nationalism

Humankind’s propensity to act selfishly is taken to be an important problem in political theory: an impediment, perhaps, to the utopian dreams of political philosophers.

This 106th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan provides an apt occasion to reflect on what was surely a keystone of the 40th president’s thoughts on government: the idea of American Exceptionalism.

Phyllis Schlafly in her Eagle Forum article of November 15, 2006, Public Schools Define American Culture, relates the significance of Sidney Simon’s 1972 book “Values Clarification.” Simon’s book sold nearly a million copies and was widely used to teach students to “clarify” their values, such as casting off their parents’ values and making their own choices based on situation ethics. This was followed by the public schools welcoming Kinsey-trained sexperts that espoused diversity to sex-in-marriage.

America is supposed to be the land of the free, yet it is has one of the most vicious tax regimes in the rich world. Once blessed with comparatively low tax rates and levels of regulation, businesses and entrepreneurs flocked to the United States from the sclerotic systems of Europe (and elsewhere). Now American businesses are fleeing America’s shores and foreign-born entrepreneurs are less inclined to come at all.

The Ukrainian-Russian crisis over the de facto occupation of Crimea by Russian military forces, which has enveloped the concerns and fears of the world over the last weeks, revolves around two conflicting claims of national self-determination. It has, once again, brought with it the danger of war on the European continent.