Look. It is a commonplace among us, or ought to be, that drivers ed classes in New York teach the students to drive with their knees so that they can give other drivers the bird using both hands. At least that’s what I heard. And this relates, as I am sure you recognize, to an …
Political Freak Outs
As we close in on the first actual voting in Iowa, with actual voters, now just a few weeks away, I would like to register a few cautions. I have addressed the limitations of polling before, but here want to say something about the use made of them by the chattering classes. Keep in mind …
The Wrong Rights
Our Constitution concludes with a Bill of Rights, but these rights are of a particular nature — and are friends of real liberty. But within the last several generations, another set of ostensible rights, with a completely different nature, have crept into our public discourse. These rights, these entitlements, are enemies of liberty. Not only …
7 Tips for Watching This Presidential Campaign
We are now five weeks out from the start of actual voting in Iowa. That being the case, and given that the field has been winnowed to fairly manageable proportions, I thought I should offer a few pointers to those observers who are having trouble tearing their eyes away from this slow-motion car-crash spectacle. 1. …
John Piper and Guns
So I see from the Internet that John Piper set off a flurry of reactions and responses to his gun post. I refer to the one in which he discouraged Christians from packing heat, you can imagine how that went over. For my readers in the UK, yes, this really is a thing. Some churches …
Social Justice Millennials
As I have been working through the Essays of C.S. Lewis, I have noticed how dedicated to the argument he was. He believed in the reality of fixed and objective truth, and believed it was necessary to assume such a fixed reality in order to get anywhere at all. We have to assume that reality …
How Then Shall We Deport?
Donald Trump has now proposed drastic measures to deal with the threat of domestic terrorism, of the kind we recently saw in San Bernardino. His idea is to put a ban on all Muslims entering the country, period, until such time as we get all this “sorted out.” His idea is, of course, simplistic, unworkable, …
The Dutch Have Taken Holland
I noticed the other day — as who could not? — that our president was gathered with a bunch of world leaders in Paris, in order to deliver a solemn warning to the world. This message, brought to us by our global elites, was that we should let our global elites intervene to save us …
The Camp of the Saints
In 1973, Jean Raspail published a novel The Camp of the Saints, about Muslim immigrants overrunning Europe. Another novel had a similar theme, this one by Charles Williams, but I don’t remember which one. Since I read that book it has been lo, these many years — but enough years to make Williams seem really …
On Sidestepping the Mega-Bleh
One of the things that policy wonks need to realize is that politics isn’t always about what they call politics. There are the policy aspects, to be sure. What is the plan on paper? And there are the character issues, that’s another thing. How many closets, how many skeletons? Then there is the matter of …