Author: Thomas Fleming

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Diary of a Jerk-Hunter / Fleming

15 Nov, 2016

Jerks, Chapter 2: Taxonomy

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In the new millennium, the Americans acting badly are at heart spoiled children who have never learned what it would mean to grow up.  100 years ago, this type was already developing, and Booth Tarkington describes some of these characters in his fiction—the Penrod stories, Little Orvie, and, most effectively, the character of Georgie Minafer in The Magnificent Ambersons.  Georgie was a spoiled rich kid, who despised his social inferiors as riff-raff, but hard times eventually taught him how to be a man. Georgie had been spoiled by a doting mother and aunt, but most boys had to undergo the...

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A Life / Fleming

15 Nov, 2016

A Life in Shreds and Patches: A Brief Justification

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An Entirely Unnecessary but Fortunately Brief Preface A man who presumes to share stories of his life with strangers, so I have always thought, has probably mistaken his self conceit for a general opinion of his own importance.  In celebrating his own experiences he is also telling his fellow men, “Forget about your petty little lives and make way for the Great Panjandrum!” I agree with Samuel Johnson, that every man’s life is worthy of a biography, but the great Cham said nothing of autobiography.  I might think “How wonderful if we could read the memoirs of Miltiades or a...

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Fleming / On the House

12 Nov, 2016

Momentum

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Three recent pieces, two from America and one Italian, cite the work of the humble president of this little organization, in other words me. The first American–in the geographical sense–piece is by Peter Brimelow on his highly esteemed website VDare: http://www.vdare.com/articles/the-american-conservative-movement-has-ended-the-american-right-goes-on                                                                                                                      ...

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Free Content

8 Nov, 2016

Election Night and the Day After

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My wife and I went to the Eastons at 6, to eat American chili, drink wine, and watch  to the election returns.  Betsy Easton is absolutely confident of a Trump victory, Gail Fleming refuses to believe that anything so wonderful could happen, Jim and I agree that it is possible, if rumors of a big turn-out among old-fashioned Americans prove true.  I take heart from the wacky conservative websites I have looked at, where people are bragging not only about voting for the first time in years but also claim to have dragged  friends and family to the polls. So far at...

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Feature / Fleming

8 Nov, 2016

Jerks 1: Land of the Free, Home of the Jerk, Part E

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The rot goes deeper than weakness and social dependency.  These same anti-socialist refugees still wore blue jeans—the official uniform of the proletariat—and professed egalitarian contempt for all those fripperies of dress and manners some relics of bourgeois society still clung to in the West.  I am speaking of the America of two decades ago.  Today, if I had to produce a single word to express the salient quality of modern Americans, it would be something like “shamelessness” or “impudence.”  Even elderly people no longer refrain from talking in Church, and their kids never quit screaming during the services.  Afterwards, at...

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Fleming

7 Nov, 2016

The Political Lessons of Polybius for 2016, Part I

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Before going further in Polybius’ analysis of the “Libyan War,”  what lessons have we learned so far? First there is the lesson that Machiavelli tried in vain to teach the Italians of his day:  Mercenaries–people who serve in the military for pay and benefits and not out of loyalty to their own people–cannot be trusted.  They are working for their own benefit and not for their country’s.  A few years ago, my sons and I were assaulted by a group of angry black soldiers just back from the Middle East.  “We fightin’ fo you freedom, MFers!”  Of course we have many...

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

7 Nov, 2016

Some Ugly Truths

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Conservatives who are content to run against Hillary, without opposing the regime itself,  are working for the other side.  Ask James Comey, Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, George Will….and any lackey of the regime you run into. If Comey knows Hillary is guilty and is hiding the evidence, he should be forced to resign and stand trial.  If Comey did not learn anything knew from Huma and Anthony’s computers but reopened the investigation, he should be forced to resign and stand trial. Anyone advocating abortion for other people should be forced, retroactively, to submit to one.  Retroactive abortion stops...

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

5 Nov, 2016

Working Men of All Countries, Unite!

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I shall keep this simple, stupid, and brief.  Our rulers have drawn the line in the sand.  The Bushes have voted for Hillary, “fiscal conservative” John Kasich has voted for the worst Republican candidate in the history of the GOP (John McCain), and the neoconservatives–from Bill Kristol to David Brooks to George Will–have told us that the American hegemony and the American way of life hang in the balance. For a change, the neocons are right.  While they pretend to hate Trump because he is too fond of women, wears a comical rug, and plays the bully when he is challenged, those are not...

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Autodidact

4 Nov, 2016

Political Lessons from Polybius: Introduction

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For more on this subject, see The Autodidact’s Reading List on the Ancient Greeks: https://fleming.foundation/2015/09/the-autodidacts-reading-list-i-the-ancient-greeks/ Dull-witted and lethargic from a touch of gastroenteritis courtesy of the fine food we consumed last week in Dayton, Ohio–we couldn’t make it to Greece but did we really have to spend time in a Dayton Holiday Inn?–I got tired of reading early 20th century espionage novels and poorly written Welsh history.  I happened to open up my little leather travel bag from Florence and found the first  volume of the Loeb edition of Polybius. I have never been a fan of Polybius–his Greek is...

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Diary of a Jerk-Hunter / Fleming

2 Nov, 2016

Jerks, Chapter I, Part D

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Most of us would agree that bad manners are a small thing, when set beside murder, mayhem, and abortion.  Sometimes, though, I wonder.  Thomas De Quincey, in his second lecture on “Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” may have been on the right track when he warned, tongue-in-cheek, against the negative consequences of committing murder. For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. De Quincey could take it for granted that...