It may be something of a surprise that, as a long time conservative, I now support Barack Obama. In 1968, I was a speechwriter first for Ronald Reagan, when Governor of California, then, as Richard Nixon became the presidential nominee, a speechwriter for Nixon, working at his home office at 450 Park Avenue. I became a senior editor at National Review … [Read More]

In writing my endorsement of Ralph Nader, I passed rather quickly over the question of the right-wing splinter parties, namely the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party, so as not to get bogged down in an extended discussion. I see, however, from the reaction to my piece, that the bog is unavoidable. The question I quite consciously avoided is the one … [Read More]

New York America’s diminished intellectualism has made this interminable election period as boring as a Nat Rothschild Corfu party for respectable folk. Part of the problem is that presidential candidates try ‘to reach out to younger voters’, hardly an admirable goal as demographic researchers have gone the way of TV programmers, targeting young morons whose Facebooks comprise 90 per cent of … [Read More]

If Barack Obama is not a socialist, he does the best imitation of one I’ve ever seen. Under his tax plan, the top 5 percent of wage-earners have their income tax rates raised from 35 percent to 40 percent, while the bottom 40 percent of all wage-earners, who pay no income tax, are sent federal checks. If this is not the … [Read More]

I’ve argued in The American Conservative that, because most states are not in contention, the only rational use of the ballot is to send a message by casting single-issue vote for the Third Party presidential candidate who represents that issue. The most important issue in facing America is the imminent abolition of the historic American nation by out-of-control mass immigration, both … [Read More]

No conservative or libertarian can possibly contemplate voting for either of the “major” party candidates, this time around, on several grounds, the most conspicuous being their intractable and almost instinctive predilection for deploying the all-too-visible hand of government as the end-all and be-all of “solutions” to our problems, foreign as well as domestic. As far as the frontrunner, Barack Obama, is … [Read More]

Karen De Coster’s article on “The Standard of Living Bubble” leaves open, inevitably, the question of foreign equivalents to the hoggish economic meltdown that Miss De Coster describes. Still unsolved, for instance, is the mystery of why Australia, so far, has managed (unlike, by the looks of it, France) to avoid the worst of the real estate bubble. Why should this … [Read More]

Being an assortment of presidential endorsements, wild speculations, and cris de coeur by contributors to Taki’s Magazine How I Became a Resentful Naderite By Peter Brimelow I’ve argued in The American Conservative that, because most states are not in contention, the only rational use of the ballot is to send a message by casting single-issue vote for the Third Party presidential … [Read More]

“Democracy,” says Mencken, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” There’s probably no better summation of the 2008 election. After an interminable campaign, Americans are urged to go exercise their little slices of the Popular Will and decide who shall be the The Decider for the next four years. … [Read More]

On February 25, 1917, Russian soldiers serving Tsar Nicholas II in St. Petersburg faced a choice. On November 4, 2008, Americans voters will stand in the same position. They must choose between a crooked, bumbling oligarchy prone to starting futile wars—and a ravening, reckless mob. While it’s mostly made up of citizens rightly enraged, the mob is led (or will soon … [Read More]