2017 Columns


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2017 Columns Donate Give Me that Old-Time Unitarianism by Joe Sobran December 25, 2017 The Wanderer, 11/28/1996 -- Have you noticed? Our Lord has made the cover of The Atlantic Monthly, in an excerpt from a book by Charlotte Allen. The article concerns the theories of contemporary theologians about the “Q” gospel, the supposed source of the Synoptic Gospels. The book, I gather, will show how the vain quest for the “historical” Jesus keeps producing a series of stripped-down images of an ahistorical Jesus whose actual teachings conform suspiciously to the political attitudes of modern liberals. The “Jesus Seminar”, for instance, consistently deems inauthentic those Gospel passages that make supernatural and messianic claims. READ MORE Donate Resisting Jesus by Joe Sobran December 15, 2017 Griffin Internet Syndicate, December 23, 2004 -- As always in our time, Christmas is provoking dissent from people who don’t want Christian symbols on public property or Christmas carols sung in public schools. Many Christians find this annoying and churlish. Some even feel that Christianity is being persecuted. The columnist Michelle Malkin writes, “We are under attack by Secularist Grinches Gone Wild.” Pat Buchanan goes so far as to speak of “hate crimes” against Christians. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate Why Roy Moore Matters by Patrick J. Buchanan December 1, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Why would Christian conservatives in good conscience go to the polls Dec. 12 and vote for Judge Roy Moore, despite the charges of sexual misconduct with teenagers leveled against him? Answer: That Alabama Senate race could determine whether Roe v. Wade is overturned. The lives of millions of unborn may be the stakes. READ MORE Donate The 10 Commandments Judge: Roy Moore by Patrick J. Buchanan November 10, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2000, Judge Roy Moore installed in his courthouse a monument with the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai carved into it. Told by a federal court his monument violated the separation of church and state, Moore refused to remove it and was suspended — to become famous as "The Ten Commandments Judge." READ MORE Donate Not Your Average Joe by Ann Coulter September 30, 2017 Human Events, October 6, 2010 -- My friend Joe Sobran died last Thursday, and the world lost its greatest writer. To my delight, some obituaries noted that he had influenced my writing style. I only wish I had known he was so close to the end so I could have seen him again to let him influence me some more. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate The Cross and the Swastika by Joe Sobran September 14, 2017 Griffin Internet Syndicate, February 2, 2002 – When the Communist Party seized control of Russia more than 80 years ago, it tried to eliminate two things: Christianity and “anti-Semitism.” Tens of thousands of priests and bishops were murdered, ancient churches were razed to the ground, believers were forced to worship secretly, and atheism was taught to children in the state schools. Though “anti-Semitism” was never precisely defined — like many key terms in the Soviet vocabulary — whatever it was,it became a capital crime. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate Disintegrating America by Patrick J. Buchanan September 8, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Decades ago, a debate over what kind of nation America is roiled the conservative movement. Neocons claimed America was an "ideological nation" a "creedal nation," dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal." Expropriating the biblical mandate, "Go forth and teach all nations!" they divinized democracy and made the conversion of mankind to the democratic faith their mission here on earth. READ MORE Donate Dianne “Ms. Snowflake” Feinstein by Robert L. Hale September 1, 2017 Minot, ND – Some lawmakers in our nation’s capital have a difficult time understanding the concept of the rule of law. The United States of America was created on the foundation of rule of law, not of men. The law should always trump the wishes of special interests, personal ambition, aristocracy, and elite socialist fantasies. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate Where Have All the Statesmen Gone? by Robert L. Hale August 25, 2017 Minot, North Dakota – Recently violence erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia. Following that violence our political leaders committed violence upon reason, logic, and civil and rational discourse. Rather than address the violence they attacked the President. Rather than bring calm and bring the two sides together, they actively and aggressively did the opposite. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate Erasing Our History by Patrick J. Buchanan August 17, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When the Dodge Charger of 20-year-old Nazi sympathizer James Alex Fields Jr., plunged into that crowd of protesters Saturday, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, Fields put Charlottesville on the map of modernity alongside Ferguson. Before Fields ran down the protesters, and then backed up, running down more, what was happening seemed but a bloody brawl between extremists on both sides of the issue of whether Robert E. Lee's statue should be removed from Emancipation Park, formerly Lee Park. READ MORE Donate Is the Pope Square? by Joe Sobran August 11, 2017 Griffin Internet Syndicate, August 5, 2003 – Speaking as a Catholic, I wish the Vatican would say nothing about same-sex “marriage.” It’s beneath its dignity to enter into debate with a sick joke, and when it does so it only allows progressive-minded fools to change the subject. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate Violent Religions by Joe Sobran August 4, 2017 Griffin Internet Syndicate, October 6, 2006 – In the modern West, Islam is thought of as a violent religion, and I’ve done my part, along with some fanatical (but not necessarily typical) Muslims, to reinforce this view. It’s fatally easy to mistake the nuts for the norm. But I think there may be a better way to look at the situation. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate Humanae Vitae Foresaw the Culture of Death in 1968 by Christopher Manion July 27, 2017 FRONT ROYAL, VA -- This week we celebrate the 49th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, the brave and beautiful encyclical of Blessed Paul VI promulgated on July 25, 1968. Brave? Absolutely. This eloquent articulation of the teaching of the Church and the fundamentals of the Natural Law constituted a direct challenge to what Pope Benedict has called “the spirit of the age.” READ MORE Donate My Cane by Joe Sobran July 20, 2017 Griffin Internet Syndicate, May 15, 2007 – Two years ago, after foot surgery, I started walking with a cane. The ankle has healed, but I’ve kept the cane. I like it. It helps my balance, it’s funny, and it strengthens my faith. In this allegedly Darwinian world, where life is a ruthless competition for survival, my cane is magic. It causes young people, fitter than I am for physical existence, to call me “sir” and hold doors and show me a respect I’ve never enjoyed before. Nobody ever told me a stick of wood could exert such spiritual power. I think I’ll keep it. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate Belloc’s Prophecy by Joe Sobran July 14, 2017 Hilaire Belloc Griffin Internet Syndicate, October 25, 2001 – Back in the 1930s, when white men were preparing for another round of mutual slaughter, few of them paid any attention to the Muslim world. They assumed it to be a backward region that history had long since passed by. One man saw it differently. The great Catholic polemicist Hilaire Belloc, an Englishman of French ancestry, remembered Islam’s past and predicted, in his book The Great Heresies, that it would one day challenge the West again. READ REST OF ARTICLE Donate Are We Still One Nation Under God? by Patrick J. Buchanan July 06, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the first line of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson speaks of "one people." The Constitution, agreed upon by the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia in 1789, begins, "We the people..." And who were these "people"? In Federalist No. 2, John Jay writes of them as "one united people ... descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs..." If such are the elements of nationhood and peoplehood, can we still speak of Americans as one nation and one people? READ MORE Buzz Lightyear for President by Joe Sobran June 30, 2017 Griffin Internet Syndicate, January 27, 2004 – In 1960, when I was 14, I was nuts about JFK. The first one, John F. Kennedy, not the current one, John F. Kerry. I got about thirty JFK buttons from the local Democratic headquarters, pinned them all to my shirt, and wore them to school. READ REST OF ARTICLE A Long History of Leftist Hatred by Patrick J. Buchanan June 22, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois, who aspired to end his life as a mass murderer of Republican Congressmen, was a Donald Trump hater and a Bernie Sanders backer. Like many before him, Hodgkinson was a malevolent man of the hating and hard left. READ MORE Deep State Sabotaging Trump Agenda by Patrick J. Buchanan June 15, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Trump may be chief of state, head of government and commander in chief, but his administration is shot through with disloyalists plotting to bring him down. We are approaching something of a civil war where the capital city seeks the overthrow of the sovereign and its own restoration. READ MORE Patriotism or Nationalism? by Joe Sobran June 8, 2017 Griffin Internet Syndiate,10/16/2001 -- This is a season of patriotism, but also of something that is easily mistaken for patriotism; namely, nationalism. The difference is vital. G.K. Chesterton once observed that Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of British imperialism, suffered from a “lack of patriotism.” He explained: “He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English.” READ REST OF ARTICLE Dishonoring Confederate War Dead by Patrick J. Buchanan May 29, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Sept. 1, 1864, Union forces under Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, victorious at Jonesborough, burned Atlanta and began the March to the Sea where Sherman's troops looted and pillaged farms and towns all along the 300-mile road to Savannah. Captured in the Confederate defeat at Jonesborough was William Martin Buchanan of Okolona, Mississippi, who was transferred by rail to the Union POW stockade at Camp Douglas, Illinois. By the standards of modernity, my great-grandfather, fighting to prevent the torching of Georgia's capital, was engaged in a criminal and immoral cause. READ MORE Trump and Brexit: a Revolt Against the Elites by Robert L. Hale May 25, 2017 MINOT, ND -- I sense a new and real revolution brewing. It is, in some ways, not unlike the American Revolution. America’s Revolution was pushed by the revulsion for arrogant King George III and his insistence that colonists give him their money (taxes) to impose his will on them, without their representation. There is a reason that the current tension in the EU and America’s rejection of the left/progressivism is so threatening to the U.S. and EU power structures. READ REST OF ARTICLE Trump, Watergate, & Comey by Patrick J. Buchanan May 18, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, said Marx. On publication day of my memoir of Richard Nixon's White House, President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Instantly, the media cried "Nixonian," comparing it to the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre. Yet, the differences are stark. READ MORE Christians Being Driven Out of the Holy Land by Patrick J. Buchanan May 12, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)" Those are among Jesus' last words on the Cross that first Good Friday. It was a cry of agony, but not despair. The dying Christ, to rise again in three days, was repeating the first words of the 22nd Psalm. And today, in lands where Christ lived and taught and beyond where the Christian faith was born and nourished, the words echo. For it is in the birthplace of Christianity that Christians face the greatest of persecutions and martyrdoms since the time of Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin. READ MORE Crime and Mercy by Joe Sobran May 3, 2017 CLASSIC, 6/24/2008 -- Reports of some criminals in the news media fill me with furtive delight and admiration: the clever embezzler who bilks a huge corporation, the gifted swindler who passes off his forgery as a Picasso. I can almost excuse a crime that requires talent or wit, as long as nobody gets seriously hurt. Part of me whispers enviously, "Why didn't I think of that?" But now and then a reported crime will move me to murderous indignation. READ REST OF ARTICLE Guilt Trip Over the Crusades by Sam Francis April 26, 2017 CLASSIC, 4/27/1999 -- One anniversary that’s not on this year’s calendar is the 900th observance of the capture of Jerusalem by Christian crusaders on July 15, 1099. As a matter of fact, it’s an anniversary that’s probably never been on any year’s calendar, since virtually everyone forgot about it sometime around the year 1600. But some never forget, and they’re getting ready to do what 20th century man is supposed to do, at least in the West: apologize for it. READ REST OF ARTICLE Christianity and History by Joe Sobran April 19, 2017 CLASSIC, 9/28/1999 -- Ignorance is often hidden behind an urbane surface. Many otherwise educated people lack the most elementary understanding of certain subjects. One of these is religion. READ REST OF ARTICLE Thoughts on a New Dark Age: A review of the Sobran collection, Subtracting Christianity by Jason Jewell April 13, 2017 MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA – “On the whole, the secularist media the papacy” (210). This line, written in 2005 shortly after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, is vintage Joe Sobran. It is not just extremely witty. In a few words, it communicates so much: the stability of Roman Catholic doctrine, the hatred of that doctrine by so many moderns, and those moderns’ reluctant acknowledgment that the church is not inclined to change in order to suit them. Subtracting Christianity: Essays on American Culture and Society, where this line has most recently appeared, is the latest published collection of the essays of Joseph Sobran (1946–2010), one of the most dynamic and controversial journalists of the last generation. READ REST OF ARTICLE Philippines’ President Wages A Real War on Drugs by Robert L. Hale March 30, 2017 MINOT, ND – Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the U.N. Human Rights Council, and various international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are up in arms at the assault by Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte, against drug dealers and criminals in his country. READ REST OF ARTICLE Let's Make Russia Our Sister Country by Ann Coulter March 23, 2017 The more hysterical liberals become about Russia, the more your antennae should go up. Their selective misgivings with Russia are just like their selective alarm with (our ally) Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the nationalist Chinese government, and (our ally) Ngo Dinh Diem, president of South Vietnam. READ REST OF ARTICLE Violent Attack on Free Speech at Middlebury College by Allan Brownfeld March 16, 2017 ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA – Attacks on free speech, particularly on the nation's college and university campuses, seem to be mounting. In early March, hundreds of students at Middlebury College in Vermont shouted down Charles Murray, the widely read and controversial social scientist. When Dr. Murray rose to speak, he was shouted down by most of the more than 400 students who packed into the room. They chanted, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Charles Murray, go away.” READ REST OF ARTICLE Sober Wisdom in Sobran’s Subtracting Christianity by Yvonne Lorenzo March 7, 2017 Special from LewRockwell.com – Perhaps Fox TV viewers and readers of his bestselling books think that Bill O’Reilly is a Renaissance Man. However, there is a far more intelligent and profound voice we can all listen to that thanks to Lew Rockwell I discovered; that voice belongs to Joseph Sobran. READ MORE Two Classic Sobran Articles: Pensées, and Lincoln and His Legacy Publisher’s Note: To commemorate the 71st anniversary of Joe Sobran’s birth on February 23, we are pleased to provide a link to his classic essay, Pensées: Notes for the Reactionary of Tomorrow, and the below article. Lincoln and His Legacy by Joe Sobran February 22, 2017 CLASSIC, 2/19/2008 -- At this point it is probably futile to try to reverse the deification of Abraham Lincoln. Next year, if I know my countrymen, the bicentennial of his birth will be marked by stupendously cloying anniversary observances, all of them affirming, if not his literal divinity, at least something mighty close to it. READ REST OF ARTICLE Trump's Travel Ban by Patrick J. Buchanan February 3, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. – That hysterical reaction to the travel ban announced Friday is a portent of what is to come if President Donald Trump carries out the mandate given to him by those who elected him. The travel ban bars refugees for 120 days. From Syria, refugees are banned indefinitely. And a 90-day ban has been imposed on travel here from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. Was that weekend-long primal scream really justified? READ MORE Trump's Inaugural: America for Americans! by Patrick J. Buchanan January 27, 2017 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the patriotic pageantry of Inauguration Day gave way to the demonstrations of defiance Saturday, our new America came into view. We are two nations now, two peoples. Though bracing, President Trump's inaugural address was rooted in cold truths, as he dispensed with the customary idealism of inaugurals that are forgotten within a fortnight of the president being sworn in. Trump's inaugural was Jacksonian. READ MORE Sacraments and Sodomy by Joe Sobran January 18, 2017 SOBRAN'S, DECEMBER 2003 -- Andrew Sullivan has established himself as the most eloquent voice of “gay” Catholics in the American media. He recently wrote a piece on the op-ed page of the New York Times to bewail what he chooses to call the Church’s “hostility” to homosexuals. READ REST OF ARTICLE Love and Marriage by Joe Sobran January 12, 2017 CLASSIC from The Wanderer, December 19, 1996 We are hearing an unusual amount of nonsense about same-sex marriage these days, thanks to that Hawaiian judge. The best way to get to the heart of the problem may be to examine a typical sample of the nonsense. READ REST OF ARTICLE Black Economist Thomas Sowell -- Champion of A Color-Blind Society by Allan Brownfeld January 06, 2017 Thomas Sowell, one of America's foremost public intellectuals and most outspoken black conservatives, submitted his final column in December after 25 years in syndication. At age 86, he said, he thought that the time had come to retire from this enterprise. Hopefully, his other literary pursuits will continue. For more than 50 years, Sowell has published books and journals on race, economics, and government policy. READ REST OF ARTICLE
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