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Misunderestimated Again
by Christopher Chantrill
PRESIDENT Bush seems to understand what President Reagan understood before him. A president has a chance to make only two or three moves on the chessboard of history. So he’d better make them good ones. Alternatively, he can engage in fancy footwork like Third Way dancers Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, serving up eye-catching initiatives every week. However even the best chess moves don’t necessarily look good at the time. Many people are more impressed by fancy footwork. In his end of year piece
| 12/31/07 8:19 am ETWhat Presidents Wear
by Christopher Chantrill
WHEN THE Duke of Wellington fought the Battle of Waterloo, he did not wear a resplendent uniform. He wore, as Paul Johnson reminds us, “dark blue civilian dress.” He was, you may say, sending a message about military might. Victory in battle is all very well, but after it’s over, we are going home to peacetime pursuits. At the Potsdam Conference immediately after World War II, he relates [Prime Minister unfold
| 12/28/07 9:22 am ETLiberal Fascism. So?
by Christopher Chantrill
THE LIBERALS are already reaching the tipping point on Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Someone already vandalized the product page at Amazon. (Would that be an inside job?) But what’s all the fuss about? Liberalism comes from the same stable as communism and fascism? Of course. They are all reactionary movements trying escape from an alienation towards the modern age. They unfold
| 12/27/07 3:45 am ETIs There a Conservative Future?
by Christopher Chantrill
IN THIS time of conservative discontent, seers and pundits are peering into the future. Will there be a conservative coalition in the future, they wonder? Conservative pundit Tony Blankley takes a look, and wonders what it would take to keep a majority coalition going. It would have to hold almost all of its Reagan coalition plus gain the support of at least 40 percent of the growing Hispanic vote. And that unfold
| 12/26/07 8:05 am ETXmas at the Party of Government
by Christopher Chantrill
YOU GOTTA LOVE Hillary’s Xmas Card. I refuse to watch it (ok, I did watch it when I went to get the link) but Jonah Goldberg says it’s about Hillary Clinton getting all her Xmas gifts together, the ones she is going to give to you, the voter.
One is labeled "Universal Health Care," another is "Alternative Energy," another is "Middle Class Tax Breaks." And then the unfold
| 12/21/07 8:23 am ETReconciliation In Iraq?
by Christopher Chantrill
OBVIOUSLY something has changed in Iraq in the last year. The question is what, and what will happen next. Will the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq lead to a reconciliation between Sunni and Shia, or will the civil war resume once the US starts to reduce its forces in the year ahead? Conservative commentators like Michael Ledeen are optimistic. Meanwhile, the country’s leading religious leaders seem on the unfold
| 12/20/07 2:41 am ETWhy Is It So Cold? Maybe the Sun?
by Christopher Chantrill
EVERYONE knows that the polar bears are in trouble and Greenland is about to melt because of all the global warming. In fact, though, the world is in the middle of a cold snap, according to geophysicist (and, presumably climate change denier) David Deming. South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year unfold
| 12/19/07 4:45 am ETRipping the Republican Big Tent Apart
by Christopher Chantrill
FIFTY YEARS ago the US conservative movement began in a fusion between Burkean conservatives and libertarian conservatives. In the late Sixties they were joined by the “mugged by reality” neoconservatives.
Then in the 1970s the Supreme Court created the Christian Right with Roe v. Wade and added social conservatives to the movement.
These different factions in the conservative movement have not always got along, but they have learned to live with each other and to respect each other’s agenda. The poster boy unfold
| 12/18/07 5:39 am ETHuckabee Sucks Up to Liberals
by Christopher Chantrill
THEY SAY that presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, despite his aw-shucks manner is a true product of Arkansas politics—like Bill Clinton. So it’s not surprising that in his upcoming article for Foreign Affairs magazine he says just what the liberal Council on Foreign Relations would want to hear. The Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been unfold
| 12/17/07 3:28 am ETHewitt Peels a Brokaw
by Christopher Chantrill
RADIO TALK-SHOW host Hugh Hewitt is a master of the interview. His particular skill is painting a picture of a subject’s political views when the subject refuses to be categorized.
No, they say, in answer to the question about voting for Reagan or Bush. I don’t tell who I voted for. So Hewitt spends the next 30 minutes—or 60 minutes—painting an exact picture of the subject’s world unfold
| 12/14/07 4:48 am ETWhat is the Meaning of Change?
by Christopher Chantrill
WHEN THE DEMOCRATS talk about "Change," what do they mean? Mark Steyn wondered about that for the benefit of his readers. It’s puzzling, because, as he writes:
The Democrats are the party of stasis: on affirmative action, there can be no change; on abortion absolutism, there can be no change; even on a less cobwebbed shibboleth such as the Iraq war, there can be no change The other day Barack Obama broke with the program and proposed on Social unfold
| 12/13/07 8:36 am ETMichael Novak for Romney
by Christopher Chantrill
READERS of RMC will know that Michael Novak is one of our RMC Chappies. That’s because of his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism and its notion of the Greater Separation of Powers. So when Michael Novak comes out for Mitt Romney, we listen. He says he’s been privately for Romney for some time but the egregious bigotry of Mike Huckabee forced him to go public. And unfold
| 12/13/07 3:48 am ETCan Obama Really Solve Everything?
by Christopher Chantrill
MANY CONSERVATIVES have been annoyed by the intrasigence of Democrats during the Bush years. There’s no doubt it’s been effective and deflected Republicans from overdue reforms of the welfare state.
But the Dems have come to believe in a dangerous illusion that as Jonah Goldberg puts it:
If only Democrats ran things, there’d be no war, our allies would love us, global warming would be brought to heel, and we would unfold
| 12/12/07 6:15 am ETWe Interrupt This Message
by Christopher Chantrill
THE SHOCKING thing about the actions of New Life Church member Jeanne Assam’s takedown of assassin Matthew Murray is the break with the narrative.
There we were, worrying about “hate speech” and the NIE assessment, whether Hillary Clinton is slipping in the race for the presidency, and listening respectfully to all the important talking heads when suddenly the story changed.
Instead of the usual liberal narrative about “hate” we had a true hater knocking off Christians in Colorado. And all of a sudden a woman unfold
| 12/11/07 8:09 am ETIs Huckabee a Liberal Plant?
by Christopher Chantrill
IF YOU ARE like me you haven’t been too impressed by Mike Huckabee. Just something about the guy. So now that the hit-jobs are coming out, I can’t say I’m that upset. Douglas MacKinnon even wonders whether Huckabee is a liberal plant!
If you are the eventual Democratic nominee for President in 2008, who would you like to run against? Answer: A Republican you can beat.
| 12/10/07 7:32 am ETLibs Ante Up in War on Terror
by Christopher Chantrill
MANY CONSERVATIVES are angry about the naked political slanting in the latest National Intelligence Estimate. How do we suddenly know with high confidence that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003? But I am more sanguine. With the NIE the opponents of President Bush within the administration have put a bet on the table. It’s one thing to be embarrassing the Bushies with embarrassing leaks. It’s another thing when you suddenly up and say: Hey, look, No Nukes! All of a sudden you unfold
| 12/07/07 3:25 am ETRomney's American Creed
by Christopher Chantrill
YOU CAN read the MSM’s hostility to religion any time you open a newspaper or tune into a network news broadcast. Here’s CNN on presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s speech on religion and America December 6, 2007.
White House hopeful Mitt Romney on Thursday articulated his position on the role of religion in America, but avoided details about his personal faith. What is it about these unfold
| 12/06/07 7:35 am ETGingrich pushes platform in Iowa
by Christopher Chantrill
NEWT’S in Iowa and running for VP. He’s also pushing his latest update on the Contract with America, a poll-tested set of issues called “Platform for America.” Here’s what he’s pushing, according to Ralph Z. Hollow.
The former speaker said his appearances in Iowa this week are "about a single-page flat tax" (82 percent), a "moment of silent prayer in school" (94 percent) and the unfold
| 12/05/07 4:29 am ETDerb Admits He's Bored With Election
by Christopher Chantrill
THE FEDERAL government makes such a mess of everything that there’s not much any of the candidates can do. And they are good candidates. Writes John Derbyshire: I even like some of these guys. War hero... confident and successful businessman/governor... tough no-nonsense mayor... laid-back, witty showbiz type with good conservative creds... There’s plenty to like, almost an embarrassment of riches.
| 12/04/07 3:47 am ETChavez Loses Vote--Just
by Christopher Chantrill
LET’S give one cheer for the failure of President Hugo Chavez to make himself president-for-life. Venezuelans voted down his proposed constitutional “reforms.” As Frank Bajak reports: Foes of the reform effort - including Roman Catholic leaders, media freedom groups, human rights groups and prominent business leaders - said it would have granted Chavez unchecked power and imperiled basic rights. It’s a sad fact unfold
| 12/03/07 7:37 am ET
Action
The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness...
But to make a man act [he must have]
the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove
or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action
Chappies
“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie
that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.”
—Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison
China and Christianity
At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing
Churches
[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
Civil Society
“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust
Class War
In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”
Conservatism
Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity
Conservatism's Holy Grail
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
Conversion
“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh
Democratic Capitalism
I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all.
In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
Drang nach Osten
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
Education
“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State
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