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Not only has the North Carolina congressman come to see the Iraq War as folly, he was one of only a handful of Republicans to oppose the torture bill. The honor roll also includes Roscoe Bartlett, Wayne Gilchrest, Steven LaTourette, James Leach, Jerry Moran, and of course Ron Paul. Along with most of the Democratic [...]
Daniel Larison has tagged me for a books meme that’s been making the rounds. So here we go:
1.) One book that has changed your life?
The Twilight of Authority, the first book by Robert Nisbet that I read.
2.) One book that you have read more than once?
An important one is Red Planet by Robert [...]
Filed under: Books
Former First Things editor Damon Linker’s new book criticizing his old boss, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, is starting to pick up media notice. My review of The Theocons appears in the forthcoming (in about a month) December issue of Reason, along with my take on Patrick Hynes’s In Defense of the Religious Right. In the [...]
Scott Lahti brings to my attention this article about Mencken’s house on Hollins Street in Baltimore. The city has neither the means nor much will to take care of the place (which was a museum at one point). Luckily, the Maryland Historical Society and the Friends of the H.L. Mencken House might soon have a [...]
Filed under: Culture
I’m looking forward to “Apocalypto.” While promoting the new film, Mel Gibson put the collapse of Mayan civilization in context:
In describing its portrait of a civilization in decline, Gibson said, “The precursors to a civilization that’s going under are the same, time and time again,” drawing parallels between the Mayan civilization on the brink of [...]
Filed under: Film, Social criticism, War
The government’s own intelligence assessment has come to the conclusion to which The American Conservative and other informed observers have been pointing for a few years now. From the NY Times:
An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the [...]
Filed under: War
One of the most stimulating and original web zines of the past few years is closing down. The New Pantagruel at its best really was a “localist, decentralist, anarcho-Christian and authentically conservative” journal as well as an ongoing rejoinder of sorts to the neocon/theocon First Things.
Filed under: Websites
The American Conservative has put up a sneak preview of one of the stories from our Oct. 9 issue: Jim Bovard’s takedown of John Yoo and his book War by Other Means: An Insider’s Account of the War on Terror. As deputy attorney general under Ashcroft, Yoo was one of the authors of the infamous [...]
Twice last week I was asked whether I’d call myself a conservative, a libertarian, a paleoconservative, or what. Both times I said the same thing: “anarchist.” The first time I was drunk enough that nobody was likely to put too much weight on my words. The latter time, regrettably, I was stone-cold sober and on [...]
Filed under: Conservatism, Liberty, Social criticism