US Politics

ONLINE ONLY: Ferguson's Fact of Nature

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:59:45 +0100

Author:Laura Keynes

John Maynard Keynes: He and his wife, Lydia, tried for children

From Hegel to Hagel

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:48:11 +0100

Author:Daniel Johnson

Hero-worshipper: Hegel lionised Napoleon

In 1806, after Napoleon Bonaparte’s crushing victory over the Prussians at Jena, a still obscure professor at the university there, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, reported to a friend: “I saw the Emperor, this World Soul [Weltseele], riding through the town reconnoitring. It is indeed a wonderful feeling to see an individual of this kind, who, concentrated here to a single point, sitting on horseback, reaches out over the entire world and masters it.” Thus did the great philosopher pay tribute to the greatest warlord of the age, then at the zenith of his power.

Americans Know Her True Worth. Do We?

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:05:35 +0100

Author:Andrew Roberts

The very special relationship: The Thatcher revolution laid the foundations for the Reagan revolution in the United States

The American response to the death of Margaret Thatcher was worthy of the admiration she felt for the country whose free enterprise system, can-do attitude and staunch support for democracy — at least in the era of Ronald Reagan — she was determined that Britain would emulate. She has been revered here for many years, and her death brought an avalanche of affection and praise for her on both the Right and, much more surprisingly, the Left.

Constitutional Ignoramus

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:18:24 +0100

Author:Joseph Loconte

James Madison: He understood that civic freedom begins with religious freedom

In what seems a curious way to begin a book advancing a more "principled" and "morally defensible" approach to religion in public life, the Chicago philosopher and legal scholar Brian Leiter makes little effort to conceal his contempt for people of faith. It was, he confesses, "the pernicious influence of reactionary Christians" — a charge never explained or defended — that prompted his inquiry.

The result, Why Tolerate Religion?, is a slim polemic that would unleash its own version of religious zealotry: a brooding, merciless, and militant secularism.

America's New Isolationists Are Endangering the West

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:09:03 +0100

Author:John Bolton

Paragon of the new conservative isolationism: Republican Senator Rand Paul is a vocal opponant of America's foreign policy

The spectre of isolationism is stalking the Republican Party. It is still far from dominant, but we would be ignoring reality to underestimate the risks evident in today's turbulent political milieu. Ironically, Republican isolationism is in many respects attributable to Barack Obama. His palpable lack of concern for foreign and defence policy issues, and the public's false sense of security thereby generated, combined with his massive federal expenditures and consequent budget deficits that threaten the vitality of America's economic system, have created an unexpected and deeply troubling reaction among Republicans, heretofore America's national-security stalwarts.