I have argued that our politics is essentially a battle between Locke and Rousseau. Yesterday’s election was one of the most directly philosophical that I can remember. The Republican Party is increasingly the party of Locke; the Democratic Party, the party of Rousseau. Framed that starkly, Locke wins almost everywhere except the coasts and areas that are heavily populated by minority voters. Continue reading A Sea of Red

Michael J. Totten interviews Martin Kramer about the prospect of a nuclear Iran. It’s a deep discussion of the entire situation in the Middle East; read it all. Kramer concentrates especially on the division between problems in the Levant (Israel, Lebanon, Syria) and problems in and around the Persian Gulf. The conclusion: Martin Kramer: It’s absolutely central to the strategy to maintain this division. And … Continue reading Iranian Nukes?

Juan Williams speaks out about his own firing: Well, now that I no longer work for NPR let me give you my opinion. This is an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff (I was the only black male on the air). This is evidence of one-party rule … Continue reading The Firing of Juan Williams

Some liberal web sites have been distributing a purported bill for an average taxpayer, asking, “What part do you not want to pay for?” They’re implying that the Tea Parties are making a fuss about nothing, that the tab for government services is quite reasonable. The bill is meretricious, using 2007 data, taking a family that owes only $5,000 in taxes, and then showing items … Continue reading Here’s Your Bill for 2010

The Left’s One Nation Rally in Washington was getting more airplay on CNN and MSNBC than Glenn Beck’s rally did, despite its smaller size. (CBS estimates 87,000; Beck’s rally drew many times that. Stations were driven to use images from the Beck rally and the Tea Party to make it look as if the crowd was large!) I wonder whether CPUSA members, and members of … Continue reading The One Nation Rally

That’s what one commenter has said after viewing the video released in support of the 10:10 initiative, and international effort to get people to cut their carbon emissions 10%. My thoughts exactly. I thought I was watching a heavy-handed spoof of the totalitarian impulses behind the environmental movement. And then I realized that it wasn’t a spoof. Good grief. Continue reading “Wow. Just Wow.”

My campus was locked down, and then closed, this morning when a gunman began firing shots. He entered the library, where all the security is designed to keep things from leaving inappropriately, went to the sixth floor (early reports said the fifth floor), and shot himself. The university’s warning system, instituted after the Virginia Tech shootings, helped to insure that there were no other injuries. … Continue reading Lockdown: Not Just on ’24’ Anymore

I recall the poems I read to my children at bedtime nine years ago: URNING and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of … Continue reading Remember