The United States is reaching a grim milestone: One million murdered Americans. The FBI just released the Uniform Crime Report for 2016, and it contains good news and bad news. The report’s two main categories are property crime (burglary, larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson) and violent crime (rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and a category […]
The brouhaha over political demonstrations during the National Anthem makes me think of a scene from “Junior Bonner,” a 1972 Sam Peckinpah film about rodeo cowboys starring Steve McQueen. A barroom brawl has broken out during the rodeo’s noontime break, and the biggest bruiser in the joint decides to put a stop to it. How […]
“A murderer forfeits his life, and it is right that he should be killed by the sword.” So said Martin Luther, and his argument to that effect, cited here last week, may have impressed some readers and discombobulated others. But among those who confidently tell one another and the world that it’s unchristian—nay, uncivilized—to put […]
In January, I took up Donald Trump’s extraordinary promise to bring the crime and violence we know today to a quick end. I argued that this seemingly impossible vow can be fulfilled, but only by dramatically increasing the speed and certainty with which murderers are put to death. My piece had no impact at National […]
Four decades ago, I worked in oil and gas exploration. I was laying a seismic survey line through a community outside of Dallas when an old man came out of his home to see what I was up to. Before long, he was telling me his problems. He couldn’t own anything, he said, because […]
Here’s a little anecdote from Hollywood’s Golden Age that contains a lesson for us today. This is how the Egyptian scholar Amro Ali tells it: Film titan Cecil DeMille opened up negotiations with King Farouk for permission to film in Egypt the epic story of Moses in “The Ten Commandments.” The King agreed but was […]
Donald Trump won the presidency by gaining the support of people who had previously voted Democratic, and he will lose their support if he does not fulfill the promises he made to them. Of all those promises, none seems less controversial, yet more impossible, than this one: “I have a message for all of you: […]
In Henry Fielding’s novel Tom Jones, one Ensign Northerton quarrels with our hero and, without warning, deals him a seemingly mortal blow. Placed under arrest, the assailant begins to consider the consequences of his crime. Fielding writes that Northerton: had a great antipathy to those close winter quarters in the Castle of Gloucester, for which […]