Nobility of Spirit, by Rob Riemen A thin, but powerfully written book in which man’s dual nature is explored and the spiritual side highlighted. Riemen emphasizes the importance of the world of ideas in the classical sense and appeals to our intellectuals to take seriously their role as the guardians of universal values such as […]
Archives for September 2008
Above His Pay Grade?
One wonders, if life and death policy judgments predicated on the point at which the sanctity of human life begins are beyond Barack Obama’s pay grade, what other life and death issues in this morally conflicted world does he consider beyond his capacity? Or, at a minimum, if he considers this judgment too close to call, why not give […]
Cold War Redux?
In his 1835 classic, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville was prescient in his characterization of the Russians and the Americans: “The American struggles against the obstacles which nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russians are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The […]
The Campaign for Gridlock
A recent essay by P. J. O’Rourke in Cato’s Letter caught my attention and sent me back to Jonah Goldberg’s insightful book, Liberal Fascism, which I reviewed earlier this year. O’Rourke’s thesis, which parallels the essential message delivered by Goldberg, is that the problem in the conflict over issues in public discourse is politics; in other […]