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Events in Egypt have revealed something incredible about American political discourse. Most of the time, most Americans – and even most of the media pundits – operate under the assumption that America is a force for good in the world. They glean and grin and comfort themselves in “knowing” that America has a tradition of [...]
Filed under: foreign policy, ideas, politics, world
MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — “… we will live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.” Controversial figure? Certainly. Unsavory and unseemly ties and skeletons in the closet? Definitely. Worthy of a national holiday? Maybe not (although [...]
In late 2006, an unknown Julian Assange posted two seemingly innocuous essays on his blog iq.org. The essays, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies” and “Conspiracy as Governance,” (PDF) appeared online around the same time Wikileaks first launched. The essays, which are nearly identical, advocate disrupting the tools authoritarian regimes use to collude or “conspire” in a [...]
For eight long years under George W. Bush, conservatives endorsed a don’t ask, don’t tell foreign policy–they did not really ask why their country was at war and Republican leaders did not tell, or bother, Americans with any of the gory details. Missions were accomplished, we fought them over there so we didn’t have to [...]
MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — Last weekend, I ventured to my alma mater to attend the Center for Ethics and Culture‘s tenth annual conference, The Summons of Freedom: Virtue, Sacrifice, and the Common Good. An intoxicating breath of fresh intellectual air, the conference featured invited speakers, inter alios, Russell Hittinger (Attended and amazed by.), Michael Novak [...]
Filed under: ideas
MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — Over at Nathancontrmundi, I’ve posted my first substantive bit of writing in some time, “Confessions of a Front-Porch Realist”, my reflections on the less-pleasant realities of localism in contemporary America. It is not, I hope, an accurate depiction of all of rural Middle America, but I fear that it aptly describes [...]
MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — I must confess something: I am a fraud. For all the paeans I offer to the idea of “community”, I have never read Nisbet’s The Quest for Community. Downright shameful, I know. (Other than a short essay or two, I’ve read nothing of Kirk other than The Conservative Mind, either; I [...]
On yesterday’s drive home I listened to Sean Hannity, as I often do. Hannity was upset, as he often is, about President Obama ”weakening” American defense – scrapping missile defense shields in Europe, not escalating troop levels fast enough in Afghanistan, ignoring an Iran on the verge of getting nukes – you know, not being “conservative.” “You’re a great American!” [...]
Filed under: ideas, politics, pop culture, Uncategorized, war
I read this on the air this morning and thought it worth passing around. None of this will be earth shattering to most on the Alternative Right, but I thought of it on September 11, 2001 and still think of it every anniversary. This is Pat Buchanan describing a hypothetical terrorist attack that could take [...]
Filed under: ideas, politics, Uncategorized, war
MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — First, apologies for the infrequency of my contributions. I suffer from a seemingly terminal case of poor time-management abilities, but I promise that I’m working on rectifying this. I hate to leave my favorite agitators without reason to engage me. With a few drafts saved and ideas running through my convoluted [...]