On Sunday night, while listening to “FOX news contributors all” clarify our current financial crisis, I picked up a remark by William Kristol indicating that our stock market and banks should be “more closely regulated.” Kristol went on to explain this regulation accorded “with the system of democratic capitalism created for this country by Alexander Hamilton.” The other news contributors listened … [Read More]

Having seen “American Carol” on the basis of James Hirsen’s glowing review on Newsmax I am still reacting to this flick’s neoconservative message with a queasy stomach. From my exposure to this movie that David Zucker threw together with Bill O’Reilly, who appears as one of the movie’s characters, it seems that I was viewing a cinematic adaptation of Victor Davis … [Read More]

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]

Are GOP partisans as dumb as they seem? My answer to this query is “at least as dumb as turkeys, the mouths of which have to be shut when it rains, lest they swallow too much water and drown.” How else does one explain the continued enthusiasm shown by conservative-GOP activists for the “conservative” McCain-Palin ticket? Although for years conservatives of … [Read More]

Stephen J. Sniegoski’s The Transparent Cabal would be the book of the year in a less manipulated society than our own. I suggest as much in my introduction; and former Congressman Paul Findley, who wrote the foreword, lavishes equally high praise on this monument to diligence. Almost as interesting as the book’s content are certain facts about it: for example, that … [Read More]

Having been listening to happy talk for more than a week about the “Palin factor,” courtesy of all my local friends and the commentaries of Pat Buchanan, and having felt at least for a few minutes some of the same euphoria about the GOP vice-presidential candidate, it now seems appropriate to look at the gaping hole in the donut. Although Palin … [Read More]

It is really a shame that Sarah Palin, who reminds me of Donna Reed in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, has already flubbed her first test in standing up to the left. When a walking human embodiment of sheer vileness Representative Robert Wexler (of Florida or Potomac, Maryland, depending on whom Wexler is speaking to) identified Sarah with the “Nazi sympathizer” Pat … [Read More]

Austin Bramwell and Gerald Russello have taken different sides on whether American conservatives need a “canon of great books” to guide them. While Bramwell has disputed the value of this project, Russello aided by Dan McCarthy has argued on its behalf. Despite my forty-year involvement as a scholar dealing with the American Right and, more recently, the faux Right, I find … [Read More]

Last week it dawned on me while listening to the two major presidential candidates talk about abortion that their topic meant about as much to them as river boat gambling. Like having gambling facilities placed on the edge of a river from whose activities the state can then draw revenues, the politics of abortion means a lot for some groups, especially … [Read More]

This essay is the final installment in a three-part symposium on the problem of sovereignty. Earlier contributions were made by Thomas E. Woods Jr and John Zmirak. Unlike at least some of my readers, I find nothing intrinsically offensive about the idea of state sovereignty. That is because I don’t see individualism or anarchy as the preferred perspective for understanding political … [Read More]