Current Events Write-Up: Conservative Diversity on Human Depravity, Roberts Abortion Decision, Trump’s One-Sided China Trade Deal, Revolt, The Right to Bear Cannons, Environmentalist Infighting, Korea

The American Conservative: “Why Conservative Fusionism Was Destined to Disintegrate,” by Tony Woodlief.

This takes off from Tucker Carlson’s controversial comment that people are not born evil. Conservative Christians will disagree! Yet, Tucker is a renowned conservative. This part is noteworthy: “For the individualists, be they libertarians, free-market globalization advocates, or just Creaster Republicans with business degrees, man is essentially pretty good, and will add all kinds of value to the GDP if government will only get out of his way. Cut taxes and regulation, keep oil prices low, and maybe even consider reducing our debt, and the country will do just fine.

“To the neocons and their establishment DC heirs, man is as good or bad as his ideas. The Russkies got Marx, we got Madison, and therein lies all the difference. Use diplomacy or a smart bomb or a few thousand expendable young Marines to depose a guy clutching The Communist Manifesto, replace him with a guy who has The Federalist Papers stuffed into his back pocket, and that’s how you illuminate a darkened world one freedom beacon at a time.

“To the traditionalists, meanwhile, if man is not born evil then he certainly comes out of the womb bent in that direction. His worst impulses must therefore be restrained, his virtue cultivated. What’s more, because original sin implies the existence of God, the aims society ought pursue, as Eric Voegelin argued, extend before the cradle and past the grave.”

The Daily Signal: “With Highly Questionable Legal Reasoning, Roberts Gives Liberals a Win on Abortion,” by Amy Swearer.

“At its core, June Medical Services v. Russo was not a challenge to Roe v. Wade or a woman’s ‘right’ to an abortion. The Louisiana law at issue neither outlawed abortion, nor imposed additional requirements directly on women seeking an abortion. Instead, Louisiana passed a law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital so that, if something went wrong requiring that the woman be hospitalized, the doctor could accompany her and treat here there. The law was passed to protect the health and safety of women seeking abortions by acting as a quality-control measure for abortion clinics. That was not without good reason: The state’s abortion clinics have a long and well-documented history of hiring unqualified doctors who provided substandard care to patients. The requirement of hospital admitting privileges is common for physicians who conduct surgical procedures elsewhere, and the process of obtaining such privileges provides additional oversight for those clinics.”

The Dispatch: “Trump’s China Trade Deal Was Designed to Fail,” by Scott Linicome.

This makes me think more highly of Trump! “In terms of substantive commitments, the Phase One agreement was very one-sided: China committed to purchase fixed amounts of U.S. goods and services and to abide by various rules on agriculture, currency, financial services, and intellectual property rights protection, while the United States committed to almost nothing—not even the limited reduction in the U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports that supposedly achieved the agreement.”

Unherd: “Why the Rich Are Revolting,” by Ed West.

The subtitle is: “The Great Awokening and the 2020 protests are the product of growing radicalisation among the upper-middle-class.” The article, in my opinion, is rather contradictory: Are these rich kids with time on their hands, or are they educated people in desperate search for a job and looking for a career in wokeness? This quote from Chesterton is classic, brilliant, and timely: “You’ve got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists: they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists.”

The American Conservative: “Hillary Was Right About BLM,” by Gregor Baszac.


Hillary to BLM activists in 2016: “You’re gonna have to come together as a movement and say, here’s what we want done about it. Because you can get lip service from as many white people as you can pack into Yankee Stadium and a million more like it who are gonna say: Oh, we get it, we get it, we’re gonna be nicer. That’s not enough. At least, that’s not how I see politics. So the consciousness raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of your movement is so critical, but now all I’m suggesting is, even for us sinners, find some common ground on agendas that can make a difference right here and now in people’s lives…But at the end of the day, we can do a whole lot to change some hearts and change some systems and create more opportunities for people who deserve to have them to live up to their own god-given potential, to live safely, without fear of violence in their own communities, to have a decent school, to have a decent house, to have a decent future. So, we can do it one of many ways: You can keep the movement going, which you have started, and through it, you may actually change some hearts. But if that’s all that happens, we’ll be back here in ten years having the same conversation.”

The Daily Signal: “Remembering Frederick Douglass’ Great Fourth of July Speech in Context,” by Dean Nelson.

Douglass not only was lambasting white Americans who celebrated the Fourth of July while enslaving African-Americans. He was also criticizing the abolitionists who wanted to scrap the Constitution altogether. The article would have been better had it addressed the parts of the Constitution that tolerate or even support slavery: the three-fifths compromise and the Fugitive Slave Clause in Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3.

Ammo: “Bowling Alone: How Washington Has Helped Destroy American Civil Society and Family Life,” by Sam Jacobs.

This site’s outreach manager recommended this article to me. I enjoyed it and other articles on the site. Communitarianism troubles me, as a person with Asperger’s. Still, I can understand why conservatives would embrace it. These two passages from the article stood out to me: “Another place where this can be seen is the destruction of the black middle class. A frequently untold story of American life is that by the 1950s, the United States actually had a thriving black middle class. Black business ownership peaked during the years between the end of the Second World War and the Great Society. Every city with any significant black population hosted a black business district where a primarily black clientele spent their money within their own community. Black home ownership was likewise high at this point. This is all very much a thing of the past…There is another, highly unlikely and ironic, culprit behind the decimation of black business and the black community – integration. This is a position championed by Clay Middleton of the South Carolina House of Representatives. Basically, under segregation, black consumers were limited in their choices of business. They could not, in many cases, go to (for example) white hamburger joints. Instead, they had to patronize the equivalent business for black customers. In many cases, these businesses were owned and operated by fellow black Americans. Black hotels are another example of this phenomenon. The point is not that Southern states should reintroduce segregation to prop up black businesses, but simply to give a broader and more complete picture of how and why black business districts have disappeared. It also offers some insight into the destruction of small business in America in general.”

And: “What did people do before the advent of social welfare programs? This is a question that even few libertarians can answer without stammering something about private charity. And indeed, private charity did play a role in meeting social needs for the less fortunate. However, there is a hidden story in how communities met social needs prior to the advent of the welfare state. Mutual aid in the 21st century is largely a nonprofit form of insurance, particularly life insurance – a sort of analog to the credit union. However, in earlier days they oversaw a number of social welfare programs.”

Bearing Arms: “Joe Biden’s Cannon Claim Shows He’s Wrong On History And Gun Control,” by Cam Edwards.

Biden says that the Second Amendment does not grant an unlimited right to bear arms because people could not own a cannon in the 1700’s. Actually, they could: they were called privateers. Interesting observation, but where should we go with that? Should individuals be allowed to own nuclear weapons?

Quellette: “On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare,” by Michael Shellenberger; American Thinker: “A Winning Trifecta for Climate Science and Rationality,” by Charles Battig.

Michael Moore and environmentalist Michael Shellenberger take on other environmentalists. You think that solar is better for the environment? Think again. The Shellenberger article also challenges other myths. His book probably offers more documentation for his claims.

Responsible Statecraft: “Don’t Tie Peace on the Korean Peninsula to Denuclearization in the North,” by Dan DePetris.

Why North Korea wants to nuclearize, and how the U.S. is standing in the way of peace between North and South.

Global Research: “War Crimes: US Destruction of North Korea Must Not be Forgotten,” by Brett Wilkins.

A revisionist perspective on the Korean War that is critical of the U.S. and sympathetic towards North Korea.