In December of this year, Ilya Somin reviewed Christopher Zurn’s book Splitsville, USA: A Democratic Argument for Breaking up the United States, which was published in May. Somin offers several good-faith critiques of Zurn’s position on national divorce, and even praises Splitsville as “. . . the most significant, fully developed, and intellectually respectable, defense of the claim that breaking up the union is actually a good idea.” Somin’s main concerns are the feasibility and effectiveness of a national divorce. As a staunch proponent of national divorce myself, I would like to reply to Somin’s counter-arguments. (more…)
Tag: Roosevelt administration
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2,580 words
In our country we wish to substitute morality for egotism, probity for honour, principles for conventions, duties for etiquette, the empire of reason for the tyranny of customs, contempt for vice for contempt for misfortune, pride for insolence, the love of honour for the love of money… that is to say, all the virtues and miracles of the Republic, for all the vices and snobbishness of the monarchy. — Maximilien Robespierre, “On Virtue and Terror” (1794) (more…)
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1,945 words
Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
Military mid-level management
McCormick’s military career couldn’t be replicated today. In today’s United States military, either a college student is recruited to take classes in military leadership, or an enlisted man is selected to attend officer candidate school. Then, after 12 years of service, he may be promoted to Major. At no time during those 12 years can the soldier leave the service, and he must serve in a series of specific jobs. Any deviation from the norm means no promotion. (more…)
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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
Chambers planned his escape carefully and made his move in 1938. He hid some documents, including some papers and films that Hiss had intended to give to the Soviets, in a dumbwaiter in his cousin’s house. (more…)
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2,548 words
Part 1 of 2
The first significant anti-Communist victory in the Cold War’s early years did not involve any soldiers. In a century filled with warfare, the two principal contenders in this fight were men who were just too young to have served in the military during the First World War and yet too old to have served in the tragic and disastrous Second World War. (more…)
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Gary Gerstle
The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: American and the World in the Free Market Era
New York: Oxford University Press, 2022Professor Gary Gerstle teaches at Oxford University and has written several excellent books about America and its racial and social problems. One such book is American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century, which was first published in 2001 and was later updated with a few extra chapters describing Black Lives Matter terrorism and some quotes from the cast of non-whites in the Hamilton minstrel show who were mad about Trump being elected. (more…)
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Revilo P. Oliver
America’s Decline: The Education of a Conservative
Sussex, England: Historical Review Press, 2006If there is anything that shows the state of the Dispossessed Majority and the Great Replacement as it existed in the early twentieth century it is Woodrow Wilson’s boyhood home in Staunton, Virginia. The home, which is a museum open to the public for tours, is adjacent to the Presbyterian Church where Wilson’s father served as pastor. Between the home and the church is a Jewish synagogue. (more…)
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2,600 words
“The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weaker man with the sponge. First, the criminal who slays, then the sophist who defends the slayer.” — Lord Acton
“There is no famine, nor is there likely to be.” — Walter Duranty, The New York Times
Walter Duranty, a British-born journalist, served as the Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times from 1922 through 1936. (more…)
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3,554 words
I recently visited De Smet, South Dakota. It’s a small town east of central South Dakota named for a black-robed Christian missionary to the Indians. There are many such towns across the North American prairie; what makes this one special is that it is the town where Laura Ingalls Wilder launched her teaching career at the age of 16. Wilder went on to immortalize De Smet, South Dakota, and her family in a series of semi-fictionalized books. (more…)
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1,984 words
“Untruth did not begin with us; nor will it end with us.” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn
In June 2016, in what seems like light-years away in the continuing coming apart of American society, The Unz Review posted a piece by Israel Shamir, “The Untouchable Mr. Browder”. That Mr. Browder turned out to be William F. Browder, Chief Executive Officer of Hermitage Capital Management. Bill Browder, as he is known, is the self-declared “No. 1. Enemy of Vladimir Putin,” which he expounds upon in a 2020, 25-minute audio-only YouTube interview hosted by the University of Chicago. (more…)
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2,020 words
Phyllis Schlafly
A Choice Not an Echo
Alton, Ill.: Pere Marquette Press, 1964Many of the greatest pioneers of Right-wing political thought in the United States are women. Right-leaning men are often too busy with their jobs and putting out the fires to be prophets. Female activists, for their part, have a remarkable ability to challenge and change the direction of institutions. One such woman was Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016). (more…)