Herder approached the nations of the world much as a radical environmentalist today regards endangered species. Each nation is precious because it reflects some quality within the human type, and when an imperial nation eliminates another nation, it is committing a crime against humanity.
Even in principle, America’s pseudo-democracy is the worst form of government.
Should TV jerks or pranksters be held responsible when they drive someone to suicide?
Pastor David Ramirez posted this bit of an interview done a long time ago with Thomas Fleming for the series “Making Sense of the Sixties.” I am not sure who this black-haired young man is, but his point of view seems familiar.
France’s anti-Christian ruling class lament the fire that damaged a valuable symbol of their government’s subjugation of Christianity
Conservatives are upset that Middlebury College has cancelled a conservative speaker, allegedly out of concern for safety. The safety angle shows how utterly degradingly stupid college officials have become. Of course, any rational person despises Middlebury for this and a thousand other crimes. But, let us take a breath and reflect.
If family ties and local patriotism mean little, then the Stoic should regard all men as his fellow-citizens. He should be a cosmopolites—a citizen of the world. Like most of the harsher teachings of the Stoics, cosmopolitanism is easier to mouth than to practice. So austere a Stoic as Cato the younger was able to hand off his wife to a friend, but he could not cease to be a Roman patriot who preferred death to living under a dictator who, among other sins, cultivated the friendship of foreigners.
This isn’t about national security. It’s about politics – dirty politics of the dirtiest kind.
I see Prof. Sir Roger Scruton has been sacked by the Conservative government for saying George Soros is bad, Islamophobia is an imaginary problem, the sky is blue, water freezes at O centigrade, and a host of other offense notions. I never met Scruton, though I used to have some dealings with the Salisbury Review. I read some of his essays and his book on Sexual Desire, which had some good things in it but comes out of a philosophical tradition that has done far more harm than good. In this sense he is a real conservative, clinging to rationalism...
