Karl Keating on the Decline of the National Review and Other Matters

Karl Keating's E-Letter via e-mail ^ | July 5, 2005 | Karl Keating

[annalex]

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The content of this E-Letter is copyright 2005 by Karl Keating.

[annalex]

For your bumping pleasure.

[GipperGal]

I totally agree with him on Derbyshire. His Schiavo postings on The Corner were just disgusting. I have found some of his work rather interesting and funny at times, but lately I find him pompous, smug, and utilitarian -- like Ayn Rand in drag with an English accent.

[GipperGal]

One other thought I've been mulling over recently (in re: National Review's decline) -- perhaps Ann Coulter was right about them in her criticism of the NR editors back in September 2001 when they canned her for her infamous "invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them all to Christianity" column post-9/11. She basically accused them of trying to be "respectable" conservatives (in the same mold as "respectable" --read: in name only--republicans) rather than real conservatives. She said they do this every so often by firing real conservative writers. In fact, in Ann's latest book she's included an article that she wrote for NR on "feminist legal theory" but which was rejected by the editors. What a pack of fools. The article was great.

Also, did anyone notice Wm. F. Buckley's final assessment of the Schiavo case? He sounded like Derbyshire. I'm not old enough to remember the glory days of NR under WFB's leadership, and to be honest I'm not as familiar with his earlier work as I should be. But I keep asking myself if he somehow got less conservative over the years. Is this the same guy who was a protege of Whittaker Chambers?

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

As I said, these paragraphs about yet another anti-pope have a connection with something that will appear in next week's E-Letter. Stay tuned.

Disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself. Doesn't the Novus Ordo teach about slander and detraction anymore?

[dsc]

"Disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself. Doesn't the Novus Ordo teach about slander and detraction anymore?"

Eh? Who is slandering whom?

[xzins]

If Derbyshire cannot cobble together a pro-life, philosophical undergirding for the issues of euthanasia and abortion, then Derbyshire is not any kind of thinker....certainly not a conservative one.

Schiavo should have been lethally injected? Why not deal with all problem people that way?

And when will Derbyshire's turn be?

[kjvail]

I also stopped reading NR several months ago and my subscription is lapsed and I will not renew it.
I recommend Chronicles.
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/

[hlmencken3]

Not only is NRO a poor reflection of its once-noble self, the The American Spectator, once my favorite magazine, has also declined to the point of just making me bored.

[Gerard.P]

Is Mr Keating going to connect the dots and realize that what happened to National Review already happened in the Catholic Church? I'll be curious to see when he "cancels his subscription" to the Novus Ordo.


"Conservatives" in the popular political and theological circles are merely restrained liberals. You can't have "progress" without a progressive force and a conservative force in tension with one another. Pope St. Pius X opened my eyes politically and theologically when he stated this in "Pascendi"

And G. K. Chesterton encapsulated it perfectly with his famous quote, "The whole world is dividing itself into progressives and conservatives. The job of the progressives is to go on making mistakes. The job of the conservatives is to prevent those mistakes from being corrected."

There must be something rumbling in the "conservative" apologetics faction in the N. American section of the Catholic Church. I noticed Pat Madrid is now producing some book, video, series or such on lies that society tells us.

Or it could be just a marketing ploy in an effort to tap into a growing niche.

[GipperGal]

Ping.

[Mr. Jazzy]

Please remember the WFB himself was, and as far as I understand, still in favor of compulsory community service for all citizens after their 18th birthday, and the complete legalization of drugs.

[dsc]

"still in favor of compulsory community service for all citizens after their 18th birthday"

What's wrong with that?

I think a lot of the young people I meet today could benefit from some time spent in a barracks environment with people from different parts of the country and walks of life.

[Romulus]

There was a time when "National Review" really did "stand athwart History, yelling 'Stop!'"

From the get-go, it was infected by this Marxist paradigm of history as an inevitable force -- the myth of "progress" -- and viewed conservatism as nothing more than the hopeless dream of putting the clock back, instead of the truly Christian project of capturing history and directing it to a new and better place.

[Romulus]

I think a lot of the young people I meet today could benefit from some time spent in a barracks environment with people from different parts of the country and walks of life.

Perhaps, but utilitarianism is a slippery slope. Conservatives are supposed to be about principles. Conservatives are the ones who should be asking why the State, not in cases of emergency, but in the normal course of business, should have the right to compel service from its (wink, wink) "citizens".

[Gerard.P]

Basically you are in favor of enforced slavery?

[Gerard.P]

The follow-up will not be about the man who styles himself "Pope Peter II" but about a prominent American apologist who, it seems, has a connection with this anti-pope.

Anybody care to guess who this prominent American Apologist is? Anybody who knows Keating's M.O. will not be suprised.

[dsc]

"Basically you are in favor of enforced slavery?"

Oh, give my aching hillary a break with that.

If we as a society want to require two or four years paid service from young people, that's hardly slavery.

[dsc]

"Perhaps, but utilitarianism is a slippery slope."

I'm not a utilitarian.

"Conservatives are supposed to be about principles."

One of mine is that Americans owe something to America.

"Conservatives are the ones who should be asking why"

No, conservatives already know the answer. Pretending there isn't one is the province of (wink, wink) libertarians.

[murphE]

No, conservatives already know the answer.

"Conservatives are the last to understand what is happening." - Fr. Malachi Martin