Even before Obama won a resounding victory over McCain and Democratic majorities expanded significantly in Congress, declarations that conservatism was finished had been pouring in from the left as they had in 1976 and 1992. The decimation of the Republican Party over the last two election cycles has left the vehicle for conventional conservative political action horribly damaged, broken and smoldering … [Read More]

Missing from most of the commentary on the brief war in Georgia was any mention of the contorted use of language in Western news coverage and opinion writing.  While there have been some reasonable observers discussing the conflict in Georgia, most mainstream reporting and commentary have persistently described the conflict as the “rape” of Georgia in which its capital has been … [Read More]

I confess, I am lacking in bloodlust, and my desire for punitive vengeance against people who have never done me or my country any harm is pitifully weak.  One of the things that people have become confused about is their acceptance of the idea that the government is a competent judge of who is and who is not our enemy, such … [Read More]

As promised, I will try to explain the relevance of nationalism as part of the present American predicament.  A good starting place is Dr. Fleming’s fine article that serves as an introduction to the subject.  There are many valuable things that could be cited here, but if we want to think about how nationalism continues to be a significant force and … [Read More]

Richard responded to one of my Eunomia posts on nationalism, and I have been slow in replying, but I think this question still deserves some attention even though we have batted it back and forth for months.  All of us often speak about both communism and nationalism as if they were singular and monolithic for the purposes of general discussion and … [Read More]

Grant Havers’ post on a number of prominent learned Tories included a brief mention of one of my favorite modern philosophers, the Canadian George Grant, whose criticisms of the American right and American empire anticipated many of the objections that we have been making in recent years.  It also reminded me of Grant’s deeper criticism of the American empire as a … [Read More]

It is odd, to say the least, to read a colleague of mine at this site complaining of someone else’s idiosyncratic positions, as if we prized conformity and predictability here, or attacking his skepticism of mass hysteria directed towards a supposedly pervasive foreign enemy.  It is especially strange to find such derision of anti-anticommunism in Richard’s post, since I very much … [Read More]

Neocon.  Crank.  Appeaser.  Such are the terms that my colleagues have lately been heaping on John Lukacs in response to his review of Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War.  There is something powerful strange about complaints of oversimplification, tendentiousness and axe-grinding expressed through the use of such labels.  While I must defer to Paul Gottfried’s testimony, since I know neither man … [Read More]

To declare an interest, I should say that I have had some ancestors in this country, or more technically on this continent, for 370 years, one of whom helped found the town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and most of the families I am descended from have been here longer than the Republic has existed, so when I read Kathleen Parker’s column about … [Read More]

So ladies and gentlemen, if I say I am an Americanist you will agree. ~There Will Be Blood (modified)  A few days ago, I saw the original story that reported the remark of one Josh Fry of West Virginia, which has since been widely discussed: He would just be more comfortable with “someone who is a full-blooded American as president.” Now … [Read More]