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A Bold Tax Reform Plan

by Christopher Chantrill

STEPHEN MOORE proposes a startlingly simple tax reform plan. Enact a flat tax with maximum rate of 20 percent (“there would be no deductions whatsoever, except for a generous personal deduction and child deduction”) and let people decide whether to pay according to the new tax or the old tax. That way people with e.g. mammoth mortgage interest deducations could stay with the old system and the rest of us could  unfold 

Steyn: Let's Worry About the Euro Quagmire

by Christopher Chantrill

NOW THAT THE Iraqis have decided to give the terrorists the finger, sensitive Mark Steyn is starting to worry about the quagmire in Europe. These days, Iraq looks like the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. But Eurabia? Steynīs not so sure about  unfold 

Turner: The Iraq Election in Verse

by Christopher Chantrill

FREDERICK TURNER thinks that the Iraq election should be celebrated in verse that rhymes and scans. Now thatīs a concept! Verse that  unfold 

Iraq Election: Handing Out Medals

by Christopher Chantrill

AFTER THE SPECTACULAR turnout in Sundayīs Iraq election, itīs time to name names, as they say. And Stephen Schwartz says there arenīt too many names that deserve any credit. Most of us lolled lazily in the “coalition of the  unfold 

Steyn: Four More Wars

by Christopher Chantrill

WHILE MANY conservatives are tiring of the War on Terror, Mark Steyn rings down Full Speed Ahead to the engine room. And he understands why people are a little leery of President Bushīs inaugural speech compared to their continuing praise for President Kennedyīs call to “pay any price, bear any burden” 44 years ago. When Bush says “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture” they think  unfold 

More on the New England Vapors

by Christopher Chantrill

WHILE LARRY Summers completes his re-education course somewhere in New England, George Will has a few things to say about Victorian maidens suffering from the vapors and modern feminists that use Victorian methods to attack ideas with which they disagree. What it comes down to, writes Will, is that the left cannot abide “the thought that nature sets limits to the malleability of human material,” that there are physical limits to  unfold 

Spengler: Americans Can't Do Tragedy

by Christopher Chantrill

YOU CANīT PUT one over on Spengler. Heīs right there in the front rank complaining that it just isnīt on to save Charlotte Simmons from a necessary martyrdom. But, heīs sanguine about it. Americans have an ideal of middlebrow competence—represented by heroes like Chuck Yeager and George W, Bush—that shields from them the real awfulness of life. But not Spengler. He has drunk deep from the German experience, and has seen the face of the Dionysian, the truth  unfold 

Forming and Breaking Relationships Easily

by Christopher Chantrill

NO, THIS IS not about divorce. It is about the nature of social relationships generally. Some relationships can be formed and dissolved easily, like a temporary business partnership, writes Arnold Kling, and others are more permanent, with higher costs of entry and exit. “Societies that place individuals under the permanent discipline of inherited or assigned collectivities, and permanently bind them into such.” remain bogged down in family favoritism, ethnic, racial, or religious factionalism.” But the Anglsphere is  unfold 

Ken Mehlman Lays Down a Marker

by Christopher Chantrill

YOU CANīT MAKE it any clearer than this. Ken Mehlman announces that heīs going to use the 1.4 million volunteers he mobilized to re-elect President Bush in moving the presidentīs agenda for Social Security reform, tax simplification, and grow the Republican  unfold 

Ankle Biters Get Teeth into Inaugural Speech

by Christopher Chantrill

LOYAL LIBERAL E.J. Dionne gets to work on knee-capping the presidentīs inaugural speech. Apparently there was much less than met the eye; Bush isnīt going to march out and conquer the world tomorrow, according to White House staffers. This is a problem “and a terrible mistake for Bush, because the greatest barrier to Bushīs success in his second term is the intense cynicism he has inspired about his motives.” Well thatīs a possibility. Or is  unfold 

Brit Bobbies Lost Key to Gun Cupboard

by Christopher Chantrill

DONīT CANCEL your British vaction, it was nearly a century ago when London bobbies chasing some Latvian armed robbery suspects in London had to borrow pistols from bystanders, because the gun cupboard at the police station was locked and nobody could find the key. Donīt be too hard on those Keystone Kops, though; In 1909 there were only about 12 armed robberies a year in London, and the public had a right  unfold 

Brit Pundit Says Don't Count US Out

by Christopher Chantrill

A WRITER FROM the London Times observes that America is not as supremely confident as it once was, but it is still a force to be reckoned with and will be for a  unfold 

Bush Supporters Wonder What It Means

by Christopher Chantrill

REAGAN/BUSH speechwriter Peggy Noonan worries that the President has overpromised a perfect world that can never be. Uber-pundit Fred Barnes writes that the President has integrated the two wings of American foreign policy into a single crusade, combining the idealist vision of worldwide democracy and the realist vision of a safe and secure world into a grand  unfold 

Inaugural Sour Grapes

by Christopher Chantrill

FOR THE LAST couple of weeks Democrats have been complaining about the cost of the Bush inauguration while tsunami victims go unrelieved. The indispensible Ann Coulter reminds them that back in 1993 while thousand were dying in disasters world-wide, Democrats talked of nothing but partying on forever at the Clinton inaugural. And what about George Soros? Couldnīt he manage to get by on $1 billion of his $7 billion fortune and give the rest to tsunami  unfold 

Brits on Bush: It ain't over yet

by Christopher Chantrill

A BRIT AT THE London Times does a think piece on the Bush inauguration. The U.S. may not be as optimistic as it was, he opines, but donīt count it out  unfold 

Spengler: Two Cheers for Hypocrisy

by Christopher Chantrill

SPENGLERīS been taking the odd week off over the holiday season, enraging his world-wide fans, but heīs back with a characteristic piece on the virtue of hypocrisy in a lighthearted romp through Goethe, Ibsen, and  unfold 

Scorched Earth Won't Work For Democrats

by Christopher Chantrill

DAVID BROOKS advises Democrats not to emulate Newt Gingrich and execute an oppositional strategy in Congress over issues like Social Security. Itīs the wrong strategy and will further marginalize  unfold 

President Bush: "I Assume I'm Right"

by Christopher Chantrill

WHEN WILL THE Democrats stop misunderestimating President Bush? Here is the president talking about his policy of extending democracy across the globe. “Itīs exciting to be part of stimulating a debate of such significance. It really is the philosophical argument of the age.” Some people say his policy is wrong, he admits. But he says: “I assume Iīm right.” Well, youīd hope so. But I suspect that many people are scandalized by such a  unfold 

Uncle Ted, The Face of the Democrats

by Christopher Chantrill

BOSTON COLUMNIST Don Feder takes apart Ted Kennedy and the Democrats. This is a good read for liberals, because it surfaces the issues on which mainstream America differs from the Democratic coalition of victims and  unfold 

The Political Math for Social Security Reform

by Christopher Chantrill

FRED BARNES discards the conventional wisdom and tries to figure out how President Bush can get to 51 percent on Social Security reform this  unfold 

Sshh! The Deficit is Shrinking!

by Christopher Chantrill

WHILE WE ARE all attentively watching Dan Ratherīs rather outré retirement party, the deficit is shrinking rapidly from a big increase in corporate tax collections and individual income tax collections. And the Bush administration is planning a couple of hold-the-line budgets. Expect the pips to start squeaking any moment  unfold 

Peggy Noonan at Her Finest

by Christopher Chantrill

PEGGY NOONAN—WHO used to write Dan Ratherīs radio commentaries—weighs in on the Rathergate Report. Donīt worry that the report doesnīt mention liberal bias, she writes. It didnīt need to. But the important thing is that the world has changed. The old MSM monopoly is dead. Back in the old days, if your ox was gored by the media you could write a letter. Maybe they would read it; maybe they wouldnīt. Maybe they would publish it; maybe they  unfold 

Steyn: Brits are to Blame for Black Homophobia?

by Christopher Chantrill

NO, MARK STEYN hasnīt gone bonkers. But the earnest Decca Aitkenhead in The Guardian thinks that the rampant homophobia among Jamaican blacks in Britain is a legacy of slavery. It all goes to show, writes the long suffering Steyn, that multiculturalism is a suicide cult, a way of blaming yourself (or at least your right-wing compatriots) for all the ills of the  unfold 

Steyn: Last Week's Boxer Rebellion Means Dems are Losers

by Christopher Chantrill

SPEAKING AS a Canadian and resumably entitled to vote in California, Mark Steyn isnīt buying the flim-flam from last weekīs Democratic media show on Stolen Ohio. All it means is that Democrats are  unfold 

NYT Trendspotters: Religion is Reviving Worldwide!

by Christopher Chantrill

ALL THE UPPER West Side is agog this week after the New York Timesīs Laurie Goodstein announced that religion is on the rise, worldwide. But not to worry, “fundamentalism” seems to be mostly declining and progressive politics is still the only thing that  unfold 

What Happened to the Reasonable Man?

by Christopher Chantrill

THIS IS A MUDDY article about balancing by the muddy Jonah Goldberg. How much weight should society give to the average and how much to the outlier? What is the place of morality in the law, and what happens when we strip it out and replace it with utility? How pragmatic is the pragmatist? Itīs actually worth  unfold 

What Should Democrats Do?

by Christopher Chantrill

NOW PEGGY NOONAN is giving them advice. “The Bush administration has stood for cutting taxes, allowing high spending, and being tough in the world. The Democrats stand for raising taxes, high spending, and being weak in the world,” she writes. So what should they do? Become more like Republicans? Er, yes. Sorry about that,  unfold 

Steyn: Message from Col. Shrapnell

by Christopher Chantrill

THE MEN OF Battery M send up a barrage of shot and shell against the Blame America First on tsunamis crowd, from that Norwegian “stingy” chappie to Brit Claire Short to anyone else who feels like cocking a snook at our brave boys now helping victims in South  unfold 

Spengler: Neocon Gelernter Writes "Utter and Complete Rubbish"

by Christopher Chantrill

DAVID GELERNTER in Commentary thinks the Puritanism of the founders shaded into modern Americanism, but Spengler is having none of it. Puritanism dissolved into Unitarianism and Boston Brahminism after the revolution, he writes. It was replaced on the moral-cultural stage by the Methodists and Baptists of the Second Great Awakening who swore to end slavery and did so in the Civil War. Now, Spengler says, we have a Fourth Great Awakening of people who “have  unfold 

CEO Deepthink from Drucker

by Christopher Chantrill

WHAT IS THE job of a CEO, corporate, government, or non-profit? It’s a question that management science hasn’t really answered yet, says management guru Peter Drucker. The answer? Well, it’s buried in layers  unfold 

Steyn: Americans Are Different

by Christopher Chantrill

AMERICANS ARE different; they work more than kindler, gentler Euros. For instance, Mark Steyn’s assistant wanted to come in for a couple of hours on Christmas Day. But what are the Euros doing with all their extra spare time? They certainly arenīt using it to raise  unfold 

 TAGS

[W]hen I asked a liberal longtime editor I know with a mainstream [publishing] house for a candid, shorthand version of the assumptions she and her colleagues make about conservatives, she didn't hesitate. “Racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-choice fascists,” she offered, smiling but meaning it.
Harry Stein, I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican

[T]he way “to achieve a system of determining admission to the public schools on a nonracial basis,” Brown II, 349 U. S., at 300–301, is to stop assigning students on a racial basis. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
Roberts, C.J., Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle School District

[T]he Liberal, and still more the subspecies Radical... more than any other in these latter days seems under the impression that so long as he has a good end in view he is warranted in exercising over men all the coercion he is able[.]
Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

[Every] sacrifice is an act of impurity that pays for a prior act of greater impurity... without its participants having to suffer the full consequences incurred by its predecessor. The punishment is commuted in a process that strangely combines and finesses the deep contradiction between justice and mercy.
Frederick Turner, Beauty: The Value of Values

Within Pentecostalism the injurious hierarchies of the wider world are abrogated and replaced by a single hierarchy of faith, grace, and the empowerments of the spirit... where groups gather on rafts to take them through the turbulence of the great journey from extensive rural networks to the mega-city and the nuclear family...
David Martin, On Secularization

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

These emerge out of long-standing moral notions of freedom, benevolence, and the affirmation of ordinary life... I have been sketching a schematic map... [of] the moral sources [of these notions]... the original theistic grounding for these standards... a naturalism of disengaged reason, which in our day takes scientistic forms, and a third family of views which finds its sources in Romantic expressivism, or in one of the modernist successor visions.
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

The Union publishes an exact return of the amount of its taxes; I can get copies of the budgets of the four and twenty component states; but who can tell me what the citizens spend in the administration of county and township?
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate. 
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

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