Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics

And even if one admits universal ends, one still has said nothing about means, about what people will risk, will permit, will commit in order to banish their (common) fears and pursue their (common) hopes.

We grow justly weary of our politics. But we must remember this: Politics—in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations—is sovereign in human affairs. Everything ultimately rests upon it. Fairly or not, politics is the driver of history. It will determine whether we will live long enough to be heard one day. Out there. By them,

An al-Awlaki preaching in Virginia is a security problem. An al-Awlaki preaching at Ground Zero is a sacrilege.

Why should Jews, a people with such an epic tradition, present themselves to America solely as victims of the greatest crime in history?

non sequiturs,

But for President Obama, the word Islamist may not be uttered. Language must be devised to disguise the unpleasantness. Result? The world’s first lexicological war. Parry and thrust with linguistic tricks, deliberate misnomers and ever more transparent euphemisms. Next: armor-piercing onomatopoeias and amphibious synecdoches.

The last time Saddam Hussein threatened the peace (by invading Kuwait), 7 out of 10 Democrats in Congress voted against authorizing the use of force and in favor of the useless pseudo-solution of sanctions.

We—whom Lincoln once called God’s “almost chosen people”—did

Second, domestic society rests on the shared goodwill, civility and common values of its individual members. What values are shared by, say, Britain, Cuba, Yemen and Zimbabwe—all nominal members of this fiction we call the “international community”?