Monday, March 30, 2015

Katie Hopkins and the PC Police

Katie Hopkins, British journalist and TV personality, has once again angered the politically correct prats of the UK establishment by daring to take offense at MP Simon Danczuk's vomit-inducing display in Rochdale the other week on what was apparently "National Pakistan Day". Not content with merely accusing Ms. Hopkins of racism, Mr. Danczuk - in true tattletale fashion - actually went and reported the poor woman to the authorities for possibly inciting racial hatred.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Autophilia and the Puer Aeternus: the Twin Pillars of Modern Liberalism

"Conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order." - Russell Kirk
 

Ideologies can best be understood as secular religions. They are born when a person or people rejects God and Natural Law. As history reveals time and again, a people may divest a ruler of power, but they cannot eradicate power itself. Likewise, the history of ideas shows us that while a person or people may reject God and his laws, they cannot remove their instinctive need for religion. Enter ideology.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Reflections on Tanya Cohen's Thoughts on Free Speech

As I've mentioned before, it's not uncommon that I come across a leftist diatribe somewhere online so ridiculous that it seems like it could have been written by a right-winger having a bit of fun. Sometimes, however, I come across a piece so fundamentally absurd that I'm overcome with the uncomfortable sensation of wanting to both laugh and cry at the same time and the wish to lock myself away in a chapel somewhere saying however many Hail Marys and Our Fathers it takes until a chorus of sword-wielding angels descends from the Heavens to smite leftists everywhere. But I digress.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Some Dávila Quotes on Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy

As usual, Nicolás Gómez Dávila can convey in a sentence almost perfectly an idea that would take me multiple paragraphs to summarize, so here are some of his brilliant insights related to the topic of my latest post:

On Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy

 I am an aristocrat. I love liberty, I hate equality. - John Randolph of Roanoke
Of the many opinions I am wont to offer freely and unsolicited to my politically-inclined friends, the opinion which evokes the strongest reaction is easily my intense distaste for all things democratic. It isn't just the liberals, lefties and neo-cons, either: after stating my preference for feudal forms of government, plenty of libertarians, more mainstream conservatives, and even a disheartening number of paleo-conservatives have all looked at me as if I just suggested that setting fire to orphanages might be a fun way to pass the time.

Monday, March 9, 2015

A Chorus of Caricature

If the early years of the second decade of the twenty-first century are to be remembered by political historians, they should be marked as the period in which the progressive left completed its spectacular descent into a complete and utter state of farce. The left has become a gross parody of itself; countless mainstream left-wing writers (and politicians and talking heads for that matter) peddle narratives and opinions so ridiculous that were a man of sound mind to encounter their screeds out of context he would be convinced he was reading a piece of conservative satire.