Marvin Folkersma
Thu, December 13, 2012
American Politics as a Confidence Game
Reading post-2012-election news reports can be hazardous to one's mental health, particularly for the sanity-challenged among us. But perhaps the singularly most prescient comments come from long ...
Mon, November 19, 2012
The Decline and Fall of America
A few days after the election of 2012 the very talented Michael Ramirez published a political cartoon that perhaps conveyed a more profound meaning than he anticipated. He depicted a pair of hands ...
Tue, October 02, 2012
Mitt Romney and the Politics of Virtue
When Mitt Romney blurted out his now notorious 47-percent lament, liberal gaffe-o-meters went ballistic, acting as though he were an American Ebenezer Scrooge who had just shoved Tiny Tim Cratchit ...
Fri, September 21, 2012
President Obama's Munich Moment
In September 1938 the British prime minister had a problem. The Third Reich's
psychopath-in-chief was scorching the airwaves in one of his trademark rants,
this time about the supposed ...
Wed, August 08, 2012
The Significance of VJ Day
Consider this fictitious scenario: In the summer of 1950, President Thomas E. Dewey faced a national security crisis of extraordinary proportions–one that his advisors agreed likely would ...
Tue, July 17, 2012
The Obama Nullification Doctrine
In December 1828, South Carolina had 5,000 copies of John C. Calhoun's "Exposition and Protest" printed and distributed throughout the state. A defiant document, Calhoun's "Exposition" outlined a ...
Thu, May 31, 2012
Remembering the Significance of D-Day
At 0227 hours on the morning of June 6, 1944, Lieutenant Robert Mathias saw the red light flash above the door of his C47 "Dakota" aircraft, signaling his men to get ready to parachute into a ...
Mon, April 30, 2012
Remember Victory in Europe Day
December 1941 is usually remembered by Americans as that fateful month when
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, thus thrusting the United States into World War
II. However, consider an alternate ...
Wed, April 11, 2012
Sick Chickens and Sick Laws
When President Obama made his famous declaration about how he was confident that "that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was ...
Fri, March 09, 2012
A Centennial Verdict on Progressivism
Contemporary liberals fondly recall their progressive forebears from a century past, who railed against trusts and fought for social justice. Certainly, their forebears did much to make them proud; ...
Wed, January 04, 2012
Rembering Battlers of the Bulge
On December 16, 1944, the men of Lieutenant Lyle Bouck's platoon had their all-night vigil interrupted by a pre-dawn fusillade of artillery rounds from a hundred German guns, their muzzle flashes ...
Fri, October 28, 2011
Wall Street Mob and French Connection
In "The Wild One," Marlin Brando plays Johnny, a leather-jacketed vagabond sporting a black-brim hat perched on his head at a rakish angle, below which lurk piercing dark eyes and a sneer of contempt ...
Tue, October 18, 2011
America's Orwellian Liberalism
The ink was barely dry on the asterisk in Jimmy Hoffa Jr.'s rant about taking out those "sons-of-b*tches"–referring to Tea Party members–when the vice president made his own ...
Thu, September 15, 2011
America's Mark Twain Conservatives
Attempting to categorize conservatism in the 21st century runs the risk of plunging into the briar patch of academic labeling or the fever swamp of left-wing vitriol. In the first category, ...
Wed, August 24, 2011
Obama: From Truman's Whistle-Stop to Wilsonian Folly
President Obama's tour through the Midwest in a coal-black Darth Vader-mobile begs comparison with past presidential excursions. I'm thinking of those made by presidents Harry Truman and Woodrow ...
Fri, July 29, 2011
The Significance of Congressman West
Amidst the rhetorical pyrotechnics surrounding July's debt-ceiling debates,
another controversy streaked across the sky like a comet, flared for an
instant, then receded into the maelstrom ...
Fri, July 15, 2011
Americans Without Chests
As Americans prepared to mark the birth of their country with the usual outpouring of celebratory events, pundits on the political right were scratching their heads over President Obama's most recent ...
Thu, May 26, 2011
Spring Contrasts
Madison, Wisconsin's winter follies relinquished their national attention to Tuscaloosa's tornado in April, events along the Mississippi in May, and finally to the most recent twister in Joplin, ...
Thu, April 07, 2011
America's March of Folly
The budget deficits from the first two years of the Obama administration are of sufficient magnitude to spring Dr. "Billions and Billions" Carl Sagan from his grave. Sagan could sue for copyright ...
Thu, December 02, 2010
Dealing with the Debt Monster
In January 1850, President Zachary Taylor peppered the air with language bluer than a Union uniform. He asserted that he would personally lead an army against traitors who threatened ...
Fri, October 22, 2010
How the Progressives Will Win
Karl Marx once commented that voters' choices in a democracy constituted little more than deciding which bourgeois party would oppress them the most. The old misanthrope's views on such ...
Fri, October 08, 2010
A TEA Party Cheat Sheet
The Tea Party Movement, otherwise known as the Great Peasant Revolt of 2010, has been greeted by the country's ruling class with all the sympathy that Voltaire expressed toward the Catholic ...
Thu, May 06, 2010
When Regimes Reach Insanity
On August 25, 1914, in a spate of disorder, shots rang out from the Belgian town of Louvain, instigating its German occupiers to launch a frenzy of looting and destruction. Crazed soldiers butchered ...
Fri, March 19, 2010
The Progressives' Destruction of Constitutional Rights
Editor's note: This is one of many coming articles from The Center for Vision Values dealing with the topic of our April 15-16 conference on "The Progressives." Click here for information. ...
Thu, March 04, 2010
The Politics of Arrogance
On the eve of the German offensive against France in August 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm confidently asserted to some departing troops, "You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees." The ...
Thu, January 28, 2010
The Relevance of Scott Brown
Republicans have greeted Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts with the sort of relief expressed by Winston Churchill when he learned that Pearl Harbor had prompted America to finally enter the war; ...
Wed, December 02, 2009
Finally, An Honest Con Game
"This is not funny, this is serious stuff!" intones a flock of furrow-browed politicos about that well-dressed couple who conned their way into a White House shindig. Yes and no, in that order, ...
Tue, November 24, 2009
Barack and the Buchanan Precedent
Presidential comparisons that greeted Barack Obama's election ranged from the sublime to the transcendent. He was variously described as the second coming of John F. Kennedy, a re-embodiment of ...
Fri, October 30, 2009
Washington's Masque of the Red Death
New administrations normally inspire commentators into rummaging through a thesaurus to extract that single phrase or word that is apposite to the times. Instead musing about a reincarnation of The ...
Thu, September 18, 2008
A Tale of Two Narratives -- And the Palin Paradigm
Reactions to Governor Palin's selection as Senator McCain's running mate ranged from laughter to incredulity and then from alarm to panic. Indeed, editorials on the danger she poses to Senator ...
