Category: Feature

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

8 Aug, 2017

Bring Back the Spoils System!

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  Nowadays American history in high school consists of unrelenting attacks on our country as a racist, sexist, etc., hellhole. But back when I took the class at Wayne Memorial High School back in 1971, we learned about how horrible the old spoils system was, and why our country leaped into the progressive future with Civil Service Reform. Although he didn’t use the term, the spoils system largely was instituted by the great President Andrew Jackson. It was a way to get an unresponsive bureaucracy to perform its duties. If a functionary treated citizens badly, he knew they could vote...

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Feature / Fleming

7 Aug, 2017

Rome and Back

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I am frequently asked questions about travel, and now that we have announced our Fall convivial program in Italy, I expect to be inundated by requests for information, to which I shall cheerfully and gratefully respond.  Nondimeno, I think it will be helpful if I put together some anticipatory observations. Passport Before you do anything, you should check your passport and determine that your passport is valid beyond several months of your return date.  You may, of course, check out various travel websites as well as the US State Department, and you will find as many answers as there are...

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

1 Aug, 2017

Hey Hey, HO HO, Cultural Conservatives Have Got to Go

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This is the revised second part of my opening lecture at the 2017 Summer Symposium To understand the West’s cultural suicide, we might  begin by looking at an historical event, not from ancient Greece or 18th century France or even from the legendary 1960’s, which are now regarded as ancient history.  Let us start, instead, with with an episode in the culture war that has become a legend.  The year is 1987, just 30 years ago, and the place is Stanford University.  There stands “the Rev.”Jesse Jackson leading a group of 500 Stanford students, chanting “Hey Hey Ho Ho.  Western...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

26 Jul, 2017

How to “Get” Trump

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  Most people, especially left-wingers and neocons, still don’t “get” President Trump. Yet the clues are right before our eyes, if you just look. Numerous books and articles describe who he is, and how he operates. A big problem for left-wingers, neocons and others is that they expect politicians to be a certain way, even though they know Trump never has held elective office. They expect him to be like one of the Bushes, or the Clintons, or Obama, or even Reagan or Jimmy Carter. They expect him to be someone who “plays the game” of politics. And they expect...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

24 Jul, 2017

Waiting for Godot–and the Republicans’ Tax Cuts

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What’s With Republicans and Taxes? By John Seiler Why haven’t Republicans cut our taxes? It’s their signature issue. And now that they control both Congress and the White House for only the third time in a century, why haven’t they enacted their signature issue? Their past actions in this situation aren’t all that good, either. In the 1920s, the Harding-Coolidge Administration and Republican congresses certainly cut taxes, putting the roar into the Roaring Twenties. But that’s it. Nothing during times when Republicans controlled both the Oval Office and the Capitol Dome. Only split government has brought decent tax reform. Republicans...

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Feature / FF

21 Jul, 2017

The Summer Symposium, Days Three and Four

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Thursday 9:00 Thomas Fleming: “Renaissance of Conspiracy” 10:45 E.C. Kopff: “From Classical Christian Natural Philosophy to      Enlightenment Science” Lunch 2:00 Christopher Check: “The Cristero War” 3:45 Srdja Trifkovic: “The Russian Counter-Revolution” 6:15 Dinner at Mary’s Market Friday 9:00 E.C. Kopff: “The Rise, Decline, and Triumph of Deism” 10:45 James Patrick: “Skepticism and Common Sense: David Hume and Thomas Reid” Lunch 2:00 Frank Brownlow: “Othello: Iago Takes  a Hint from Pico.” 3:30 Thomas Fleming:  “In Search of the Noble Savage” 4:30 Brief Dibattito 6:30 Dinner at The Hope and Anchor

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Feature / FF

19 Jul, 2017

Summer Symposium, Day Two

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Wednesday 9:00 E. Christian Kopff: “Ockham and Nominalism: The crucial event in the history of Western culture?” 10:45 James Patrick: “The Fortunes of Rationalism: Unitarianism, Latitudinarianism, and Dissent” Lunch 2:00 Thomas Fleming:  “The Ancient Roots of the Conspiracy” 3:30 Frank Brownlow:  “King Lear: Nature’s Reformation” 4:30 Brief Dibattito 6:30 Dinner at The Irish Rose First night dinner at Deli Italia    

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Feature / FF

18 Jul, 2017

Summer Symposium 2017, Day 1

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Summer Symposium 2017, Day 1 Tuesday July 17, 2017 4:00-4:45          Registration at Cliffbreakers 5:00                    Thomas Fleming, “Ouverture to the Suicide of the West” 6:30                     Dinner is served at Deli Italia II on East State Street The Fleming Foundation’s Second Annual Summer Symposium opens today.  Speakers include Prof. Frank Brownlow, Prof. E. Christian Kopff,  Dr. James Patrick, Prof. Srdja Trifkovic, Captain Christopher Check, and Dr. Thomas Fleming Fleming Foundation Headquarters, aka the crumbling Villa Pipistrelli, getting a facelift.

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

17 Jul, 2017

Take a Load off Annie

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Not long ago, I poked fun at Ann Coulter as a professionally dumb blond who acted out like an adolescent.  The response on this website and on Facebook was mixed.  Many who read the piece thought it sound overall but found it a bit unfair to Ms Coulter. After reading Ann’s tweets attacking Delta Airlines, ridiculing its employees, and and insulting chance passengers whose legs are not up to Ann’s standards (“dachshund legs”) all for being deprived of a $30  upgrade to economy plus,   I want to take this opportunity to say I am sorry for ever doubting that she is the model of wisdom...

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Feature / Fleming

12 Jul, 2017

Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep?

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One of the best developments of the first six months of America Under Trump is the growing discontent with the media.  Why anyone has ever paid any attention to the New York Times or Washington Post or Fox or CNN is something I have never been able to figure out.  The editors are poorly educated liars, and the reporters, columnists and commentators cannot even manage to tell their lies in standard English There is only one reason to pay any attention to the news, and that is to find out what bizarre forms of snake oil the ruling class is forcing...