AT Minding the Campus, Clark Whelton discusses the linguistic chaos that extreme tolerance and open-mindedness created. He writes:

In the mid-1980s, American English was overwhelmed by a linguistic mutation that transferred the burden of verbal communication from speaker to listener. Because it sidestepped the need for vocabulary and clarity, and because its shapeless syntax shielded speakers from the risk of saying something insensitive or incorrect, this new mode of expression won rapid acceptance, jumping from campus jargon to national discourse with astonishing speed. It was, like, you know, like, whoa. I mean, I’m like omigod! It was, hello, you know, totally amazing, and stuff.

He says the trend has basically run its course, which is surprising to me.

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  NUMEROUS comments have been added to the excellent discussion in the entry on whether American traditionalists can rightfully view themselves as dissidents similar to the Soviet dissidents who fought Communism. In that entry, Henry McCulloch writes: I agree with [Lawrence] Auster that American traditionalists (Americans, in this comment) can no longer dissent from the U.S.A. in the same way Solzhenitsyn dissented from the USSR, although Americans’ view of the U.S. government should parallel Solzhenitsyn’s view of the Soviet Communist Party.  Americans traditionally do not dissociate their country from its government, despite early Americans’ wariness of government.  Solzhenitsyn, by the time he emerged from the gulag, certainly dissociated Russia from the Soviet Union; indeed he viewed the Bolshevik Revolution and all its works as largely alien irruptions into Russian life.  In his mind, Russia and the Communists’ Soviet Union were not at all the same thing.  Solzhenitsyn was right about that, even as he was also right not to deny Russians’ complicity in Communist crimes. Any successful future in post-America for Americans will be despite the U.S. government, which is as anti-American as the Bolsheviks were anti-Russian.  Mr. Auster says it’s no longer enough to be a dissident, because dissenting implies one seeks the restoration of a previous order.  But no restoration of the old American order is possible.  That America is gone.  Thus the United States that was the legitimate government of America is also gone, succeeded by a U.S. government actively hostile to most Americans.  This is not quite the situation Solzhenitsyn thought Russia was in under Communist rule.  If Solzhenitsyn had believed the Russia buried under the…

ANDY writes:

EMBOLDENED supposedly by Romney’s loss among women, liberal Democrats and Tories are scrambling for new ways to make motherhood obsolete, The Daily Mail reports. It all boils down to more of the same old socialist plans for subsidized childcare, parental leave and affirmative action, which all boil down to making motherhood more unappealing. (more…)

IN THE recent entry on an article titled “Going Solzhenitsyn,” in which a writer argued for traditionalists to look to Soviet dissidents for inspiration, Lawrence Auster maintains that it is too late for dissidence. Here is his comment in full:

My only quibble with Robert Oculus’s article is the title and the concluding phrase, “We must now go Solzhenitsyn.” I think it’s too late for that.

Let me explain. (more…)

GUILAIN writes from France:

Reading my recent description here of French women and their terrible fashions, one could think that I had never come across a beautiful, feminine woman.

Actually I have. It happened during my first year in college (six years ago). There was a young woman who always paid great attention to makeup, grooming and clothes. Her outfits were modest, but truly elegant. Most of the time she wore pants (I wish she hadn’t), but a few times she exhibited delightful skirts. I admired particularly that she never, ever appeared with androgynous shoes, but always with nice women’s shoes. She stood out thanks to the way she dressed, but that’s not all.

She also was full of feminine grace which one could admire in her movements and smile. And she was a Catholic. One of the last thing she told me before she moved to Paris (four years ago) was: “I like France.“

This one sentence was arresting. Why was it important? (more…)

SINCE the election, citizens from 20 states have filed for secession on the White House website. The petitions from two states, Louisiana and Texas, are close to the number (25,000) needed for a formal response from the White House under a petition program started by Obama last year. These online petitions obviously do not mean much formally, but they are encouraging nevertheless. More and more people appear to be thinking and talking about partitioning America.

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JOHN writes:

This front page AP story about the trial of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is how our hometown newspaper, the Cortland Standard, chose to observe Veteran’s Day .

We are truly a disoriented society.  God have mercy.

To all of you who have served this nation, I salute you.  I am grateful for your service.

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THE indignities to which the Holy Eucharist has been subjected since Vatican II are enough to make one physically sick. They make me nauseous and slightly dizzy, as I would feel if I saw, say, a small child slapped across the face. But things are getting worse. As reported at Tradition in Action, some parishes have instituted self-serve Communion.

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IN A COMMENT at VFR,  Henry McCulloch writes:

JAMES P. writes:

You wrote,

“Men, it seems, have lost all of their instincts when it comes to keeping their wives away from other men. I have a hard time feeling sorry for Broadwell’s husband. What was he thinking when he allowed her to go off every day? Why did he marry someone so unsuited to loving him? I guess he too was bowled over by Broadwell’s decadent vitality and attractiveness. Also, he might have liked the fact that she was going to earn big bucks. Life in Washington, or wherever else they lived, is very expensive.”

I couldn’t agree more. To permit your woman to travel overseas in close proximity to a powerful other man is nuts. Of course, that’s exactly what happens whenever a married woman deploys. Thus, marrying a woman who serves overseas is nuts. (more…)

PAUL writes:

Petraeus is a victim of his own policy: encouraging men and women to serve privately, lengthily, and closely with one another. I can’t speak for a married man, as he is, but I can speak as a single man. If I had been placed in as private, lengthy, and close contact with a married woman as nice looking as the General’s paramour, I think it extremely unlikely I could have resisted the temptation. This is a major reason I oppose women (and analogously homosexuals) in the military.

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EXPATRIOT writes:

For someone like me living abroad, the most galling aspect of the recent election debacle is having to deal with foreigners who assume that any right-thinking American must have supported Obama, and that since yours truly is obviously a right-thinking person who happens to be an American (by birth anyway), congratulations are in order. The Japanese are so childishly naïve in these matters, mindlessly absorbing liberal media propaganda with the same credulous assiduity they would apply to college entrance examinations, that it’s pointless to get upset with them or even try to set them straight. It would be like trying to argue political and economic theory with a bright six-year old who had been taught to recite the Communist Manifesto by heart.

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  SEE Bartholomew's comments in the most recent entry about race and the election. He responds to Jesse Powell's claim that race is not as significant a factor as many have suggested. Bartholomew writes: Mr. Powell's argument amounts to simply one more Non-racial Theory of Racial Voting Patterns. How many times are people like Mr. Powell and, apparently the strategists at the Republican Party, going to commit the same logical fallacy? And how many more lifelong Democratic voters are we going to import before they stop? There is certainly a problem with "conflict among conservatives," namely with those conservatives who refuse to acknowledge racial realities.

MARY writes:

Conversion is like stepping across the chimney piece out of a Looking-Glass world, where everything is an absurd caricature, into the real world God made; and then begins the delicious process of exploring it limitlessly.

               —– Evelyn Waugh

Waugh’s words seem especially fitting this week of all weeks – they cut to the heart of the matter so beautifully even though they were written decades ago. I see many parallels to today’s America: our own “absurd caricature” in which no one’s happiness is supposed to be hindered in any way, a world of health and youth and endless pleasure, with limitless entertainment pumped right into our homes, where it is believed that suffering has no value and can and should be completely eliminated, with many good minds actively promoting this philosophy in our colleges and universities. A world where men can marry men, and women can marry women, and anyone with the aid of science can defy nature and produce children. (more…)

MR. TALL writes:

Like many others, I’ve not been feeling very chipper the past couple of days. My gloom was deepened yesterday morning when reading through some news headlines on The Daily Mail site. It occurred to me that in many contexts the only place you will now see the word ‘husband’ used is to identify a homosexual man’s ‘mate.’ A heterosexual woman’s mate is always a ‘partner.’ How very far we have progressed.

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