American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup, F.H. Buckley (184 pages, Encounter Books, 2020) In polarized America, many believe that the sad state of the Union has reached the point of a serious threat of secession. It is a topic of great affliction for those who do not wish to see the nation [...]
When rioting, looting, and arson erupted, and attacks on police began, the liberal leadership of America's cities and states sat morally and politically paralyzed. Liberals may equate the term "law and order" with racism, but without law and order, there is no justice and no peace. On the fifth night of rioting, looting and arson [...]
We have become victims of our very success in producing a comfortable life so that nothing new seems worth much further effort. The United States and the West might even be as decadent as was ancient Rome, which managed decline for centuries. Why not the United States too? Everyone on the right seems to have [...]
Nostalgia for the smaller face-to-face societies of the past is common to both progressives and conservatives. There was a time, whether it was 100 years ago or 10,000, when relationships between people were more meaningful, families lived more in harmony with nature, and communities worked together to care for the young and the needy. The [...]
Every man is his own pope and philosopher-king on the Internet, where our semi-formed and semi-informed opinions are cast as absolutes. Convinced of our perfect knowledge and infallible righteousness, we denounce and demean in harsh, uncharitable terms the arguments of others, and even their very persons. “Minds are conquered not by arms, but by love [...]
In 1953, Robert Nisbet published “The Quest for Community,” a book that reveals to us that our own quest has become something both natural and unnatural. That is, it is natural to desire to belong, but it is horrifically unnatural in the ways we choose to commune. 1953 was a banner year for the conservative [...]
The coronavirus crisis seems to be one of those epochal events that alter the character of the country and the course of the republic. You can't go home again. The shattering events of March, followed by what is coming in April and May, will have lasting impacts on the hearts and minds of this generation. [...]
In his latest book, Yuval Levin presents irrefutable evidence of America’s weakening attachment to its core institutions of family, community, voluntary associations, religions, and political parties. His goal, however, is to move beyond today’s ideological culture war and show how commitment to institutions puts us on an edifying path to belonging, social status, personal integrity, [...]
Once upon a time there was a beautiful land that called itself the Shire. Its people were happy. They lived and worked on their own small pieces of land, growing their own food and trading the surplus with their neighbours. Many of them were also craftsmen, making and fixing things so that everyone could work [...]
Reports of folks in this heavily armed nation stocking up on guns and ammunition suggest a widespread apprehension of what may be coming. If the medical crisis is allowed to induce an economic crisis that leads to a social crisis, the American political system, our democratic system, may itself be severely tested. "We cannot let [...]
Americans seem to disagree with each other more and to dislike each other more than they have in the lifetime of most of us. One wonders: How does it all stay together? And for how long? On the holiday set aside in 2020 to honor Martin Luther King, the premier advocate of nonviolent Gandhian civil [...]
The assumptions linked to the more deliberative, publicly responsible model of citizenship, though utopian and far-fetched at least within the perspective of modern, western society, can be thought of in a way that makes them seem more practical. Thomas Jefferson, for example, believed both that good government was possible only when those who governed were [...]
Traditionally, the type of men that women wanted to marry embodied all the classic standards of male achievement: educated, physically fit, able to hold down a job. But in 1960, everything changed. A watershed moment produced an oral contraceptive known as “the pill.” No innovation has fundamentally altered the premises of civilization quite like birth [...]
The afflictive thing about living in our polarized society is the terrifying thought that there is something permanent in our incompatibility with each other. No one desires the present unpleasantness. We sincerely wish that we could get along. However, most people want a quick fix. They want magic buttons to push that will make the [...]