Category: Free Content

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California Nightmare

Meet Derick Almena, model Californian and prototype for the next generation of Americans.  Derick—in his world we dispense with formalities—is “manager” of a warehouse in Oakland California, where he sublets space to various artistes.  At this for-profit arts collective, which he named the Ghost Ship, Derick and his rentors throw parties.  At a dance party last Friday night, a fire started and raced through the rabbit warren, killing at least 36 people.  Derick’s first reaction, posted on Facebook, expressed no sorrow for the victims—much less remorse: “”Everything I worked so hard for is gone.  Blessed that my children and Micah...

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Marco Bassani on The Italian Crisis

A Conversation  with Prof. Marco Bassani of the University of Milan. TJF:  Prof. Bassani, over the weekend Italian voters decisively rejected a set of “reforms” proposed by PM Renzi.  It is hard for Americans to understand the significance of the vote, particularly since very few of us follow Italian politics.  To begin with, could you please describe Renzi’s proposals.  MB:  Quite frankly I believe that even most Italians had only a vague idea of the proposed constitutional reforms. They voted from their political guts and clearly rejected  Matteo Renzi’s Constitution.  The package was a very complex transformation that revolved around the change...

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Jerks 2: Taxonomy, Part B

Let’s begin with the basics.  Rather than breaking down Jerks into categories of severity—rating them from one to ten—we can agree to divide them broadly into what I am calling Boors and Louts.  The boor is someone who does not know how to behave.  He constantly makes a fool of himself by using the wrong fork or insisting upon steak in a seafood restaurant.  He will pay embarrassing compliments to women he has just met and make himself the life of every party by telling anecdotes about his not very interesting life—anecdotes in which he inevitably plays the hero.  Most...

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Castroized America

Cuban exiles and other anti-communists greeted comrade Fidel Castro assuming room temperature with rum-inebriated shouts of “Viva Cuba libre!” Sorry, I can’t join the celebrations. I’m as happy as anyone that El Jefe has gone to be judged by his Maker and no longer will be tyrannizing his people. But during his 56 years in power, the United States he hated moved far more in the direction of Cuban communism than Cuba moved, even after the fall of his Soviet patrons in 1991, toward becoming a free and normal country, as the U.S. was in 1959. Some comparisons: 1. Socialized...

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A Homegrown Buckeye Terrorist

Another surprise.  The homicidal maniac who went on a rampage at Ohio State turns out to be one Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an 18-year-old Somali Muslim.  No one knows why he did it.  NBC has informed us that “a senior law enforcement official said authorities are a “long way” from pinpointing a motive for the Monday morning attack, which sent 11 people to the hospital.  Apparently irrelevant are the the young man’s complaints against America for the persecution of Muslims in Burma.  Yes, Burma.  Why didn’t he go to Burma to kill the enemies of his religion?  Perhaps because that would have required...

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Thank you for visiting The Fleming Foundation website.   You may even have already gone through the process of registering.  If you enjoyed some of the pieces available to free access subscribers, I hope you will consider taking out a paid subscription. A Silver Level subscription for only  $7.99 per month gives access to all print copy, while Gold Level ($150 per year) and Charter subscribers ($250 per year) can also listen to our podcasts on a variety of topics: political realism, learning Latin, the classical Christian tradition, and a series we call “The Best Revenge,” which ranges from the...

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Debunking the Sanctuary Movement, Conclusion

This is the conclusion to my piece from 1985.  The points made include:  1) There is no right of or  justification for “civil disobedience.  Crime is crime, and treason is treason.  2) So-called “liberation theology” is only Marxist revolution with a false Christian gloss, 3) our primary moral obligations to family, community, and  nation take precedence over any imagined obligations to strangers, and, finally 4) the confusion of roles–national government dictating how children are reared while individuals and cities are making foreign policy–is a sign of a profound disorder in American life. Although civil disobedients like to lump their activities...

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Fidel Castro, Dead at Last

Fidel Castro is dead, and USA’s official media are are beside themselves with grief over their fallen leader.  I hate to point out the obvious, but there is virtually nothing good to say about this thug, except he was lucky enough to take over Cuba during an American power vacuum, first when an exhausted and ailing Eisenhower was losing control and, then, when he easily fought off a challenge from a feeble-minded womanizing President who could not find the will to squelch this pustulent sore 90 miles off our coastline. Pre-Castro Cuba was no paradise, but there were economic opportunities.  People could get...

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Debunking the Sanctuary Movement–30 Years Ago, Part I

This Perspective from January 1986 analyzed the budding sanctuary movement and dissected its entirely bogus spiritual, moral and constitutional foundations.  It infuriated Richard John Neuhaus, who at that time led the movement to silence an irritating political heretic.  I was naive and did not yet realize how much so-called conservatives hate the truth, whenever it conflicts with the short-term goals of their little movement. “Shelter from the Storm” The trial of 12 sanctuary workers in Tucson has heated up an issue which is being hailed in many quarters as the great moral issue of the 1980’s. The movement, whose members...

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Anthony Trollope on Sermons

By

This is Trollope’s musings on the sermon preached by the odious Mr. Slope in Barchester Cathedral: There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips. Let a...