Category: Feature

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

1 Feb, 2018

Divided America

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Once upon a time, Americans occasionally united. Here are some election percentages of presidential victors: FDR 1932, 57.4%; FDR 1936, 60.8%; IKE 1952, 55.2%; IKE 1956, 57.4%; LBJ 1964, 61.1%, the most of any candidate not named George Washington; Nixon 1972, 60.7%; Reagan 1984, 58.8%. Average: 58.8% Moreover, if you look at the issues in 1960, JFK and RN held substantially the same views, differing only in nuance, style and ability to rig state elections (detailed by Roger Stone in “Nixon’s Secrets” and Robert Caro, with all the facts on how LBJ ripped off Texas for himself and JFK, in...

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Feature / Wednesday's Child

23 Jan, 2018

Wednesday’s Child: The Rotten Thread

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For the better part of the last ten years, in the California town of Perris – which is probably how you pronounce “Paris” if you’re a child molester, though this conjecture is, I admit, of little relevance to the larger argument here – a couple enslaved and abused thirteen persons of various ages, allegedly their own biological offspring, keeping them in chains and starving them in ways that would make Mr. Bumble take pity on poor Oliver Twist. This is all happening in America, in 2018, yet the only reaction to the madness, apart from the grinding of the wheels...

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Feature / Wednesday's Child

18 Jan, 2018

Wednesday’s Child: The Driving Fail

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If one cares to understand something about the South of Italy, I suggest spending four minutes of one’s time viewing this masterpiece of daily life on YouTube.  It has all the truthfulness, spontaneity, and absurdity of an early Chekhov story, and it explains something central about individual liberty – something missing in Burke on the right as well as in Mill on the left.  In short, it’s a good illustration of why this is still the best place to live in Europe. Neither I nor my wife drives, so we’re well placed to observe disinterestedly, without the bitter rancor that...

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Feature / Fleming

15 Jan, 2018

A PS on Trump’s Dirty Mouth

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When I posted my comments about Trump on Facebook, some “friends” seemed to think that I was endorsing or defending his language.  I added this clarification: I am far from accepting, much less endorsing, such speech. As an observer of political reality, though, I refuse to indulge in idle speculation about a world that no longer exists. I find very little in public life to be even minimally acceptable, from the poor English, incomprehensible reasoning, and indeceny in broadcasting to the filth of popular music to the pornography of movies and television. I do not go out to movies, even...

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Feature / Fleming

15 Jan, 2018

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Legacy of the Doctored King

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This morning my wife, who has a bad habit of following the news,  asked me about the “legacy” of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “I know he plagiarized his dissertation and just about every major speech or statement he made, advised soldiers to betray their country during the Vietnam War, maintained significant contacts with Communist agents, and betrayed his wife incessantly and with teenage girls.  But, to be fair, a lot of great men have had feet of clay.  What are his positive accomplishments that would be worth celebrating?” It’s not only a fair question but a valuable one.  Before...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

14 Jan, 2018

Real Haitian Story: The Clintons Destroyed It in 1994

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It shows the immaturity of American politics that a vulgarity a U.S. president used in private becomes a mediastorm for weeks. But let’s look at the real reasons why one country at issue, Haiti, is such a mess: Co-presidents – as they fashioned themselves – Bill and Hillary Clinton destroyed Haiti’s economy in 1994 to put back in power a communist priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been defrocked in 1990 by Pope John Paul II. That was just two more years after communism fell in the Soviet Union and the Communist Party was abolished on Christmas Day 1991, so the...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

12 Jan, 2018

Liberals Freak Out Over Fictional Anti-Trump Book

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Although far from perfect – such as continuing the Obama-Bush Wars – one of the main benefits of electing President Trump is laughing at the liberal commentariat’s freak out, as we said in the ’60s. Pat Buchanan pointed out the attacks on Trump are worse even than those on Nixon. For an old conservative like me, what’s heartening is how Trump never takes it lying down. Attack him, and you can expect a response. That’s so different from almost every Republican in my lifetime, current examples being Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan. An amusing specimen...

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Autodidact / Feature / Fleming

11 Jan, 2018

Adam Smith: The briefest of conclusions

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There is much that is useful in Hutcheson and Hume, who correct many errors of the Enlightenment, and there would be little point to denying the significance of Adam Smith as the first person who comprehensively demonstrated the superiority of the free market over all the deluded wise men who think they can regulate and plan an economic system:  Although we are free to reject the selfish individualism of Mandeville and Smith, their analysis gives us true insight into the way social and economic systems actually work. It is quite another thing to say that it is our human destiny...

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Feature / Wednesday's Child

10 Jan, 2018

Wednesday’s Child: A Truth that Bears Repeating

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I overdid it at Christmas, which for the Russians was this past Sunday, remaining incapacitated – catatonic is the usual term – and incapable of writing anything new this week.  So here are some old jottings.  Through the fog of champagne and grappa there dimly glimmers in them, I trust, a truth that bears repeating in the New Year. Reading all the various, though scarcely varied, opinions on the “crises” that Moscow throws the West’s way – after 100 years of Russian misrule one might think the word would be safely devalued, but no, they use it like St. James’s...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

3 Jan, 2018

Trump Trolls ‘Climate Change’ Fanatics

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If you don’t know the term, “trolling” on the Internet means “sowing discord… with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response.” President Trump long has been the master of it. One of his latest is a special New Year’s End gift to us, on Twitter: “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!” Obviously, one day of record cold temperatures doesn’t tell the...