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Rob’s off on vacation, but Peter’s back from the Promised Land! Thankfully you won’t have to wait until his next episode of Uncommon Knowledge is released to hear from Yoram Hazony, author of Conservatism: A Rediscovery. Yoram has revisited the past in the hopes of finding something new that conservatives will desperately need in order to offer something other than a another variant of liberalism. He answers his many critics and considers a plausible path of resistance against the progressive threat.
Later, Peter describes his faith-strengthening visit to Israel and James recounts the excitement of his chance to meet Ricochet members in New York. Plus, what’s the deal with Humphrey Bogart!?
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What might be even funnier would be if John Podhoretz said the same thing.
I 99% like everything like it is and was. I can never relate to any of this criticism.
Halzony writes better then he talks. I’ll read the book sometime this summer before I comment on his views. I will say that with the nationalism book, he staked out a view at the beginning that he wasn’t willing to defend when applied to the modern USA. So if he talks like he’s holding back, he may be weighing his words very carefully.
Got it — hopeful we can do another event in NY soon! :) Thx you (and your daughter) for your continued support. Is she by chance a college student ?
Ha ha, no a married mother of four, two of them teenagers. ER nurse.
The funniest line ever on the GLOP podcast was shortly after Jackie Mason died, and Jpod was talking about what he (Mason) was like off-stage, which was that he wasn’t funny, “he was just an old Jewish guy yelling at you”, and Rob said “Huh, I wonder what that’s like” softly enough that I don’t think JPod heard it because he didn’t react.
I think I remember hearing that, let’s see if I can find it…
It’s the 7/28/21 episode, starting about 34:25.
Meanwhile, another Jackie Mason joke contained herein:
John Adams: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams: “Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.”
Hazony claimed the founders trusted reason (alone?) would lead everyone to the same conclusions. Actually, they knew reason could be biased.
John Adams: “Nature and truth, or rather truth and right, are invariably the same in all times and in all places. And reason, your unbiased reason, perceives them alike in all times and in all places. But passion, prejudice, interest, custom, and fancy are infinitely precarious. If therefore we suffer our understandings to be blinded or perverted by any of these, the chance is that of millions to one that we shall embrace error. And hence arises that endless variety of opinions entertained by mankind.”
John Adams: “Human reason and human conscience, though I believe there are such things, are not a match for human passions, human imaginations, and human enthusiasm.”
“Our passions, ambition, avarice, love, resentments, etc. possess so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence, that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience and covet both to their party. And I may be deceived as much as any of them when I say that power must never be trusted without a check.”
Yes, that did happen.
Nevertheless, the founders saw from European history what happens whenever coercive government power is used to establish one religion. That leads to fighting over who controls the power to coerce.
Establishing a nontheistic religion does the same (eg imposed indoctrination into wokism, cultural Marxism, trans ideology, etc).
Classical liberalism is the only stable solution: Use government power to secure human rights (including life and freedoms of conscience, speech, religion, and assembly) without forcing one belief system.
Hazony seemingly supposes that better laws can be the engine for the “conservation and transmission” of essential virtues, but laws are at most a caboose. The engine has always been voluntary associations.
I agree 100% with Peter Robinson on The Big Sleep—it is unwatchable. I even tried the pre-release version, which is supposed to be much more coherent. No dice!
If you want a black and white film noir, you can’t beat The Third Man.
As far as Bogart movies go, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, To Have and Have Not, Key Largo, and African Queen are all great films.
Out of the Past (1947) directed by Jacques Tourneur, with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas; memorable for its contrast between the dark, dank city and the sunblasted countryside.
A still from the film with doomed protagonist Mitchum and shady lady Greer was on the cover of a noir encyclopedia.
Oh, Bosh. Or Bosch. Yes, the new season is pared down, even the writing. Perhaps the ending of the season portends a return with Bosch: Redemption. We can hope.
Or Bosch: Afterlife which depicts him in Hell (art direction based on his cousin Hieronymous).
Sounds like a garden of earthly delights.
Bosch goes by Harry but his first name is Hieronymous
An amazing coincidence!
Robert A. Sirico is co-founder and president of The Acton Institute, and is now the author of The Economics of the Parables (Hardcover from Acton) (NOOK eBook) (Audiobook).
In a recent interview of Sirico, they discuss threats to classical liberalism from the temptations to turn to coercive government power (e.g. to control the economy and/or culture).
Q: “Are there practical things that can be done that can help with the habits of the heart of America?”
As one illustration, Sirico discussed a private school that he took over when it had just 68 kids. They refounded it as a classical academy. It has grown to 400 students, all being equipped with and grounded in a more complete education. Part of their activity is to help those in need in the community.
Even before hearing that interview, I had been continuing to think about our discussion here. Education is very important to these concerns about culture, but government is entangled with education.
Given that the government must not establish any religion…