Quotations

"Ordinary conservatives – and many people fall into this category – are constantly told that their ideas and sentiments are reactionary, prejudiced, sexist or racist. Just by being the thing they are they offend against the new norms of inclusiveness and non-discrimination."

Sir Roger Scruton

“While it may have been chauvinist of British officials in the 1920s and 1930s to say that Arab countries were not ready for self-government—which is to say, liberal democratic constitutional regimes with rule of law—evidence as of our own late date does not seem to prove them wrong. The Economist (April 3, 2004, page 47) is on record as saying that “The Arab League’s 22 states remain the most uniformly oligarchic slice of the world. Not a single Arab leader has ever been peacefully ousted at the ballot box.”

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (1989, Afterword to the 2009 edition). I strongly recommend this book.


"America had no military competitors of importance when George W. Bush took office in 2001, and an edge in high technology that made the American economy seem insuperable. Since then:

• China has taken America’s place as the leading exporter of high-tech equipment;
• America faces credible military competition from China;
• Real median household income hasn’t grown since 2000;
• The civilian labor force participation rate has fallen from 67% in 2000 to 63% today;
• Productivity growth has languished at 1% a year since the global financial crisis;
• US federal debt has between 2000 and 2018 has doubled as a share of GDP;
• The American economy became “cartelized, corrupt and anti-competitive,” dominated by a handful of tech monopolies who combined to crush competition."

David Goldman, Spengler in Asia Times and a brilliant writer. The whole article is worth reading.