AT Throne and Altar, Bonald eloquently argues that monarchy is the solution to the ills of modern society and the highest form of government. His comments are in response to a few points I made here regarding democracy and Christianity, but he has developed this idea in other essays at his site. (My reference to a Catholic blogger in that post was not a reference to Bonald.)

He writes:

Democracy has always been the work of unbelievers, and it has always brought ruin to public faith. For many happy centuries, the Church worked with monarchical governments to build Christian societies; more than this, it was primarily the Church that lifted the barbarians from tribal democracy to territorial monarchy. Then two centuries ago, a gang of usurpers–atheists and freemasons all–imposed democracy first on English America and France, then on the rest of Europe. Read More »

THE MENSWEAR website Put This On is full of interesting, engaging articles on the subject of fashion for men who want to look like grownups, not oversized boys. Here is a wonderful piece on the virtues of corduroy, an address by Jesse Thorn to the Corduroy Appreciation Club. He writes:

This is not some fabric reserved for oily diplomats, or gentrymen of questionable morality. Corduroy is not weak! It is not effete or innefectual or elitist. Corduroy is a fabric built to take on the world. Tuck your corduroy trousers into your boots and feed the pigs. Roll up your corduroy sleeves and bring in the harvest. Put on a corduroy field jacket and go outside to build something.

What’s truly special about our fabric is that it [is] a fabric for being and for doing. For relaxed enjoyment and for taking care of business. For reading ancient tomes and for building great societies. Corduroy is the fabric of living.

… Read More »

EMILY HALL writes:

I saw this article in The Economist and as I read it I couldn’t help but shake my head. The title reads: “The Decline of Asian Marriage – Asia’s Lonely Hearts.” The subtitle follows with, “Women are rejecting marriage in Asia. The social implications are serious.” Hmmmm, you don’t say? Read More »

SINCE 1970, American imports have gone from just over five percent of GDP to roughly 17 percent today, and the number of American industrial jobs has plummeted. One compelling argument against a protectionist  industrial policy is that it would further empower intrusive and ever-expanding bureaucratic government.

In his book Free Trade Doesn’t Work, Ian Fletcher addresses this issue. He proposes a flat, across-the-board tariff that would be simple to administer and involve no intricate political engineering. He writes:

[O]ne of the great puzzles of American economic history is how the U.S. once succeeded so well under tariff regimes that were not particularly sophisticated. This is where the idea of  so-called “natural strategic tariff” comes in. Read More »

TWENTY YEARS ago, Phillip E. Johnson, a law professor at Berkeley, published his now famous critique of Darwinism, Darwin on Trial, which argued that Darwinism is philosophy, not science. In the most recent issue of Touchstone magazine, Johnson reflects on developments since publication of his book. Scientists still risk their careers by pursuing research that exposes the Darwinian fraud, but a movement has been born and Johnson is optimistic, especially in light of the continuing inclination of Darwinists to obfuscate their position. It is only a matter of time before the dam will break. He writes:

I am confident that when we finally get a fair hearing before a scientific community that concurs with the principle that important terms must be defined clearly and used consistently, then the better logic will prevail and Darwinism will be relegated to intellectual history. 

The article is not available online. However, here is an interesting 2003 interview with Johnson which also appeared in Touchstone. Johnson became a Christian not long after his marriage broke apart. His wife became a feminist and left him. He says in the interview with James Kushner:

I became disillusioned during my thirties. The whole idea of the exciting campus ferment and student ideas became a disappointment. The academic career was also a disappointment. I think my motives for going into it, for everything I did, were rather shallow. I was basically an academic careerist seeking tenure, writing law review articles and a casebook. I had the career, but I was bored with it. I thought life ought to be more fulfilling than that. I was beginning to grow up. Read More »

SARAH writes:

As the wife of a disabled veteran I also agree that what was once Armistice Day should be called Veterans Day. Deep in the calm of our home on that day we take the time to whisper quiet thank yous full of reverence to the man who sacrificed. Only those who know him best can ever know how much he gave. My eyes fill with tears every time I sit in stillness to contemplate the long history of stalwart service exhibited by our troops. Behind every black and white photograph of a man in uniform, there is a story. He was a soldier, but so much more than that. He was a human being. Flesh and blood, leaving behind loved ones to face an uncertain future.

On Veterans Day, we do what we can to say “Thank You” to the living soldiers we know, but it is much more meaningful to us when we are able to thank the older generation of soldiers for what they did. Sometimes we pay our respects to old graves. Sometimes we bring cookies to the VA hospital. Other times we sit and listen to stories from olden days at a nursing home bedside.

I get very emotional when I think of the men who served during WW II. Though all soldiers who wear the uniform are dear to my heart. It’s not just about the soldier. It’s about the uniform and what it represents. To me, in my simple way, it represents service and sacrifice in order to protect all that we hold dear. I like to go off alone by myself on Veterans Day too, just to remind myself of all the brave men and women who have come before, and already passed on. I don’t want them to be forgotten. What I wouldn’t give to be able to thank some long forgotten soldier for his sacrifice.

IN his book The Tyranny of Liberalism, James Kalb explains with his typical lucidity why separation of church and state are so important:

[T]he authority of the church is not primarily that of a ruler, let alone a tyrant, but that of a custodian of something passed down. The church must have internal discipline to function, but its primary purpose is to present, not to enforce. Like other intellectual authorities, it should have substantial independence but no direct political power. The good, the beautiful, and true need to be institutionally separate from political power to be seen as superior to it. A believer would no more give the state authority in religious matters than a physicist, sculptor, or moral philosopher would give it authority in science, aesthetics, or morals. Conversely, rule by priests has many of the same disadvantages as rule by philosophers or law professors. Few people want it.

Government is organized force. Read More »

AT Camera Lucida, Kidist Paulos Asrat explores the manly style of Jenna Lyons, president and creative director of the clothing retailer J. Crew. Lyons received widespread criticism for appearing in an ad earlier this year that showed her painting her young son’s toenails pink. She recently left her husband for a woman.

THE SCANDAL at Penn State University, in which a former coach repeatedly raped boys as young as ten in a university locker room and in which university officials knew about it and failed to inform authorities, is one of the most shocking and disgusting stories in this age of shocking and disgusting stories. Read More »

FRED OWENS writes:

On this day in 1918 the first World War came to an end. That’s why it’s a holiday. It is not good to make holidays generic. Holidays cannot be generic, because they are special days. This holiday, by extension, honors all veterans, but it should be focused and named after the Armistice that ended that war 93 years ago. Read More »

LYDIA SHERMAN writes:

This is a few days late getting to you but it is tremendous. It is Herman Cain on Jimmy Kimmel Live responding to sexual harassment charges. I love the banter of this man, like the “real American” men used to speak, unself-conscious and without fear or PC, and, his elocution, enunciation, articulation, etc. are excellent. By the way, he is introduced in this way, “Our next guest has never held a public office, but he does know what is most important to Americans: pizza!” Read More »

The Artist's Wife with their children, Philip and Caterina, Hans Holbein the Younger (1528)

THE current practice of referring to mothers as “moms” and women at home as “stay-at-home moms” is part of the trivialization of motherhood, as I discuss here. Mommy-ness suggests fun and play. But motherhood is, by its very nature, sacrificial. Even in modern life, the mother is called upon to give up self and die for others.

When motherhood is equated with fun, it is often shocking for women to learn the truth. They may think something is wrong with them that it is so difficult. By contrast, a job may seem easy. The expectations are clear and the rewards are concrete. Besides when people say, “What do you do?” which they inevitably will in a world in which identity is based on career and consumption, a woman can hold her head up high and say, “I am a teacher” or “I am a lawyer” or “I am a marketing associate.” By comparison, to say, “I am a stay-at-home mom” suggests she is a child herself and has yet to grow up and enter the real world.

The mother has gone since the time of the above portrait by Hans Holbein from heroine to playmate.

MRS. HAYWOOD writes from Indiana:

I just spent a very interesting evening reading many columns on your website. You represent sanity and common sense on the topic of women and work, which is never allowed in mainstream media. 

Just a quick thought/question: Are you as offended by the term “stay-at-home mom” as I am? It seems clearly a feminist linguistic fabrication to avoid the obvious and truthful “full-time mother” (which of course has the corollary that working mothers are merely “part-time mothers.”) “Stay-at-home mom” also implies that it is the mother who stays at home who needs a qualifier, as the one departing from the norm. Read More »

COLUMNIST David Brooks actually has a column in today’s New York Times in which he makes an important observation. Radical egalitarianism does not abolish inequality. It only creates new forms of it. He writes:

Foreign tourists are coming up to me on the streets and asking, “David, you have so many different kinds of inequality in your country. How can I tell which are socially acceptable and which are not?”

This is an excellent question. I will provide you with a guide to the American inequality map to help you avoid embarrassment. Read More »

KAREN KRAUSHAUER, another woman who has come forward to describe being sexually harassed by Herman Cain, told The New York Times: “Anyone should be able to report allegations of sexual harassment without fear that their lives and careers will be put on public display and laid open to public scrutiny.” Read More »

Eydie Gormé

ALAN writes:

To a certain extent, your blog is a chronicle of loss – of common sense, moral principles, cultural standards, beauty, decency, manners, restraint, elegance, patriotism, strong families, respect for elders, and respect for the past, among other things; and a plea for the restoration of those things, a goal with which I wholeheartedly agree. 

Another thing Americans have lost is popular music that is cheerful, engaging, uplifting, memorable, and easy to sing along with; ballads with lovely melodies and sentimental lyrics; and songs that celebrate the virtues of marriage, family life, parenthood, self-restraint, and loyalty.  

Consider these examples from an American culture now vanished:  Read More »