Category: Americanism

Why 1984 Was the Best Year in American Pop Music

Thirty-five years ago, America was enjoying a bit of a patriotic swoon. The go-go ’80s were underway as the country finally emerged from a debilitating recession. Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Summer Olympics—the world fell in love with a winsome teenager from West Virginia when Mary Lou Retton became the first American female to win … Continued

Reparations and Diversity Are Not the Path to Equality

The revival of reparations talk signals an opportunity for a serious discussion of the revival of republican self-government or strong citizenship. Instead, we get the blithe attitudes of Democrats and the grumbling about handouts from Republicans which signal the bipartisan lack of seriousness—a deficiency also characterizing disputes over immigration and “diversity.” The best opportunity for … Continued

The Continued Resilience of Quiet America

Fifty years ago, the United States was facing crises and unrest on multiple fronts. Some predicted that internal chaos and revolution would unravel the nation. The 1969 Vietnam War protests on the UC Berkeley campus turned so violent that National Guard helicopters indiscriminately sprayed tear gas on student demonstrators. Later that year, hundreds of thousands … Continued

Clarence Thomas: “Freedom Man,” Free at Last

In his farewell address, President Ronald Reagan recalled a Vietnamese refugee who upon leaving his leaky boat for the American rescue ship, yelled out, “Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.”    That image of American military power in the cause of justice is replicated in the stormy seas raised by administrative state today: our “freedom … Continued

Progressing America Into the Abyss

Leftists self-identify as “progressives.” Yet anyone with a scrap of sanity and a rudimentary understanding of their philosophical antecedents, as well as their injurious policy prescriptions, objectively identifies the Left not as “progressive” but as “regressive.” Their incessant, implacable lust to destroy the American Revolution’s novel birth of individual freedom and replace it with an … Continued

Who Owns America?

Anywhere from 11 million to 22 million illegal aliens reside in the United States today. The most recent research suggests that the higher number is closest to the correct figure. In and of itself, that is a crisis. New arrivals—legal and illegal—come to America all the time. Two-thirds of these, Steven W. Mosher writes, use … Continued

The Causes of Steve King’s Moral Relativism

In the course of their public responsibilities and acting on concrete political problems, Congressmen should know better than to ask abstract questions—particularly when in the company of New York Times reporters with no inclination to give them the benefit of the doubt. At best, this from Steve King, seemed another provocation: “White nationalist, white supremacist, … Continued

The Game of Pseudo-Authenticity

Americans always have been prone to reinventing themselves. We now live in an age of radical social construction—a sort of expansive update on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American notion of becoming anyone one pleases. One common denominator, however, seems to govern today’s endless search for some sort of authenticity: a careerist effort to separate oneself from … Continued

Up the Populist!

I listened the other day to Tucker Carlson’s populist dirge on what’s ailing America. Then I perused some rejections, critiques, and commendations of it. Then I shrugged. To be charitable, it certainly wasn’t their fault. It’s the fruit of our communication revolution, wherein the head rush from new media’s immediacy renders antiquated the sober digestion … Continued