America
283 pieces tagged “America”, newest first.
Overlooked Remarks From the 'People's Pope'
To say that Pope Francis' visit to the United States drew a lot of media attention would be an understatement. The coverage was 'round-the-clock. Yet as a lifelong "cradle Catholic," educated by Jesuits, I couldn't help noticing what a remarkably incomplete, if not misleading, portrait emerged of the Holy Father. Ask most people what issues concern the pope, and they'll likely cite immigration and climate change. And yes, he has discussed them on many occasions, at times using terms that have led some liberals to declare the pontiff is a card-carrying socialist with little patience for allegedly "outdated" traditional church teachings.
Bernie Sanders' America
The raucous welcomes and thundering applause that have greeted America's newest (and oldest) political rock star, the septuagenarian Bernie Sanders, have launched a cottage industry of puzzled pundits trying to figure out the source of his appeal. Of course it's his ideas, his supporters have insisted, perhaps as well as his presentation style, which issues from an agreeable set of features topped by undisciplined strands of white hair, giving him a sort of aged, professorial look of a speaker waving his arms while hurling his points across the lectern before the class ends.
Cultural Surrenderists
While many believe the most dangerous people in the world today are Islamic fanatics, they are mistaken. The pale in comparison to the Cultural Surrenderists (CS). The Cultural Surrenderists — on both sides of the Atlantic — are those who believe Western culture is something for which they owe the world an ongoing apology. That apology manifests itself in a number of ways, the foremost of which are the contemptible concepts known as multiculturalism and diversity. Both of them are based on the idea that all cultures, customs, religions and belief systems are equally viable, and that no one societal ethos is better than any other.
Yogi Berra, an American Story
The 18-year-old U.S. Navy enlistee, thinking it sounded less boring than the dull training he was doing in 1944, volunteered for service on what he thought an officer had called "rocket ships." Actually, they were small, slow, vulnerable boats used as launching pads for rockets to give close-in support for troops assaulting beaches. The service on those boats certainly was not boring. At dawn on June 6, 1944, that sailor was a few hundred yards off Omaha Beach. Lawrence Peter Berra, who died Tuesday at 90, had a knack for being where the action was.
American Greatness Can Be Rediscovered
Let's be crystal clear about what happened one day before America commemorated the 14th anniversary of the worst domestic attack in our nation's history: the Party of Treason aided and abetted by the Party of Cowardice made Obama's despicable deal with Iran a reality. Even more insulting, the process took place in defiance of the law as written and without a vote. In short, the effort to accommodate Iran, accurately described as the word's foremost sponsor of state terror, represents one of the darkest days in American history.
Caesarism Comes to the Republican Party
Among a very long list of harms inflicted upon the United States by Barack Obama and his party, perhaps the worst was Caesarism. Obama relished the worship of millions in 2008. From his star turn at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he was treated not as a political candidate, but as a savior. Progressives fell into a swoon, typified by Newsweek editor Evan Thomas' 2008 comment, "I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above — above the world; he's sort of God." Now, a similar kind of unreasoning adulation is greeting (improbably enough) Donald Trump. Fred Barnes reports that a focus group of Trump supporters is swept up in a kind of worship, too: "He's not just their favorite candidate. Their tie to him is almost mystical. He's a kind of political savior, someone who says what they think."
Peter Schramm: 'You Americans Invented Freedom'
Peter Schramm has died. I knew it was coming. He'd been struggling with cancer. But it felt particularly poignant given that I was in Europe, a place Peter had little patience for. It was an attitude he inherited from his father. During World War II, before Peter was born, William Schramm had been conscripted by the Nazis to work in a munitions factory. The Allies dropped leaflets warning that a bombing run was imminent. The Nazis demanded that everyone report for work anyway. William refused.
Left-Right Differences, Part VII
How can we determine what is morally right? The answer to this question — the most important question human beings need to answer — is a major difference between Left and Right. For conservatives, the answer is, and has always been, that there are moral truths — objective moral standards — to which every person is accountable. In America, this has meant accountability to the Creator, the God of the Bible, and to Judeo-Christian values.
The Summer of Our Discontent
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders represent two sides of the same coin. Both men have tapped into a deep anger — a discontent — in the public mood. Little seems to be going right. America appears in decline under a disengaged president. We can't seem to win wars, or know why we are fighting them. People are afraid of losing their jobs or unable to find one. While the treasury takes in record amounts of money from working people, it outspends its income. Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to spend (and borrow) even more.
History's Complexity Should Discourage Retroactive Morality
Some Democratic Party groups are renouncing their once-egalitarian idols, the renaissance genius Thomas Jefferson and the populist Andrew Jackson. Both presidents, some two centuries ago, owned slaves. Consequently, the two men have been suddenly deemed unworthy of further liberal reverence. In Connecticut, for instance, the state Democratic Party has removed the two presidents' names from an annual fundraiser previously known as the Jefferson-Jackson-Bailey Dinner. There are lots of strange paradoxes in the current frenzied liberal dissection of past sins.
Olympic Size Price Tag Too Much for Boston
The Games sure are a grand spectacle, but the cost is daunting.
What We Learn From Football
In the coming days, a million or more teenage boys will eagerly show up at their high school campuses weeks before regular classes start. They will plan to spend their whole day at school, pay close attention to their instructors, and work as hard as they can. They will spend time in the classroom and time in the field, and they will all be focused on a single, venerable all-American goal: becoming part of a winning football team. Football is America's greatest game for boys, not only because of the lessons it teaches but also because of the broad range of young men who can play the game and learn those lessons.
Left-Right Differences: Part VI
This past week, one of the greatest differences between the Left and Right — both around the world and in America — once again came to light: how each views America. Every year for the past 67 years, the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner has been the major fundraising event for the Connecticut State Democratic Party. Not anymore. The party unanimously voted to drop the two Democratic presidents' names because they were slaveholders. That is the way the Left sees American history.
Is America Entering a New Victorian Era?
Forty-seven years ago, the musical "Hair" opened on Broadway. Elderly mavens — the core theater audience then, unlike the throngs of tourists flocking to cheap movie adaptations today — were instructed that America was entering an "Age of Aquarius." The old moral rules were extinct: we were entering a new era of freedom, experimentation and self-expression. In some ways, the prediction came true. Rates of divorce, cohabitation before marriage and illegitimate births rose sharply in the years after 1968. The percentages of children living with two parents fell sharply. The "Hair" version of history — hundreds of years of oppression followed by a sudden trend toward evermore liberation — seemed plausible, even persuasive. But history is not unidirectional. Trends get reversed or arrested sooner or later. Behaviors that at first seem modern and refreshing come to seem antique and old-fashioned. People adjust to new experiences just as they adjusted to old.