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The Conservative View from 2008
by Christopher Chantrill
BECAUSE so much happened in 2008 on such an epic scale, it is hard to know what it means. Take the election of Barack Obama to be President of the United States. Is this primarily the election of the first African American president? Or just the election of yet another Harvard Law School grad, the liberal elite taking care of business? What about the epic collapse in the credit markets? Will this result in a ratchet upwards in political control of the economy? Or will it cause the politicians to lower the risks in the unfold
| 12/31/08 4:36 pm ETChristian Right Does Direct Democracy
by Christopher Chantrill
DID YOU know that abortion is the biggest item in “protest” activity? Yep. Wins by a mile. In a review of a book on the Christian Right The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right by Jon Wright, Richard John Neuhaus notes how it is the Christian Right that has taken up the challenge for direct democracy that the SDS made in their Port Huron Statement in the Sixties.
“[S]ome 45 percent of respondents in the Citizens Participation Survey who reported participating in a unfold
| 12/30/08 4:04 pm ETNaomi Klein's Latest Lefty Screed
by Christopher Chantrill
NAOMI KLEIN is a lefty journalist and author, daughter of anti-war Sixties parents that went to Canada during the Vietnam War. In her No Logo, she railed against the Nineties economy. As I wrote for Liberty: She is shocked by the megabrands, the brand bombers, and the category killers of the modern consumer society. For in the blaring public space of the brands there is No Space for artists unfold
| 12/29/08 3:49 pm ETThe Universe of Hope
by Christopher Chantrill
IF YOU WANT real Hope and Change, don’t expect it from a politician. You are committing a category error. Everyone agrees that soldiers and politicians are the fighters, businessmen and workers are the workers, and teachers, clerics, and writers are the prayers. It’s the job of the teachers and clerics in the moral/cultural sector to be in charge of the hoping. So if you want to ponder the question of hope, the Christmas (or Hannukah, or Divali) festival is a good one to anchor your thoughts. All these mid-winter unfold
| 12/24/08 12:55 pm ETNYT: Bush to Blame for Mortgage Meltdown!
by Christopher Chantrill
LET’S say it up front. President Bush was not early enough or firm enough in calling a halt to the housing boom/bubble. For some years, it is clear, Bush just kept on the policy of mortgage-at-any-cost (especially to minorities) which has been the policy of the US government for decades. But you’d have to have your head in a liberal bell jar to write a news story about the housing crisis and not mention “Community Reinvestment Act.” You’d have to try really hard not to mention the word “Dodd.” unfold
| 12/23/08 12:04 pm ETThe Corruption and the Temptation
by Christopher Chantrill
UP UNTIL the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Democratic Party was split between the “honest graft” wing and the squeaky clean liberal or progressive wing. (Let’s leave the Southern Democratic Party out of this.) Liberals were embarrassed by the corrupt city machines, and the ward heelers were contemptuous of the egg-head liberals who were full of ideas but couldn’t get anyone to the polls. Of course, both of these tendencies are bad, very bad. The routine corruption of city machines was a unfold
| 12/22/08 2:36 pm ETMusic Really Is the Food of Love
by Christopher Chantrill
COUNT ORSINO in Twelfth Night was one of the most pompous lovers ever. What did the plucky Viola see in him? But he knew the importance of music: If music be the food of love, play on; There you have the two themes of sex. Music and death. Being holiday season and all, the London Economist has a long and learned unfold
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
| 12/19/08 2:30 pm ETThe Kennedys Ain't What They Used To Be
by Christopher Chantrill
NOBODY COULD say that the Kennedy political machine didn’t practice nepotism. Old Joe Kennedy would probably have made Gov. Blagojevich (D-IL) look like a piker if we’d known about his shenanigans. (Why do you think we use that Irish word to communicate the notion of dodgy political footwork?) But at least Jack Kennedy actually ran and won races for the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. And at least Ted Kennedy ran for the Senate in 1962. But now we have the latest Kennedy scion, Caroline Kennedy Schossberg, unfold
| 12/18/08 1:37 pm ETPushing on a String
by Christopher Chantrill
AT THIS stage of the business cycle pundits usually talk about the Fed pushing on a string. They mean that the Fed can’t actually make people start to borrow. All the Fed can do is print money and hope that economic activity starts to revive. The usual response is that, of course, economic activity will revive; it always does. But until it does, who knows how long it will be before greed takes over from fear. The worry is that the Fed is reaching the zone of “quantitative easing.” That was what the Bank unfold
| 12/17/08 6:12 pm ETWere Talent-spotters Right on Obama?
by Christopher Chantrill
FEDERAL Appeal Court Judge and über-liberal Abner Mikva was an early patron of President-elect Obama, according to Tom Hundley. He “was among the first to spot the potential of the skinny young law school graduate with the odd name.” "I use a Yiddish expression, yiddishe neshuma, to describe him," explains Mikva. "It means a Jewish soul. It’s an expression my mother used. It means a sensitive, unfold
| 12/16/08 2:46 pm ETBrit Laborites Propose Welfare Reform
by Christopher Chantrill
THEY SAID it wouldn’t work. They said that millions of children would starve. That’s what the experts and the advocates said when President Clinton signed the US welfare reform bill 12 years ago. They were wrong. All that has happened in the United States is that the welfare rolls have gone down and poverty rates have decreased. Now the British Labour Party, champion of welfare and social programs, has announcd a welfare reform plan for Britain. It comes not before time, as Brits have been regaled unfold
| 12/15/08 4:00 pm ETDouble Whammy Morning
by Christopher Chantrill
FACED WITH the failure of the auto bailout in the United States Senate and the collapse of a $50 billion Ponzi scheme markets plumm... well, they seem to have shrugged. At noon, 12/12/2008, the Dow was down 95.02 points and the Nasdaq was up 5 points. So that just shows you. It’s not the end of the world. Yet. Most likely, as long as the financial system holds unfold
| 12/12/08 12:09 pm ETWhat About a Stimulus That Works!
by Christopher Chantrill
EVERYONE agrees that what the world needs now is Stimulus. But what kind of stimulus should it be? Should it be a tax rate cut, as Republicans and conservatives would recommend? Or should it be spending on stuff like infrastructure, as Democrats and liberals would recommend, and as President-elect Obama seems to prefer? Harvard economics prof Greg Mankiw has some ideas on this. And like a true economist, he grades the different approaches unfold
| 12/11/08 4:06 pm ETPolitics and Programs and Corruption
by Christopher Chantrill
EVERYONE is chuckling about the criminal allegations made against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D). His blatant determination to “sell” the vacated US Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama for value received is so over the top that you can’t help but laugh. Even the Wall Street Journal was able to crack a grin. Of course, the president-elect had nothing to do with this. Nothing. But liberals, isn’t it time to look in unfold
| 12/10/08 12:24 pm ETOur Liberal Dominator Hierarchy
by Christopher Chantrill
IS THE BAD old days of the feudal era and the patriarchy, if you can remember back that far, the world was ruled by Dominator Hierarchies. But the progressive educated elite offered itself in the nineteenth century to end all that. No, in the future we would all be gently led into a new era of equality and end the marginalization of groups oppressed by the dominators and the marginalizers. That’s what they told us. Now let’s think reality. Was there ever a Dominator Hierarchy like our modern progressive unfold
| 12/09/08 5:56 pm ETWal-Mart's FEMA Actually Delivers
by Christopher Chantrill
LIBERALS hate Wal-Mart. Well, they do. They hate Wal-Mart because it puts Main Street businesses out of business. They hate Wal-Mart because it’s non-union and it doesn’t offer first-dollar health insurance. But Wal-Mart delivers Always Low Prices, Always. And that helps all people on low incomes. Funnily enough, Wal-Mart is doing fine in the current recession while Whole Foods is tanking. And Wal-Mart is a good corporate citizen where it counts. Like in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as the
| 12/08/08 4:48 pm ETRebuilding the Conservative Story Part III: Elevator Story
by Christopher Chantrill
WE’VE spent the last couple of days talking about the conservative story. What is our Vision? What is our Mission? Now it’s time to define our elevator story. Every enterprise needs an Elevator Story. It’s the spiel you give to someone in 30 seconds or less when they say: unfold
| 12/05/08 12:37 pm ETRebuilding the Conservative Story Part II: Mission Statement
by Christopher Chantrill
YESTERDAY we triumphantly designed a Vision Statement to guide conservatives during our rebuilding process. Today, as promised, we are releasing a Mission Statement to the world. As everyone knows, in the subculture of off-site team-building meetings, the Vision Statement is a gauzy, uplifting, inspirational definition of the goal of an organization. The Mission Statement is more down to earth. It answers the unfold
| 12/04/08 1:57 pm ETRebuilding the Conservative Story Part I: Vision Statement
by Christopher Chantrill
BEFORE WE get to the specifics and the personalities of the glorious conservative future—will it be Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal—let’s do the due diligence. Let’s start with a Vision Statement.
Yes, I know, all that off-site team-building stuff is awfully trite, but it has a point. It forces you to think about: Who we are, and what do we want, and why? So let’s start with a Vision Statement. Here it is: We believe in an America that lives and works together, with limited government, unfold
| 12/03/08 11:34 am ETAnthro Knickers in a Twist
by Christopher Chantrill
I’D never heard of Montogmery McFate. Well I do now. She’s the social scientist that inspired the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System in Iraq. Says Wired: Today she is the senior social science adviser for the Human Terrain System, a $130 million Army program that embeds political science, anthropology and economics specialists with combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh no! Social scientists assisting unfold
| 12/02/08 4:50 pm ETAfter Mumbai
by Christopher Chantrill
THE BIG question about “islamic extremism” is whether to consider it a global mass movement of militant conquest or whether to think of it as a Ghost Shirt movement. We’ve seen a number of global mass movements over the past century or so: commmunism, socialism, fascism. There were certainly moments when it looked like those movements, at once modern and reactionary, looked like they might take over the world. Does islamic terrorism fit into that template? Or is it like the late 19th century
| 12/01/08 1:43 pm ET
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
Civil Society
“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust
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
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