Archive for May, 2008

New Site

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

This is the new Tory Anarchist — pretty much the same as the old Tory Anarchist, but now hosted on its own server (thanks to Mike E.) and with all the freedom that entails. There are a few transitional fixes that are still be worked on, such as the blogroll and a new author bio [...]

Switching Servers

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

I don’t anticipate any downtime for the site, but I’m about to switch servers, so expect the unexpected.

The “Midwestern Libertarian Conservatism” of Russell Kirk

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

A pleasant surprise came in the mail today with the payment for my University Bookman article on Ralph Adams Cram: a copy of the Heritage Foundation’s July 10, 2007 Heritage Lectures newsletter, which reprints a June 22 talk on Russell Kirk by George H. Nash. Most conservatives — the literate ones, anyway — know of [...]

Switching Labels on the Dog Food

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Retiring Virginia Republican Congressman Tom Davis has compared the Republican “brand” to a dog food that ought to be taken off the shelves. GOP consultant Alex Castellanos, writing in NRO, doesn’t seem to realize that the problem with the brand extends beyond the label — there’s something wrong with the product itself.
Catellanos, though, gets a [...]

Good as Goldwater

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

My review of Pure Goldwater, a volume of Barry Goldwater’s journals (and some other odds and ends), is now up on Reason’s website.
I’m reading Bill Buckley’s posthumous Goldwater memoir, Flying High, right now. Here’s one striking anecdote I hadn’t heard before:
… at this dinner [for the 1950s Freeman], Rand contradicted Mises on some doctrinal point, [...]

Nockians Left and Right

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

From Victor Navasky’s NYT review of two books by or about William F. Buckley (thanks to Scott Lahti for an early link to the piece):
It is probably no accident, as the old-left journals used to say, that both Buckley and Carey McWilliams, The Nation’s longtime editor, were fans of Albert Jay Nock, who after briefly [...]

The Libertarian Party Debate

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

I missed most of the live broadcast, but here’s Daniel Larison’s write-up, and here’s Dylan Waco’s take at Left Conservative. I like what I’ve seen and heard of Steve Kubby. I might have to modify what I’ve said elsewhere about being for Barr or bust. A Barr-Kubby ticket might be ideal, especially since Kubby [...]

What’s Right With the Right

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

One of the things I found dissatisfying about George Packer’s recent “fall of conservatism” piece was its establishment bias. He can’t be accused of talking only to neocons and movement thralls — Pat Buchanan was in the mix alongside Rich Lowry and David Brooks — but Packer only spoke to established names, when the most [...]

In Print and Coming Your Way

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Keep an eye out for the June 2 issue of The American Conservative, which went to press today. It includes my article on the battle for Virginia’s Eighth Congressional District, which pits Ron Paul-inspired Republican Amit Singh against Mark Ellmore, a candidate sometimes compared to Mike Huckabee. In Singh’s case, the race puts to the [...]

What If…?

Monday, May 19th, 2008

If Al Gore had become president in place of George W. Bush, we would have wound up with Joe Lieberman in Dick Cheney’s stead. Plus ca change…
Don’t say the neocons don’t keep their bases covered.