Archive for May, 2010

Credo for Conservatives IV: Abortion

Questions of life and death—abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, euthanasia, and suicide—form a fissure in the American political geography, dividing (typically) left from right, but also moral from immoral, and—all too often—sane from insane.

Update to Aeneid IB: Compassion

Dr. Fleming has added more to the entry “Aeneid IB: Compassion.” Click on the title or on the “Continued” link below to go directly to the update.

Something Rotten in the State?

At the 1952 Republican National Convention, California’s favorite son, Gov. Earl Warren, released his delegation reportedly in return for Ike’s promise that he would give Warren the first open seat on the Supreme Court.

In September 1953, Chief Justice Fred Vinson dropped dead of a heart attack. As they say, the rest is history.

Rand Paul: Unprincipled Hero

Rand Paul is the epitome of the Tea Party movement. By all accounts he is a good man who believes what he is saying. Unfortunately, he does not know what he is saying. His knee-jerk repetition of libertarian platitudes, while it does not constitute anything like a coherent or principled political philosophy or ideology, will get him into trouble repeatedly.

Aeneid IB: Compassion

My old teacher Brooks Otis, in his once famous book, described Vergil as the author of “civilized poetry.” While Homer concentrates on action and the heroic virtues, Vergil is interested in the moral qualities on which the Roman order (and our own) rests.

What Rand Paul Got Right

The question Rand Paul forces us to look squarely in the face is a sensitive one: when, in human affairs, does pragmatism trump principle? Fairly often, is the answer. It is what we learn at a Certain Age. The world has its own ways of working; nor do all the consequent results interlock in satisfying ways.

The War Over America’s Past

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

That was the slogan of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s “1984,” where Winston Smith worked ceaselessly revising the past to conform to the latest party line of Big Brother.

Take the Deal, Mr. President

If Barack Obama is sincere in his policy of “no nukes in Iran—no war with Iran,” he will halt this rude dismissal of the offer Tehran just made to ship half its stockpile of uranium to Turkey.

Consider what President Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah himself have just committed to do.

Obama Versus the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court’s power has become virtually unchecked: Amending the Constitution to reverse an erroneous Supreme Court decision is nearly impossible, and Congress has proved too timid to use the other weapons the Constitution provides to check the Court, including its power to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

For the Children

“I figured if he was there, I’d make sure he wasn’t there [again],” Harlan Drake, a 33-year-old truck driver, told Det. Sgt. Scott Shenk of the Shiawassee County Sheriff’s Department. But on the morning of September 11, 2009, James Pouillon was there, sitting across the street from Owosso High School as he had on so many other mornings. And so Harlan Drake stopped his car, pulled a .45 out of a bag, carefully took aim, and shot Pouillon.