On the Trump Coalition
“The economic situation during the Biden administration eroded and degraded the average American’s ability to participate in the life of the nation as an economically self-sufficient citizen.”
Henry George
A Dangerous Partnership: the Managerial Revolution and the Immigration Revolution
“New populations moving into a country creates ready-made client groups to which the managerial state can administer, gaining new voting blocs, which continue to vote for the party of the managerial state.”
People over Place: Reviewing “The Culture Transplant” by Garett Jones
“Any serious government would, therefore, develop and implement immigration policy with the utmost care. Instead, our governments are experimenting with unprecedented peacetime increases in immigration that further expand ethnic and cultural diversity.”
Mass Immigration and the American Nation
“The monthly encounters under President Biden have been like nothing else seen in American history. There are estimates that, in 2023, there were more illegal alien encounters per month than babies born to American mothers.”
Grant Havers: The Conservative Tradition in Canada
“Yes, as you mentioned, one of the most interesting findings of Lament for a Nation, which came out in 1965—it’s Grant’s most famous book—is that in Grant’s view, there’s really no such thing as American conservatism.”
Review: “In Defense of Civilization” by Michael R. J. Bonner
“Bonner has done a great service in reminding us what true civilization means, the cost of losing it, and how we can regain it.”
Patrick Deneen: “Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future”
“The so-called conservative movement of the 1980s was anything but conservative.”
The Media’s Blood Libel of Israel
“All of this could have been uncovered with measured reporting and a skepticism that avoids trusting the word of the baby-murdering terror group, Hamas.”
War in Israel, War in the West
“This is not Israel’s 9/11. It is not even Israel’s Pearl Harbor. It is worse by an order of magnitude. The closest parallel is the Rape of Nanking.”
Iran Invades Israel Through Hamas
“But one thing is absolutely clear: This is war, not just a terror attack. This is war not just by Hamas on Israel, but by Iran—through Hamas—on Israel.”
Paul Gottfried: Understanding the Rich History of Paleoconservatism
Review: Carl Trueman’s “Strange New World”
“It bears repeating that this is a very good book. Trueman performs a thorough but concise excavation of the intellectual, philosophical, and metaphysical currents that he sees as moving below the crashing waves of our present cultural storm.”
Multiculturalism Is Madness
“The fact is that, historically, Great Britain has had a remarkably stable demographic makeup for at least a thousand years, if not much longer. The idea that what we have experienced since 1997…is in any way comparable or equivalent to the past is nonsense, at best, and disingenuous, at worst.”
Mary Harrington: On a Philosophy of Limits
“And my argument is that freedom and progress in the context of the cyborg era are actually inimical to women’s interests. They don’t make things better for any women, except [for] a very small, elite subset.”
Jordan Peterson’s “A Conservative Manifesto” Is Not Conservative
“It is instead Hayekian liberalism delivered with a Calvinist grimness.”
The Queen: 1926-2022
“It is too much to say that the world will not see her like again; there is within all of us the potential to aim for the higher moral life that the Queen embodied, if we engage in the striving that she did that is necessary to attain this.”
Review: “People Love Dead Jews” by Dara Horn
“All of this is captured in twelve essays in novelist Dara Horn’s powerful and coruscating book on why people still love dead Jews over living Jews. It is a book that shreds modern piety and sophistry in equal measure.”
British Conservatism Is Doomed
“To put it simply, if one cannot accumulate capital, he will not support capitalism; and if one has no solid basis for conserving one’s family and community, which property provides, then he will not become a conservative.”
Yoram Hazony: National Conservatism in a Midterm Year
“Conservatives are certainly not socialists. Conservatives do not believe, as the Marxists do, that you can open up some central office with really bright people and dictate the course of the entire economy of the nation. We don’t believe anything like that. On the other hand…”
Review: Matthew Continetti’s “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism”
“It is to Continetti’s credit that he develops his narrative after this with fair-minded even-handedness for the most part, even if he lets his own views bleed through in the chapters concerning President Trump’s rise and fall, as well as the mix of grift and genuine intellectual ferment that he dra
Being Critical of Enlightenment Triumphalism Isn’t Always Wrong
“Having considered the evidence, it seems more accurate to say that the Enlightenment project presented itself as a savior from ignorance and poverty but was really a movement to dethrone the old social order rooted in hierarchies and aristocracies.”
Limits in a World That Erases Them
“There is a paradox to life that an acceptance of limits, borders, and boundaries can be the most liberating thing of all.”
Review: “Conservatism: A Rediscovery” by Yoram Hazony
“In my own life, being disabled and living with an acute example of life’s predicament means that the worldview Hazony describes and prescribes has made far more sense and has offered far more consolation than liberalism ever could.”
Review: “Don’t Burn This Country” by Dave Rubin
“This book undoubtedly represents an evolution in Rubin’s thinking, and contrary to those who accuse him of changing to suit others, changing one’s mind on philosophical beliefs is not automatically a disqualification.”
The Pandemic and the Scientific Gnostics
“As Deneen says, Voegelin ‘argued that modern Gnosticism was an effort to ‘redivinize’ the political world—not now by bringing the gods in to the service of the city, but by making the city into a heaven on earth.’”
Neither Putin Nor Russia Are “Based”
“For a start, American conservatives are either unaware of or ignore that Russia has the highest abortion rate in the world and the third highest divorce rate.”
Children of Men: Are Birth Rates Declining Due to Anti-natalism or Economics?
“For the first time ever, more than half of women aged 30 in England and Wales are childless. This is not a normative condemnation but a descriptive statement.”
Ukraine: Reality Bites
“Now, we face a second reminder of reality. First plague, now war has come to Europe, the biggest since 1945.”
Right-Liberalism Won’t Cut It
“Given the potential for a more populist conservatism that appeals to those seeking to reweave America’s weakened bonds of social and economic mutual loyalty, the right-liberalism of Murray and others is exactly the opposite of what is needed and wanted.”
The Material Roots of Wokeness
“So, the fact that what is now called wokeness is a minority persuasion, believed by a small group of elite left-liberals and pursued through the instruments of the managerial state and corporate oligarchies, should not be surprising.”
From Libertarianism to National Conservatism
“National Conservatism, one strand of a broader emergent post-Cold War fusionist conservative movement, has the potential for both capturing youthful energy and enthusiasm while grounding and directing it with prudence and realism.”
Afghanistan and the West’s Failure
“Whether America likes it or not, the unipolar moment, Pax Americana, is over.”
Sohrab Ahmari and Michael Brendan Dougherty on Reclaiming Faith, Family, and Nation
“In an age of iconoclasm, Ahmari reiterates the indispensable need for the icon of tradition that points beyond itself to the everlasting, and Dougherty captures how the icon of national particularism can also point beyond itself to the universal.”
A Brit’s Friendly Advice to American Conservatives
“In order to win, the American Right needs to bury dead dogmas, get its head out of abstract Platonic idealism, and look reality in the face.”
James Burnham: Foreseeing Our Managerial Domination (Part II)
“Ultimately, in order to thwart the managerial system, the American conservative movement needs to co-opt the managerial system.”
James Burnham: Foreseeing Our Managerial Domination
“This depoliticization of the public realm extends to the selection of the managerial class itself. Elections matter not at all. The managers perpetuate themselves…”
Is Jordan Peterson Doomed by Liberalism Itself?
“The publication of Peterson’s latest book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life is an opportunity to reflect on the impact this man has had on the cultural debate…”
Conservatives Are Getting Lost in “Ideas”
“Shapiro’s most recent book How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps presents the United States’ problems, which he sees as near-fatal if left unaddressed, as rooted in the world of ideas and political philosophy.”
The Necessity of Acceptance
“What place does acceptance have in this wasteland of a year? My view, informed and influenced by living with a severe inherited disability, a fragile skin condition is that it has a central, vital place.”
Yoram Hazony’s “NatConTalk”: Enlarging the Conservative Conversation
“NatConTalk is a recent entrant into the conservative conversation, or what remains of such under the hegemony of social media, our contemporary digital coliseum.”
The Irrationality of Rationalism
“This condition, Epidermolysis bullosa, with which I was diagnosed after birth, is as painful as described. Singer’s language is compassionate, but what he advocates for is infanticide.”
What the Winning Conservative Coalition Looks Like
“Those who work with ideas increasingly vote for the Democrats, while those who work in physical reality with their hands or machinery increasingly vote Republican.”
Patrick Deneen: Grappling with the Failures of Liberalism
“This conquest of the engines of social formation is, as Patrick Deneen argues, why liberalism is failing.”
Patrick Deneen: A Primer
“Or is man—like some argue of Odysseus—a restless seeker of new places, people, and experiences?”
Identity Politics and the Death of Moral Imagination
“The problem—as has been said so many times before—is that identity politics takes a kernel of truth about embodied human experience and pushes it to its destructive conclusion.”
How Close We Are to Unravelling
“The religion of Social Justice is redolent of the old paganism but without even the mortal transcendence of its pantheons.”
To Stand up to China, the West Must First Re-Discover Itself
“The lack of backbone displayed by Western leaders when dealing with China is symbolic of the malaise that has been gripping Western culture for decades.”
Erdoğan and Taking Advantage of Europe’s “Pathological Altruism”
“For them, the feelings of guilt over Europe’s past seemed to require inviting in the world to redeem Europe of its sins. Erdoğan is playing on this fear by referring to the Greeks as Nazis, attempting to destabilize the collective psyche of the European leadership.”
The “Orthodox Conservatives” and the Essence of British Conservatism
“Orthodox Conservatism believes that the culture we have is held in trust—and that it is particular to us and our shared history; it is distinctive, not exclusive and is open to those who wish to join.”
Reflecting on the Start of a New Decade (and the Wisdom of Augustine)
“I must admit that as for many others, the last ten years were neither a singular triumph nor an unmitigated disaster. There were joys and sadnesses, the melody of life soaring high and crashing low. No one finds heaven on earth.”
Harold Macmillan, Roger Scruton, and Putting the U.K. Election in Context
“As Matthew Goodwin has repeatedly written, it is easier for the Conservatives to move slightly left on economic issues than it is for Labour to move right on cultural issues.”
Why Everyone Is Talking about Josh Hawley
“Hawley talks again and again about the importance of community and criticizes those on both sides of the political aisle who pay fealty to an individualism that puts the self-creating individual at the summit of what constitutes the good.“
“Woke Capitalism” Needs to Wake Up to the Truth about China
“As Jim Geraghty writes, rather than importing our values, China is exporting its repression into our societies on the back of mass industrial theft and espionage.”
What’s Next for British Conservatism?
“While material prosperity should be a priority, it shouldn’t be the only priority. Simply possessing the latest consumer goods won’t provide a meaningful life that comes from a sense of dignity, purpose and responsibility rooted in community.”
What Ben Shapiro Gets Right
“Shapiro’s book is a well-written and, at times, moving defense of Western Civilization.”
Understanding Hitler’s Worldview (Part II)
“The risk in our increasingly polarized and tribally divided times is that these societies —ours among them—are thrashing around in a sea of hopeless liquid modernity and risk coming apart in a storm of violence.”
What Notre Dame Says about Civilization
“The destruction of Notre Dame has shaken our complacent belief in the permanence of things and the ability for our culture to last without care and cultivation. It reveals and reminds us that life is a fragile thing, and even the strongest bastions dedicated to the eternal can still be brought down
Understanding Hitler’s Worldview (Part I)
“[Werner Catel] called for the continuation of the Nazi program of involuntary euthanasia, saying, “…We are not talking about humans here, but rather beings that were merely procreated by humans and that will never themselves become humans endowed with reason or a soul.”
Jordan Peterson and Christianity (Part II): Culture and Immortality
“In our lifetimes, many populations in Europe will age and shrink drastically due to their lack of belief in the possibility of transcending death, a belief that undergirds culture.”
In Further Defense of Nations: A Response to McManus
“As such, quiet gratitude rather than arrogant pride is, I believe, the right attitude to take towards the idea of the nation.”
Jordan Peterson and Christianity: Doctrine and Truth (Part I)
“Like Pelagius, Peterson thinks we can achieve salvation through our own efforts of will, without the grace of God. Like the aforementioned Gnostics, Peterson repeatedly argues that we each have a spark of the divine in us, so can manifest the divine here and now in our damned world of suffering.”
The Need for Nations
“It may sound trite to say so, but the national state is the worst way of arranging and governing human societies, apart from all the others.”
Edward Said: Bad Scholar and Bad Character
“Changing the meanings of previously understood words is what ideologues do.”
What Howard Zinn Forgets
“No one people, nation or culture has a monopoly on the shadows of human nature. Historians influenced by Zinn and the story he tells should try to remember this.”
Is Steven Pinker Wrong About Violence Declining?
“In many parts of the world, the anarchy came, and those like Pinker who insist otherwise should reflect on whether their claims really reflect reality, or whether they are simply bromides used by those thought-leaders who see the horror and turn away, looking to statistics as consolation against th
Where the Alt-Right Really Comes From
“As Ross Douthat says, you may have hated the religious Right but wait until you see the post-religious Right.”
A Review of Yoram Hazony’s “The Virtue of Nationalism”
“David Ben-Gurion, on the other hand, embodies the opposite view to that of the EU. Auschwitz was possible because there was one nation not in existence: Israel.”
Jordan Peterson and Living with My Disability
This article is more personal. I have some experience with Peterson’s description of suffering, and I believe that what he says is right.
What They Don’t Tell You about Jeremy Corbyn
“Since the days of his childhood, Corbyn has been able to engage in his socialist and New Left fantasies, insulated from the catastrophic consequences when they are put into practice.”
Why I Am No Longer a Brexit “Remainer”
“Those who proclaim their concern for the poor in the abstract nearly always find that they hate what the poor believe in when confronted with it.”
What Dave Rubin Gets Wrong
Henry George takes aim at today’s popularization of so-called “Classical Liberalism,” a movement that fails to appreciate that, for true conservatives, economic priorities are always subservient to ensuring social order.
British Politics is Degraded and Divisive
“Trump’s visit saw him declare Britain to be in chaos (it is), that the current Brexit wasn’t what people voted for (it isn’t, and never would be), and that Boris Johnson would make a great prime minister.”
Literature Meets Identity Politics: Lionel Shriver vs. Penguin-Random House
“Writers should be judged first by the quality of the content of their prose, not their identity. If we forget this, then the world of literature will be much poorer, and with the loss of this source of consolation, so will we all.”
Does Loneliness Give Rise to Totalitarianism?
“What prepares men for totalitarian domination…is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century.”
Misunderstanding Terrorism in Europe
Everywhere is becoming like Israel in the need to take security measures that encroach further and further into daily life. One would not be surprised if Israelis did not feel a sense of schadenfreude; after all, those who criticized Israel as a police state now indulge in the same practices.
The British Far-Left, A Culture Acquiescing to Anti-Semitism
Israel deserves criticism like any state, but its castigation on the Left (and elsewhere) goes way beyond that. Israel is now the world’s demonic Jew, subject to the calumnies and libels Jews have faced throughout history.
The Conflict over Character Education: Faith Schools in Britain
In the UK recently, there has been concern over the growth in private and unregistered faith schools.
Freedom of Speech? Meet the British Border
Lauren Southern’s unjust arrest is a threat to freedom of speech and philosophy. This is an example of how the UK Border Force’s efforts to keep citizens safe are misguided.
The Winter Olympics was a Show of Great Unity and Healthy Patriotism
The Winter Olympics encourage a healthy feeling of patriotism that does not unleash the tiger of unthinking nationalism.
Free Speech is Scary. The Solution: Speak Up
The parade of world leaders through the streets of central Paris made a mockery of the dead cartoonists; some of those who linked arms did all they could to suppress freedom of expression in their own countries.
The Left’s Silence on Iran Is Shameful
Most of Western media, leftist politicians, and feminist organizations have been largely silent on the recent protests in Iran. Sadly, this was to be expected.
Want to Help Disabled People? Treat Them as Individuals
Our human nature, something that is capable of cruelty or goodness, is something we all have in common, whether able or disabled.
The Media’s Nostalgia for the Bush Years Is Ridiculous
This is the President, after all, who did everything that the modern Left supposedly despises; this is the man who sent thousands of young Americans to their deaths in Iraq.
I’m Disabled, and I Despise Cultural Victimhood
As it currently stands, university campuses across the Western world are being eaten from the inside out – this is just an undeniable reality.