Impeachment 01: What Is It?
100 million Americans are calling on Congress to impeach the President, but not one in ten has the slightest idea of what impeachment is. Listen to the first installment to our primer on the process.
Author: Thomas Fleming
What Is Paleoconservatism? Part IV: From Ideological Patchwork to a Philosophy of Human Nature
As it took shape, “paleoconservatism”—like all ideologies—was a piece of bric à brac, cobbled together with pieces from 1950’s liberalism that flew the false flag of conservatism, from which it took hostility to big government, public indecency, and abortion rights; from the misnamed ‘old right,’ from which it borrowed opposition to imperial wars; from the Libertarians, who strongly influenced—most obviously—our anti-imperialism, as well as the emphasis on individual liberty and non-governmental solutions to social problems, and from the populist traditions a suspicion of the ruling elite and a respect for the opinions of ordinary people whose brains had not been...
Poem: St. Francis
Friday is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi. This crude poem–sometimes described as a piece of rhyming prose– is written in Umbrian, an Italian dialect distinct from but not too different from the Florentine Tuscan that Dante made the language of Italian literature
Mean Old Gambling Polka Dot Blues
A podcast on the casino mania that afflicts the dying cities of the American South and Rustbelt–with apologies to Jimmie Rodgers.
What is Paleoconservatism, Part III: An Excursus on Politics
Each generation does what it can in its own time and in its own way. Fundamental principles—political as well as moral—do not change, but the challenges that require a political response are always changing. There is little point in quarreling with the conservatives who defined themselves almost exclusively by their opposition to Communism, an entirely evil political doctrine implemented and reinforced by actions and policies that were equally evil. Nonetheless, whatever their virtues might have been, those defenders of the New Deal status quo had little to say of any use to people of the year 1990, and their attitudes, in...
Remedies Worse Than the Disease, I: Term Limits
Political reformers looking to mire America more deeply in corruption and inefficiency have come up with term limits as a care for everything from warts to constitutional liberty.
What Is Paleoconservatism: Part II: They make a desert, they call it peace.
From almost the day of Reagan’s election, many self-described conservatives were having serious doubts about the usefulness—and sincerity—of the so-called movement and the institutions and publications that were its most public face. Skepticism developed into cynicism and disgust as a set of leftist opportunists—“so-called neoconservatives”—waged a blitzkrieg campaign to take over the movement. When conservative writers and activists welcomed the newcomers as sincere and talented, the reaction of sensible people should have been amused incredulity.
Pope Imitating Swift Imitating Horace
Horace’s satire was a sly commentary on his life among the great, as close friend to Maecenas, the wealthy advisor to Augustus. In the first part of this imitation, Pope imagines his friend Dean Swift, a confidant of the Tory ministers, going over the same complaints about fame and influence. Then, when he comes to Horace’s famous fable of the two mice, he makes a stab at pretending it is composed by his friend Matthew Prior–also an important political advisor and diplomat, who wrote more homely verse. Rather than make a detailed commentary on the poem, I’ll be happy to...
From the Forum
Mr. Van Zant and Mr. Wilson have been talking about light fiction in The Forum. I posted this little bit, which they would probably miss.
What Is Paleoconservatism? Part One: The Beginnings
What is paleoconservatism? I should have put the question in the past tense, but, in deference to the true believers who collect hula hoops, and 8-track tape players, we can pretend there is still some sort of active movement going by that name. Like many political labels—Whig and Tory, Rebel and Yankee—the word “paleoconservative” would seem to be an insult.
