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Weekly Opeds 2003
by Christopher Chantrill
Parable of the Swim Team
In this complex world, how can an ordinary person cope without instruction from the experts? That’s the rationale for liberal colonialism, under which the average American is ruled by a colonial administration of liberal experts. Just like the colonialists of the nineteenth century, liberals find themselves called to minister to the natives of
The Children of the Welfare State
After close on a century, the radical social reforms of the welfare state are clearly bearing fruit. And we can begin to see a new social type emerging: the child of the welfare state.
I raise this because of the conviction in England last week of Ian Huntley, accused of killing two ten-year-old schoolgirls in 2002 in the little village of
| more | 12/21/03
Excluding Christianity Won't Work, Liberals
Every year around Christmas, the left moves the yard markers a little further on its campaign to remove Christianity from the public square. This year, some tender shoots in the IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis School of Law, students and a professor on sabbatical, complained about a Christmas tree display in the lobby of the school. And at
Made for Each Other
During President Bush’s November 2003
state visit to theUnited Kingdom, it was notable that the demonstrations against his visit were
organized by a coalition of the hard left and the Islamicists.
To some it seems rather odd that the champions of rights for women and
homosexuals should be in
Suborning the Scientists
I was looking through my mother’s bookshelf over
Thanksgiving sampling the many volumes she has about climate change. Back in 1980, for instance, she got Our
Turbulent Sun, by Kendrick Frazier, which discusses the importance of
determining whether the “solar constant” or energy output of the sun
Never Misunderestimate
If Winston Churchill had said: “Never, never, never,
never misunderestimate your adversary” instead of never to give in, it still
wouldn’t have helped the Bush-haters. After
all, they said that Coolidge was a fool, Eisenhower was half asleep, and Reagan
an amiable dunce.
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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