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The Long View

The Long View: The Post-American World

This particular book review by John J. Reilly probably makes the most sense in combination with his 2003 review of Fakaria’s The Future of Freedom. I don’t think I can improve on this assessment I made in my preamble to the 2003 review posted here at With Both

The Long View 2008-04-27 to 2008-05-04: Obama is Right; The Pope and the Parliament of Man; The Hanging of Tariq Aziz; Benedict XVI on Liturgical Music and Immigration; Steyn on Hate-Crime laws

In this weeklong collation of shorter blog posts, John manages to slip in the kind of analysis he is best remembered for: finding the thread of historical processes in quotidian events. Here is a comment by John on liturgical music that manages to bring in Jungian psychology and the value

The Long View 2008-04-20 through 26: Spot Shortages; The Markets are Right; The Ark of Truth; God and Guns; Make Us New Creatures; The Day I Saw Pope Benedict XVI

John didn’t mention the reason in the blog entry here, but he appeared to be experimenting with collecting several days worth of short comments into one post. The most notable item here is a stream-of-consciousness style report of hanging around Central Park waiting for Pope Benedict XVI to drive

The Long View 2008-04-18: The Vindication of Steyn; The Matter with Obama; Days of Dearth

What a different world 2008 was, when someone accused of offensive speech could handily win both in the court of public opinion, and actual courts. The Vindication of Steyn; The Matter with Obama; Days of Dearth Mark Steyn's many well-wishers will be pleased to see that the attacks

The Long View 2008-04-11: The Maliki Counter-Offensive

This is a great reflection on war and violence by John J. Reilly: The organized use of violence is everywhere culture-specific. This is the great limitation to the precision-instrument military that Donald Rumsfeld (and his predecessors for 20 years) had been trying to create before the distraction of Iraq. Victories

The Long View 2008-04-09: Entry Rights; WWZ film; Favorite Books; Quellos

John J. Reilly starts this entry off by looking at entry rights for migrants. Exit, with a capital E, the ability to leave whatever system you find yourself in, is an idea that is often contrasted with Voice, the attempt to change that system. In this case, the authors of

The Long View 2008-04-07: Soviet America; McCain & Conservatism; Charlton Heston & History

Here is a fun bit of history from John J. Reilly: We should remember that the USSR was not a welfare state, no more than an army is a welfare state. Social provision in the USSR was supposed to be universal, but this was not usually accomplished directly by state