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The Long View

The Long View 2007-12-01: Spe Salvi

This is simply a masterpiece of John J. Reilly’s work. I’ll put in some choice quotes, but you must read the whole thing. The encyclical is surprisingly respectful of atheism: “It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested,” much of the progressive

The Long View 2007-11-26: From Lambeth Palace and Back Again, by Way of the Absolute Elsewhere

I think about this quote frequently. While I am sympathetic to projects that attempt to harmonize Church and State, in the twentieth century context, such experiments often turned out poorly for the Church. As John points out, the increasing power of the Papacy correlates well with the loss of the

The Long View 2007-11-19: America the Archaic; Embryonic Stem Cell Collapse; Machen; Iraq War Triumphalism

This is simply a great line: Actually, it's more like blinding infatuation. One of the premises of American political culture seems to be that anything really important for liberty or order must already be addressed by the Constitution, however occultly. America the Archaic; Embryonic Stem Cell Collapse; Machen;

The Long View: Lord Byron's Novel by John Crowley

Sometimes when John reviews a book, it is just a book, and not part of his grander projects. Lord Byron’s Novel: Evening Land [Amazon link] by John Crowley is an interesting example of how in some ways, everything that #MeToo movement talked about was out in the open, if

The Long View 2007-11-17: Surge in Oil Helps Surge in Iraq; Traditionalism Blog; The Papal Executive; Testable Theory of Everything; Imperial Transhumanism

John links here to his great book review The Future of the Papacy, which points out that the Papacy isn’t really meant to function as an executive, but that historical circumstances have forced it to do so. The papacies of Benedict XVI and Francis have been united in that

The Long View 2007-11-15: A Real Mortgage Crisis; Confucian Christianity; Hillary's Harridans; Ron Paul & Eurasianism; Social Security 401(k) Hoax; Shadowless Invader; The Coming Military Buildup

Combined with John J. Reilly’s historical analysis of universal states was the observation that political entities follow the economy. Accordingly, he expected that a possible future universal state would need to incorporate features of the cultures of both ends of Eurasia. A Real Mortgage Crisis; Confucian Christianity; Hillary'

The Long View: Empire by Orson Scott Card

I listened to Orson Scott Card’s Empire [Amazon affiliate link] as an audiobook when it came out. I remember how devilishly hard it was to find audiobooks back in 2006. Now, there is a surfeit of riches when it comes to popular books done well. I remember being a