Who Can Resist the Liberal Brainwashing?

If you are a conservative parent who doesn’t realize that your offspring are subject to a rigorous brainwashing in their local public school, then you are not paying attention. In all red electoral districts and in a surprising number of blue ones, the cultural, political and economic education imparted to the school children is biased sharply to the left. Just to give a few examples, the children are taught that:

  • American culture is no more worthy than any other culture. In fact, it has some serious shortcomings in that it is responsible for the nation’s historic maltreatment of women, blacks, Japanese Americans, Native Americans, gays and – for too much of our history – anyone who didn’t fall into the WASP category. The emphasis is on the grievous historic record, not the great progress that has been made in addressing these issues. Moreover, little, if any, mention is made of American Exceptionalism and America’s role as a beacon of freedom to the world. Nor is it emphasized that the US saved the world from totalitarianism twice in the twentieth century.
  • America’s ruggedly individualistic, capitalist economic system has resulted in greed, corruption, discrimination against the poor and excessive wealth to those who navigate the system successfully, even if not legitimately. The advancing welfare state is absolutely essential to check the excesses of the so-called free market system.
  • The destruction of the planet caused by the wantonly excessive abuses of American industry must be arrested. The health of our environment is the most serious problem facing the nation and extreme measures – even if they impinge on the individual rights of the people – are required to return the environment to good health and keep it that way.

Conservatives have been aware of this calamitous situation for some time – although too many do very little about it because of insufficient funds, time or appreciation for how bad it is. But here is a perhaps surprising revelation: liberal brainwashing in public schools has been going on for a very long time. My K-12 education took place between 1948 and 1960; and it took me until nearly twenty years after my high school graduation to understand the perfidious nature of the brainwashing to which I was subjected as a youth. Once again, here are some of the most egregious examples:

  • FDR’s New Deal saved the nation from the Great Depression, a falsity that has been completely debunked in Amity Shlaes’ book, The Forgotten Man.
  • Communism, like representative democracy, was a legitimate form of government. The people of the Soviet Union were entitled to choose their own system; which, in many ways, was a worthy competitor and in some areas performed better than our system.
  • Virtually all southerners were unrepentant bigots; moreover, (without noting that they were all Democrats) the congressmen from the South were the greatest impediment to racial progress in the United States.

I went to school in New York City. Most of my classmates were drawn from one of several ethnic communities that populated the Bronx in 1955: Jews, Italians and Irish. We came from upwardly mobile, lower middle class homes in which our moms were homemakers and our dads were laborers, small business owners, government clerks or service industry employees. Our parents’ politics were mid-twentieth century liberal and so they saw nothing amiss in what was largely a biased education – although they did not recognize it as such.

I have maintained contact with a fair number of my schoolmates over the last 60 years. A few, like me, have come to understand the nature of our childhood school curriculum and have rejected it for the ideological hogwash that it was. Those people are now early twenty-first century conservatives – tea party patriots in many instances, but at the least, GOP voters who believe that our increasingly collectivist, big-government society is destroying the country as they remember it existed in 1950. Well, they often ignore the fact that even during the first half of the twentieth century, America had already started down the statist road – but that is another story.

Now here is the kicker. A substantial majority of my classmates never saw the light. They have remained reliable liberals all their lives. They voted for Obama; think that the “rich” don’t pay their fair share; believe that behind closed doors, most white men do not think of women, minorities, gays or illegal immigrants as their equals; and are confident that all major problems in US society should be addressed by the government. They see nothing biased in the education they (and their children) received, nor in the one their grandchildren are now experiencing. It drives me crazy.

Moreover, it leads to a fundamental question. What happened to me, and to the few classmates who think like me, that did not happen to the larger group who are content that the ship of state consistently tacks to port? Indeed, they don’t even see the port side; they think the ship is on an even keel and people like me are trying to drown everyone by tipping the vessel over on the starboard side. What happened to me that did not happen to them?

I have put this question to conservative comrades and here are the most common responses:

  1. A traumatic event. It could be a mugging, say by an illegal alien. Or a bare knuckles audit by the IRS. Perhaps, because of affirmative action, an unqualified competitor got a job that you coveted. Or your property or business was seized by the government because you inadvertently killed a snail darter. Or perhaps, like me, your kindergarten child was subjected to forced bussing to an inferior school in a rotten neighborhood. You suddenly realize that the government is not your protector, but actually your oppressor. And so you re-examine all the political axioms that heretofore governed your life. And you realize that they were all wrong.
  2. Small business owner. You own and run your own business, or equivalently perhaps you are a mid-to-upper-level manager in a medium to large sized firm. Government rules and regulations are impinging on your business decisions, cutting into your profits and constricting your market. You feel like the government is your unwanted partner. As in #1 above, you come to realize that the government is tormenting you, not creating the level playing field on which you can compete fairly. Again, the political and economic axioms are examined and found wanting.
  3. Selected professions. You are a doctor, farmer, real estate developer or some such profession in which it is impossible to avoid the deleterious effects of unwarranted government intrusion. Your thinking evolves as in the previous two groups.
  4. Independent thinker. There is no natural work or neighborhood or environmental condition that puts you in conflict with the government. You are simply a self-confident person who can objectively assess your surroundings and think for yourself. You come to see how reality dos not match the liberal prescriptions that you were fed in school. You pick up Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. You see the light.

Who are the folks who have not passed through one of the above four portals? Well most are: office grunts, government workers, union types, government contractors and others for whom reliance on the government for jobs, assistance or protection is of paramount importance. Others include various professional types – for example, lawyers, media personnel, educators – who are so co-opted by or invested in big government that they welcome the statist agenda. Finally, there are those for whom the brainwashing was so effective that it never occurs to them that this is not the way America was or is supposed to be. Alas, all together, the number who don’t go through one of the four portals probably exceeds the number that has.

What lesson should we take away from this? The America established by our Founders assumed that most people valued their liberty above all else. People were expected to be independent, resourceful, responsible, religious, fair-minded and proud of their heritage. For the most part, the folks who fall in one of the four categories that account for a conservative outlook are such people. Too many of those in the categories that afford continued liberalism do not. And as I have remarked, there are apparently more of the latter than the former. So if you want to rescue your grandchildren from the brainwashing to which they are being subjected, you’ll have to guide them through a portal. Here are some tips for doing so:

  • pay for tuition for them at a private school;;
  • pay for church or synagogue dues for them and their parents;
  • see if you can make any headway with their parents; for example, give them a copy of Hayek’s book and discuss it with them;
  • gently challenge the grandkids when they reflexively spout the leftist nonsense that they learn in school.

Unless those of us who have passed through one of the portals can begin to cull large numbers from the herd who haven’t, the Constitutional Republic that America has been will be doomed.

This essay also appeared in Canada Free Press.

Immigration Reform Will Send the US over the Cliff

During the last five years, the United States has been stumbling along the edge of a precipitous cliff. At the bottom of the drop lies the redistributionist, egalitarian, government-directed society toward which Obama and his minions have been driving us since 2009. In fact, we have been marching almost continuously toward that cliff for a century. There have been several periods (under Wilson, FDR and LBJ, specifically) during which the march was accelerated. And, sadly, only two epochs (Coolidge, Reagan) in which it slowed down (and even retreated slightly). But Obama has cranked up the engine again and the march is almost complete. It is my purpose here to identify the thrust that will finally push us over the edge.

Some have argued that the United States has already fallen off the cliff. It is asserted that a century of metastasizing government, judicial usurpation, congressional abdication to the federal bureaucracy and its regulations in lieu of Constitutional law, fiscal profligacy, media compliance and the near total decay of traditional moral values have combined to indeed destroy our Constitutional Republic. Those who argue thus claim that the Republic has been replaced by a ‘soft’ tyranny marked by crony capitalism, forced equality, class warfare, government control of the economy, abrogation of American Exceptionalism, evisceration of the military and a signal lack of individual freedom. This might be so.

Or perhaps, despite our pell-mell rush toward the collectivist nirvana envisioned by the Obama acolytes, we have not yet reached socialist heaven and there is still time to rescue the American experiment. The rise of the Tea Party in 2009-10 gives hope that the spirit of liberty still beats in the American breast. Since then, despite the reelection of our “transformer-in-chief,” conservatives have made substantial gains in state and local elections around the nation. Furthermore, polls seem to indicate that more and more Americans are awakening to the true message of BHO: exchange liberty for equality and fairness; nationalize the health care industry and many other segments of the American economy; emphasize the historic wrongs committed by the US and atone for them by surrendering our place as a world power; convert our Constitutional Republic into a Euro-style, nanny state; denigrate Western Civilization and Christianity; elevate Islam and third world cultures; and retreat back into a cocoon of “safe,” predictable social equality.

Is it too late? Have we passed the point of no return? Many think that we have. And even if not, Obama still has three more years to complete the shove off the cliff. Moreover, he has telegraphed the weapons that he intends to deploy in order to seal the deal. Before I quickly review them, let us note that he has already fired many arrows from his quiver, too many of which have hit their mark:

  • Dodd-Frank, which is crippling American business and helping to convert the major financial institutions of America into public utilities.
  • A wasteful and ineffective stimulus that only heralded his massive deficit spending, which has pushed the debt to frightening levels that portend a cataclysmic financial meltdown.
  • Unconstitutionally creating law via executive fiat in flagrant disregard of his constitutional responsibilities as President.
  • Packing the courts and federal bureaucracy with fellow travelers who pursue a hard left agenda.
  • Shutting down the country’s fossil fuel enterprises (via stopping the Keystone pipeline, denying permits to drill on federal lands and off shore, and failing to reinvigorate the nuclear energy industry) and promoting government-sponsored corrupt “clean” energy enterprises.
  • Obamacare! Need I say more?

The concluding act of his transformative presidency – especially if the Dems capture the House – will include:

  • Common Core implemented, augmented by universal pre-K, universal College education and in general, a federal takeover of the entire public education system in the US.
  • Cap and Trade.
  • Gun Control.
  • Card Check.
  • Enhanced taxation of the “wealthy,” accompanied by sizeable minimum wage increases and other redistributionist schemes to promote his utopian world in which no one is poor – even if no one is rich.

But the weapon that will kill us, bury us, and ensure the destruction of the American Republic is immigration reform. I’ll explain why momentarily but first: why is the ‘reform’ that is currently under consideration morally, politically and historically wrong? The proposal is effectively to grant amnesty to all illegal aliens in the United States and bestow on them citizenship. No one knows the exact number of beneficiaries. The usual estimate is 11-15 million, but some believe it could be 20 million or more. To grant this amnesty is immoral because:

  • It rewards lawlessness instead of punishing it.
  • It penalizes law-abiding aliens who played by the rules and patiently waited their turn to gain residency and citizenship by lawful means.
  • It smacks of insanity – you know, when you do the same thing repeatedly expecting different outcomes. We did this already in 1986 and it backfired horribly.
  • It encourages and rewards exactly the wrong kind of immigrants – instead of ambitious, well-educated, entrepreneurial types, we invite and pamper uneducated, often law-breaking, unskilled peasants.
  • It weakens the status of English as the language of the land.

It is hard to imagine anything more self-destructive and unwise. But of course, those two adjectives accurately describe much of the Obama hard left agenda. Why is it immigration reform that will finally throw us off the cliff? In short, the plan to install and enfranchise more than ten million virtually assured leftist voters will permanently tip the electoral scales in the US and guarantee the election of far left presidents for decades to come. Even the Democrats make little attempt to refute this assessment. One wonders how any Republican could embrace this plan. When we implemented essentially the same plan about 30 years ago, we did so with a much smaller number. Nevertheless, that mistake certainly played a role in altering  presidential elections. The presidency was considered almost a lock for the GOP from 1952 to 1992, when the White House was in GOP hands for 28 of those 40 years. Since then, the GOP has lost five out of the last six popular presidential votes. Legalizing 10-20 million leftist voters will cede  total control of the Oval Office  to the hard left and it will also flip the Congress permanently to the Dems. Then you can kiss the Republic goodbye.

This essay also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative

Angst over Ryan-Murray Agreement is Symptomatic of a Deeper Divide

The Ryan-Murray budget agreement has certainly provoked some sharp disagreement on the right flank of the conservative blogosphere. Actually, the agreement represents a true compromise in that each side achieved part of some of its aims, and both sides abandoned (if only temporarily) many of their desired outcomes.

In fact, the GOP “achievements” include: increased military spending, no new tax increases, removal of the possibility of a government shutdown (which events are always blamed on Republicans), some exceedingly modest budget reductions and no extension of unemployment benefits. What they failed to obtain was any entitlement reform, any tax reform and the complete preservation of the sequester cuts.

Murray and the Dems can crow primarily about the relaxation of the sequester cuts. Actually, I don’t see much else in the deal that they can brag about.  Moreover, getting a budget established and a shutdown off the table frees up the DC debate for conservatives to focus intensely on Obamacare – a winning strategy for the GOP in the 2014 midterm elections.

So why are Marco Rubio, Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity livid with Ryan? Well, with the discomfort of quoting the NY Times: “[because the agreement is] a retreat from earlier spending cuts and a betrayal by senior Republicans. Some excoriated Mr. Ryan … for rolling back immediate spending cuts in exchange for promised savings that may never materialize.” The implication is that conservatives must trust Congress to maintain these levels of spending for the next ten years when there is no concrete mechanism to mandate the cuts. And as is well known, Congress is notoriously lacking in self-discipline.

But let’s be realistic. The GOP controls one half of one third of the federal government and as events of the last five years have shown, their ability to implement anything resembling a conservative agenda is virtually nil. The Dems have been weakened by the rollout of Obamacare. Very modest measures like this budget deal are now possible, but given the political configuration in Washington, it’s the best that conservatives can do.

Nonsense, replies the right wing. The agreement represents a co-opt with little payout and it reveals that we are not serious about combatting the progressive agenda, which is destroying America. It is a far better idea to advocate and forcefully fight for true conservative principles, which, even if we cannot enact them now, will convince the American people of the depth of their plight and eventually convert them to our cause.

I would like to postulate here that both arguments are correct. This is possible because they emanate from different sets of axioms. If one can establish which axiom set is valid, then one can ascertain which argument is more compelling.

Axiom Set 1. Yes, the progressive movement has made great strides over the last century toward “fundamentally transforming America”; and if they succeed, our Constitutional Republic, which has served as a beacon of liberty and prosperity for the world, will fall. But the American people, as polls repeatedly show, are still fundamentally conservative. We should not insult them by writing them off. All we need are the right leaders, articulating and implementing conservative policies, in order to right the ship. We need to convince the vast middle of the bankruptcy and danger of the Left’s program. We don’t do that by throwing bombs, but by deploying reasonable leaders, who follow sensible courses of action.

Axiom Set 2. In fact, the progressives have already pushed America past the tipping point. We are no longer a Constitutional Republic; rather at best a big government, collectivist, pacifist, statist, Euro-style social welfare state. Substantially more than 50% of the populace has been co-opted. We are literally at the incipient phase of a counter-revolution. Half-measures and phony deals do nothing to reverse the trajectory. We need to awaken the (counter) revolutionary spirit in the American people if there is to be any chance to halt the slide.

Those who believe in Axiom Set 1 will applaud the Ryan effort. On the other hand, those who subscribe to Axiom Set 2 will see it as a useless betrayal. What’s your axiom set?

This essay also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative

Do the Obamacrats Really Believe the Economic Garbage they Espouse?

The Obama presidency is in tatters. From Obamacare to numerous scandals (e.g., Benghazi, IRS, Fast & Furious) to economic stagnation to palpable American decline, the shards of disaster over which the big O presides – and much of which he has caused – are bleeding the Republic and torturing its people. How does Obama respond? Why of course by doubling down on the very policies that have brought the US to its current sorry place:

  • We shall continue to cripple the industries that develop classic carbon-based energy resources — to which we have dramatically improved domestic accessibility that could afford us energy independence – and foolishly pursue and subsidize cost-ineffective and inadequate “green energy.”
  • We shall continue to eviscerate our military, coddle our enemies, browbeat our allies and otherwise “play nice” in the international arena – so that the world will like us better.
  • We shall reaffirm that the US has a checkered history (slavery, maltreatment of Indians, discrimination against women and minorities, nuking Japan and firebombing Dresden) and the notion of American Exceptionalism is unwarranted and counter-productive.
  • We shall open the doors of citizenship to 10-20 million illegal aliens.
  • And more than anything, we shall re-emphasize the economic policies in which we fervently believe – Keynesianism, redistribution of wealth, high taxation, government management of the economy and fundamental distrust (and so therefore severe regulation) of American business – large and small.

It is already a trite and overworked aphorism, but still apt: The definition of insanity is to repeatedly perform the same exercise expecting a different outcome. Well, the US – following the progressive playbook – has numerous times: raised the minimum wage; increased taxes on the “wealthy”; pumped federal stimulus money into the economy; established welfare programs to benefit the poor, disabled and downtrodden; created a plethora of government programs and agencies to improve the economic health of the country; regulated, re-regulated and over-regulated virtually every aspect of American economic behavior; and finally, hatched the  most heinous Rube Goldberg contraption (Obamacare) designed to insure the roughly 10% of the nation that either could not or chose not to purchase health insurance, all at the expense of the 90% of the population that was mostly satisfied with the then-current situation.

The economic policies and programs of Obama, indeed of the progressive movement over the last century, have utterly failed. They have taken America – which enjoyed the freest, richest, most dynamic economy on Earth, and reduced it to a debt-ridden, unconfident, increasingly stagnant and poorer nation, poised to fall from prosperity to penury, from riches to rags, from powerhouse to poor house.

And yet, they continue to pursue, with renewed zeal, the very policies and programs that brought us to this sorry place. How can that be? Are they insane? Well, I can think of only three possible explanations. Obama and his minions either:

(1)    do not see it. They reject the above interpretation. Indeed, they believe that a century of liberal economics has made America a better place. They see the status of women, minorities and gays as improved. They believe that this would not have occurred sans the implementation of their collectivist policies. They are certain that more of the same will further improve America. Even if they recognize the drawbacks, they see the overall economic stagnation, the loss of freedom, the diminished standard of living, the huge indebtedness, as worth the price.

(2)    see it, but attribute the failure to the left over effects of “supply side economics” and “unfettered capitalism.” We need to give the collectivist policies more time to work, and we need to reapply them with increased vigor. The benefits they yield are just around the corner.

(3)    see it and welcome it, because it is part of the game plan. This interpretation assumes that Obama – and many in his coterie – are true Alinskyites. The goal is a radical remake of the United States of America. The entire legal system based on the Declaration Independence and the Constitution goes in the trash. The cultural structure founded upon the classic ideals of Western Civilization follows on the dung heap. And most importantly, free market capitalism is banished forever. America shall be remade according to the collectivist/statist playbook. Equality will reign supreme. Economic equality, cultural equality and political equality shall be the goals to which we aspire and which we shall attain. An all-powerful government will impose this nirvana on its fortunate subjects – err, that is, its citizens.

For this to come about, the current structure must be destroyed. Obama and his toadies recognize that their attempt to graft the leftist playbook onto the classic American societal structure is doomed to failure. The host cannot support the graft. The chaos that ensues will help to convince the public that it is the underlying host that is sick, not the alien graft. Once achieved, the full implementation of the radical transformation will be welcomed by a populace that is beaten down by the chaos and ready for radical change.

So which is it? Is Obama hiding behind door number (1), (2) or (3)? I believe that much of liberal America, the “useful idiots”, to use another well-worn aphorism, is behind door (1). The higher ups in the Obama food chain are likely lurking behind door (2). They are sharp enough to understand that $17 trillion in debt is a problem caused by profligate government spending, but they also believe that we’ll be able to deal with it when we get the economic playbook implemented. Finally, the cave behind door (3) is certainly not empty. Clearly people like George Soros, Van Jones and Valerie Jarrett are plotting in there. Is Obama one of them?

This essay aalso appeared in Canada Free Press

Thirty Years of Politics, Passion and Persuasion

Usually, when a journalist publishes a book containing reproductions of his past journalistic endeavors, it is little cause to open up amazon.com for a download. Way more often than not such an event is an exercise in self-indulgence, or a consequence of the journalist’s lack of anything new to say or an attempt to cash in on old news. Not so with Dr. Charles Krauthammer. His new book, Things That Matter, is a brilliant compendium of some of his most notable weekly columns and magazine pieces composed over the last thirty years. Moreover, the short essays are accompanied by a deeply personal, long introduction and five significantly longer essays that addressed several compelling topics from recent decades. The combination makes for a sparkling read that spotlights Krauthammer’s brilliant insights and analyses over the years. Throughout the entire book, the reader will find original thought on many of the most significant topics of the last thirty years – expressed clearly, originally, passionately and persuasively. The ubiquitous wit and humor alone are worth the price of admission.

Most of the entries are copies of pieces that Krauthammer published in his weekly column in the Washington Post – a staple of the DC pundit scene for nearly 30 years. Others are reproductions of short essays that appeared in Time, The Weekly Standard, the New Republic and a couple other places. They are organized into three broad categories: Personal, Political and Historical. Within these three parts, there are chapters, each organized around a distinct theme, and in which Krauthammer treats the issues that he sees as the most important that America faced (and still faces in many instances).

For example, in the Political part, there is a chapter entitled “Citizen and State” containing material on the Constitution, the balance of power between the individual and the government, and the enduring nastiness of US elections. In the Historical part, there is a fascinating chapter entitled “The Jewish Question, Again” in which the columns contain amazing new insight about a political/cultural terrain that has been worked over as thoroughly as any subject in political philosophy. Finally, in the Personal part, there is a chapter entitled “Passions and Pastimes: whose columns describe some of the activities (outside of politics) that Krauthammer has pursued with passion over the years (e.g., baseball and chess).

Virtually all of the columns contain amazingly fresh ideas. One gains insight on matters recent and long past. For example, here are five randomly chosen, representative samples:

Politics is the moat, the walls, beyond which lie the barbarians. Fail to keep them at bay, and everything burns. The entire 20th century with its mass political enthusiasms is a lesson in the supreme power of politics to produce ever-expanding circles of ruin. World War I not only killed more people than any previous war. The psychological shock of Europe’s senseless self-inflicted devastation forever changed Western sensibilities, practically overthrowing the classical arts, virtues and modes of thought. The Russian Revolution and its imitators (Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese, Cambodian) tried to atomize society so thoroughly—to war against the mediating structures that stand between the individual and the state—that the most basic bonds of family, faith, fellowship and conscience came to near dissolution. Of course, the greatest demonstration of the finality of politics is the Holocaust, which in less than a decade destroyed a millennium-old civilization, sweeping away not only 6 million souls but the institutions, the culture, the very tongue of the now-vanished world of European Jewry.

The most considered and balanced statement of politics’ place in the hierarchy of human disciplines came, naturally, from an American. “I must study politics and war,” wrote John Adams, “that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. Adams saw clearly that politics is the indispensable foundation for things elegant and beautiful. First and above all else, you must secure life, liberty and the right to pursue your own happiness. That’s politics done right, hard-earned, often by war. And yet the glories yielded by such a successful politics lie outside itself. Its deepest purpose is to create the conditions for the cultivation of the finer things, beginning with philosophy and science, and ascending to the ever more delicate and refined arts.

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class—social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies—arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).
Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher’s England to Deng’s China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history. Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but—even better—in the name of Earth itself.
Environmentalists are Gaia’s priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect.

Which is why with the waning of the decade [1980s] the conservatives’ time might soon be up. Voters are not sentimental. They don’t give points for past achievement. They turned out Winston Churchill less than three months after V-E Day. The rule is: What have you done for me lately? After the Democratic Party built the magnificent structure of the New Deal, it ran out of ideas, and the voters threw the rascals out. Conservatives have done what they were asked to do in 1980: break inflation and restore Western power. Their job is done. The voters sense it. The Republicans took a whipping in the 1989 elections. Their social agenda (most prominently, abortion) proved unenactable. And that was the fallback for a party whose economic and foreign policy agenda has already been enacted. There is another turn ahead. Democrats will do everything in their power to blow it, but one new idea and the ’90s belongs to them.

Facing the choice of whether to maintain our dominance or to gradually, deliberately, willingly and indeed relievedly give it up, we are currently on a course toward the latter. The current liberal ascendancy in the United States—controlling the executive and both houses of Congress, dominating the media and elite culture—has set us on a course for decline. And this is true for both foreign and domestic policies. Indeed, they work synergistically to ensure that outcome.

As fresh and enlightening as the columns are, it is the Introduction and the five long essays that make the book truly special. In his Introduction, Krauthammer, describes with passion his personal journey from McGill University to a fellowship in political philosophy at Oxford, then to Medical school and a budding career in psychiatry at Mass General, abruptly altered by a trip to Washington that led to a lifetime as a political pundit – interrupted in the early going by a tragic accident that put him in a wheel chair for life. The story is told with humility, wit and wonder, and one cannot help but admire a man who refused to allow a severe disability to interfere with his life plans.

As for the long essays, there are five. All are chock full of insight, originality and a deep and penetrating understanding and analysis of several fundamental issues of our times. They deal with: the ethics of embryonic research; the fate of the Jewish people; and, most importantly, the fate of the American experiment in individual liberty – as seen at ten year intervals between the fall of the Soviet Empire and the advent of Barack Obama. I discovered so many original insights in these that I read them several times.

Finally, what’s a book review without some criticism? In fact, there is little to criticize here. Well, as with any compendium of essays written over many years, there is bound to be some disjointedness and jarring discontinuities. Often the chronological flow is barely discernible. Also, as is inevitable in a reproduction of old material, there are more than a few places where one can’t avoid reacting with: “Well that didn’t work out the way you predicted.” But these minuses are extremely minor compared to the overall positive impression. Things That Matter is aptly named. Krauthammer has selected from among his treasure trove of columns some of the best that: treated the major events of the day, put them in historical perspective and predicted the consequences with uncanny insight. Together with his moving introduction and five captivating essays, they add up to a brilliant read and a valuable resource to consult as America continues to struggle with its self-imposed mandate to keep alive the fire of liberty that was lit by our forefathers more than two centuries ago.

This essay also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative. However, that site is experiencing technical difficulties. The link will be provided when the site is back to normal.