Author: Thomas Fleming

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Feature / FF

10 Dec, 2015

Cicero, De Officiis, A ON THE HOUSE

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As a Roman moralist, Cicero is seen at his best in the three books of his De Officiis, a work that Dr. Johnson said ought to be read once a year.  Officia are not public offices but duties, the responsibilities it is incumbent upon us to carry out.  Cicero  draw his primary inspiration from Plato and his followers in the Middle Academy, a phase of Platonism that emphasized epistemological skepticism.  However, he was  also very eclectic and fair-minded, seeking useful truths wherever he could find them–especially from Aristotle but also from the Stoics whose extremism he objected to.  For all his...

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Feature / FF15Dec / Fleming

7 Dec, 2015

How to Combat Islamic Terrorists?  Quit Sponsoring Them!

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I did not watch, hear, or read President Obama’s brilliant address offering a range of eminently practical solutions to the terrorist threat.   Why bother?  Like most of his recent predecessors, this President would not tell the truth if it were tattooed onto his brain, and if he did accidentally blurt out some particle of reality, the state media would  immediately cover up his gaffe.     The security of the United States and of its citizens is menaced by Muslims, but neither the President nor the media is willing even to state thate fact.  Without reading the speech, I...

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Feature / Fleming

5 Dec, 2015

The Genius of Burke–and His Limitations ON THE HOUSE

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This is a slightly modified version of a piece originally published in The Spectator under the  title “Tories Back Wrong Philosopher.”  It is being made available “On the House” for five days. TWO hundred years ago, the career of Edmund Burke was drawing to a close under a cloud of accusations. The Duke of Bedford and his friends had denounced the one-time budget-cutting reformer and enemy of the royal prerogative for accepting a pension from the Crown. In his ‘Letter to a Noble Lord’, published in February 1796, Burke rebutted the charges of inconsistency and hypocrisy. It was Burke’s last stand,...

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

3 Dec, 2015

San Bernardino: The American Nightmare

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As Americans went to bed on December 2, they knew little of what happened in San Bernardino, where mysterious “white” assailants murdered 14 people  at a “social services center.”   Like most people, probably, we were otherwise occupied. We were watching an old episode of Comissario Montalbano.  Even this morning on NPR, which featured an interview with two “experts” on mass shootings, I  only accidentally learned that one of the shooters had a Pakistani Muslim name. Checking out the stories in the Washington Post, LA Times, and New York Times, I was able to glean only a few facts:  a...

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Best Revenge / Fleming

2 Dec, 2015

Greece IV: On the Gulf

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Greece IV We had brief interchange, four hours into the trip.  We stopped for lunch at Menidi on the Ambracian Gulf.   We were not expecting much from Menidi.  The morning had been spent on the endless drive along the superhighway, every mile under repair, from Athens to Corinth and then along the northern coast of the Peloponnesus.  It is true that the road got worse and the landscape better, after  we crossed the bridge across the Gulf of Corinth at Rhio. I thought about stopping at Missolonghi,   where Byron had died in 1824, raising money for Greek independence...

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Autodidact / Fleming

30 Nov, 2015

Cicero: The Writer

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Cicero was one of the most important men of the Roman world.  Although he ultimately failed as a statesman, as virtually every statesman does, but he only increased in stature as the years went on.

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FF / Interviews

19 Nov, 2015

Greek Interview with Thomas Fleming

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Thomas Fleming was recently interviewed (10 November) by Nikolaos Hidiroglou for the Greek newspaper Ελεύθερη Ώρα (Eleftheri Ora).  Is Donald Trump the man for the job in the White House for the Republicans? The “Grand Old Party” has been fielding impossible presidential candidates that have made Republicans a political joke:  Bob Dole, John McCain,  Mitt Romney.  Perhaps the worst was George W. Bush, who won two elections, squandered money and lives on a pointless and fruitless war in Iraq, and bankrupted his country.  How could Trump do any worse?   Trump’s great strength is his candor:  He openly talks of...

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Best Revenge / Fleming

19 Nov, 2015

Meditations of a Dog: Getting Ready for Greece

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We used to have a dog named Robert or, to be more precise Robert the Bruce.  Robert was a Scottish Terrier of a particularly independent mind.  Though he obeyed me, loved my life, and loyally guarded the family, it would be misleading to say we owned him.  The reverse was closer to the truth.  If previous Scotties in the family had been “jaunty,” as almost all of them are, Robert went them one better in being cocky or, rather, arrogant. Although each of us was of two minds about Robert, we all agreed at his funeral, as we drank the ...

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Fleming / From Under The Rubble

16 Nov, 2015

Huis Clos (No Exit) from Terrorism

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If you listen to the official press or even look at comments on news websites, Islamic terrorism is some sort of natural disaster caused by sun spots, global warming, or the political equivalent of fracking.  One comment on the Washington Post summed up the popular despair.  The commenter wanted to know why our government could not stop these attacks, but added he had no idea of how it could be done. On leftist news sites,  a favorite talking point is to blame religion in general.  Yes, those vicious Buddhists, Confucianists, and Neo-Platonists, for centuries they have been waging war on...