Author Archives: stephenkmacksd

Don’t need Roth’s weak parable starring the nearly unseen Lindbergh, heavy melodrama allied to an authorial nostalgia, as teetering armature! You’re not old enough to recall Jimmy Stewart in that 1957 blockbuster apologia for Lucky Lindy, directed by Billy Wilder? … Continue reading →

The title is the giveaway: ‘Liberalism’s Gun Problem’ Allied to this is the notion that gun violence ‘drives liberals into a fury’: deliberate mis-characterization, not to speak of ideologically fueled and deliberate misapprehension, that puts the onus on ‘Liberals’ to … Continue reading →

The sun set on Britain as international political/moral actor, of import, a long time ago, yet Mr. Rachman engages in a kind of rhetorical version of political nostalgia, not exactly mirroring that of Niall Ferguson’s nostalgia for Empire, but continuing … Continue reading →

One can approach Mr. Peter Wehner’s essay as a defense of ‘Moderate Conservatism’ or what might be judged as the party since the end of WWII, except that what is missing from this potted history are some inconvenient facts about … Continue reading →

In Philip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America, Charles Lindbergh runs in the American presidential race of 1940 and wins. Could another American writer imagine Donald Trump as that kind of a likely presidential candidate? Lindbergh was heroic and admired, even idolized … Continue reading →

Niall Ferguson proves himself to be the natural successor to Samuel P. Huntington, whose paranoia embraced all of the world’s Civilizations, except our own naturally superior Western example. Huntington in his last book titled ‘Who Are We? The Challenges to … Continue reading →

Bagehot is a talented writer as his unsparing polemic against Jeremy Corbyn demonstrated: http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2015/11/corbyn-labour-and-paris#commentForm In this essay he uses his power to evoke various melodramatic scenes from the National Security State files, in defense of : ‘This state of affairs … Continue reading →

Before reading Bagehot’s utterly predictable attack on Political Apostate Jeremy Corbyn, read his, at times, illuminating essay here on the by-election in question, as political litmus test for Mr. Corbyn: http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21678227-oldhams-election-campaign-microcosm-social-democracys-woes-trouble-labourland A few highlights,like this bit of manufactured political nostalgia … Continue reading →

The fact that Mr. Stephens recites, with attention to a complex  set of ideas, almost all the cliches of the current iteration of bourgeois political orthodoxy, displays an enviable kind of talent, with the proviso that  any absent idea is … Continue reading →

Gideon Rachman’s November 16, 2015 essay titled ‘Do Paris terror attacks highlight a clash of civilisations?‘Subtitle ‘Multiculturalism is not a naive liberal aspiration — it is the reality of the modern world’ http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/96b9ed08-8c46-11e5-a549-b89a1dfede9b.html#axzz3rlN7BSax As much as Mr. Rachman denies the … Continue reading →