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The Long View

The Long View 2008-12-21: Solstice Alternatives

The fictional book acknowledgment that John J. Reilly writes here is perfect. Solstice Alternatives The only merit of today is its brevity. The sun disappeared at some forgotten point last week. In the time since, the clinically depressive skies have produced every known water-based form of precipitation, all of which

The Long View: Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War

John J. Reilly covers a lot of ground here. I’ll post this comment as inducement to read the rest: The book delivers less than its subtitle promises. A study that used the world wars to explain the evaporation of colonialism between the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee

The Long View 2008-12-14: The Kairos and Governor Blagojevich

I know these are mug shots, but the crazy eyes on Ira Einhorn should have been a clue. The Kairos and Governor Blagojevich Readers of this space who regularly attend divine services may have noticed that the sullen, resentful people who crouch in the back pews as they cling to

The Long View 2008-12-09: Legitimacy & World Government; Economics & Kant's Republican Devils; Demographic Plan B; When Revivals Succeed

Cyclical theories of history for the most part have a universal state forming in the last quarter of the 21st century. That’s another two generations from now. If things happen like they happened before, a lot of craziness is still ahead of us. Legitimacy & World Government; Economics &

The Long View 2008-12-07: The Components of Freedom; Mad Max in South Asia; Our Precious Bodily Fluids; Virtual Catacombs

This is a a great blog post. The linked Reason article about the “Libertarian moment of 2008” looks hilarious in retrospect. The last 14 years have if anything seen the acceleration of the trends the article mentions, but I doubt many people in Anglosphere countries feel much freer. The hyper-individualized

The Long View 2008-12-08: Remind me: why do we have economies?

The following paragraph surely counts as one of John’s good predictions: It is difficult for people in the early 21st century to understand that the only possible future of conservatism (in the sense of a political philosophy interested in conserving things) looks more than a little like the New

The Long View 2008-11-29: Mumbai and the Tranquility of Order

In retrospect, I have criticized John and a lot of other people for the things they said or the courses of action they took in the years after 9/11. However, if you get yourself back in the mindset you might have had at the time, something like the 2008