Pat Buchanan feared  potential media-fueled unrest from the Zimmerman verdict, and Noah Millman cautioned against making Zimmerman a folk hero. Paul Gottfried responded to Samuel Goldman’s defense of Leo Strauss. Rod Dreher looked to humanities as a way of knowing, and examined the hard questions about life’s diminishing returns, while Millman questioned Christianity’s links to human rights.

Larison wondered why hawks call other states expansionist, noted the delusions of interventionists, and explained the lack of eagerness for interference in Syria. Chris Hellman and Mattea Kramer tracked the U.S. war machine’s monstrous budget, Kelley Vlahos followed the Pentagon’s lies about the health and safety of soldiers exposed to “burn pit” fumes, and Phillip Giraldi spotlighted the Obama administration’s casual willingness to talk about war.

Dreher bemoaned the lack of financial regulatory toughness. Jordan Bloom defended Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell against neocon smears. Scott McConnell criticized Bill Kristol’s Buchanan revisionism, and Goldman explained that Congress has never been a gentlemen’s discussion club.