William Murchison

Latest by William Murchison in Chronicles

• Reviews

  September 2020

  What the Editors Are Reading

  The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 (1987) by Eric Hobsbawm, and Essays in the Public Philosophy (1955) by Walter Lippmann.

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• Blog

  December 4, 2019

  Ain't It the Truth?

  The Anglican Church of Canada clutches its throat at the prospect of—Lord have mercy—shutting down its ministries and works 20 years from now. You know—putting up the "Closed" sign, the public demand for said ministries dwindling more with every passing year. So sharply have Anglican membership rolls declined since 2000 that, according to an internal study, naught but the buildings will remain in 2040.

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• Blog

  November 13, 2019

  After the Great Orange Whale

  "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord"—a pretty flat declaration as reported by the Apostle Paul, leaving few gaps for politicians to fill at their own discretion. But you know politicians. Here we go with the impeachment hearings, an intended spectacle meant more as payback to President Donald Trump for winning the election than as a high-minded act of democratic reprobation.

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• Blog

  November 6, 2019

  And I Solemnly Promise You

  Beto O'Rourke's pullout from the presidential race leaves the Democrats with, oh, a mere dozen and a half or so candidates available to run the country. The country's corresponding task is to keep awake for the remainder of the race. The pressing question is, or should be, what goes on here? What's the mission—to can President Donald Trump or to move us in new, as yet hazy, directions? Or both at the same time?

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• Blog

  October 15, 2019

  What in Heaven's Name Goes On?

  At its best, Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke's high-octane assault on religious freedom calls for brandy and an extended lie-down in a dark room. That's the best that can be said of it. Its worst has to do with the disdain a midlevel presidential candidate exhibits for supernatural religion.

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• Blog

  October 9, 2019

  The Moral Tale of Two Cities

  The "progressive," so to speak, vision of politics and public life envisions tighter and tighter government control over economic life, along with looser and looser controls over human behavior. I think you'd refer to the overall design as a paradox: a clash of methods and objectives.

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• Blog

  October 2, 2019

  Impeachment: The Hearsay Conundrum

  There's so much to say about Nancy Pelosi's impeachment gig that one hardly knows where to start. But here's a live possibility: We start with Sen. Lindsey Graham's characterization of how this game is to be played. We're trying to "try the president of the United States based on hearsay," the South Carolina senator says–that is, on the claims of unidentified actors and agents for whose credentials Pelosi isn't prepared to vouch publicly.

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• Blog

  September 26, 2019

  Now the Left is Quick to Convict

  We can't seem to have a news event (and everything that happens in our capital city is a capital-E event these days) without the searing cry in the background, drowning out all other discourse: "Impeach! Impeach!" You might call it an echo of the old exhortation, "Hey, somebody get a rope!"

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• Blog

  September 10, 2019

  Main Street U.S.A.

  We the People... The world, my friends, is going to... and that's just the point: We don't know where in the world the world is going. Only that it's moving at a high speed, in ways likely to upset existing orders.

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• Blog

  August 22, 2019

  The Wisdom of Federalism

  "How Much Damage Have Republicans Done in the States?" Gosh! Worlds of damage, you'd imagine, if you're a typical client of The New York Times nursery school system, where more and more government is good and less and less government is very, very bad—evidencing a failure on your part to appreciate the joys of governance by one's betters.

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• Editorials

  September 2019

  What the Editors Are Reading

  During Russell Kirk’s fruitful lifetime I regularly took his sage advice concerning books I ought to read. Dr. Kirk had seemingly perused everything worth perusing. Thus, on his say-so in 1968, I read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested T. S. Eliot’s The Idea of a Christian Society (1939).

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• Reviews

  August 2019

  Wake-Up Call to the Scared Bunnies

  A MarketWatch story this summer let us in on why millennials stash so little cash in 401(k) accounts. Like, given climate change, what’s the point? “The weather systems are already off,” a woman named Lori Rodriguez told a MarketWatch reporter, “and I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to be a little apocalyptic.”

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• Reviews

  February 2019

  March On

  What you might find on a long walk, a determined walk, a walk of exploration, you never know, of course, until you take the next step. And the next; and the next—in Rory Stewart’s case, across the constantly revelatory terrain of the borderlands shared since Roman times by England and Scotland.

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• Blog

  December 19, 2018

  Baby, It's Crazy Outside

  As Cole Porter slyly reminds us: "In olden days a glimpse of stocking / Was looked on as something shocking / Now heaven knows / Anything goes. . . . " Well, you know, depending on the state of Puritan politics at a given moment. The Puritan habit of scolding—and gazing sourly upon—others for improper behavior is a human constant.

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• Reviews

  January 2019

  The Empty Plinth

  With the Midterm Elections safely behind us, should we count on the left to renounce the fun of castigating nonleft types for their racism, sexism, and hetero normativism? Not on a bet.

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• Blog

  November 21, 2018

  Come, Ye Thankful People

  The civic peace of America, such as it is, balances on a knife blade. But one interesting thing about God is His reputation for cleansing minds and clearing away intellectual clutter such as right now overwhelms the world.

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• Blog

  September 20, 2018

  Dirty, Dirty Dirt

  "Dirt is dirtier than clean is clean," observes one of John O'Hara's characters—a history professor, I think—remarking on the human race's observed partiality for darkness and grime in their news diet, rather than sweetness and light.

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• Blog

  August 15, 2018

  Of Guilt and the Late Confederacy

  Anti-Confederate liberals (of various races) can't get over the fact that pro-common-sense liberals, moderates and conservatives (of various races) can't go over the fact that rhetorical agitation over race has led us down a blind alley.

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• Blog

  July 26, 2018

  The Socialist Surge That's Not Coming

  One of the really cool things about democracy is that voters tend to get what they want—which, um, can also turn out to be one of the really uncool things about democracy. A thing of real terror, if you want the truth.

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• Blog

  July 5, 2018

  Roe v. Wade and the Confusion of Sen. Collins

  Neat! We know what the Supreme Court debate is all about—the debate, that is to say, over who shall take retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy's seat. The debate is about abortion.

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