For as long as there has been an American party of the left, it has been associated with an obsession with the notion of “fairness” and a related hatred of social and economic inequality of condition, which is often closely allied with envy and even hatred of the “rich”.  This began long before the late […]

I am not an ideologue………really, I’m not. — President Barack Obama speaking to the Republican House caucus. Well, if you believe that, I’m like George Strait, with oceanfront property in Arizona.  At some point in time, we must separate the rhetoric from the action on the ground.  The truth is that this President may be […]

Since she has retired from the world stage, I occasionally enjoy digging up some of my favorite nuggets from Margaret Thatcher, one of my heroes.  This is from a 1981 speech: For me, pragmatism is not enough.  Nor is that fashionable word “consensus”.  To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, […]

A couple of entries from the Wall Street Journal’s “Notable and Quotable” section just days apart recently caught my attention.   One is from Doris Kearns Goodwin on Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society from her book, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, the other is from a 1939 article in the New York Herald Tribune […]

Happy New Year!  As I indicated in the close of the November letter, as Americans we should begin the new year and the prospect of a new era in our politics with enormous pride in and thanks for the wisdom of the system that will again allow us to perform the true miracle of the […]

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 […]

We should all be aware of the truism that “ideas have consequences”, and I have admired Richard Weaver’s work of that name for its insight into the origins of a number of ideas that have had negative consequences over the past several centuries. About three years ago, the cover story in Foreign Policy magazine featured […]

“China Approves Property Law Strengthening Its Middle Class” – March 2007 New York Times headline of article announcing China’s first law protecting private property. “The whole theme of the last century and of Einstein’s life is about people who fled oppression in order to go places to think and express themselves.” – Walter Isaacson, author […]

“This constitution is in its way, a daughter of French thought.”—French President Jacques Chirac. A very perceptive quote, for, in fact, the document in its essence is a direct derivative of the ideals of the “general will” as embodied in the thought of the French philosophes who formed the ideology that led to the French […]

It was called the most philosophical inaugural address ever, and I thought it was Bush’s best ever, until he at least equaled, and might have topped it with his State of the Union speech. One would be hard pressed to find more comprehensive pronouncements of natural right conservatism (some might add neo-) this side of […]