Category: Feature
Saving the Remnant, III: The Fading of the West
Weakness, corruption, and the ongoing failure to control the peaceful settlement of non-Romans…
Cambodia, Again
I came to agree not only with the conclusion, that it was time to get out of the warm but also with the premise, which seemed to echo Forrest’s statement that war means fighting, and fighting means killing. Americans should not get involved in a war, so I thought then and now, unless they will be defending their vital interests, and, if something is important enough to fight for, the only restraints should be moral and not political considerations.
Take Five News: Short Takes on The Descent Into Savagery
State mandates on COVID, Biden’s take-over of the Supreme Court, Thug shootings, What to do when civilizations collapse,
Wednesday’s Child: John Kerry as I Knew Him
A friend sent me a book by an acquaintance of my father’s and the late dean of American radio talk shows, Barry Farber. It’s called Cocktails with Molotov and is the kind of memoir that’s difficult not to like, because in this day and age the simple and truthful voice of a person who has no agenda except to amuse the reader is a rarity.
Debunking American History, Part IV: The Second American Revolution
The United States were in origin a confederation of American republics, ruled for the most part by their own constitutions and laws and whose member states were bound in a contract of union with very strict limits. Between 1776 and 1860, the complex and republican system was devolving–by a sort of political entropy–into a simpler system that concentrated more and more power at the top.
Saving the Remnant, II: The Barbarian Threat
The Fleming Foundation’s 2021 Summer Seminar, “Saving the Remnant,” will take up what happens after a civilization falls. The civilization in question will be ancient Rome, after the collapse of the Western Empire. Topics include the Germanic invasions, the reign of Theoderic King of Italy, the last great Roman writer–Boethius, and the various attempts to preserve or restore civilization made by Boethius, Cassiodorus, the Emperor Justinian, Saint Benedict, as well as some reflections on the specter of the Roman Empire that has haunted the West down to our own time.
The seminar will be held in Rockford, Illinois July 12-16. Speakers include, in addition to myself, E, Christian Kopff, James Patrick, Charles Yost, and Christopher Check. In preparation for the Seminar, Stephen Heiner and I did a series of podcast discussions on the background.
In this second podcast, provided as preparation for the Fleming Foundation’s 2021 Summer Seminar, Dr. Fleming and Stephen Heiner discuss the failure of the Roman Empire to defend its border from peace-loving immigrants yearning to breathe free.
Debunking American History, Part III: Making the Republic
What Franklin and the others knew is that a republican government is an exercise in human optimism, and patriotic republicans must be engaged in an unremitting struggle against that human entropy we used to know as original sin.
Realism on Russia and Afghanistan
One of the themes of my writing for Fleming Foundation is: We have to get along with the Russians. They have 6,000 nuclear bombs. We have 6,000 nuclear bombs. Be careful.
Debunking American History, Part II: Who We Were
The older textbook view of our history (whose most idiotic version goes by the name “American Exceptionalism”) is that the American colonists were a rare breed of individualists, cut loose from the traditions of old Europe, who came to New World seeking religious liberty.
Living Well in a Dying Age
