ne of the remarkable features of our age is the incredible degree of consensus among the institutions of power. Far from checks and balances or a proliferation of “little platoons,” the Left has forged a phalanx. While it seems that our country currently is undergoing a lot of conflict, what is taking place is largely […]
n September 11, 2001, our nation was attacked, and thousands of our countrymen were murdered. Americans awoke scared, confused, and angry. Less than a month later, our fighting men were in Afghanistan. Special Forces on horseback and B-1 Bombers with precision munitions soon joined forces with the Afghan Northern Alliance and devastated the Taliban and […]
n April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The country was aghast at the deaths of 168 innocent federal workers, including a number of children at the building’s daycare center, all murdered in the blink of an eye. Soon, McVeigh was arrested. It was undeniable that he […]
n 1952, Mississippi State Senator Noah Sweat famously gave a speech on the subject of prohibition, which was still highly debated in the South. Promising not to shy away from controversy, he spoke: If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys […]
watched a good chunk of last week’s Democratic National Convention. It’s always useful to study the message and morale of one’s opponents. While the Zoom infomercial approach was remarkably boring—a traumatic echo of what we have all had to endure over the last six months—several key themes emerged amid the dead air and absent applause. […]
ack in the day, there was no confusion about which party was tough on crime: Republicans were the law and order party. Whether it was the death penalty, support for tough sentences, or rejecting the therapeutic approach to incarceration, for several decades this was one of the key differences between the two parties. This distinction […]
his week New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James, sought to dissolve the National Rifle Association. She took this action ostensibly to pursue a claim of financial mismanagement. But the real reasons are obvious: the NRA is the preeminent defender of the Second Amendment, and the Left—and New York leftists in particular—really hate guns. In her […]
hen I was a kid, I used to love the show “Fraggle Rock.” A creation of “The Muppets’” Jim Henson, it detailed the underground life of the Fraggles. These furry imaginary creatures lived alongside the dutiful Doozers, who quietly built their elaborate, edible constructions. The Doozers built and the Fraggles ate, without any apparent hard […]
he death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has convulsed the entire country. His story has become an allegory for a malevolent criminal justice system indifferent to the lives of black men. Not only did his death elevate the motto, “Black Lives Matter,” it ushered in a summer of protests and unrest. The Dead as Martyrs […]
he spate of restrictive measures aimed at the coronavirus has revealed a crisis of authority. A lot of Americans are not following the rules, and they do not recognize the right of the rulemakers to command them. Masks and social distancing have become partisan issues, with many on the Right actively resisting restrictions and questioning […]
nce upon a time, America’s unofficial motto was: “It’s a free county.” Americans largely agreed that all could and should do what they wanted, assuming they weren’t hurting anyone else. You like vacations, someone else likes being a homebody. You like rock, he likes rap, and she likes country. If you wanted to smoke, ride […]
irst we were warned about an exponential increase. Cases were doubling and tripling in as many days. Soon millions would be sick and dying. Then we were warned of rising deaths, even though many of these deaths had other causes. We were told to flatten the curve. We needed to stay home. We should not […]
he last few weeks have seen a nonstop explosion of disorder, violence, and hostility to America and its history. The message is plain: the old America was bad to its core, worthy of no respect, and therefore its heroes, history, and heritage must be paved over to make way for a new order. President Trump […]
he recent eruption of rage directed at the police, symbols of our nation’s past, and normal patriotic sentiment has been a sight to behold. What began as a rather predictable anti-police protest in the wake of George Floyd’s death has morphed into a nationwide orgy of iconoclasm. The whole episode is reminiscent of the 1960s, […]
rotests and looting were supplanted last week by an orgy of more symbolic destruction. Statues of various figures from our civilization’s past—Christopher Columbus, a Texas Ranger, numerous confederate Civil War memorials, and even Philadelphia’s Frank Rizzo—have been toppled, defaced, or scheduled for removal by compliant officials. In the same spirit, a Senate GOP committee recently […]
uring the Iraq War, the insurgency spent a lot of its resources attacking infrastructure, particularly the electrical grid. This made life miserable for ordinary Iraqis. That outcome seems to go against the logic of insurgency, where the center of gravity is the people’s allegiance. But making life uncertain and unbearable means that even if the […]
ace riots are underway again; beginning in Minneapolis but now spread to many major cities. These things always follow the same trajectory. First, there is a questionable incident involving law enforcement and a black man. Next, the ugly images, questions, protests, and agitators. Then the protests turn violent. The logic of collective punishment is afoot. […]
erhaps the most unserious response to the coronavirus pandemic has been the facile assertion that lockdowns, the destruction of the economy, and the suppression of our historic freedoms are all justified if they “save just one life.” As Joe Biden put it on Twitter, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: No one […]
olice officers dealing with the public have a fairly savvy approach to persuasion: first ask, then tell, then force. It works because it accounts for the dignity and self-respect of others. Uncertain rookie cops and bullies are the ones who forget to ask, adding unnecessary friction to encounters between citizens and the state. In the […]
he media lies all the time. We have seen it on Russian collusion, Covington Catholic, the coronavirus, and a host of other subjects. When they are not lying, they engage in a kind of willful distortion of the facts, focusing on unrepresentative stories of the “man bites dog” variety without providing useful context. This is […]