Aristotle, whom no less than Dante dubbed il maestro di color che sanno, “the master of those who know,” told us that of all the powers human beings possess, the capacity to use speech is the prime faculty distinguishing us from animals. Human beings and animals may all be sentient, armed with instincts for survival and propagation, but only the man and woman, boy and girl, can grasp the meaning of an idea or the quiddity of an impression as it speeds by the consciousness, either bringing it down like a pheasant in autumn, bagged and secure in an ordered, capacious mind, or watching helplessly as it wings past to alight on another mind better able and eager to crack its code. That is not a b

As one should do when visiting Oxford, I’ve been spending some time in ancient English churches and college chapels. As British historian Nicholas Orme points out in his Going To Church in Medieval England (Yale, 2021) churchgoing as a religious and social activity here goes back at least to 313 AD when Emperor Constantine recognized Christianity as a lawful religion and allowed Christians to have public places of worship.Much of everyday life for centuries has revolved around the parish church. Even today in some towns the bells in the church tower still summon people to worship each week. On Wednesday evenings one can hear the peals as ringers practice for the following Sunday.Almost witho

Banging drums in Columbia University’s Butler Library in early May, a group of protesters shouted: “Free, free Palestine!” When campus security shut the doors of the reading room, effectively trapping the demonstrators in, their chants turned into pleas. One person tried to break through to the exit, and a scuffle broke out. “You’re hurting him, stop!” a girl cried out. By the end of the occupation, eighty protesters had been arrested. Sixty-one of them were women.The Columbia protest made national news in the US, but the striking gender imbalance of its participants went largely unnoticed. It shouldn’t have. Whether the cause is Gaza, climate change, Black Lives Matter, or feminism, overrep

Raging wars, faltering economies, and fragmenting societies fuel the perception. Israel’s June 13 Operation Rising Lion, attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programs, and the United States’ June 22 Operation Midnight Hammer, dealing devasting blows to Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, are the latest battles in the long-standing war that Tehran’s theocrats have been waging against Israel, America, and the West. Russia’s protracted war of conquest against Ukraine has destabilized Europe and strained relations among NATO countries. The wars in the Middle East and Europe complicate the great-power-competition calculations – not least s

What must one do to be a good citizen in America? Be honest? Be truthful? Be industrious? Be generous? Heed the Ten Commandments? No, no, no, no, and no, according to mainstream consensus, at least since about 1960. It has in fact become usual to look the other way, as one social atrocity after another gets turned into a “right” and made “legal” by the rule of “political correctness.” So when, for example, children are done away with before they are born, a good citizen recognizes “the right to choose” the murder of babies in the womb. A good citizen must agree that “mercy killing” is not only for horses but for people. He and she must pretend that deviant sexual behavior does not psychologi

Last month, a philosopher died. His passing is remarkable because it confirms an assertion he had made decades ago. Alasdair MacIntyre observed that philosophy was dead, retreating beyond the horizon of relevance because of paths chosen from the Enlightenment to present. Evidence of this irrelevance is that the most important and “influential” philosopher of the past century can die, and it doesn’t make the news.MacIntyre’s most influential book, 1981’s After Virtue, not only explained the state of contemporary Western civilization but also meticulously described how we got here.In laying the foundation for his thesis, MacIntyre asks the reader to imagine a post-apocalyptic world where socie

When Jesus was alive, the religious leader of Rome was, in fact, both Caesar and the voice of God, for Emperor Augustus had taken the position of Pontifex Maximus, the chief high priest, for himself.A separation between church and state would occur in the late 4th century when Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, would cleave the two.In 390 AD, in Thessalonica, a Macedonian city in the Roman Empire, the citizens murdered a Roman garrison commander for arresting the most popular Macedonian charioteer just before a major race. A seething Emperor Theodosius ordered his soldiers to slaughter the entire population. When the smoke cleared, 7,000 men, women, and children died in the Massacre of Thes

Eighty-three years after the disastrous sneak attack on Pearl Harbor which galvanized our nation to prepare for a long fight and ultimate victory, we have a clearer picture of how Barack Obama (and through him, President Biden) destroyed his party and with it many of our institutions. We now have a leader and a plan to restore their strength. Much has been written about why the Democrats suffered such a devastating loss in the election, but I’m inclined to place great weight on the views expressed by Adam Mill in Chronicles Magazine, who argues persuasively that the Democrats’ decision-making process doomed their chances, a process unlikely to soon change. “Democrats don’t have leaders, rath

Imagine an economy where government dictates resource allocation, where the entrepreneurial spirit is suffocated by the weight of state mandates. The DSA would transform the economic landscape from one of opportunity into one of bureaucratic stagnation, where the only growth is in government and not in individual or collective wealth.According to a report by the Heritage Foundation, the DSA's policy proposals would lead to a significant increase in government spending and taxation, resulting in a substantial decrease in economic freedom.The DSA's foreign policy positions, particularly concerning Israel and globalism, reveal a troubling disdain for American sovereignty. Their support for the

After the Trump assassination attempt at Butler, I’m having an unexpected crisis of faith. What’s unusual is...I’m an atheist. Not just an atheist, but you know, the insufferable kind, the kind that insists on being sworn in without that “so help me God” nonsense.From a young age, I wanted things to make sense with reason my guiding principle. The idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing being whose address—Heaven—doesn’t even come up on Google Maps seemed more preposterous than Santa. At least we knew we could find Santa at the North Pole.Look, I searched for answers, but they were always the same: “You have to have faith.” Yeah, right. Believing things without evidence because you want to beli

We all expected a tumultuous presidential campaign. But I was not prepared to see a Kennedy endorse a Republican, nor the Cheneys endorse a far-Left Democrat. I was equally unprepared for the embrace of Trumpian policies by the very Democrats who hate him with the fire of a thousand suns. The coup that toppled Joe Biden caught me by surprise, as did the coronation of an unelected nominee, Kamala Harris. Not to mention two foiled assassinations buried by the media. And we still have a month to go.Is there any way to make sense of this?Political parties change. The South voted solidly Democratic for 100 years after the Civil War. When the Democrats nominated radical George McGovern in 1972, th

Longtime AT readers will remember my viral 2008 article: Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. That article described the Cloward-Piven Crisis strategy that Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, two radical Columbia University professors, dreamed up. Their first target was the welfare system. They hoped that signing up every person eligible for every public service would overwhelm the system and cause its collapse. In the ashes, they would then suggest the solution: a guaranteed annual income for all Americans. (Note that such proposals have been added to Biden spending bills but were stripped out). They went on to target voting and were the authors of the National Voter Reg

Since Reagan, the GOP had been the party that supported a strong military. Reagan stood against the USSR, pushing up the cost of the arms race to defeat communism. What’s known as the military-industrial complex benefited from this stance. George Bush continued this policy, going to war with Iraq in the early 1990s. W. picked up the mantle despite there being no more cold war to win. His response to 9/11 was regrettable in hindsight. The Bush family stamped the GOP as the party of war.The Democrats, being carefully contrarian with Reagan, had an anti-war minority in their ranks. Most Democrats took that view, but they saw Reagan’s policies as popular and held their fire. It was during the Bu

The benefits of skepticism are twofold. Firstly, it prevents the creep of authoritarianism, ensuring that power remains accountable to the people. By questioning authority, citizens create a culture of transparency, where leaders are compelled to justify their actions and decisions. This fosters a more responsive government, attuned to the needs and concerns of its constituents.Secondly, skepticism fuels innovation and progress. When we challenge prevailing wisdom and conventional thinking, we create space for new ideas and perspectives to emerge. This intellectual curiosity has long been a hallmark of American exceptionalism, driving breakthroughs in science, technology, and entrepreneurshi

Over the past four years the people of the United States have witnessed the choreographed rise and precipitous fall of Joe Biden. Twenty-five hundred years ago the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, wrote “A man’s character is his fate.” An aphorism that aptly applies to Kamala Harris and the vast majority of the Democrat Party hierarchy.Oftentimes it is a series of events or decisions within a certain timeframe that seals one’s fate. Is it a coincidence that Biden’s decisions and actions during the four weeks between July 21 and August 15 in each of the four years of his presidency sealed his inevitable fate to be remembered as an unprincipled, duplicitous, and venal president? Will Kam

The best definition of ‘valor’ I have come across is ‘strength of mind in regard to danger, that quality which enables a man to encounter danger with firmness and courage.’ Reading of vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz and his stolen valor made me think of my father’s service during WWII and, to a lesser extent, my own some thirty years later.My dad, like a great number of young men, was drafted into the military in early 1942. Was spending the next three and a half years in the jungles of the Pacific fighting the Japanese the way he would have preferred to spend that time? I believe the answer is a firm no. He had just become engaged to my mother, and I’m sure marriage and settling down to

Right now, the United Kingdom is barreling toward totalitarianism.  After a second-generation immigrant reportedly murdered several children in a vicious stabbing attack last week, native Brits took to the streets to denounce their country’s criminally dangerous open borders.  If these outraged citizens had been members of Antifa, the press would have compassionately framed their actions as “mostly peaceful protests” deserving of praise.  Instead, because the public’s fury is directed toward one of globalism’s sacred cows — mass migration — angry parents have been condemned for fomenting “violent riots.”  Protecting children from serial killers and sexual predators, it seems, is not “politic

The book “1984” is supposed to be a warning. Today’s leftists are using it as an instruction manual.George Orwell’s classic novel is set in a dystopian world where Big Brother controls the population through information control and surveillance. See if any of this sounds familiar.“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”During her career, especially when running for president in 2020, Kamala Harris took a number of radical positions. She praised efforts to defund the police. She once insinuated Immigration and Customs Enforcement was comparable to the KKK and suggested the agency should be rebuilt “from scratc

USA Today recently published a piece excoriating Project 2025 and all who worked on it as (you guessed it) “racist.” I had very little to do with Project 2025 — I was asked for some thoughts on how best to organize the National Security Council staff, provided those thoughts, and then was never contacted again — but my name ended up on the thing, so I suppose, according to the sketchy rules of “journalistic ethics,” that makes me “fair game.”At any rate, USA Today reported that I did not respond to a request for comment. In fact, I did not receive any word that USA Today wanted a comment, but I guess that doesn’t really matter since I wouldn’t have commented anyway. It’s obvious from the res

Sun Tzu, the Chinese military strategist from around (historians are uncertain) the 6th century BC, is famous for the (still studied at West Point) book The Art of War. There are 13 short chapters, each on a different aspect of warfare. The first chapter is "Laying Plans," and the last, "The Use of Spies." The Art of War is ostensibly about warfare, but it finds many applications in other aspects of life. It is a short book that you can read in an afternoon but study for a lifetime of critical decisions to be made.One such decision is for the upcoming Presidential election. Let us see how following or not the advice of the master during the campaigns can lead to victory or defeat on November