Last week John Derbyshire posted on NRO a justification for his atheism, a comment that brought forth a thunderous response on this website from a devout Catholic John Zmirak. Having read both these commentaries, it seems that neither is entirely convincing. Zmirak goes after those who treat sociobiology as the key to human behavior; in the process he makes light of … [Read More]

On Sept. 30, 1938, 70 years ago, Neville Chamberlain visited Adolf Hitler’s apartment in Munich, got his signature on a three-sentence declaration and flew home to Heston Aerodrome. “I’ve got it,” he shouted to Lord Halifax. “Here is a paper which bears his name.” At the request of George VI, Chamberlain was driven to Buckingham Palace, where he joined the king … [Read More]

Though I maintain my faith in the basic decency of loyal Republican voters, the accusation that some are just plain dumb has increasingly become harder to refute.  [Read More]

Since the Truman administration, Democrats have called for the nationalization of the health-care industry. The Democratic Party’s position, stressed more strongly at some times than at others, has been that the average Joe should not have to sacrifice much to pay his family’s medical bills. For Republicans, this has been sacrilege. And a threat. As William Kristol famously explained of the … [Read More]

I was going to live-blog the debate, but it was so boring that I fell asleep before I could post it on Takimag. In any case, this was supposedly a debate about foreign policy, but more than half of it was taken up with the peculiar obsession of the insufferable Jim Lehr, of PBS, who manages to combine earnestness and pretentiousness … [Read More]

Before the site is glutted with debate commentary, a word on Rod Dreher’s latest C11 column. Its title, and much of its substance, is taken from the last page of After Virtue, but a couple of Dreher’s comments on Benedictine monasticism are misleading. The paragraphs I’m talking about (all emphases mine):For some time now, Julie and I have been talking with … [Read More]

Jim, let me just make a point. I’ve got a bracelet, too… ~Barack Obama This statement, better than anything else said, sums up Barack Obama’s performance at the presidential debate last night. Coming in a close second would be this exchange on the Georgia-Russia situation (or was it the Wall Street bailouts?): LEHRER: You see any—do you have a major difference … [Read More]

How did the United States of America, the richest nation on earth, whose economy represents 30 percent of the Global Economy, arrive at the precipice of a financial panic and collapse? The answer lies in the abject failure of both America’s financial elite and the political elite of both parties—the same elites now working together to determine how much of our … [Read More]

For most of my adult life, I have only claimed two celebrities as heroes - Pat Buchanan and Ric Flair. It’s never been a secret that I’m a huge pro wrestling fan and in admiring the world’s greatest pro wrestler, I suppose Flair’s character has always been the perfect extension of my own shallow male fantasies. What red-blooded American male would … [Read More]

When the Soviet Union collapsed, it seemed for 20 minutes or so that America might revert from being a crusade back into a country. For 50 years, we’d served as the arsenal of democracy, its moneybags, its poolhall bouncer. With the cave-in of Communism—accomplished through means miraculous, by unarmed Polish dockworkers, without a war—it appeared we might catch a break. Our … [Read More]