Category: Philosophy
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By Selwyn Duke When it comes to religiosity, some American states truly do fit in to the union — the European Union, that is. According to recent surveys, the most and least religious states are mainly where one might expect: respectively, the Bible Belt of the South, and New England and the West. A recent…
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By Selwyn Duke In case you’re wondering, I’m using the word “cannot” properly in the above title. No, I don’t mean “same-sex couples should not marry” — rather, they aren’t capable of doing so. What am I talking about? Barack Obama’s coming out party notwithstanding, the question in this debate should never be one of…
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By Selwyn Duke In writing this piece, I’m reminded of a little exchange between the late William F. Buckley and friend and fellow National Review writer Florence King. Buckley had just penned some less-than-flattering words about a recently deceased person of prominence whose name escapes me, and King chided him, saying something to the effect…
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By Selwyn Duke My father once told me a story about when he was a boy. He said there was a certain man who every now and again would visit his family and give him 10 cents for an ice cream soda each time. Well, one day this fellow came ‘a callin’, but for some…
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By Selwyn Duke People use many words today without fully knowing what they mean – or should mean. “Tolerance,” “gender” and “truth” come to mind. But then there is one that rears its head every campaign season: “experience.”
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By Selwyn Duke Recently I wrote an article about women’s tendency to support statist candidates. As my emails attest, it was met with quite a positive response. Yet, not surprisingly, there was also a very predictable one: complaints about generalizations. For instance, one respondent wrote that she was tired of the “all men are this…
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By Selwyn Duke Although I’ve never been one to demonize the rich, there is something particularly irritating about a busybody billionaire who confuses his bankroll with his I.Q. And the busiest of this species seems to be NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose latest patrician effort involves convincing governments worldwide to control what the peons eat.…
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By Selwyn Duke There currently is a debate raging over public nudity in San Francisco. It’s not what you think. It’s already entirely legal to parade about in the buff on the city’s streets, and no one is discussing the resurrection of indecent-exposure laws. Rather, the question is whether sanitary behavior — namely, posterior protection…
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By Selwyn Duke It is 1991, and Yugoslavia, born of the ashes of WWI, is starting to break up. It is a violent affair that will be long, painful, bloody, and complex. Numerous wars in the multi-ethnic region will be fought, with Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia declaring independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia and, in turn, Serb…
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By Selwyn Duke When Nevada Senate contender Sharron Angle led incumbent Harry Reid by three points in polls but lost by six on Election Day 2010, it raised some eyebrows. Yet that is nothing compared to the Russian region of Tambov, where Vladimir Putin’s party, United Russia (UR), polled at 35 percent in April but…
