life... I have been sketching a schematic map... [of] the moral sources [of these notions]... the original theistic grounding for these standards... a naturalism of disengaged reason, which in our day takes scientistic forms, and a third family of views which finds its sources in Romantic expressivism, or in one of the modernist successor visions.
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self

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

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

Never Trust Experts

No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.
Lord Salisbury, “Letter to Lord Lytton”

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Government Expenditure

The Union publishes an exact return of the amount of its taxes; I can get copies of the budgets of the four and twenty component states; but who can tell me what the citizens spend in the administration of county and township?
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

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

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

Racial Discrimination

[T]he way �to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis,� Brown II, 349 U. S., at 300�301, is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
Roberts, C.J., Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District

Physics, Religion, and Psychology

Paul Dirac: �When I was talking with Lema�tre about [the expanding universe] and feeling stimulated by the grandeur of the picture that he has given us, I told him that I thought cosmology was the branch of science that lies closest to religion. However [Georges] Lema�tre [Catholic priest, physicist, and inventor of the Big Bang Theory] did not agree with me. After thinking it over he suggested psychology as lying closest to religion.�
John Farrell, �The Creation Myth�

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