Bruce Walker

The Legacy of Pete Seeger

How are we to think of Pete Seeger, who just died at a ripe old age? The left, of course, lauds him as a man led astray in his youth but ever a friend of the working man. Leftists either do not speak--or, more likely, simply do not know--of the salient part of his life, the period in which Seeger and other communists stood beside Hitler against the West.

The Communist Mandela

Nelson Mandela was a Communist. Although most people think that is not important, it is the very essence of who he was. He never denounced Communism. He never apologized for embracing Communism. He never exposed the soul-destroying nature of Communism. In this Mandela was like Mugabe, the horrific Marxist leader of Zimbabwe, though he was not grossly evil like Mugabe. Was Mandela a Communist because he needed Communism to end the Afrikaner white rule of South Africa? No: Communism was not needed to fight the very real racist legacy of European colonialism.

Ronald Reagan’s Lost Legacy

Twenty-five years ago this November Americans elected the successor to our greatest president, Ronald Reagan. George H. Bush won an easy election in November 1988. He proceeded to purge many of Reagan’s best soldiers from the White House and notoriously pledged that he would institute “A kinder, gentler America.” There was no sensible interpretation of that odd statement except that Bush perceived Reagan’s conservative policies had been, somehow, mean.

The Buck Passes Here

The purpose of representative democracy is to assess the responsibility of government to particular individuals while allowing the people governed to have ultimate control over who those people are. In most common form of representative democracies – parliamentary democracies – the national legislature can hire and fire the people who actually run the government.

Does Europe Need Monarchs?

On the same day that Princess Kate gave birth of a new heir to the throne of Great Britain, Belgium received into office a new king, Philippe I, following the abdication of his aging father. Do monarchies in Europe still serve any useful purpose? Yes, and although we Americans have an aversion of kings which dates back to our Revolutionary War, the modern history of European monarchs shows how these kings and queens can help preserve their nations.

Legislative Power and the Constitution

The “decision” by President Obama to defer the implementation of parts of Obamacare until after the 2014 midterm elections and the “decision” by the Supreme Court soon before that to invalidate the Defense of Marriage Act both reflect the absurd contortion of the Constitution from a document and a system of governance in which Congress, alone, makes laws (or repeals laws.)

Social Justice is Injustice

George Zimmerman has been acquitted of a crime which was deliberately and hopelessly intertwined with the race of Trayvon Martin. The lynch mob media out for Zimmerman engaged in behavior which may well be truly criminal: NBC News edited the transcript of the 911 call of Zimmerman to deliberately make him appear to be a racist, as was reported last December, and so interfered with a criminal investigation. The evidence against Zimmerman, outside a phony racial angle, was absurdly weak.

Our Sure Victory

While millions of us watch with dread the daily mischief of the enemies of freedom and while this concern is proper and wise, we ought to recall also that these enemies are transcendent nebbishes: they know nothing; they believe nothing; they trust nothing. They recoil like savages at those of us who care about truth.

Civil Liberties and the Civil War

One hundred and fifty years ago on July 4, 1863 twin Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg decisively turned the course of the Civil War. One consequence of that victory was the emancipation of slaves in America. Another consequence has been the invention of a dangerous myth: the federal government is the best vehicle for protecting civil liberties.

Pushing Back

The real defeat of totalitarian Leftism will come when ordinary people in their everyday interactions as consumers and audiences stop being intimidated by its maledictions and curses. The Food Network relies upon just such typically Americans. Cooking and eating are the sorts of ordinary activities which should bind civil societies in relaxed and simple pleasure.

The Camelot Fraud

We are coming up fast on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. While it is good and proper to respectfully note the assassination of any political leader in America, the establishment Left in America has tried since November 1963 to bleat, blame and badger their countrymen into accepting the false notion that Kennedy was a great president or, indeed, a good man.

How Leftists Judge Great Women

The Left controls public life by controlling what people can learn about the world around them. This includes the news but it also includes history. Orwell put it well: "He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future." Totalitarian control of history does not just mean creating a false past but it means making inconvenient people into "unpersons" cast forever into the "memory hole."

Our Un-News Media

In the old Soviet Union the oppressed subjects of regime had a phrase used to describe the news media: “There’s no Pravda in Izvestia and there’s no Izvestia in Pravda.” In Russia, “Pravda,” the leading Communist Party periodical, means “Truth” and “Izvestia,” the principal state periodical, means “News.” The phrase meant that in Pravda there was no news and that in Izvestia there was no truth.

What Will Happen to Europe?

Europe is swirling down a maelstrom and it is hard to see what can save the mother continent of so much we cherish. The sovereign debt crisis – national governments which cannot honor their promises to repay holders of their bonds – is spreading from the original PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) to neighboring nations.

Senate Prospects for 2014

The recent decision by Tim Johnson in South Dakota not to seek reelection gives Republicans an excellent chance to gain control of the Senate after Obama’s second midterm election in 2014. Historically the second midterm, when a president has been in office for six years, is the election in which voters vent their spleen against his political party.

Will Christianity Survive?

As Easter nears and as militant atheism seems to creep across the face of Europe and much of our nation, the question "Will Christianity survive?" is one which many Americans must be asking. If Christianity is true then it is indestructible, but leaving metaphysics aside, what are the objective historical prospects of Christian survival?

The Grown-ups and the Grade-schoolers

Through the first two debates in this presidential election, America is seeing a stark difference between the Republican and Democrat tickets. Mitt Romney are Paul Ryan are grownups. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are grade-schoolers. This was what the evidence before the debates suggested.

The Purpose of Democracy

When Romney says that 47% of us pay no federal income tax and so have little interest in tax cuts he is, of course, telling the truth. The brouhaha over his remarks ought to remind us why we have democracy. It is not to pander to the biggest bloc of voters. It is to secure liberty for us all.

An Activist Conservative Supreme Court

The left uses federal courts as the primary means of implementing its agenda. We conservatives hope that the Supreme Court may defend reforms we legislative or strike down monstrosities like Obamacare and we bemoan the Supreme Court when it fails us.

2012 and the Polish Question

The defamatory remark of Obama about "Polish death camps" in his presentation of the Medal of Freedom for Jan Karski reveals a profound political error which could cost him re-election. Obama made another grave mistake when he rejected the Polish government's request that Lech Walesa accept Karski's medal on the grounds that Walesa was "too political."